Chapter 1 Section 2
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California was
admitted to the Union
as a free state.
The Compromise also
banned slave trading in
Washington D.C.
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To Please the North
Popular sovereignty
would decide the fate
of slavery in the rest of
the Mexican Cession.
Citizens of that
territory would vote on
slavery when they
became states.
Rigorous fugitive slave
laws were passed
To Please the South
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Outrage in the North
◦ The Fugitive Slave Act forced northern states to
return any runaway slaves back to their owners in
the south.
◦ This allowed southern slave owners to claim African
Americans as escaped slaves, whether they were
actually former slaves or not.
◦ Northerners fought against the Fugitive Slave Act by
sometimes violently resisting slave catchers.
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Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the
daughter of an abolitionist.
Told the story of a slave who was mistreated
and eventually killed by his master.
The book was criticized as propaganda by
southerners, but had a major effect on
northerners’ views of slavery.
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Proposed by Senator Stephen Douglas, the
Kansas-Nebraska Act suggested that the
territories be split into the Kansas and
Nebraska territories.
These new territories would eventually
become free states, so Douglas proposed
popular sovereignty in those territories.
Northerners were angry when the bill passed.
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act caused thousands
of settlers to move to Kansas to take part in
the slavery vote there.
The original vote resulted in legal slavery, so
anti-slavery citizens demanded a re-vote.
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Growing Violence
◦ Because of the two governments in Kansas, violence
grew in the territory.
◦ John Brown led antislavery fighters in an attack on a
proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek.
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Charles Sumner, a U.S. senator, spoke out
against slavery in Kansas in the Senate,
specifically calling out Andrew Butler, the
senator from South Carolina.
Butler’s nephew entered the senate chamber
and beat Sumer with a cane for his attack on
Butler.