Grade: 11 Module: 1 Unit: 1 Lesson 7

Sectionalism

Long-Term Targets Addressed

These should be brief “I can” statements that articulate the student objectives for the lesson with (the standard in parenthesis after) These statements are not lesson or
unit specific. There are typically no more than 2 long-term learning targets addressed for a lesson.

Supporting Learning Targets Ongoing Assessment

• I can research issues leading to sectionalism for the use in evidence based discourse • These bullet points should be the formative assessments
that will be used during the lesson

Agenda Teaching Notes

1. EXAMPLE OF AGENDA: Opening • It will be necessary to secure computer lab weeks to months in advance for this assignment.
A. Brainstorm (5 minutes)
B. Introducing Learning Targets (10 minutes)
2. Work Time
A. Research on Sectional Issues (15 minutes)
B. Mini-Lesson (10 minutes)
C. Text Synthesis (20 minutes)
D. World Café Protocol (15 minutes)
3. Closing and Assessment
A. Journal (5 minutes)
4. Homework
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Sectionalism

Lesson Vocabulary and Concepts Materials

civil liberties, equality, freedom, • Text: sources pertaining to sectionalism

inalienable rights, oppression,
sectionalism
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Sectionalism

Opening Meeting Students’ Needs

A. Brainstorm (10 minutes) • These bullet points will explain the

 Begin the lesson by constructing a class list about the differences between the North and South prior to the Civil War. differentiation used in the lesson,
Have students work with a partner to create a list in their notebooks. including, leveling, anchor charts,
 Be sure to explain to students that the slave system required a cash crop which employed concentrated labor to materially groups, etc.
enrich the planter aristocracy. For example, no slave system evolved in what is now Canada because its economic mainstay
was the fur trade. No cash crop necessitating concentrated labor developed there. Remind students that slavery was a
major source of contention at the Constitutional Convention but at that time appeared to be dying. On some level,
students must confront the horrors of the slave system in order to understand the persistence and fervor of the more
notable abolitionists, as well as the profound human suffering engendered by the “peculiar institution.”

B. Learning Targets (5 minutes)

 Explain to students that they will all be researching different sources in todays lesson, since this is a review, we will not be
able to spend a lot of time on these issues. However, positive evidence based discussion is expected using the short
readings as the basis.
o I can research issues leading to sectionalism for the use in evidence based discourse
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Sectionalism

Work Time Meeting Students’ Needs

A. Research on Sectional Issues (15 minutes) • These bullet points will explain the
 Divide students into eight small groups and assign each group one of the following issues or events: Missouri differentiation used in the lesson,
Compromise including, leveling, anchor charts,
 The Liberator groups, etc.

 Nullification Crisis
 Fredrick Douglass
 Wilmot Proviso
 Compromise of 1850
 Uncle Tom’s Cabin
 Kansas-Nebraska Act
 Distribute to each student the “Growing Sectionalism Research Guide”
 Distribute one source (located at the end of this lesson) to each group. Have students research their topic for 15-20
minutes and then allow them a few minutes to compare their findings in their groups.
 Have each group present its findings to the class while students record the information on the Growing Sectionalism
Research Guide”
B. Mini-Lecture (5 minutes)
 Follow up the presentations with a brief lecture on abolition and the “peculiar institution”
 Explain to students that during the first half of the 19 th Century, many people struggled with the disparities between
their ideals and the realities they faced in American society. As a result, several reform movements developed. Discuss
the influence of the abolitionist movement on American society and its influence on the growing sectional crisis. Be
sure students understand that the issue of slavery had faced the nation since its inception. Early opposition to slavery
found expression in the concept of colonization (resettlement of American Americans in Africa or the Caribbean).
After those attempts failed and the cotton boom in the south (augmented by the invention of the cotton gin) increased
the commitment of planters to the “peculiar” labor system, William Lloyd Garrison began publishing The Liberator
and demanding the immediate and unconditional end of slavery. Explain to students that as the cause for abolition
grew stronger, anti-abolition forces viewed it with both fear and contempt as it threatened the existing social system in
the south and was seen as a threat to stability and order. The debate over slavery would continue to intensify as more
territory was added to the United States
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Sectionalism

C. Text Synthesis (20 minutes)

 Next, refer students to the Declaration of Independence. Have them identify fundamental values and ideas from the
Declaration that might have inspired abolitionists and supported their cause. Discuss what other factors might have
motivated abolitionists (religion).
 Using the “Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” from Lesson 1, have students work with a partner
to highlight ideas such as liberty, justice, and equality found in the document.

