Conflict or Compromise? The Events Leading to the Civil War (1820 & 1850-1861)

Conflict or Compromise?The Events Leading to the Civil War

(1820 & 1850-1861)

How do we keep the balance of power and let the South expand it’s territory?

• Admitting new states may shift the balance of power between the number of slave states and free states

• We Either Fight (conflict)or ……. Compromise!

Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise (1820)

• Maine will be admitted as a free state• Missouri will be admitted as a slave

state, but what about the future?...• Slavery is not allowed in any new

western states created above Missouri’s southern border.

Missouri Compromise

Missouri Compromise

Over time (decades) the USA gains more land and gains more issues!

• What area will be free and what will allow slavery when admitted as states?

• How will we keep an equal balance of power between the North and South now?

• TIME TO COMPROMISE . . . AGAIN!

Your Turn!Identify the events!

The Compromise of 1850(Slave states vs Free states again…)

• California – admitted as a free state• Texas – admitted as a slave state• Other territories in the west will vote

on slavery• Sale of slaves abolished in DC• Fugitive Slave Law est. - Escaped

slaves need to be returned

The government and all its citizens were now required to return slave owner’s “property”

Escaped slaves are now the responsibility of the government.

The The Fugitive Fugitive Slave Slave Act!Act!

Compromise

Northern Outrage!

• Even Free Blacks now feared of being forced back into slavery

• Thousands flee to Canada

• Now the Abolitionist movement becomes a powerful force

Uncle Tom’s Cabin1852 Sold 300,000

copies in the first year. 2 million in a decade!

Conflict

Very popular and well-known in USA!

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

HarrietBeecherStowe(1811 – 1896)So this is the lady

who started the Civil War.

-- Abraham Lincoln

…and the Nation is still growing

• The territory that now makes up Kansas and Nebraska are lobbying hard to become states!

• Both are above Missouri’s southern border – so should they be free or slave?

• If they were one or the other – what would that do to the balance of power in the U.S.?

Kansas – Nebraska Act - 1854• “popular sovereignty” to decide free or

slave• Pro-Abolition

and Pro-Slavery forces flood Kansas to sway the vote

BLOODY KANSAS!

Compromise

Bleeding Kansas (John Brown) - 1856

A militant abolitionist who led a few others into a

pro slavery settlement outside

of Lawrence, Kansas. They

hacked five men to death with swords.

Conflict

Kansas Nebraska

Dred Scott - 1857• Slaves are

property!• Slaves (and

former slaves) were not citizens

• Property rights are guaranteed by the Constitution (5th amendment)

Conflict

• Brown returns east from Kansas and plans a war in Virginia against slavery.

• On October 16, 1859, he and 21 other men -- 5 blacks and 16 whites -- raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

John Brown’s RaidConflict

Election of 1860•Birth of the Republican Party

•Who was their first candidate?

•The Republicans win the election without winning any Southern States

•The South sees this as a complete loss of political power in Washington

Union and ConfederacySouth Secedes (SC first 1860)

Newspaper from Charleston, SC

Fort Sumter: April 12, 1861