Ch 10 Sectional Conflict Intensifies

As the US was growing the question of whether to admit new states to the Union as free or slave led to increased tensions between the north and south

The Impact of War With Mexico President James K. Polk didn’t

feel that slavery would be an issue in the land taken in the war with Mexico

He thought the dry climate wouldn’t support the farming needed for slavery

In 1846 David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso, which would outlaw slavery in the territory gained from Mexico

Southerners were outraged

Lewis Cass of Michigan proposed popular sovereignty which said the citizens of each new territory would decide whether to allow slavery or not

In the presidential election of 1848 the Whig party choose Zachary Taylor as its candidate

But the Whig party was split Whigs who opposed slavery were known as

Conscience Whigs, they opposed slavery and Zachary Taylor

Cotton Whigs were in favor of both

Conscience Whigs quit the Whig party and formed the Free Soil Party to fight against slavery

There were 3 candidates in the election of 1848 Dem. Lewis Cass (popular sovereignty) Free-Soil. Martin Van Buren (against slavery) Whig. Zachary Taylor (avoided slavery) and won

the election

Search for Compromise The discovery of gold in California brought

nearly 80,000 people to the area called “Forty-Niners” because arrived in 1849

California soon applied for statehood as a free state

Southerners now with a minority in the senate began to talk about secession

Henry Clay came up with the Compromise of 1850 which had several different parts

Clay’s 36’30 line for Slavery

Zachary Taylor died that summer and VP Milliard Fillmore takes over

Senator Stephen Douglas divided the compromise into smaller bills

This allowed parts to pass but didn’t solve the bigger problems

Journal Entry – Jan 11 If you were living in the 1850’s in the U.S.

before the civil war what do you think your life would be like and why?

Sec 2 Mounting Violence Uncle Tom’s Cabin – written by Harriet

Beecher Stowe in 1852 about a slave and his overseer changed the Northern outlook on slavery

The south tried to have the book banned but it sold millions of copies and had a huge impact

The Fugitive Slave Act also created a lot of hostility in North toward slavery

Frederick Douglas was one of the most adamant opponents to the Fugitive Slave Act

The movement gave rise to the Underground Railroad

Members of the movement were called conductors

One of the most famous was Harriet Tubman

Transcontinental Railroad Sectional disagreements moved west with the

settlers who remained pro North or pro South

Many began to push for a Transcontinental Railroad to make travel to the west quicker and easier

Southerners wanted a southern route for the railroad, but the route would have to go through Mexico

James Gadsden was sent by the government to buy the land from Mexico

In 1853 Mexico agreed to accept $10 million for the territory known as the Gadsden Purchase

The land today is a 30,000 square mile strip of southern Arizona and New Mexico

Democrat Stephen A. Douglas wanted a northern route that began in Chicago

Congress would first need to organize the territory west of Missouri and Iowa

Douglas prepared a bill in 1853 to call the territory Nebraska

Southerners refused to sign the bill unless the Missouri Compromise was repealed and slavery was allowed in the territory

To please southerners Douglas pushed for the new territory to have popular sovereignty

Kansas-Nebraska Act Douglas’ next version of the bill repealed the

Missouri Compromise, and allowed slavery in the region

The Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the region into Kansas in the south and Nebraska in the north

In 1856 Kansas became the scene of a territorial civil war

It became known as “Bleeding Kansas”

Journal Entry – Jan. 19 Imagine the south secedes from the union and

nothing is done to stop them. Write a paragraph explaining how the world might have been different today. Would slavery have ended overtime anyway? Would the U.S. have ever been a major world

power? Could we have avoided millions of Americans

dying and eventually ended up coming back together and being as strong as we are today?

Sec 3 Birth of the Republican Party The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the

Whig party

The Republican party was formed in July 1854.

Election of 1856 Republicans nominated John C. Fremont

Democrats nominated James Buchanan

Dred Scott Decision (Scott Vs Sandford)

Dred Scott was an enslaved man whose Missouri slaveholder had taken him to a free territory before returning to Missouri

Scott sued to end his slavery

On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled against Scott saying slaves were property, not U.S. citizens, and therefore had no right to sue in the courts

John Brown’s Raid John Brown was a white

abolitionist

He tried to raid the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA.

He wanted to arm slaves in his neighborhood for a rebellion

Sec 4 The Union Dissolves John Brown’s raid caused southerners to fear

an African American uprising and blamed the Republicans

The democratic party couldn’t agree on a candidate for president in the 1860 election

Election of 1860 Northern Democrats chose Stephen A.

Douglas, Southern Democrats chose John C. Breckenridge

The Republican candidate was Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln won the election and the south saw this as a victory for the abolitionists

South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union

By February 1861, six more states in the Lower South voted to secede

------ States that seceded before April 15,

------ States that seceded after April 15,

------ Union states that permitted slavery

------ Union states that banned slavery      

------ Territories

Seceding states met in Montgomery, AL and on February 8, 1861, declared themselves to be the Confederate States of America

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was chosen as the president of the Confederacy

The Civil War Begins In his inaugural address Lincoln told seceding

states he would not interfere where slavery existed but he said “the Union of these States is perpetual”

President Jefferson Davis ordered an attack on Fort Sumter as part of seizing all federal buildings in the south

This was the beginning of the civil war

The upper South seceded after the firing on Fort Sumter starting with Virginia

The capitol of the confederacy was changed to Richmond, Virginia

Essay Question Explain the events and circumstances that

lead the U.S. into the civil war in terms of slavery spreading west, the abolitionist movement, and the final push to war.