Contributions to Sectionalism• While Northerners were anti-slavery

that did not mean that they were not racist

• Many whites in the North refused to go to school, work, or live near African Americans

Contributions to Sectionalism• Southerners claimed that slavery

helped slaves by introducing them to Christianity

• They also felt that slavery provided slaves with food, clothing, and shelter throughout their lives

• Southerners felt slavery was their way of life and they were willing to defend it

Slave Legislation

• Missouri Compromise (1820)• Nullification Crisis (1832)• Compromise of 1850 (1850)• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Missouri Compromise (1820)

• Dealt with the issue of slave and non-slave states

• The compromise kept a balance in the senate between slave and non-slave states

Nullification Crisis (1832)• Vice-President John C. Calhoun said that states

should have the right to nullify, or reject, laws they feel are unconstitutional

• This would allow Southern states to nullify the tariffs.

• President Andrew Jackson did not consider nullification a right of state governments

Andrew Jackson---------------------------

Henry David Thoreau• In Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil

Disobedience” he said that citizens should refuse to pay a government tax.

• Thoreau felt that he should not pay since the government continued to permit injustice by fighting wars and permitting slavery

Henry David Thoreau• Thoreau’s idea of civil disobedience influenced

American society• Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.

called on people to refuse to obey laws they considered unjust

The Compromise of 1850• The Compromise allowed California to

become a state• Henry Clay (Missouri Compromise 1820)

helped create a plan to settle the issue