Chapter 15 Notes

1. Chapter 15 Notes A Divided Nation

2. The Compromise of 1850 seemed a triumph of good statesmanship. It postponed a confrontation over the issue of secession. The election of 1852 marked the beginning of the end for the Whig Party. There was little talk about states seceding from the Union.

3. In the North the Fugitive Slave Act caused great resentment among whites and fear among free blacks. The law favored slave catchers over fugitive slaves. People saw and heard about dramatic incidents of runaways being dragged back to the South or, sometimes, being violently rescued. Some free blacks fled to Canada. To all Northerners, slavery no longer seemed a distant problem.

4. Beginning in 1854, the nation under went a series of crises concerning slavery. Senator Stephen A. Douglas caused an uproar by pushing his Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress. The act provided for “popular sovereignty” concerning slavery in those two territories. In effect, the settlers themselves would decide whether or not to permit slavery. Slaveholders and Northerners rushed into Kansas. Soon a small civil war broke out there.

5. In 1854 a new nativist political party was formed. This so-called Know-Nothing Party was remarkably successful in state elections. At the same time, another new party – the Republican – appeared. Republicans based their 1856 Presidential campaign on opposition to slavery in the territories. They failed to win, but gained enough votes to effectively destroy the Know-Nothings and become the chief rivals of the Democrats.

6. Events thereafter moved toward a crisis. In its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not keep slavery out of the territories and that no blacks could be citizens of the United States. Senator Douglas and a Republican politician named Abraham Lincoln held a widely publicized series of debates on the expansion of slavery into the territories. A radical abolitionist named John Brown led a raid on a federal arsenal in hopes of leading slaves to freedom.

7. Essential Question • What were the major reform movements prior to the Civil War? How did they affect life in the North and South?

8. ANSWER • Some of the major reform movements prior to the Civil War included the Temperance Movement, the common-school movement, the abolition movement, and the women’s rights movement. • The Temperance Movement wanted to prevent alcohol abuse because it was seen as a major cause of social problems. It seemed to embraced in general across the North and South.

9. The common-school movement wanted to educate all children in a common place regardless of background (immigrant or native born) or class (upper, middle, or working class). The major leader of this movement was Horace Mann, who was the first Secretary of Education in the president’s cabinet. This movement was mostly found in the north and mid-west. It was not applied widely in the South where slavery was found and this was because of race. Poor white children in the South had limited opportunities as well. All areas of the U.S. had few examples of co-educational schools and colleges (both male and female).

10. The abolition movement wanted to end slavery (abolition) and free all the slaves (emancipation). It spread its movement through newspapers such as the Liberator (William Lloyd Garrison) and the North Star (Frederick Douglas); speech tours by the Grimkee sisters (white southern women), Frederick Douglas (an educated slave who escaped to freedom and spoke widely in the United States and Europe), and Sojourner Truth (who spoke for black women under slavery); and pamphlets. The movement was slowly embraced in the North and widely rebuked (disliked) in the South.

11. The women’s rights movement began when women got upset that they were not given equal treatment in the abolition movement (especially at the London Anti-Slavery Convention). They wanted equal educational opportunities, equal pay for equal work, the right to sit on jury, the right to vote, and discriminatory laws against women to be repealed. The purpose of the Seneca Falls Convention was to publicly address the social injustices towards women. The significance of the meeting is that it marked the beginning of the women’s rights movement which would continue up to the present-day. (equal pay for equal work.) It was slowly embraced in the North over a period of many years, but meet more resistance in the traditional South.

12. Essential Question • What events and attitudes led to increased sectional tension between north and south in the years leading to the Civil War?

13. ANSWER • Events and attitudes that led to increased sectional tension between the North and South included the added territory to the U.S. from the Mexican War of 1850 and the addition of Texas. Other events include the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, and John Brown’s Raid on arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia.

14. Essential Question • Why did political compromise over slavery fail? Give examples to illustrate this.

15. ANSWER

16. Essential Question • What effect did the Fugitive Slave Act have on citizens? How did territorial expansion inflame the debate over slavery?

17. ANSWER • Effect – The Fugitive Slave Act made it a crime to assist runaway slaves and allowed them to be arrested even in areas where slavery was illegal. Many slaveholders took advantage of it immediately. It struck fear into many African Americans in the North, who fled to Canada. The act offended northerners over the lack of trial by jury and the bribes given to commissioners. Abolitionists were very vocal. Northerners resisted the act without resorting to violence, but blooded was shed several times. • Territorial Expansion – The Fugitive Slave Act inflamed the debate over slavery because political leaders had to decide whether the territory in the Mexican Cession would allow slavery or become free soil. This included the admission of California as a free state, the debate on the Wilmont Proviso, popular sovereignty in the Compromise of 1850, the dividing of the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase in the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which upset the old Missouri Compromise, and the Freeport Doctrine given by Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates after the Dred Scott decision.

