1. SECTIONALISM INTENSIFIES CHAPTER 6

2. THE MEXICAN CESSION
In the War with Mexico, the US received a huge grant of land.
This new land presented the Congress with a huge problem.
The Louisiana Purchase had been mostly above the Missouri Compromise line, so the territories that became states would be mostly free states
The territories of the Mexican Cession would mostly be slave states.
This caused sectional tensions to increase.

3. The Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War known as the Mexican Cession.
Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Proviso in the House of Representatives on August 8, 1846.
It passed the House but failed in the Senate, where the South had greater representation
It was reintroduced in February 1847 and again passed the House and failed in the Senate.
John C. Calhoun argued against the Proviso because he said that the territories were owned by all the states and that should be able to enter any state, including slaves. Calhoun said that the Congress had no right to ban slavery in any of the territories.
What it did was to unleash all the passions of the slavery and anti-slavery supporters.

4. POPULAR SOVEREINGTY
A doctrine under which the status of slavery in the territories was to be determined by the settlers themselves.
Although the doctrine won wide support as a means of avoiding sectional conflict over the slavery issue, its meaning remained ambiguous.
First proposed in 1847 by Lewis Cass in his 1848 presidential campaign
the doctrine was incorporated in the Compromise of 1850 and four years later was an important feature of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Stephen A. Douglas was principal promoter of the doctrine.
Stephen Douglas called it "popular sovereignty," but proslavery Southerners, who wanted slavery extended into the territories, contemptuously called it "squatter sovereignty."

5. THE FREE SOIL PARTY
The conflict over the issue of slavery in the territories led to the creation of a new political party, the Free Soil Party.
Anti-slavery Democrats and northern Whigs made up most of the party.
They believed that slavery should not be allowed in the territories. They did not say it was morally wrong, but instead said that it was an economic issue.
The Free Soilers opposed the use of slaves on farms because it put free white men out of a job.

6. CALIFORNIA GOLD STRIKE SUTTER’S MILL
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, California.
News of the discovery brought some 300,000 people rushing to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.
The early gold-seekers, called "Forty-niners" (as a reference to 1849) traveled to California by sailing boat and in covered wagons across the continent
While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China.

7. COMPROMISE OF 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was an intricate package of five bills, passed on September 4, 1850, it was passed to avoid the sectional conflict that arose from territorial expansion with the Texas Annexation (December 29, 1845) and the following Mexican-American War (1846–1848).
It avoided secession or civil war at the time and quieted sectional conflict for four years until the divisive Kansas–Nebraska Act.
The Provisions of the Compromise of 1850 were:
Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico
The Wilmot Proviso was thrown out.
the South was promised the possibility of slave states by popular sovereignty in the new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory.
a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, which in practice outraged Northern public opinion. The law called for ordinary citizens to turn in runaway slaves or face imprisonment themselves. The Fugitive slave act probably caused more damage than good for the south.
the slave trade was banned in Washington D.C.
Senator Henry Clay designed the compromise, which failed to pass in early 1850.
In the next session of Congress, Senator Stephen Douglas and Senator Daniel Webster narrowly passed a slightly modified package

8. UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause.
Both Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were important “conductors” on the Underground Railroad.

9. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
Stowe’s main goal with Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to convince her large Northern readership of the necessity of ending slavery.
Most immediately, the novel served as a response to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which made it illegal to give aid or assistance to a runaway slave.
Stowe created an exposé that revealed the horrors of Southern slavery to people in the North.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in episodes in the National Era in 1851 and 1852, then published in its entirety on March 20, 1852.
It sold 10,000 copies in its first week and 300,000 by the end of the year, astronomical numbers for the mid-nineteenth century.
Many historians have credited the novel with being a major factor in the outbreak of the Civil War.

10. KANSAS NEBRASKA ACT
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
Repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820
It allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries.
The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to create opportunities for a Mideastern Transcontinental Railroad. It became problematic when popular sovereignty was written into the proposal. The act was designed by Democratic Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.
The act established that settlers could vote to decide whether to allow slavery, in the name of popular sovereignty.
Opponents of the act denounced it as a concession to the slave power of the South.
The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the North.

11. BLEEDING KANSAS
Pro-slavery settlers came to Kansas mainly from neighboring Missouri.
Resident Missourians who crossed into Kansas solely for the purpose of voting for slavery. They formed groups and were dubbed border ruffians,
Abolitionist settlers, known as "Jayhawkers" moved from the East with express purpose of making Kansas a free state. A clash between the opposing sides was inevitable.
Successive territorial governors, usually sympathetic to slavery, attempted unsuccessfully to maintain the peace. The territorial capital of Lecompton, Kansas, the target of much agitation, became such a hostile environment for Free-Staters that they set up their own unofficial legislature at Topeka.
John Brown and his sons gained notoriety in the fight against slavery by brutally murdering five pro-slavery farmers in the Pottawatomie Massacre with a broadsword. Brown also helped defend a few dozen Free-State supporters from several hundred angry pro-slavery supporters at the town of Osawatomie.
Hostilities between the factions reached a state of low-intensity civil war, which was damaging to Pres. Pierce. "Bleeding Kansas“ caused the formation of the Republican Party. Routine ballot-rigging and intimidation practiced by both pro- and anti-slavery settlers failed to deter the immigration of anti-slavery settlers, who won a demographic victory in the race to populate the state.

