The Road to Civil War

1. The Road to Civil War Chapter 15

2. A Nation Dividing 15-2 Slavery in the West 15-1 Challenges to Slavery 15-3 Secession and War 15-4

3. Slavery in the West Pages 436-439

4. The Missouri Compromise • To make sure that slavery would continue, the South demanded that it be allowed in new western states entering the Union.

5. The Missouri Compromise • Missouri applies for statehood in 1819 as a slave state. • Missouri admission to the Union would upset the balance in the Senate giving control to Southern Senators.

6. The Missouri Compromise • Northern congressmen opposed admitting another slave state. • Abolishing slavery in Missouri was proposed. • This proposal set off a bitter debate between Northerners and Southerners in Congress.

7. The Missouri Compromise • Senator Henry Clay ( the Great Compromiser) proposed a solution to keep the number of free and slave states in balance.

8. The Missouri Compromise • Missouri entered the Union as a slave state. • Maine entered the Union as a free state. • Except in Missouri, slavery was banned in all other territories gained in the Louisiana Purchase north of Missouri’s southern border. Creating a line at the 36°,30’ parallel dividing the slave and free states.

9. Discussion Question • Why was it so important to keep a balance of power between free and slave states? Answer: The North and the South had different political and economic interest. Each side felt these interest would be ignored if senators from the other section was in control of the Senate.

10. New Western Lands • When the territories of Texas, New Mexico and California were ready to join the Union the balance of power in the Senate was once more in jeopardy. • After winning its independence from Mexico, Texas asked to join the Union. Slavery already existed in Texas.

11. New Western Lands • Disputes over the border of Texas and the desire of the United States to gain New Mexico and California became the basis for war with Mexico known as the Mexican-American War.

12. New Western Lands • A debate erupted in Congress over slavery in the new Western lands. • Wilmot Proviso- slavery should be prohibited in any lands that might be acquired from Mexico at the end of the Mexican-American War. • A counter proposal stated that neither Congress nor any government authority had the power to prohibit or regulate slavery in any of the territories. • Neither proposal was passed by Congress.

13. New Western Lands • A new political party was formed when neither the Democrats nor the Whig candidate for president in 1848 took a stand on slavery in the territories. • The Free Soil Party was formed which supported the Wilmot Proviso. • Zachary Taylor won the election by appealing to both sides of the issue.

14. New Western Lands • Once in office, President Taylor encouraged the territories of California and New Mexico to apply for statehood. • After California did so in 1849, the problem of a balance Senate was once again an issue. Southerners worried that they would loose power and talked of leaving the Union.

15. Discussion Question • Why would the proposals regarding slavery in the Western Lands have been received differently by the North and the South? Answer Wilmot’s proposal would have prohibited slavery in many new territories, which would not have been acceptable to the South. Calhoun’s proposal would have allowed slavery in all new Western lands, which would have been opposed by the North.

16. The Compromise of 1850 • In 1850, Congress had to decide if California would join the Union as a free or slave state. • In addition, it had to decide how to admit the territory won as part of the Mexican War would be admitted to the Union.

17. The Compromise of 1850 • Henry Clay, Stephan A Douglas, and Daniel Webster comprise what became known as the Compromise of 1850.

18. The Compromise of 1850 • California entered the Union as a free state. • The rest of the Mexican territory was divided into New Mexico and Utah. Each state would decide how to enter the Union.

19. The Compromise of 1850 • It would be against the law to buy or sell slaves in Washington D.C. but not to own slaves. • The Fugitive Slave Act made it legal for slave owners to go after and capture runaway slaves that escaped to the North.

20. Discussion Question • How did the Compromise of 1850 satisfy both free and slave states? Answer: The admittance of California as a free state and the abolishment of the slave trade in Washington, D.C. satisfied the North. The New Mexico Territory would be open to slavery and there would be a stronger Fugitive Slave law which pleased the South.

21. A Nation Dividing Pages 441-444

22. The Fugitive Slave Act • In 1850 Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. • It required all citizens to help capture and return enslaved African Americans who had run away. • People who helped runaway slaves could be fined or imprisoned.

23. The Fugitive Slave Act • After passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Southerners stepped up efforts to catch runaways. • They even made attempts to capture enslaved laborers who had run away and who had lived as free people in the North for years. • In some cases, free African Americans who had never been enslaved were captured and forced into slavery.

24. The Fugitive Slave Act • Many Northerners who opposed slavery refused to cooperate with the Fugitive Slave Act and continued to aid runaway enslaved African Americans. • They created the Underground Railroad to help runaways. • The Underground Railroad was a network of free African Americans and white abolitionists who helped escaped enslaved African Americans make their way to freedom.

25. The Fugitive Slave Act • Although the Fugitive Slave Act was the law of the land, Northern juries often refused to convict people accused to breaking the law.

26. Discussion Question • Why do you think many people refused to obey the Fugitive Slave Act? Answer: Some people did not support slavery and they felt that the law was morally wrong.

27. The Kansas-Nebraska Act • Hoping to encourage settlement in the West and open the way for a transcontinental railroad, Senator Stephen Douglas proposed the region west of Missouri and Iowa as the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. • Douglas thought his plan would allow the nation to expand while satisfying both the North and South concerning the territories.

28. The Kansas-Nebraska Act • Because both Kansas and Nebraska lay north of 36°, 30’- the area that was established as free of slavery in the Compromise of 1820- it was expected that Kansas and Nebraska would be free states.