18. Essential Question • How did Uncle Tom’s Cabin help fuel the fire against slavery for people in the North? How did the South react?

19. ANSWER • At an earlier age of 21, Harriet Beecher Stowe met with fugitive slaves in Ohio and listened to their stories. She decided to write a book on what slavery was like for northerners to read. It was about a kindly old slave named Tom who was separated from his wife when sold to a vicious cotton planter who beat him to death. It sold 2 million copies in ten years and made many northerners abolitionists. The novel sparked outrage in the South and was called false.

20. Essential Question • How did political leaders and citizens defend their beliefs and right under the Constitution concerning the divisive issues of the mid-1800’s?

21. ANSWER

22. Essential Question • Why was the Dred Scott court case verdict so controversial?

23. ANSWER • Three Reasons • #1 It Stated that blacks were not citizens and did not have the right to sue in federal court. • #2 It declared that Dred Scot was not free because he returned to the slave state of Missouri after his owner died. • #3 It declared the Missouri Compromise restriction on slavery north of 36 degrees 30” to be unconstitutional because it deprived property which was illegal under the 5th Amendment. Therefore, Congress could not ban slavery in federal territory.

24. Wilmot Proviso • …forbade slavery in any part of the Mexican Cession.

25. Sectionalism • …was a preference for one region’s interests over those of the country as a whole.

26. Popular Sovereignty • … would allow each territory’s voters to decide whether to permit slavery.

27. Zachary Taylor • In the presidential election of 1848, Senator Cass ran against war hero____, but neither candidate addressed keeping slavery out of the new territory.

28. Free-Soil Party • …was a new political party created by some antislavery northerners.

29. Henry Clay • …proposed a compromise in which California would join as a free state, but voters would decide through popular sovereignty whether to allow slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession.

30. Compromise of 1850 • …allowed California to join as a free state, but voters would decide through popular sovereignty whether to allow slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession.

31. Fugitive Slave Act • …made it a crime to assist runaway slaves and allowed authorities to arrest them anywhere in the Union.

32. Uncle Tom’s Cabin • ….was a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that showed the terrible conditions of slaves’ lives.

33. Harriet Beecher Stowe • …wrote a novel called Uncle Tom’s Cabin which angered many southerners.

34. Franklin Pierce • …was nominated by the Democrats and won by a landside that wiped out the Whig Party.

35. Stephen Douglas • …introduced a bill in Congress that would divide the remaining Louisiana Purchase land into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and use popular sovereignty.

36. Kansas-Nebraska Act • …was a bill introduced by Douglas in Congress that would divide the remaining Louisiana Purchase land into two territories where voter would decide the question of slavery through popular sovereignty.

37. Pottawatomie Massacre • …was when abolitionist John Brown fought back, killing five pro-slavery men and burning their homes.

38. Pottawatomie Massacre

39. Charles Sumner • …was a senator from Massachusetts who criticized slavery supporters and insulted a South Carolina senator. He was beat unconscious with a cane by Preston Brooks.

40. Preston Brooks • …beat Sumner unconscious with a cane for insulting South Carolina senator Andrew Pickens Butler.

41. Republican Party • …was a newly formed political party, which was dedicated to preventing the spread of slavery.

42. Republican Party

43. James Buchanan • …had no associations with the divisive Kansas-Nebraska Act, and won the presidential election of of 1856.

44. John C. Fremont • …was a former explorer and the Republican candidate for president in 1856 who lost.

45. Dred Scott • …was a slave who sued for his freedom. He argued that because he had lived where slavery was illegal, he was no longer a slave.

46. Roger B. Taney • …was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision. (He was from a slaveholding family.)

47. Dred Scott decision • …ruled that African Americans were not citizens, therefore, they did not have the right to sue in Federal Court in 1857.

48. Abraham Lincoln • …was a Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate in 1858, and said that slavery was wrong and should not be allowed to spread.

49. Lincoln-Douglas debates • …were seven debates between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas.

50. Freeport Doctrine • …was stated by Douglas that no matter what the Supreme Court decided about slavery, the people themselves had the right to decide whether to allow slavery.