By 1860, the United States was split into three parts or sections. The Southern states wanted to keep slavery as a system of forced labor while the Northern states had outlawed slavery in their states and did not want the system to spread across the country. The West was divided with some areas wanting to extend slavery and other areas wanting to get rid or abolish slavery. This split caused many problems in the years leading up to 1860 as the US government tried to deal with both sides of the slavery issue.
This split in the United States and the question of continuing slavery would drag this country into a war between free states and slave states so American would be fighting American. This type of war is called a civil war.
Question 1
1.
Which states allowed slavery as a forced labor system? Use the text above to answer.
Question 2
2.
Which states did not allow slavery as a forced labor system? Use the text above to answer.
Question 3
3.
What is a civil war? Use the text above to answer.
The United States was split into 3 sections that were constantly arguing with each other. Sectionalism means that a person feels more loyal to the section of the country they live in than to the country as a whole. This would cause tons of problems for the federal government in Washington DC. Each section of the country had things that they felt were the most important.
Question 4
4.
Using the picture from above, match the region with the correct definition.
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Corresponding Item
South
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King Cotton with slavery and plantations
North
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large cities with industry and manufacturing (lots of factories)
West
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new settlers showing up with rail (train) and telegraph connections
Missouri Compromise of 1850
The United States still had lots of land that was not organized as states yet. As people moved into those territories and started farming or setting up businesses, they wanted their area to become a new state. When enough people had settled in an area and a state government had been elected, the territory could apply to the United States government to become a state. This means they would get to elect representatives for the United States Congress. More representatives in Congress means more power to get things for your state like a railroad connection or money for a school system.
In 1849, California wanted to be a new state. The problem was there were 15 states that were free states and 15 states that were slave states. California DID NOT want to be a slave state. If California became a state, the balance of power in Congress would be with the free states.
This argument over California lasted for several months until a compromise was suggested. California would be a free state so there would be 16 free states and 15 slave states. The Utah territory and the New Mexico territory would vote on the question of slavery within their territory. There would also be a new law called the Fugitive Slave Act which said that ALL citizens in any state had to help catch African Americans who were trying to escape. This means that just getting to the Northern free states did NOT mean that an enslaved person was free because they could be captured and sent back to the South. This solved the problem for a few years but did not fix the problem forever.
Question 5
5.
What was the problem with Califronia becoming a state? Use the text box above to answer question.
Question 6
6.
What was going to happen in the territories of Utah and New Mexico? Use the text box above to answer the question.
Bleeding Kansas
In 1854, the problem over slavery came up again when Kansas and Nebraska applied to be states. A law was passed called the Kansas-Nebraska Act which allowed both territories to vote on whether they would be slave states or free states. This is called popular sovereignty. Northern people against slavery were very angry at this law since slavery had been illegal in both territories for more than 30 years. People from free and slave states rushed to Kansas in order to vote on the question of slavery.
The election was held in 1856. Pro slavery won the election because thousands of people from the border slave state of Missouri voted illegally in the election in Kansas.
Fights broke out all across the state between those in favor of slavery and those against it. These armed battles killed about 5 people and newspapers across the country started calling the area "Bleeding Kansas". A bit over dramatic on the nickname but the point is that fighting over slavery was already starting.
Question 7
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Kansas held an election to vote on whether to be a free state or a slave state. Having people vote on this question is called what? Use the text box above to answer the question.
John Brown in Kansas
John Brown was born in Connecticut to a family with extreme anti-slavery views. He married twice and fathered twenty children. He worked continually to end slavery by traveling the country to promote anti-slavery ideas, working to help escaping enslaved people and raising money to support groups who were working to end the legal ownership of human beings.
When Brown heard about the situation in Kansas, he moved his very large family to a farm outside Lawrence, Kansas. He gathered his grown sons and a few other men on the night of May 24, 1856 to attack the home of people they believed supported slavery. The group dragged five unarmed men and boys from their home and brutally murdered them. He then went into Missouri (a border slave state) and freed 11 enslaved people by murdering their owner.
Some people called for his arrest but it could not be proved that he ordered the killings and he had left the state soon after.
