Chapter 14 Section 1 Growing Tensions Over Slavery Objectives Explain why conflict arose over the issue of slavery in the territories after the Mexican-

Chapter 14 Section 1

Growing Tensions Over Slavery

Objectives

• Explain why conflict arose over the issue of slavery in the territories after the Mexican-American War.

• Identify the goal of the Free-Soil Party.

• Describe the compromise Henry Clay proposed to settle the issues that divided the North and the South.



Terms and People

• popular sovereignty – policy having people in the territory or state vote directly on issues rather than having elected officials decide

• secede – to withdraw

• fugitives – enslaved people who have run away

• Henry Clay – Kentucky senator who worked on the Missouri Compromise



Terms and People (continued)

• John C. Calhoun – South Carolina senator who opposed the Missouri Compromise

• Daniel Webster – Massachusetts senator who called for an end to the bitter sectionalism



How did the question of admission of new states to the Union fuel the debate over slavery and states’ rights?The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily quieted the differences between the North and South.

However, new territory added as a result of America’s victory in the Mexican-American War renewed the conflict.



From 1820 to 1848, the balance of power between North and South held: 15 free states and 15 slave states.

The tie could be broken by new territory gained in the Mexican-American War.



Even before the Mexican-American War had ended, politicians argued over what to do.

Still, it angered Southerners, who viewed the bill as an attack on slavery by the North.

The Wilmot Proviso

Representative David Wilmot from

Pennsylvania proposed a ban on

slavery in all Mexican Cession

territories.

The bill passed in the House but not in the Senate.



In the 1848 election, many Democrats and Whigs were disappointed with their party’s stand on slavery.

Antislavery Democrats and Whigs formed a new political party.

The Free-Soil Party chose Martin Van Buren as its candidate.

Free-Soil Party

The party called for the territory from the

Mexican-American War to be “free soil.”



Critics called Free-Soil Party members “barnburners.”

They accused them of burning the barn (the Democratic Party) to get rid of proslavery “rats.”



He wanted to let the people in each state or territory decide whether to allow slavery.

Democratic candidate Lewis Cass of Michigan suggested a solution that he hoped everyone would like.

popular sovereignty

The Free-Soil Party took votes away from Senator Cass.



Party Candidate Policy

Democratic Party

Senator Lewis Cass popular sovereignty

Free-Soil Party

Martin Van Buren slavery banned

Whig Party General Zachary Taylor

no stated policy

Presidential Election of 1848

Zachary Taylor won the election.



North and South also clashed over California, which was ready to become a state.

Southerners feared losing power.

They threatened to secede from the nation if California was made a free state.

Northerners argued that California should be a free state because most of its territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise.



North and South also disagreed over other issues related to slavery.

Southerners called for a law that would force

the return of fugitives.

Northerners wanted the slave trade abolished in Washington,

D.C.

Months passed, and no solution was reached.



In 1850, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky made a series of proposals to resolve this conflict.

The Senate’s discussion of Clay’s proposals produced one of the greatest debates in American history.



John C. Calhoun Daniel Webster

The U.S. needed to amend the constitution.

Otherwise, the South should secede.

The U.S. should end sectionalism and adopt

the compromise.

John C. Calhoun spoke against the compromise, and Daniel Webster spoke for it.



With the territories acquired by the Mexican-American war, the nation could no longer overlook the slavery issue.

At first, Clay’s compromise seemed to work for both sides.

However, the compromise soon fell apart.



Section Review

Know It, Show It QuizQuickTake Quiz



Please describe 3 of the 5 parts the compromise of 1850?



• Summarize the main points of the Compromise of 1850.

• Describe the impact of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

• Explain how the Kansas-Nebraska Act reopened the issue of slavery in the territories.

• Describe the effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Objectives:



• Harriet Beecher Stowe – daughter of an abolitionist minister and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• propaganda – false or misleading information that is spread to further a cause

• Stephen Douglas – Illinois senator who pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854

• John Brown – antislavery settler from Connecticut who led an attack on a proslavery settlement

Terms and People:



What was the Compromise of 1850, and why did it fail?

Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, a series of laws meant to solve the controversy over slavery.

The bitterness between the North and South caused all attempts at compromise to fail.



