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1848–1877

Union flag flown at Fort Sumter beforesurrender to the Confederates

The Crisisof Union

The growing sectional crisis in the 1800s led tothe Civil War, the most wrenching war in

American history. The peace that was forgedafter four years of internal conflict reunited the

nation and ended slavery. It did not, however,end the problems of racial inequality.

Understanding the war and the Reconstructionperiod that followed will help you understand

the challenges of a multicultural society thatour nation still faces today. The following

resources offer more information about thisperiod in American history.

Why It Matters

Primary Sources LibrarySee pages 1050–1051 for primary source

readings to accompany Unit 4.

Use the American HistoryPrimary Source Document Library

CD-ROM to find additional primarysources about the Civil War.

Cap of a Confederate soldier

“We shall nobly save, ormeanly lose, the last best

hope of earth.”

—Abraham Lincoln, 1862

318

Sectional ConflictIntensifies 1848–1860

1849• California Gold

Rush begins

1847• Working hours

limited in Britain

1848• Serfdom abolished

in Austrian Empire

1852• Livingstone

explores Africa’sZambezi River

1850• Compromise of 1850 adopted

in an attempt to ease sectionaltensions

Why It MattersWhen the nation gained new territory, the slavery controversy intensified. Would new states be

slave or free? Who would decide? States that allowed slavery were determined to prevent freestates from gaining a majority in the Senate. Political compromise broke down by 1860, and

when Lincoln was elected president, many Southern states decided to secede.

The Impact TodayThe political and social debates of this period continue to have influence.

• Older sectional loyalties still define some regions of the country.• The modern Republican Party grew in part from opposition to slavery.

The American Vision Video The Chapter 10 video, “Tales From the Underground Railroad,” features a dramatization of enslaved African Americans using the Underground Railroad to reach freedom.

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▼▼1853• Crimean War

pitting Russiaagainst GreatBritain andTurkey begins

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1854• Republican Party

founded

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1846 1850 1854

Pierce1853–1857

Fillmore1850–1853

Taylor1849–1850

Polk1845–1849

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HISTORY

Chapter OverviewVisit the American Vision Website at tav.glencoe.com and click on Chapter Overviews—Chapter ## to preview chapterinformation.

19## 19##

President 19##–19##

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319

1858• Lincoln-Douglas

debates take placeduring the IllinoisSenate campaign

1861• Fort Sumter bombarded

by Confederate forces; theCivil War begins

1859• Darwin’s Origin of

Species published

HISTORY

Chapter OverviewVisit the American VisionWeb site at tav.glencoe.comand click on ChapterOverviews—Chapter 10 topreview chapter information.

View of Harpers Ferry by Ferdinand Richardt, 1858, depicts the peaceful town a year before a raid on the federal arsenal there triggered a crisis for the Union.

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1856• Conflict between pro-slavery

and antislavery forces causesriots in Lawrence, Kansas

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1859• John Brown raids the federal

arsenal at Harpers Ferry,Virginia

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1860• South Carolina

secedes from theUnion

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1858 1862

Buchanan1857–1861

Lincoln1861–1865

http://tav.glencoe.com

August 1846Wilmot Provisopresented

320 CHAPTER 10 Sectional Conflict Intensifies

✦ 1848

Slavery and WesternExpansion

Main IdeaThe question of whether to admit newstates to the Union led to new tensionsbetween the North and South over slavery.

Key Terms and NamesWilmot Proviso, Lewis Cass, popular sovereignty, Conscience Whigs, CottonWhigs, Free-Soil Party, “Forty-Niners,”secession

Reading StrategyCategorizing As you read about thepolitical aftermath of the war withMexico, complete a graphic organizer likethe one below by pairing the presidentialcandidates of 1848 with their positions onslavery in the West.

Reading Objectives• Explain how the government dealt with

slavery in the territories acquired afterthe war with Mexico.

• List the major features of theCompromise of 1850.

Section ThemeGeography and History The acquisitionof new lands heightened sectional ten-sions over slavery.

March 1848Treaty of GuadalupeHidalgo signed

August 1848Free-Soil Partyformed

1849California GoldRush begins

September 1850Compromise of 1850adopted

The Impact of the War With MexicoThe Crosswaits’ struggle with kidnappers was not unique. Although many people

escaped from slavery and headed north into free territory, they were not safe.Southerners believed that Article 4, Section 2, of the Constitution gave them the right to

✦ 1847 ✦ 1849 ✦ 1850

Candidate Position

Early one cold morning in January 1847, Mrs. Crosswait woke to the sound of pistol shots.Without a word she rushed to her sleeping children, while her husband ran downstairs to boltthe door. The Crosswaits knew instantly the danger they were facing. Kidnappers had cometo snatch them from their Michigan home and drag them back to Kentucky—and slavery.

The family had fled north after learning, to their horror, that the man who held them inslavery planned to sell them away from each other. They ended up in Marshall, Michigan.Home to a strong community of Quakers, Marshall welcomed them warmly.

Now, clutching her children, Mrs. Crosswait peeked fearfully from an upper window asthree strangers fired bullet after bullet into their front door and demanded that the family sur-render. She heard her husband pushing furniture against the door.

Then over the din came the voice of a neighbor, urging people to aid the family. Soon,friends came running. Shouting threats at the intruders, the townspeople intimidated theminto leaving, thereby saving the family.

—adapted from Black Pioneers: An Untold Story

Notice of escapedenslaved person’s capture

retrieve an enslaved person who fled across statelines. Some Northerners, however, held strong beliefsto the contrary and acted on those beliefs by shelter-ing runaways and helping them escape.

The Mexican War only heightened these oppos-ing viewpoints and led to increasingly divisive sec-tional tensions. The war opened vast new lands toAmerican settlers. This territorial expansion onceagain raised the divisive issue of whether slaveryshould be allowed to spread westward. As part ofthe debate over the new western territories,Southerners also demanded new laws to help themretrieve African Americans who escaped to free territory.

President Polk Sees Trouble Ahead James K.Polk, a Southern Democrat and a slaveholder,believed any argument about slavery in the new territories acquired from Mexico was “an abstract question.” No one would take enslaved AfricanAmericans to the Southwest, Polk thought, becausethe dry climate would not support the kinds of farm-ing that made slavery profitable.

As an angry debate broke out in Congress, how-ever, Polk realized that the issue of slavery in the ter-ritories was not something he could brush aside. Hisdiary reflected his fear that the question “cannot failto destroy the Democratic Party, if it does not ulti-mately threaten the Union itself.”

GOVERNMENT

The Wilmot Proviso In August 1846, RepresentativeDavid Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, pro-posed an addition to a war appropriations bill. Hisamendment, known as the Wilmot Proviso, proposedthat in any territory the United States gained fromMexico “neither slavery nor involuntary servitudeshall ever exist.”

Wilmot was one of a group of Northern Democratswho believed the president was “pro-Southern.”Polk had supported a new tariff that helped theSouth at the expense of Northern manufacturers. Hehad then compromised with the British on Oregon, aterritory where slavery was likely to be banned, buthad gone to war against Mexico for land thatSoutherners would occupy.

Wilmot’s proposal outraged Southerners. Theybelieved that any antislavery decision about the terri-tories would threaten slavery everywhere. Despitefierce Southern opposition, a coalition of NorthernDemocrats and Whigs passed the Wilmot Proviso inthe House of Representatives. The Senate, however,refused to vote on it.

During the debate, Senator John C. Calhoun ofSouth Carolina, although weak from tuberculosis,prepared a series of resolutions to counter the WilmotProviso. The Calhoun Resolutions never came to avote—moderates in the Senate were unwilling toconsider them—but they demonstrated the growinganger of many Southerners.

In the resolutions, Calhoun argued that the statesowned the territories of the United States in common,and that Congress had no right to ban slavery in theterritories. Calhoun warned somberly that “politicalrevolution, anarchy, [and] civil war” would surelyerupt if the North failed to heed Southern concerns.

Popular Sovereignty The Wilmot Proviso hadstirred passions on both sides in Congress. The issueof slavery’s expansion had divided the country alongsectional lines, North against South. Many moderatesbegan searching for a solution that would spareCongress from having to wrestle with the issue ofslavery in the territories.

Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan proposed onesolution. Cass suggested that the citizens of each newterritory should be allowed to decide for themselvesif they wanted to permit slavery or not. This ideacame to be called popular sovereignty.

Popular sovereignty appealed strongly to manymembers of Congress because it removed the slav-ery issue from national politics. It also appeared

Poster calling for antislavery meeting

CHAPTER 10 Sectional Conflict Intensifies 321

democratic since the settlers themselves wouldmake the decision. Abolitionists argued that it stilldenied African Americans their right not to beenslaved, but many Northerners, especially in theMidwest, supported the idea because they believedNorthern settlers would occupy most of the new ter-ritory and would ban slavery from their states.

The Free-Soil Party Emerges With the 1848 elec-tion approaching, the Whigs chose Zachary Taylor,hero of the war with Mexico, to run for president.The Whig Party in the North was split. ManyNorthern Whigs, known as Conscience Whigs,opposed slavery. They also opposed Taylor becausethey believed he wanted to expand slavery west-ward. Other Northern Whigs supported Taylor andvoted with the Southern Whigs to nominate him.These Northern Whigs were known as Cotton Whigsbecause many of them were linked to Northern clothmanufacturers who needed Southern cotton.

The decision to nominate Taylor convinced manyConscience Whigs to quit the party. They then joinedwith antislavery Democrats from New York whowere frustrated that their party had nominated LewisCass instead of Martin Van Buren. These two groupsjoined with members of the abolitionist Liberty Partyto form the Free-Soil Party, which opposed slavery inthe “free soil” of western territories.

Although some Free Soilers condemned slavery asimmoral, most simply wanted to preserve the west-ern territories for white farmers. They felt that allow-ing slavery to expand would make it difficult for freemen to find work. The Free-Soil Party’s slogansummed up their views: “Free soil, free speech, freelabor, and free men.”

The 1848 Election Candidates from three partiescampaigned for the presidency in 1848. DemocratLewis Cass of Michigan supported popular sover-eignty, although this support was not mentioned inthe South. His promise to veto the Wilmot Proviso,should Congress pass it, however, was oftenreported. Former president Martin Van Buren led theFree-Soil Party, which took a strong position againstslavery in the territories and backed the WilmotProviso. General Zachary Taylor, the Whig candi-date, avoided the whole issue.

On Election Day, support for the Free-Soilers splitthe Whig vote in Ohio, giving the state to Cass. Moreimportantly, it also split the Democratic vote in NewYork, giving the state to Taylor. When the votes werecounted, Taylor had won the election.

Evaluating How did the war withMexico affect the slavery debate?

