Union in PerilChapter 10 in The Americans

The Divisive Politics of Slavery

• The fundamental question that divided Americans during the 1850s was whether or not slavery should be allowed in the new territories

Different Economies

• North: Industrial• South: Agricultural• How did both regions

benefit from slavery?

Slavery in the Territories• Wilmot Proviso: proposed no slavery ever in new territories acquired

from the War with Mexico• Did not pass in Congress. • What would have happened to Congressional politics if it had passed?

• California: was ready for statehood much faster than other territories because of gold rush and subsequent population boom• CA would enter as a free state, threatening slave state power in Congress• The south threated to secede: formally withdraw from USA

• Popular Sovereignty: the idea that territories should hold elections so the people can decide if the state will be slave or free (Stephan Douglas)

Compromise of 1850 (Henry Clay)North Gets South Gets

California admitted as a free state No slavery restrictions in Utah or New Mexico territories

Slave trade prohibited in Washington D.C. Slaveholding permitted in Washington D.C.Texas loses boundary dispute with New Mexico

Texas gets $10 million

 South does not secede Fugitive Slave Law

Classwork • Create a 10 tweet strand between the four Senators we played

today discussing the terms of the Compromise of 1850• #hashtagsencouraged

• #Calhoun• #Webster • #Clay• #Douglas

• @JCCoolCalhoun: Sick of Webster and his pro-government rhetoric

The Abolition Movement• Fugitive Slave Act: alleged fugitives were not entitled to 6th

amendment right to trial by jury, right to council, or the right to testify on their own behalf

• Fredrick Douglas: Rochester, NY (July 5, 1852)• Personal Liberty Laws: forbade the imprisonment of runaway

slaves and protected their rights to a trial• Passed in 9 northern states• Lawyers dragged out trials for up to 3-4 years (at the slave catchers

expense)

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

• Harriet Tubman Mini Bio• Underground Railroad: a secret network of people who

would aid fugitive slaves in their escape• Steal Away: Slave Escape Song• Harriet Tubman:

Abolition Movement Picks Up

• Harriet Beecher Stowe: wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel that portrayed slavery as a serious moral issue.

• Harpers Weekly: One of the many publications that portrayed the evils of slavery

Tension in Kansas and Nebraska• Stephen Douglas proposed the Kansas Nebraska Act to Congress in 1854

• He needed to make a deal with the South so they would help him complete a Railroad deal he had been working on

• It divided the Great Plains into 2 territories: Kansas and Nebraska• Popular sovereignty would decided the slavery question in each territory

• Bleeding Kansas: when it was time for the people of Kansas to vote on the issue of slavery, abolitionists from the North and pro-slavery people from the South flooded the territory to vote• Fights between the two groups erupted on the streets of Kansas (led by John Brown)

Bleeding Senate

• Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner gave a speech verbally attacking southern Senators about the evils of slavery, especially SC Senator Andrew Butler

• Butlers nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, walked into the Senate and beat Sumner into unconsciousness with his cane

• Canes sold all over the south and among southern Congressmen with the words “hit him again” etched into them

Birth of the Republican Party• In 1852 the Whigs were split, leaving the Presidency to Democrat Franklin

Pierce• Know-Nothing Party:

• Emerged to challenge Dems• Believed in nativism: more rights and power for native born Americans (ironic)

• Free Soil Party: opposed the extension of slavery into the territories• Americans needed to unify to get success against the Democrats so Whigs,

anti-slavery Democrats, and Free Soilers established the Republican Party in 1854• Horace Greely: one of the founding members of the Republican Party

Election of 1856

Buchanan: DemocratFremont: RepublicanFillmore: Former US President running as a Know-Nothing

Dred Scott Decision• Dred Scott: Slave from Missouri

• His “owner” moved him north to free Illinois and Wisconsin• They moved back to Missouri where his “owner” died• He sued for his freedom because he had lived in free states for

several years

• Roger Taney: Supreme Court Chief Justice who ruled that Scott was still a slave even when he was living in free states• This essentially legalized slavery throughout the whole USA

The Lecompton Constitution• Proslavery men from Kansas wrote a constitution for

statehood that supported slavery even though they were outnumbered 10 to 1 by anti-slavery voters

• Buchanan supported the Constitution because most of his support was from the south

• Stephan Douglas was outraged:• He did not care “whether [slavery] is voted down or voted up]” • He cared about popular sovereignty and that didn’t happen in this

case

Lincoln Douglas Debates

Lincoln• Slavery is immoral• Slavery would never end

without laws against it• Freeport Doctrine: Dred

Scott decision essentially made slavery legal everywhere, regardless of popular sovereignty

Douglas• Popular Sovereignty• Slavery was not immoral,

it just didn’t work well in the plains

• Slavery would end because it would become economically unpractical

Harpers Ferry

• John Brown led a group of abolitionists to raid a weapons arsenal in Harpers Ferry VA• He was the one who started the violence in Bleeding Kansas• He believed God was telling him to fight to end slavery

• He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death• Southerners thought he was treasonous while northerners

believed he was a martyr

Election of 1860• Lincoln was elected

without a majority and the south seceded

• Secession led by South Carolina

• Southern States met and declared themselves the Confederate States of America and voted Jefferson Davis President