Growing Northern Opposition to Slavery

Objectives Analyze why the Fugitive Slave Act increased tensions between the North and South. Assess how the Kansas-Nebraska Act was seen differently by the North and South. Explain why fighting broke out in Kansas and the effects of that conflict.

Terms and People personal liberty laws – laws passed in the North that nullified the Fugitive Slave Act Underground Railroad – a secret network of people who helped slaves escape the South Harriet Tubman – a woman who led slaves into freedom through the Underground Railroad Harriet Beecher Stowe – wrote a best-selling novel that condemned slavery

Terms and People (continued) Kansas-Nebraska Act – divided Nebraska region into two territories, giving voters in each area the right to decide whether or not to allow slavery John Brown – a New York abolitionist who used violence “Bleeding Kansas”– term used to describe Kansas, where there was violence between proslavery and antislavery supporters

How did the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act increase tensions between the North and the South? The Compromise of 1850 resolved the slavery issues only for a short time. The slavery issue turned violent with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

By the mid-1800s, the issue of slavery was a national issue in which every American - North, South, and West, had an opinion.

The Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, required all citizens to catch and return runaway slaves.

Some Northern states passed personal liberty laws. These laws: nullified the Fugitive Slave Act. enabled state officials to arrest slave catchers for kidnapping free African Americans. increased northern white support of abolitionism. Some Northern states passed personal liberty laws. These laws:

Free blacks and Northern abolitionists organized an escape network called the Underground Railroad. The map shows the routes “conductors” used to lead enslaved blacks to freedom.

A fugitive slave from Maryland, Harriet Tubman, was called the “Black Moses” because she led so many people to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

-It increased Northern opposition to slavery Popular novels condemned slavery, gaining northern support for abolition and infuriating the South. White abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin that gave readers compassion for the nonviolent enslaved Tom. -It increased Northern opposition to slavery -It also influenced British public opinion Black abolitionist Martin Delany wrote Blake in which the enslaved Blake chooses to rebel violently against slavery.

Tensions greatly increased between the North and the South as: African Americans increased their resistance. the abolitionist movement grew stronger in the North and West. the question of whether a new territory should become a slave or free state arose again.

The legislation divided Nebraska territory into two separate areas. Residents of both Kansas and Nebraska voted to allow or outlaw slavery. Congress assumed Kansas would become a slave state and Nebraska a free state. Northerners and Southerners went to Kansas to influence the vote. Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted in the spring of 1854.

Pro-slavery Southern Border Ruffians from Missouri attacked the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas. Northern abolitionist John Brown responded by killing five pro-slavery settlers. Both sides armed and readied for battle. Passage of the Act set off violence between Northerners and Southerners.

Beecher’s Bibles “He (Henry W. Beecher, an abolitionist preacher) believed that the Sharps Rifle was a truly moral agency, and that there was more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred Bibles. You might just as well. . . read the Bible to Buffaloes as to those fellows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow; but they have a supreme respect for the logic that is embodied in Sharp's rifle.” New York Tribune on February 8, 1856

Describing the violence in Kansas, reporters called the territory “Bleeding Kansas.”

The dispute over Kansas: The South wanted Kansas to be a slave state. The North wanted Kansas to be a free state. Two competing governments were set up, one supporting slavery and one opposed to it. In 1861, after the Civil War started, Kansas joined the Union as a free state.

-1856 Violence over the slavery issue broke out in the U.S. Senate. Southern Representative Preston Brooks badly beat Northern Senator Charles Sumner. The national tension over slavery grew wider and deeper, with violence spreading even to Congress.