1. A Dividing Nation
History Alive! Chapter 21

2. Some differences between North and South
The North
has four seasons
and cold winters
had business and
industry
steamboats and
lots of railroad
lines
The South
has mild winters,
long summers, and
lots of rain
had agriculture,
especially cotton
and used slave labor
steamboats, but
few railroad lines
CLIMATE
ECONOMY
TRANSPORTATION

3. CONFLICT The North wanted
the Tallmadge Amendment added to Missouri’s application for statehood
no slavery west of the Mississippi
The South wanted
Missouri to be allowed to choose to be a slave state
all new states to be allowed to decide for slavery or against slavery in the state

4. COMPROMISE The Missouri Compromise
The North accepted
Missouri as a slave state
The South accepted
Maine as a free state
AND
36 30 as the future line to divide free states in the North from slave states in the South
The Missouri Compromise kept the country together but…
The North really wanted
NO MORE SLAVERY AT ALL
The South really wanted
states to be free to decide

5. CONFLICT
Congress created a GAG rule that would keep everyone silent about slavery so that the compromise would hold
The Northern abolitionists wanted no slavery in the capital, Washington, D.C. (is not a state)
John Quincy Adams proposed that no African Americans born after 1845 would be slaves
BUT

6. CONFLICT Nat Turner and other slaves rebelled
Northern abolitionists helped runaway (fugitive) slaves
When Pres. Polk wanted money from Congress to pay for a war with Mexico, the Wilmot Proviso said that all land taken from Mexico would become free states
California wanted to join union as free state
Southern slaveholders made new laws to control slaves and tried to keep abolitionist writing away from slaves
Southern slaveholders said people who helped slaves were stealing their property
South said that states should decide themselves
South said that if California was free, the balance between free and slave states would be lost

7. COMPROMISE The Compromise of 1850
The North accepted
that land taken from Mexico could become slave or free states
that slaveholders in Washington D.C. could keep their slaves
that there was a stronger Fugitive Slave Law
The South accepted
California as a free state
the end of slave trade in Washington D.C.

8. CONFLICT Northerners were angered
by the Fugitive Slave Law and refused to follow it
by the Ostend Manifesto, a message Northerners said showed that President Franklin Pierce wanted to take Cuba from Spain to make it a slave state
by the Kansas-Nebraska Act which broke the Missouri Compromise and said these territories could choose to become free or slave states
Southern slaveholders were angered
by Northerners refusal to return fugitive slaves
by the novel about a cruel slave owner, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which turned more Northerners against slavery

9. CONFLICT
Northerners were upset when slavery supporters in Kansas invaded an abolitionist town, burned down a hotel, threw printing presses in a river, and looted houses
Southerners were upset when abolitionist John Brown and others took revenge by raiding a town and killing five slavery supporters

10. CONFLICT
Southerners were upset when Northerner Sumner gave a very harsh speech against Southern congressmen, including the senator who wrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Northerners were upset when Southerner Preston Brooks attacked Sumner and beat him with a cane so badly that it took him 3 ½ years to recover

11. CONFLICT The North was upset by the Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott, a slave, said he should be free because he lived in a free state with his master
The Supreme Court said he had no legal standing because he was not a citizen and that no African Americans, slave or free, could ever become citizens
The Court said the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it took away the property rights of slaveholders – and that slavery would be allowed in all of the territories
The South was upset
When abolitionist John Brown and others tried to steal weapons from an arsenal (in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia) to give to slaves to help them rebel
In 1860 when Northerner Abraham Lincoln was elected

12. CONFLICT The South was upset when The North was upset when
Lincoln told a reporter he
would:
support the Fugitive Slave Law and not interfere with slavery in the South
BUT he would
NOT support opening new territories to slavery
“Let there be no compromise.”
The North was upset when
South Carolina seceded
6 more Southern states seceded
Southerners fired on the U.S. federal Fort Sumter