Chapter 21: A Dividing Nation
Reading Notes
21.2 Confronting the Issue of Slavery
• Congress had established the Northwest Ordinance of
1787.
-Outlined the steps leading to statehood
-Banned slavery north of the Ohio River
-New states added N. of the Ohio River = free
-New states added S. of the Ohio River = slave
• Missouri applies for statehood as a slave state.
• This is an issue because most of Missouri lay north of
the point where the Ohio River flows into the
Mississippi.
• Northerners also feared that if slavery was allowed to
spread into Missouri than it would continue spreading
into the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
The Tallmadge Amendment
• James Tallmadge- A representative from New York
proposed an amendment that said Missouri could be
admitted as a state, but only as a free state.
• Southerners were upset and argued that Congress did
not have the right to decide whether a new state
should be slave or free. They claimed state’s rights and
said states should decide whether or not to permit
slavery.
• Congress cannot agree/decide. The House votes to
approve the Tallmadge Amendment, the Senate defeats
it.
• Congress is deadlocked.
21.3 The Missouri Compromise
• Congress agrees to a compromise proposed by
Henry Clay of Kentucky.
• The compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state
and added Maine as a free state.
• This maintained the balance of free and slave
states.
• The Missouri Compromise also drew an imaginary
line across the Louisiana Territory at latitude 36’30’.
-North of the line = slavery banned
-South of the line = slavery permitted
21.4 The Missouri Compromise Unravels
• Reformers and abolitionists were flooding Congress
with anti-slavery petitions.
• In 1836 Congress voted to table (set aside
indefinitely) all anti-slavery petitions. “gag-rule”
• This silenced all congressional debate over slavery.
• Abolitionists continued to attack slavery in
newspapers, books, meetings, etc.
• Southerners resented these attacks as an assault on
their way of life/personal character. They were also
fearful of slave revolts.
• Fugitive slaves continued to be a source of tension
between the north and south.
• The Wilmot Proviso added to a Mexican War bill stated
that slavery should not exist in any of the territory that
might be acquired from Mexico.
-passed in the House
-rejected by the Senate
• Debate over slavery in the new western territories
continues
• California applies for statehood as a free state
• This would again upset the balance between free and
slave states.
• Congress again becomes deadlocked over what to do.
21.5 The Compromise of 1850
• Henry Clay of Kentucky proposes another
compromise.
• California would be admitted as a free state, New
Mexico and Utah Territories would be open to
slavery.
• Slavery would be banned in Washington D.C.
• A strong Fugitive Slave Law would be passed to
make it easier to claim runaway slaves.
• 9 months of debating the compromise follow.
• Congress finally adopts Clay’s plan.
21.6 The Compromise Satisfies No One
• Instead of settling the slavery debate, the debate grew louder
each year.
• Both sides were unhappy with the Fugitive Slave Law.
Northerners did not want to enforce it and Southerners felt
that the law did not do enough to ensure the return of their
escaped property.
• Many fugitive slaves escaped to Canada.
• The law also said that any person who helped a slave escape
or even refused to aid slave catchers could be jailed.
• Northerner s’ refusal to support the law infuriated
slaveholders and made it almost impossible to enforce it. Out
of the tens of thousands of fugitive slaves living in the north
in the 1850’s only about 300 were caught and returned to
their owners.
• Two other things in 1854 added fuel to the fire for abolitionists:
-the Onsted Manifesto: message to the secretary of state about
the possibility of seizing Cuba from Spain (which would add
another slave territory to the U.S.)
-the Kansas Nebraska Act: created 2 new territories of Kansas
and Nebraska and scrapped the Missouri Compromise by
leaving it up to the settlers of those territories to vote on
whether to permit slavery or not.
• The Kansas Nebraska Act led to bloodshed in Kansas as settlers
flocked there to either support or oppose slavery
• The violence greatly disturbed Congress and led to fighting
there as well.
• These attacks/the violence showed how greatly divided the U.S.
had become.
•In 1857 the slavery controversy shifted to the
Supreme court in the Dred Scott Case.
•Dred Scott (a slave) went to court to win his freedom
arguing that his stay with his master in Illinois and
Wisconsin (free states) had made him a free man.
•5 of the 9 justices of the Supreme Court were from
the South and 4 from the North. The Dred Scott case
put slavery on trial in the U.S. asking:
1.Did Congress have the power to make any laws
at all concerning slavery in the territories?
and
2. Was the Missouri Compromise constitutional?
21.7 The Dred Scott Decision
• By a vote of 5-4 the Supreme Court dropped 2
bombshells.
1. decided that Scott could not sue for his freedom in
federal court because he was not a citizen. They ruled
that no African American, slave or free, was an
American citizen or could ever become one.
2. The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
because slaves are property and in the Constitution,
Amendment 5 says that the government cannot take
property away from the people without due process of
law---banning slavery in a territory would be the same
as taking property away from slaveholders who would
like to bring their slaves into that territory and is
therefore unconstitutional.
• The Dred Scott Decision delighted slaveholders.
Congress had protected the property rights of
slaveholders in the territories and they thought the
issue of slavery in the territories had been settled in
their favor.
• As a result of the decision, slavery was allowed in
ALL of the territories.
• Northerners were stunned and enraged by the
Courts’ ruling.
21.8 From Compromise to Crisis
• Controversy over the issue of slavery led to the
formation of a new political party called the Republican
party.
• Republicans believed that no man could own another
man, that slavery must be prohibited in the territories,
and that all new states must be free states.
• In 1858, a Republican named Abraham Lincoln ran for
the U.S. Senate (IL) against Stephen Douglas. They held
public debates and slavery was often the main topic.
• Lincoln lost the election, but the debates were widely
reported and helped his popularity in the nation rise.
• Lincoln ran for president of the United States in 1860
with the Republicans united behind him.
• The Democrats of the South were divided between
Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge of Kentucky, and
John Bell of Tennessee.
• With his opposition divided 3 ways, Lincoln sailed on to
victory, but it was a strange victory: just 40% of the
votes, all of them cast in the North. In 10 southern
states, he was not even on the ballot.
• The election of 1860 showed the South that they had
become a minority and no longer had the power to
shape national events or policies. They knew that
sooner or later Congress would try and abolish slavery.
• Congress searched drastically for another compromise
as talk of secession filled the air.
21.9 Secession
• With the election of Lincoln, South Carolina seceded
from the Union (December 20, 1860) and 6 other
southern states soon followed.
• Shortly after (March 4, 1861), Lincoln was inaugurated.
In his inaugural address, Lincoln stated that he believed
secession was both wrong and unconstitutional.
• April 12, 1861 the first shots are fired between the
North and South at Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC.
• The time for compromise was over. The issues that had
divided the nation for so many years would now be
decided by war.