Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 1
The Debate over Slavery
The Expansion of Slavery
• Mexican cession (addition of territory) renewed
the debate over slavery
• President Polk wanted to run the line set by the
Missouri Compromise to the Pacific Ocean
dividing the Mexican cession into free and slave
territory
• Wilmot Proviso – proposed prohibiting slavery
in all parts of the Mexican Cession
• Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan pushed for
popular sovereignty – allowing voters in the
territories to decide whether they wanted to
allow or ban slavery
The Expansion of Slavery
(continued)
• Debate over slavery
dominated the presidential
campaign of 1848
– Neither Whigs nor Democrats
took a clear position on
slavery in the West
• Free-Soil Party – formed by
thousands of anti-slavery
northerners
• Zachary Taylor (Whig) was
able to win election
The Expansion of Slavery
(continued)
• California Gold Rush
caused a population
boom that allowed
California to skip the
territorial stage
• When California applied
for statehood, the
majority of its residents
wanted California to
enter the Union as a
free state
The Compromise of 1850
• Henry Clay (“The Great Compromiser”)
helped settle the Missouri crisis and the
nullification crisis
• The questions of whether California
would be admitted to the Union as a free
state or a slave state led Henry Clay to
offer a series of proposals to address all
of the current issues of sectional
disagreement
• Senator William Seward (NY) demanded
admission of California without
conditions or compromises
The Compromise of 1850
(continued)
• Senator John C.
Calhoun (SC) asked
Congress to allow the
slave states to
peacefully leave the
Union if California was
admitted as a free state
in 1850
• Senator Daniel Webster
(MA) favored Clay’s
plan – during a stirring
speech to Congress, he
criticized abolitionists
and scolded
southerners who spoke
for disunion
The Compromise of 1850
(continued)
• Conditions of the Compromise of 1850
– California entered as free state
– Mexican Cession divided into two
territories – Utah and New Mexico –
status decided by popular sovereignty
– Texas agreed to give up claims in New
Mexico, federal government gave TX
financial assistance it needed
– Outlawed slave trade in D.C. and
produced new fugitive slave law
The Fugitive Slave Act
• Part of the Compromise
of 1850
• Made it a federal crime
to help runaway slaves
• Alarmed by the number
of accused fugitive
slaves who were
returned to the South
after 1850, thousands of
African Americans in
the North fled to
Canada to avoid
capture
Antislavery Literature
• Slave narratives used to help
the abolitionist cause
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin – written
by Harriet Beecher Stowe –
powerful antislavery novel
– Wrote UTC after the passage of
the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to
show northerners what slavery
was really like
– Sparked outrage in South,
gained praise in the North
– Book’s popularity caused some
to remark that Stowe had
created “two million
abolitionists”
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 2
Trouble in Kansas
The Election of 1852
• Democrats chose Franklin Pierce
– Although he was from New England,
southerners trusted him because he promised
to honor the Compromise of 1850 and enforce
the Fugitive Slave Act
• Whigs chose Winfield Scott (Mexican War
hero)
– Although he was a southerner, he lost
support in the South because he failed to
completely support the Compromise of 1850
• Pierce (Democrats) won election by large
margin
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Stephen Douglas
wanted to build a
railroad from
Chicago to the
Pacific
• The rest of the
Louisiana Purchase
had to become a
federal territory for
this to happen
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Southerner’s did not support Douglas’s plan
– wanted their own railroad running across
already organized territory in the south to the
Pacific
• Douglas convinced some southerners to
support his plan in exchange for opening the
territory west of Missouri to slavery
• Stephen Douglas introduced the KansasNebraska bill when southern senators agreed
to abandon their plan for a southern railroad
route if the new territory west of Missouri
was opened to slavery
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
(continued)
• In 1854 Douglas
introduced a bill (Kansas
Nebraska Act) in
Congress that would
organize the remainder of
the Louisiana Purchase
into two territories, each
to determine the slavery
question by popular
sovereignty
• Douglas and President
Pierce pressured other
Democrats to vote for it
“Bleeding Kansas”
• Antislavery and proslavery groups rushed to
populate Kansas
• Elections for the Kansas territorial legislature
were held in March 1855
• To ensure a proslavery victory thousands of
men crossed the border from Missouri,
voted, then went home
• The new territorial legislature located at
Lecompton had a huge proslavery majority
• Antislavery Kansans formed their own
legislature in Topeka
“Bleeding Kansas” (continued)
• The “Sack of Lawrence”
referred to the attack on
Lawrence by pro-slavery forces
• Many antislavery activists in
Kansas wanted to get
shipments of weapons from
abolitionists in the East
• Abolitionist John Brown
decided to punish proslavery
forces for the “Sack of
Lawrence”
– He led a group of 7 men
along the Pottawatomie
Creek killing 5 proslavery
men in what became known
as the Pottawatomie
Massacre
“Bleeding Kansas” (continued)
• Kansas collapsed into civil
war – became known as
“Bleeding Kansas”
• A Congressman (Brooks)
resorted to violence in the
Senate chamber in 1856
after a northern senator
(Sumner) insulted a
senator from South
Carolina (Butler)
– Brooks beat Sumner
unconscious with his
cane; afterwards, many
southerners sent Brooks
new canes
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 3
Political Divisions
New Divisions
• Republican Party formed
by Whigs, some
Democrats, Free-Soilers
and abolitionist in 1854 –
united to oppose spread of
slavery west
• After nearly 60 northern
Democrats voted for the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, only
seven of them retained
their House seats in the
next election
• The Whig Party was most
damaged by passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act
New Divisions
• Know-Nothings chose Millard
Fillmore
• Pennsylvanian James
Buchanan was nominated for
president by the Democrats in
1856 because he had avoided
the Kansas-Nebraska Act
controversy
• At its first presidential
nominating convention, the
Republican Party chose as it
candidate John C. Frémont
• Buchanan won – 14/15 slave
states, 5 free
The Dred Scott Decision
• Dred Scott sued (1846) for his freedom,
saying that he had become free when he
lived in free territory (traveled with owner)
• Case reached supreme court in 1856 – 3 key
issues
– Was Scott a citizen of the U.S.? (to determine
if he was eligible to sue in federal court)
– Did the time he spent living on free soil make
him free?