The Search for CompromiseWithin a year of President Taylor’s inauguration,

the issue of slavery once again took center stage. Thediscovery of gold in California had quickly led to thatterritory’s application for statehood. The decision hadto be made about whether California would enter theUnion as a free state or a slave state.

The 1848 discovery of gold brought thousands toCalifornia. By the end of 1849, more than 80,000“Forty-Niners” had arrived to look for gold. Miningtowns sprang up overnight, and the frenzy for goldled to chaos and violence. Needing a strong govern-ment to maintain order, Californians began to organ-ize for statehood.

Reading Check

Forty-Niners Rush for Gold

In January 1848, carpenter JamesMarshall found traces of gold in a streamnear a sawmill he was building inSacramento. Though Marshall tried to keephis discovery a secret, word leaked out byspring, and San Franciscans rushed to the

mountains in search of gold. Duringthe summer, news of the find

swept all the way to the EastCoast and beyond, and the

California Gold Rush was on.

Gold nuggets and $50 gold coin

Forty-niners at slush box in California

Before leaving office, President Polk had urgedCongress to create territorial governments forCalifornia and New Mexico. Congress, bitterlydivided along sectional lines, had not been able toagree on whether to allow slavery in these territories.

Although Zachary Taylor was from the South anda slaveholder, he did not think slavery’s survivaldepended on its expansion westward. He believedthat the way to avoid a fight in Congress was to havethe people in California make their own decisionsabout slavery. California now had enough people toskip the territorial stage and come directly into theUnion as a state.

With Taylor’s encouragement, California appliedin December 1849 for admission to the Union as a freestate. Thus, the Gold Rush had forced the nation onceagain to confront the divisive issue of slavery.

The Great Debate Begins If California entered theUnion as a free state, the slaveholding states wouldbecome a minority in the Senate. Southernersdreaded losing power in national politics, fearing itwould lead to limits on slavery and states’ rights. Afew Southern politicians began to talk openly ofsecession—of taking their states out of the Union.

In early 1850, one of the most senior and influen-tial leaders in the Senate, Henry Clay of Kentucky,tried to find a compromise that would enableCalifornia to join the Union. Clay, nicknamed “TheGreat Compromiser” because of his role in promot-ing the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and solving thenullification crisis in 1833, proposed eight resolutionsto solve the crisis.

Clay grouped the resolutions in pairs, offeringconcessions to both sides. The first pair allowedCalifornia to come in as a free state but organized the

rest of the Mexican cession without any restrictionson slavery. The second pair settled the borderbetween New Mexico and Texas in favor of NewMexico but compensated Texas by having the federalgovernment take on its debts. This would winSouthern votes for the compromise because manySoutherners held Texas bonds.

Clay’s third pair of resolutions outlawed the slavetrade in the District of Columbia but did not outlawslavery itself. The final two resolutions were conces-sions to the South. Congress would be prohibitedfrom interfering with the domestic slave trade andwould pass a new fugitive slave act to helpSoutherners recover enslaved African Americanswho had fled north. These concessions were neces-sary to assure the South that after California joinedthe Union, the North would not use its control of theSenate to abolish slavery.

Clay’s proposal triggered a massive debate. Anysuch compromise would need the approval ofSenator Calhoun, the great defender of the South’srights. Calhoun was too ill to address the Senate. Hecomposed a speech in reply to Clay’s proposal andthen sat, hollow-eyed and shrouded in flannel blan-kets, as another senator read it aloud.

Calhoun’s address was brutally frank. It assertedflatly that Northern agitation against slavery threat-ened to destroy the South. He did not think Clay’scompromise would save the Union. The Southneeded an acceptance of its rights, the return of fugi-tive slaves, and a guarantee of balance between thesections. If the Southern states could not live in safetywithin the Union, Calhoun darkly predicted, seces-sion was the only honorable solution.

Three days later, Senator Daniel Webster ofMassachusetts rose to respond to Calhoun’s talk of


Daniel Webster

Henry Clay John C. Calhoun

Crisis Time The slavery issue led to a memo-rable debate in the Senate in March 1850. Whoproposed the Compromise of 1850?

History

secession. Calling on the Senate to put nationalunity above sectional loyalties, Webster voiced hissupport for Clay’s plan, claiming that it was theonly hope for preserving the Union. Although hesought conciliation, Senator Webster did not backaway from speaking bluntly—and with chillingforesight:

“I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusettsman, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. . . .I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hearme for my cause. . . . There can be no such thing as apeaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utterimpossibility. . . . I see as plainly as I see the sun inheaven what that disruption itself must produce; I seethat it must produce war, and such a war as I will notdescribe. . . .”

—from the Congressional Globe, 31st Congress

The Compromise of 1850 In the end, Congressdid not pass Clay’s bill, in part because PresidentTaylor opposed it. Then, unexpectedly, Taylor died inoffice that summer. Vice President Millard Fillmoresucceeded him, and he quickly threw his supportbehind the compromise.

By the end of summer, Calhoun was dead, Websterhad accepted the position of secretary of state, andClay was exhausted, leaving leadership of the Senateto younger men. Thirty-seven-year-old Stephen A.Douglas of Illinois divided the large compromise ini-tiative into several smaller bills. This allowed his col-leagues from different sections to abstain or voteagainst whatever parts they disliked while support-ing the rest. By fall, Congress had passed all the partsof the original proposal as Clay had envisioned it, andPresident Fillmore had signed them into law.

For a short time, the Compromise of 1850 easedthe tensions over slavery. In the next few years, how-ever, the hope of a permanent solution through com-promise would begin to fade.

Summarizing How did the GoldRush affect the issue of slavery?

Reading Check

Writing About History

Checking for Understanding1. Define: popular sovereignty, secession.2. Identify: Wilmot Proviso, Lewis Cass,

Conscience Whigs, Cotton Whigs,Free-Soil Party, “Forty-Niners.”

3. Summarize how Americans respondedto the idea of popular sovereignty.

Reviewing Themes4. Geography and History How did the

war with Mexico and the Gold Rushaffect the slavery issue in the UnitedStates?

Critical Thinking5. Explaining Why did Zachary Taylor

win the election of 1848?6. Organizing Use a graphic organizer

similar to the one below to list the mainelements of the Compromise of 1850.

Analyzing Visuals7. Examining Art Study the painting of

the debate between Clay and Calhounon page 323. What elements of thepainting suggest the seriousness of theslavery issue being debated?

8. Persuasive Writing Imagine you areHenry Clay. Write a speech to presentto the Senate. In your speech, try topersuade Congress to pass your compromise.

Compromiseof 1850


Legislative Item

• California admitted to the Union as free state

• Popular sovereignty to determine slavery issue in Utah and New Mexico territories

• Texas border dispute with New Mexico resolved

• Texas receives $10 million

• Slave trade, but not slavery itself, abolished in the District of Columbia

• Strong federal enforcement of new Fugitive Slave Act

Victory for?

Clear victory for the North

Moderate victory for both sides

Moderate Southern victories

Moderate Northern victory

Clear victory for the South

The Compromise of 1850

1. Interpreting Charts Did the newFugitive Slave Act appeal to the Northor the South?

2. Generalizing Which side, North orSouth, achieved more of its goals inthe Compromise of 1850?

325

Critical Thinking

Why Learn This Skill?Did you ever wish you could see into the future?

Although predicting future events is very difficult,you can develop skills that will help you identifythe logical consequences of decisions or actions.

Learning the SkillFollow these steps to help you accurately predict

consequences:

• Review what you already know about a situationby listing facts, events, and people’s responses.The list will help you recall events and how theyaffected people.

• Analyze patterns. Try to determine what the pat-terns show.

• Use your knowledge and observations of similarsituations. In other words, ask yourself, “Whatwere the consequences of a similar decision oraction that occurred in the past?”

• Analyze each of the potential consequences byasking, “How likely is it that this will occur?”

• Make a prediction.

Practicing the SkillCandidates for public office often make cam-

paign promises based on how they think voterswill respond. Use the information in the chart onthis page to help you predict what type of candi-date would be elected president in 1848. Thenanswer the questions that follow.

1 What event initially forced candidates toaddress the issue of slavery in new territories?

2 Review the facts and events listed on the chart.Do you notice any patterns? What do the factstell you about the 1840s?

3 What kind of president do you thinkNortherners would want? Southerners?

Skills AssessmentComplete the Practicing Skills questions on

page 347 and the Chapter 10 Skill ReinforcementActivity to assess your mastery of this skill.

Predicting Consequences

Applying the SkillPredicting Consequences Read several newspaperarticles about an event affecting your communitytoday. Make an educated prediction about what willhappen, and explain your reasoning. Write a letter tothe editor, summarizing your prediction. You may wantto check back at a later time to see if your predictioncame true.

Glencoe’s Skillbuilder Interactive WorkbookCD-ROM, Level 2, provides instruction andpractice in key social studies skills.

Events of the 1840s

Victory in war withMexico creates newterritory in Southwest.

Wilmot Proviso proposesban on slavery in anyarea taken from Mexico.

Members of Congress tryto avoid issue of slaveryin territories.

Popular sovereignty letssettlers decide whetherterritories should be freeor not.

Whig Party nomination ofZachary Taylor angerssome party members.

Results and Reactions

Americans torn overwhether area should befree or slave territory.

Southerners areoutraged.

Northerners andSoutherners continue toangrily debate the issue.

Abolitionists argue againstpopular sovereignty;most Northernerssupport it.

Many Northern Whigssplit and join with othersto create the Free-SoilParty.

March 1852Uncle Tom’sCabin published


One evening in 1851, the comfortable, well-educated, deeply religious Stowe family sat intheir parlor in Brunswick, Maine, listening to a letter being read aloud. The letter was fromHarriet Beecher Stowe’s sister, Isabella, in Boston.

The new Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, had gone into effect, Isabellareported, and slave-catchers prowled the streets. They pounced on African Americans withoutwarning, breaking into their houses, destroying their shops, and carrying them off.

Isabella described daily attacks. She also told of outraged Bostonians, white and AfricanAmerican alike, who rallied to resist the kidnappers.

Stowe listened with growing despair. She had lived for many years in Cincinnati, across theOhio River from the slave state of Kentucky. There she had met many runaways from slaveryand heard their tragic tales. She had also visited Kentucky and witnessed slavery firsthand.

As the reading of her sister’s letter continued, Stowe, who was an accomplished author,received a challenge. “Now Hattie,” Isabella wrote, “if I could use a pen as you can, I wouldwrite something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.”Stowe suddenly rose from her chair and announced, “I will write something. I will if I live.”That year, she began writing sketches for a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

—adapted from Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life

Mounting Violence

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Main IdeaResentment over the Compromise of1850 led to a further increase in sectionaltensions.

