Post on 14-Mar-2021
3/25/2014
1
� Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe� Published in 1853
� Following the passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Act
� She lived in Cincinnati, OH� Home was part on a trail of
the Underground Railroad
� Wrote the book based on case histories of escaped slaves
� Persuaded more people, particularly northerners, to become anti-slavery
KansasKansasKansasKansas----Nebraska Act Nebraska Act Nebraska Act Nebraska Act Passed
� Proposed by Stephen Douglas Act to organize
the Nebraska Territory
� Split into 2 territories, Kansas
and Nebraska
� Popular sovereignty to decide the issue of
slavery
� People in the states would
vote
� Used to get southern support
to pass the bill
Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)
3/25/2014
2
Bleeding KansasBleeding KansasBleeding KansasBleeding Kansas� Proslavery and Antislavery
supporters flooded Kansas to vote for a territorial legislature� March 1855
� Many Missouri slaveholders crossed the border to vote illegally in the election� Only 1,500 eligible voters lived in
Kansas, but 6,000 vote
� Creates a proslavery Legislature
� Resulted in a series of fights between proslavery and antislavery forces
Bleeding Kansas
� Extreme abolitionist John Brown led antislavery forces in raids of proslavery settlement, killing 5 people
� Known as Pottawatomie Massacre
� Sparked 3 years of civil war in Kansas that resulted in
many deaths and political turmoil
Violence Spreads to Congress
• Senator Charles Sumner (MA) gave a speech in
the Senate attacking
proslavery forces in Kansas and their
supporters in congress
○ Insulted A.P. Butler, a
senator from S.C.
� Preston Brooks a
representative and relative of Butler,
retaliated by beating Sumner over the head
as he sat at his desk
3/25/2014
3
The Rise A New PartyA New PartyA New PartyA New Party� The Act caused a rift in
the Whig party over the issue of slavery
� Some Southern Whigs joined Democratic Party while Northern Whigs helped form the Republican Party
� Democrats blamed for the violence in Kansas� The rise of the Republicans
was bolstered by Bleeding Kansas
A small school house in Ripon, Wisconsin, where thirty anti-slavery Whigs met and agreed to call for a
new political party which became the Republican Party
Who made up the Republican Party?
� Northern Whigs who were leaderless following the
deaths of Henry Clay and
Daniel Webster, both in 1852
� The Free-Soil Party, which
had played a spoiler role in
several presidential elections, was bereft of effective
leadership
� The Know-Nothing
movement, whose roots lay in
the fear of immigrants
� Many Northern Democrats
who deserted their party over the slavery issue.
Jackson, Michigan, site of a
meeting of antislavery supporters
in July 1856 “Under the Oaks”
Issues that Unite the Issues that Unite the Issues that Unite the Issues that Unite the Republican PartyRepublican PartyRepublican PartyRepublican Party
� Repeal of the Act and halt the expansion of slavery� Republican opposition to the
extension of slavery was based more on economic concerns than moral ones
� The construction of the transcontinental railroad
� Support of a Homestead Act� Ease the process for settlers to
own western lands
� High protective tariffs and liberal immigration law� Attractive to Northern
manufacturers
Site of the first Republican Party Convention, Lafayette Hall, Pittsburgh, Pa.1 Condemned KS-NE Act
& slavery expansion
Called
Republicans extremists
Election of 1856
3/25/2014
4
Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)
� Dred Scott was a slave who lived in Missouri (a
slave state)
� His owner moved to free
territory and took Scott and his wife.
� They returned to
Missouri where Scott’s
owner died
� He sued for his freedom based on having lived in
free territory
Harriet and Dred Scott
Roger Taney,
Chief Justice
of the U.S.
Supreme Court
Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)
� Case heard before Surpreme Court
� Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled against
Scott.
� Dred Scott was not a U.S. Citizen and thus could
not sue in U.S. Courts
� Scott was bound by
Missouri Slave code
� Congress had no right to
ban slavery in territories
� Slavery effectively now
protected by law
� (18 March 1857)
We publish to-day, at length, the decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States, delivered by Chief Justice
Taney, in the Dred Scott case.
The black Republicans of the North, and their allies in the
South, may lament again and again the passage of the
Nebraska-Kansas act, and the repeal of the Missouri restriction; but the whole question has been settled by the
highest judicial tribunal in the country, and from this
decision there can be no appeal.
Abolitionism has been stunned, faction and treason in
both sections of the Union have been rebuked, and the
Constitution has been restored. This decision concedes to the Southern people all they have ever asked -- the
Constitution. If true to themselves, they will never take any
thing less.
� (10 March 1857)
Judge Taney requests the American people to believe that the
framers of the Constitution did not know their own minds. For the same Statesmen who drew up the Constitution, (which he says
forbids Congress to prohibit Slavery in the Territories,) adopted the
Ordinance of '87, which prohibited it in all the Territories we then
had. The Ordinance was passed in July, 1787 -- the Constitution
was framed in September of the same year.
The same States and the same men ratified both. And one of the
first acts of the first Congress under the Constitution was to reaffirm the Ordinance, and to again prohibit Slavery! Which are
the best interpreters of the Constitution, the opinions of Mr. Chief
Justice Taney, or the ACTS of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton,
Monroe, Adams, and Washington? They created the Constitution,
and the Constitution created Chief Justice Taney -- the clay which
now affects to despise the skill of the Potter.