The Union in Crisis

Expansion, Slavery, and

Sectionalism
 Today’s Objective:
• At the end of class, you will be able
to:
– Identify and evaluate the major events
and issues that created sectional
conflicts.
– Explain how slavery influenced
expansion in the 1850s.
– Begin a timeline of events that led to
the Civil War
 U.S. Expansion
• Early 1848, Mexican War ends
• Treaty was signed in which the U.S. acquired
over half a million square miles from Mexico.
– Present day Arizona, California, Colorado,
Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah.
– Mexican War is where most Civil War
leaders are trained
– Americans want to settle the new western territory, but
are they allowed to take their slaves with them?
– What about state representation in Congress? If these
new territories become states will they be free or slave?
 California and the
Compromise of 1850
• A major historical event caused a
population explosion in the West, especially
California.
• California applied for statehood in
1850…..as a free state outlawing slavery
• A large debate ensued within Congress….a
compromise was introduced by Kentucky
senator Henry Clay
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/
part4/4p2951.html
 Compromise of 1850
• After months of debate, the compromise was
passed:
– California would be admitted as a free state
– New Mexico and Utah territories were
organized with slavery to be decided with
popular sovereignty (the vote of the residents
of the territory)
– Imposed heavy penalties on person who aided
runaway slaves (Fugitive Slave Act)
– Outlawed the buying and selling of slaves
(but not the institution of slavery) in the nation’s
capital
 Implications of the
Compromise
• Fugitive Slave Act: this law made it a federal crime to
aid runaway slaves and allowed the arrest of escaped
slaves. Cases in which slaves freedom was in question
handled by special commissioners who were paid $5 if a
slave was released but $10 if sent back with the claimant
– Many Northerners encouraged the act which
angered slaveholders and caused public tension
– Uncle Tom’s Cabin also added to the public
tensions
• Held off the Civil War for about 10 more years
– But tensions and sectionalism continued to rise
 First Missouri, now
•
Kansas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/01/why-do-people-believe-myths-about-the-
confederacy-because-our-textbooks-and-monuments-are-wrong/?tid=sm_tw

• Proposal for a transcontinental railroad to

connect to California and the organization
of the mid-west territory.
• Remember the Missouri Compromise Line?

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act: led by

Stephen Douglas (he will be more
important later!) it was put into law that
the Missouri Compromise line would be
dropped, Kansas and Nebraska were
organized into territories and slavery
would be decided by popular sovereignty.
 But….that creates
tension..
• Bleeding Kansas
– Once organized, the issue of slavery in
the Kansas territory became a hot topic
– There were large groups of pro-slavery
and anti-slavery forces (the pro-slavery
forces were helped by residents of
Missouri that would sneak in and vote)
– Large numbers of small battles occurred
all throughout the Kansas territory giving
it the name Bleeding Kansas
 Kansas & Nebraska
become a national issue
• “We are playing for a mighty stake. If we win
we carry slavery to the Pacific Ocean, if we
fail we lose…all the territories.”-David
Atchison (pro-slavery Missouri Senator)
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/
part4/4p2952.html
• “We will engage in competition for the virgin
soil of Kansas. God give the victory to the
side which is stronger in numbers as it is in
right.”-William Seward (future Secretary of
State)
 What about slaves living
in free territory?
• Dred Scott v. Sanford 1857
– Scott sued for his freedom because he insisted
that he had moved with his master and lived in
territories that banned slavery, thus, he should
be free.
– The Court ruled 7-2 against Scott.
– Court’s reasoning:
• Scott and any person of African ancestry were NOT
U.S. citizens and thus could not even being suit in
federal court
• Slaves, as property, could not be taken from their
owners without due process
• Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery
in territories
 Implications of Dred
Scott
• To many, it was seen as an attempt to
spread slavery  Congress does not have
the power to prohibit slavery, so it can
exist
• http://www.streetlaw.org/en/landmark/
cases/
dred_scott_v_sandford#Tab=Teaching
• Strengthened Northern slavery opposition
• Divided the North and South even further..
The Union in Crisis
Road to Secession
 Abraham Lincoln
• Born in 1809 in a 1 room cabin in
Hodgenville, KY (LaRue County)
– Raised in a poor family that held no
slaves….family opposed slavery & moved to
Indiana territory in 1816.
• Lincoln was involved in politics early
and often
– 1834 elected to state legislature in
Illinois
– 1846 elected to Congress
– Returned home to become a lawyer
in 1849
 Lincoln’s early political
views
• Early political views:
– Congress could regulate slavery in the territories,
but that only states had the right to end slavery
– Proposed ending slavery in the nation’s capital
through compensated emancipation ( paying
slaveholders to free slaves)
– Member of new Republican Party
• Not all morally against slavery
• Saw slavery as a threat to democracy – slavery
preserved an aristocracy
– Rejected values of individualism and progress
– No room for common whites to improve themselves
 Lincoln’s Return
• After the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln
decided to return to politics.