D. World Café Discussion Protocol (15 minutes)

 World Café protocol: Form three groups of 5-6 groups
 Each group selects a “leader.” The leader’s role is to record the major points of the conversation that takes place at the
table and then to summarize the conversation using recorded notes.
 The groups discusses the questions/topics presented by the teacher. When time is called by the teacher, the leader
stays put; the rest of the groups rotates to the next table.
 The leader (the one who didn’t move) presents a summary of the conversation recorded from the former group to the
new group.
 Each table selects a new leader and the process repeats with a new question/topic.
 After the final round, the last group of leaders present to the whole group.
 After students have compared “Seneca Falls with the Declaration of Independence, engage them in a discussion about
the women’s movement using the following questions in a world café protocol:
o How are the ideas in these documents similar? Different?
o What is the relationship between the women’s rights movement and abolitionism?
o In what ways were both women and slaves oppressed?
o How did both movements use the ideas of freedom and/or equality to support their cause?
o How do the women’s rights movement and abolitionism reflect changing ideas of freedom and equality in
American society?
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Sectionalism

Closing and Assessment Meeting Students’ Needs

A. Journal Entry (5 minutes) •

* Have students write a reflection in their Notebook answering the question: How did the ideals of freedom and equality
influence and affect American society and the growing sectional crisis?

Homework Meeting Students’ Needs

• “None.”
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Sectionalism

Growing Sectionalism Research Guide

My Topic: ____________________________________________

Description:

Historical Significance:
 Grade: 11 Module: 1 Unit: 1 Lesson 7
Sectionalism

Growing Sectionalism
Issue or Event Description and Significance

Missouri Compromise

The Liberator

Nullification Crisis

Fredrick Douglass

Wilmot Proviso

Compromise of 1850

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Kansas-Nebraska Act
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Sectionalism

Issue or Event Description and Significance

Missouri The request by Missouri to join the Union as a slave state in 1819
Compromise threatened to upset the balance between slave and free states. The
Missouri Compromise (1820) admitted Missouri as a slave state and
Maine as a free state, and established that slavery would be
forbidden north of 36 degrees 30 minutes latitude (except for Missouri
itself). Set the precedent that Congress could make laws regarding
slavery. Served purpose of holding Union together until repealed by
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and principle of popular sovereignty and
then declared unconstitutional by Dred Scott decision (1857).

The Liberator Abolitionist newspaper first published in 1831 by William Lloyd

Garrison. It was a very radical and confrontational work which called
for an immediate end to slavery with no compensation for owners. It
also considered slavery a sin and owners engaged in evil. The
Liberator further enflamed sectional tensions and helped in general to
promote the cause of abolition.

Nullification This was a state challenge to the authority of the federal government.
Crisis In response to a protective tariff that favored the north over the south,
South Carolina claimed the right of states to nullify or cancel federal
legislation, if the states felt the federal government exceeded its
authority in a particular instance. This demonstrated important
differences between north and south in both economic development
and attitudes toward federal power. The political issue of states’
rights, which informed the nullification crisis, would help lead to the
Civil War. In the short term, South Carolina rescinded its action and
the issue of states’ rights was postponed, not resolved.

Fredrick Douglass African-American abolitionist who was born a slave. Escaped and
eventually gained his freedom. Established the abolitionist
newspaper, the North Star. An accomplished writer and orator, he
was able to promote effectively the cause of abolition not only in the
United States but in Europe as well.

