• California’s admission would disrupt the sectional balance either as a free or slave state.

• Southern “fire-eaters” demanded secession if CA became “free.”

• Aging H. Clay, and D. Webster, championed union while J.C. Calhoun backed “states rights.”

• Clay’s compromise made CA a free state, gave the south the tough fugitive slave law.

• Signed by Pres. Fillmore after the death of Taylor. Coincidence?

Clay argues for the Compromise

(PS)

• Massachusetts's legislature virtually nullified the fugitive slave law by making it a crime to enforce it there.

• Abolitionists were upset at D. Webster for becoming “pro-slavery” in his infamous 7th of March Speech in the Senate.

• “There is no such thing as peaceful succession”- Webster’s warning.

• Calhoun died before the final compromise vote, and Clay and Webster would soon die as well…...

• The Compromise of 1850 began the countdown to the Civil War…….

Free blacks warned of “slave-catchers” (PS)

• Franklin Pierce (Dem.) defeated Winfield Scott(Whig) in 1852.

• The Whigs after fell apart afterwards.

• Many would help form the new Republican party.

• Pierce, from New Hamp., was pro-South and an expansionist Pierce wins in a landslide

• Published in 1853 as a serial, this book was the most effective piece of anti-slavery propaganda

• Queen Victoria of England wept after reading it.

• Southerners attacked Stowe as an “agitator and liar”.Stowe’s book inflamed

already tense relations between the North & South.

• Sponsored by Stephen Douglas (Dem-ILL)

• Open up Kansas and Nebraska to “Popular sovereignty” in part to get southern legislators to support a northern route for the transcontinental RR

• It repealed the Missouri Comp. and 36.30 parallel.

• Pro and anti slavery supporters rushed to Kansas to influence the vote, the pro-slavery folks won in a fraudulent election.

• The stage was set for………...Map showing the affected territories of Kan. + Neb.

• A small scale civil war erupted as two leg were elected, one pro slave, one anti-slave. Gov’t struggles to decide which one is legit.

• The New Eng. Emigrant Aid Society sent “Beecher’s Bibles” or guns to help anti-slavers.

• John Brown and his sons killed 5 pro-slavers at the Pottawatomie Massacre.

• Brooks attach on Sumner brought the violence to the U.S. Congress

Fighting between pro and antislavery forces in Lawrence Kan.

• James Buchanan (Dem.) defeated John C. Fremont(Rep.)

• The new Republican Party was a mix of Whigs and others including abolitionists and Free-Soilers.

• Republicans platform included an anti-extension of slavery.

• Reps lose but realized they didn’t have to carry a single southern state to win the presidency.

“Old Buck” carried the South in 1856

• Slave who was recruited by northern abolitionists to sue for his freedom.

• His master had taken him north for several years to free states, then died.

• Sued for his freedom in Missouri, but he lost at every court level.

• Finally, the Supreme Court of the US ruled declare that blacks were not citizens and therefore could not use the courts to sue for their freedom.

• Slaves were also defined as property just like a horse or dog

Dred Scott (PS)

• Financial panic caused by inflationary pressures from California Gold, over speculation on western land and RR stocks.

• Particularly hard on the North due to industry, while the South was fine thanks to high cotton prices…..

• Business failures, bankruptcies, soup kitchens, unemployment in the North. South believe that their cotton economy was more superior.

• The Senatorial Election of 1858 in Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas would set the political agenda for years…..

• Debated the Kan.-Neb. Act, pop. sovereignty, westward expansion of slavery and slavery in general.

• Douglas’ Freeport Doctrine argued that local communities could deny slavery legally by not protecting it legally…….

• Douglas won the Senate seat, Lincoln began to run for President.

Versus

“Honest Abe” Lincoln The “Little Giant” Douglas

(PS)

• In 1859, John Brown’s scheme to free the slaves by seizing arms at the Federal Armory at Harper’s Ferry VA backfired.

• He was captured and a swift trial found him guilty of treason…...

• He was hung and instantly became the abolitionist’s martyr.

• Southern states fear more Brown’s & responded by building up their militia’s and preparing for conflict…..

John Brown, “the meteor”

(PS)

• Most important in US History.• 4 candidates with the Dem. Party split

into north and south.• Lincoln (Rep.) won without a southern

electorate.• S.C. threatened secession with a

Lincoln victory as the Rep. Party was seen as radical

• SC unanimously voted for secession- to leave the Union

• Many northerners called on “do-nothing” Buchanan to invade S.C. but he didn’t.

• 7 Southern states soon followed 4 candidates split the popular vote while Lincoln clearly won the Electoral College