1. 16-3 Trouble in Kansas p
HSS Analyze the significance of the States’ Rights Doctrine, the Missouri Compromise(1820), the Wilmot Proviso(1846), the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay’s role in Missouri Compromise & Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), the Dred Scott v. Sanford Decision (1857),& the Lincoln Douglas debates(1858)
HSS Trace the boundaries constituting the North & South, the geographical differences between the two regions, and the differences between the two regions, and the differences between agrarians & industrialists

2. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
Election of 1852
1) Frustrated delegates at the Democratic National Convention turned to Franklin Pierce, a little known politician for New Hampshire.
2) Pierce promised to honor the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. Therefore, southerners trusted Pierce on the issue of slavery.
3) They (Whigs) passed over the current president Millard Fillmore, because they believed that his strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act would cost votes. Instead those choose Winfield Scott, a Mexican War hero.
4) Pierce won the election of 1852 by a large margin. Many Whigs viewed the election as a painful defeat, not just for their candidate, but for their party.

3. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
Election of 1852
The Whigs didn’t support the current president, Millard Fillmore, because they believed his support of the Fugitive Slave Act would result in a loss.
Franklin Pierce won the election of 1852, because he reassured southerners he would honor the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act.

4. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
14-2 Trouble in Kansas
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
5) President Pierce expressed his hope that the slavery issue had been put to rest.
6) Less than a year later, however, a proposal to build a railroad to the West helped revive the slavery controversy & opened a new period of sectional conflict.
Douglas and the Railroad
7) Ever since entering Congress in the mid 1840’s, Stephen Douglas had supported the idea of building a railroad to the Pacific Ocean.
8) The Missouri Compromise required that this land (Federal Territory in Louisiana Purchase) be free territory & eventually free states.
9) Southerners in Congress did not support Douglas’s plan, recommending a southern route for the railroad. (New Orleans, across Texas & New Mexico Territory to southern California)
10) Determined to have the railroad start in Chicago, Douglas asked a few key southern senators to support his plan. They agreed to do so if the new territory west of Missouri was opened to slavery.

5. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas Douglas & the Railroad Chicago is about here.
Stephen Douglas was a U.S. Senator from Illinois who wanted to build a railroad to the West through Chicago. Why? Chicago is in Illinois, Douglas’s home state.
Chicago is about here.
Notice that the railroad runs above the line? This was all supposed to be free territory under the Missouri Compromise.
Free
Slave
36-30 line

6. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
Two New Territories
11) Kansas-Nebraska Act, a plan that would divide the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase into two territories-Kansas and Nebraska-and allow people in each territory decide the question of slavery.
12) Some (Northerners) believed the proposal was part of a terrible plot to turn free territory into a “dreary region…inhabited by masters & slaves.”
13) Even so, with strong southern support- & with Douglas & President Pierce pressuring fellow Democrats to vote for it- the measure passed both houses of Congress.
The blue areas of the map are above the Compromise Line, which meant that the railroad would run entirely through free soil where slavery could not exist.

7. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
Kansas Divided
14) Antislavery & pro-slavery groups rushed their supporters to Kansas.
15) Elections for the Kansas territorial legislature were held in March Almost 5000 pro-slavery voters crossed the border from Missouri, voted in Kansas, & then returned home.
16) As a result, the new legislature had a huge pro-slavery majority. The members of the legislature passed strict laws that made it a crime to question slaveholders’ rights & said that those who help fugitive slaves could be put to death.
17) In protest, antislavery Kansans formed their own legislature 25 miles away in Topeka. President Pierce only recognized the pro-slavery legislature.
The pro-slavery people in Kansas wanted to have slavery be a question answered by the people. The antislavery people wanted the southerners to honor their commitment to the Missouri Compromise.

8. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas Bleeding Kansas
18) By early 1856 Kansas had two opposing governments, and the population was angry.
19) In April 1856, a congressional committee arrived in Kansas to decide which government was legitimate.
20) Although committee members declared the election of the pro-slavery legislature to unfair, the federal government did not follow their recommendations.
Attack on Lawrence
21) In May of 1856, a proslavery grand jury in Kansas charged leaders of the antislavery government with treason.
22) About 800 men rode to the city of Lawrence to arrest the antislavery leaders, but they had fled. The posse took its anger out on Lawrence by setting fires, looting buildings, & destroying presses used to print antislavery newspapers.

9. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
Bleeding Kansas
Many pro-slavery people from Missouri poured in to vote for whether Kansas would be a slave or free state.
The violence in Kansas, especially the Sack of Lawrence, over slavery was just a small preview of the great struggle of the American Civil War.

10. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
John Brown’s Response
23) Abolitionist John Brown was from New England, But he & some of his sons had moved to Kansas in 1855.
24) The Sack of Lawrence made him (John Brown) determined to “strike terror in the hearts of the pro-slavery people.”
25) On the night of May 24,1856, along Pottawatomie Creek, Brown & his men killed five pro-slavery men in Kansas in what became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre.
26) Kansas collapsed into civil war, & about 200 people were killed. The events in “Bleeding Kansas”
John Brown was an abolitionist that moved to Kansas from New Hampshire to stop the spread of slavery into the new territories.

11. 14-2 Trouble in Kansas
Brooks Attacks Sumner
27) Congress also reacted to the violence to the Sack of Lawrence. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts criticized pro-slavery people in Kansas & personally insulted Andrew Pickens Butler, a pro-slavery senator from South Carolina.
28) Representative Preston Brooks, a relative of Butler’s, responded strongly. On May 22, 1856, Brooks used a walking cane to beat Sumner unconscious in the Senate chambers.
This is a political cartoon illustrating the hostility over the issue of slavery. Here Brooks beats Sumner unconscious over negative comments he made about a relative of his.