1. The Divided States of America
The resurgence of sectionalism
America was still a very divided country.
The North was manufacturing based
The South was agriculture based
The question of slavery is ever present
In 1818 settlers in Missouri petitioned to be admitted to the Union as a state. Free state or a slave state?
Missouri Compromise
Set out that the line of divide in the country between slave and free states would be the 36th line of latitude.
Missouri-slave state and Maine-free state

2. Congress Compromises Again
In 1850 Congress strikes a compromise
After the Mexican War the US had a lot of new land
It needed to be decided whether the new states would be free or slave
SHOCKER!
The Missouri Compromise did not solve the slavery issue
Compromise of 1850
Among other things the compromise admitted California as a free state and passed the Fugitive Slave Act

3. The Fugitive Slave Act
Stated that escaped slaves must be returned to their masters
Northern governments were forced to comply
Brought the issue of slavery home to white northerners
Made Canada a major destination for escaped slaves

4. The Dred Scott Case
In 1857 a Supreme Court case, Dred Scott vs. Sanford, was decided that would have long lasting impacts on American Society.
A Virginia slave named Dred Scott sued his owner for freedom.
Scott was moved, by his master from a slave state, to a free state and attempted to argue that his owner could not legally own him in a free state.
The case went to the Supreme Court and Scott lost. Chief Justice Roger Taney made two key findings.
The lasting impact was that:
Slaves were not US citizens and therefore had no right to sue in a US court.
By banning slavery, Congress was taking away property, which he said violated the 5th Amendment.
His opinion took the extreme proslavery position and installed it as national law. Seemed to make any future compromises impossible.

5. The Underground Railroad
Escape was one form of rebellion that slaves undertook
Escape was dangerous
Slaves could be whipped, have limbs amputated or worse
Racist pseudoscience claimed that slaves who wanted to run away suffered from drapetomania
A fake medical condition that suggested that slavery was natural and wanting to escape from it was unnatural
Harriet Tubman was probably the most prominent “conductor” on the railroad.
Michigan and Detroit served as an important stop on the trail.
One of the places that slaves could be smuggled into Canada.

6. Frederick Douglass Douglass is born into slavery in 1818 in Maryland
Douglass escapes from slavery in 1836
Using paths that would eventually become part of the Underground Railroad
In 1845, Douglass writes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Begins to speak out against slavery and even meets with President Abraham Lincoln at one point and debates slavery.

7. Jefferson’s Quote
"But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.“
-Thomas Jefferson (1820)