– Was the ban on slavery in parts of the
Louisiana Purchase constitutional? (would
affect the Missouri Compromise)
The Dred Scott Decision
(continued)
• Roger Taney – Chief
Justice (from
slaveholding family in
Maryland) wrote
majority of Dred Scott
decision in March 1857
• The majority of
Supreme Court justices
who heard the Dred
Scott case were from
the South
The Dred Scott Decision
(continued)
• Dred Scott decision – As a noncitizen, Scott did not
have the right to sue in
federal court
– His status, as free or slave,
depended on the laws of
Missouri, where his owner
lived
– Ruled that Congress could
not prohibit someone from
taking slaves into a federal
territory because slaves were
considered property
• Missouri Compromise
restriction on slavery north
of 36°30’ = unconstitutional
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• In 1858, Lincoln was
nominated for U.S.
Senate seat vs.
Democrat Stephen
Douglas (Illinois)
• Douglas well-known for
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Lincoln challenged
Douglas to series of
debates in Illinois to
take advantage of his
opponent’s fame to gain
recognition
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• Lincoln stressed the
central issue in the
campaign involved
slavery and its future in
the west
• Douglas criticized
Lincoln for saying
country could not
remain half free, half
slave
– Said Republicans
would want to make
every state free
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• In what became known as the Freeport
Doctrine, Stephen Douglas upheld
popular sovereignty over the power of
the Supreme Court
• As a result of the debates, Lincoln
became one of the most important
leaders of the new Republican Party
Chapter 18
A Divided Nation
(1848-1860)
Section 4
Secession
The Raid on Harpers Ferry
• John Brown worked to start
a slave uprising
• Wanted to attack the federal
arsenal in Virginia and
seize weapons stored there
• John Brown’s raid began
on night of October 16,
1859
• After John Brown seized
the federal arsenal at
Harper’s Ferry, he hoped
slaves in the region would
join him, but none did
Judging John Brown
• Brown charged and
convicted of treason,
murder, and conspiracy to
stir up slave rebellion –
executed December 2, 1859
• Many in the North mourned
his death, but not everyone
who opposed slavery
supported his actions
• Lincoln reacted to the
hanging of John Brown by
refusing to excuse Brown’s
violent tactics
The Election of 1860
• The Democratic Party split in
two in 1860 because
northern and southern
members could not agree on
a candidate
– North nominated Stephen
Douglas
– South nominated VP John
C. Breckinridge
• Presidential candidate John
C. Breckinridge was a
slaveholder who did not
believe a Republican victory
in the election justified
secession
The Election of 1860
• Constitutional Union
Party, formed by
Northerners and
Southerners (many
former Whigs), focused
exclusively on
respecting the
Constitution,
preserving the Union,
and enforcing the
nation’s laws
– Nominated John Bell (TN)
• Republicans chose
Lincoln
The Election of 1860
(continued)
• Lincoln gained less than 40% of the
popular vote, but won 180 of the 183
electoral votes in the free states
• Lincoln’s election to the presidency
angered many southerners because he
did not carry a single southern state
• Strong reminder of how south was
losing its political power on the
national level
Breaking with the Union
• Many southerners
believed that
Lincoln, if elected,
would move to
abolish slavery
• Lincoln opposed the
spread of slavery
but promised not to
support abolishing
it where it already
existed
Breaking with the Union
• 4 days after Lincoln’s election, South
Carolina’s legislature called for a
special convention to consider the
question of secession
• The first state to formally withdraw
from the Union was South Carolina
(December 20, 1860)
• The Constitution does not directly
address the issue of secession
Breaking with the Union
(continued)
• While the South
Carolina secession
convention was under
way, a plan to save the
Union was introduced
in Congress by John J.
Crittenden
• The last minute effort to
prevent southern states
from seceding was
called the Crittenden
Compromise
The Confederate States of
America
• The Confederate
States of America
was a new nation
with its own
constitution and
own officials
The Confederate States of
America
• By February 1, 1861,
Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas
had seceded
• February 4th – delegates
met in Montgomery,
Alabama (first capital of
CSA)
• Jefferson Davis of
Mississippi elected
president