Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854-1861

Chapter 19

The Kansas-Nebraska Act Transcontinental Railroad required land

o Stephen A. Douglas proposed this plan to allow slavery in the new territory in exchange for the railroad being built in the north

Despite outcry and controversy, the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed Nebraska and Kansas to enter the union together, which would seemingly mean that Nebraska would become a free state and Kansas a slave state

This would repeal the Missouri Compromise

Northerners tried to move to Kansas to create an antislavery majority

Pro-slavery Missourians voted illegally in Kansas to elect a pro-slavery legislature while antislavery settlers held a convention and drafted a constitution that excluded slavery

By March 1856 Kansas had 2 governments

Bleeding Kansas… and Senators

• When pro-slavery Missourians attacked anti-slavery settlers and began a territorial civil war, newspapers called it “Bleeding Kansas”

• Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an abolitionist, delivered a speech accusing pro-slavery senators of forcing Kansas into the ranks of slave states and singled out Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina stating that he had “chosen a mistress… the harlot, Slavery.”

• Several days later Butler’s second cousin Representative Preston Brooks approached Sumner at his desk, shouted at him, and beat him with a gold-handled cane leaving Sumner severely injured and bleeding on the floor

Uncle Tom’s Cabin• Harriet Beecher Stowe

wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852 and changed the Northern view of slavery

• Southerners tried to have the novel banned, but were unsuccessful

• The book eventually sold millions of copies and many historians consider it one of the causes of the Civil War

The Southern Argument for

Slavery Southerners believed that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a book of insulting lies

They thought that they treated their slaves well because they depended on them being able to work for their entire lives

Southerners argued that Northerners treated their paid workers much worse because there was such an ample work force that it didn’t matter if one died or was maimed or became ill

Dred Scott Decision Slave from Missouri traveled

with his owner to Illinois & Minnesota both free states.

His master died and Scott wanted to move back to Missouri---Missouri still recognized him as a slave.

He sued his master’s widow for his freedom since he had lived in a free state for a period of time.

Court case went to the Supreme Court for a decision-----National issue

Can a slave sue for his freedom?

Is a slave property? Is slavery legal?

Dred Scott Decision• Supreme Court hands down the

Dred Scott decision

• North refused to enforce Fugitive

Slave Law• Free states pass personal liberty

laws.• Republicans claim the decision is not

binding• Southerners call on the North to accept the decision if the

South is to remain in the Union.

•Slaves cannot sue the U.S. for their freedom

because they are property.

•They are not citizens and have

no legal right under the

Constitution.•Supreme Court legalized slavery by saying that

•Congress could not stop a

slaveowner from moving his slaves to a new territory

•Missouri Compromise and

all other compromises

were unconstitutional

John Brown Violent abolitionist Involved in the Bleeding

Kansas Murdered 5 pro-slavery men in

Kansas Wanted to lead a slave revolt

throughout the South by raising an army of freed slaves and destroying the South

Attacked a U.S. Ammunition depot in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in Oct. of 1859 to capture weapons and begin his slave revolt.

Unsuccessful and captured by USMC under the leadership of Robert E. Lee

Put on trial for treason.

John Brown (cont.) He was found guilty of treason

and sentenced to death. His last words were to this effect:

“I believe that the issue of slavery will never be solved unless through the shedding of blood.”

Northerners thought of John Brown as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.

Southerners were terrified that if John Brown almost got away with this, there must be others like him in the North who are willing to die to end slavery.

South’s outcome: To leave the U.S. and start their own country.

REPUBLICAN PARTY

Ultimate Purpose: To stop the expansion of slavery after the Kansas-Nebraska Act

National Republican (which become the Whigs)

Free Soil Party (against the expansion of slavery)

Democrats who opposed the expansion of slavery

Abolitionists

Know Nothing Party(against immigration)

Lincoln – Douglas Debates

Lincoln and Douglas both running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois

The debates were followed by the country because both candidates were interested in running for the Presidency in 1860

Slavery was the issueo Lincoln stated: A House Divided

against itself cannot stand. Either we become one or the other.• was against the expansion of slavery

o Douglas believed that slavery should be decided by the people.

Lincoln got Douglas to admit that Popular Sovereignty could work against the expansion of slaveryo Southerners would not support

Douglas for the presidency in 1860

Map Kan/Neb Act

Popular Sovereignty

Allow the people in a territory to vote on whether

they want slavery to exist or not in their

state.

Reading/Lincoln on slavery

Election of 1860

• 303 total electoral votes and

152 to win.

Secession