Why were the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act factors that led to conflict?

Why were the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act factors that led to conflict?

1. Who was Chief Justice for the Dred Scott case?

2. Who “won” the election for Kansas’ sovereignty?

3. Stephen Douglas was a member of what political party?

4. What happened at Potawatomie Creek?

5. What was the nick-name for anti-slavery settlers in Kansas-Nebraska?

Kansas-Nebraska ActAn Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all that part of the territory of the United States included within the following limits, except such portions thereof as are hereinafter expressly exempted from the operations of this act, to wit: beginning at a point in the Missouri River where the fortieth parallel of north latitude crosses the same; then west on said parallel to the east boundary of the Territory of Utah, the summit of the Rocky Mountains; thence on said summit northwest to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude; thence east on said parallel to the western boundary of the territory of Minnesota; thence southward on said boundary to the Missouri River; thence down the main channel of said river to the place of beginning, be, and the same is hereby, created into a temporary government by the name of the Territory Nebraska; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of the admission (BOLD ITALICS MINE).

Map: The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Bleeding Kansas

• Kansas-Nebraska Act Nullifies Missouri Compromise• Territories to be settled slave or free by popular

sovereignty (Stephen Douglas’ compromise)• Implied - Kansas to be Slave and Nebraska Free• Free-soilers try to settle Kansas, touches off

sectional conflict• Only 2 slaves in Kansas, only 15 in Nebraska,• “an imaginary negro in an imaginary place”

Bleeding Kansas

• 1855: 1st Election in Kansas Territory• Missourians (Slaveholders) cross border illegally &

win election, then pass Lecompton Constitution (pro-slavery)

• Free-soilers elect their own state govt. & own constitution.

• 1856 Free-soiler settlement at Lawrence, KS attacked by pro-slavery militia of over 800 men. Town is sacked.

• John Brown retaliates at Pottawatomie Creek, murders 5, leads to deaths of over 200.

• Civil strife continues in Kansas until end of Civil War

Armed antislavery men with John DoyThough no one would deny that their cause was noble, many of the men who flocked to Kansas to resist the expansion of slavery were no less violent than their proslavery adversaries. This photograph, taken in 1859, shows a gang of armed antislavery men who had just broken an accomplice (John Doy, seated) out of jail in neighboring St. Joseph, Missouri. Like proslavery "Border Ruffians," many of these men also served in guerrilla bands during the Civil War and some went on to careers as famous outlaws after the war was over. (Kansas State Historical Society)

Armed antislavery men with John Doy


Free State Battery, 1856The slave state of Missouri opposed the entry of antislavery advocates for years and, by the 1850s, actively tried to prevent their passage through Missouri on the way to Kansas. "Free-staters" traveled through Iowa instead, often bringing arms with them. This small cannon, left over from the Mexican War, helped create "Bleeding Kansas." (Kansas State Historical Society)

Free State Battery, 1856


Map: Bleeding Kansas


SUMMARY: The artist lays on the Democrats the major blame for violence perpetrated against antislavery settlers in Kansas in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Here a bearded "freesoiler" has been bound to the "Democratic Platform" and is restrained by two Lilliputian figures, presidential nominee James Buchanan and Democratic senator Lewis Cass. Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and president Franklin Pierce, also shown as tiny figures, force a black man into the giant's gaping mouth. The freesoiler's head rests on a platform marked "Kansas," "Cuba," and "Central America," probably referring to Democratic ambitions for the extension of slavery. In the background left is a scene of burning and pillage; on the right a dead man hangs from a tree. CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1856. NOTES: [Drawn by John L. Magee]

Bleeding Kansas

• 1857: Kansas applies for statehood as slave state

• Admission opposed by Douglas, wants democratic

result

• Admission supported by Pres. Buchanan

• Buchanan and Douglas split the Democratic party

• New referendum called, Free-soilers win.

• South delays statehood request of a Free Kansas

• Statehood delayed until 1861

Violence in the Senate

• Charles Sumner, abolitionist senator, delivers speech entitled “The Crime Against Kansas,” attacking slavery and Southern Senators.

• Sumner is attacked by Preston Brooks on Senate Floor and beaten with a cane.

• Sumner suffers severe head injuries and is unable to serve in Senate for 3 years.

• N & S split in reaction to event. “First blows” of Civil War.

Southern ChivalryCartoons like this one, showing the beating of antislavery Senator Charles Sumner by Preston "Bully" Brooks, confirmed northern images of white southerners as people who prided themselves on their genteel manners but who behaved like street toughs. (Library of Congress)

Southern Chivalry


Dred Scott Decision - 1857• Dred Scott lives in Illinois and Wisconsin for 5 years –

free states. He argues he has become free by living there.

• Supreme Court, led by Roger B. Taney, decides– Slaves cannot sue in court b/c they are not full

citizens– Slaves are private property, govt. cannot take away

property w/o due process

HISTORICAL CONSEQUENCES:

Kansas-Nebraska Act, Missouri Compromise, and Compromise of 1850 are now UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!

Dred Scott v Sanford, March 1857“The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported

into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution....”

“It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them.... “

“Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.”

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How was the debate over slavery leading to

violence?

John Brown's body

John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the graveJohn Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the graveJohn Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave

His soul goes marching on

Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!Glory, Glory! Hallelujah! His soul is marching on

He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew His soul is marching on


John Brown died that the slave might be free,John Brown died that the slave might be free,John Brown died that the slave might be free,But his soul is marching on!


The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly downThe stars above in Heaven are looking kindly downThe stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down

On the grave of old John Brown


“In 1861 Julia Ward Howe wife of a government official, wrote a poem

for Atlantic Monthly for five dollars. The magazine called it,

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

The music may be by William Steffe.”

http://www.contemplator.com/america/johnbrown.html

Documents

Why were the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act factors that led to conflict?