SECTIONALISM

The Union in Crisis

Slavery Divides the Nation

Northern Views on Slavery African Americans inferior in North Many Northerners were never exposed to slavery

Southern Views on Slavery Integral part of their economy Claimed slaves were healthier than Northern wage

laborers

Politics About Slavery

Wilmot-Proviso Ban slavery in land acquired from Mexico

Free-Soil Party Supports the Wilmot-Proviso

Popular Sovereignty Allow the people in the state to vote whether it should

be slave or free

Compromise Over Slavery

John C. Calhoun – Southerner supports slavery

Daniel Webster – Northerner who opposes slavery

Henry Clay – Representative of the west

Compromise of 1850 – California was admitted as a free state and popular sovereignty was applied to land acquired from Mexico

Fugitive Slave Act

Northerners were required to return a fugitive slave to their owner – helping a fugitive slave would result in fines and/or jail time

Personal liberty laws in the North went against the Fugitive Slave Act

Northern Abolition

Underground Railroad – Harriet Tubman

Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin in which Northerners learned the horrors of slavery

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Nullifies the Missouri Compromise which entered Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state

The Kansas-Nebraska Act created potential for slavery in Kansas and Nebraska territories by allowing popular sovereignty

Violence Over Slavery

“Bleeding Kansas” Violence erupts over popular sovereignty John Brown – abolitionist fighting against slavery Proves popular sovereignty will not work

“The Caning of Charles Sumner” Preston Brooks beats Sumner over his remarks over

slavery and the South

Political Realignment

The Whig Party vanishes due to Millard Fillmore supporting California as a free state

Know-Nothing Party – Nativist groupRepublican Party is born supporting

opposition to slavery Democrats win election of 1856 – James

Buchanan

Dred Scott

Dred Scott claims he is a free man based on living in the Illinois/Wisconsin territory with his slave owner

Roger Taney and the Supreme Court rule that a slave is property and have no rights as a citizen to be heard or to appeal to a court

Dred Scott loses – The Southerners celebrate – Northerners are fearful about the slavery issue

The Rise of Abe Lincoln

Lincoln/Douglas Debates – Set Abe Lincoln on the national stage as a honest, moral, well-educated person who opposed the Dred Scott decision

Harpers Ferry

John Brown raids and seizes an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia

John Brown and his men get captured and Brown gets executed

Brown’s execution creates a divide between North and South – North see him as a martyr and the South see him as a villian

Lincoln, Secession, and War

Republicans nominate Abe Lincoln for President

Lincoln wins the election of 1860 – did not receive one electoral vote from the South

A growing political divide occurs between North and South

Southerners were outraged a person could be elected President without a single southern electoral vote

Secession

Southern states start seceding from the Union

South Carolina is the first state to secedeThe Confederate States of America is started

President Jefferson DavisA final compromise fails – Crittenden

Compromise

WAR!

Lincoln takes action – sends food relief to Fort Sumter

Northerners were attacked at Fort Sumter Surprise attack

Fort Sumter falls to the Confederacy Other states secede including Virginia, Arkansas,

Tennessee, and North Carolina The Confederacy quickly draws in volunteer militia

Both North and South made themselves ready for what they thought would be a short war