Download Objective: Students will learn about how the debate over slavery

Standard(s):
21.Demonstrate knowledge of the causes,
effects, and major events of the Civil War
28.Identify the significance of landmark
Supreme Court Rulings from 1803-1877
including:
– Marbury vs. Madison
– Dred Scott Decision
– Plessy vs. Ferguson
29.Understand the need for and growth of
political parties
30.Define and identify the duties and
responsibilities of citizenship
1848
to
1860
• Renewal of Debates
• Trouble in Kansas
• Political Division
• The Nation Divides
Renewal of
Slavery Debates
• The Missouri Compromise had divided
the Louisiana Purchase
– North of latitude 36º30'slavery was
prohibited
• Polk wanted to extend the line to the
coast
• Some wanted popular sovereignty (the
people decide to be a free or slave
state)
More Debates
• Wilmot Proviso – “neither slavery or
servitude shall ever exist in any part of
[the] territory.”
• Sectionalism – favoring your region
over the interests of the country
• Free-Soil Party – anti-slavery party,
supported the Wilmot Proviso
California – free or slave ?
• Most wanted to enter
as free
– Would destroy the
balance of power
– The South said no
Contention in the Senate
• Senator William
Seward – California
should enter
“without
compromise”
• Senator John C.
Calhoun – A free
California would
destroy balance
Wanted slave
states be
allowed to
peacefully
secede from
the union
(1850)
Compromise of 1850
1) California enters as free
2) The Mexican Cession, divides into Utah &
New Mexico; popular sovereignty (people
decide)
3) Texas gives up land east of the Rio Grand;
the government helps pay war debts
4) Outlaws the slave trade in the District of
Columbia (nation’s capitol)
5) passes a new fugitive slave law
Fugitive Slave Act
• Made it a crime to help runaway
slaves
– six months in jail and $1,000
• Slaves could be arrested in free areas
• The fate of suspected fugitives to be
decided by commissioners
– Reject a claim $5.00
– Return a slave
$10.00
• http://video.pbs.org/video/2185956008/
Reaction
• Thousands of northern African
Americans fled to Canada in fear
• In 10 years, and 343 fugitive slave
cases – only 11 were declared free
How it Affects the north
• Disliked the idea of trial without a jury
• Disapproved of higher fees for returning
slaves
• Were horrified that
free African
Americans were
captured and sent to
the South
Anthony Burns
• A fugitive slave from
Virginia
• Arrested in Boston
• Abolitionists killed a
deputy marshal
trying to rescue him
• Burns was ordered
returned to Virginia
• People in the North
were outraged
• More Northerners
joined the
abolitionist cause
Anti-slavery Literature
• Written by abolitionists
– To gain sympathy for their cause
– To educate people about hardships slaves
faced
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Angered by the
Fugitive Slave Act
• Wanted to inform
Northerners about the
realities of slavery
What Was It About?
Tom, is taken from his wife
and sold “down the river”
in Louisiana. He becomes
the slave of cruel Simon
Legree. In a rage, Legree
has Tom beaten to death.
Reaction to the Book
• 2 million copies sold in
the U.S.
• Electrified the North
– “created two millions
of abolitionists”
• Outraged the South
– questioned the “foul
imagination which
could invent such
scenes”
• In a meeting with
Abraham Lincoln,
he called Stowe
“the little lady who
made this big war”
Trouble in Kansas
Election of 1852
• Franklin Pierce
– Democratic
National Party
• Little known
• Promised to
honor the
Compromise of
1850 and the
Fugitive Slave
Act
– Pierce won by a
large margin
• Winfield Scott – Whig
Party
– Mexican War hero
– Did not fully
support the
Fugitive Slave Act
Railroad to the West Coast
• Stephen Douglas
– favored a line running from Chicago
• Southerners
– favored a line running from New Orleans
• Compromise
– South allowed a line from Chicago in
return for the territory west of Missouri to
be open to slavery
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Proposed by Stephen
Douglas
• Divided the Louisiana
Purchase into two territories
– Kansas and Nebraska
– Slavery to be decided by
popular sovereignty
Kansas Divided
• Anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups
rushed supporters to Kansas
• Elections held in March 1855
• Almost 5,000
pro-slavery voters
from Missouri
crossed the border,
voted in Kansas, then
returned home
Pro-slavery
• Won the election
– Passed strict laws
• Made it a crime to question slaveholders’
rights
• Said if you help a fugitive slave you
could be fined or put to death
Anti-slavery
• formed their own government
– President Pierce would not recognize it
Opposing Governments
• A congressional committee
arrived in Kansas
– Declared the election
unfair
• The federal government
disagreed
Fighting breaks out
• Lawrence
• Pottawatomie
Bleeding Kansas
• A pro-slavery jury charged antislavery
leaders with treason
• A posse rode to Lawrence to arrest
them, but the leaders had fled
• The angry posse set fires, looted
buildings, and destroyed news presses
The sack of Lawrence
John Brown
• An abolitionist from New
England
• The Sack of Lawrence
made him determined to
“fight fire with fire” and “strike terror in the
hearts of the pro-slavery people.”