The Compromise of 1850 included five laws that addressed issues related to slavery.



Some of the new laws pleased the North, and others pleased the South.

To Please the North

• California admitted to the Union as a free state

• Slave trade banned in Washington, D.C.

To Please the South

• Popular sovereignty used to decide slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession

• Tough new fugitive slave law

President Fillmore signed the compromise into law.



Suspects had no rights to a trial.

Northern citizens were required to help capture accused runaways.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed officials to arrest anyone accused of being a runaway slave.



An Indiana man was separated from his wife

and children when a slave owner claimed he had escaped 19 years

ago.

A wealthy tailor was seized, but his friends in New York quickly raised

money to free him.

Slave catchers would seize fugitives even after many years had passed since their escape.



Senator Calhoun hoped that it would force northerners to admit that slaveholders had rights to their property.

Instead, it convinced more northerners

that slavery was evil.

The Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial part of the Compromise of 1850.

Northerners began to resist the law.



Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter of an abolitionist minister, was deeply affected by the Fugitive Slave Law.

In 1853, Stowe published the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, about an enslaved man who is abused by his cruel owner.



Stowe’s novel provoked strong reactions from people on both sides of the slavery issue.

Many northerners were shocked and began to

view slavery as a serious moral

problem rather than a political

issue.

Many white southerners said

it was propaganda,

misleading information meant to further a cause.



Southerners refused to admit the territories because they lay above the Missouri Compromise line.

The debate over slavery continued with the Kansas and Nebraska territories.

In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas helped pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

Allowed the people in the territories to decide the slavery issue by popular

sovereignty.



The act undid the Missouri Compromise.



Northerners were outraged.

They felt Douglas had betrayed them into allowing more slave states.

North and South were divided over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Southerners supported the act.

They hoped the new territories would become slave states.

Nevertheless, the act was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce.



Thousands of proslavery and antislavery settlers immediately poured into Kansas.

Each side wanted to hold a majority in the vote on slavery.

Kansas soon had two governments, one antislavery and one proslavery.



The violence was so bad that it earned Kansas the name Bleeding Kansas.

Violence broke out.

Bands of fighters began roaming the territory, terrorizing those who did not support their views.



The violence in Kansas spread over into the United States Senate.

Abolitionist Charles Sumner spoke out against proslavery

Senator Andrew Butler.

By 1856, all attempts at compromise had failed.

Butler’s nephew beat Sumner unconscious in the Senate chamber.




Section Review



• Explain why the Republican Party came into existence in the 1850s.

• Summarize the issues involved in the Dred Scott decision.

• Identify Abraham Lincoln’s and Stephen Douglas’s views on slavery.

• Describe the differing reactions in the North and the South to John Brown’s raid.

Objectives



Key People

• Dred Scott − a slave seeking emancipation

• Roger B. Taney − the Chief Justice who ruled in Scott’s case

• Abraham Lincoln − elected President in 1860



Why did tensions between the North and South grow stronger after the Lincoln-Douglas debates and John Brown’s raid?

In the late 1850s, political debates and court decisions highlighted the nation’s clashing views on slavery.

These events caused growing tension between the North and South.



In 1854, the Whig Party split apart. Many northern Whigs formed a new party: the Republican Party.

The Republican Party’s main goal was to stop the spread of slavery into the western territories.



The Republicans quickly became a powerful force in politics.

A Republican first ran for President in 1856.

RepublicanJohn C. Frémont

Democrat James

Buchanan

Buchanan won, but Frémont carried 11 of the nation’s free states.



In 1857, a slave named Dred Scott sued for his freedom.

Scott had lived with his owner in two places where slavery was illegal.

Soon after Buchanan took office, the U.S. Supreme Court made a landmark decision.

He argued that this meant he was a free man.



Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the decision in the Scott case.

Dred Scott Decision

• Scott could not sue because he was a slave and, therefore, not a U.S. citizen.

• Living in a free state did not make Scott free.

• Slaves are property protected by the U.S. Constitution.



Southerners rejoiced because slavery was now legal in all territories.

Both northerners and southerners were shocked by the court’s decision.

Northerners had hoped slavery would die out.

