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The Debate over Slavery
The Debate over Slavery
A. The Expansion of Slavery
1. Victory in Mexican war added
over 500,000 miles to US and
renewed the debate over slavery
The Debate over Slavery
2. some wanted to run 36° parallel line
to the Pacific coast and divide
entire country into free and slave
territory
The Debate over Slavery3. Wilmot Proviso – stated that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part
of the new territory”
a. Never became law
The Debate over Slavery
4. Growing sectionalism – people favor
the interests of one region over the
interests of the country as a whole
The Debate over Slavery
5. Hoped to solve slavery conflict with
popular sovereignty – allow voters
in territory to decide whether they wanted to ban or allow slavery
The Debate over Slavery
6. Northerners so antislavery that they form new political party
– the Free Soil Party
"free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men"
The Debate over Slavery
7. Should California enter Union as
free or slave state?
The Debate over Slavery
a. Californians opposed slavery and
hoped to enter as free state
b. many opposed California entering as free state because it would upset balance
The Debate over Slavery
“We are about to permanently destroy the balance between free and slave states.”
The Debate over Slavery
B. The Compromise of 1850 – Henry Clay
1. Let California enter as free state
2. Popular sovereignty will decide
status of slavery in New Mexico
The Debate over Slavery
3. Texas gives up land claims in
New Mexico
- fed govern gives Texas money
in exchange
The Debate over Slavery
4. End slave trade – NOT slavery – in
capital
5. New, more effective fugitive slave
law
The Debate over Slavery
* Southerners against compromise
and want Cali to be a slave state
* Northerners agree with compromise and are against slavery
The Debate over Slavery
C. The Fugitive Slave Act – made it a
federal crime to help runaway slaves
The Debate over Slavery
1. Runaways can be arrested in states
where slavery is illegal
2. Those who assisted faced 6 months
in jail and $1000
The Debate over Slavery
3. African Americans flee to Canada
to escape persecution from Fugitive
Slave Law
The Debate over Slavery
4. Northerners do not like Slave Laws
a. do not agree with lack of
trial by jury
b. dislike high fee for “returned”
fugitives
The Debate over Slavery
c. Northerners tried not to use
violence
*Northern abolitionists killed
a deputy marshal when trying
to rescue Anthony Burns,
a fugitive slave
The Debate over SlaveryD. Antislavery Literature
1. Abolitionists use stories of fugitive
slaves to help their cause
The Debate over Slavery
2. Best know narratives by Fredrick
Douglass and Sojourner Truth
The Debate over Slavery3. Uncle Tom’s Cabin – book that
shows what slavery was really like
a. written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
