1. Objectives
Explain why conflict arose over the issue of slavery in the territories after the Mexican- American War.
Identify the goal of the Free-Soil Party.
Describe the compromise Henry Clay proposed to settle the issues that divided the North and the South.

2. Terms and People
popular sovereignty – policy having people in the territory or state vote directly on issues rather than having elected officials decide
secede – to withdraw
fugitives – enslaved people who have run away
Henry Clay – Kentucky senator who worked on the Missouri Compromise

3. Terms and People (continued)
John C. Calhoun – South Carolina senator who opposed the Missouri Compromise
Daniel Webster – Massachusetts senator who called for an end to the bitter sectionalism

4. How did the question of admission of new states to the Union fuel the debate over slavery and states’ rights?
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily quieted the differences between the North and South.
However, new territory added as a result of America’s victory in the Mexican-American War renewed the conflict.

5. From 1820 to 1848, the balance of power between North and South held: 15 free states and 15 slave states.
The tie could be broken by new territory gained in the Mexican-American War. 5

6. Even before the Mexican-American War had ended, politicians argued over what to do.
The Wilmot Proviso
Representative David Wilmot from Pennsylvania proposed a ban on slavery in all Mexican Cession territories.
The bill passed in the House but not in the Senate.
Still, it angered Southerners, who viewed the bill as an attack on slavery by the North.

7. In the 1848 election, many Democrats and Whigs were disappointed with their party’s stand on slavery.
Free-Soil Party
The party called for the territory from the Mexican-American War to be “free soil.”
Antislavery Democrats and Whigs formed a new political party.
The Free-Soil Party chose Martin Van Buren as its candidate.

8. Critics called Free-Soil Party members “barnburners.”
They accused them of burning the barn (the Democratic Party) to get rid of proslavery “rats.”

9. Democratic candidate Lewis Cass of Michigan suggested a solution that he hoped everyone would like.
popular sovereignty
He wanted to let the people in each state or territory decide whether to allow slavery.
The Free-Soil Party took votes away from Senator Cass.

10. Presidential Election of 1848
Party
Candidate
Policy
Democratic Party
Senator Lewis Cass
popular sovereignty
Free-Soil Party
Martin Van Buren
slavery banned
Whig Party
General Zachary Taylor
no stated policy
Zachary Taylor won the election. 10

11. North and South also clashed over California, which was ready to become a state.
Northerners argued that California should be a free state because most of its territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise.
Southerners feared losing power.
They threatened to secede from the nation if California was made a free state.

12. North and South also disagreed over other issues related to slavery.
Northerners wanted the slave trade abolished in Washington, D.C.
Southerners called for a law that would force the return of fugitives.
Months passed, and no solution was reached.

13. In 1850, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky made a series of proposals to resolve this conflict.
The Senate’s discussion of Clay’s proposals produced one of the greatest debates in American history.

14. The U.S. should end sectionalism and adopt the compromise.
John C. Calhoun spoke against the compromise, and Daniel Webster spoke for it.
John C. Calhoun
Daniel Webster
The U.S. needed to amend the constitution. Otherwise, the South should secede.
The U.S. should end sectionalism and adopt the compromise. 14

15. With the territories acquired by the Mexican-American war, the nation could no longer overlook the slavery issue.
At first, Clay’s compromise seemed to work for both sides.
However, the compromise soon fell apart.

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17. Please describe 3 of the 5 parts
the compromise of 1850?

18. Objectives: Summarize the main points of the Compromise of 1850.
Describe the impact of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Explain how the Kansas-Nebraska Act reopened the issue of slavery in the territories.
Describe the effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

19. Terms and People:
Harriet Beecher Stowe – daughter of an abolitionist minister and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
propaganda – false or misleading information that is spread to further a cause
Stephen Douglas – Illinois senator who pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854
John Brown – antislavery settler from Connecticut who led an attack on a proslavery settlement

20. What was the Compromise of 1850, and why did it fail?
Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, a series of laws meant to solve the controversy over slavery.
The bitterness between the North and South caused all attempts at compromise to fail.

