Crisis and Causes Day 1 The Gathering Storm

Crisis and Causes Day 1 The Gathering Storm… American History I Mr. Hensley SRMHS

Monday Nov. 6 th • Begin new UNIT on the CAUSES of the CIVIL WAR • Short week – no school on Friday • TWO movies this week • On track for a quiz next TUESDAY

Compromise of 1850 • Last great compromise engineered by Speaker Henry Clay • Solution needed to bring California in as a free state • Southerners get strengthened Fugitive Slave Laws in return

Fugitive Slave Laws • Gives Southerners the right to pursue escaped slaves in Northern states • Northern citizens are required, by law, to aid Southern hunters • No right of trial by jury for recaptured runaways • Hundreds of free African. Americans taken back into slavery

Resistance to Laws • Some states like Vermont attempt to nullify Fugitive Slave Laws within their borders • More common is jury nullification, where juries refuse to convict anyone charged with failing to cooperate with laws • Makes every Northerner aware of slavery • Side effect: Canada

Underground Railroad • Series of secret roads and safe houses used by runaway slaves • As many as 100, 000 slaves may have used it to escape to freedom • Harriet Tubman most famous conductor • Ran all the way to Canada • Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland also popular

Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Released in 1852, becomes a HUGE national bestseller • Tom is a kind, gentle slave who remains a devout Christian despite torture, abuse and eventual death at the hand of evil overseer • Origin of many slave stereotypes

Popular Sovereignty • Owes much to the older idea “consent of the governed” • Championed by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois • Ends Missouri Compromise and lets the individual territories decide the issue of slavery through voting

Kansas Territory • Excellent farmland in Kansas and Nebraska territories – popular with settlers • Under Missouri Compromise, these would have been free territories • Kansas is just across the river from slave state Missouri • Many Kansans are proslavery

The US in 1854

Kansas-Nebraska Act • Passed in 1854 – organizes Kansas and Nebraska Territories • Slavery will be decided in each territory by vote (popular sovereignty) • A triumph for pro-slavery forces (not a compromise) • Balance of power tips towards South

Northern Perception

A Vote in Kansas • Most Kansans live near slave state of Missouri • Missouri sends over thousands of slavery supporters (“Border Ruffians”) to vote (illegally) in Kansas election • Election in 1854 is overwhelmingly in favor of slavery

Two Governments • Abolitionists organize mass migrations to Kansas to provide more anti-slavery votes • Anti-slavery Kansans organize a separate government in Topeka • Pro-slavery Kansans put their capital in Pawnee • Federal gov’t recognizes Pawnee, not Topeka

Bleeding Kansas • John Brown enters Kansas in 1855 and organizes raids on proslavery towns • State of civil war exists in Kansas from 1855 to 1859 – hundreds killed • “Bleeding Kansas” • Excuse for robbery, riots lawlessness

Republican Party Emerges • Whig Party was formed to fight Jackson but by the 1850’s, Jackson has been gone for 15 years • Free Soil Democrats, antislavery Whigs unite to form the Republican Party in 1854 • Formed to fight Kansas. Nebraska Act, stop the spread of slavery

Caning of Sumner • Sumner was a Republican Senator from Massachusetts • He was speaking against the two authors of the Kansas. Nebraska Act: Douglas of IL and Butler of SC • Beaten nearly to death by Brooks of SC • Energized the newly-formed Republican Party • Proved to the North that the South would use violence to maintain slavery

Review: Gathering Storm BIG QUESTION: How did slavery tear the Nation apart and bring us closer to war in the 1850’s? Tensions between North and South were made worse by the adoption of harsher Fugitive Slave laws starting in 1850. Popular sovereignty was seen as a betrayal of the Missouri Compromise by anti-slavery Americans and the first test of popular sovereignty came in Kansas where widespread voter fraud led to chaos and armed conflict. By 1854, a new party had formed from the Whigs and Free Soil Democrats – the Republican Party, dedicated to stopping the spread of slavery. The violent beating of Republican Charles Sumner help popularize the party and convince both sides that violence was inevitable.