Chapter 10The Nation Divided

Christina Burk

Section 1

Growing Tensions Over Slavery

Slavery and the Mexican-American War

• Four new slaveholding states and four new free states were admitted to the Union.

• This maintained the balance, with 15 of each.

• Territory gained from the Mexican-American War threatened to destroy the balance.

The Wilmot Proviso

• Fearing that the South would gain too much power, Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed that Congress ban slavery in all territory that might become part of the U.S. as a result of the war.

• It was passed in the House, but failed in the Senate.

• Supporters of slavery viewed this as an attack on slavery by the North.

An Antislavery Party

• The controversy over the Wilmot Proviso led to the rise of a new political party.

• Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, suggested popular sovereignty.

• Antislavery Whigs and Democrats joined together and formed the Free-Soil Party. Slavery would be banned in the land gained from the war. Their candidate was former Democratic President, Martin Van Buren.

• General Zachary Taylor, a Whig and a hero of the Mexican-American war was elected.

A Bitter Debate• If California entered as a free state, the South

threatened that they would secede from the Union.

• Henry Clay stepped up with a plan.• Calhoun was against Clay’s compromise. He

thought that the admission of California as a free state would continue the attack on slavery. He argued that there were only two ways to preserve the South’s way of life- a constitutional amendment to protect states’ rights, or secession.

• Webster supported Clay’s proposals.

Section 2

Compromises Fail

The Compromise of 1850

• Congress finally passed five bills based on Clay’s proposals.

• President Zachary Taylor had opposed the Compromise.

• However, when he died, the new president, Millard Fillmore, supported the compromise and signed it into law.

To Please the North

• California was admitted to the Union as a free state.

• The slave trade was banned in the nation’s capital.

To Please the South

• Popular sovereignty would be used to decide the question of slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession.

• In return for agreeing to outlaw the slave trade in Washington, D.C., southerners got a tough new fugitive slave law.

• Special government officials would arrest any person accused of being a runway slave, and they would have no right to trial.

• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 also required northerners to help capture runaways.

Outrage in the North

• Many northerners swore they wild resist the hated new law.

• Thousands of northern African Americas fled to the safety of Canada, including many who had never been enslaved.

• Calhoun hoped that this law would force northerners to admit that slaveholders had rights to their property.

• Instead, it convinced northerners that slavery was evil.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book to make the whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery was.

• The book was about an enslaved man who was abused by his cruel owner.

• The book shocked thousands that were previously unconcerned with slavery.

• Many southerners viewed it as propaganda.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Stephen Douglas suggested forming two new territories- the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory.

• Southerners objected because, according to the Missouri Compromise, both would enter the Union as free states.

• Douglas undid the Missouri Compromise when he proposed that slavery in the new territory would be decided by popular sovereignty.

Reaction

• Southerners now supported the Act.

• Northerners were outraged, and believed that Douglas betrayed them.

• Southern support allowed the Act to pass in both houses of Congress.

• President Franklin Pierce then signed the bill into law.

Bleeding Kansas

• Thousands of Missourians entered Kansas to illegally vote in the election to select a territorial legislature.

• Kansas only had 3,000 voters, yet 8,000 votes were cast in the election.

• The antislavery settlers refused to accept these results and held a second election.

Growing Violence

• Kansas now had two governments, and violence soon broke out.

• John Brown, an antislavery settler, led seven men to a proslavery settlement and murdered five men and boys.

• Bands of proslavery and antislavery fighters roamed the countryside, terrorizing those who did not support their views.

• This violence was so bad it earned Kansas the name Bleeding Kansas.

Bloodshed in the Senate

• Charles Sumner made a speech, and attacked his southern foes, singling out Andrew Butler.

• Butler’s nephew, Preston Brooks, marched into the senate chamber. Using a heavy cane, he beat Sumner until he fell to the floor.

• He never completely recovered.

Section 3

The Crisis Deepens

A New Antislavery Party

• Many northern Whigs joined the newly formed Republican Party. Its main goal was to stop the spread of slavery in the western territories.

• The Republican Party ran its first candidate for president- John C. Fremont.

• Democrat James Buchanan was elected.