Wilmot Proviso An attempt in 1846 by a Pennsylvania Congressman, David Wilmot to

prevent the spread of slavery into any and all territory gained as a
result of the Mexican War. This immediately unleashed intense
debated between north and south over the issue of “the peculiar
institution” and threatened to embroil the nation in Civil War.
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Issue or Event Description and Significance

Compromise of Another attempt to resolve the conflicts arising from the potential
1850 expansion of slavery westward, this time into land gained by the U.S.
as a result of the Mexican-American War. There were four
components to the Compromise of 1850. The first two were in favor of
the north: California was admitted to the union as a free state and
slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished. The other two
provisions -- the slavery issue would be decided by popular
sovereignty (local choice) in New Mexico and Utah territories and the
Fugitive Slave Act (which made it easier for owners to recover slaves
who had run away) -- favored the south.

Uncle Tom’s When Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it set off
Cabin a firestorm. The novel was the first widespread indictment of slavery.
It was widely read. It served to spark abolitionist feelings among
many northerners. In turn, the novel angered many southerners who
called it an unfair portrayal of slavery and life in the south in general.

Kansas-Nebraska Yet another attempt to address the important question of slavery in

Act territories as they were organized for statehood. This law (1854)
allowed for popular sovereignty (local choice) to determine the issue
of slavery for the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This law
angered many northerners because it overrode the 36-degree parallel
established in the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery north of
that border. Led to political conflict and violence in Kansas over
whether the territory would be slave or free (see “Bleeding Kansas”
below). The Act changed the national political landscape, weakening
several major political parties, and exacerbated north-south tensions.

MISSOURI COMPROMISE
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In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between
pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions within the U.S. Congress and across the country. They
reached a boiling point after Missouri’s 1819 request for admission to the Union as a slave
state, which threatened to upset the delicate balance between slave states and free states. To
keep the peace, Congress orchestrated a two-part compromise, granting Missouri’s request but
also admitting Maine as a free state. It also passed an amendment that drew an imaginary line
across the former Louisiana Territory, establishing a boundary between free and slave regions
that remained the law of the land until it was negated by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political
rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which
slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly
divided between slave and free. Admission of Missouri as a slave state would upset that
balance; it would also set a precedent for congressional acquiescence in the expansion of
slavery. Earlier in 1819, when Missouri was being organized as a territory, Representative
James Tallmadge of New York had proposed an amendment that would ultimately have ended
slavery there; this effort was defeated, as was a similar effort by Representative John Taylor of
New York regarding Arkansas Territory.

DID YOU KNOW?

For his work on the Missouri Compromise, Senator Henry Clay became known as the “Great
Pacificator."

The extraordinarily bitter debate over Missouri’s application for admission ran from December
1819 to March 1820. Northerners, led by Senator Rufus King of New York, argued that
Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in a new state. Southerners like Senator William
Pinkney of Maryland held that new states had the same freedom of action as the original
thirteen and were thus free to choose slavery if they wished. After the Senate and the House
passed different bills and deadlock threatened, a compromise bill was worked out with the
following provisions: (1) Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine (formerly part of
Massachusetts) as free, and (2) except for Missouri, slavery was to be excluded from the
Louisiana Purchase lands north of latitude 36°30′.
The Missouri Compromise was criticized by many southerners because it established the
principle that Congress could make laws regarding slavery; northerners, on the other hand,
condemned it for acquiescing in the expansion of slavery (though only south of the
compromise line). Nevertheless, the act helped hold the Union together for more than thirty
years. It was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which established popular
sovereignty (local choice) regarding slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, though both were north
of the compromise line. Three years later, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case declared
the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, on the ground that Congress was prohibited by the
Fifth Amendment from depriving individuals of private property without due process of law.
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Every movement needs a voice: The Liberator

For the entire generation of people that grew up in the years that led to the Civil War,
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON was the voice of Abolitionism. Originally a supporter of
colonization, Garrison changed his position and became the leader of the emerging anti-slavery
movement. His publication, THE LIBERATOR, reached thousands of individuals worldwide.
His ceaseless, uncompromising position on the moral outrage that was slavery made him loved
and hated by many Americans.

