Sectionalism & Seething Anger

1848 U.S. Government Political parties were now welcomed as legitimate Federal government employed a total of 20,000 people 85% of Americans in 1850 still lived and worked on farms U.S. Treasury had a surplus of over $4 million in 1850

Good Vs. Evil 3.2 million blacks were still in bondage 430,000 “free” Negroes were pariahs Southern white families owning slaves shrank from 1/3 to ¼ in 1850 Small, non-slavery farmers depended on plantations to buy their crops

Following the Gold Rush JEFFERSON DAVIS

1846 Wilmot Proviso On August 8, 1846, Congressman David Wilmot from Pennsylvania attached a proviso to a bill that slavery be excluded from any territory acquired from Mexico An Illinois Whig by the name of Abraham Lincoln claimed to have voted for it “at least forty times”

Compromise of 1850 FIVE PARTS California admitted as a free state Utah & New Mexico admitted with no mention of slavery Settle Texas’ boundary claims for $10 million Suppress slavery in Washington D.C. Enact a more stringent fugitive slave law

Uncle Tom’s Cabin “So you’re the little lady who started this Civil War?” ~ Abraham Lincoln to Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Know Nothing” Party Laboring and middle-class native-born Americans sought a third party to attack immigrants AND fight slavery Profiting from a growing belief that both the Whigs and Democrats were corrupt, Know-Nothings swept the field in Massachusetts

1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act Douglas presented a bill to Congress on January 4, 1854, for the organizing of Nebraska which left settlers free to decide the slavery question themselves The repeal kicked up “a hell of a storm” when President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill on May 30, 1854

“Bleeding Kansas”

Dred Scott vs. Sandford Supreme Court decided the case on March 6, 1857, having argued a full year Scott lived for five years on free soil prior to the death of his master The court ruled 7-to-2 against him As the South celebrated, the North fumed

Democratic Split Democrats’ dissention had now become an open split, with Douglas on one side and President Buchanan on the other With Democrats in disarray, John Brown launched his reckless foray into northern Virginia in October 1859…he was hung on December 2

Election of 1860 Other candidates had alienated Nativists and waffled on the slavery issue Abraham Lincoln was rock-solid in his anti-slavery beliefs Lincoln only claimed 40% of the popular vote but picked up 180 electoral votes, 57 more than all his opponents combined

Confederate States of America