However, Brown did not stop. He decided that he needed to convince more people to join the anti-slavery movement by taking over a federal arsenal at a town in Virginia called Harper's Ferry. Brown believed that he could get enslaved people to join his group once he could show them he had guns and amunition available.
Unfortunately nothing went right for Brown and his group when they attacked the arsenal. Enslaved people did not join his group and the local police killed or captured all of the members of the group. John Brown was put on trial almost immediately following the raid. He was found guilty of treason and encouraging enslaved people to rebell against their owners.
Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859. He said that he was happy to die if people paid attention to his cause of ending slavery. People did pay attention but not the ones that he was hoping for. People who believed in slavery felt that Brown was just the start and that more people would demand that slavery be ended. Less than a year after Brown was hanged, 11 Southern states declared that they were a seperate country. A month later the Civil War would begin.
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The Dred Scott Supreme Court Case 1857
Dred Scott was an enslaved person who was taken to the free territory of Wisconsin. When he returned with his owner, he and his wife sued his owner for his freedom. He said he had been taken to a free territory therefore he was now a free person. The case went to the Supreme Court and the final verdict dramatically changed how slavery worked in slave and free states. Enslaved people could no longer get to a free state and then assume that they were now free to live their lives.
Question 11
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Use the video above to answer the following question. Where was Dred Scott taked by his second owner, Mr. Emerson?
Question 12
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Use the video above to answer the question. What three things did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott Case in 1857?
The Election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860
By 1860, the continuation of slavery had become the major issue on everyone's mind. Should slavery be allowed to continue and spread to other states or should slavery be ended once and for all. The last 10 years had been a mess with the Missouri Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case.
Many people in the South wanted the Southern states to break away from the United States and form their own country. This was called secession. They argued that their rights to own slaves should never be taken away.
In the presidential election of 1860, 4 people were running for president. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican who wanted to keep the United States together as one country. Lincoln did not support slavery but he also tried to convince the South that he would not outlaw the system. He just wanted to keep it in the Southern States. Stephen Douglass was a Democrat who also wanted to keep the country together but did not want any restrictions on the spread of slavery. Going against Douglass was John Breckinridge who wanted the South to create a separate country. The last guy was John Bell who wanted to keep the country together and but did want restrictions on the spread of slavery.
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass had become very famous because of a series of 7 debates they had done two years earlier in 1858. They agreed to travel around the state of Illinois giving speeches about the issue of slavery. Each debate was 3 hours long. Right before the debates began, Abraham Lincoln wrote about the United States and its problems with slavery by saying "A house divided against itself cannot stand" and that "this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free". This is now considered the most important statements that Lincoln ever made.
Lincoln won the election because every free state voted for him. The other three men lost because votes in Southern states were split between them.
The election of Abraham Lincoln was the last straw for the Southern slave states. They were convinced that Lincoln would support laws that would make slavery illegal even though he tried to tell the South that he would not. Lincoln wanted the United States to remain together as a country. He was willing to accept that slavery would continue in some states.
The first state to leave the Union (the United States) was South Carolina. Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi left soon after. Eventually Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia would join the new country called the Confederate States of America.
Only 4 slave states decided to stay with the United States. Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware would be very important to the union. These states would be called the border states.
On April 11, 1861, Lincoln sent food supplies to a fort in South Carolina. The Confederate states (southern states) said this was an invasion of their country and declared war on the United States. The Civil War had started.
Question 13
13.
Why were Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass famous before the election of 1860?
Question 14
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How did Lincoln win the presidental election of 1860? Who voted for him and who did not?
Question 15
15.
The last straw for the South was election of _______________________________ for president of the United States. The Southern states left the union and declared war on the United States in 1861.
The United States was going through a serious national crisis. Sectionalism was destroying these states that had banded together 100 years earlier to create a country and a governement that had never been tried before. They had fought the American Revolution to get rid of a king in a country across an ocean. But now all these states were focused on a single issue. That issue was slavery.
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Question 8
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What did John Brown do in Kansas?
Question 9
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What did he think would happen if he took over the arsenal at Harper's Ferry?
Question 10
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What was the end result of John Brown's raid on the aresenal at Harper's Ferry?
Question 16
16.
Look at the political cartoon. Think about what you know about the events leading to Civil War. Which answer best explains what is going on in this picture.
