Territorial Growth and
Sectionalism
Nationalism vs. Sectionalism
• NATIONALISM – A BELIEF AND FEELING OF
PATRIOTIC PRIDE IN YOUR NATION. “U.S. a
world within itself”
• SECTIONALISM – A PRIDE IN ACHIEVEMENT
OF ITS OWN REGION OR SECTION.
Sectional Differences
• Effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and
political rivalries
• Triggered by the request of Missouri as
admission to US as a slave state
• United States consisted of 22 states, evenly
divided between slave and free.
• Missouri would upset that balance
• Would also represent Congressional support
for expansion of slavery
Missouri Compromise
• Argument of admitting Missouri as a slave state
• Congressman James Tallmadge of New York proposed
Missouri as Free state
• Maine which was a part of Massachusetts wanted
statehood
• Speaker of the House, Henry Clay suggested Maine be
admitted as free state, and Missouri slave state
• Came to be known as Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Keeps the balance of power between free and slave
states
What does it Do?
• Prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36°
30´ latitude line.
• Repealed in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
• Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred
Scott decision
– ruled that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit
slavery in the territories.
• Holds the Union together for another 40 years
Election of 1844
Election of 1844
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Polk wins election
Committed to national expansion
Former governor of Tennessee
Coined term of 54 40’ or fight
United States gained Florida from Spain for
5 Million Dollars
California as a State
• March 1850, California applies for statehood
as a free state
• California would again upset the balance
• Slave states would become minority
Compromise of 1850
• Henry Clay drafts another plan
• California would be admitted as a free state
and slave trade abolished in Washington D.C.
• Congress would pass no more laws regarding
slavery in the new territories from Mexico
• Congress would pass laws to help recapture
runaway slaves become known as the Fugitive
Slave Act.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Portrayed the moral issues of slavery
Play increased popularity of book
Very popular in the North, Southerners
believed it falsely criticized the south and
slavery
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• 1854 Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois
drafts a bill to organize Nebraska Territory
• Territory to be settled by popular sovereignty
• Popular Sovereignty: residents vote to decide
an issue
• Territory to be divided into two territories of
Kansas and Nebraska
• Repealed the Missouri Comprise of 1820
“Bleeding Kansas”
• The name Bleeding Kansas refers to the violent
sectional conflicts in the American Midwest in the
mid to late 1850s.
• Also referred to as Bloody Kansas or the Border
War, Bleeding Kansas was a very significant event
in American History illustrating the depth of the
struggle between “slave” and “free” states.
John Brown
• Extreme abolitionist
• Led Pottawatomie Massacre which led to five
slave-owners being murdered
• Led to civil war in Kansas
• Continued for three years
• Became known as “Bleeding Kansas
Outcomes
• In the conflicts and actual
battles preceding the Civil war,
about 55 people died total.
• Although the South had tried to get Kansas to become
a slave state, Kansas became free in the end, reflecting
a prevailing sentiment of antislavery.
• The murder and mayhem of Bleeding Kansas were not
actual Civil War battles, but they foreshadowed the
deadly conflict that was quickly approaching.
Dred Scott
• Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his
freedom, since he had been taken to a
territory where slavery was illegal
• Went to the Supreme Court Dred Scott vs.
Sanford
The Decision
• Court ruled that:
– Slaves were not citizens and therefore could not
sue
– Slaves are property and the U.S. cannot deprive
any citizen of taking their property into U.S.
territories
– Denied citizenship to slaves and free blacks,
making the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional
Homestead Act of 1862
• Offered 160 acres of free land
• Live on it for 5 years and improve it