Key Terms and NamesUncle Tom’s Cabin, Fugitive Slave Act,Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman,transcontinental railroad, GadsdenPurchase, Kansas-Nebraska Act, CharlesSumner

Reading StrategyOrganizing As you read about the grow-ing sectional conflict over slavery in theWest, complete a graphic organizer simi-lar to the one below by listing thesequence of key events leading fromdebate to violence.

Reading Objectives• Evaluate how both the Fugitive Slave

Act and the transcontinental railroadheightened sectional tensions.

• Summarize the effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Section ThemeCivic Rights and Responsibilities Assectional tensions rose, some Americansopenly defied laws they thought wereunjust.

May 1854Kansas-NebraskaAct adopted

November 1855“Bleeding Kansas”conflict begins

May 1856Charles Sumnerassaulted in the Senate

✦ 1857✦ 1853✦ 1851

Uncle Tom’s CabinAfter running as a serial in an antislavery newspaper, Uncle Tom’s Cabin came out in

book form in 1852 and sold 300,000 copies in its first year—astounding numbers for thetime. Today the writing may seem overly sentimental, but to Stowe’s original readers,

Key EventsFrom Debate to Violence

✦ 1855

mostly Northerners, it was powerful. Her depictionof the enslaved hero, Tom, and the villainous over-seer, Simon Legree, changed Northern perceptions ofAfrican Americans and slavery.

Stowe presented African Americans as real peopleimprisoned in dreadful circumstances. Because shesaw herself as a painter of slavery’s horrors ratherthan an abstract debater, Stowe was able to evokepity and outrage even in readers who were unmovedby rational arguments.

Southerners tried unsuccessfully to have the novelbanned and strongly attacked its portrayal of slavery,accusing Stowe of writing “distortions” and “false-hoods.” One Southern editor told a writer he wanteda review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to be “as hot as hellfire,blasting and searing the reputation of the vile wretchin petticoats.”

Despite Southern outrage, the book eventuallysold millions of copies. It had such a dramatic impacton public opinion that many historians consider it oneof the causes of the Civil War.

Evaluating Why was Uncle Tom’sCabin so controversial?

The Fugitive Slave ActMotivating Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle

Tom’s Cabin was not the only unintended conse-quence of the Fugitive Slave Act. Although HenryClay had conceived the law as a benefit to slavehold-ers, it actually hurt the Southern cause by creatingactive hostility toward slavery among Northernerswho had previously seemed indifferent.

The Act’s Inflammatory Effects Under the Fugi-tive Slave Act of 1850, a person claiming that anAfrican American had escaped from slavery had onlyto point out that person as a runaway to take him orher into custody. The accused then would be broughtbefore a federal commissioner. A sworn statementasserting that the captive had escaped from a slave-holder or testimony by white witnesses was all acourt needed to order the person sent south. AfricanAmericans accused of being fugitives had no right toa trial and were not allowed to testify in court.

The law also included a financial incentive for thefederal commissioners to find in favor of the slave-holder. The commissioner received $10 if he decidedfor the slaveholder but only $5 if the decision wentthe other way. The law also required federal marshalsto help slaveholders capture African American fugi-tives and authorized marshals to deputize citizens on

the spot to help them capture a fugitive. AnyNortherner could be compelled to help catch AfricanAmericans. A person who refused to cooperate couldbe jailed.

Newspaper accounts of the seizure of AfricanAmericans and descriptions of the law’s injusticefueled Northern indignation. In New York, HenryLong was waiting tables at the Pacific Hotel whenkidnappers seized him. Although Long had beenliving in New York several months before his sup-posed escape from a Virginia plantation, he wasforced to return to the South and into slavery. TheNew York Independent publicized Long’s kidnap-ping, noting that “almost no colored man is safe inour streets.”

Northern Resistance Grows As outraged asNortherners were over such incidents, the law’srequirement that ordinary citizens help capture run-aways was what drove many into active defiance.Frederick Douglass emphasized this part of the lawover and over again in his speeches. A powerful ora-tor, Douglass would paint an emotional picture of anAfrican American fleeing kidnappers. Then hewould ask his audience whether they would give therunaway over to the “pursuing bloodhounds.” “No!”the crowd would roar.

Antislavery activists often used the words of writerHenry David Thoreau to justify defying the FugitiveSlave Act. In his 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience,”Thoreau advocated disobeying laws on moralgrounds. “Unjust laws exist,” he wrote. “Shall we becontent to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amendthem, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shallwe transgress them at once?” For many Northernersthe answer was to disobey them without delay.

Northern resistance became frequent, public, andsometimes violent. The violence was justified, somebelieved, by the violence and cruelty of the slave-holders and their hirelings. In a pamphlet, Douglassproposed “The True Remedy for the Fugitive SlaveLaw—A good revolver, a steady hand, and a determi-nation to shoot down any man attempting to kidnap.”

The Underground Railroad Although the FugitiveSlave Act included heavy fines and prison terms forhelping a runaway, whites and free African Americanscontinued their work with the UndergroundRailroad. This informal but well-organized systemthat was legendary during the 1830s helped thou-sands of enslaved persons escape. Members, called“conductors,” transported runaways north in secret,gave them shelter and food along the way, and

Reading Check


saw them to freedom in the Northern states orCanada with some money for a fresh start.

Dedicated people, many of them AfricanAmericans, made dangerous trips into the South toguide enslaved persons along the UndergroundRailroad to freedom. The most famous of these con-ductors was Harriet Tubman, herself a runaway. Sherisked many trips to the South.

In Des Moines, Iowa, Isaac Brandt used secret sig-nals to communicate with conductors on theUnderground Railroad—a hand lifted palm out-wards, for example, or a certain kind of tug at the ear.“I do not know how these signs or signals origi-nated,” he later remembered, “but they had becomewell understood. Without them the operation of thesystem of running slaves into free territory would nothave been possible.”

Levi Coffin, a Quaker born in North Carolina,allowed escaped African Americans to stay at hishome in Indiana, where three Underground Railroadroutes from the South converged.

“We knew not what night or what hour of thenight we would be roused from slumber by a gentlerap at the door. . . . Outside in the cold or rain, therewould be a two-horse wagon loaded with fugitives,perhaps the greater part of them women and chil-dren. I would invite them, in a low tone, to come in,

and they would follow me into the darkened housewithout a word, for we knew not who might bewatching and listening.”

—quoted in The Underground Railroad

An estimated 2,000 African Americans stopped atCoffin’s red brick house on their way to freedom.Coffin later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where heassisted another 1,300 African Americans who hadcrossed the river from Kentucky to freedom. A thornin the side to slaveholders, the Underground Railroaddeepened Southern mistrust of Northern intentions.

Examining What was an unin-tended consequence of the Fugitive Slave Act?

The Transcontinental RailroadSectional disagreements did not fade away when

settlers left their old homes and headed west into newterritories. The settlers firmly retained their identitiesas Northerners or Southerners. By the early 1850s,many settlers and land speculators had become inter-ested in the fertile lands west of Missouri and Iowa.Unfortunately for the settlers, the territory was unor-ganized. Until the federal government organized it asa territory, it could not be surveyed and settled.

At the same time, the opening of Oregon and theadmission of California to the Unionhad convinced Americans that atranscontinental railroad should bebuilt to connect the West Coast to therest of the country.

In the 1850s, getting to the WestCoast of the United States requiredmany grueling weeks of travel over-land or a long sea voyage around thetip of South America. A transcontinen-tal railroad would reduce the journeyto four relatively easy days while pro-moting further settlement and growthin the territories along the route.

The transcontinental railroad hadbroad appeal, but the choice of its east-ern starting point became a new ele-ment in the sectional conflict. ManySoutherners preferred a southernroute from New Orleans, but the geog-raphy of the Southwest required therailroad to pass through northernMexico. Secretary of War JeffersonDavis, a strong supporter of theSouth’s interests, sent James Gadsden,

Reading Check

i n H i s t o r y

Harriet Tubman c. 1820–1913

Known as “Moses” for her couragein leading enslaved persons to free-dom, Harriet Tubman was a heroine ofthe antislavery movement. Tubman wasborn into slavery in Maryland andstruggled early against the system’sbrutality. At age 13, when she tried tosave another enslaved person frompunishment, an overseer struck hersavagely and fractured her skull.Miraculously, she recovered from theinjury, but she suffered from occasionalblackouts for the rest of her life.

Tubman escaped to freedom in 1849when she was 29 years old. Uponcrossing into Pennsylvania, she laterwrote, “I looked at my hands to see if Iwas the same person. There was such aglory over everything. The sun came up

like gold throughthe trees, and Ifelt like I was inHeaven.”

Her joy inspiredher to help others.After Congress passed theFugitive Slave Act, Tubman returned tothe South 19 times to guide enslavedpersons along the UndergroundRailroad to freedom.

Tubman became notorious in theeyes of slaveholders, but despite a largereward offered for her capture, no oneever betrayed her whereabouts.Furthermore, in all her rescues on theUnderground Railroad, she never lost asingle “passenger.” Tubman’s braveryand determination made her one of themost important figures in the anti-slavery movement.



a South Carolina politician and railroad promoter, tobuy land from Mexico. The Mexican leader, SantaAnna, agreed to sell a 30,000-square-mile strip ofland that today is part of southern Arizona and NewMexico and includes the city of Tucson. In 1853Mexico accepted $10 million for the territory, knownas the Gadsden Purchase.

Meanwhile in Congress, the head of the Senatecommittee on territories, Democratic SenatorStephen A. Douglas, had his own ideas for atranscontinental railroad. Douglas was from Illinois.He wanted the eastern terminus to be in Chicago, buthe knew that any route from the north requiredCongress to organize the territory west of Missouriand Iowa.

In 1853 Douglas prepared a bill to organize theregion into a new territory to be called Nebraska.Although the House of Representatives passed thebill quickly, Southern senators who controlled keycommittees refused to go along, and they prevented

the bill from coming to a vote. These senators made itclear to Douglas that if he wanted Nebraska organized,he needed to repeal the Missouri Compromise andallow slavery in the new territory.

Summarizing Why did the UnitedStates make the Gadsden Purchase?

The Kansas-Nebraska ActStephen Douglas knew that any attempt to repeal

the Missouri Compromise would divide the country.Nevertheless, he wanted to open the northern GreatPlains to settlement. Douglas also believed that if heskillfully maneuvered his bill through Congress, hecould split the Whig Party and quiet the slavery issue.Unfortunately, Douglas had badly misjudged thedepth of antislavery feelings in the North. By persist-ing, he inadvertently set the country on the road to war.

