Unit 4.2

North Carolina v. Mann (1830)

• A decision in which the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that slave owners had absolute authority over their slaves and could not be found guilty of committing violence against them.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831)

• • What Happened: 

    • Nat Turner, a slave, led a group of slaves in a plan to kill all slaveholders in the county, killing about 60 white people. 

    • More than 100 innocent slaves were killed in an attempt to stop the rebellion.

    • Turner was captured and executed.
      
      

  • Effects:

    • Many states strengthened slave codes, placing stricter controls on the slave population as a result including banning slaves from learning to read and write or assembling in large groups.

    • Some planters used punishment to encourage slaves’ obedience. They used irons and chains, stocks, and whips to punish slaves.

    • Nat Turner’s Rebellion was the most violent slave revolt.
      
      

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

• This was a plan presented by David Wilmot, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, to ban slavery in territories won from Mexico.  

• His plan PASSED the House but FAILED in the Senate. 

Why did this matter? It showed that southerners were willing to stop expansion all together if slavery wouldn't also expand.

Free Soil Party 1848

• • This was the first party formed that was a "sectional party" and they picked Martin Van Buren as their first candidate for President.  

  • Believed that slavery should not expand. If you have slavery you can keep it.

    • “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men”

    • Endorsed the Wilmot Proviso

Harriet Beecher Stowe 

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin: literary work that supported the abolitionist movement before the Civil War.  

• It condemned slavery and its effect on slave families.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Attempt to organize the vast Nebraska territory for settlement and the passage of a transcontinental railroad.

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. 

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act would repeal the Missouri Compromise which had kept the Union from falling apart for the last 34 years. 

Pottawatomie Creek Killings (1856)

• John Brown and his sons pull five pro-slavery men out of their beds in the middle of the night and murdered them.

• "GOD has told him to do it"

Many Northerners, while they don’t believe in slavery, are appalled at what he did.

Bleeding Kansas

• Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery settlers in one area and this leads to conflict  

• Northerners believe the Kansas-Nebraska Act REPEALED the Missouri Compromise

• Pro-Slavery Missourians crossed the border into Kansas to vote in its’ election on slavery.

• Governor John Geary sends out 1,300 federal troops to stop violence

• Abolitionist John Brown led anti-slavery fighters in Kansas

Dred Scott Case 

• Dred Scott was a slave who filed a lawsuit for his freedom.

• Roger B. Taney was the Supreme Court Justice that decided the case.

• The Dred Scott decision declared that slavery was legal in the territories.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate 

• Ideas on slavery:

• Douglas believed in deciding slavery by popular sovereignty.

• Lincoln believed that slavery should NOT be allowed to spread into the territories. 

• Lincoln ALSO believed the Nation could not survive if the fighting continued to rip the Union apart with the slavery issue.

Raid on Harpers Ferry (1859)

John Brown was at it again!  

• This time, he led five African-Americans and thirteen white Americans into Harper’s Ferry, Virginia

• They planned to raid an arsenal and start a slave revolt

• Problem: No slaves "rose" up to help 

• A number of his men died and Brown was arrested by Robert E. Lee.

• Brown was tried and found guilty of murder and treason. He was later hanged.

• Some Northerners thought of him as a “martyr” (someone who dies for his beliefs.)

Election of 1860

• Abraham Lincoln was the Republican candidate elected in 1860.

• He was president from 1861-1865.

• He won the election because the opposing Democratic Party was divided over the issue of slavery.
  Famous speech, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” meaning, the nation was divided over the slavery issue.

Republican Party

• Goal of the Republican Party was to prevent slavery from expanding in the western territories.

• The Republican party was most responsible for the increase of debates over the expansion of slavery during the 1850s.

The North vs. the South

• Why was the abolitionist cause successful in the North?

  • The North did not use or need slave labor

• Why did non-slave-owners in the South continue to support slavery?

  • They believed that the Southern economy was dependent on slavery and needed it to survive.