• Brown and his men dragged five proslavery men out of their cabins at
Pottawatomie Creek and killed them
• He declared
his actions
had been
ordered by
God
Pottawatomie Massacre
Civil War in Kansas
In the end
over 200
people were
killed
September
1856, a new
territorial
governor
arrived and
restored order
Congress reaction
• Charles Sumner
– Senator from
Massachusetts
– Criticized proslavery people in
Kansas
– Insulted Senator
Andrew Pickens
Butler from South
Carolina
• Preston Brooks
– Representative
– Butler’s nephew
– Responded
strongly
Brooks attacked Sumner
• He used a walking
• The South
cane to beat Sumner
responded by
unconscious in the
sending Brook new
Senate chambers
canes
result
• Northerners were outraged
• Brooks only had to pay a $300 fine to the
federal court
• It was 3 years
before Sumner
was well enough
to return to the
Senate
A New Political Party Forms
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act brought
slavery back into the spotlight
• Some Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers,
and abolitionists, united against the
spread of slavery in the West, formed a
new party
The Republican Party
Election 1856
• American (KnowNothing) Party
– Millard Fillmore
– Strict enforcement of
Fugitive Slave Act
• Republicans
– John C. Fremont
– Against the spread of
slavery
• Democrats
– James Buchanan
– Overseas during the
debate of the KansasNebraska Act
Dred Scott Decision
• A slave of Dr. John Emerson
who lived in Missouri
• Emerson took Scott to
Illinois and the Wisconsin
Territory
• They returned to Missouri
and Emerson died
• Scott became the slave of Emerson’s
widow, who gave him to their son
• After 10 years Scott sued for his
freedom in Missouri’s state court
– He argued he became free
when he lived in free
territory
– A lower court ruled in his
favor
– The Missouri Supreme
Court overruled
– 11 years later it reached
the Supreme Court
Supreme Court Ruling
• Written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney
– From a slaveholding family in Maryland
- Negroes were not citizens of the United States and had no right to bring
suit in a federal court.
- Dred Scott had not become a free man as a result of his residence at Fort
Snelling because the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional; Congress
had no authority to prohibit slavery in the federal territories.
- Dred Scott did not become free based on residence at Fort Armstrong
because his status, upon return to Missouri, depended upon Missouri law,
- Dred Scott was not free under either the provisions of the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787 or the 1820 Missouri Compromise, he was still a
slave, not a citizen with the right to bring suit in the federal court system.
- According to Taney’s opinion, African Americans were “beings of an
inferior order, so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was
bound to respect.”
The decision
1) African Americans, slave or free, are not citizens
under the U.S. Constitution
– Dred Scott did not have the right to file suit
2) Scott’s residence on free soil did not make him free
– “his status depended on the laws of Missouri”
3) The Missouri Compromise was
declared unconstitutional
– The Fifth Amendment - no one
can “be deprived of life, liberty,
or property without due process
of law”
• Slaves were considered
property
Reaction
• The South cheered
– “It covers every question regarding
slavery and settles it in favor of the South”
• The North was stunned
– The nations highest court had ruled that
Congress did not have the right to ban
slavery in the federal territories
Abraham Lincoln
• An Illinois lawyer
“We shall lie down
pleasantly dreaming
that the people of
Missouri are on the
verge of making their
state free; and we
shall awake to the
reality, instead, that
the Supreme Court
has made Illinois a
slave state.”
