Chapter 4 section 1
The Divisive Politics of Slavery
Terms and Names
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Secession
Popular sovereignty
Underground railroad
Confederacy
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Harriet Tubman
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Franklin Pierce
Dred Scott
Abraham Lincoln
Jefferson Davis
Differences/Slavery
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North
Growth of Industry
Opposed slavery
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South
Plantation Economy
Dependent upon
slavery
Seccession?
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1849-California asks to enter the Union
Southerners are angry
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Most of California is south of Missouri Compromise line
Believed that any ban on slavery was attack on their lifestyle
Threatened to secede
Compromise of 1850
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Presented by Henry Clay
California a free state (pleased the North)
Fugitive Slave Act (pleased the South)
Compromise of 1850
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Proposed by Henry Clay
California free state
Fugitive Slave Act
Required Northerners to return fugitive or escaped
slaves to their masters
Slaves were considered property not human
Compromise also called for popular sovereignty in the
New Mexico and Utah territories
Compromise failed in Congress
Sen. Stephen Douglas took up the leadership
Managed to get Compromise passed
Protest-Resistance-Violence
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Fugitive Slave Act provided harsh punishment for escaped slaves
Also, for anyone who helped them
Many Northerners were angry with this Compromise
Free African Americans and abolitionist set up he Underground Railroad
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Secret network of volunteers
Hid fugitive slaves on their dangerous journey north to freedom
Harriet Tubman (an escaped Salve) famous “conductor” or worker on Underground Railroad
Harriet Beecher Stowe-wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Popular book-helped North see the fight to ban slavery as a moral struggle
Told of slavery horrors
South saw it as an attack on their way of life
Protest-Resistance-Violence
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1854-Slavery in the territories became an issue again
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
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Split Nebraska into the territories of Nebraska and Kansas
Both could decide the slavery issue on their own
Proslavery and antislavery people rushed into Kansas
Each side wanted to have enough people in the territory to decide the vote on slavery
Violence erupts from both sides
Territory becomes known as “Bleeding Kansas”
New Political Parties
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Whig Party split over the issue of slavery
Split left it easy for Democrat Franklin Pierce to be elected (1852)
president
New parties appeared in the North
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Free-Soil Party
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Free-Soil Party
The Know-Nothing Party
Against slavery into the new territories
Was not abolitionist
Feared slave labor competing with wage labor system
Know-Nothing Party
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Supported nativism
Was against immigration
New Political Parties
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1854-Republican Party formed
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Brought together Free-Soilers, anti-slavery
Whigs, Democrats, and nativists
Election of 1856
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Republican candidate-John C. Fremont
Democratic candidate-James Buchanan
Buchanan Wins!
Conflicts Lead to Succession
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Dred Scott Decision
Lincoln’s Election
Harper’s Ferry
Tariffs
Dred Scott Decision
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Dred Scott-Slave taken by master into free states
Scott claimed that being in a free state made him free
Owner said that Scott was still a slave
Case went to Supreme Court
Ruled that slaves were property protected by the
Constitution
Southerners believed that this decision allowed slavery
to be extended into the territories
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
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1858-Stephen Douglas ran for re-election to the Senate
in Illinois
Republican-Abraham Lincoln ran against him
Held a series of debates about slavery in territories
Douglas
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Lincoln
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Against slavery
Favored popular sovereignty
Called slavery “a vast moral evil”
Douglas won the election
Debates made Lincoln famous
Harper’s Ferry
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1859-Northern white abolitionist tried to start a slave
rebellion
John Brown and a group of followers attacked a federal
arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
They were captured and and executed
Northerners praised Brown
Southerners were furious
The Last Straw
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1860-Republicans nominated Lincoln for president
Democratic party split into Northern and Southern branches
Lincoln win with no electoral votes from the South
The South reacts dramatically
December 1860-South Carolina seceded from Union
Southerners believed they had lost political power in US
Feared an end to their way of life
By Feb. 1861-seven Southern states had seceded
Formed the Confederate States of America-Confederacy
Elected Jefferson Davis president
Chapter 4, Section 4 Vocabulary
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Freedman’s Bureau
Reconstruction
Radical Republicans
Andrew Johnson
14th Amendment
15th Amendment
Scalawag
Carpetbagger
Hiram Revels
Sharecropping
Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
Reconstruction & Its Effects
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Reconstruction
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Process of bringing Southern states back into the Union
The Freedman’s Bureau was established by Congress
Lasted from 1865-1877
Lincoln made a plan for Reconstruction
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Lenient or easy on the South
Pardoned the South if it swore allegiance to the Union
Radical Republicans were outraged at Lincoln’s plan
After Lincoln died, Andrew Johnson’s plan was similar to
Lincoln’s plan
Radical Reconstruction
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Radical Republicans
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Wanted to destroy the political
power of the former slave owners
They wanted African Americans to
be citizens
Wanted African Americans to be
able to vote
Thought other plans were to lenient
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Congress
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Republicans in Congress
controlled Reconstruction
Passed law creating Freedman’s
Bureau
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Gave food, clothing to former slaves
Set up hospitals & schools
Passed Civil Rights Act of 1866
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States couldn’t enact laws that
discriminated against African
Americans
Congress
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Passed the 14th Amendment
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Passed Reconstruction Act of 1867
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Johnson asked Southerners not to support it because they had
no say so in it!
No State could enter the Union until it approved the 14th
Amendment and gave the vote to black males
Fight brewed between Congress and Johnson
Congress looked for a way to impeach the president
Said Johnson removed a cabinet member illegally
Johnson was impeached
Avoided conviction and removal of office by one vote in
the Senate
Congress
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1868-Ulysses S Grant
becomes president
The black vote in the
South helped him win
1870-15th Amendment is
ratified
Fifteenth Amendment
Reconstructing Society
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By 1870-All former Confederate states were back in the
Union
Economics in the South were terrible
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Many men had died in the war
People lost investments
Farms were ruined
State governments began public works programs to
repair physical damage
Provided social services
They raised taxes to pay for these programs
Different Goals
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3 groups of Republicans had different goals for the South
Scalawags
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Carpetbaggers
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Northerners who had moved South
Tried to take advantage of Southerners
African Americans
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Southern whites
Small farmers
Didn’t want wealthy planters to regain power
Had voting rights for the first time-voted Republican
Many Southerners resisted equality for African Americans
Former Slaves
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During Reconstruction many former slaves
moved to the cities
They organized churches and schools
Many voted & some were elected to office
Hiram Revels first African-American senator
Many wanted to farm their own land
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Had been promised “40 acres and a mule” by
Sherman
Congress did not honor this promise
Southern Planters
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Southern elite wanted to return to the plantation system
Tried to make sure former slaves couldn’t own land
Many slaves turned to sharecropping
Some became tenant farmers
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Allowed whites to control the labor of African Americans
Rent land from landowners for cash
Collapse of Reconstruction
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Southern whites didn’t like blacks voting
Secret groups formed (KKK) that used
violence to keep blacks from voting
Whites refused to hire blacks
Congress passed the Enforcement Acts
to stop the violence
Congress also gave the vote to many
former Confederates
Democrats began to regain power!
Collapse of Reconstruction
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Reconstruction was weakened by a division in the
Republican Party
Bank failures known as the panic of 1873-led to a fiveyear depression
Election of 1876
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The disputed election resulted in the end of Reconstruction
Southern Democrats agreed to accept Republican
Rutherford B Hayes as president
In return, federal troops would withdraw from the South
Without federal troops, Southern democrats took control of
the South
Reconstruction was over!