Although The Liberator was Garrison's most prominent abolitionist activity, he had been
involved in the fight to end slavery for years prior to its publication.
In 1831, Garrison published the first edition of The Liberator. His words, "I am in earnest — I
will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE
HEARD," clarified the position of the ABOLITIONISTS. Garrison was not interested in
compromise. He founded the NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY the following
year. In 1833, he met with delegates from around the nation to form the American Anti-Slavery
Society. Garrison saw his cause as worldwide. With the aid of his supporters, he traveled
overseas to garner support from Europeans. He was, indeed, a global crusader. But Garrison
needed a lot of help. The Liberator would not have been successful had it not been for the free
blacks who subscribed. Approximately seventy-five percent of the readers were free African-
Americans.

The Liberator wasn't the only abolitionist manifesto during the 1800s. Pamphlets like this one
were disseminated widely throughout the North, although many were banned in the South.
Garrison saw moral persuasion as the only means to end slavery. To him the task was simple:
show people how immoral slavery was and they would join in the campaign to end it. He
disdained politics, for he saw the political world as an arena of compromise. A group split from
Garrison in the 1840s to run candidates for president on the LIBERTY PARTY ticket.
Garrison was not dismayed. Once in Boston, he was dragged through the streets and nearly
killed. A bounty of $4000 was placed on his head. In 1854, he publicly burned a copy of the
Constitution because it permitted slavery. He called for the north to secede from the Union to
sever the ties with the slaveholding south.
William Lloyd Garrison lived long enough to see the Union come apart under the weight of
slavery. He survived to see Abraham Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation during the
Civil War. Thirty-four years after first publishing The Liberator, Garrison saw the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution go into effect, banning slavery forever. It took a lifetime of
work. But in the end, the morality of his position held sway.
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The Nullification Crisis was a sectional crisis in 1832–33, during the presidency of Andrew
Jackson, that involved a confrontation between South Carolina and the federal government.
The crisis ensued after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were
unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state.
The nation suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was
particularly affected. Many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the
national tariff policy that developed after the War of 1812 to promote American manufacturing
over its European competition.[1] The controversial and highly protective Tariff of 1828 (known
to its detractors as the "Tariff of Abominations") was enacted into law during the presidency of
John Quincy Adams. The tariff was opposed in the South and parts of New England. By 1828,
South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue. Its opponents
expected that the election of Jackson as President would result in the tariff being significantly
reduced.[2] When the Jackson administration failed to take any actions to address their concerns,
the most radical faction in the state began to advocate that the state itself declare the tariff null
and void within South Carolina. In Washington, an open split on the issue occurred between
Jackson and Vice President John C. Calhoun, the most effective proponent of the constitutional
theory of state nullification.[3]

On July 14, 1832, before Calhoun had resigned the Vice Presidency in order to run for the
Senate where he could more effectively defend nullification,[4] Jackson signed into law the
Tariff of 1832. This compromise tariff received the support of most northerners and half of the
southerners in Congress.[5] The reductions were too little for South Carolina, and on November
24, 1832, a state convention adopted the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared that the
Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina after
February 1, 1833. Military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated
by the state.[6] On March 1, 1833, Congress passed both the Force Bill—authorizing the
President to use military forces against South Carolina—and a new negotiated tariff, the
Compromise Tariff of 1833, which was satisfactory to South Carolina. The South Carolina
convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 15, 1833, but three
days later nullified the Force Bill as a symbolic gesture to maintain its principles.
The crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. The tariff rates were
reduced and stayed low to the satisfaction of the South, but the states’ rights doctrine of
nullification remained controversial. By the 1850s the issues of the expansion of slavery into
the western territories and the threat of the Slave Power became the central issues in the nation.
[7]
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FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Frederick Douglass (1818-95) was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born
a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20 and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery
activist. His three autobiographies are considered important works of the slave narrative
tradition as well as classics of American autobiography. Douglass’ work as a reformer ranged
from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the
1890s. For 16 years he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame
as an inspiring and persuasive speaker and writer. In thousands of speeches and editorials, he
levied a powerful indictment against slavery and racism, provided an indomitable voice of hope
for his people, embraced antislavery politics and preached his own brand of American ideals.
END ARTICLE SNIPPET ARTICLE TOOLS - we just need TOC part