Reading Check

Ashtabula, OHIO–site ofHubbard House, one of the end

points on the route north

Battle Creek, MICH.–burial site of abolitionist Sojourner Truth

Thousands of African Americansescaped slavery through

the Underground Railroad between 1830 and 1860.

The Underground Railroadexisted as early as the 1780s,

but its spread throughout mostof the North occurred after 1830.

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1. Interpreting Maps How far north did many under-ground routes reach?

2. Applying Geography Skills How many states hadareas where more than 50 percent of the people wereenslaved?

More than 50%of people enslaved

10–50%

Less than 10%

No enslaved or data

Underground RR routes

1860 borderDoll of

runaway child

Slavery and the Underground Railroad, 1830–1860


Antislaverycapital

May 24, 1856–Site of John Brown's massacre

on the Pottawatomie Creek

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May 21, 1856–"Border ruffians" from pro-slavery Missouridestroy printing press and burn buildings

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LecomptonTopeka

“Bleeding Kansas,” 1856

Two New Territories At first, Douglas tried tododge the issue and gain Southern support for hisbill by saying that any states organized in the newNebraska territory would be allowed to exercise pop-ular sovereignty on slavery.

Southern leaders in the Senate were not fooled. Ifthe Missouri Compromise remained in place while theregion was settled, slaveholders would not movethere. As a result, the states formed in the regionwould naturally become free states. Determined to getthe territory organized, Douglas went a fateful stepfurther. In his next version of the bill, he proposed toundo the Missouri Compromise and allow slavery inthe region. He also proposed dividing the region intotwo territories. Nebraska would be on the north, adja-cent to the free state of Iowa, and Kansas would be onthe south, west of the slave state of Missouri. Thislooked like Nebraska was intended to be free territory,while Kansas was intended for slavery.

Douglas’s bill outraged Northern Democrats andWhigs. Free-Soilers and antislavery Democrats calledthe act an “atrocious plot.” They charged that aban-doning the Missouri Compromise broke a solemnpromise to limit the spread of slavery. Despite thisopposition, the leaders of the Democrats in Congresswon enough support to pass the Kansas-NebraskaAct in May 1854.

Bleeding Kansas Kansas became the first battle-ground between those favoring the extension ofslavery and those opposing it. Since eastern Kansasoffered the same climate and rich soil as the slavestate of Missouri, settlers moving there fromMissouri were likely to bring enslaved personswith them and claim Kansas for the South.Northerners responded by hurrying into the terri-tory themselves, intent on creating an antislaverymajority. Northern settlers could count on the sup-port of the New England Emigrant Aid Society, anabolitionist group founded to recruit and outfitantislavery settlers bound for Kansas. Carryingsupplies and rifles, hordes of Northerners headedfor the new territory.

Pro-slavery senator David Atchison of Missouriresponded by calling on men from his state to storminto Kansas. In the spring of 1855, thousands ofarmed Missourians—called “border ruffians” in thepress—voted illegally in Kansas, helping elect a pro-slavery legislature. Furious antislavery settlers coun-tered by holding a convention in Topeka and draftingtheir own constitution that excluded slavery. ByMarch 1856, Kansas had two governments.

On May 21, 1856, border ruffians, worked up bythe arrival of more Northerners, attacked the town ofLawrence, a stronghold of antislavery settlers. The

Outbreak of violence

1. Interpreting Maps In 1856, howmany governments were there in the Kansas territory?

2. Applying Geography Skills Whatother territory lay to the north ofKansas?

Antislavery supporters in“Bleeding Kansas”

attackers wrecked newspaper presses,plundered shops and homes, andburned a hotel and the home of theelected free-state governor.

“Bleeding Kansas,” as newspapersdubbed the territory, became the scene ofa territorial civil war between pro-slaveryand antislavery settlers. By the end of 1856,200 people had died in the fighting and twomillion dollars’ worth of property had beendestroyed.

The Caning of Charles Sumner Whilebullets flew and blood ran in Kansas, theSenate hotly debated the future of theWestern territories. In mid-May 1856,Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts,a fiery abolitionist, delivered a speechaccusing pro-slavery senators of forcing Kansasinto the ranks of slave states. He singled out SenatorAndrew P. Butler of South Carolina, saying Butlerhad “chosen a mistress . . . the harlot, Slavery.”

Several days later, on May 22, Butler’s secondcousin, Representative Preston Brooks, approachedSumner at his desk in the Senate chamber. Brooksshouted that Sumner’s speech had been “a libel onSouth Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative ofmine.” Before Sumner could respond, Brooks raised agold-handled cane and beat him savagely, leavingthe senator severely injured and bleeding on thefloor. The growing violence over slavery had come tothe very center of government.

Many Southerners considered Brooks to be ahero. Some Southerners even sent him canes

inscribed “Hit Him Again.” Shocked by the attackand outraged by the flood of Southern support forBrooks, Northerners strengthened their determina-tion to resist the “barbarism of slavery.” One NewYork clergyman confided in his journal that “noway is left for the North, but to strike back, or beslaves.”

Describing Why did StephenDouglas propose repealing the Missouri Compromise?

Reading Check



Checking for Understanding1. Define: Underground Railroad,

transcontinental railroad.2. Identify: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Fugitive

Slave Act, Harriet Tubman, GadsdenPurchase, Kansas-Nebraska Act, CharlesSumner.

3. Explain how the transcontinental rail-road intensified the slavery issue.

Reviewing Themes4. Civic Rights and Responsibilities

How did antislavery activists justify disobeying the Fugitive Slave Act?

Critical Thinking5. Synthesizing What events led to

“Bleeding Kansas”?6. Categorizing Use a graphic organizer

similar to the one below to list theeffects of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Analyzing Visuals7. Interpreting Maps Study the map of

the Underground Railroad on page 329.Consider the entire expanse of theUnited States and its territories in the1850s. If slavery failed to expand, whateffect would this have on the South’sinfluence on national policy?

8. Expository Writing Imagine you area reporter for a Southern or Northernnewspaper in the 1850s. Write an article on public reaction to UncleTom’s Cabin.

Fugitive Slave Act

Effects

Violence in the Senate Representative Preston Brooks beat Senator CharlesSumner savagely for criticizing Brooks’s cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. ManySoutherners voiced their approval by sending Brooks canes like the one shownhere. What emotions did the event stir up in the North and South?

Analyzing Political Cartoons

July 1854Republican Partyfounded


✦ 1856

By the 1850s, feelings were running high among Northerners and Southerners overwhether slavery should be allowed in new territories. These strong feelings also toreold political parties apart and created new ones. Soon after Lincoln was defeated inhis race for senator from Illinois, he wrote to a Springfield friend:

“I think I am a Whig; but others say there are not Whigs, and that I am an aboli-tionist. . . . I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery. I am not aKnow-Nothing. . . . How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of

negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? . . . As a nation, we beganby declaring ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created

equal except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are cre-ated equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should

prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russiafor instance. . . .”

—quoted in Abraham Lincoln

The Crisis Deepens

Main IdeaThe slavery controversy accelerated boththe breakdown of the major political par-ties and the growth of hostility betweenNorth and South.

Key Terms and NamesRepublican Party, Know-Nothings, DredScott, referendum, Lecompton constitu-tion, Freeport Doctrine, insurrection

Reading StrategyCategorizing As you read about theNorth-South split, complete a graphicorganizer like the one below to groupevents as executive, legislative, judicial, ornongovernmental.

Reading Objectives• Analyze the events that increased sec-

tional tensions in the late 1850s.• Describe the Lincoln-Douglas Senate

campaign of 1858.

Section ThemeGroups and Institutions Due to differingopinions within established parties,Americans forged new political alliancesin the 1850s.

✦ 1854

1857Lecompton constitutiondrafted in Kansas

March 1857Supreme Court announcesDred Scott decision

1858Lincoln-Douglasdebates

October 1859John Brown and followersraid Harpers Ferry

Birth of the Republican PartyWhen the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, it enraged many

people who opposed the extension of slavery. A few of these people resorted to violence,but the effect was just as dramatic on political parties—both the Whigs and the Democratswere split. In the Whig Party, pro-slavery Southern Whigs and antislavery NorthernWhigs had long battled for control of their party. With passage of the Kansas-Nebraska

Executive

Legislative

Judicial

Nongovernmental

Abraham Lincoln

✦ 1860✦ 1858

Act, disaster was complete. Every Northern Whig inCongress had voted against the bill, while mostSouthern Whigs had supported it. “We Whigs of theNorth,” wrote one member from Connecticut, “areunalterably determined never to have even the slight-est political correspondence or connexion” with theSouthern Whigs.

Anger over the Kansas-Nebraska Act convincedformer Whigs, members of the Free-Soil Party, and afew antislavery Democrats to work together duringthe congressional elections of 1854. These coalitionstook many different names, including the Anti-Nebraska Party, the Fusion Party, the People’s Party,and the Independent Party. The most popular namefor the new coalition was the Republican Party.

Republicans Organize At a convention in Mich-igan in July 1854, the Republican Party was officiallyorganized. In choosing the same name as Jefferson’soriginal party, the Republicans declared their inten-tion to revive the spirit of the American Revolution.Just as Jefferson had chosen the name because hewanted to prevent the United States from becoming amonarchy, the new Republicans chose their namebecause they feared that the Southern planters werebecoming an aristocracy that controlled the federalgovernment.

Republicans did not agree on whether slaveryshould be abolished in the Southern states, but theydid agree that it had to be kept out of the territories.A large majority of Northern voters seemed to agree,enabling the Republicans and the other antislaveryparties to make great strides in the elections of 1854.

The Know-Nothings At the same time, publicanger against the Northern Democrats also enabledthe American Party—better known as the Know-Nothings—to make great gains as well, particularlyin the Northeast. The American Party was an anti-Catholic and nativist party. It opposed immigration,particularly Catholic immigration, into the UnitedStates. Prejudice and fear that immigrants would takeaway jobs enabled the Know-Nothings to win manyseats in Congress and the state legislatures in 1854.

