Chapter 15 - A Nation Divided

Section One - The Debate over Slavery

The Expansion of Slavery

• Debate about slavery in new territories starts again
• Wilmot Proviso - this failed bill in Congress would have probitied slavery in the Mexican Cession
• Sectionalism - belief that one part of the country is more important than the country as a whole
• Popular sovereignty - idea that citizens of a territory vote to decide to be a free or slave area
• Free-Soil Party - support the Wilmot Proviso
• California - wants to come in as a free state; south not happy because it would upset the free/slave state balance

The Compromise of 1850

• California enters Union as a free state
• Utah and New Mexico would decide by popular sovereignty
• Slave trade ends in Washington, D.C.
• Passes the Fugitive Slave Act

The Fugitive Slave Act

• Fugitive Slave Act - made it a federal crime to help runaway slaves (up to six months in jail and $1000 fine)
• Northerners hate the law - no trial by jury and judges get paid more to send blacks into slavery than to say they were free, so some free blacks are sent into slavery

Antislavery Literature

• Abolitionists use stories to help het word out about their cause
• Slave Narratives, like those of Frederick Douglass and Sojouner Truth are effective in getting abolitionists support
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - sold 10 millioon copies in 10 years; hated in the South but creidited with creating many more abolitionists in the North

Section Two - Trouble in Kansas

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas wants to build a railroad from Chicago to California, which would create new free states according to the Missouri Compromise
• South won't support plan unless Missouri Compromise is thrown out and territories can vote on whether or not to have slavery
• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)- divides the rest of Louisiana Purchase into two parts (Kansas and Nebraska) and gave them the right to decide the slavery issue by popular sovereignty
• North is furious and railroad all but forgotton in the anger (not approved by Congress until 1862)

Bleeding Kansas

• Pro- and Anti-slavery groups move to Kansas before the vote
• Many pro-slave Missourians cross the border to vote then went back home
• Pro-slavery vote wins
• Abolitionists say vote was unfair and start own government 25 miles away
• 700 pro-slavery men attack Lawrence, Kansas, an abolitionist town
• Pottawotomie Massacre - John Brown leads abolitionists to kill 5 pro-slavery people; starts a civil war in Kansas
• 200 killed in following months
• Senator Charles Sumner (MA) beaten unconscious with a cane in Senate by Representative Preston Brooks

Section Three - Political Divisions

New Divisions

• Republican Party - opposed slavery in the west

The Dred Scott Decision
• Dred Scott - slave who moved to a free state and continued to be a slave; sued for freedom
• Supreme Court finds Scott, as a black man, cannot bring a court case becasue blacks are not citizens; also, accroding to the Constitution, slaves are property and cannot be taken away (5th Amendment), thus slavery is legal everywhere
• North is very upset

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

• Abraham Lincoln vs. Stephen Douglas for Senate seat from Illinois
• Hold seven debates and slavery is the big issue
• Lincoln says slavery is wrong and says slavery should not be allowed to spread; but that blacks are not equal to whites
• Douglas believes in popular sovereignty
• Douglas wins the election, but Lincoln becomes well known around the country

Section Four - Secession

The Raid on Harper's Ferry

• In 1859, John Brown plans to attack a federal amory in Harper's Ferry, VA and give guns to slaves, who will then kill any whites who get it the way of the slave rebellion
• Brown takes over the arsenal, but few slaves show up, and Brown and followers are captured by marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee

Judging John Brown

• Brown sentenced to be hanged
• North view Brown as a martyr and a hero
• South wants him dead and feels no one in the North can be trusted
• Further tears apart the country
• South again discusses leaving the Union

Election of 1860

• Four candidates - Lincoln (North), Douglas (Popular Sovereignty), John Breckinridge (South), John Bell (Slave owner but against the Kansas-Nebraska Act)
• Lincoln wins with 180 electoral votes to Breckinridge's 72
• South realizes it has little political power

Breaking with the Union

• South fears Lincoln will abolish slavery
• South Carolina decides to leave the United States
• Secede - leave the Union
• Constitution says nothing of secession, so no one was sure if South Carolina was allowed to do this
• South said each state volunteered to be in the Union, so each state can voluntarily leave as well
• Soon NC, GA, FL, AL, MS, AR, LA, and TX all join SC

The Confederate States of America

• Confederate States of America (Confederacy) - new country created by southern states
• Confederacy's Constitution is very similar to the US' but allows for slavery
• Jefferson Davis - elected as President of the Confederacy; control freak and micro-manager