The Dred Scott Decision

• Dred Scott was an enslaved person who had once been owned by a U.S. Army doctor.

• They lived for a time in Illinois and in the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was illegal.

• With the help of antislavery lawyers, Scott sued for his freedom.

• He argued that he was free because he had lived where slavery was illegal.

The Court’s Decision

• Chief Justice Roger B. Taney decided for the Court.

• He said Scott was not a free man because he had no right to sue in a federal court since African Americans were not citizens, and he was considered property, and property rights were protected by the U.S. Constitution.

• Taney wrote that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory, thus the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

Reaction

• Supporters of slavery rejoiced at the Dred Scott decision- slavery was legal in all territories.

• Northerners were stunned. Many had thought that slavery would eventually die out, but now slavery could spread throughout the West.

• A northern lawyer, Abraham Lincoln spoke out against the Dred Scott decision.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• Lincoln only had a brief career in politics, when soon he returned to Illinois to practice law.

• Lincoln’s opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act brought him back into politics, embracing the Republican cause.

• He had long been a rival of Stephen Douglas.

A House Divided

• Illinois Republicans chose Lincoln to run for the senate against Douglas.

• Lincoln did not state that he wanted to ban slavery, but still many southerners were convinced that Lincoln was an abolitionist.

Debating Slavery• Lincoln then challenged Douglas to a series of public

debates.• Douglas defended popular sovereignty. He painted

Lincoln as a dangerous abolitionist who wanted equality for African Americans.

• Lincoln stated that he was not in favor of the black race to be socially and politically equal to the white race. He thought there was no reason why the Negro is not entitled to all the rights in the Declaration of Independence- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

• Douglas won the senate election, but the two would soon be rivals again for presidency.

John Brown’s Raid

• John Brown hatched a plot in New England to raise an army and free people in the South who were enslaved.

• Brown and a small band of supporters attacked the town of Harpers Ferry in Virginia. His goal was to seize guns the U.S. Army had stored there.

• He thought enslaved African American would support him. He would give them weapons and lead them in a revolt.

Result

• Brown quickly gained control of the arms, but was surrounded.

• Brown was found guilty for murder and treason.

• While he was hanged, church bells across the North tolled to mourn the man who many considered a hero.

• Southerners were shocked and convinced that the North was out to destroy their way of life.

Section 4

The Coming of the Civil War

Election of 1860• The Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln as their presidential

candidate.• Northern Democrats chose Stephen Douglas as their

candidate, and Southern Democrats picked VP John Breckinridge.

• Some southerners formed the Constitutional Union Party, and nominated John Bell. He promised to protect slavery and keep the nation together.

• Stephen Douglas urged southern voters to stay in the Union, no matter who was elected.

• This election showed how fragmented the nation had become.• Lincoln received enough electoral votes to win the election.

Southern States Secede

• To many southerners, it seemed they not longer had a voice in the national government.

• South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union.

The Confederate States of America

• Six more states followed South Carolina out of the Union.

• Andrew Johnson and Sam Houston were among southerners who opposed secession.

• By the time Lincoln took office, the Confederate States of America wrote their own constitution, and named Jefferson Davis as their president.

The Civil War Begins

• In Lincoln’s inaugural address, he assured the southern states that he meant no harm.

• He was not going to interfere with slavery where it already existed.

• Lincoln’s assurance of friendship was rejected.

• The seceding states took over federal property within their borders.

Fort Sumter

• Fort Sumter, Lincoln’s most urgent problem, was located on an island in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

• South Carolina authorities starved the fort’s troops into surrender.

• Lincoln sent food to the fort, but to avoid war, he did not send troops or guns.

• Confederate leaders decided to capture the fort while it was isolated. They opened fire, and after 34 hours, U.S. troops surrendered.

Why War Came

• The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter marked the beginning of a long civil war.

**NOTE**The Missouri Compromise

• In 1820, Senator Henry Clay persuaded Congress to adopt the Missouri Compromise.

• Maine would enter as a free state, and Missouri would enter as a slave state, keeping the senate balanced.

• The compromise provided that the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri would be free of slavery.

• The compromise gave southern slave owners a clear right to pursue escaped fugitives into “free” regions and return them to slavery.

• (This compromise was passed before this chapter).