Soon after the election, the Know-Nothings suf-fered the same fate as the Whigs. Many Know-Nothings had been elected from the Upper South,particularly Maryland, Tennessee, and Kentucky.They quickly split with Know-Nothings from theNorth over their support for the Kansas-Nebraska


Party

Whig (1834–1854)

Democrat(1828–present)

Liberty(1839–c. 1844)

Free-Soil(1848–1854)

Republican(c. 1854–present)

American Party (Know-Nothings)(1849–c. 1860)

Characteristics

Party strongly divided into sectional factions; united onlyin opposition to Democratic Party

Largely controlled federal government from 1828 to1860 but increasingly dominated by Southern Democratsafter 1840

Promoted abolition of slavery; after LibertyParty’s failure, members supported Free-Soil andRepublican Parties

Composed of Liberty Party members, antislavery Whigs,and antislavery New York Democrats

Composed of Northern Whigs and Free-Soilers; opposedfurther expansion of slavery

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic

Major Leaders

Daniel Webster, Henry Clay

John C. Calhoun

James Birney

Martin Van Buren, Charles FrancisAdams

Abraham Lincoln

Millard Fillmore (former Whig)

Source: Encarta Encyclopedia

Political Parties of the Era

1. Interpreting Charts Which party had the shortestlife span?

2. Drawing Conclusions Does any party listed nothave an obvious connection to the slavery issue?

Act. Furthermore, the violence in Kansas and thebeating of Charles Sumner made slavery a far moreimportant issue to most Americans than immigra-tion. Eventually, the Republican Party absorbed theNorthern Know-Nothings.

Examining What events led to thefounding of the Republican Party?

The Election of 1856To gain the widest possible support in the 1856

campaign, the Republicans nominated John C.Frémont, a famous Western explorer nicknamed“The Pathfinder.” Frémont had spoken in favor ofKansas becoming a free state. He had little politicalexperience but also no embarrassing record todefend.

The Democrats nominated James Buchanan.Buchanan had served in Congress for 20 years andhad been the American ambassador to Russia andthen to Great Britain. He had been in Great Britainduring the debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act andhad not taken a stand on the issue, but his record inCongress showed that he believed the best way tosave the Union was to make concessions to the South.

The American Party tried to reunite its Northernand Southern members at its convention, but most of

the Northern delegates walked out when the partyrefused to call for the repeal of the Kansas-NebraskaAct. The rest of the convention then chose formerpresident Millard Fillmore to represent the AmericanParty, hoping to attract the vote of former Whigs.

The campaign was really two separate contests:Buchanan against Frémont in the North, andBuchanan against Fillmore in the South. Buchananhad solid support in the South and only needed hishome state of Pennsylvania and one other to win thepresidency. Democrats campaigned on the idea thatonly Buchanan could save the Union and that theelection of Frémont would cause the South to secede.When the votes were counted, Buchanan had won.

Identifying What political party andcandidate won the presidency in 1856?

Sectional Divisions GrowDespite Buchanan’s determination to adopt poli-

cies that would calm the growing sectional strife inthe country, a series of events helped drive Americansin the North and South even further apart.

The Dred Scott Decision In his March 1857 inau-gural address, James Buchanan suggested that thenation let the Supreme Court decide the question ofslavery in the territories. Most people who listened tothe address did not know that Buchanan had con-tacted members of the Supreme Court and thereforeknew that a decision was imminent.

Many Southern members of Congress had quietlypressured the Supreme Court justices to issue a rul-ing on slavery in the territories. They expected theSouthern majority on the court to rule in favor of theSouth. They were not disappointed. Two days afterthe inauguration, the Court released its opinion inthe case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. ; (See page 1080 formore information on Dred Scott v. Sandford.)

Dred Scott was an enslaved man whose Missourislaveholder had taken him to live in free territorybefore returning to Missouri. Assisted by abolitionists,Scott sued to end his slavery, arguing that the time hehad spent in free territory meant he was free. The casewent all the way to the Supreme Court.

On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taneydelivered the majority opinion in the case. Taneyruled against Scott because, he claimed, AfricanAmericans were not citizens and therefore could notsue in the courts. Taney then addressed the MissouriCompromise’s ban on slavery in territory north ofMissouri’s southern border:

Reading Check

Reading Check

“Born in a Log Cabin” The image of a “commonman” president was appealing to campaign man-agers in the 1800s. As voting rights spread beyondlandowners, the candidate with humble roots was apotent political image. Although many nineteenth-century candidates sought to appeal to the masses,only five presidents were actually born in a loghome: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, JamesBuchanan, Abraham Lincoln, and James Garfield. Ofthese five, Jackson, Lincoln, Buchanan, and Garfieldactually experienced serious povertyin childhood. William HenryHarrison campaigned withimages of a log cabin child-hood, but he was actuallyborn into an elite Virginiafamily that was acquaintedwith George Washington.


“It is the opinion of the court that the Act ofCongress which prohibited a citizen from holding andowning [enslaved persons] in the territory of the UnitedStates north of the line therein mentioned is not war-ranted by the Constitution and is therefore void.”

—from Dred Scott v. Sandford

Instead of removing the issue of slavery in the ter-ritories from politics, the Dred Scott decision itselfbecame a political issue that further intensified thesectional conflict. The Supreme Court had said thatthe federal government could not prohibit slavery inthe territories. Free soil, one of the basic ideas unitingRepublicans, was unconstitutional.

Democrats cheered the decision, but Republicanscondemned it and claimed it was not binding.Instead they argued that it was an obiter dictum, anincidental opinion not called for by the circumstancesof the case. Southerners, on the other hand, calledon Northerners to obey the decision if theywanted the South to remain in the Union.

Many African Americans, among themPhiladelphia activist Robert Purvis, pub-licly declared contempt for any govern-ment that could produce such an edict:

“Mr. Chairman, look at the facts—here, in a country with a sublimity ofimpudence that knows no parallel, settingitself up before the world as a free coun-try, a land of liberty!, ‘the land of the free,and the home of the brave,’ the ‘freest coun-try in all the world’ . . . and yet here are millionsof men and women . . . bought and sold, whipped,manacled, killed all the day long.”

—quoted in Witness for Freedom

Kansas’s Lecompton Constitution Frustrationwith the government also fueled the conflict betweenantislavery and pro-slavery forces in “BleedingKansas.” Hoping to end the troubles there, PresidentBuchanan urged the territory to apply for statehood.The pro-slavery legislature scheduled an election fordelegates to a constitutional convention, but anti-slavery Kansans boycotted it, claiming it was rigged.The resulting constitution, drafted in the town ofLecompton in 1857, legalized slavery in the territory.

Each side then held its own referendum, or popu-lar vote, on the constitution. Antislavery forces voteddown the constitution; pro-slavery forces approved it.Buchanan accepted the pro-slavery vote and asked

Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state. The Senatequickly voted to accept the Lecompton constitution,but the House of Representatives blocked it. Manymembers of Congress became so angry during thedebates that fistfights broke out. Southern leaderswere stunned when even Stephen Douglas of Illinoisrefused to support them. Many had hoped thatDouglas, a Northern leader and possible future presi-dent, understood the South’s concerns and wouldmake the compromise necessary to keep the South inthe Union.

Finally, to get the votes they needed, PresidentBuchanan and Southern leaders in Congress agreedto allow another referendum in Kansas on the con-stitution. Southern leaders expected to win thisreferendum. If the settlers in Kansas rejected theLecompton constitution, they would delay state-hood for Kansas for at least two more years.


Front-Page News Chief Justice Roger B. Taneydelivered the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scottcase. The decision made Scott a topic for the nation’spress. What impression of Scott’s family do you getfrom the engravings shown here?

History

Despite these conditions, the settlers in Kansasvoted overwhelmingly in 1858 to reject theLecompton constitution. They did not want slaveryin their state. As a result, Kansas did not become astate until 1861.

Summarizing Why did Dred Scottsue the slaveholder who held him?

Lincoln and DouglasIn 1858 Illinois Republicans chose a relative

unknown named Abraham Lincoln to run for theSenate against the Democratic incumbent, Stephen A.Douglas. Lincoln launched his campaign in Junewith a memorable speech, in which he declared:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. Ibelieve this Government cannot endure, permanentlyhalf slave and half free. I do not expect the Union tobe dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—butI do expect it will cease to be divided. It will becomeall one thing or all the other.”

—quoted in The Civil War: An Illustrated History

The nationally prominent Douglas, a short, stockyman nicknamed “The Little Giant,” regularly drewlarge crowds on the campaign trail. Seeking to over-come Douglas’s fame, Lincoln proposed a series ofdebates between the candidates, which wouldexpose him to larger audiences than he could attracton his own. Douglas confidently accepted.

Born on the Kentucky frontier and raised in Indiana,Lincoln had experienced little more than small-town

life. A storekeeper, mill hand, and rail-splitter duringhis youth, he went on to study and practice law. Laterhe served in the Illinois state legislature and, for asingle term, in the U.S. House of Representatives as amember of the Whig Party. Despite this modest back-ground, Lincoln proved himself a gifted debater.Both witty and logical, he regularly illuminated hispoints with quotations from scripture or appealinghomespun stories from everyday life.

Although not an abolitionist, Lincoln believedslavery to be morally wrong and opposed its spreadinto western territories. Douglas, by contrast, sup-ported popular sovereignty. During a debate inFreeport, Lincoln asked Douglas if the people of aterritory could legally exclude slavery before achiev-ing statehood? If Douglas said yes, he would appearto be supporting popular sovereignty and opposingthe Dred Scott ruling, which would cost him Southernsupport. If he said no, it would make it seem as if hehad abandoned popular sovereignty, the principle onwhich he had built his national following.

Douglas tried to avoid the dilemma, formulatingan answer that became known as the FreeportDoctrine. He replied that he accepted the Dred Scottruling, but he argued that people could still keepslavery out by refusing to pass the laws needed to

Reading Check


“The right of the people to make a slave

Territory or a freeTerritory is perfect

and complete.”—Stephen Douglas

regulate and enforce it. “Slavery cannot exist . . . any-where,” said Douglas, “unless it is supported by localpolice regulations.” Douglas’s response pleasedIllinois voters but angered Southerners.

Lincoln also attacked Douglas’s claim that he“cared not” whether Kansans voted for or againstslavery. Denouncing “the modern Democratic ideathat slavery is as good as freedom,” Lincoln called onvoters to elect Republicans, “whose hearts are in thework, who do care for the result”:

“Has any thing ever threatened the existence of thisUnion save and except this very institution of slavery?What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our ownliberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened ourliberty and prosperity save and except this institution ofslavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improvethe condition of things by enlarging slavery—byspreading it out and making it bigger? You may havea wen [sore] or cancer upon your person and not beable to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely itis no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it overyour whole body. That is no proper way of treatingwhat you regard a wrong.”

—quoted in The Civil War: Opposing Viewpoints

Douglas won the election, but Lincoln did notcome away empty-handed. He had seized the oppor-tunity in the debates to make clear the principles ofthe Republican Party. He had also established anational reputation for himself as a man of clear,insightful thinking who could argue with force andeloquence. Within a year, however, national attentionshifted to another figure, a man who opposed slaverynot with well-crafted phrases, but with a gun.

Examining What were the positionsof Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln on slavery?