21. The Compromise of 1850 included five laws that addressed issues related to slavery.

22. President Fillmore signed the compromise into law.
Some of the new laws pleased the North, and others pleased the South.
To Please the North
California admitted to the Union as a free state
Slave trade banned in Washington, D.C.
To Please the South
Popular sovereignty used to decide slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession
Tough new fugitive slave law

23. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed officials to arrest anyone accused of being a runaway slave.
Suspects had no rights to a trial.
Northern citizens were required to help capture accused runaways.

24. Slave catchers would seize fugitives even after many years had passed since their escape.
An Indiana man was separated from his wife and children when a slave owner claimed he had escaped 19 years ago.
A wealthy tailor was seized, but his friends in New York quickly raised money to free him. 24

25. Instead, it convinced more northerners that slavery was evil.
The Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial part of the Compromise of 1850.
Senator Calhoun hoped that it would force northerners to admit that slaveholders had rights to their property.
Instead, it convinced more northerners that slavery was evil.
Northerners began to resist the law. 25

26. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter of an abolitionist minister, was deeply affected by the Fugitive Slave Law.
In 1853, Stowe published the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, about an enslaved man who is abused by his cruel owner.

27. Stowe’s novel provoked strong reactions from people on both sides of the slavery issue.
Many northerners were shocked and began to view slavery as a serious moral problem rather than a political issue.
Many white southerners said it was propaganda, misleading information meant to further a cause.

28. The Kansas- Nebraska Act
The debate over slavery continued with the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
Southerners refused to admit the territories because they lay above the Missouri Compromise line.
The Kansas- Nebraska Act
Allowed the people in the territories to decide the slavery issue by popular sovereignty.
In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas helped pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

29. The act undid the Missouri Compromise.

30. North and South were divided over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Southerners supported the act.
They hoped the new territories would become slave states.
Northerners were outraged.
They felt Douglas had betrayed them into allowing more slave states.
Nevertheless, the act was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. 30

31. Thousands of proslavery and antislavery settlers immediately poured into Kansas.
Each side wanted to hold a majority in the vote on slavery.
Kansas soon had two governments, one antislavery and one proslavery.

32. Violence broke out.
Bands of fighters began roaming the territory, terrorizing those who did not support their views.
The violence was so bad that it earned Kansas the name Bleeding Kansas.

33. Butler’s nephew beat Sumner unconscious in the Senate chamber.
The violence in Kansas spread over into the United States Senate.
Abolitionist Charles Sumner spoke out against proslavery Senator Andrew Butler.
Butler’s nephew beat Sumner unconscious in the Senate chamber.
By 1856, all attempts at compromise had failed.

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35. Objectives
Explain why the Republican Party came into existence in the 1850s.
Summarize the issues involved in the Dred Scott decision.
Identify Abraham Lincoln’s and Stephen Douglas’s views on slavery.
Describe the differing reactions in the North and the South to John Brown’s raid.

36. Key People Dred Scott − a slave seeking emancipation
Roger B. Taney − the Chief Justice who ruled in Scott’s case
Abraham Lincoln − elected President in 1860

37. Why did tensions between the North and South grow stronger after the Lincoln-Douglas debates and John Brown’s raid?
In the late 1850s, political debates and court decisions highlighted the nation’s clashing views on slavery.
These events caused growing tension between the North and South.

38. In 1854, the Whig Party split apart
In 1854, the Whig Party split apart. Many northern Whigs formed a new party: the Republican Party.
The Republican Party’s main goal was to stop the spread of slavery into the western territories.

39. Democrat James Buchanan
The Republicans quickly became a powerful force in politics.
A Republican first ran for President in 1856.
Republican
John C. Frémont
Democrat James Buchanan
Buchanan won, but Frémont carried 11 of the nation’s free states.

40. Soon after Buchanan took office, the U. S
Soon after Buchanan took office, the U.S. Supreme Court made a landmark decision.
In 1857, a slave named Dred Scott sued for his freedom.
Scott had lived with his owner in two places where slavery was illegal.
He argued that this meant he was a free man.

41. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the decision in the Scott case.
Dred Scott Decision
Scott could not sue because he was a slave and, therefore, not a U.S. citizen.
Living in a free state did not make Scott free.
Slaves are property protected by the U.S. Constitution.

