Download Unit 6: Civil War and Reconstruction 1846-1896

 Why
It Matters: As you study
Unit 6, you will learn how
social, economic, and political
differences between the North
and South grew. As
compromises failed, the
country plunged into civil war.
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Why It Matters: Slavery
was a major cause of
the worsening division
between the North and
South in the period
before the Civil War.
The struggle between
the North and South
turned more hostile,
and talk grew of
separation and civil
war.

The Impact Today: “If
slavery is not wrong,
nothing is wrong,
Abraham Lincoln
wrote in a letter to A.G.
Hodges in 1864. By
studying this era of our
history, we can better
understand the state of
racial relations today
and develop ways for
improving them.

Main Idea: As new
states entered the
Union, the question
of whether to admit
them as free states
or slave states
arose.
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Key Terms:
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Sectionalism
Fugitive
Secede
Abstain
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When Missouri applied
for statehood in 1819,
it was a territory
whose citizens owned
about 10,000
enslaved African
Americans.
At the time the Senate
was balanced, with 11
free states and 11
slave sates. Missouri’s
admission to the
Union as a slave state
would have upset the
balance of power.
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The North and South, with very different
economic systems, were also competing for
new lands in the West.
North wanted to stop the spread of slavery
into new states and territories.
South resented the North’s attempts to
interfere with slavery, which they considered
their own affair.
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Representative Henry Clay, Speaker of the House,
proposed a solution to the Missouri problem.
Maine, which had been a part of Massachusetts, had also
applied for admission to the Union as a new state.
Clay suggested admitting Missouri as a slave state and
admitting Maine as a free state at the same time.
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Clay also made a second proposal
to settle several arguments about
slavery in the territories.
He proposed prohibiting slavery
in all territories and states carved
from the Louisiana Purchase
north of the latitude line of 36/30
N.
The one exception would be
Missouri.
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Clay’s two proposals-The Missouri
Compromise, were passed by Congress in
1820.
The Missouri Compromise preserved the
balance between free and slave states in the
Senate
Ended the debate in Congress over slavery in
new states and territories-at least for a while.
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The issue of slavery in new Western lands stayed in the
background between 1820 and the 1840s.
The proposal to add a new set of states and territories
(Texas, New Mexico, and California) brought the issue to a
head again.
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After winning independence
from Mexico, Texas asked for
admission to the Union.
Slavery existed in Texas, and
below 36’30 line it would have
entered the Union as a slave
state.
This again brought out the
question of whether free or
slave states would control the
Senate.
As a result Texas’s statehood
became an issue in the 1844
election.
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Democratic candidate James K. Polk won the
election and pressed to add Texas.
Texas became a state in 1845.
At the same time, support in the South for
taking over New Mexico and California, which
were both part of Mexico also grew.
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Disputes between the U.S. and Mexico over
boundaries in Texas and the desire of the U.S.
For New Mexico and California led to the MexicanAmerican War.
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A bitter debate over slavery in new Western
lands began over proposals by Representative
David Wilmot of Pennsylvania and Senator
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.
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Wilmot’s proposal, called the Wilmot Proviso,
said that slavery should be prohibited in any
lands that might be acquired from Mexico at
the end of the Mexican-American War.
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Calhoun’s counterproposal stated that neither
Congress nor any other gov’t authority had
the power to prohibit or regulate slavery in
any way in a territory.
STATES’ RIGHTS
Neither proposal passed Congress, but these
proposals intensified arguments for and
against slavery.
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Soil Party-which
supported the Wilmot
Proviso and were against
the Democratic and Whig
Party.
Whig candidate Zachary
Taylor won the election by
successfully appealing to
both slave and free states.
But the Free Soil Party
won several seats in
Congress.

President Taylor encouraged the territories of New
Mexico and California, to apply for statehood.
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After California did so in 1849, the problem of the
balance of power in the Senate came up again.
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California would enter the Union as a free state
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California upset the balance of 15 free states
and 15 slaves states in the Senate.
It was likely that some of the other territories
that might soon become states would enters
as free states as well.
Southerners worried they would lose power
and talked of leaving the Union.
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In January 1850 Senator Henry Clay presented a new
multi-part plan to settle a number of issues dividing
Congress, including the possible spread of slavery into
Western lands.
Clay’s Plan
◦ 1. California would be admitted as a free state.
◦ 2. The New Mexico Territory would have no slavery restrictions.
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3. A New Mexico-Texas border dispute would
be decided in favor of New Mexico.
4. The slave trade-though not slavery-would
be abolished in Washington D.C.
5. There would be a stronger fugitive slave
law.
A bitter debate in Congress over the
provisions of Clay’s proposal raged for seven
months.
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Clay’s plan could not pass as a package, and
President Taylor opposed it.
Then in July 1820, Taylor suddenly died.
The new president, Millard Fillmore, proposed
a compromise.
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Senator Stephen Douglas split Clay’s proposal
into five different bills to allow members of
Congress to vote on them separately.
Members could vote for measures they
agreed with and vote against parts they did
not support without rejecting the whole plan.
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Congress passed the series of five separate
bills in August and September 1850.
Together they became known as the
Compromise of 1850.
Many American, including President Fillmore,
thought this compromise would settles the
question of slavery once and for all.