Harriet Beecher Stowe

Stowe’s conscience had been stirred by the Fugitive Slave Act. While Stowe knew little about slavery and her depiction of plantation life was distorted, her story had sympathetic characters and it was told with sensitivity. She was the first white American writer to look at slaves as people.

was a series of violent events, involving  anti-slavery and pro-slavery  elements, that took place in the KansasTerritory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. States of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858.

 fugitive slaves not entitled to a trial by jury.for helping a fugitive liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for 6 or more months .

The need for better communication with California resulted in the Clayton- Bulwer Treaty that gave the United States and Britain joint control of any canal built across Central America. 

Senator Stephen A. Douglas saw the needs of the nation in a broad perspective. He advocated territorial expansion and popular sovereignty. He opposed slavery and thought natural conditions would keep it out of the West, but he did not find slavery morally repugnant.

“Doughface”

Civil War Northerner siding with South.

President Pierce.

1. The weaking of the two major parties: the Democrats and the Whigs
2. A distastrous application of popular sovereignty in the western territory of Kansas.

• Winner:Franklin Pierce, new Hamshire Doughface because of support of the Fugitive Slave Law.
• General Winfield Scott, Mititary hero of Mexican War.Ignored Slavery issue

The Kansas-Nebraska Act had been ambiguous about when a vote on slavery in the territory would be held and who would be allowed to vote. Thus, both sections sought to influence the situation in Kansas: New England sent organized groups of antislavery settlers to Kansas, and proslavery Missourians crossed the border to vote in key

212Kansas elections, making a mockery of the democratic process. 

prominent from 1853 to 1856, that was antagonistic toward Roman Catholics and recent immigrants and whose members preserved its secrecy by denying its existence.

Founded in northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party. It first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency and oversaw theAmerican Civil War and Reconstruction.

Stephen A.Douglas yearned to have  the Democratic nomination in 1856, but his reputation had been badly tarnished by the ongoing violence in Kansas.  the Democrats turned to James Buchanan , who had been the minister to Britain from 1853 to 1856 and was not linked to the Kansas issue.  Buchanan was popular in the South because of his part in the Ostend Manifesto.

The pro-slavery majority at Lecompton knew that most Kansans preferred to enter the Union as a free state, so the delegates resolved to send a pro-slavery document to Washington without putting it to a fair vote. The referendum on the Lecompton Constitution claimed to let voters decide between a "constitution with slavery" and a "constitution with no slavery," but they were given no real choice: the "constitution with no slavery" prohibited only the importation of new slaves, not the maintenance of slaves already established in the territory.

1. Dred Scott had no right to sue because he was not a citizen.
2. Congress has no power to deprive any person of its property and slaves were considered property.
3. Because the Missouri Compromise, excluded slavery from Wisconsin and other Northern territories, that law was unconstitutional.

• Stephen Douglas, southern democrat but his nomination was blocked by a combination of angry southerners and supporters of President Buchanan.
• Winner:Abraham Lincoln, republican.Platform was formatted to attract mainly westerns and northerns and took advantage of the split Democrats.

was the 13th President of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of theWhig Party to hold that office. Being Zachary Taylor`s Vice President, he assumed the presidency after Taylor`s death.

 was an Americanmilitary officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of president of the U.S., and the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform opposing slavery.

 was the 15th President of the United States from 1857–1861 and the last to be born in the 18th century. To date he is the only president from the state of Pennsylvania.

A transportation company created to transport immigrants toKansas Territory to shift the balance of power so that Kansas would enter the United States as a free state rather than a slave state. Created by Eli Thayer in the wake of theKansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the population of Kansas Territory to choose whether slavery would be legal, the Company is noted less for its direct impact than for the psychological impact it had on proslavery and antislaveryelements. 

Several days after the speech"The Crime Against Kansas."( In it, he gave particular attention to Senator Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina, an outspoken defender of slavery. )  Brooks approached Sumner at his desk in the Senate chamber during a recess, raised a heavy cane, and began beating him repeatedly on the head and shoulders. Sumner, trapped in his chair, rose in agony with such strength that he tore the desk from the bolts holding it to the floor.  So severe were his injuries that he was unable to return to the Senate for four years. Throughout the North, he became a hero -- a martyr to the barbarism of the South. In the South, Preston Brooks became a hero, too. Censured by the House, he resigned his seat, returned to South Carolina, and stood successfully for reelection.

 Instead of making a direct choice, Douglas' response stated that despite the court's ruling, slavery could be prevented from any territory by the refusal of the people living in that territory to pass laws favorable to slavery

Slavery should not be allowed to expand into the territories.

NOT:Slavery should not be allowed and should be abolished immediately!

Lincoln's goal with this speech was to differentiate himself fromStephen A. Douglas . Douglas maintained that popular sovereignty , which allowed the residents of new territories to decide their own status as a slave or free state, would put an end to slavery-induced conflict and allow northern and southern states to coexist peacefully. Lincoln, however, said that the United States must be either all-slave or all-free. As long as the North and South held such distinct opinions, and as long as these issue permeated every political issue of the time, the Union could not function as a coalition of cooperative states.

 was the name given to the breech loading Sharps rifles that were supplied to the anti-slavery immigrants inKansas.

1. He Called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the "insurrection in the South"
2.  He authorized spending for the war
3.  He suspended the priviledge of the writ of habeas corpus.

Lincoln used heavy polictical and threatining tactics to make the states become border states.

 is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman

In the first year after it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the United States alone.

April 1861 

• (and after- people began to enthusiastically join the armies
• Union: 2 million + soldiers
• Confederate: 800,000+ soldiers

November 1861- Liberation of first large group of slaves

·       At Sea Islands off the Georgia and South Carolina coast

·       Sea Islands became a haven for African American refugees from all over the south

November 1861- Trent Affair

• Confederacy sent James Madison to Britain and John Slidell to France to lobby for recognition of the Confederacy as an independent nation
• Union ship captured Madison and Slidell; they were released later

1861- Anaconda Plan devised

• General Winfield Scott devised it
• Called for Union to blockades the Southern coast and thrust down the Mississippi River
• Failed

August 1861- First Confiscation Act

August 1861- Confederacy enacted a small property tax

• Union also enacted an income tax
• Neither were very effective at raising money for the war

July 1861- First Battle of Bull Run/ First Manassas

• General Irvin McDowell led Union troops
• P.T. Beauregard led Confederate troops
• Washington dignitaries picnicked and watched the battle

Railroads.

By 1860 there were around 31,000 miles of railroad tracks.

"King Cotton" was a phrase used in the Southern United States mainly by Southern politicians and authors who wanted to illustrate the importance of the cotton crop to the Confederate economy during the American Civil War. However, the attempt to use this trade as a diplomatic weapon to force Europe's hand in the American Civil War proved a serious strategic blunder.