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The Missouri Compromise
 There were 11 free states and 11 slave states in 1819.
 Missouri wanted to join as a slave state (this would off
balance the Senate and give the South more votes)
 Northerners opposed letting Missouri in as a slave
state.
 After much debate, Senator Henry Clay suggested
admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine (which
also applied to be a state) as a free state.
 This was called The Missouri Compromise.
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Slavery in the West
 Wilmot Proviso
▪ David Wilmot , a member of Congress from Pennsylvania,
called for a law to ban slavery in any territories won from
Mexico.
▪ Southern leaders opposed this Wilmot Proviso because
Congress has no right to ban slavery in the West.
▪ Eventually, the House passed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846, but
it didn’t pass the Senate.
 Opposing Views
▪ People had different points of views when it came to slavery.
The idea of popular sovereignty (the right of people to create
their government) started to arise and now new territories
were able to decide this issue on their own.
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The Free-Soil Party
 The debate over slavery led to the birth of a new political party.
 In 1848, antislavery members met in Buffalo, NY. There, they
f0unded the Free-Soil party. The main goal was to keep slavery
out of the western territories.
 In the 1848 presidential campaign, Free-Soilers named former
President Martin Van Buren as their candidate, Democrats
chose Lewis Cass and the Whigs selected Zachary Taylor.
 For the first time, slavery was an important election issue- Van
Buren called for a ban on slavery in the Mexican Cession, Cass
believed in popular sovereignty. Taylor had no opinion on
slavery.
 Taylor won the election yet the success of the Free Soil party
showed that slavery had become a national issue.
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The Slavery Debate Erupts Again
 California’s Impact
▪ In 1850, California wanted to join the U.S., this would
cause-again- a problem because they wanted to join as a
slave free state.
▪ Southerners felt that the South would be greatly
outnumbered in the Senate (there was talk that Oregon,
Utah, and New Mexico would join as free states as well)
▪ Some Southerners suggested that the South secede, or
remove themselves, from the U.S.
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Clay vs. Calhoun
 Clay was known as the “Great Compromiser” for
working out the Missouri Compromise.
 Clay, now 73, urged the North and South to come to
an agreement.
 Senator John. C. Calhoun of South Carolina refused to
compromise. He insisted that slavery be allowed in
the Western Territories. He even stated that fugitive,
runaway slaves, be returned to their owners.
 If an agreement could not be reached, the South
would use force to leave the Union.
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Webster Calls for Unity
 Daniel Webster of Massachusetts supported Clay’s
plea to save the Union.
 Webster feared that the states could not separate
without starting a bloody civil war.
 However, Webster was willing to compromise and
support both sides.
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Compromise of 1850
 In 1850, Calhoun died and President Zachary
Taylor died as well. The new President was Millard
Filmore. Unlike Taylor, he supported Clay’s
compromise plan.
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Compromise of 1850
 Henry Clay eventually became very ill and the man
who spoke on his behalf was Stephen Douglas of
Illinois.
 The Compromise of 1850 had five parts:
▪ 1- allowed California to enter as a free state
▪ 2- divided the rest of the Mexican Cession into the territories
of New Mexico and Utah and they would decide on slavery
based on popular sovereignty
▪ 3- it ended the slave trade in Washington, D.C. but not ban it
in other states
▪ 4- included a strict fugitive slave law
▪ 5- it settled a border dispute between Texas and New Mexico
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Fugitive Slave Act
 The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required all citizens
to help catch runaway slaves
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Reaction
 The Fugitive Slave Act enraged antislavery
northerners.
 By forcing them to catch runaways, the law made
northerners feel as if they were part of the slave
system.
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin: An Antislavery Bestseller
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, a New England woman,
published a novel called Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
 Stowe wrote the novel to show the evils of slavery
and the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Act.
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Kansas-Nebraska Act
 The Compromise of 1850 dealt mainly with lands that
were part of the Mexican Cession.
 In January 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas introduced
a bill to set up a government for the Nebraska
Territory. This territory stretched from Texas north to
Canada and from Missouri west to the Rockies.
 He proposed that the Nebraska Territory be divided
into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. The settlers
living in each territory would then be able to decide
the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty.
 It was known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act
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Support for the Act
 Southern leaders supported the act because they
would hope that eventually slave owners would
move to Kansas with their slaves.
 President Franklin Pierce, a Democrat elected in
1852, also supported the bill.
 With the President’s help, Douglas pushed the
Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress.
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Northern Outrage
 Northerners were unhappy with the law because
this Act would repeal the Missouri Compromise
(which already banned slavery in Kansas and
Nebraska)
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The Crises Turns Violent
 Instead of the act being peaceful, this caused
proslavery and antislavery forces to go to Kansas
to fight for control of the territory
 Antislavery went to gain land, proslavery went to
make sure that antislavery forces did not overrun
the territory
▪ Border Ruffians ->
 Two Governments
▪ In 1855, Kansas held elections to choose law makers.
Hundreds of Border Ruffians crossed into Kansas and
voted illegally. They helped elect a proslavery
legislature.
▪ The new legislature quickly passed laws to support
slavery
▪ Antislavery settlers refused to accept these laws. They
elected their own governor and legislature.
▪ With two rival governments, Kansas was in chaos!
 “Bleeding Kansas”
▪ A band of proslavery men raided the town of Lawrence,
an antislavery town, in 1856. The attackers destroyed
homes, and smashed the Free-Soil newspaper.
▪ John Brown, an abolitionist, strike back. Brown rode
with his 4 sons and 2 other men to the town
Pottawatomie Creek. In the middle of the night, they
dragged 5 proslavery settlers from their beds and
murdered them.