END ARTICLE TOOLS

ARTICLE BODY
An abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass was the most important black American
leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Maryland’s
Eastern Shore, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master. Upon his
escape from slavery at age twenty, he adopted the name of the hero of Sir Walter Scott’s The
Lady of the Lake. Douglass immortalized his years as a slave in Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). This and two subsequent autobiographies, My
Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), mark
his greatest contributions to American culture. Written as antislavery propaganda and personal
revelation, they are regarded as the finest examples of the slave narrative tradition and as
classics of American autobiography.

DID YOU KNOW?

After his autobiography was published, Douglass went on a two-year speaking tour of Great
Britain and Ireland in order to avoid recapture by his former owner, whose name and location
Douglass had mentioned in the narrative.

Douglass’s life as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his
attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For sixteen years he edited an influential black
newspaper and achieved international fame as an orator and writer of great persuasive power.
In thousands of speeches and editorials he levied an irresistible indictment against slavery and
racism, provided an indomitable voice of hope for his people, embraced antislavery politics,
and preached his own brand of American ideals. In the 1850s he broke with the strictly moralist
brand of abolitionism led by William Lloyd Garrison; he supported the early women’s rights
movement; and he gave direct assistance to John Brown’s conspiracy that led to the raid on
Harpers Ferry in 1859.
Rhetorically, Douglass was a master of irony, as illustrated by his famous Fourth of July
speech in 1852: “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn,” he
declared. Then he accused his unsuspecting audience in Rochester, New York, of mockery for
inviting him to speak and quoted Psalm 137, where the children of Israel are forced to sit down
“by the rivers of Babylon,” there to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.” For the ways that
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race have caused the deepest contradictions in American history, few better sources of insight
exist than Douglass’s speeches. Moreover, for understanding prejudice, there are few better
starting points than his timeless definition of racism as a “diseased imagination.”
Douglass welcomed the Civil War in 1861 as a moral crusade against slavery. During the war
he labored as a propagandist of the Union cause and emancipation, a recruiter of black troops,
and (on two occasions) an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln. He viewed the Union victory
as an apocalyptic rebirth of America as a nation rooted in a rewritten Constitution and the ideal
of racial equality. Some of his hopes were dashed during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age,
but he continued to travel widely and lecture on racial issues, national politics, and women’s
rights. In the 1870s Douglass moved to Washington, D.C., where he edited a newspaper and
became president of the ill-fated Freedman’s Bank. As a stalwart Republican, Douglass was
appointed marshal (1877-1881) and recorder of deeds (1881-1886) for the District of
Columbia, and chargé d’affaires for Santo Domingo and minister to Haiti (1889-1891).
Brilliant, heroic, and complex, Douglass became a symbol of his age and a unique voice for
humanism and social justice. His life and thought will always speak profoundly to the meaning
of being black in America, as well as the human calling to resist oppression. Douglass died in
1895 after years of trying to preserve a black abolitionist’s meaning and memory of the great
events he had witnessed and helped to shape.
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Wilmot Proviso
David Wilmot, the Pennsylvania representative was so adamantly against the extension of
slavery to lands ceded by Mexico, he made a proposition that would divide the Congress. On
August 8, 1846, Wilmot introduced legislation in the House that boldly declared, "neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist" in lands won in the Mexican-American War.
If he was not opposed to slavery, why would Wilmot propose such an action? Why would the
north, which only contained a small, but growing minority, of abolitionists, agree?

“Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory
from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be
negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated,
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except
for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.”
– The Wilmot Proviso, 1846
 

The status of the territories regarding slavery had not been decided by the beginning of the
Mexican War. Even before the war ended the issue of slavery in the region of the Mexican
Cession was a hot-button political issue.

