The Nation Splits Apart
Bleeding Kansas
Kansas territory was the site of violent clashes over the issue of slavery. The admission of Kansas as a
free state depended sectional divisions in the United States.
Settlers on both sides had property looted or destroyed. Violent battles took place.
With the expansion of new territories in the United States, the fight over slavery increased. Westward
expansion forced the United States to determine which states and territories would allow slavery and
which would be free.
The California settlers banned slavery. When California applied for statehood in 1850, it set off a
historic debate between pro-slavery and anti-slavery legislators.
Daniel Webster opposed slavery but wanted to preserve the union.
John C. Calhoun argued for the Southern slaveholders.
Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850, which Congress passed after much debate.
The Fugitive Slave Act was a controversial provision of the Compromise. The Fugitive Slave act made it
a federal crime to aid a runaway slave and allowed the arrest of escaped slaves.
Tension increased as Northerners openly ignored the law. The novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, further
inflamed southerners. Harriet Beecher Stow’s book detailed slavery’s cruelties and became a best
seller.
Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed dropping the Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery and
allow popular sovereignty in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
Popular sovereignty is a system of allowing citizen of a district to determine issues by vote.
The passages of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 outraged Northerners, weakened the Democrats, and
destroyed the Whig Party.
Northern Whigs joined Free Soil Party and other anti-slavery parties to found the Republican Party.
Sectional Conflicts and National Politics
Kansas was the center of the struggle over slavery. Abolitionist John Brown retaliated for the burning of
anti-slavery newspaper and buildings in a raid that killed 5 pro-slavery settlers .
Democrat James Buchanan won the 1856 election. He had pledged not to interfere with slavery where
it existed.
The Dred Scott Supreme Court case upheld the property rights of slaveholders under the Fifth
Amendment. The Dred Scott decision ruled that a slave living on free soil was still the property of the
slaveholder.
Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state.
John Brown raided a U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia to arm slaves for a revolt. He was captured,
tried for treason and executed in 1859.
Lincoln’s Path to the Presidency
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in a one room cabin near Louisville, Kentucky.
His first contact with slavery was when he observed a slave auction while working on a riverboat moving
farm produce from Indiana to New Orleans.
Lincoln ran for state Legislature, moved to Illinois, studied law, ran for local office, and was elected to
Congress in 1846. He proposed compensated emancipation of slaves in the Nation’s capital, but ending
slavery by paying owners to free them was too radical.
Stunned by the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act, Lincoln helped organize the Illinois Republican
Party and ran against Steven Douglas for the Senate.
The Lincoln-Douglass debates focused national attention on senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech attracted national attention.
Lincoln and Douglas each sought their party’s nomination for the Presidential race of 1860.
.
Lincoln won the presidency. In the 1860 presidential election, the candidate who won the North won
the election because many more people lived in the North than in the South.
Shortly after Lincoln’s election the South Carolina legislature called a convention to consider leaving the
Union. South Carolina declared dissolution of the union in Dec. 1860, the lower south soon followed.
The election of an antislavery president led to the secession of South Carolina and other southern
states.
Seven States seceded and met in Montgomery Alabama to form a new nation in Feb. 1861. The new
association of states was called the Confederate States of America, aka, the Confederacy. They chose
Jefferson Davis as the president.
Many Americans from both the north and south opposed the secession and proposed ways to resolve
the crisis. Many southerners opposed Lincoln’s presidency. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1861.
The Raid at Harper’s Ferry.
Lincoln’s path to the Presidency:
Abraham Lincoln – born 1809 in a cabin near Louisville, Kentucky. His family was poor and opposed to
slavery. They moved to Indiana in 1816.
Lincoln first observed slavery at a slave auction when he worked on a riverboat on the Mississippi. He
moved to Illinois, studied law, ran for local office, and eventually ran for Congress. He proposed
compensated emancipation of slaves in the Nation’s capital, but ending slavery by paying owners to free
them was too radical.
Stunned by the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act, Lincoln helped organize the Illinois Republican
Party and ran against Steven Douglas for the Senate.
Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech attracted national attention.
Lincoln and Douglas each sought their party’s nomination for the Presidential race of 1860.
Lincoln won the presidency.
Shortly after Lincoln’s election the South Carolina legislature called a convention to consider leaving the
Union. South Carolina declared dissolution of the union in Dec. 1860, the lower south soon followed.
Seven States seceded and met in Montgomery Alabama to form a new nation in Feb. 1861. The new
association of states was called the Confederate States of America, aka, the Confederacy. They chose
Jefferson Davis as the president.
Many Americans from both the north and south opposed the secession and proposed ways to resolve
the crisis. Many southerners opposed Lincoln’s presidency. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1861.