John Brown’s RaidJohn Brown was a fervent abolitionist who

believed, as one minister who knew him in Kansassaid, “that God had raised him up on purpose tobreak the jaws of the wicked.” In 1859, he developeda plan to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry,Virginia (today in West Virginia), free and arm theenslaved people of the neighborhood, and begin aninsurrection, or rebellion, against slaveholders.

On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown and 18followers seized the arsenal. To the terrified nightwatchman, he announced, “I have possession now ofthe United States armory, and if the citizens interferewith me I must only burn the town and have blood.”

Soon, however, Brown was facing a contingent ofU.S. Marines, rushed to Harpers Ferry fromWashington, D.C., under the command of ColonelRobert E. Lee. Just 36 hours after it had begun,Brown’s attempt to start a slave insurrection endedwith his capture. A Virginia court tried and

Reading Check

“Has any thing everthreatened the existence of

this Union save and except this very

institution of slavery?”—Abraham Lincoln


Charleston Confrontation Lincolnand Douglas matched wits seven timesduring the 1858 senatorial campaign.This painting by Robert Root showsthem in Charleston, Illinois. How didthe debates help Lincoln?

History Through Art

convicted him and sentenced him to death. In hislast words to the court, Brown, repenting nothing,declared:

“I believe that to have interfered as I have done, asI have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of[God’s] despised poor, I did no wrong, but right. Now

if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood . . . with the blood of millions inthis slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done!”

—quoted in John Brown, 1800–1859

On December 2, the day of his exe-cution, Brown handed one of his jailersa prophetic note: “I, John Brown, amnow quite certain that the crimes of thisguilty land will never be purged awaybut with Blood. I had as I now thinkvainly flattered myself that without verymuch bloodshed it might be done.”

Many Northerners viewed Brownas a martyr in a noble cause. The exe-cution, Henry David Thoreau pre-dicted, would strengthen abolitionistfeeling in the North. “He is not oldBrown any longer,” Thoreau declared,“he is an angel of light.”

For most Southerners, however,Brown’s raid offered all the proof they

needed that Northerners were actively plotting themurder of slaveholders. “Defend yourselves!” criedGeorgia senator Robert Toombs. “The enemy is atyour door!”

Evaluating In what ways mighta Northerner and a Southerner view John Brown’s action differently?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Define: referendum, insurrection.2. Identify: Republican Party, Know-

Nothings, Dred Scott, Lecompton constitution, Freeport Doctrine.

3. List the two rulings in Dred Scott v.Sandford that increased sectional divisiveness.

Reviewing Themes4. Groups and Institutions What were

the main goals of the Republican andAmerican Parties?

Critical Thinking5. Synthesizing How did Americans react

to John Brown’s raid?6. Categorizing Use a graphic organizer

similar to the one below to list causesof the growing tensions between Northand South.

Analyzing Visuals7. Studying Charts Examine the chart on

page 333. Did any parties besides theRepublican and Democratic survive after1865? How does this support the ideathat the 1850s and 1860s were animportant transition era in the nation’shistory?

8. Expository Writing Imagine you havejust read the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case. Write a letter tothe editor explaining your reaction to the decision.

Growing Tensions

Causes


i n H i s t o r y

John Brown 1800–1859

John Brown, whobelieved he was act-ing with God’sapproval, helped tobring about the CivilWar. A dedicatedabolitionist, Browninitially worked withthe UndergroundRailroad in Pennsylvania.When conflict between pro-slavery and free-soil settlers inKansas became violent, Brown movedto Kansas to help six of his sons andother free-soil settlers in their struggleagainst slavery.

After pro-slavery forces fromMissouri sacked the town of Lawrence,Kansas, on May 21, 1856, Brownvowed revenge. The following day, helearned of the caning of Charles

Sumner in the Senate and,in the words of one wit-

ness, he “went crazy—crazy.” Two dayslater, he abductedand murdered fivepro-slavery settlersliving nearPottawatomie Creek.Later he said of the

deaths, “I believe thatI did God service in

having them killed.”Brown was never

arrested for the PottawatomieMassacre, and for some Northern abo-litionists he became a hero for his will-ingness to fight back. Three years later,he launched his raid on Harpers Ferry.Although the raid ended in disasterand Brown himself was hanged, hisdesperate act terrified Southerners andbrought the nation another step closerto disunion and civil war.

Frederick Douglass was borninto slavery in Maryland in1818. During the course of hisincredible life, he escaped fromslavery and eventually becamerenowned for eloquent lecturesand writings for the causes ofabolition and liberty. One of hismost famous works is his auto-biography about growing upunder the shadow of slavery. Inthe following excerpt, Douglassis around eight years old, andMrs. Auld, the wife of his slave-holder, has begun to teach himto read. Mr. Auld discovers whathis wife has been doing, and hisreaction causes young Frederickto decide to learn to read on hisown, no matter what.

Read to DiscoverWhy did some slaveholders notwant enslaved people to learnto read?

Reader’s Dictionarysentiments: feelings

revelation: discovery

conscious: aware

diligently: with great effort

from Narrative of the Lifeof Frederick Douglass

by Frederick Douglass


“Now,” said [Mr. Auld], “if youteach that [boy] how to read, therewould be no keeping him. It wouldforever unfit him to be a slave. Hewould at once become unmanage-able, and of no value to his master. Asto himself, it could do him no good,but a great deal of harm. It wouldmake him discontented andunhappy.” These words sank deepinto my heart, stirred up sentimentswithin that lay slumbering, andcalled into existence an entirely newtrain of thought. It was a new andspecial revelation, explaining darkand mysterious things, with whichmy youthful understanding hadstruggled, but struggled in vain. . . .From that moment, I understood thepathway from slavery to freedom. Itwas just what I wanted, and I got it ata time when I least expected it.Whilst I was saddened by thethought of losing the aid of my kindmistress, I was gladdened by theinvaluable instruction which, by themerest accident, I had gained frommy master. Though conscious of thedifficulty of learning without ateacher, I set out with high hope, anda fixed purpose, at whatever cost oftrouble, to learn to read. . . . Thatwhich to [Mr. Auld] was a great evil,to be carefully shunned, was to me a

great good, to be diligently sought;and the argument which he sowarmly urged, against my learningto read, only served to inspire mewith a desire and determination tolearn. In learning to read, I owealmost as much to the bitter opposi-tion of my master, as to the kindly aidof my mistress. I acknowledge thebenefit of both.

Analyzing Literature1. Recall Why did Mr. Auld oppose the

idea of Douglass learning to read?2. Interpret What do you think

Douglass means when he speaks of “arevelation, explaining dark and myste-rious things”?

3. Evaluate and Connect How wouldyou feel if someone had forbiddenyou to learn to read?

Interdisciplinary ActivityArt Design a poster promoting literacy.Include reasons why everyone should learnto read and write and get an education.

“I do not pretend to sleep,” wrote Mary Chesnut of the night of April 12, 1861. “How can I?”Hours earlier her husband, former South Carolina senator James Chesnut, had gone by

rowboat to Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. He was delivering an ultimatum to U.S. ArmyMajor Robert Anderson to surrender the fort by four o’clock in the morning or be firedupon by the South Carolina militia.

Through the long night Mary Chesnut lay awake, until she heard chimes from a localchurch ring four times. The hour of surrender had arrived, and, she confessed, “I beg[a]nto hope.” Her hopes of a peaceful outcome faded when, a half-hour later, she heard the

cannons begin to boom. “I sprang out of bed. And on my knees . . . I prayed as I neverprayed before.”

She ran to the roof, where others had gathered to watch the bombardment of FortSumter. Mary Chesnut shivered and felt the first terrifying evidence of the horrors to come.

“The regular roar of the cannon—there it was. And who could tell what each volleyaccomplished of death and destruction.”

—adapted from Mary Chesnut’s Civil War

The Union Dissolves

Main IdeaMany events pushed the nation into civil war.

Key Terms and NamesJohn C. Breckinridge, John Bell,Crittenden’s Compromise, Confederacy,Jefferson Davis, martial law

Reading StrategyTaking Notes As you read about thedownward spiral toward civil war in theUnited States, use the major headings ofthe section to create an outline similar tothe one below.

Reading Objectives• Describe the various attempts to find a

compromise between the demands ofthe North and the South.

• Explain how and why the Civil Warbegan.

Section ThemeCivic Rights and Responsibilities AfterLincoln’s election, many Southernersplaced state loyalty above loyalty to theRepublic.

December 20, 1860South Carolina secedesfrom the Union


✦ May 1861

The Election of 1860John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry was a turning point for the South. The possibility

of an African American uprising had long haunted many Southerners, but they werefrightened and angered by the idea that Northerners would deliberately try to armenslaved people and encourage them to rebel.

✦ March 1861

February 8The Confederate Statesof America is formed

March 4Lincoln inaugurated

April 12Fort Sumter bombarded

April 17Virginia secedes

✦ January 1861

The Union DissolvesI. The Election of 1860

A.B.C.

II.

Mary Chesnut

Although the Republican leadersquickly denounced Brown’s raid,many Southerners blamed Repub-licans. To them, the key point was thatboth the Republicans and John Brownopposed slavery. As one Atlanta news-paper noted: “We regard every manwho does not boldly declare that hebelieves African slavery to be a social,moral, and political blessing as anenemy to the institutions of the South.”

In the Senate, Robert Toombs ofGeorgia warned that the South would“never permit this Federal governmentto pass into the traitorous hands of theBlack Republican party.” In April 1860,with the South in an uproar, Democratsheaded to Charleston, South Carolina,to choose their nominee for president.

The Democrats Split In 1860 thedebate over slavery in the western ter-ritories finally tore the DemocraticParty apart. Their first presidentialnominating convention ended in dis-pute. Northern delegates wanted tosupport popular sovereignty, whileSouthern delegates wanted the partyto uphold the Dred Scott decision and endorse a fed-eral slave code for the territories. Stephen Douglaswas not able to get the votes needed to be nominatedfor president, but neither could anyone else.

In June 1860, the Democrats met again, this time inBaltimore, to select their candidate. Douglas’s sup-porters in the South had organized rival delegationsto ensure Douglas’s endorsement. The originalSouthern delegations objected to these rival delegatesand again walked out. The remaining Democrats thenchose Douglas as their candidate for president.

The Southern Democrats who had walked outorganized their own convention and nominated thecurrent vice president, John C. Breckinridge ofKentucky, for president. Breckinridge supported theDred Scott decision and agreed to endorse the idea ofa federal slave code for the western territories.

The split in the Democratic Party greatlyimproved Republican prospects, which was whatsome of the more radical Southern delegates hadintended all along. They hoped that a Republican vic-tory would be the final straw that would convincethe Southern states to secede.

Other people, including many former Whigs,were greatly alarmed at the danger to the Union.

