Territorial Growth and Sectionalism

Nationalism vs. Sectionalism

• NATIONALISM – A BELIEF AND FEELING OF PATRIOTIC PRIDE IN YOUR NATION. “U.S. a world within itself”

• SECTIONALISM – A PRIDE IN ACHIEVEMENT OF ITS OWN REGION OR SECTION.

Sectional Differences

• Effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries

• Triggered by the request of Missouri as admission to US as a slave state

• United States consisted of 22 states, evenly divided between slave and free.

• Missouri would upset that balance• Would also represent Congressional support for

expansion of slavery

Missouri Compromise

• Argument of admitting Missouri as a slave state• Congressman James Tallmadge of New York proposed

Missouri as Free state• Maine which was a part of Massachusetts wanted

statehood• Speaker of the House, Henry Clay suggested Maine be

admitted as free state, and Missouri slave state• Came to be known as Missouri Compromise of 1820• Keeps the balance of power between free and slave

states

What does it Do?• Prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36°

30´ latitude line. • Repealed in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. • Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred

Scott decision – ruled that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit

slavery in the territories.• Holds the Union together for another 40 years

Election of 1844

Election of 1844

• Polk wins election• Committed to national expansion• Former governor of Tennessee• Coined term of 54 40’ or fight •

ADAMS-ONIS TREATY1819

United States gained Florida from Spain for 5 Million Dollars

California as a State

• March 1850, California applies for statehood as a free state

• California would again upset the balance• Slave states would become minority

Compromise of 1850

• Henry Clay drafts another plan• California would be admitted as a free state

and slave trade abolished in Washington D.C.• Congress would pass no more laws regarding

slavery in the new territories from Mexico• Congress would pass laws to help recapture

runaway slaves become known as the Fugitive Slave Act.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe• Portrayed the moral issues of slavery• Play increased popularity of book• Very popular in the North, Southerners

believed it falsely criticized the south and slavery

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• 1854 Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois drafts a bill to organize Nebraska Territory

• Territory to be settled by popular sovereignty• Popular Sovereignty: residents vote to decide

an issue• Territory to be divided into two territories of

Kansas and Nebraska• Repealed the Missouri Comprise of 1820

“Bleeding Kansas”

• The name Bleeding Kansas refers to the violent sectional conflicts in the American Midwest in the mid to late 1850s.

• Also referred to as Bloody Kansas or the Border War, Bleeding Kansas was a very significant event in American History illustrating the depth of the struggle between “slave” and “free” states.

John Brown

• Extreme abolitionist • Led Pottawatomie Massacre which led to five

slave-owners being murdered• Led to civil war in Kansas• Continued for three years • Became known as “Bleeding Kansas

Outcomes

• In the conflicts and actual battles preceding the Civil war, about 55 people died total.

• Although the South had tried to get Kansas to become a slave state, Kansas became free in the end, reflecting a prevailing sentiment of antislavery.

• The murder and mayhem of Bleeding Kansas were not actual Civil War battles, but they foreshadowed the deadly conflict that was quickly approaching.

Dred Scott

• Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom, since he had been taken to a territory where slavery was illegal

• Went to the Supreme Court Dred Scott vs. Sanford

The Decision

• Court ruled that:– Slaves were not citizens and therefore could not

sue – Slaves are property and the U.S. cannot deprive

any citizen of taking their property into U.S. territories

– Denied citizenship to slaves and free blacks, making the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional

Homestead Act of 1862

• Offered 160 acres of free land• Live on it for 5 years and improve it