The Road to the American Civil War Early attempts at containing slavery A Series of Compromises Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Incidents of Suspicions.

The Road to the American Civil War

Early attempts at containing slavery

A Series of Compromises

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Incidents of Suspicions

Early Attempts of Containment

• 1808 the slave trade is no longer allowed in the United States

• Missouri Compromise of 1820 divides the nation at the 36 30’ parallel

• Slavery is prohibited above the line while slavery is allowed below the line

The Wilmot Proviso• During the Mexican War,

Pennsylvanian Congressman David Wilmot proposes an amendment called the Wilmot Proviso

• In 1848 the Wilmot Proviso attempted to prohibit the expansion of slavery into territory acquired from the Mexican War

• The proviso does not pass

The Wilmot Proviso

• John Calhoun will propose laws that state Congress has no right to prohibit slavery in any part of the U.S.

• Southerners like Calhoun would like the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into other areas

The Compromise of 1850

• Kentucky Congressmen who seeks to keep the Union together through compromises

• Henry Clay, “The Great Compromiser” suggested a compromise

• He had assisted with the Compromise of 1820

• John Calhoun will be against the compromise and argues against

The Compromise of 1850

1. California is a free state2. The slave trade is

abolished in Washington D.C.

3. New Mexico and Utah will decide if they want slavery or not

4. Texas gives up its land claims in New Mexico for payment of their debts

5. Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

The Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

• The Fugitive Act allows southerners to recover escaped slaves in the North

• Blacks in the North panic and move to Canada and Abolitionist stop the enforcement of the Act and make its enforcement very difficult

• Southerners are outraged at its limited enforcement

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) a novel that becomes a national best seller because it reveals the ugliness of slavery

• Northerners are shocked by the novel’s stories of slavery whereas Southerners are angered by the “lies” about the south

Enter Stephen Douglas

• Congressman who based his politics on expansion and popular sovereignty

• Popular sovereignty• He opposes expansion of

slavery but he does not admit that it is evil

• Douglas argues that slavery cannot expand in the southwest (climate)

Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)

• Douglas desires a railroad through Nebraska Territory but southern congressmen are against it

• Southerners want the railroad in the south to benefit them

• A railroad in the north would not benefit the south but the north and Douglas

Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)

Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)

• To pass his idea Douglas divides the Nebraska Territory into Nebraska and Kansas

• He also repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820 ban on keeping slavery below the 36 30’ line

• Popular sovereignty will decide if states will be either slave or free

The Rise of the “Know- Nothings”

• Come from all parts of the nation

• They are anti-immigrant, anti-catholic, dislike Blacks, and support slavery

The Republican Party

• All members are located from the north

• They want to keep slavery from expanding into near the west

• They fear slavery will replace free white labor because slaves are not paid

Bleeding Kansas, 1855

• Voters will decide if Kansas will be a free or slave state

• Abolitionists and proslavery supporters rush to occupy Kansas

• Proslavery supporters elect a proslavery legislature in Lecompton

Bleeding Kansas, 1855

• Abolitionists elect their own anti-slavery legislature in Topeka

• Angered abolitionist John Brown and his sons will hack 5 proslavery men in front of their families at Pottawattomie Creek Kansas

Bleeding Kansas

Brooks Sumner Incident • Senator Charles Sumner

demands that Kansas be a free state and personally insulted Stephen Douglas and South Carolinian Senator on the floor of the capital

• Congressman Preston Brooks beats Sumner with his cane for the insult leveled at his uncle

Brooks Sumner Incident

• After the beating Brooks receives hundreds of canes so he may bash northerners again

• Preston Brooks becomes a southern national hero

• Northerners are shocked and have evidence of southern brutality

Dred Scott Decision, March 1857

• Dred Scott was a slave who moved from a Missouri a slave state to free states Illinois and Wisconsin

• In 1846 Scott sues for his freedom because he know lives in free states

• 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that slaves are not citizens

Dred Scott Decision, March 1857

• The court also rules that the Missouri Compromise cannot infringe a slave owners rights to take his property where ever he chooses

• The north is convinced that the south is attempting to spread slavery

Enter Abraham Lincoln

• Illinois congressmen and successful lawyer

• He opposes the expansion of slavery into new territories like Kansas and Nebraska

• Lincoln takes the moral high ground against slavery and he attacks the slave system

The Lincoln and Douglas Debates

• Both are against the expansion of slavery

• Both argue that it will not survive in the west

• Both do not want to use the government to end slavery

• Lincoln comes out of the debates looking like an abolitionist

John Brown’s Raid October 1859

• John Brown hopes to lead a slave revolt at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

• Slaves do not rush to join and he is captured and hung

• Northerners look at him as a hero and southerners worry that more like Brown are coming to the south

The Election of 1860

• Lincoln is elected as the 17th president of the U.S. in 1860

• Southerners fearing Lincoln is going to end slavery secede from the United States

• Lincoln has no plans to deal with the slave issue as the south believes

The Confederate States of America

• Southern states before Lincoln takes office secede from the Union

• On December 20, 1860- South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas leave the Union

• They become the Confederate States of America

Fort Sumter, April 1861

• After the southern states secede from the Union

• South Carolina demands that Union property be surrendered to the south

• Lincoln refuses to allow Fort Sumter to surrender

• Confederate forces fire on fort and eventually force its surrender