They created another new party, the ConstitutionalUnion Party, and chose former Tennessee senatorJohn Bell as their candidate. The ConstitutionalUnionists campaigned on a position of upholdingboth the Constitution and the Union.

TURNING POINT

Lincoln Is Elected With no possibility of winningelectoral votes in the South, the Republicans neededa candidate who could sweep the North. Delegates atthe Republicans’ Chicago convention did not thinktheir first choice, William Seward, had a wide enoughappeal. Instead they nominated Lincoln, whosedebates with Douglas had made him very popular inthe North.

During the campaign, the Republicans tried to per-suade voters they were more than just an antislaveryparty. They denounced John Brown’s raid and reaf-firmed the right of the Southern states to preserve


The Election of 1860

1. Interpreting Maps How does the map show thatLincoln was a sectional candidate?

2. Applying Geography Skills What explains the fact thatStephen Douglas won only one state, Missouri?

43

4

4 6

4

9

4

5

11

79

3

12

12

13

6

23

10

8

10

15

27

35

8

5

5

13

4

6

43

3

8

CALIF.

OREG.

NonvotingTerritories

MO.

MINN.

WIS.

ILL.

ARK.

TEX. LA.

IND.

MICH.

KY.

TENN.

OHIO

VA.

N.C.

S.C.

MISS.ALA. GA.

FLA.

IOWA PA.

N.Y.

VT.N.H.

ME.

MASS.

R.I.

CONN.N.J.

MD.

DEL.

Lincoln Republican

CandidatePolitical

Party

Douglas Northern Democrat

Breckinridge Southern Democrat

Bell

180

ElectoralVote

12

72

39

1,865,593

PopularVote

1,382,713

848,356

592,906 Constitutional Union

Presidential Election, 1860

slavery within their borders. They also supportedhigher tariffs, a new homestead law for western set-tlers, and a transcontinental railroad.

The Republican proposals greatly angered manySoutherners. Nevertheless, with Democratic votessplit between Douglas and Breckinridge, Lincolnwon the election without Southern support. For theSouth, the election of a Republican president repre-sented the victory of the abolitionists. The survivalof Southern society and culture seemed to be atstake. For many, there was now no choice but tosecede.

Secession The dissolution of the Union beganwith South Carolina, where anti-Northern seces-sionist sentiment had long been intense. Shortlyafter Lincoln’s election, the state legislature calledfor a convention. Amid a frenzy of fireworks anddrills, the convention unanimously voted for theOrdinance of Secession. By February 1, 1861, sixmore states in the Lower South—Mississippi,Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had voted to secede. Many Southerners felt

secession was in the Revolutionary tradition andthat they were fighting for American rights.

Identifying What main event triggered the secession of Southern states?

Compromise FailsAs the states of the Lower South seceded one after

another, Congress tried to find a compromise to savethe Union. Ignoring Congress’s efforts, the seces-sionists seized all federal property in their states,including arsenals and forts. Only the island strong-holds of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and FortPickens in Pensacola Harbor, as well as a few otherislands off the coast of Florida, remained out ofSouthern hands.

Although the confiscation of property horrifiedNorthern members of Congress, they were willing tocompromise. To that end, Kentucky senator John J.Crittenden proposed several amendments to theConstitution. One would guarantee slavery where italready existed. Another would also reinstate the

Reading Check


Baseball and Politics In this cartoon, baseball language is used to explain Lincoln’s 1860 victory. John Bellis sad that the opponents struck out. Stephen Douglas claims Lincoln had the advantage of his “rail,” and JohnBreckinridge admits they were “skunk’d.” Why is Lincoln pictured with a rail?

Analyzing Political Cartoons

JohnBell Stephen

Douglas

JohnBreckinridge

Abraham Lincoln

Missouri Compromise line,extending it to the Cali-fornia border. Slaverywould be prohibited northof the line and protectedsouth of it.

Lincoln, however, askedcongressional Republicansto stand firm, andCrittenden’s Compromisedid not pass.

A Last Attempt at PeaceFinally, Virginia—a slave

state but still in the Union—proposed a peace confer-ence in a last-ditch effort at peace. Delegates from 21states attended the conference in Washington, D.C.The majority came from Northern and border states.None came from the secessionist states. The dele-gates met for three weeks but came up with littlemore than a modified version of Crittenden’sCompromise. When presented to Congress, the planwent down in defeat.

Founding the Confederacy On the same day thepeace conference met, delegates from the secedingstates met in Montgomery, Alabama. There, in earlyFebruary, they declared themselves to be a newnation—the Confederate States of America—or theConfederacy, as it became known.

Their convention drafted a constitution basedlargely on the U.S. Constitution but with some impor-tant changes. It declared that each state was inde-pendent and guaranteed the existence of slavery inConfederate territory. It also banned protective tariffsand limited the presidency to a single six-year term.

The convention then chose former Mississippi sen-ator Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.In his inaugural address, Davis declared, “The timefor compromise has now passed. The South is deter-mined to . . . make all who oppose her smell Southernpowder and feel Southern steel.”

Summarizing What did Virginia doto try to reverse secession?

The Civil War BeginsIn the months before Lincoln took office, he had

watched the nation fall apart. Preparing for hisinauguration, he faced a splintered Union, a newlydeclared nation to the south, and the possibilitythat other states would soon secede.

Lincoln Takes Office In his inaugural speech onMarch 4, 1861, Lincoln addressed the seceding statesdirectly. He repeated his commitment not to interferewith slavery where it existed but insisted that “theUnion of these States is perpetual.” Lincoln did notthreaten the seceded states, but he said he intendedto “hold, occupy, and possess” federal property inthose states. Lincoln also encouraged reconciliation:

“In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, andnot in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. Thegovernment will not assail you. You can have no con-flict, without yourselves being the aggressors. . . . Weare not enemies, but friends. We must not be ene-mies. Though passion may have strained, it must notbreak our bonds of affection.”

—from Lincoln’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

TURNING POINT

Fort Sumter Falls In April Lincoln announced thathe intended to resupply Fort Sumter. PresidentJefferson Davis of the Confederacy now faced adilemma. To tolerate federal troops in the South’s mostvital harbor seemed unacceptable for a sovereign

Reading Check

“The time forcompromise

has nowpassed.”— Jefferson Davis

Southern Leader A former soldier, representative, and senator, Jefferson Davis became the first president of theConfederacy. Why did Davis give up on compromise?

History


Student WebActivity Visit theAmerican Vision Website at tav.glencoe.comand click on StudentWeb Activities—Chapter 10 for anactivity on sectionalconflicts.

HISTORY


nation, as the South now saw itself. After Lincoln’swarning, however, firing on the supply ship wouldundoubtedly lead to war with the United States.

Davis decided to take Fort Sumter before the sup-ply ship arrived. If he was successful, peace might bepreserved. Confederate leaders then delivered a noteto Major Robert Anderson demanding Fort Sumter’ssurrender by the morning of April 12, 1861.

Anderson stood fast. The fateful hour came andwent, and cannon fire suddenly shook the air.Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter for 33relentless hours, wrecking the fort but killing no one,until Anderson and his exhausted men finally sur-rendered. The Civil War had begun.

The Upper South Secedes After the fall of FortSumter, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volun-teers to serve in the military for 90 days. The call fortroops created a crisis in the Upper South. Manypeople there did not want to secede, but faced withthe prospect of civil war, they believed they had nochoice but to leave the Union. Virginia acted first,

passing an Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861.The Confederate Congress responded by movingthe capital of the Confederacy to Richmond,Virginia. By early June of 1861, Arkansas, NorthCarolina, and Tennessee had also seceded.

GEOGRAPHY

Hanging on to the Border States With theUpper South gone, Lincoln was determined to keepthe slaveholding border states from seceding.Delaware seemed safe, but Lincoln worried aboutKentucky, Missouri, and Maryland. Virginia’ssecession had placed a Confederate state across thePotomac River from the nation’s capital. IfMaryland seceded, Washington would be sur-rounded by Confederate territory.

To prevent Maryland’s secession, Lincolnimposed martial law in Baltimore, where angrymobs had already attacked federal troops. Undermartial law, the military takes control of an areaand replaces civilian authorities, and it suspends


MOMENTinHISTORYRUSH TO THE COLORSIn the turbulent days followingthe bombardment of FortSumter in April 1861, tens ofthousands of young men in theNorth and South hastened tojoin their states’ volunteer regiments. Most had no idea ofthe horrors that awaited them.Many saw the war as an escapefrom the boredom of the fam-ily farm or the misery of citytenements.Their only fear was that the fighting might end before they could takepart. Here, members of theFirst Virginia Militia, the“Richmond Grays,” pose forthe camera before their firsttaste of battle.

certain civil rights. Anyone supporting secessioncould be arrested and held without trial. UnionArmy officers imprisoned dozens of suspectedsecessionist leaders.

Lincoln knew that Kentucky was divided overwhether to secede and that its control of the OhioRiver ’s south bank was strategically important.When Kentucky declared itself neutral, Lincolnpromised to leave the state alone so long as theConfederacy did the same.

Kentucky’s neutrality lasted until September1861, when Confederate forces occupied the south-west corner of the state, prompting Union troops tomove in as well. The Confederate invasion angeredmany in the Kentucky legislature, who now voted togo to war against the Confederacy. This decision ledother Kentuckians who supported the Confederacyto create a rival government and secede.

The third border state Lincoln worried aboutwas Missouri. Although many people in the statesympathized strongly with the Confederacy, itsconvention voted almost unanimously againstsecession. A struggle then broke out between theconvention and pro-secession forces led byGovernor Claiborne F. Jackson. In the end, Missouriwas held to the Union’s cause with the support offederal forces.

From the very beginning of the Civil War,Lincoln had been willing to take political, even con-stitutional, risks to preserve the Union. The issue ofits preservation now shifted to the battlefield.

Describing Why were the borderstates of Maryland and Kentucky important to the Union?

Reading Check



Checking for Understanding1. Define: Confederacy, martial law.2. Identify: John C. Breckinridge, John

Bell, Crittenden’s Compromise,Jefferson Davis.

3. List two provisions of Crittenden’sCompromise.

Reviewing Themes4. Civic Rights and Responsibilities

How did Lincoln prevent Kentucky,Missouri, and Maryland from seceding?Was Lincoln justified in his actions?Why or why not?

Critical Thinking5. Analyzing Why did Virginia’s seces-

sion surprise Northerners?6. Categorizing Use a graphic organizer

similar to the one below to list the vari-ous parties’ candidates and politicalpositions in the 1860 election.

Analyzing Visuals7. Analyzing Political Cartoons Study

the cartoon on page 342 about thepresidential election of 1860. Whatdoes the use of a baseball comparisonimply about politics?

