The Union in Peril: Sectional Issues

An analogyYou are a high school gym teacher. Your class is playing tug-a-war today and

you want to divide the teams evenly. In the next few minutes, divide your class into two “fair” teams…

Juliana – 5’9 female, volleyball player, 145lbs.Erwin– 6’0 male, wrestler, 160lbs.Cam – 6’3” male, linebacker on the football team, 215 lbs.Carl – 5’6” male, captain of the chess club, 150 lbsTami – 5’2 female, cheerleader, 115lbs.Mike – 5’9” male, skateboarder, 135 lbs.• As the US pushes westward, slavery is the key issue. The battle

between North and South becomes like a “tug-a-war”. As each side adds another player (state) the other side is upset until something is done to even the teams…

The Missouri Compromise• Background info:

– Northwest Ordinance (passed in 1787) forbade slavery in Midwest. (unsettled territory north of the Ohio River.)

– Southwest Ordinance (passed in 1790) permitted slavery south of the Ohio.

Why not a permanent solution?• Missouri applies for statehood,

1819.– Tallmadge Amendment,

• part of Missouri’s admission for statehood.

• a ban on future slave imports and a gradual emancipation of slaves

• What problem does this create?

Missouri Compromise, 1820

• Statehood passed in the House, but failed in the Senate.

Why?– 1820 – Henry Clay

authors “Missouri Compromise”1. Missouri becomes a

slave state.

2. Maine enters as a free state.

3. No slavery within the Louisiana Purchase above 36’30

The Wilmot Proviso

The year is now 1848… What do we do with all of the land we just won in the Mexican-American War?

The Wilmot Proviso

• Wilmot Proviso– Essential Info…

• “Any land gained from the War with Mexico must become free states.”

– Northern lawmakers in the House pass more than 50 versions of the bill between 1846 and 1850

» Voted down every time in the Senate.

– Outcome• What are southerners going to

begin to think about the government?

David Wilmot, Representative from Penn.

The Compromise of 1850• Problem = California wants to

join the Union as a free state.– Large population influx from Gold

Rush• New Mexico, Utah also.

– Why is this a problem?• Union is balanced 15 free, 15 slave

states

• The Solution = The Compromise of 1850 1. California, New Mexico, and Utah

get “popular sovereignty.”• Can choose slavery status.

2. End slave trade in District of Columbia

3. Pass the Fugitive Slave Act.• Made helping a slave escape to

North/Canada a punishable offense.• Underground Railroad?

– Who got the better end of the deal, North or South? Why?

The Kansas/Nebraska Act

• Senator Stephen Douglas (IL) wants to pass legislation to build a transcontinental railroad westward from Chicago through Nebraska. As a result of the railroad, people will move to these territories, meaning they will soon become states.

• According to the Missouri Compromise, should they become free or slave states?

– Why will Southerners still oppose this?

Kansas/Nebraska Act

• Kansas/Nebraska Act.– The Act

• Kansas and Nebraska are given “popular sovereignty.”– Northerners outraged because this went against the Missouri Compromise

under which both states should be free.– Result?

• Pro-slavery southerners from Missouri move to Kansas hoping to sway the vote to become a slave state.

• Abolitionists from Illinois, Iowa move to Kansas hoping to sway the vote to become a free state.

– Sets the stage for fight called “Bleeding Kansas”

The Union in Peril: Social Issues

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Story– A Kentucky slave owner is forced by

financial ruin to sell three of his slaves.• George and Eliza run away, escape with

baby across the Ohio but are run down by bloodhounds.

• Tom submits to sale to a New Orleans master, then sold to Simon Legree – a vicious and sadistic master…

• Effects– Gave slavery a “face”

• Had real characters who were sinful (extra-marital sex, broken family), yet constructed in a way that their sins were trumped by the cruelty of slavery.– Changed people’s perceptions of the

institution of slavery as immoral.

• Reactions– North

• Frederick Douglass – “A work plainly marked by the finger of God.”

• Brings abolitionism into the mainstream, relates it to Christian morals.

– South• See it as an attack on their way of life.

By Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852

• Background– Recall that the Kansas-Nebraska Act declared that the slavery status of

these two territories would be ruled by popular sovereignty.

Bleeding Kansas

“Bleeding Kansas”

• Battle over Kansas– Both anti-slave northerners and pro-

slavery southerners start a drive to recruit settlers and establish a majority.

• A type of “Civil War”– March 1855 – Pro-slavery forces

elect a territorial legislature.• Their Constitution:

– Death penalty for aiding a fugitive slave.

– Felony to question slaveholding.

– Anti-slavery forces elect their own government.

– Civil War develops between the two forces in Fall 1855 and Spring 1856.

• On May 21st, a group of proslavery officials attacks a free state strong hold of Lawrence.

• John Brown leads a raid in response on Potawatomie Creek. They split the skulls and hacked the bodies of five men.

– Seen as a preview of the Civil War!

Violence in the Senate

• Sumner beating– In Senate, Charles Sumner delivers speech “The Crime Against

Kansas,” which personally insults many southerners.– Preston Brooks enters Senate chamber and beats Sumner with a

Cane. • Uncle is a southern senator .

– It is three years before Sumner can return to the legislature.– South hails Brooks as a hero, many send him canes!

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• Election of 1858– Abraham Lincoln

challenges IL Senator Stephen Douglas.

– 7 debates across IL before election.

• Outcome / Importance

– Lincoln losses.• However, Lincoln is

recognized as one of the up and coming leaders of the new Republican party.

The Raid on Harper’s

Ferry

• Harper’s Ferry• John Brown (violent abolitionist from

Bleeding Kansas!) decides that he wants to attack and capture the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia and arm slaves in a massive slave revolt.

• The attack– In 1859, Brown and 22 followers

successfully raid armory• However, few slaves revolt.

– Robert E. Lee is called in. • His regimen wounds Brown, kills three

• Results– Plays on southerners worse fear of

mass slave rebellion, and growing suspicions of the North

– John Brown is sentenced to hang• North mourns his loss as a martyr• South thinks of this as the final insult

– White man trying to use violence against slavery!

– Its one thing to be against slavery in the territories, but completely another to attack it where it already exists.