1. The 1850s: Toward
Civil War

2. Essential Question & Learning Goal
Essential Question: Why does conflict develop? Learning Goal: Students will be able to determine the causes that led to the division of the nation, discuss and evaluate political compromises made over slavery, draw conclusions about the Kansas- Nebraska Act, and analyze and compare arguments about whether or not the South had the right to secede before the Civil War.

3. Search for Compromise
Texas
Mexican Cession
Oregon Territory

4. Search for Compromise California - free or slave?
Southern “fire-eaters” threatened secession
Underground RR & fugitive slave issues:
Personal liberty laws – were used to counter fugitive slave laws
Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)

5. Compromise of 1850 A way to end argument over slavery
Suggested by Henry Clay
California would enter as a free state
No slavery limits in other new territories
Fugitive Slave Act
Anyone who helped a slave could be fined or go to jail.
John C Calhoun and President Zachary Taylor die in 1850; new President Fillmore agrees with the compromise

6. Compromise of 1850

7. 1852 Presidential Election
Who do you think won?
John Parker Hale Gen. Winfield Scott Franklin Pierce Free Soil Whig Democrat
Wanted to expand the US and did not address slavery
Free soil, free speech, free men! (No Slavery)
DeSplit the Whig vote over slavery

8. 1852 Election Results

9. Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
Stephen A. Douglas wanted to Organize territories of Kansas and Nebraska
Both would have been free under the Missouri Compromise
Popular sovereignty - People would vote to be a free or slave state
Solidified the divide between northerners and southerners

10. Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
VIDEO

11. “Bleeding Kansas” “Border Ruffians” went to Kansas to vote illegally
6,000 people voted in Kansas, but the popn was only 1,500
May slavery supporters attacked anti-slavery supporters in Lawrence.
There were about 50 deaths
Border ruffians – pro-slavery supporters from Missouri

12. “Bleeding Kansas”
VIDEO

13. “The Crime Against Kansas”
“[He is] a noise-some, squat, and nameless animal... taking "a mistress who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean," added Sumner, "the harlot, Slavery."   
Congr. Preston Brooks (D-SC)
Sen. Charles Sumner (R-MA)
VIDEO

14. The “Know-Nothings” [The American Party]
Nativists – favored native-born Americans over immigrants
Anti-Catholics
Anti-anyone who is not American
Secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner created in NYC

15. Birth of the Republican Party, 1854
Northern Whigs
Northern Democrats
Free-Soilers
Know-Nothings
Other miscellaneous opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Gained support due to events in Kansas

16. 1856 Presidential Election
√ James Buchanan John C. Frémont Millard Fillmore Democrat Republican Whig

17. 1856 Election Results
Note Republicans quick rise to threaten southern views

18. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857
Scott lived in a free state, therefore he could be a free man.
Chief Justice Roger Taney said that “negroes were not citizens and therefore could not sue in court”.
Attempted to sue as a “free man in a free state” after hos owners took him to a free state. Supreme Court decided slaves were not citizens. Slavery could not be legally excluded from U.S. territories.

19. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

20. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Illinois Senate) 1858
Douglas- Let the people decide what to do with slavery
Lincoln- We can’t easily stop slavery, but we can keep it from spreading.
Idea of what? (popular sovereignty)

21. Stephen Douglas & the Freeport Doctrine
States could legally exclude slavery by refusing to give rights to slave owners.
VIDEO
Lincoln tried to make Douglas choose a stance between popular sovereignty (Kansas-Nebraska Act) and Dred Scott decision (slavery cannot be excluded from U.S. territories.) Stuck with popular sovereignty for the most part.

22. John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, 1859
VIDEO
Attacked an arsenal to arm a slave revolt. Defeated and hanged. Southerners found out abolitionists paid for the raid and knew the nation was at the brink of war.