1. Conflict over Slavery Before 1850
Essential Question: How did Congress try to resolve the dispute between the North and South over slavery?

2. Terms and People
Wilmot Proviso – outlawed slavery in lands won from Mexico (new territories); proposed law
Free-Soil Party – a political party that promised free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men
popular sovereignty – followers believed a territory’s voters should decide themselves whether to allow slavery

3. Terms and People (continued)
secede – to break away, especially from the Union
Compromise of 1850 – legislation designed to avoid division between North and South over slavery
Fugitive Slave Act – stringent laws that required citizens to apprehend fugitive slaves

4. ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How did Congress try to resolve the dispute between North and South over slavery?
As the nation expanded, the problem of slavery became a divisive and difficult issue to resolve.
Different economies and viewpoints of the North and the South hindered compromise.

5. The North, a manufacturing society
The South, an agricultural society (farming)
Cities and towns were trade centers
Factories and farms produced goods
Paid labor source, few slaves
Many immigrants
Not a lot of cities
Large plantations and small farms were source of wealth
Slavery
Few immigrants

6. Slavery and the North
Slavery and the South
Few people had slaves, and slavery ended by 1860.
Slavery was an integral part of life with over one million enslaved African Americans.
Early in the 1800s, some northerners began to work for the abolition of slavery.
Many believed God intended blacks to provide labor for whites.
Many northern states limited the rights and migration of free African Americans, so many white northerners had little contact with them.
Southerners claimed that enslaved people were healthier and happier than northern wage earners.

7. Since the passage of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, Congress had tried to maintain a balance of free states and slave states.
The North wanted new territories to be free states.
The South wanted new territories to be slave states.
In 1846, the Wilmot Proviso, proposed that all lands acquired from Mexico would be free territories. IT DID NOT PASS -but it brought the issue of slavery to the forefront of public debate.

8. In the election of 1848, the Democrats and the Whigs split over the issue of slavery, and a third party was formed, the Free-Soil Party. Former President Martin Van Buren ran on the Free-Soil Party against Whig Zachary Taylor and Democrat Lewis Cass. Taylor was elected. (12th president)

9. Although the Free-Soil party lost the election, it had a large influence on politics.
Platform
Impact
“Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.”
It won 10 percent of the vote
Keep slavery out of the western territories.
It raised the question as to who would decide the slavery issue.
A national platform of “freedom.”
Tensions increased when California sought to join the Union as a free state.

10. The Democrats and Whigs were forced to address the slavery issue.
Both parties supported popular sovereignty, or having voters in a territory decide whether their territory would be free or allow slavery.
Having voters decide had wide appeal since it seemed in keeping with the tradition of American democracy. It would also remove Congress from the controversy.

11. Once again, the slavery issue was debated in the Senate by three political leaders.
Daniel Webster from the North
John Calhoun from the South
Henry Clay from the West

12. Henry Clay proposed the Compromise of 1850, a series of resolutions that made concessions to both the North and South.
The North
The South
California would be admitted to the Union as a free state.
Congress would pass a stricter Fugitive Slave Act.
The territories of New Mexico and Utah would decide on slavery by a vote.
Slavery would be enforced in Washington, D.C., although the slave trade would end.

13. Fugitive Slave Act
Northerners were now required to help catch runaway slaves
If caught helping slaves escape, you would be arrested or heavily fined.

14. During a heated debate in the Senate, Calhoun and Webster took different stands on the compromise.
Clay’s compromise did not give the South enough protection.
The South would break away from the Union if it did not get its demands on the slavery issue.
Any state had the right to secede if it disagreed with national laws.
The states should rally to the cause of unity.
Sectional compromise was needed in order to preserve the Union.
Webster supported popular sovereignty.

15. Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, and President Millard Fillmore (13th president) signed it into law.
The compromise was supposed to bring calm to the nation, but many people were dissatisfied.
Northerners were particularly upset by the Fugitive Slave Act.
Larger crises loomed in the decade ahead.