1. Conflict Over Slavery in the 1850s: The Crisis Grows
Essential Question: How did the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act increase tensions between the North and the South?

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

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

4. 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 conflict over the slavery turned violent with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

5. By the mid-1800s, slavery was a national issue
By the mid-1800s, slavery was a national issue. Every American from the North, the South, and the West had an opinion.
Replace with black and white version in Getty #

6. Some Northern states passed personal liberty laws. These laws
The Fugitive Slave Act angered northerners.
The Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, required all citizens to catch and return runaway slaves.
Nullified the Fugitive 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 .

7. Abolitionists took action to save enslaved people- they believed that slavery was morally wrong and wanted to end it.
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.

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

9. Popular novels condemned slavery, gaining northern support for abolition and infuriating the South.
White abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which gave readers compassion for the nonviolent enslaved Tom. The book gave slavery a face of slavery most people had never experienced before. It infuriated Southerners because it make slavery look bad – spread anti-slavery sentiment in the North.
Black abolitionist Martin Delany wrote Blake in which enslaved Blake chooses to rebel violently against slavery.

10. 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 in the Nebraska territory

11. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.
The legislation divided the Nebraska territory into Kansas and Nebraska. Residents of each territory would vote to allow or outlaw slavery.
In effect, it nullified the Missouri Compromise by allowing slavery to spread in areas where it had been banned by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
Congress assumed Kansas would become a slave state and Nebraska a free state.
Northerners and Southerners went to Kansas to influence the vote.

12. The Kansas-Nebraska Act set off violence between proslavery and antislavery forces in Kansas.
Proslavery residents from Missouri, know as Border Ruffians, attacked the antislavery town of Lawrence, starting “Bleeding Kansas” Northern abolitionist John Brown responded by killing five proslavery settlers then tried to seize the arsenal at Harpers Ferry – later executed for this Both sides armed for battle.

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

14. Conflict in Kansas was inevitable
Conflict in Kansas was inevitable. The South wanted Kansas to be a slave state. The North wanted Kansas to be a free state.
In 1861, after the Civil War started, Kansas joined the Union as a free state.

15. The national tension over slavery grew wider and deeper, with violence spreading even to Congress.
Violence over the slavery issue broke out on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Southern Representative Preston Brooks badly beat Northern Senator Charles Sumner with a cane.