Download Ch.18, Sec.1- The Debate Over Slavery

Ch.18, Sec.1- The Debate Over
Slavery
The Expansion of Slavery
• Victory in the Mexican War in 1848 added more than
500,000 square miles to the United States and renewed
the debate over the expansion of slavery. Slavery was
not allowed north of Missouri’s southern border.
President Polk and others wanted to run the line to the
Pacific Coast, dividing the Mexican Cession into free and
slave territory. Some northerners wanted to prohibit
slavery in all parts of the Mexican Cession. During the
war, Representative David Wilmot had proposed a plan
known as the Wilmot Proviso. It stated that “neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any
part of the territory.” The House of Representatives,
which had a northern majority, passed the proviso, but it
died in the Senate where the South had more power.
This plan showed the growing sectionalism of the
country, which is when people favor interests of one
region over the interests of the country as a whole.
The Expansion of Slavery cont.
• Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan hoped to solve the
conflict by pushing for popular sovereignty, which would
allow voters in a territory to decide whether they wanted
to ban or allow slavery.
• In the presidential election of 1848, neither Democrats
nor Whigs took a clear position on slavery in the West.
For this reason, thousands of antislavery northerners
formed a new political party called the Free-Soil Party.
They supported the Wilmot Proviso and chose Martin
Van Buren as their candidate. The party won 10% of the
vote, which helped the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor,
win over Lewis Cass.
• The California Gold Rush caused a population boom that
allowed California to apply for admission as a state in the
Union. Most Californians wanted to enter as a free state,
but this would throw off the balance of free and slave
states.
The Compromise of 1850
• Henry Clay settled the Missouri crisis and the nullification
crisis of 1832-33. Clay, nicknamed “The Great
Compromiser”, now came up with another plan. It had
five main parts: 1. He urged Congress to let California
enter the Union as a free state. 2. He called for the rest
of the Mexican Cession to be organized as a federal
territory. In this territory, called New Mexico, popular
sovereignty would decide the status of slavery. 3. He
addressed a border dispute between Texas and New
Mexico. He called on Texas to give up its claim to all land
east of the Upper Rio Grande. In exchange, the federal
government would pay Texas’s old debts from when it
was an independent republic. 4. He called for an end to
the slave trade, but not slavery, in the country’s capital.
5. He called for a new, more effective fugitive slave law.
The Compromise of 1850 cont.
• The Compromise of 1850 became law in
September of 1850. It accomplished most
of what Clay wanted. California entered
the Union as a free state. The rest of the
Mexican Cession was divided into 2
territories, Utah and New Mexico, where
slavery would be decided by popular
sovereignty.
The Fugitive Slave Act
• The Fugitive Slave Act made it a federal crime to help
runaway slaves. It also allowed officials to arrest
runaways in areas where slavery was illegal. Under the
law, slaveholders and their agents could take suspected
fugitive slaves before U.S. commissioners. They then
tried to prove ownership through documents or white
witnesses. The accused fugitives could not testify in their
own defense. People who returned a suspected fugitive
to the slaveholder in the South received $10. If you hid
or helped a runaway slave faced 6 months in jail and a
$1,000 fine. In the 10 years after Congress passed this
law, 343 fugitive slave cases came under review in the
North, which only 11 were declared free. This led to
thousands of African Americans going to Canada.
Antislavery Literature
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an antislavery novel written by
Harriet Beecher Stowe. She met with fugitive slaves in
Ohio and learned about the cruelty of slavery. She was
angered by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, so she
decided she was going to write a book on what slavery
was really like. The book was published in 1852. The
main character in the book is Tom, who is separated
from his wife and sold, where he becomes the slave of a
cruel cotton planter in Louisiana. This novel made
people in the South outraged and people in the North
praising it. The book sold 2 million copies in the U.S.
within a year.
Sec.2- Trouble in Kansas
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
• In January 1854 Douglas introduced the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. This plan would divide
the rest of the Louisiana Purchase into two
territories- Kansas and Nebraska. In each
territory, popular sovereignty would decide the
question of slavery. This plan would remove the
restrictions on slavery north of Missouri’s
southern border. Antislavery northerners were
outraged. The president signed it into law on
May 30, 1854.
Bleeding Kansas
• To make sure Kansas would be pro-slavery, several men
crossed over the state line from Missouri and voted in
favor of slavery and returned home. Therefore, slavery
was voted for in Kansas, and immediately a series of
pro-slavery laws were passed. One law made it a crime
to question someone’s right to hold slaves, and another
stated that anyone caught helping a fugitive slave could
be punished by death. By early 1856, Kansas had 2
governments, pro and anti-slavery. Many of the proslavery settlers had guns, and the anti-slavery settlers
asked for shipments of weapons from their friends in the
East. This led to violence. In May 1856, a pro-slavery
grand jury charged leaders of the antislavery
government with treason. 700 men rode to Lawrence
and destroyed buildings and printing presses. John
Brown decided he would punish the pro-slavery forces
for the “Sack Of Lawrence”.
Bleeding Kansas cont.
• On the night of May 24, 1856, John Brown led a group of
7 men along the Pottawatomie Creek in eastern Kansas.
They killed 5 pro-slavery men in what became known as
the Pottawatomie Massacre. Kansas went into a state of
Civil War. About 200 people were killed in the next few
months, leading to the title Bleeding Kansas.
• Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a speech called
“The Crime Against Kansas”. In it, he criticized proslavery efforts and insulted Senator Andrew Pickens
Butler of South Carolina. Representative Preston
Brooks, a relative of Butler, was upset, so on May 22,
1856, Brooks approached Sumner in the Senate
chamber and beat him unconscious with a walking cane.
Several southerners sent Brooks new canes.
Sec.3- Political Divisions
New Divisions
• The Republican Party formed in 1854,
which opposed the spread of slavery in the
West. The Know-Nothings chose Millard
Fillmore as their representative, the
Democrats chose James Buchanan, and
the Republicans chose John C. Fremont.
White southerners immediately began
saying if Fremont were elected they would
secede. However, Buchanan won the
election.
The Dred Scott Decision
• In 1846, Dred Scott sued for his freedom after traveling
with his owner to free territories in Illinois and part of the
Louisiana Purchase. When he returned to Missouri, he
argued he should be free since he lived in free territory.
The case reached the Supreme Court in 1856. The
Court had to decide 3 things: 1. was Scott a citizen of the
U.S. 2. to decide if the time he spent on free soil made
him free. 3. whether the ban on slavery in parts of the
Louisiana Purchase was Constitutional. The Chief
Justice over the case was Roger B. Taney, who came
from a slaveholding family in Maryland. He concluded
that were not citizens under the U.S. Constitution, so
Scott did not have the right to file suit in federal court. He
also said living on free soil had not made him free. He
also said the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
because it went against the 5th Amendment of the right to
property.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas to a
series of debates called the LincolnDouglas Debates. In each of the 7
debates, Lincoln stressed that the central
issue in the campaign involved slavery
and its future in the West. Some voters
asked Lincoln about his views on racial
equality, in which he responded that
African Americans were not necessarily
the political or social equals of whites.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates cont.
• The second debate was held in Freeport, Illinois.
Douglas was asked to explain how Congress
could allow the citizens of a federal territory to
ban slavery if Congress itself could not ban it.
Douglas responded by saying It matters not
what the Supreme Court decides about slavery.
This response became known as the Freeport
Doctrine. This statement would put control of the
slavery question back in the hands of the
American citizens. The doctrine helped Douglas
win the Senate seat, but Lincoln made a strong
showing.
Sec.4- Secession
The Raid on Harpers Ferry
• In 1858, John Brown wanted to start a slave uprising. He
wanted to attack the federal arsenal in Virginia and take
the weapons there. He then wanted to arm the slaves
and kill or take hostage any white person who stood in
the way. However, after 2 years of planning, he only had
about 20 men, including 3 of his sons and himself. John
Brown’s Raid began on October 16, 1859 in Harpers
Ferry, Virginia. He first took over the federal arsenal, and
then he sent several of his men to get slaves to come to
Harpers Ferry. None of the slaves joined him, fearing
they would be severely punished or killed if they were
caught. Instead, white southerners from Harpers Ferry
armed themselves and attacked Brown. 8 of his men and
3 local men were killed in the gunfire, and Brown and
some of his followers retreated to a firehouse.
The Raid on Harpers Ferry cont.
• Federal troops arrived on October 17, and
Colonel Robert E. Lee ordered a squad of
marines to storm the firehouse. In a matter
of seconds, they killed 2 more of his men
and captured the rest, including Brown.
Judging John Brown
• Brown was quickly charged and convicted
of treason, murder, and conspiracy to stir
up a rebellion. Some of the men who took
part in this received death sentences.
John Brown was ordered to be hanged,
and it was carried out on December 2,
1859.
The Election of 1860
• The northern and southern democrats could not
agree on a candidate, so the party split in two.
Northern Democrats chose Stephen Douglas
and Southern Democrats chose John C.
Breckinridge.
• A new political party formed called the
Constitutional Union Party. It recognized “ no
political principles other than the Constitution of
the country, the Union of the states, and the
enforcement of the laws.” They chose John Bell
as their candidate.
The Election of 1860 cont.
• The Republicans leading candidate was William
Seward, but they worried his strong antislavery
views would make him a poor choice. So they
chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate.
Lincoln promised he would not try to abolish
slavery where it already existed. Lincoln won the
race, despite getting less than 40% of the
popular vote. The southerners were very angry
because he didn’t win a single southern state,
but he was still elected president.
Breaking With the Union
• Southerners believed Lincoln would move
to abolish slavery and destroy the South’s
economy and society. Lincoln insisted he
wouldn’t, but he did say that slavery did
have to end at some point in the future.
This concerned the southerners. On
December 17, 1860, delegates met to
consider secession, or withdrawing from
the Union. After 3 days of speeches, all
the delegates voted to secede.
Breaking With the Union cont.
• Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky
proposed a series of Constitutional amendments
to satisfy the South. One would extend the line
created by the Missouri Compromise to the
Pacific coast. It would allow slavery in all
territories south of the line. Another would use
federal money to pay slaveholders who could
not recover their fugitive slaves in the North.
Lincoln did not agree with this plan, and he
asked Congress to vote against Crittenden’s
plan. Every Republican on the committee
rejected it.
The Confederate States of America
• Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected
president of the Confederate States of America.
Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia was the vice
president. Davis opposed secession up to 1860,
but he did believe the states had the right to
secede. His loyalty to the South outweighed his
hopes for peace. With his military background,
Davis hoped to be appointed general in
command of Mississippi’s troops. He did not
seek the presidency of the Confederacy.