42. Justice Taney also ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory.
Both northerners and southerners were shocked by the court’s decision.
Southerners rejoiced because slavery was now legal in all territories.
Northerners had hoped slavery would die out.
They now feared it would spread throughout the West.

43. Many leaders spoke out against the ruling.
Frederick Douglass hoped the outrage against the decision would fuel the abolition movement.
Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, argued against the idea that African Americans could not be citizens.

44. Lincoln had served one term in Congress but had returned to practicing law.
Now, his opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act drew him back to the world of politics.
He joined the Republican party.
In 1858, Lincoln ran for Senate against his rival Stephen Douglas.

45. Douglas’s view Lincoln’s view
Lincoln and Douglas engaged in a series of debates, which were followed throughout the country.
Douglas’s view
Lincoln’s view
Individual states should decide whether or not to continue the practice of slavery.
Lincoln wants equality for African Americans.
Slavery is wrong and it should not spread to the western territories.
African Americans are entitled to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

46. Douglas won the election.
However, the debates helped Lincoln become a national figure.
Two years later, the two men would be rivals for the presidency.

47. In 1859, John Brown raised a group of followers to help him free slaves in the South.
They attacked the town of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
They seized guns and planned to start a slave revolt.
Brown was wounded and captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee.
Ten of Brown’s followers were killed.

48. The Bible instructed him to care for the poor and enslaved.
Before Brown was sentenced, he gave a passionate defense of his actions.
The Bible instructed him to care for the poor and enslaved.
He was willing to give up his life to follow those instructions.
Brown was found guilty of murder and treason, and he was hanged in 1859.

49. Northerners and Southerners reacted differently to Brown’s sentence.
Northerners praised Brown’s attempt to lead a slave revolt.
They mourned his death.

50. Southerners saw Brown as proof that the North was out to destroy their way of life.

51. Could a new president bring the country back together?
The continuing tensions over slavery drove the North and the South into talks of breaking up the United States.
Could a new president bring the country back together?
The crisis over slavery deepened as the country approached the 1860 presidential election.

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53. Objectives: Describe the results of the election of 1860.
Explain why southern states seceded from the Union.
Summarize the events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War.

54. Key Term
civil war – a war between opposing groups of the same country

55. Why did the election of Abraham Lincoln spark the secession of southern states?
Abraham Lincoln took a stand against slavery in his debates against Douglas. In 1860, Lincoln was elected President.
Southerners felt they no longer had a voice in the national government. Some southern states seceded.

56. Democrats became divided over whether to support slavery in the territories.
Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas.
Southern Democrats chose Vice President John Breckinridge.
Stephen Douglas desperately sought to appease southern voters.
However, southerners often jeered at him during his campaign speeches.

57. In total, four candidates ran for president in 1860.
Republicans
Abraham Lincoln
criticized slavery
Northern Democrats
Stephen Douglas
favored individual states deciding on slavery
Southern Democrats
John Breckinridge
supported slavery in the territories
Constitutional Union Party
John Bell
promised to protect slavery and keep nation together

58. The outcome of the election showed just how fragmented the nation had become:
Lincoln won in every free state.
Breckinridge won most of the slave states.
Bell won three states in the upper South.
Douglas won Missouri.

59. Abraham Lincoln received enough electoral votes to win the election.

60. Southerners felt that the President and Congress were now set against their interests—especially slavery.

61. Frustrated southern states formed the Confederate States of America.
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union.
Six other southern states followed.

62. Some moderate southerners did not want to secede, but their voices were overwhelmed.
By March, the Confederacy had adopted a constitution.
Former Senator Jefferson Davis was named president.

63. When President Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, the nation faced the greatest crisis in its history.
Lincoln told the seceded states he would not “interfere… with slavery where it exists.”
Lincoln encouraged the Confederacy to return to the union.
The Confederate states responded by taking over federal property within their borders.

64. Already, an urgent struggle had begun.
The commander at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, had refused to surrender to the Confederates.
The Confederates tried to starve the troops into surrendering.
Lincoln did not send troops because he did not want other states to secede.
He planned to send food on ships without guns.

65. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter.
The U.S. troops surrendered.
The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter marked the beginning of a long civil war.

66. By 1861, many people in the North and South believed that war was unavoidable.
However, Americans were unprepared for the terrible war that would last for the next four years.

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