Download states - Thomas C. Cario Middle School

8-4.3 Focus Question:
What were the events and factors that lead to
South Carolina’s secession from the Union?
Thomas Jefferson was able to purchase the
Louisiana Territory in 1803 from France.
The purchase of
Louisiana
doubled the
size of the
United States!
http://www.history.com/topics/louisiana-purchase
Curious to know what the new
land offered, Jefferson would
send two explorers , Lewis and
Clark on an expedition to
explore and report back to him.
As the United States grew and stretched
westward, the issue of slavery and whether
it should be allowed in the new territories
would lead to an increase in sectionalism.
The first indicator of national trouble
between the north and south came when
Missouri applied for statehood.
At the time, there were 11 slave states and 11 free
states. Allowing Missouri to enter the Union as a
slave state would change the balance of power in
Congress.
Henry Clay helped the opposing sides
reach a compromise.
The Missouri Compromise allowed Missouri in as a slave
state and Maine as a free state. This kept the balance of
free and slave states equal.
The Missouri Compromise also established
a line- the 360 30' line-which ran along the
southern border of Missouri.
All states entering
the Union above
the line would be
free states.
All states entering
the Union south
of the line would
become Slave
states.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was
meant to calm things down a bit.
But it would be a
temporary solution and
would not solve the
issue of slavery which
that would come to
divide the nation again.
Southerners had grown increasingly
hostile towards tariffs since they were
first passed in 1816.
Southerners argued that the tariffs discriminated
against them and favored northern businesses. The
tariffs made it more expensive to buy goods from
other countries.
When the United States Congress passed a
protective tax in 1828, then Vice President John
C. Calhoun anonymously wrote an essay in
which he argued that the tariff was
unconstitutional.
Calhoun argued that individual states
had the right to nullify or veto any
federal law and even secede from the
Union.
This position threatened the unity of the United
States and the exclusive right of the Supreme
Court to decide whether or not an act of
Congress was constitutional. This was the
Nullification Crisis.
Nullification Crisis—A showdown between South
Carolina and the federal government in the early 1830s.
South Carolina wanted to nullify, or void, a tariff (tax on
imported goods) that helped the Northern states, but
hurt business at South Carolina’s port of Charleston.
Vice-president and South
Carolina native John
Calhoun led the fight
against President Andrew
Jackson (Jackson felt that
the Union would fall
apart if states were
allowed to override
federal laws). Eventually,
a compromise was
reached that eased
tensions.
Continued expansion as a result of the Mexican
War led to further controversy over the expansion
of slavery.
The U.S. would fight Mexico and in 1847 would pick up more land!
This included Texas and most of the southwest. James Gadsen of
South Carolina would go back to Mexico and get even more land for
the U.S in the South west.
Even before the Mexican War ended,
the question of whether slavery
should be allowed to spread to the
new territory became a heated one.
In 1849, California would request to be admitted
to the United States as a free state.
The entry of California would disrupt
the carefully planned balance of free
states to slave states form the Missouri
Compromise.
Another compromise was reached!
The Compromise of 1850 would have 4 parts to it. It
did allow California to enter the Union as a free state.
It created two new large territories-Utah
and New Mexico. Utah and New Mexico.
These states were given the choice on whether they
wanted slavery or not. This was called popular
sovereignty.
Another part of the Compromise of
1850 stopped the slave trade in
Washington, DC- but it did not outlaw
slavery there.
The fourth part of the compromise
was the most controversial.
It strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law.
This required Northerners by law to return any runaway
slaves to the Southern owners.
Escaped slave had to be returned or violators might be
fined or imprisoned.
This last provision caused much controversy as northern
states passed laws attempting to protect escaped slaves.
Sympathy for fugitive slaves intensified with the
publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet
Beecher Stowe in protest against the Fugitive Slave Act
while southerners decried the ‘misconceptions’ about
slavery that the book portrayed.
The next issue to escalate tensions and
sectionalism was the Kansas-Nebraska
Act.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act basically threw out the
Missouri Compromise.
It organized the remaining land from the
Louisiana Purchase into two territoriesKansas and Nebraska.
It allowed the slavery issue to be decided by the
states themselves- Popular Sovereignty.
Bleeding Kansas
A showdown over slavery erupted in Kansas.
Northern abolitionists and southern slave
owners temporarily moved into the Kansas
Territory. Soon their fighting and bloodshed led
people to call the area “Bleeding Kansas.”
In 1857, the Supreme Court would be
the next to fan the flames of
controversy.
A Missouri slave named Dred Scott had lived in
free territories with his master. When his
master died, Scott sued fir his freedom.
The Supreme Court shot down Dred
Scot’s hopes for freedom with their
decision.
The Supreme Court decided that African Americans
were not citizens of the United States, even if they
had been born in the United States, and therefore
they had no right to sue in the Supreme Court. In
fact, the court said they had no rights at all.
The court went on to rule that Scott was property
and that the Constitution of the United States
protects the owner of property from having that
property taken away by the government.
According to this decision, Dred Scott was not
considered a person, but property and had no rights.
Congress could not pass measures such as the
Missouri Compromise or the Kansas Nebraska
Act limiting the expansion of slavery into the
territories.
Such acts were ruled unconstitutional
because they denied the slave owner the
right to take his property anywhere that he
wanted.
The Dred Scott decision did not end
the controversy over slavery.
Pro-Slavery
Anti-Slavery
Northerners claimed that the court
would deny them the right to outlaw
slavery in their states and would end
the idea of popular sovereignty,
limiting democracy.
South Carolinians applauded the decision and
accepted the Supreme Court’s ruling as the final
word on the issue.
Harper’s Ferry Raid
Abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal
at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia and the publicity that
surrounded his trial further heightened
sectionalism by stoking the fears of southern slave
owners that abolitionists and freed slaves would be
a danger to their lives as well as their livelihoods.
As the election of
1860 drew near,
Abraham Lincoln
would be thrust
into the national
limelight.
Lincoln would be the
presidential candidate
for the new
Republican Party.
Abraham Lincoln campaigned on a platform of
‘free soil’. “Free soil’ is the idea that slavery
should not be allowed to expand to the
territories. Lincoln was not an abolitionist in
1860, but a free-soiler.
Lincoln won the election with electoral
votes from the North. The South and
Border States split their votes among
several candidates.
The election of Lincoln as president
would be the final straw for the
South.
They are just
jealous of
my
awesome
hat!
After Lincoln’s election, South Carolina called a
special convention and signed the Articles of
Secession claiming that the rights of South
Carolinians had not been and would not be
protected by the federal government.
Six other southern states seceded
soon after.
The Civil War would begin.