Chapter 10

Section 4: The System Fails

Violence Erupts• Antislavery groups in the northeast set

up Emigrant Aid Societies in 1854-1855 to send 1,200 New Englanders to Kansas–Free Soilers–Proslavery south formed groups to counter them

–2 competing capitals

“Bleeding Kansas”

• May 21- group of southerners looted newspaper offices & homes of free soilers

• Stirred a swift response from John Brown–May 24- Brown led several New Englanders to a proslavery settlement near Pottawatomie Creek

• Roused 5 men from their beds, dragged them from their homes & killed them in front of their families

• Sparked a summer of murderous raids & counter raids

Bleeding Sumner

• May 22- violence spread to the US Capitol

• Sen. Charles Sumner attacked southerners for forcing slavery on the territory–Insulted Sen. Andrew Butler of SC

• Butler’s nephew Rep. Preston Brooks wanted to defend the south

–Beat Sumner with his cane

•He was badly injured & never returned to full health

–Brooks resigned his house seat- but was immediately reelected

Slavery & National Politics

• The election of 1856

–Republican John Fremont

•Said government had the right to restrict slavery in the territories

–American party chose Millard Fillmore

–Democrats nominated James Buchanan•Supported the Compromise of 1850 & Kansas Nebraska Act, won with the solid south

–Buchanan hoped the Supreme Court would end the slavery issue

The Dred Scott Decision

• Dred Scott v. Sandford

• One of the most controversial decisions

• Scott filed suit against his owner because he had once lived in states where slavery was illegal & he was free

• Court rules 7-2 against Scott• All slaves weren’t citizens & had no

right to sue in court• Living in a free state didn’t free him• Missouri Compromise was

unconstitutional–Slaves were property of their owners

• Meant that Congress had no power to ban slavery anywhere!!!

The Lecompton Constitution

• Fall 1857 a small proslavery group in Kansas elected members to a convention to write the constitution required to attain statehood

• Most Kansans were opposed to slavery & refused to vote on a referendum on the constitution because both options on the ballot would have protected slavery

• Supported by Buchanan–Defeated in Congress Aug. 1858

The Lincoln- Douglas Debates

• Stephen Douglas denounced the Lecompton Constitution

–Faced a difficult reelection campaign in Illinois in 1858

–believed whites were superior to blacks

• Series of 7 debates on slavery in the territories–Highlighted 2 important principles•Majority rule•Minority rights

• Douglas- supported popular sovereignty

• Lincoln didn’t think the majority should violate minority rights

• Douglas won the election

John Brown’s Raid

• Attacked the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, VA

• Hoped to seize the weapons & give them to enslaved people

–Hoped it would end slavery

• US troops under Robert E. Lee surrounded the arsenal

• Brown was sentenced to be hanged

–Northerners hailed Brown as a martyr to justice