The Debate over Slavery

1. The Debate over Slavery Section 1 Chapter 15

2. Focus Questions • How did the outcome of the Mexican War affect the debate over the expansion of slavery? • What were the major provisions of the Compromise of 1850, and what reasons were given for supporting or opposing it? • Why was the Fugitive Slave Act controversial in the North?

3. The Expansion of Slavery • The victory in the Mexican War added new land to the United States and brought back the debate over slavery • The Missouri Compromise had divided the country into free and slave states • Polk wanted the line to extend into new territory just taken from Mexico

4. The Expansion of Slavery • The debate over slavery really began to show the sectionalism(favoring interests of a region over the good of the country) of the country • Senator Lewis Cass called for popular sovereignty, which stated that the people of the state would determine if they would choose slavery

5. The Expansion of Slavery • In 1848, the Free-Soil Party was formed and it did not side with Democrats or Whigs • Whig candidate Zachary Taylor won the 1848 election

6. The Expansion of Slavery • When California went through the gold rush it skipped the territorial process for becoming a state • Many in California wanted to enter the Union as a free state but Southern politicians did not want California to enter as a free state as it would through the balance of power to free states in Congress

7. The Compromise of 1850 • Henry Clay was known as the “Great Compromiser” and stepped forward with a new plan to end the debate: • Let California enter as a free state • Popular sovereignty would decide slavery in the Mexican cession territories • Texas give up its claims east of the upper Rio Grande River and the federal government will pay of Texas’s debt • End the slave trade in Washington D.C. (slavery still allowed just no new trading) • New more efficient fugitive slave law

8. The Compromise of 1850 • Clay’s plan had critics in the South and in the North • Some felt it was too weak on the slave trade while others in the south thought it was too strict

9. The Compromise of 1850 • Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was a supporter of the plan because preservation of the Union is more important then stopping the expansion of slavery • He criticized northerners who against it and scolded southerners who wanted to break away • The Compromise of 1850 was passed in September and accomplished most of what Clay wanted

10. The Fugitive Slave Act • The Fugitive Slave Act made it a federal crime to help runaway slaves • It allowed officials to arrest slaves in areas where slavery was illegal • Anyone who helped a runaway slave faced six months in jail and a $1000 fine • Thousands of African Americans went to Canada to escape potential prosecution

11. The Fugitive Slave Act • For the most part Northerners who resisted the Fugitive Slave Act did so without violence • Anthony Burns was a fugitive that was caught in Boston and a group of abolitionists went to break him out • Along the way a deputy marshal was killed

12. Antislavery Literature • Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth put together narratives that were very popular • Truth’s narratives were centered around a woman and took place while she was a slave in New York

13. Antislavery Literature • Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the most powerful piece of literature that was written for abolitionists • Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote this book and it centered on a slave named Tom who was separated from his family • She had learned about slaver when her family moved to Ohio and she met fugitive slaves there

14. Focus Questions • How did the outcome of the Mexican War affect the debate over the expansion of slavery? • What were the major provisions of the Compromise of 1850, and what reasons were given for supporting or opposing it? • Why was the Fugitive Slave Act controversial in the North?