29. The Kansas-Nebraska Act • Southerners were disturbed by the possibility of Kansas and Nebraska entering the Union as free states, because they would tip the balance of power in the Senate in favor the free states. • So Senator Douglas proposed abandoning the Missouri Compromise and letting settlers in each territory decide whether to allow slavery. • This was called ‘popular sovereignty”.

30. The Kansas-Nebraska Act • There was bitter debate over the issue in Congress. • In 1854 Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened the door to slavery in these territories. • The bill heightened animosity and mistrust between the North and the South and convinced many Northerners that compromise with the South was not possible.

31. Discussion Question • Why could the North have considered the Kansas-Nebraska Act a betrayal? Answer: The Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the door to slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territories. It overturned a previous agreement , the Compromise of 1820, which said that areas north of the 36, 30 parallel, which included Kansas and Nebraska, would be free of slavery.

32. Conflict in Kansas • After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, proslavery and anti-slavery groups rushed supporters into Kansas to influence voting over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free state or a slave state.

33. Conflict in Kansas • In the spring of 1855, in an election thought by antislavery supporters to be unfair, Kansas voters elected a proslavery legislature. • Although there were only about 1500 voters in Kansas, more than 6,000 ballots were cast in the election, largely because many proslavery voters had crossed the border from Missouri into Kansas just to vote in the election.

34. Conflict in Kansas • Soon after the election, the new Kansas legislature passed a series of laws supporting slavery, such as the requirement that candidates for political office be proslavery. • Antislavery forces, refusing to accept these laws, armed themselves, held their own elections, and adopted a constitution prohibiting slavery.

35. Conflict in Kansas • By January 1850, rival governments- one proslavery and one antislavery-existed in Kansas. • Both of them applied for statehood on behalf of Kansas and asked Congress for recognition.

36. Conflict in Kansas • The opposing forces, both armed, clashed in Kansas. • Many people were killed. • Newspapers began to refer to the area as “ Bleeding Kansas”. • The fighting went on from May of 1856 until October of 1856. when John Geary, the newly appointed territorial governor was finally able to end the bloodshed. • Geary overpowered guerilla forces and used 1,300 federal troops. • But the animosity between the two sides continued.

37. Discussion Question • Why did people who opposed slavery mistrusted the results of the 1855 election for the Kansas legislature? Answer: In an election that chose a proslavery legislature, there were more votes cast then there were voters in Kansas.

38. Challenges to Slavery Pages 445-448

39. A New Political Party • In 1854 antislavery Whigs and antislavery Democrats joined with Free Soilers to create the Republican Party. • The Republican Party’s main issue was abolition of slavery or at least prevention of its spread into the Western lands.

40. A New Political Party • Republican candidates began to challenge proslavery Whigs and Democrats in state and congressional elections of 1854, with the message that the government should ban slavery in the territories. • The election showed that the Republican Party has strength in the North, but almost no support in the South. • The Democratic Party’s strength was almost totally in the South.

41. A New Political Party • Democrat James Buchanan won the presidential election in 1856, with the strong support of Southerners. • The Democrats supported popular sovereignty- the right of the voters in each new territory or state to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery.

42. The Dred Scott Decision • Two days after President Buchanan took office, the Supreme Court announced the Dred Scott decision. • Dred Scott was an enslaved African American who had been taken by his owner from the South to live for a time in Illinois and Wisconsin, areas where slavery was not allowed. • After his owner died, antislavery lawyers helped Scott sue for his freedom, claiming that he had for a time lived on free soil.

43. The Dred Scott Decision • In the Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Taney said that Scott was a slave- not a citizen, and therefore had no right to bring a lawsuit. • He added that Scott’s residence on free soil did not make him free, because he was property. • As property he could not be taken away from his owner without “due process of law”.

44. The Dred Scott Decision • Furthermore Taney maintained that because the Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in any of the territories, the Missouri Compromise which limited slavery north of the 36°, 30’ north latitude line in many Western territories was unconstitutional. • Finally Taney added that popular sovereignty was unconstitutional because not even voters could prohibit slavery, as it would amount to taking away someone’s property.

45. The Dred Scott Decision • The Dred Scott decision outraged antislavery advocated in the North, but pleased Southerners, dividing the country more than ever.

46. The Dred Scott Decision • By 1858 the Senate race in Illinois attracted national attention. • It pitted Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas against a little-known Republican challenger named Abraham Lincoln. • Douglas was against slavery personally, but believed that popular sovereignty would resolve the issue without interfering with national unity. • Lincoln also personally opposed slavery, but thought there was no easy way to eliminate it where it already existed. He thought the solution was to prevent its spread into the territories.

47. The Dred Scott Decision • Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates leading up to the election. • The seven debates took place between August and October 1858. • Slavery was the main topic.

48. The Dred Scott Decision • During the debates Douglas put forth his idea that people in a territory could exclude slavery be refusing to pass laws protecting slaveholder’s rights. • This became known as the Freeport Doctrine, after the Illinois town where Douglas made the statement. • This point of view gained Douglas support among those who were against slavery but lost Douglas support among the proslavery population.

49. The Dred Scott Decision • Douglas claimed that Lincoln wanted African Americans to be equal to whites. • Lincoln denied this. He said that he and the Republican Party merely felt that slavery was wrong. • Douglas narrowly won the election, but during the debates Lincoln earned a national reputation.

50. The Dred Scott Decision • After the election of 1858, Southerners felt increasingly threatened by the growing power of the antislavery Republican Party.