Unit 7: A Dividing Nation

1. Unit 7: A Dividing Nation

2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe brought the horrors of slavery to life to all that read her book. • Without her book, many doubt whether Lincoln would have been elected.

3. Fugitive Slave Act • It required Northern states to strongly support efforts of Southern slave owners who went north to claim (or sent representatives --'slave hunters'-- to claim) runaways. • In the North, even many NON-abolitionists were upset at this heavy-handed approach, and distressed at the sight of (claimed) runaways being dragged away. • Riots even broke out in response to slaves being hauled away. • Southerners were angry about the Northern response.

4. Bleeding Kansas • “Bleeding Kansas" revealed the level of hostility between North and South. • The fighting in Kansas fueled the flames of hatred that already existed between North and South.

5. Dred Scott V Sanford • The first ruling was that African Americans were not citizens. • The second ruling was that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in any territory acquired subsequent to the creation of the United States. • The decision divided the nation, southerners loved it and northerners were angered. • The decision is acknowledged for the influential role it played in altering the national political landscape: it is credited with launching Abraham Lincoln’s national political career and ultimately allowing for his election.

6. John Brown • Brown's trial for treason in Charlestown, Virginia was major news in American newspapers in late 1859. He was convicted and sentenced to death. • John Brown was hanged, along with four of his men, on December 2, 1859 at Charlestown. His execution was marked by the tolling of church bells in many towns in the north.

7. John Brown • Brown and a small group of followers seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in October 1859. The raid quickly turned into a violent fiasco, and Brown was captured and hanged less than two months later. • In the South, Brown was denounced as a dangerous radical and a lunatic. In the North he was often held up as a hero, with even Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau paying tribute to him at a public meeting in Massachusetts. • The raid on Harpers Ferry by John Brown may have been a disaster, but it pushed the nation closer to Civil War.

8. Election of 1860 • When the votes were tallied, Lincoln swept the electoral votes across the north to give him a majority.  Lincoln's name did not even appear on the ballot in ten southern states, but because the north had more population there were more electoral votes to be won in the northern states.  • Even if the other three candidates would have combined their popular votes, Lincoln would have still won the popular vote.  • Lincoln's election was the final straw for many southerners who thought that Lincoln would destroy slavery and their way of life.

9. Lincoln-Douglas Debates • The main theme of the Lincoln–Douglas debates was slavery, particularly the issue of slavery's expansion into the territories. • Lincoln said that the national policy was to limit the spread of slavery. • Douglas said that the people of a territory could decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. • Lincoln said that popular sovereignty would nationalize and perpetuate slavery.[

10. How did the Kansas-Nebraska Act represent a compromise on the expansion of slavery in the West? • As the United States was being torn apart in the 1850s over the issue of slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was devised as a compromise. • It was hoped it would reduce tensions and perhaps provide a solution to the slavery issue (popular sovereignty). • Yet when it was passed into law in 1854, it had the opposite effect. It led to increased violence in Kansas, and it hardened positions across the nation.

11. Admission of New States • With the opening of the West came new territories. • The Missouri Compromise line would certainly mean more free states. • The Compromise of 1850 meant there were now more free states. • Hopefully the Kansas –Nebraska Act would make the South happy. • The fact is the North would soon control both houses and the executive branch. • They could pass any laws without the fear of a veto.

12. Why did the South Secede after the election of Lincoln. • When Lincoln was elected, the South seceded. • They seceded because they believed they had no say in the government. • Though the North controlled both houses of congress, at least the president didn’t support the North. James Buchanan was a Northerner with Southern sympathies. • With Lincoln as President the Southern way of life (slavery) was doomed.