Protest, Resistance, and Violence

Unit 1- Slavery and the Nation Divided

I. Uncle Tom’s Cabin- Influential novel

published by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 (instant best seller)It protested the moral evil of slaveryAbolitionist protests increased

According to legend, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 he said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War!"

II. Bleeding Kansas- Name given to the state for all of the violence

A. Kansas-Nebraska Act- pushed by Stephen Douglass in 1854, Kansas would use popular sovereignty to decide whether slavery would be legal or outlawed

B. Bleeding Kansas- The race was on for Kansas as pro and antislavery people attempted to populate the state to win the election“Border Ruffians” from the slave state

of Missouri crossed into Kansas with guns drawn and voted illegally for slaverySlavery became legal

C. Sack of Lawrence- Proslavery grand jury said that the people of Lawrence, an antislavery town, should be arrested as traitorsPosse of 800 men burned down the town

and headquarters

D. The Pottawatomie Massacre- John Brown believed that God had called him to fight slaveryHe thought that 5 men had been killed

in the Sack of LawrenceHe and his followers pulled 5 proslavery

men from their beds, cut off their hands, and stabbed them to death

Brown fled Kansas, but violence erupted as over 200 people were killed

E. Violence in the Senate- MA Senator Charles Sumner delivered a speech called “The Crime Against Kansas”Verbally attacked proslavery Senators,

especially SC Senator Andrew P. ButlerButler’s nephew, Congressman Preston

S. Brooks, walked into the Senate and struck Sumner on the head with his cane until it broke

III. New Political Parties Emerge

Political Party What it stood for Know-Nothing

Party Nativism: favored native born Americans (Anti-Immigrant)Extend time for citizenshipSlavery? Not a concern

Liberty Party Favored the Abolitionist Party Radical

Free-Soil Party Against extending slavery out west! Felt slaves were competition for whites

Republican Party

Whigs joined them!Against slavery out west…less radical. Slavery okay in the south