Compromise of 1850
Compromise of 1850
• North- California
free State
• South- Stronger
Fugitive Slave Act
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
• Proposed by Sen. Stephen Douglas
– Rapid settlement of Missouri Region –
building of a railroad between St. Louis and
Chicago
• Particulars
– Led to the founding of the Republican Party
– Two new territories established
– Issue of slavery determined by Popular
Sovereignty
– Negates the Missouri Compromise
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Violence in Kansas due to Popular
Sovereignty
• Race to settle region
– “Border Ruffians” from South crossed
illegally and voted
• Pro slavery forces won the election
• Antislavery set up a city in Lawrence
• Violence erupted between pro
and anti slavery
– Proslavery attacked city of
Lawrence
– John Brown (antislavery) and
others waged war – over 200
killed
• Hacked off hands of 5 men and
stabbed others with broadswords
• Pottawatomie Massacre
“Bleeding Kansas”
Border “Ruffians”
(pro-slavery
Missourians)
Sumner-Brooks Incident
Sen. Charles Sumner
(R-MA)
Congr. Preston Brooks
(D-SC)
Sumner-Brooks Incident
• North saw the attack as an example of
Southern brutality and an attack on free
speech
– Sen. Sumner (Mass) denounced Kansas,
Douglas and Brooks
– Rep. Preston Brooks (SC) was angered and
beat Sumner with a heavy cane until it broke
– Sumner did not return to the Senate for 3
years
“I have read your speech twice over,
carefully. It is libel on South Carolina
and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of
mine.”
- Preston Brooks
Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857
Dred Scott v. Sanford
• Dred Scott was a slave
from Missouri
• Supreme Court
Decision, 1857
– Enslaved African
Americans were not
citizens but property
– Could not sue
Scott, “Negros are so inferior that
they had no rights which a white
man was bound to respect.”
• Struck down Missouri
Compromise
Birth of the Republican Party, 1854
ß Northern Whigs.
ß Northern Democrats.
ß Free-Soilers.
ß Know-Nothings.
ß Other miscellaneous opponents
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Republican Party
• Goals
– Keep slavery out of
Western territories
– High Protective
Tariff to encourage
Northern industries
– Transcontinental
Railroad
The Lincoln-Douglas (Illinois Senate)
Debates, 1858
A House divided against
itself, cannot stand.
Abraham Lincoln
• Opponent of Slavery
• Ask Douglas to explain
how his view of popular
sovereignty could stand
with the Dred Scott ruling
Stephen Douglas
& the
Freeport Doctrine
Slavery could
not be
implemented
without laws to
govern it
Harriet
Beecher
Stowe
(1811 – 1896)
So this is the lady who
started the Civil War.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Uncle Tom’s
Cabin
1852
 Fictional account on the
horrors of slavery
 Motivated Northerners
 Sold 300,000 copies in
the first year.
 2 million in a decade!
Black Codes
 Purpose:
*
*
Guarantee stable labor
supply now that blacks
were emancipated.
Restore pre-emancipation
system of race relations.
 Forced many blacks to
become sharecroppers
[tenant farmers].
Underground
Railroad
Harriet Tubman
• Escaped slave who was a leader in
the abolitionist movement
• Made over 19 trips to the South to
lead other slaves to freedom
through the Underground Railroad
• Freed over 300 herself
• $40,000 bounty on her
John Brown’s Raid
on Harper’s Ferry, 1859
John Brown’s Raid
• Goal: Attack the armory at Harper’s
Ferry with 21 people, seize the
weapons and give them to the slaves
for a rebellion
• Robert E. Lee surrounded the arsenal
and captured Brown
• Brown was hanged on
Dec. 2 1859
• Southern resentment
towards abolitionists
intensified
“Brown had made the
gallows glorious like the
cross”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
√ Abraham Lincoln
Republican
John Bell
Constitutional Union
1860
Presidential
Election
Stephen A. Douglas
Northern Democrat
John C. Breckinridge
Southern Democrat
Republican Party Platform in 1860
ß Non-extension of slavery [for the Free-Soilers.
ß Protective tariff [for the No. Industrialists].
ß No abridgment of rights for immigrants [a
disappointment for the “Know-Nothings”].
ß Government aid to build a Pacific RR [for the
Northwest].
ß Internal improvements [for the West] at federal
expense.
ß Free homesteads for the public domain [for farmers].
Abraham Lincoln
• Slavery is a moral evil
• Oppose the spread of
slavery
• Preserve the Union
1860
Election
Results
Southern Response
• Feared that Lincoln would dismantle
slavery in the South
• South Carolina Seceded from the
Union on Dec. 20, 1860
• Six others joined by Feb. 1861
• Jefferson Davis elected President of
the Confederate States of America
Crittenden Compromise:
A Last Ditch Appeal to Sanity
Senator John J.
Crittenden
(Know-Nothing-KY)
Attempt to restore
Missouri Compromise
- failed
Secession!: SC Dec. 20, 1860
Fort Sumter: April 12, 1861
Fort Sumter
• Union Fort low on supplies
• Lincoln informs South that he will resupply fort
• April 12, 1865 – Confederate Soldiers
open fire on Fort
• Lincoln issue call for 75,000 volunteers
• Confederate capital moved to Richmond
• Start of the Civil War