States Rights
• Southerners believed that the individual state
governments should have more power than the
federal government (in Washington DC). They
believed that Federal Power could be misused
to do things that the southern states didn’t like,
like take away their property (slaves), impose
high tariffs on them, and take away other rights.
Slavery
• Only 25 percent of
Southerners owned
slaves but almost all
Southerners
supported slavery
while most
northerners opposed
it.
• Slavery was
important to the
booming cotton
industry
Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword,
should they make war on us, we could bring
the whole world to our feet... What would
happen if no cotton was furnished for three
years?... England would topple headlong and
carry the whole civilized world with her save
the South. No, you dare not to make war on
cotton. No power on the earth dares to make
war upon it. Cotton is King.
-Senator James Henry Hammond of South
Carolina
Tariff Disputes
• Tariff= a tax on imported goods.
• South= wanted low tariffs to keep
prices low on the goods they bought
• North= wanted high tariffs to protect
its manufactured goods against
foreign goods.
Free Soil vs Slave Territory Fights
• Missouri Compromise of 1821
– Missouri was admitted as a slave
state
– Maine was a free state
• The Compromise of 1850
– California as a free state
– Fugitive slave law
– New Mexico territory can vote
on slavery.
Cultural and economical Differences
• South= life revolved agriculture, wealthy
planters and the economy they controlled.
• North= industry; cities were the center of
society.
Rise of Abolitionist
• Abolitionist are people who believed that
Slavery was morally wrong and wanted to
end it.
• Some famous abolitionist include:
– William Lloyd Garrison foundered of the the
famous Abolitionist newspaper the Liberator.
– Harriet Tubman leader of the Underground
Railroad that helped escaped slaves find their
way north.
– Frederick Douglass a free black man who was a
elegant speaker for the abolitionist movement
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• 1852 Book by Harriet
Beecher Stowe
• It portrayed the moral
issues of slavery.
• Tells the story of Tom, a
long suffering slave, who
helps his nieces escape to
freedom.
• Many southerners believed
the book falsely criticized
the South and slavery.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• 1854 the people in the Kansas-Nebraska territory
wanted statehood.
• There was another huge argument over the territory.
According to the Missouri Compromise both new
states should have been free soil but Southerners
wanted the people to vote on the slavery.
• The Kansas-Nebraska act was passed that allowed
the people in the territories to vote if they wanted
Slavery.
• Only two southerner senators voted against it,
including Sam Houston of Texas who said that it
would cause the Union to “Go down in a sea of blood
and smoking ruin.”
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Fighting broke out in Kansas against Free-Soil
Jayhawks and Border Ruffian’s (pro-slavery).
• Hundreds are killed in fighting that lasted for
over 10 years.
Kansas was voted
a Free State in 1861
Rise of the Republican Party
• The Republican Party was
established in the early
1850’s to stop the expansion
of slavery. The Republicans
were made up of Northern
Democrats and members of
the now extinct Whig party
and really became popular
around the time of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. They
became the party for
Abolitionist.
Abraham Lincoln
and Charles
Sumner. Two
early important
Republicans
1856-Charles Sumner attacked by Preston Brooks
• Preston Brooks a Senator from South Carolina beat
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with his cane
on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Dred Scott Decision
• 1856 The Supreme Court
decision ruled Scott (a
slave) was not a U.S.
citizen but property of his
owner.
• Dred Scott, a Missouri
slave, sued for his
freedom after his owner
died. His owner had lived
in non slave states.
• Ruling meant no slaves
could ever be a U.S.
citizen and slaves could
be owned even in “freesoil states”
• 1859: Abolitionist John
Brown and his followers
seized the federal arsenal
at Harper’s Ferry,
Virginia.
• They hoped to stir a slave
revolt and end slavery in
Virginia.
• Brown (who had
murdered slavery men in
Kansas) was captured
and hanged.
• The Southern states were
shocked and started
organizing southern
militias.
Harpers Ferry
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• Abraham Lincoln was against
slavery and challenged the
Author of the Kansas-Nebraska
Act, Stephen Douglas, to a
serious of debates regarding
slavery.
• These debates became very
famous and made Lincoln a
political star.
• Lincoln argued that slaves are
not property but human beings
who should get basic human
rights.
The Election of Abraham Lincoln
• The south was opposed
to Republican Lincoln in
the White House and
threatened to secede or
leave the Union if he
won the election of
1860.
• The Democrats split into
two parties which
caused Lincoln to win
with only 40 percent of
the votes and became
the 16th President.
Southern propaganda of Lincoln.
“Thus always to tyrants “
Abe Lincoln in 1860
Abe Lincoln in 1865