SECTIONAL TENSION

Road to the Civil War

REVIEW: ANTEBELLUM SOUTH South holds almost 4 million slaves Why maintain the “peculiar institution”?

Looked down upon slaves as inferiorHope to rise in status by acquiring slaves

Breakdown:80% of whites own no slaves (poor whites)19% of whites own 1-5 (small farmers)1% of whites own 50 or more (plantations)

TREATMENT AND RESISTANCE Dependent on

slave owner “Valued

property”-fed, clothed, shelter

Split up families regularly

Runaways Sabotage

equipment Slow working Major fear of

resistance (Nat Turner, 1831)

PROSLAVERY ARGUMENTS Had existed through the ages and

provided the economic basis for several civilizations

Sanctioned by the bible Assured southern prosperity and cotton

production Better life for blacks in South than Africa Provided blacks with a better

treatment/more security than Northern factory workers

COMPROMISE OF 1850 US acquires Mexican Cession (M-A War)

Wilmont Proviso (what was that?) continues to fail in the House/Senate

WHAT TO DO WITH THE LAND?!

PLAYERS IN THE GAME “The compromise

will betray the south. Northerners will have to agree to federal protection of slavery for the south to feel comfortable remaining in the Union.” John C. Calhoun

“I am speaking not as a northern man, but as an American seeking the preservation of the Union.” Daniel Webster

COMPROMISE OF 18501. CA admitted as a FREE state2. Mexican Cession divided up into NM

and UT and slavery issue decided by POP SOV

3. Texas given $10 million to complete NM

4. Slave trade but not slavery ends in D.C.

5. Strict Fugitive Slave law Personal liberty laws (North) Rise in Underground Railroad activity Priggs v. Pennsylvania Significant turning point between N&S

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 1852, Uncle Tom’s

Cabin Abolitionist and

underground railroad worker

personalized the political and economic arguments about slavery

Swayed northern sympathy

“THE LITTLE WOMAN WHO WROTE THE BOOK THAT MADE THIS

GREAT WAR”-LINCOLN TO STOWE

RESPONSES 300,000 copies sold in the first year Infuriated the South Encouraged other stories-Martin Delany

(black abolitionist) Blake

South responds: writes own version of life including happy slaves and Christian masters

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS Illinois senator:

romantic notion of nationalism

Democrat, strong supporter of popular sovereignty

Encouraged land to be split into 2 territories: K/N

ABRAHAM LINCOLN Self taught

Illinois lawyer to senator

Whig party (heroes like Webster and Clay)

Against slavery but for expansion; commerce life over agriculture

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT: 5/30/54

BLEEDING KANSAS Whig/Free Soil party outraged Slave owners vs abolitionists Border ruffians: Missourians; "shoot, burn

and hang those against slavery”-fraudulent voters

Armed violence: small scale civil war Major result: creation of Republican Party

shocked by passage of Act Oppose the extention of slavery into new

territory Repeal the Fugitive Slave Law/Kansas-Nebraska

Act