8. Persuasive Writing Imagine you arean adviser to President Lincoln, andyou have just heard about the firing onFort Sumter. Write a brief report forthe president, advising him on whatsteps to take next.

Party Candidate Position

Northern Democrat

Southern Democrat

Constitutional Unionist

Republican

• Disagreement over the legality,morality, and politics of slavery

• Kansas-Nebraska Act sparkedviolence in Kansas.

• Dred Scott ruling voided any limita-tions on expansion of slavery.

• John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferrypolarized North and South.

• Southern states seceded fromthe Union.

• Confederates attacked FortSumter in South Carolina.

• Slavery was outlawed in theUnited States.

• Southern states rebuilt their economy.• African Americans gained citizenship

and voting rights.• The first U.S. civil rights laws were

passed.

Analyzing What do you think was the most importantcause of the Civil War? Why?

Mounting sectional tensions erupted into open warfare in 1861.

Reviewing Key Facts9. Identify: Wilmot Proviso, Fugitive Slave Act, Harriet Tubman,

Kansas-Nebraska Act, Charles Sumner, Dred Scott, John C.Breckinridge, John Bell.

10. What were the main elements of the Compromise of 1850?

11. Why did Southern politicians begin talking about secession?

12. Why did Northerners resist the Fugitive Slave Act?

13. How did the Republican Party try to gain Southern voters inthe presidential election of 1860?

14. Why is John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid considered a turningpoint on the road to war?

15. What efforts were made to prevent the outbreak of war?

16. What border states did Lincoln try to keep in the Union?

Critical Thinking17. Analyzing Themes: Civic Rights and Responsibilities

How did the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott decisionaffect formerly enslaved African Americans living in theNorth?

18. Evaluating Why did many members of Congress supportpopular sovereignty?

19. Forming an Opinion John Brown’s goal in seizing the arse-nal at Harpers Ferry was to begin a rebellion against slave-holders. Do you think John Brown should have been executedfor this action? Why or why not?

20. Organizing Use a graphic organizer similar to the one belowto list the main events that pushed the nation into civil war.

21. Interpreting Primary Sources Many people have writtenessays on the causes of the Civil War. Edward A. Pollard ofVirginia was the editor of the Daily Richmond Examiner dur-ing the Civil War. He wrote a book, The Lost Cause, aboutthe Civil War from a Southern point of view. In the book,Pollard includes his view of the causes of the Civil War. Readthe excerpt and answer the questions that follow.

“In the ante-revolutionary period, the differencesbetween the populations of the Northern and Southerncolonies had already been strongly developed. The

MainEvents

1. popular sovereignty

2. secession

3. Underground Railroad

4. transcontinental railroad

5. referendum

6. insurrection

7. Confederacy

8. martial law

Reviewing Key TermsOn a sheet of paper, use each of these terms in a sentence.

Key Events of the 1850s:

Kansas-Nebraska Actheightened tensions:

Election of 1860:

• California entered Union as a free state, giving free statesa Senate majority

• Fugitive Slave Act passed to help Southerners recoverenslaved people who escaped to North; act caused outragein North

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin published, angered many Southerners

• Kansas-Nebraska Act passed

• Angered Northerners by repealing Missouri Compromise• Popular sovereignty regarding slavery issue led to

violence in “Bleeding Kansas”• Republican Party formed by former Whigs and members

of Free-Soil Party• Dred Scott decision by Southern-dominated Supreme

Court angered Northerners• Debates in Senate over Kansas led to caning of Charles

Sumner• Events in Kansas angered John Brown, who then raided

Harpers Ferry

• Democratic Party split between North and South• Republicans nominated eventual winner Abraham Lincoln• Southern states established Confederacy in February 1861• Fort Sumter fired upon in April 1861, starting the Civil War


early colonists did not bear with them from the mother-

country to the shores of the New World any greater

degree of congeniality than existed among them at

home. They had come not only from different stocks of

population, but from different feuds in religion and poli-

tics. There could be no congeniality between . . . New

England, and the . . . South. . . .”—from The Lost Cause

a. According to Pollard, when did the differencesbetween the North and South begin?

b. What did he believe caused the differences betweenthe people of the North and the South?

Practicing Skills

22. Predicting Consequences Review the skill on predictingconsequences on page 325. Then read the following state-ments and predict three consequences for each. Rank thethree consequences in order of the one most likely to occurto the one least likely to occur.a. A person elected to a political office does not support the

issues he or she claimed to represent while campaigning.

b. Engineers develop an effective, efficient automobile pow-ered by solar energy.

Writing Activity

23. American History Primary Source Document LibraryCD-ROM Read the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford byRoger B. Taney, under Civil War and Reconstruction. Workwith your classmates to outline the major points. Then pre-pare a counter-decision, addressing each major point andexplaining why it could or should be overturned.

Chapter Activity

24. Research Project: Mental Mapping Mental maps are theimages people have in their minds of places they know orimagine. Based on what you have read in the chapter andadditional research, sketch a possible escape route on theUnderground Railroad as an enslaved person in the Southmight have drawn it. Make sure to include important geo-graphic features. Share your findings with your class.

Geography and History

25. The map above shows states that seceded from 1860 to1861. Study the map and answer the questions below.a. Interpreting Maps Which slave states remained in the

Union after the Fort Sumter attack?

b. Applying Geography Skills Which states did not secedeuntil after the Fort Sumter attack?

Self-Check QuizVisit the American Vision Web site at tav.glencoe.com

and click on Self-Check Quizzes—Chapter 10 toassess your knowledge of chapter content.

HISTORY

StandardizedTest Practice

Directions: Choose the best answer to thefollowing questions.

Several events in the 1850s caused anger in both North andSouth, making war more likely. Which of the following wasnot a cause of increasing tension?

A The Fugitive Slave Act

B The publication of Uncle Tom’s CabinC John Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid

D Crittenden’s Compromise

Test-Taking Tip: Be careful—overlooking the words not or

except on a question is a common error. Also, answer D

refers to a compromise, which does not suggest a cause of

anger.

W. VA. separatedfrom VA. in 1861

and was admitted tothe Union in 1863.

S.C. was thefirst state to secede

from the Union.

On February 8, 1861,delegates from severalSouthern states created

the Confederacy.

30°N

50°N

80°W

TROPIC OF CANCER

90°W

Gulf of Mexico

PaCIFicOcean

ATLaNTicOcean

WIS.MICH.

OHIOIOWA

MINN.DAK.TERR.

COLO.TERR.

IND.ILL.

KY.

TENN.

GA.ALA.MISS.

ARK.

MO.KANS.

NEBR. TERR.

LA.TEX.

UNORG.TERR.

UTAHTERR.

WASH.TERR.

NEV.TERR.

OREG.

CALIF.

N. MEX.TERR.

FLA.

N.C.

S.C.

N.H.

VT.

MASS.R.I.

CONN.N.J.

DEL.

MD.VA.W.

VA.

N.Y.

PA.

ME.

Lambert Equal-Areaprojection

400 kilometers0

400 miles0

N

S

EW

Union free stateUnion slave stateSlave state secedingbefore Fort Sumter, April 1861Slave state secedingafter Fort Sumter, April 1861

Union-Confederate border

Territory


Seceding States, 1860–1861

early colonists did not bear with them from the mother-

country to the shores of the New World any greater

degree of congeniality than existed among them at

home. They had come not only from different stocks of

population, but from different feuds in religion and poli-

tics. There could be no congeniality between . . . New

England, and the . . . South. . . .”—from The Lost Cause

a. According to Pollard, when did the differencesbetween the North and South begin?

b. What did he believe caused the differences betweenthe people of the North and the South?

Practicing Skills

22. Predicting Consequences Review the skill on predictingconsequences on page 325. Then read the following state-ments and predict three consequences for each. Rank thethree consequences in order of the one most likely to occurto the one least likely to occur.a. A person elected to a political office does not support the

issues he or she claimed to represent while campaigning.

b. Engineers develop an effective, efficient automobile pow-ered by solar energy.

Writing Activity

23. American History Primary Source Document LibraryCD-ROM Read the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford byRoger B. Taney, under Civil War and Reconstruction. Workwith your classmates to outline the major points. Then pre-pare a counter-decision, addressing each major point andexplaining why it could or should be overturned.

Chapter Activity

24. Research Project: Mental Mapping Mental maps are theimages people have in their minds of places they know orimagine. Based on what you have read in the chapter andadditional research, sketch a possible escape route on theUnderground Railroad as an enslaved person in the Southmight have drawn it. Make sure to include important geo-graphic features. Share your findings with your class.

Geography and History

25. The map above shows states that seceded from 1860 to1861. Study the map and answer the questions below.a. Interpreting Maps Which slave states remained in the

Union after the Fort Sumter attack?

b. Applying Geography Skills Which states did not secedeuntil after the Fort Sumter attack?

Self-Check QuizVisit the American Vision Web site at tav.glencoe.com

and click on Self-Check Quizzes—Chapter 10 toassess your knowledge of chapter content.

HISTORY

StandardizedTest Practice

Directions: Choose the best answer to thefollowing questions.

Several events in the 1850s caused anger in both North andSouth, making war more likely. Which of the following wasnot a cause of increasing tension?

A The Fugitive Slave Act

B The publication of Uncle Tom’s CabinC John Brown’s Harpers Ferry raid

D Crittenden’s Compromise

Test-Taking Tip: Be careful—overlooking the words not or

except on a question is a common error. Also, answer D

refers to a compromise, which does not suggest a cause of

anger.

W. VA. separatedfrom VA. in 1861

and was admitted tothe Union in 1863.

S.C. was thefirst state to secede

from the Union.

On February 8, 1861,delegates from severalSouthern states created

the Confederacy.

30°N

50°N

80°W

TROPIC OF CANCER

90°W

Gulf of Mexico

PaCIFicOcean

ATLaNTicOcean

WIS.MICH.

OHIOIOWA

MINN.DAK.TERR.

COLO.TERR.

IND.ILL.

KY.

TENN.

GA.ALA.MISS.

ARK.

MO.KANS.

NEBR. TERR.

LA.TEX.

UNORG.TERR.

UTAHTERR.

WASH.TERR.

NEV.TERR.

OREG.

CALIF.

N. MEX.TERR.

FLA.

N.C.

S.C.

N.H.

VT.

MASS.R.I.

CONN.N.J.

DEL.

MD.VA.W.

VA.

N.Y.

PA.

ME.

Lambert Equal-Areaprojection

400 kilometers0

400 miles0

N

S

EW

Union free stateUnion slave stateSlave state secedingbefore Fort Sumter, April 1861Slave state secedingafter Fort Sumter, April 1861

Union-Confederate border

Territory


Seceding States, 1860–1861


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