1. Topic 5.5 Sectional Conflict: Regional Differences 1844-1860

2. Learning Objective:
Explain how regional differences related to slavery caused tension in the years leading up to the Civil War.

3. Thematic Focus:
Social categories, roles, and practices are created, maintained, challenged, and transformed throughout American history, shaping government policy, economic systems, culture, and the lives of citizens.

4. Differences over Slavery
Perpetualism
Gradualism
Unconditional Termination

5. Abolitionism William Lloyd Garrison Frederick Douglass
American Anti-Slavery Society
The Liberator
“immediate and uncompensated emancipation”
Frederick Douglass
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Sarah Moore Grimke
American Colonization Society
William Lloyd Garrison was the editor of the radical abolitionist newspaper The Liberator and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison’s support of women’s rights later caused the American Anti-Slavery Society to split into rival factions.
Frederick Douglass was the most prominent black abolitionist during the antebellum period. Published in 1845, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass exposed Americans to the horrors and inhumanities of slavery. Although best known as an abolitionist, Douglass championed equal rights for women and Native Americans.
Sarah Moore Grimke was one of the first women to publicly support both abolition and women’s rights.
The American Colonization Society worked to return freed slaves to Liberia on the west coast of Africa.

6. William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator
“Let Southern oppressors tremble...I will be as harsh as Truth and as uncompromising as Justice...I am in earnest—I will not retreat a single inch—and I WILL BE HEARD!”

7. Southern Response to Abolitionists
Biblical Argument
Justified enslavement of “inferior race”
Scientific Argument
Proved the “inferiority” of blacks
Silencing Free Speech
Gag Rule
Southern post offices stopped delivering abolitionist mailings

8. Southern Response to Abolitionists
“Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” Jefferson Davis—President, Confederate States of America

9. Southern Response to Abolitionists
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition [applause]. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” Alexander Stephens—Vice President, Confederate States of America