Institution of Slavery Ashley H.

Information Missouri Compromise - The Missouri Compromise was a federal statute in the United States that regulated slavery territories.

-The Compromised, devised by Henry Clay, was agreed to by the pro-slavery and anti- slavery factions in the United States Congress and passed as a law in 1820.

- The Mission Compromise was effectively repealed by the Kansas – Nebraska Act, submitted to Congress by Stephen A. Douglas in January 1854.

- The Act opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission of slave state by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine, through "Popular Sovereignty" whether they would allow slavery within each territory.

- During the following session ( ) the House passed a similar bill with an amendment, introduced on January 26, 1820, by John W. Taylor of New York, allowing Missouri into the union as a slave state.

Wilmot Proviso - The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the American Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future.

- Congressman David Wilmot first introduced the Proviso In the United States House of Representatives on August 8, 1846, as a rider on a $2,000,000 appropriation bill intended for the final negotiations to resolve the Mexican – African War.

- It passed the House but failed in the Senate, where the South had greater representation.

Compromise of The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four – year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican – American War ( )

- The south prevented adoption of the Wilmot Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in the new territories, and the new Utah territory and New Mexico territory were allowed, under the principle of popular sovereignty.

- The Compromise became possible after the sudden death of President Zachary Taylor, who although a slaveowner, had favored excluding slavery for the Southwest.

Fugitive Slave Act of The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 8, 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern Slave – holding interests and Northern Free – Soilers.

- This was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 Compromise, and heightened Northern Fears of a "Slave power conspiracy."

- By 1843, several hundred slaves a year were successfully escaping to the North, making slavery an unstable institution in the border states.

-The earlier Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a Federal Law which was written with the intent to enforce Article 4, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, which required the return of runaway slaves.

Kansas – Nebraska Act - The Kansas – Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine though popular sovereignty.

- The initial purpose of the Kansas – Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad.

-In early 1853 the House of Representatives passed a bill by a 107-to-49 vote that organized the Nebraska Territory in land west of Iowa and Missouri.

- The bill was reported to the main body of the Senate on January 4, 1854.

Dred Scott v. Sandford -Dred Scott v. Sandford was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court held the African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be America Citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court.

- Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories.

- Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia in 1795, little is known of his early years.

Northwest Ordinance - The Northwest Ordinance was an Act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, passed July 13, 1787.

- On August 7, 1789, first President George Washington signed a replacement, the Northwest Ordinance of 1789, in which the new U.S. Congress reaffirmed the ordinance with slight modification under the newly effective Constitution of the United States.

- The ordinance created the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British Canada and the Great Lakes to the North and the Ohio River.