Unit 3 The Growth of Sectional Tension (1850-1861)

The North

Industrial and factories

produced 90% of American goods by 1860: iron, coal, firearms, textile

Supported high tariffs to protect domestic industry

High immigration - working in factories

Urban cities

The South

Agrarian

81% worked in agriculture

Relied on slave work

Less than 5% foreign-born

Few large cities

Opposed tariffs (especially 1828): relied on imported goods

How did slavery become an issue?

Invention of Cotton Gin (1793) - increased production of cotton so slave demand increased

Abolition of international slave trade (1808)

Missouri Compromise

1820

Tallmadge Amendment: prohibited further introduction of slaves into Missouri and freed slaves when 25

Passed by North so South feared imbalance and argued that slaves are property

Missouri would be slave state

Creation of Maine as a free state

Line from 36th parallel - no states over can be slave

Key Developments in 1830s-1840s

1831 - Nat Turner rebellion

1832 - Nullification Crisis

1833 - Anti-Slavery Society

Nullification Crisis

Southern states were against tariffs

Calhoun doctrine - states can nullify federal laws

Anti-Slavery Society

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman

Underground Railroads

Pamphlets and novels (Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher)

Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator

Wilmot Proviso

1846

Slavery should be banned in any territory acquired from Mexican war

Passed in House of Representatives but blocked in Senate

Never became law but heightened sectional tensions

1850 Compromise

California admission

Fugitive slave act

Fugitive Slave Act

1850

Revision of Clause IV of the constitution

Made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders

Increased northern opposition to slavery as they had to help

Undermined trust in legal system as accused fugitives couldn't testify

Growth of Underground Railroad

Draconian but not enforced well

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 - Stephen Douglas wanted a railroad

Allowed the states to choose whether to allow slavery through popular sovereignty

Birth of the Republican Party

Popular sovereignty repealed Missouri Compromise

Angered northerners as now had to compete with slave owning southerners (unfair economically)

Bleeding Kansas

Fighting between anti- and pro-slavery

Border ruffians (southerners) rigged the vote

Pottawatomie Massacre (1856) - John Brown and sons killed 5 pro-slavery people

Lincoln and The Republican Party

Whig party collapsed due to Kansas-Nebraska act

Opposed expansion of slavery

Lincoln was a poor white boy from a slave state

Dred Scott

Slave who sued for liberty after living in non-slave Illinois

Taney - Black people are property and can't be citizens

Radicalised John Brown, undermined legality of Missouri Compromise and popular sovereignty

Cements slavery in USA and kills moderates

John Brown

1859

Raided Harper's ferry to give weapons to slaves but failed

People scared of insurrection because of Haitian uprising

The Election of 1860

Dred Scott increased Republican support

Lincoln's strong personality contrasted previous presidents who failed to control Kansas

He was careful to show he wasn't an abolitionist and said peculiar institution would damage the U.S economy and diplomacy abroad

Democrats were divided because of the prospect of a new nation slave code (all states support slavery)

Consequences of the Election of 1860

Lincoln won all 16 free states except New Jersey

In 10 southern states, Lincoln didn't get a vote

Showed slavery lacked support from most of the nation

Led to Crittenden's compromise:

- Restore Missouri Compromise line

- Slavery laws

- Introduce slavery into constitution

This failed

Secession

December 1860, South Carolina seceded

Then Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas

February 1861 - creation of the Confederacy and election of Jefferson Davis

Confederacies ordered seizure of federal properties

Lincoln wanted to keep border states so didn't take these back

April 1861 - Failure of Fort Sumter to surrender, both sides started to raise armies and Lincoln ordered a naval blockade