The Union in Crisis Chapter 10

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The Union in CrisisChapter 10
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Slavery in Early America

• Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot proposed a
  law stating that any lands won from Mexico would
  not have slavery of any kind. (Wilmot Proviso)
• Northern bankers, mill owners and merchants who
  depended on the cotton industry did not want
  slavery to go away.
• Unskilled workers with low paying jobs worried
  that an end to slavery could bring competition
  for work to the north.
• Slavery was an integral part of southern life.

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The Election of 1848

• In the 1848 presidential campaign, both Democrats
  and Whigs split over the question of whether to
  limit the expansion of slavery.
• Several factions united in support of the Wilmont
  Proviso to form the Free-Soil Party. (Martin Van
  Buren)
• Both the Democrats and the Whigs addressed the
  problem by embracing the idea of popular
  sovereignty. (Letting the people decide)
• The Whigs candidate Zachary Taylor won the
  election

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The Compromise of 1850

• Based on the ideas of Henry Clay.
• California was admitted as a free state.
• Popular sovereignty was applied to the territory
  acquired from Mexico.
• The Fugitive Slave Act punished private citizens
  who aided in the escape of slaves.

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A Rising Tide of Protest

• Northerners resented what they saw as an increase
  in federal intervention in the affairs of the
  states.
• Personal liberty laws were passed which nullified
  the Fugitive Slave Act and allowed slave catchers
  to be arrested.
• In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle
  Toms Cabin, a powerful condemnation of slavery.

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Proposed by Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, it
  called for a government to be established in the
  Nebraska Territory.
• The region was to be divided into two parts,
  Kansas would be slave and Nebraska would be free.
• Act nullified the Missouri Compromise by allowing
  slavery north of the 36 parallel.

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Bleeding Kansas

• By 1855, proslavery settlers had set up a govt
  near the border of Missouri, a slave state.
• Border Ruffians would sweep into Kansas to ensure
  the pro-slavery agenda was passed.
• Abolitionists also rushed into Kansas to raise
  money for their cause.
• John Brown, an abolitionist, along with others
  killed 5 proslavery settlers igniting what became
  known as Bleeding Kansas.

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The Dred Scott Decision

• Case involving Dred Scott, a slave, who was
  brought by his master to the free state of
  Illinois and then Wisconsin Territory between
  1834 1838.
• Scott wanted to sue on the basis that b/c he was
  taken to a free state he should be granted his
  freedom.
• In a controversial decision, the Court decided
  that slaves and their descendants were property,
  not citizens, and therefore were not entitled to
  sue in the courts.

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John Browns Raid

• Hoping to start a revolution in the south to stop
  slavery, John Brown along with 21 men raided a
  federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia in
  1859.
• Local residents surrounded Browns men in the
  arsenal, and federal troops arrived and arrested
  most of them. (Brown hanged)
• The rebellion was a failure due to lack of
  support.

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Harpers Ferry Armory
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Engine house were Brown was caught
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The Election of 1860

• The issues of states rights and slavery were on
  the minds of voters both in the north and the
  south.
• Benefiting from the fracturing among the other
  parties, Lincoln won the election handily.
• Demonstrated that the north and south were truly
  divided.
• Lincoln was not even on many of the southern
  ballots

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Election of 1860
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The Union Collapses

• As soon as Lincoln was elected , South Carolina
  began the process of seceding from the union.
• In Feb. of 1861, seven states est. the
  Confederate States of America.
• Jefferson Davis was elected President.

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Fort Sumter

• When the southern state seceded, they seized the
  federal forts and arsenals within their borders.
• Only 4 remained in Union hands the most important
  of these was Fort Sumter in Charleston South
  Carolina.
• The Confederate army fired on the fort and with
  little supplies the Union troops were forced to
  surrender.
• Within days President Lincoln sent 75,000 troops
  to march against the Confederacy and in response
  4 more southern states seceded from the Union.

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Fort Sumter
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Fort Sumter
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Fort Sumter Today
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Fort Sumter Today