• In 1858, Lincoln opposed Stephen Douglas who was

seeking re-election as Illinois Senator.
• Douglas was a well-known politician and had helped
pass the Compromise of 1850
– Lincoln was not well known on the national scene
• The race led to a series of 7 debates around Illinois
that became known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates
• http://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/
debates.htm
Lincoln- Douglas Debates
 Lincoln & Douglas on
Slavery
• Douglas
– No moral issue against slavery
– Accused by Lincoln of not caring either way
• Lincoln
– Morally against slavery; NOT an abolitionist
– Did not think the black race was prepared to
live equally among whites
– Feared the expansion of slavery; did not
want to wipe it out where it already existed
– Feared that extended slave labor into
western territories would take jobs away
from white men who needed jobs
 Lincoln’s House Divided
Speaking to the IL Republican Convention
Lincoln stated:
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I
believe this Government cannot endure
permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not
expect the Union to be dissolved- I do not
expect the house to fall- but I do expect it will
cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing or all the other.”
• Lincoln did not approve of popular
sovereignty or the Dred-Scott decision: he
feared that allowing slavery in the territories
would lead to an expansion of slavery.
 Douglas’ Freeport
Doctrine
• Douglas’ goal was to make Lincoln appear to be
a radical who wanted social equality for all
slaves.
• Douglas insisted that slavery should only be
seen as a local problem
• Freeport, Illinois Debate:
– Lincoln tried to test Douglas and his ideas of popular
sovereignty
– Douglas claimed that those in the territories could
exclude slavery by refusing to pass laws allowing it.
(Kim Davis defense)
– Alienated Southerners who wanted a national slave
code to protect slavery
 John Brown’s Raid
• An anti-slavery extremist, John Brown, staged
an elaborate plan to seize to start a slave
uprising.
• October 16, 1859- Brown and 18 others
attacked and gained control of a U.S. arsenal
in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Killed Haywood
Shepherd, a free black man working as a
baggage handler
• No large slave uprising that he hoped; Brown
surrendered; charged with treason and
executed
• Made Southerners fear that they could not live
safely in the Union  there biggest fear a
slave insurrection
Election of 1860
• Northern and Southern Democrats
were divided and had trouble agreeing
upon a candidate. The party split.
– Democrats (Stephen Douglas); Southern
Democrats (John Breckinridge)
• Republicans nominated Lincoln
• Southern moderates (Constitutional
Union Party) nominated John Bell
• Results:
– Lincoln won most of the Northern states
– Lincoln won a landslide in the electoral
college
– Lincoln won none of the Southern states…
 Southern Secession
• A week after Lincoln’s election, South
Carolina’s legislature called a convention
to consider the idea of leaving the Union.
• On December 20, 1860, they passed a
resolution announcing South Carolina’s
secession. (169-0)
• The rest of the South quickly followed
(Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Texas seceded by Feb. 1–
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and
Arkansas warned they might also secede).
 Reactions to Secession
• State legislatures passed secession
not a popular vote by the people.
Almost 30-40% of delegates were
against secession.
• Northerners:
– Many felt the nation would be better off
without the slave states
– Other worried about the long term
effects
Secession
Confederate States of
America
• 1861, the 7 seceded states met
1861, the 7 seceded states met
in Alabama to form a new
nation.
• They wrote a new constitution
that recognized slavery, chose
Jefferson Davis as president,
and created an association of
states called the Confederate
States of America.
• Lincoln promised in his
inaugural address to not touch
slavery where it existed, but
would this be enough?