Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
THE DEBATE OVER SLAVERY
Section 1Chapter 15
Focus Questions
How did the outcome of the Mexican War affect the debate over the expansion of slavery?
What were the major provisions of the Compromise of 1850, and what reasons were given for supporting or opposing it?
Why was the Fugitive Slave Act controversial in the North?
The Expansion of Slavery
The victory in the Mexican War added new land to the United States and brought back the debate over slavery
The Missouri Compromise had divided the country into free and slave states
Polk wanted the line to extend into new territory just taken from Mexico
The Expansion of Slavery
The debate over slavery really began to show the sectionalism (favoring interests of a region over the good of the country) of the country
Senator Lewis Cass called for popular sovereignty, which stated that the people of the state would determine if they would choose slavery
The Expansion of Slavery
In 1848, the Free-Soil Party was formed and it did not side with Democrats or Whigs
Whig candidate Zachary Taylor won the 1848 election
The Expansion of Slavery
When California went through the gold rush it skipped the territorial process for becoming a state
Many in California wanted to enter the Union as a free state but Southern politicians did not want California to enter as a free state as it would through the balance of power to free states in Congress
The Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay was known as the “Great Compromiser” and stepped forward with a new plan to end the debate: Let California enter as a free state Popular sovereignty would decide slavery in the
Mexican cession territories Texas give up its claims east of the upper Rio
Grande River and the federal government will pay of Texas’s debt
End the slave trade in Washington D.C. (slavery still allowed just no new trading)
New more efficient fugitive slave law
The Compromise of 1850
Clay’s plan had critics in the South and in the North
Some felt it was too weak on the slave trade while others in the south thought it was too strict
The Compromise of 1850
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was a supporter of the plan because preservation of the Union is more important then stopping the expansion of slavery He criticized northerners
who against it and scolded southerners who wanted to break away
The Compromise of 1850 was passed in September and accomplished most of what Clay wanted
The Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act made it a federal crime to help runaway slaves
It allowed officials to arrest slaves in areas where slavery was illegal
Anyone who helped a runaway slave faced six months in jail and a $1000 fine
Thousands of African Americans went to Canada to escape potential prosecution
The Fugitive Slave Act
For the most part Northerners who resisted the Fugitive Slave Act did so without violence
Anthony Burns was a fugitive that was caught in Boston and a group of abolitionists went to break him out
Along the way a deputy marshal was killed
Antislavery Literature
Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth put together narratives that were very popular
Truth’s narratives were centered around a woman and took place while she was a slave in New York
Antislavery Literature
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the most powerful piece of literature that was written for abolitionists
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book and it centered on a slave named Tom who was separated from his family
She had learned about slaver when her family moved to Ohio and she met fugitive slaves there
Focus Questions
How did the outcome of the Mexican War affect the debate over the expansion of slavery?
What were the major provisions of the Compromise of 1850, and what reasons were given for supporting or opposing it?
Why was the Fugitive Slave Act controversial in the North?