▪ Both sides fought in bloody guerilla warfare.
▪ Newspapers started calling the territory “Bleeding
Kansas”.
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Violence in the Senate
 Charles Sumner (abolitionist senator) spoke about
how bad slavery was and did a direct remark to
Andrew Butler (proslavery senator).
 Butler’s nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks
marched into the Senate chamber and using a
cane beat Sumner to the point of
unconsciousness!!
 Northerners felt this act was more evidence that
slavery would eventually lead to violence.
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The Dred Scott Case
 Dred Scott has been enslaved for many years in
Missouri. He moved with his owner to Illinois and
then to the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was
not allowed. After they returned to Missouri,
Scott’s owner died.
 Antislavery lawyers helped Scott to file a lawsuit.
 Scott’s lawyers argued that, because Scott had
lived in a free territory, he had become a free
man.
 The Supreme Court’s Decision
▪ This case reached the Supreme Court as Dred Scott v.
Sandford.
▪ The Court ruled that Scott could not file a lawsuit
because, as an enslaved person, he was not a citizen.
▪ The Court also ruled that Congress did not have the
power to outlaw slavery in any territory, which indirectly
meant that the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional.
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The Nation Reacts
 The South was very happy with the outcome of
the case because it meant that slavery was legal in
all territories.
 The North was outraged and started protest the
court case publicly.
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The Republican Party
 A group of Free-Soilers, northern Democrats, and
antislavery Whigs gathered in Michigan in 1854. There
they formed the Republican party. It’s main goal was
to keep slavery out of the western territories.
 Republicans selected John C. Fremont to run for
President.
 Freemont’s main opponent was Democrat James
Buchanan.
 Buchanan won the election, yet the Republican party
did not die down.
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Abe Lincoln of Illinois
 From the Backwoods of Kentucky
▪ Abraham Lincoln was born on the Kentucky frontier.
▪ The family lived in Indiana and later in Illinois.
▪ As a child, Lincoln spent only a year in school, still, he taught
himself to read.
▪ As an adult, he opened a store in Illinois in which on his spare
time he studied law.
▪ He served 8 years in the state legislature and one term in
Congress.
▪ He ran for the Senate in 1858 because he opposed the
Kansas-Nebraska Act.
 Lincoln-Douglas Debates
▪ During the Senate campaign, Lincoln challenged
Douglas to a series of debates- 7 debates!
▪ Douglas wanted to settle the slavery question by
popular sovereignty. He personally disliked slavery, but
stated that he did not care if it passed or not.
▪ Lincoln, like all whites at the time, did not believe in
equality, but did believe slavery was wrong.
▪ Lincoln WAS NOT an abolitionist! He had no wish to
interfere with slavery in the states where it already
existed.
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A Leader Emerges
 Douglas won the election by a slim margin.
 Still, Lincoln was a winner too. He as now known
throughout the country. Two years later, the two
rivals would meet face to face-both seeking the
Presidential election.
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John Brown’s Raid
 In 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown carried his
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antislavery campaign from Kansas to the East.
He led a group of followers, including five African Americans, to
the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
There, Brown planned to raid a federal arsenal warehouse.
Brown quickly took control of the arsenal, but no other slaves
revolted, instead, General Robert E. Lee (remember that name,
he will be important later), and his army captured him.
In his court trial, he was found guilty of treason and murder and
hung.
To northerners, he was seen as a hero-a martyr- because he was
willing to give up everything for his beliefs.
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The Election of 1860
 The Democrats held their convention in Charleston,
South Carolina.
▪ Southerners wanted the party to support slavery in the
territories, the Northerners did not.
 The party split in two: Northern Democrats chose
Stephen Douglas and Southern Democrats chose
John Breckinridge.
 To try to ease the split up, some Americans formed
another political party called the Constitutional Union
party. They chose John Bell to run for President.
 When the election was over, Lincoln had won.
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Lincolns Inauguration ceremony
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The South Reacts
 To many Southerner’s, Lincoln’s election meant that the South
no longer had a voice in national government and that slavery
will finally get abolished.
 Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky made a last effort to save
the Union.
▪ In December 1860, he introduced a bill to extend the Missouri
Compromise line to the Pacific. He also wanted to add an amendment
that states in the South of the Compromise Line could have slaves.
▪ The bill received little support. The South felt secession was needed.
▪ On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to
secede.
▪ By late February 1861, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Texas had also seceded.
▪ At a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, the seven
states formed The Confederate States of America.
▪ Jefferson Davis of Mississippi became the first
president of the Confederacy.
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The Civil War begins
 When Lincoln took his oath of office on March 4, 1861, in
his speech he stated that there would be no war, unless
the South started it.
 Jefferson Davis, however, had already ordered
Confederate forces to begin seizing federal forts in the
South.
 By April, Confederate troops controlled nearly all forts,
post offices, and other federal buildings in the South.
 The Union held only three forts off the Florida coast and
Ft. Sumter in South Carolina (this was an important fort to
the Confederacy because it guarded Charleston Harbor)
 President Lincoln learned that food supplies at Ft.
Sumter were running low. He notified the governor of
South Carolina that he was going to ship food to the
fort. Lincoln promised not to send troops or weapons.
 On April 11, 1861, the Confederacy demanded that Ft.
Sumter surrender. Major Robert Anderson, the Union
commander, refused. Confederate guns then opened
fire on April 12, 1861. The Union ran out of
ammunition and Anderson surrendered the fort.
 This marked the start of the Civil War….a war that
would last the next four years.
Ft. Sumter (then
and now)
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