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� Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe� Published in 1853

� Following the passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Act

� She lived in Cincinnati, OH� Home was part on a trail of

the Underground Railroad

� Wrote the book based on case histories of escaped slaves

� Persuaded more people, particularly northerners, to become anti-slavery

KansasKansasKansasKansas----Nebraska Act Nebraska Act Nebraska Act Nebraska Act Passed

� Proposed by Stephen Douglas Act to organize

the Nebraska Territory

� Split into 2 territories, Kansas

and Nebraska

� Popular sovereignty to decide the issue of

slavery

� People in the states would

vote

� Used to get southern support

to pass the bill

Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)

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Bleeding KansasBleeding KansasBleeding KansasBleeding Kansas� Proslavery and Antislavery

supporters flooded Kansas to vote for a territorial legislature� March 1855

� Many Missouri slaveholders crossed the border to vote illegally in the election� Only 1,500 eligible voters lived in

Kansas, but 6,000 vote

� Creates a proslavery Legislature

� Resulted in a series of fights between proslavery and antislavery forces

Bleeding Kansas

� Extreme abolitionist John Brown led antislavery forces in raids of proslavery settlement, killing 5 people

� Known as Pottawatomie Massacre

� Sparked 3 years of civil war in Kansas that resulted in

many deaths and political turmoil

Violence Spreads to Congress

• Senator Charles Sumner (MA) gave a speech in

the Senate attacking

proslavery forces in Kansas and their

supporters in congress

○ Insulted A.P. Butler, a

senator from S.C.

� Preston Brooks a

representative and relative of Butler,

retaliated by beating Sumner over the head

as he sat at his desk

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The Rise A New PartyA New PartyA New PartyA New Party� The Act caused a rift in

the Whig party over the issue of slavery

� Some Southern Whigs joined Democratic Party while Northern Whigs helped form the Republican Party

� Democrats blamed for the violence in Kansas� The rise of the Republicans

was bolstered by Bleeding Kansas

A small school house in Ripon, Wisconsin, where thirty anti-slavery Whigs met and agreed to call for a

new political party which became the Republican Party

Who made up the Republican Party?

� Northern Whigs who were leaderless following the

deaths of Henry Clay and

Daniel Webster, both in 1852

� The Free-Soil Party, which

had played a spoiler role in

several presidential elections, was bereft of effective

leadership

� The Know-Nothing

movement, whose roots lay in

the fear of immigrants

� Many Northern Democrats

who deserted their party over the slavery issue.

Jackson, Michigan, site of a

meeting of antislavery supporters

in July 1856 “Under the Oaks”

Issues that Unite the Issues that Unite the Issues that Unite the Issues that Unite the Republican PartyRepublican PartyRepublican PartyRepublican Party

� Repeal of the Act and halt the expansion of slavery� Republican opposition to the

extension of slavery was based more on economic concerns than moral ones

� The construction of the transcontinental railroad

� Support of a Homestead Act� Ease the process for settlers to

own western lands

� High protective tariffs and liberal immigration law� Attractive to Northern

manufacturers

Site of the first Republican Party Convention, Lafayette Hall, Pittsburgh, Pa.1 Condemned KS-NE Act

& slavery expansion

Called

Republicans extremists

Election of 1856

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Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)

� Dred Scott was a slave who lived in Missouri (a

slave state)

� His owner moved to free

territory and took Scott and his wife.

� They returned to

Missouri where Scott’s

owner died

� He sued for his freedom based on having lived in

free territory

Harriet and Dred Scott

Roger Taney,

Chief Justice

of the U.S.

Supreme Court

Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)

� Case heard before Surpreme Court

� Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled against

Scott.

� Dred Scott was not a U.S. Citizen and thus could

not sue in U.S. Courts

� Scott was bound by

Missouri Slave code

� Congress had no right to

ban slavery in territories

� Slavery effectively now

protected by law

� (18 March 1857)

We publish to-day, at length, the decision of the Supreme

Court of the United States, delivered by Chief Justice

Taney, in the Dred Scott case.

The black Republicans of the North, and their allies in the

South, may lament again and again the passage of the

Nebraska-Kansas act, and the repeal of the Missouri restriction; but the whole question has been settled by the

highest judicial tribunal in the country, and from this

decision there can be no appeal.

Abolitionism has been stunned, faction and treason in

both sections of the Union have been rebuked, and the

Constitution has been restored. This decision concedes to the Southern people all they have ever asked -- the

Constitution. If true to themselves, they will never take any

thing less.

� (10 March 1857)

Judge Taney requests the American people to believe that the

framers of the Constitution did not know their own minds. For the same Statesmen who drew up the Constitution, (which he says

forbids Congress to prohibit Slavery in the Territories,) adopted the

Ordinance of '87, which prohibited it in all the Territories we then

had. The Ordinance was passed in July, 1787 -- the Constitution

was framed in September of the same year.

The same States and the same men ratified both. And one of the

first acts of the first Congress under the Constitution was to reaffirm the Ordinance, and to again prohibit Slavery! Which are

the best interpreters of the Constitution, the opinions of Mr. Chief

Justice Taney, or the ACTS of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton,

Monroe, Adams, and Washington? They created the Constitution,

and the Constitution created Chief Justice Taney -- the clay which

now affects to despise the skill of the Potter.