Aim:How did the conflict over the Kansas-Nebraska Act deepen the north-

south divide?

Do Now: What was the main message behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

• Part I:

• Part II:

• Part III:

• Part IV:

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)• Steven Douglas (Whig Party) of Illinois wants

railroad built to Pacific, wants Nebraska and Kansas organized as territories so people will move there

• Based on their locations, who would resist these places becoming territories and, eventually, states?

• Compromise!: Disregard Missouri’s Compromise, open territories up to Popular Sovereignty

Pro K-N Act:•Nebraska land bad for farming: Will be freeAbolitionists can flood Kansas faster than slaveowners

Anti K-N Act:North opened up to slaveryVicious fighting will break out between North and South

• Opponents of Kansas-Nebraska Act form new political party: The Republicans

• In this time period, where was the Democrats strongest area of support?

Competing Editorials, 1854

Albany, New York Evening Journal

• 1) How does this author feel about slavery?

• 2) What other laws is he referencing?

Jackson, Mississippi Mississippian

• 1) How is he referring to abolitionists who oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

• 2) How is the author comparing the North and the South?

"Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave states. Since there is no escaping your challenge, we accept it in the name of freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers, as it is in right." -- Senator William Seward, on the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, May 1854

“Song of the Kansas Emigrant”, John Greenleaf Whittier

• The homestead of the free, my boys,The homestead of the free,To make the West, as they the East,The homestead of the free.

• 1----------2----------3----------4------------5

Based on this song, what is the goal of the people emigrating to Kansas?

• Pro and Anti slavery supporters flood Kansas, seeking to establish a friendly government

• Most people in Kansas anti-Slavery Free Soilers

• Border Ruffians: Pro-Slavery, flood in from Missouri

• Result: Border Ruffians win territory election• Free Soilers outraged, set up their own

government, proclaim Ruffian government “Bogus Legislature”:

• Kansas now has TWO governments

Free-Soilers• Anti-Slavery• Condemn Border

Ruffians as treasonous

“Bogus Legislature” (Border Ruffians)

• Pro-Slavery• Declare the aiding

of slaves to be punished by death

Who may be able to step in to solve this problem? Why do you think no one does?

The Sack of Lawrence

• Border Ruffians militia march on Lawrence, Kansas;, center of Anti-Slave activity

• No deaths, but beat Free Soilers and destroy the town

The Pottawatomie Creek Massacre

• John Brown seeks revenge for Lawrence• Marches to Pottawatomie Creek with 7 men,

brutally kill 5 slave supporters• Brown escapes to the North as a hero, • Eventually executed after failed raid on

Harper’s Ferry

Canefight! (Caning of Sumner)

• Senator Charles Sumner (abolitionist) gives speech protesting Pro-Slavery Andrew Butler

• Butler’s nephew, Preston Brooks (U.S. House) storms into Senate and attacks Sumner with a cane, beating him severely

• Brooks labeled a hero in South

• Civil War breaks out in Kansas, hundreds killed• Federal troops unable to stop the fighting