Slavery Compromises How should the issue of
slavery be addressed within the new territories?
Do Now: How should the issue of slavery be addressed within the new territories?
The Missouri Compromise 1820The territory of Missouri’s request for admission to the Union as a slave state, threatened to upset the balance between 11 slave states and 11 free states.To keep the peace and balance between free and slave, Congress created a 2-part compromise;
• Allowing Missouri to be slave state• Admitting Maine as a free state
• It also drew an imaginary line establishing a boundary between free and slave regions.
1820
Henry Clay• Senator Henry Clay
suggested drawing a line at the 36º-30' N. latitude.
• Slavery would be banned everywhere north of this line.
In 1820, Henry Clay negotiated the Missouri Compromise
Missouri became a slave state
Maine broke from Massachusetts
& became a free state
Slavery was outlawed in all western territories above the
latitude of 36°30'
Slave states v. Free states
• California admitted as a free state• New Mexico and Utah territory
organized on basis of popular sovereignty (the people in the states will vote to decide.)
• Fugitive Slave Act made federal government responsible for catching & returning escaped slaves
• Slave trade (but not slavery) abolished in Washington DC
The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 solved the sectional dispute between North & South
California entered as a free
state
The people of Utah & New Mexico
could vote to allow or ban
slavery (popular sovereignty)
A stronger Fugitive Slave Law was created that
allowed Southerners to recapture slaves in the
North
The slave trade ended
in Washington
DC
Slave states v. Free states
1850
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) • The remaining Louisiana territory was split into 2 territories (Kansas and Nebraska) and organized on basis of popular sovereignty (people decided whether to keep or abolish slavery in Kansas and Nebraska)
Fight in Congress!• Charles Sumner, a Senator from
Massachusetts attacked the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Senators Stephen Douglas and Andrew Butler in a speech he delivered in the Senate.
• Sumner also made fun of Butler's speaking ability, which had been impeded by a recent stroke…
• Representative Preston Brooks, Butler’s cousin was infuriated and decided to defend his cousin by beating Summer with his walking cane. Summer almost died from the beating.
Summer is almost killed!
Brooks Beats Sumner
Bleeding Kansas• Anti-slavery (poor farmers who
couldn’t compete with plantation slave-owners) and pro-slavery were not able to come to an agreement…
• “Bleeding Kansas”: the disagreement turned into a bloody conflict with riots and murder
Free-soilers from Kansas voted against
slavery
Thousands of pro-slavery Missouri
residents crossed the border & voted for
slavery
The vote revealed a pro-slavery victory which led to a violent civil
war in KansasThis incident became known as
“Bleeding Kansas”
The Kansas-Nebraska ended the Missouri Compromise
Slave states v. Free states
Abraham Lincoln, Speech
delivered in 1858 in Illinois
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
Do you agree with Abraham Lincoln?
Was the Civil War inevitable
?