12. The Know Nothings
The Know Nothing movement was a nativist American political movement of the 1840s and 1850s.
It was created by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants
Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, it tried to curb immigration and naturalization, though unsuccessfully.
Membership was limited to Protestant males of British lineage over the age of twenty-one.
There were few prominent leaders. They were mainly middle-class and entirely Protestant. Most ended up joining the Republican Party

13. DRED SCOTT 1857
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) commonly referred to as The Dred Scott Decision, was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens.
It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. This effectively rendered the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.
Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.

14. THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION 1857
The Lecompton Constitution was a proposed constitutions for the state of Kansas
It was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates.
The territorial legislature, consisting mostly of slave-owners, met at the capital of Lecompton in September 1857.
This new constitution enforced slavery in the Kansas and protected the rights of slaveholders..
President Buchanan endorsed the Lecompton Constitution before Congress.
On 4 January 1858, Kansas voters, having the opportunity to reject the constitution altogether in the referendum, overwhelmingly rejected the Lecompton proposal
In Washington, the Lecompton constitution was defeated by the House of Representatives.
Though soundly defeated, debate over the proposed constitution had ripped apart the Democratic party, paving the way for Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860.

15. LINCOLN AND SLAVERY
Lincoln expected to bring about the eventual extinction of slavery by stopping its further expansion into any U.S. territory, and by offering compensated emancipation
Lincoln stood by the Republican Party platform in 1860, which stated that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any more territories.
Most Americans agreed that if all future states admitted to the Union were to be free states, that slavery would eventually be abolished.
Lincoln believed that the slavery that existed in the Southern states was guaranteed constitutionally and could not be outlawed. But he did say that the slavery in the South could not be exported to the West.

16. JOHN BROWN AND HARPER’S FERRY 1859
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859.
Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee.
John Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman to join him when he attacked the armory, but on the night of the raid she was ill, and therefore did not show up.
The raid was seen by most Southerners as being an attempt to kill them and saw Brown as a danger.
Northern abolitionists thought that Brown was a martyr on the level of Christ.

17. THE ELECTION OF 1860 (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT) ABRAHAM LINCOLN – REPUBLICAN PARTY STEPHEN DOUGLAS – NORTHERN DEMOCRATIC PARTY JOHN C. BELL – CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PARTY JOHN C. BRECKENRIDGE – SOUTHERN DEMOCRATIC PARTY

18. ELECTION OF 1860
The presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War.
The nation had been divided throughout most of the 1850s on questions of states' rights and slavery in the territories.
In 1860 this issue finally came to a head, fracturing the formerly dominant Democratic Party into Southern and Northern factions.
This split the Democratic vote and brought Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power without the support of a single Southern state.
Hardly more than a month following Lincoln's victory came declarations of secession by South Carolina and other states

19. CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE
The Crittenden Compromise (December 18, 1860) was an unsuccessful proposal by Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden to resolve the U.S. secession crisis of 1860–1861.
There were many unpopular features of the compromise that led to its failure. It guaranteed the permanent existence of slavery in the slave states and addressed Southern demands in regard to fugitive slaves and slavery in the District of Columbia. But the heart of the compromise was the permanent reestablishment of the Missouri Compromise line

20. CONFEDERACY 1861
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven southern slave states of the United States that had declared their secession from the U.S.
Asserting that states had a right to secede, seven states declared their independence from the United States before the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President on March 4, 1861
four more states seceded after the Civil War began at the Battle of Fort Sumter (April 1861).
The Union regarded secession as illegal and refused to recognize the Confederacy.

21. JEFFERSON DAVIS
Jefferson Davis was elected the first (and only) president of the Confederacy
The Southern leaders met in Montgomery, Alabama, to write their constitution. Much of the Confederate States Constitution replicated the United States Constitution verbatim, but it contained several explicit protections of the institution of slavery, though it maintained the existing ban on international slave-trading.
In certain areas, the Confederate Constitution gave greater powers to the states than the U.S. Constitution of the time did, but in other areas, the states actually lost rights they had under the U.S. Constitution.
the Confederate version prohibited the central government from using revenues collected in one state for funding internal improvements in another state.

22. BORDER STATES
border states refers to the five slave states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia, which bordered a free state and were aligned with the Union.
Though every slave state (except South Carolina) contributed some white troops to the Union as well as the Confederate side,the split was most severe in these border states, with men from the same family often fighting on opposite sides.
Had Maryland also joined the Confederacy, Washington DC would have been totally surrounded.