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Chapter 10
The Nation Divided
Christina Burk
Section 1
Growing Tensions Over Slavery
Slavery and the MexicanAmerican War
• Four new slaveholding states and four
new free states were admitted to the
Union.
• This maintained the balance, with 15 of
each.
• Territory gained from the MexicanAmerican War threatened to destroy the
balance.
The Wilmot Proviso
• Fearing that the South would gain too much
power, Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed that
Congress ban slavery in all territory that
might become part of the U.S. as a result of
the war.
• It was passed in the House, but failed in the
Senate.
• Supporters of slavery viewed this as an attack
on slavery by the North.
An Antislavery Party
• The controversy over the Wilmot Proviso led
to the rise of a new political party.
• Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass,
suggested popular sovereignty.
• Antislavery Whigs and Democrats joined
together and formed the Free-Soil Party.
Slavery would be banned in the land gained
from the war. Their candidate was former
Democratic President, Martin Van Buren.
• General Zachary Taylor, a Whig and a hero of
the Mexican-American war was elected.
A Bitter Debate
• If California entered as a free state, the South
threatened that they would secede from the
Union.
• Henry Clay stepped up with a plan.
• Calhoun was against Clay’s compromise. He
thought that the admission of California as a
free state would continue the attack on
slavery. He argued that there were only two
ways to preserve the South’s way of life- a
constitutional amendment to protect states’
rights, or secession.
• Webster supported Clay’s proposals.
Section 2
Compromises Fail
The Compromise of 1850
• Congress finally passed five bills based
on Clay’s proposals.
• President Zachary Taylor had opposed
the Compromise.
• However, when he died, the new
president, Millard Fillmore, supported
the compromise and signed it into law.
To Please the North
• California was admitted to the Union as
a free state.
• The slave trade was banned in the
nation’s capital.
To Please the South
• Popular sovereignty would be used to decide
the question of slavery in the rest of the
Mexican Cession.
• In return for agreeing to outlaw the slave
trade in Washington, D.C., southerners got a
tough new fugitive slave law.
• Special government officials would arrest any
person accused of being a runway slave, and
they would have no right to trial.
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 also required
northerners to help capture runaways.
Outrage in the North
• Many northerners swore they wild resist the
hated new law.
• Thousands of northern African Americas fled
to the safety of Canada, including many who
had never been enslaved.
• Calhoun hoped that this law would force
northerners to admit that slaveholders had
rights to their property.
• Instead, it convinced northerners that slavery
was evil.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book to
make the whole nation feel what an accursed
thing slavery was.
• The book was about an enslaved man who
was abused by his cruel owner.
• The book shocked thousands that were
previously unconcerned with slavery.
• Many southerners viewed it as propaganda.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Stephen Douglas suggested forming two new
territories- the Kansas Territory and the
Nebraska Territory.
• Southerners objected because, according to
the Missouri Compromise, both would enter
the Union as free states.
• Douglas undid the Missouri Compromise
when he proposed that slavery in the new
territory would be decided by popular
sovereignty.
Reaction
• Southerners now supported the Act.
• Northerners were outraged, and
believed that Douglas betrayed them.
• Southern support allowed the Act to
pass in both houses of Congress.
• President Franklin Pierce then signed
the bill into law.
Bleeding Kansas
• Thousands of Missourians entered
Kansas to illegally vote in the election to
select a territorial legislature.
• Kansas only had 3,000 voters, yet 8,000
votes were cast in the election.
• The antislavery settlers refused to
accept these results and held a second
election.
Growing Violence
• Kansas now had two governments, and
violence soon broke out.
• John Brown, an antislavery settler, led seven
men to a proslavery settlement and murdered
five men and boys.
• Bands of proslavery and antislavery fighters
roamed the countryside, terrorizing those who
did not support their views.
• This violence was so bad it earned Kansas
the name Bleeding Kansas.
Bloodshed in the Senate
• Charles Sumner made a speech, and
attacked his southern foes, singling out
Andrew Butler.
• Butler’s nephew, Preston Brooks,
marched into the senate chamber.
Using a heavy cane, he beat Sumner
until he fell to the floor.
• He never completely recovered.
Section 3
The Crisis Deepens
A New Antislavery Party
• Many northern Whigs joined the newly
formed Republican Party. Its main goal was to
stop the spread of slavery in the western
territories.
• The Republican Party ran its first candidate
for president- John C. Fremont.
• Democrat James Buchanan was elected.
The Dred Scott Decision
• Dred Scott was an enslaved person who had
once been owned by a U.S. Army doctor.