The Lincoln Douglas Debates of 1858
Why Debate: To promote their candidacy for the Senate
The issue: the spread of slavery in the West
Lincoln
– African Americans are “entitled to all
the natural rights”
– Did not believe African Americans
were social or political equals
– The nation cannot remain “half slave
and half free.”
• Douglas
– Criticized Lincolns statement
– Said it would lead to warfare between
North and South
Lincoln: What about the
contradiction between
popular sovereignty and
the Dred Scott decision
Douglas: It didn’t matter
what the Supreme Court
decided, nothing can last
without support by local
police.
Freeport Doctrine: The idea
that the police would
enforce the voters decision
if it contradicted the
Supreme Court’s decision
in the Dred Scott Case.
2nd
Debate
The Nation Divides
• John Brown wanted to start an uprising
– His plan:
• Get funding from
abolitionists
• Attack the federal
arsenal in
Harper’s Ferry,
Virginia
• Seize weapons
• Arm local slaves
• Kill or take
hostage white
southerners who
stood in his way
• After two years his army had about 20 men
Harper’s Ferry
• October, 1859
– John Brown took
over the federal
arsenal
• Then sent men
to get slave to
join him
• The slaves
would not come
–Feared
punishment
– Local white southerners attacked Brown
• 8 of Brown’s men and 3 of the locals
were killed
• Brown retreated to a firehouse
Brown was captured
convicted of treason
and hung
reaction to Harper’s Ferry
• North
– Mourned his death
– Criticized his actions
• South
– Felt threatened by his actions
– Were convinced that, for the safety of the
South, they should leave the Union
• http://www.history.com/topics/bleedingkansas/videos#john-browns-raid
LincoLn’s response
• Brown “agreed with us in thinking
slavery wrong” but “that cannot excuse
violence, bloodshed, and treason.”
A New Party Emerges
• Constitutional Union Party
– Recognized “no political
principles other than the
Constitution of the
country, the Union of
the States, and the
enforcement of the
laws.”
– For the Constitution, the
Union, and the Law
Election of 1860
The Candidates
• Democrats were split
– North:
• Stephen Douglas
– South:
• John C.
Breckinridge
• Constitutional Party
– John Bell
• Republican
– Abraham Lincoln
candidate’s stand
• Douglas – supported popular
sovereignty
• Breckinridge – supported slavery in the
territories
• Bell – was a slave owner, but opposed
the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Lincoln – against the spread of slavery,
but promised not to abolish it where it
was
Results
• Douglas, Breckinridge,
and Bell
– Knew they might not
win
– Wanted to win enough
electoral votes to
prevent Lincoln from
winning
• Lincoln won 40% of popular votes
– All in free states
• Douglas won one state
• Breckinridge and Bell split the slave states
Lincoln Wins
• Since the
Democrats could
not agree on a
single candidate
their two candidates
split the vote.
• The South was
angry
– Lincoln did not
win one southern
state
– A signal that the
South was losing
its national
political power
Reaction in the South
• Lincoln insisted:
– he would not change slavery in the South
– but slavery could not expand
– Slavery would eventually die out
• The South was angry
– Thy believed their economy and way of life
would be destroyed without slave labor
The South
• South Carolina called for a special convention
– They considered
secession
– Believed they had
the right to leave
– They had
voluntarily joined
by ratification, they
could leave the
same way
• John Crittenden proposed
constitutional amendments
that would protect slavery
• Guaranteed the permanent
existence of slavery in the
slave states
• Proposed extending the
Missouri Compromise line
to the west – slavery
prohibited north,
guaranteed south
– He hoped to avoid
secession and a civil war
– His proposals were
rejected
• President Buchanan
– The Union is not “a mere
voluntary association of States,
to be dissolved at pleasure by
any one of the contracting
parties.”
• President elect Lincoln
– “No State, upon its own mere
motion, can lawfully get out of
the union.”
– “They can only do so against
[the] law, and by revolution.”
Confederate states of America
• South Carolina elected
seceded on December 20,
1860
• Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas
followed
• Jefferson Davis was
elected president of the
Confederacy
LincoLn’s reaction
He believed citizens could change the
government, but states could not leave the
Union
He announced that he would keep all
government property in the seceding states
He tried to convince southerners that his
government would not provoke war
He hoped that southern states would return to
the Union
Next up . . . Civil War
Evaluation
Ch. 15 Test