(Review) Compromise of 1850 Congress passed the Compromise of 1850 which stated: CA would be free Slave trade would be abolished in Washington D.C. No new laws would be passed to prevent slavery in future territories won from Mexico Stronger laws would be passed to help protect the “rights” of slaveholders
Fugitive Slave Act Made it legal to hold accused fugitive slaves without a warrant, and they would not receive a trial It required Northerners to help recapture slaves Penalties for not cooperating Slave catchers could freely search throughout the North runaways Some caught free African Americans
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe, outraged by the Fugitive Slave Act, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin Showed the cruelty and immorality of slavery The book became extremely popular in the North The South said it gave a false depiction of slavery
Kansas Nebraska Act This Bill Proposed: A division of the Kansas Nebraska territory into two parts Kansas and Nebraska Popular sovereignty would determine whether slave or free in the western territories Southerners liked it; opponents of slavery didn’t The law passed and led to violence in the new Kansas Territory
Violence Erupts Settlers in Kansas began taking sides on the slave issue Proslavery representatives were elected to the Kansas’ legislature in 1855 Proslavery voters from Missouri illegally voted, swinging the vote Antislavery settlers rejected the elected government Sack of Lawrence: proslavery mob looted Lawrence, Kansas
Bleeding Kansas Pottawatomie Massacre Antislavery response to the Sack of Lawrence Seven extreme abolitionists attacked five proslavery neighbors Result was civil war in Kansas The territory became know as “Bleeding Kansas” due to the fighting that continued for the next three years