SLAVERY IN THE
TERRITORIES: LEADUP TO THE CIVIL WAR
1848-1860
Chapter 15
What to do with the Mexican Cessation?
• Wilmot Proviso
• Proposed law in 1846 that all territory taken from Mexico would be free of
slavery
• Passed by the House, never in the Senate—never became a law
• Symbolic—represented conflict over extending slavery to the territories
• Slavery in the Territories
• Northern Option—have Congress ban slavery in the territories
• Southern Option—have Congress protect right to own slaves in the
territories
• Third Option—Popular Sovereignty
• Popular Sovereignty
• First devised by Lewis Cass during the 1848 election
• Congress makes no law concerning slavery, people who move to the
territories vote on whether or not there will be slavery
• Problems?
Election of 1848
• Polk (D) stepped down voluntarily
• Democrats—Lewis Cass
• Whigs—Zachary Taylor (war hero/general)
• Both major candidates were pro-slavery (or appeared that way)
• Third Party—Free-Soil Party—Martin Van Buren
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Northern Party, anti-slavery
Those morally opposed to slavery
Those who were opposed to slavery for selfish reasons
Industrialists (higher tariffs)
Small farmers (free homesteads)
Foreshadowed the creation of Republican party in 1854
• Taylor won 1848
Compromise of 1850
• What to do with the Mexican territories
• Most thought that these issues could be put off for a while, but
California Gold Rush of 1848-1849 changed that
• California ready to become a state (free state) by 1850
• This would upset the balance of free vs slave states
• Other Issues
• What would happen to the rest of the Mexican territories in regards to
slavery?
• Runaway slaves and the underground railroad—South wanted to stop
both
• Slavery in Washington DC—becoming a problem for most Northerners
• Borders for Texas—Texas wanted very large borders, opponents of slavery
wanted small borders (less slave territory in US)
Compromise of 1850
North Got
South Got
California as Free State
New Fugitive Slave Law
Smaller Borders for Texas
Texas State Debt assumed by Federal Govt
Slave Trade (but not slavery) banned in
Washington DC
Slavery still allowed in DC New Mexico and
Utah territories open to slavery through
popular sovereignty
Compromise of 1850 (Cont.)
• Passed as a series of laws not as one big law
• Wouldn’t have passed any other way, shows how contentious the issues
had become
• Almost didn’t pass—Taylor died last minute, new President signed
off on it
• Last major piece of legislation of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John
Calhoun
• Effects
• Free-slave balance in the Senate?
• Reaction
• North very upset over the fugitive slave law
• South upset that the North was upset
The Demise of Manifest Destiny
• After 1850 many identified Manifest Destiny with Southerners who
wanted to add more slave territory to the US, enough northern
opposition to halt US expansion in North America (temporarily)
• Cuba
• US almost went to war with Spain 1854
• Ostend Manifesto—secret US plan to try to buy Cuba from Spain or the US
would take it by force
• Secret plan leaked—caused a major uproar in the North
• Gadsden Purchase
• Completed the contiguous 48 US states
• US wanted to build a railroad, Gadsden Purchase was necessary—
Northerners protested, got the size of the purchase scaled back
Foreign Affairs in Asia
• Perry’s expedition to Japan 1852
• Part of the Fillmore administration
• Japan had closed its borders to virtually all followers
• Expedition opened Japan to US trade
• Increased economic activity in China
• Increased US trade and missionary activity in China
Renewal of the Slavery Question: Kansas
Nebraska Act 1854
• Background
• Stephen A. Douglas—leading political figure after the death of Clay,
Webster, and Calhoun in the early 1850s
• From Chicago, wanted a transcontinental railroad to run from Chicago to
the west coast
• Needed to organize the unorganized territory (old part of the Louisiana
Purchase) closed to slavery from Missouri Compromise
• Kansas-Nebraska Act would organize that territory into the Kansas and
Nebraska territories
• Needed Southern votes—offered to open both territories to slavery via
popular sovereignty (in effect repealing the Missouri Compromise)
• Act passed
Effects of Kansas Nebraska Act
• Further divided the North and South
• Led to the death of the Whig party
• Split over the issue of slavery
• Left only one truly “national” political party—Democrats
• Led to the Creation of the (modern) Republican Party in 1854
• Northern-only political party—only represented one half of the country
• Old free-soil party + Old northern Whigs
• Republican Coalition
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Abolitionists (Liberty Party)
Opposed to slavery for economic reasons (Free Soilers, anti-slavery Democrats)
Northern business interests (old Whigs) – apathetic about slavery
Eventually anti-immigrant groups (old Know Nothings) – apathetic about slavery
• Led to “Bleeding Kansas”
• Pro and Anti slavery forces fighting in the Kansas Territory
Republican Policies/Positions
• Slavery
• NOT technically abolitionists—wanted to stop the spread of slavery, were
okay with allowing slavery to remain were it already existed
• Get rid of popular sovereignty everywhere that it currently existed
(including and especially the Kansas-Nebraska Act)
• Internal Improvements
• Federally financed transcontinental railroad and other railroads
• Free farms for small farmers—homesteads
• Tariffs
• Advocated high protective tariffs for US industry
• Government/Constitution
• Advocated a broad interpretation of the Constitution
• Lots of power for the federal govt, less for the states
Bleeding Kansas
• 1855 Territorial Elections
• Pro-slavery voters from neighboring Missouri flooded the polls (illegal)
• Pro-slavery government illegitimately elected – Shawnee Mission
• Anti-slavery Free Soilers established their own government in Topeka
• Two governments passed contradictory laws, competed with one another
• 1856 Violence
• Early 1856—Proslavery forces raid and burn down part of the Free Soil Town,
Lawrence
• May 1856—John Brown (vehement abolitionist) attacked/killed 5 pro-slavery
men at Pottawatomie Creek in retaliation for Lawrence raid
• Civil war in Kansas broke out—pro and anti slavery forces fought each other
until the beginning of the Civil War in 1861
• The failure of popular sovereignty: Lecompton Constitution 1857
• Pro-slavery govt wrote a pro-slavery constitution, rigged the vote
• Free Soilers boycotted the vote, Lecompton Constitution passed
• Congress refused to recognize the Constitution, Kansas didn’t become a state
until 1861
The Dred Scott Case 1857
• Background
• Dred Scott was a slave brought to free territory (Minnesota) by his owner
• Brought back into slave territory
• Scott argued that the years he spent as a slave in a free territory made him free
• Issues
• Could a slave (or any African American) sue in US courts? Did they have any legal
standing?