Wilmot and other northerners were angered by President Polk. They felt that the entire Cabinet
and national agenda were dominated by southern minds and southern principles. Polk was
willing to fight for southern territory, but proved willing to compromise when it came to the
north. Polk had lowered the tariff and denied funds for internal improvements, both to the
dismay of northerners. Now they felt a war was being fought to extend the southern way of life.
The term “SLAVE POWER" jumped off the lips of northern lawmakers when they angrily
referred to their southern colleagues. It was time for northerners to be heard.

Salmon P. Chase, commemorated on the $10,000 bill, founded the Free Soil Party in 1848.
This party advocated an end to the spread of American slavery and elected 14 representatives
and two senators to the federal government.
Though Wilmot's heart did not bleed for the slave, he envisioned California as a place where
free white Pennsylvanians could work without the competition of slave labor. Since the north
was more populous and had more Representatives in the House, the Wilmot Proviso passed.
Laws require the approval of both houses of Congress, however. The Senate, equally divided
between free states and slave states could not muster the majority necessary for approval.
Angrily the House passed WILMOT'S PROVISO several times, all to no avail. It would never
become law.

For years, the arguments for and against slavery were debated in the churches and in the
newspapers. The House of Representatives had passed a gag rule forbidding the discussion of
slavery for much of the previous decade. The issue could no longer be avoided. Lawmakers in
the House and Senate, north and south, would have to stand up and be counted.
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Compromise of 1850
The plan was set forth. The giants — Calhoun, Webster, and Clay — had spoken. Still the
Congress debated the contentious issues well into the summer. Each time Clay's Compromise
was set forth for a vote, it did not receive a majority. Henry Clay himself had to leave in
sickness, before the dispute could be resolved. In his place, Stephen Douglas worked tirelessly
to end the fight. On July 9, President Zachary Taylor died of food poisoning. His successor,
MILLARD FILLMORE, was much more interested in compromise. The environment for a
deal was set. By September, Clay's Compromise became law.
California was admitted to the Union as the 16th free state. In exchange, the south was
guaranteed that no federal restrictions on slavery would be placed on Utah or New Mexico.
Texas lost its boundary claims in New Mexico, but the Congress compensated Texas with $10
million. Slavery was maintained in the nation's capital, but the slave trade was prohibited.
Finally, and most controversially, a FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW was passed, requiring
northerners to return runaway slaves to their owners under penalty of law.

The Compromise of 1850 overturned the Missouri Compromise and left the overall issue of
slavery unsettled.

Compromise of 1850
North Gets South Gets
California admitted as a free state No slavery restrictions in Utah or New Mexico
territories
Slave trade prohibited in Washington Slaveholding permitted in Washington D.C.
D.C.
Texas loses boundary dispute with New Texas gets $10 million
Mexico
  Fugitive Slave Law

Who won and who lost in the deal? Although each side received benefits, the north seemed to
gain the most. The balance of the Senate was now with the free states, although California
often voted with the south on many issues in the 1850s. The major victory for the south was the
Fugitive Slave Law. In the end, the north refused to enforce it. Massachusetts even called for
its nullification, stealing an argument from John C. Calhoun. Northerners claimed the law was
unfair. The flagrant violation of the Fugitive Slave Law set the scene for the tempest that
emerged later in the decade. But for now, Americans hoped against hope that the fragile peace
would prevail.
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Kansas -Nebraska Act

The KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT OF 1854 may have been the single most significant event
leading to the Civil War. By the early 1850s settlers and entrepreneurs wanted to move into the
area now known as Nebraska. However, until the area was organized as a territory, settlers
would not move there because they could not legally hold a claim on the land. The southern
states' representatives in Congress were in no hurry to permit a Nebraska territory because the
land lay north of the 36°30' parallel — where slavery had been outlawed by the Missouri
Compromise of 1820. Just when things between the north and south were in an uneasy balance,
Kansas and Nebraska opened fresh wounds.
The person behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act was SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS of
Illinois.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act began a chain of events in the Kansas Territory that foreshadowed
the Civil War.
He said he wanted to see Nebraska made into a territory and, to win southern support, proposed
a southern state inclined to support slavery. It was Kansas. Underlying it all was his desire to
build a transcontinental railroad to go through Chicago. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed
each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. Kansas with
slavery would violate the Missouri Compromise, which had kept the Union from falling apart
for the last thirty-four years. The long-standing compromise would have to be repealed.
Opposition was intense, but ultimately the bill passed in May of 1854. Territory north of the
sacred 36°30' line was now open to popular sovereignty. The North was outraged.

The Kansas-Nebraska act made it possible for the Kansas and Nebraska territories (shown in
orange) to open to slavery. The Missouri Compromise had prevented this from happening since
1820.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The political effects of Douglas' bill were enormous. Passage of the bill irrevocably split the
Whig Party, one of the two major political parties in the country at the time. Every northern
Whig had opposed the bill; almost every southern Whig voted for it. With the emotional issue
of slavery involved, there was no way a common ground could be found. Most of the southern
Whigs soon were swept into the Democratic Party. Northern Whigs reorganized themselves
with other non-slavery interests to become the REPUBLICAN PARTY, the party of Abraham
Lincoln. This left the Democratic Party as the sole remaining institution that crossed sectional
lines. Animosity between the North and South was again on the rise. The North felt that if the
Compromise of 1820 was ignored, the Compromise of 1850 could be ignored as well.
Violations of the hated Fugitive Slave Law increased. Trouble was indeed back with a
vengeance.
 Grade: Module: Unit: Lesson #
Lesson Title

Uncle Toms Cabin

"So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."
This was Abraham Lincoln's reported greeting to HARRIET BEECHER STOWE when he met her
ten years after her book UNCLE TOM'S CABIN was published. Although the President may have
been exaggerating a bit, few novels in American history have grabbed the public spotlight and
caused as great an uproar as Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Across the north, readers became acutely aware of the horrors of slavery on a far more personal
level than ever before. In the south the book was met with outrage and branded an irresponsible
book of distortions and overstatements. In such an explosive environment, her story greatly
furthered the Abolitionist cause north of the Mason-Dixon Line and promoted sheer
indignation in plantation America.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born into a prominent family of preachers. Her father, Lyman
Beecher, was one of the most renowned ministers in his generation. Her brother HENRY WARD
BEECHER was already an outspoken Abolitionist, and by the mid 1850s would become the
driving force behind aiding the FREE-SOIL cause in “BLEEDING KANSAS" (not permitting
slavery in the new territory). While living for a short while in Cincinnati, Stowe became
exposed to actual runaway slaves. Her heart ached at the wretched tales she heard. She began to
write a series of short stories depicting the plight of plantation slaves.
Encouraged by her sister-in-law, Stowe decided to pen a novel. First published as a series in
1851, it first appeared as a book the following year. The heart-wrenching tale portrays slave
families forced to cope with separation by masters through sale. Uncle Tom mourns for the
family he was forced to leave. In one heroic scene, Eliza makes a daring dash across the frozen
Ohio River to prevent the sale of her son by slave traders. The novel also takes the perspective
that slavery brings out the worst in the white masters, leading them to perpetrate moral
atrocities they would otherwise never commit.

The reaction was incredible. Uncle Tom's Cabin sold 300,000 copies in the North alone. The
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, passed in 1850, could hardly be enforced by any of Stowe's readers.
Although banned in most of the south, it served as another log on the growing fire.
The book sold even more copies in Great Britain than in the United States. This had an
immeasurable appeal in swaying British public opinion. Many members of the British
Parliament relished the idea of a divided United States. Ten years after the publication of Uncle
Tom's Cabin, the British people made it difficult for its government to support the
Confederacy, even though there were strong economic ties to the South. In the end, Mr.
Lincoln may not have been stretching the truth after all.