Transcript 10th Grade Ch 10 Sectional Conflict Intensifies

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
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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.


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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.