They now feared it would spread throughout the West.

Justice Taney also ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory.



Many leaders spoke out against the ruling.

• Frederick Douglass hoped the outrage against the decision would fuel the abolition movement.

• Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, argued against the idea that African Americans could not be citizens.



Lincoln had served one term in Congress but had returned to practicing law.

Now, his opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act drew him back to the world of politics.

In 1858, Lincoln ran for Senate against his rival Stephen Douglas.

He joined the Republican party.



Lincoln and Douglas engaged in a series of debates, which were followed throughout the country.

Douglas’s view Lincoln’s view

• Individual states should decide whether or not to continue the practice of slavery.

• Lincoln wants equality for African Americans.

• Slavery is wrong and it should not spread to the western territories.

• African Americans are entitled to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.



• Two years later, the two men would be rivals for the presidency.

• However, the debates helped Lincoln become a national figure.

Douglas won the election.



In 1859, John Brown raised a group of followers to help him free slaves in the South.

They attacked the town of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.

They seized guns and planned to start a slave revolt.

Brown was wounded and captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee.

Ten of Brown’s followers were killed.



Brown was found guilty of murder and treason, and he was hanged in 1859.

Before Brown was sentenced, he gave a passionate defense of his actions.

The Bible instructed him to care for the poor and enslaved.

He was willing to give up his life to follow those instructions.



Northerners praised Brown’s attempt to lead a slave revolt.

They mourned his death.

Northerners and Southerners reacted differently to Brown’s sentence.



Southerners saw Brown as proof that the North was out to destroy their way of life.



The continuing tensions over slavery drove the North and the South into talks of breaking up the United States.

The crisis over slavery deepened as the country approached the 1860 presidential election.

Could a new president bring the country back together?



Section Review




• Describe the results of the election of 1860.

• Explain why southern states seceded from the Union.

• Summarize the events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Objectives:



Key Term

• civil war – a war between opposing groups of the same country



Why did the election of Abraham Lincoln spark the secession of southern states?

Abraham Lincoln took a stand against slavery in his debates against Douglas. In 1860, Lincoln was elected President.

Southerners felt they no longer had a voice in the national government. Some southern states seceded.



Democrats became divided over whether to support slavery in the territories.

Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas.

Stephen Douglas desperately sought to appease southern voters.

However, southerners often jeered at him during his campaign speeches.

Southern Democrats chose Vice President John Breckinridge.



In total, four candidates ran for president in 1860.

Republicans Abraham Lincoln criticized slavery

Northern Democrats

Stephen Douglas favored individual states deciding on slavery

Southern Democrats

John Breckinridge supported slavery in the territories

Constitutional Union Party

John Bell promised to protect slavery and keep nation together



The outcome of the election showed just how fragmented the nation had become:

Lincoln won in every free state.

Breckinridge won most of the slave states.

Bell won three states in the upper South.

Douglas won Missouri.



Abraham Lincoln received enough electoral votes to win the election.



Southerners felt that the President and Congress were now set against their interests—especially slavery.



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

Frustrated southern states formed the Confederate States of America.

Six other southern states followed.



Some moderate southerners did not want to secede, but their voices were overwhelmed.

By March, the Confederacy had adopted a constitution.

Former Senator Jefferson Davis was named president.



When President Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, the nation faced the greatest crisis in its history.

Lincoln told the seceded states he would not “interfere… with slavery where it exists.”

The Confederate states responded by taking over federal property within their borders.

Lincoln encouraged the Confederacy to return to the union.



Already, an urgent struggle had begun.

The commander at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, had refused to surrender to the Confederates.

The Confederates tried to starve the troops into surrendering.

Lincoln did not send troops because he did not want other states to secede.

He planned to send food on ships without guns.



On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter.

The U.S. troops surrendered.

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



By 1861, many people in the North and South believed that war was unavoidable.

However, Americans were unprepared for the terrible war that would last for the next four years.



Section Review


Chapter 14 Section 1 Growing Tensions Over Slavery Objectives Explain why conflict arose over the issue of slavery in the territories after the Mexican-

Documents

growing tensions

slavery terms

slavery critics

slavery objectives

issue of slavery

missouri compromise

mexican american war

mexicanamerican war