The issue of slavery was tearing apart the nation. To keep the Union together, Congress had created a series of compromises.

•The issue of slavery was tearing apart the nation.

• To keep the Union together, Congress had created a series of compromises.

Missouri Compromise 1820The Missouri Compromise of 1820 maintained a balance between slave and free states.

Maine was a free state and Missouri a slave state…set pattern by admitting one free and one slave state at a time

A Line was drawn (36-30 degrees) to end any future debate over slavery…..…at least they thought

• Daniel Webster (Mass) debated that the people, not the states make up the federal government. “Liberty and Union, now and forever”

• Robert Hayne (S.C.) defended state rights and argued “the government is stealing power from the states and adding strength to the Federal government”

• Webster argued that no state had the power to nullify a federal law or to secede from the union…if so we would be “a rope of sand”

The vast land acquired in Manifest Destiny would soon created new problems over the old issue of slavery.

Should the new territories allow slavery or be free? Many Northerners feared the southerners would soon rush into the new territories and bring their slaves.

Manifest Destiny = Problems

•By 1849, California had enough citizens to apply for statehood, but this would disrupt the balance in Congress.

•The debate over state rights and the power of the federal government would arise again

•Henry Clay stepped in to settle the California problem

1. California would be admitted as a free state.

2. The slave trade would be abolished in Washington D.C.

To Please the North

The New Mexico and Utah Territories would be able to decide the issue of slavery by a majority vote. The citizen's would decide whether or not to allow slavery. (popular sovereignty)

To Please the South

• Congress also passed the Fugitive Slave Act. Made it illegal to assist or help runaway slaves. It denied slaves the right to a jury trial. As a result, many free blacks were captured and taking South.

•Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) to portray slavery as brutal and immoral.

•The novel follows the life of a old slave named Uncle Tom. Stowe showed the evils of slavery throughout his life.

•Uncle Tom’s Cabin heightened the conflict between North and South

•President Lincoln is quoted as having declared, "So this is the little lady who made this big war”

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. His justice cannot sleep forever.”

Thomas Jefferson

“I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.”

John Brown

“I can not and WILL not live in a country where my servant and field hand is my equal.”.

Senator Wigfall from Texas

“A house divided against itself can not stand”.

Abraham Lincoln

“If you persist, the Union will be dissolved. You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannot put out, which seas of blood can only extinguish”

Thomas Cobb

14th President of the United States, (1853 to 1857)

Franklin Pierce - Democrat

•The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska.

•Allowed the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery within those territories.

•popular sovereignty=people rule

•The act was created by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.

•The act repealed the 36-30 line of the MissouriCompromise

•Proslavery and antislavery settlers rushed into the Kansas Territory (1855).

•5000 proslavery Missourians came and voted illegally giving legislative power in Kansas to the proslavery group.

• Antislavery settlers boycotted and created their own government.

•A proslavery mob attacked and destroyed Lawrence Kansas, killing antislavery members.

•To avenge the Sack of Lawrence, John Brown (an extreme abolitionist) attacked and murdered several proslavery neighbors.

•Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner gave a speech in Congress attacking proslavery forces in Kansas. He also insulted Senator Butler from South Carolina.

•Preston Brooks (S.C. Congressmen) attacked Sumner on the floor of Congress. He hit him over 30 times with a cane.

•Southerners cheered Brooks, Northerners chanted Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Sumner.