• They lived for a time in Illinois and in the
Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was illegal.
• With the help of antislavery lawyers, Scott
sued for his freedom.
• He argued that he was free because he had
lived where slavery was illegal.
The Court’s Decision
• Chief Justice Roger B. Taney decided for the
Court.
• He said Scott was not a free man because he
had no right to sue in a federal court since
African Americans were not citizens, and he
was considered property, and property rights
were protected by the U.S. Constitution.
• Taney wrote that Congress did not have the
power to prohibit slavery in any territory, thus
the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional.
Reaction
• Supporters of slavery rejoiced at the Dred
Scott decision- slavery was legal in all
territories.
• Northerners were stunned. Many had thought
that slavery would eventually die out, but now
slavery could spread throughout the West.
• A northern lawyer, Abraham Lincoln spoke
out against the Dred Scott decision.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• Lincoln only had a brief career in politics,
when soon he returned to Illinois to practice
law.
• Lincoln’s opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska
Act brought him back into politics, embracing
the Republican cause.
• He had long been a rival of Stephen Douglas.
A House Divided
• Illinois Republicans chose Lincoln to run
for the senate against Douglas.
• Lincoln did not state that he wanted to
ban slavery, but still many southerners
were convinced that Lincoln was an
abolitionist.
Debating Slavery
• Lincoln then challenged Douglas to a series
of public debates.
• Douglas defended popular sovereignty. He
painted Lincoln as a dangerous abolitionist
who wanted equality for African Americans.
• Lincoln stated that he was not in favor of the
black race to be socially and politically equal
to the white race. He thought there was no
reason why the Negro is not entitled to all the
rights in the Declaration of Independencelife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• Douglas won the senate election, but the two
would soon be rivals again for presidency.
John Brown’s Raid
• John Brown hatched a plot in New England to
raise an army and free people in the South
who were enslaved.
• Brown and a small band of supporters
attacked the town of Harpers Ferry in Virginia.
His goal was to seize guns the U.S. Army had
stored there.
• He thought enslaved African American would
support him. He would give them weapons
and lead them in a revolt.
Result
• Brown quickly gained control of the arms, but
was surrounded.
• Brown was found guilty for murder and
treason.
• While he was hanged, church bells across
the North tolled to mourn the man who many
considered a hero.
• Southerners were shocked and convinced
that the North was out to destroy their way of
life.
Section 4
The Coming of the Civil War
Election of 1860
• The Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln as their
presidential candidate.
• Northern Democrats chose Stephen Douglas as
their candidate, and Southern Democrats picked
VP John Breckinridge.
• Some southerners formed the Constitutional Union
Party, and nominated John Bell. He promised to
protect slavery and keep the nation together.
• Stephen Douglas urged southern voters to stay in
the Union, no matter who was elected.
• This election showed how fragmented the nation
had become.
• Lincoln received enough electoral votes to win the
election.
Southern States Secede
• To many southerners, it seemed they
not longer had a voice in the national
government.
• South Carolina was the first state to
secede from the Union.
The Confederate States of
America
• Six more states followed South Carolina out
of the Union.
• Andrew Johnson and Sam Houston were
among southerners who opposed secession.
• By the time Lincoln took office, the
Confederate States of America wrote their
own constitution, and named Jefferson Davis
as their president.
The Civil War Begins
• In Lincoln’s inaugural address, he assured
the southern states that he meant no harm.
• He was not going to interfere with slavery
where it already existed.
• Lincoln’s assurance of friendship was
rejected.
• The seceding states took over federal
property within their borders.
Fort Sumter
• Fort Sumter, Lincoln’s most urgent problem,
was located on an island in the harbor of
Charleston, South Carolina.
• South Carolina authorities starved the fort’s
troops into surrender.
• Lincoln sent food to the fort, but to avoid war,
he did not send troops or guns.
• Confederate leaders decided to capture the
fort while it was isolated. They opened fire,
and after 34 hours, U.S. troops surrendered.
Why War Came
• The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter
marked the beginning of a long civil war.
**NOTE**
The Missouri Compromise
• In 1820, Senator Henry Clay persuaded Congress
to adopt the Missouri Compromise.
• Maine would enter as a free state, and Missouri
would enter as a slave state, keeping the senate
balanced.
• The compromise provided that the Louisiana
Territory north of the southern border of Missouri
would be free of slavery.
• The compromise gave southern slave owners a
clear right to pursue escaped fugitives into “free”
regions and return them to slavery.
• (This compromise was passed before this chapter).