Wilmot Proviso
Amendment to military appropriations bill prohibiting slavery in territory acquired from Mexico
Debate over CA statehood
- Calhoun doesn’t want California and Southerners would -not remain in union
- Webster wants to compromise with slaveholders hurting his support from the North
- 1850- Calhoun and Taylor die in office
- Fillmore becomes POTUS
Compromise of 1850
- California becomes new state and NM/UT have territorial govts
- Slave trade prohibited
- Texas accepts $10 million for less expansive border
Fugitive Slave Act
Law that was a part of the Compromise of 1850, created new set of federal agents to help track runaway slaves and required authorities in the North to assist Southern slave catchers and return runaway slaves to their owners
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe- Slave act convinces her to do something
- Wrote book originally published as serials in National Era in 1851 & 1852
- Story of patient slave Uncle Tom w/evil owner Simon Legree and hero Eliza Harris (slave mother who jumps on ice floes to escape slave catchers)
- Praise from North and enraged the South
- Credited in Britain staying neutral in civil war
popular sovereignty
solution suggested by Sen. Lewis Cass in Michigan where territorial residents decide/vote for slavery’s fate and not congress
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1864
Douglas proposes split of Nebraska into both this and Kansas
Republican Party
1854- Northern Whigs and Seward w/Free Soil Party create this
- dedicated to stopping spread of slavery
- extinction of Whig party
Lecompton Constitution
- proslavery draft written in 1857 by Kansas territorial -delegates elected under questionable circumstances and -decisively defeated by congress
- vote only on whether Kansas is free state or not
- Election boycotted and proslavery wins
Bleeding Kansas
4 year battle over state legislature
-Army asserts control and final resolution in May 1858
Dred Scott v. Stanford
-Supreme Court case brought by Dred Scott, slave demanding freedom based on living in free state and free territory w/his master
-began in state court in St. Louis in 1846
-Case heard by supreme court in 1856
==decided against Scott
-Taney (Chief Justice) said Scott’s rights didn’t need to be honored and territory not really free state b/c Missouri Compromise unconstitutional
Panic of 1857
- banking crisis that causes credit crunch in the North b/c of overproduction of wheat
- less severe in South b/c high cotton prices=quick recovery
Illinois Senate Race
Douglas- painted Lincoln and Rep. party as radicals
==criticized Lincoln’s attack on Dred Scott case
==said Democrats were party of unity
Lincoln- issue=spread of slavery
==attacked Douglas’ belief of popular sovereignty
==loses to Douglas
1859 Mason-Dixon Line
line surveyed by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon b/t 1763 and 1767 that settles border b/t then colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland
John Brown at Harper’s Ferry
1859- Brown planning raid on federal arsenals on Potomac and Shenandoah rivers
-Began attack and took hostages/cut phone lines
Hours later- Robert E. Lee and troops surround him and captured ppl. put on trial for insurrection and treason
==All found guilty and sentenced to hand Dec. 2, 1859
-Brown then does interviews and writes letters from jail
-Condemned by nearly everyone as crazy fanatic
==Thoreau pleas that Brown’s violence cannot be compared to the violence of slavery
Constitutional Union Party
former Whigs become this
Crittenden Compromise
last effort to amend Constitution to protect slavery in states where it existed
Ft. Sumter Battle
80 man garrison commanded by Mj. Robert Anderson
demanded Buchanan hand over fort, he refuses and reinforces fort 1861
April 6, Lincoln announces he is sending supply ship to Fort Sumter
Jefferson Davis orders Beauregard to attack fort
April 12- Ft. Sumter attacked w/guns until April 13th when ft. out of food and ammunition so Anderson surrenders
Allowed to leave and went to NY as heroes
Confederates control fort
States kept in union
Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky stay slave states to keep them part of union