• Did living in a free territory make a slave free?
• Could Congress pass laws (like the Missouri Compromise) that outlawed slavery in the
territories or anywhere else?
• Verdict
• Scott (and all African Americans) had no legal standing in US courts
• The 5th amendment protects individual’s property from the Federal Govt., and since
slaves are property Congress cannot ban slavery anywhere
• The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional (Judicial Review)
• Aftermath
• Major North-South division over the case
• Northerners saw it as the South undemocratically using the court to get their way
• South saw it as the North not abiding by a decision that they disagreed with
Other Conflicts over Slavery
• Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852
• Incredibly popular abolitionist novel
• Described how slavery split apart slave families—made many formerly
apathetic Northerners care about slavery and the fugitive slave law
• Made many European workers hostile to Southern slavery (helped keep
England and France out of the Civil War once it starts in 1861)
• Made the South upset—viewed it as a skewed and inaccurate view of
slavery
• Sumner-Brooks Affair 1856
• Preston Brooks (Southern Representative) attacked Charles Sumner
(Northern abolitionist Senator) in Congress
• Lincoln-Douglas Debates 1858
• Debated the extension of slavery into the territories, Dred Scott, KansasNebraska Act, and popular sovereignty
• Made Lincoln a household name as someone opposed to slavery in both
the North and the South
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry 1859
• Brown launched a plot to start a slave revolt in the South, free the South’s
slaves by force, and establish a new country somewhere in the South for
freed slaves
• Received some funding from a small number of extremely radical
abolitionists
• Attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry Virginia (West Virginia)
hoping to acquire more weapons for his revolt and to begin rallying slaves
to his cause
• Problems:
• Not many slaves in western Virginia (mountain white territory)
• Townspeople surrounded Brown’s followers
• Marines sent in, and Brown and his followers captured
• Aftermath:
• Brown tried and executed for treason by State of Virginia
• Becomes a martyr to many abolitionists in the North
• South is furious that Brown would be celebrated in the North, also angry that
Northern abolitionists helped to fund his failed rebellion
Politics during the 1850s
• 1850-1852 Fillmore (Whig) took over from Taylor
• 1852-1856 Franklin Pierce (Democrat) def. Winfield Scott (Whig)
• Last presidential election for the Whigs
• Election of 1856
• James Buchanan (Democrat) vs. John C. Fremont (Republican) vs. Fillmore
(American Party)
• First presidential election for the Republican Party
• Fremont took most of the Northern States—narrowly lost the election to
Buchanan—even though he got NO southern votes
• Swing of a few key states (PA, IL, IN) would give the Republicans victory in
the next election
Election of 1860
• Democrats split over the slavery issue:
• Northern Democrats—Stephen Douglas
• Popular Sovereignty
• Southern Democrats—John Breckenridge
• Slavery everywhere (Dred Scott Case)
• Constitutional Union Party formed to avoid civil war—John Bell
• Avoid Civil War—no mention of slavery
• Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln
• Slavery okay where it already exists, outlawed in the territories
• Other Issues: tariffs, railroad, internal improvements, homesteads
• Results
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Lincoln swept the Northern States (except part of NJ)—won the election
Breckenridge took the deep South
Bell took the “border states”
Douglas got more votes than Bell or Breckenridge but only won Missouri and
part of NJ—only candidate to receive electoral votes from both free and slave
states
Aftermath of the 1860 Election
• South Carolina voted to leave the Union (secede) December of 1860
• Six other southern states voted to secede by February of 1861
• (SC, FL, GA, AL, MS, LA, TX)
• Last chance for compromise: Crittenden Compromise
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Named after the Kentucky Senator who proposed it
Series of Constitutional amendments meant to appease the South
Amendment protecting slavery where it existed
Take the 36-30 line from the Missouri Compromise and extend it across the
continent—anything north of that line would be free, anything south of
that line would be slave
• Rejected by Lincoln—never enacted
• Significance? Country on verge of war, what issue are they talking about to
avoid civil war?
The Beginning of the Civil War: Fort Sumter
• 7 states that left formed the Confederate States of America (CSA) in March of
1861
• Still no war
• Buchannan still President—until March 1861
• Federal Property Crisis and Fort Sumter
• Confederate states began to confiscate federal property within their borders (forts,
arsenals, post offices, courthouses, etc)
• Most federal property taken without a fight
• Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor South Carolina—island, easily defended by Federal
(Union) soldiers
• March 1861 Lincoln becomes President—still no fighting
• April 1861 Confederates demand that Fort Sumter surrender, commander refuses,
Confederates attack the fort
• Federal soldiers surrender, Civil War has begun
• 4 more slave states join the Confederacy (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee,
North Carolina)
• 4 slave states (later 5) remained in the Union (Border States)—Missouri, Kentucky,
Maryland, Delaware, (West Virginia)
What Caused the Civil War?
• Why did the South secede in 1860-1861?