Essential Question What impact did the Fugitive Slave Act have on the slavery debate Focus Questions What could happen to people accused of being fugitives under the Fugitive Slave Act Why did Northerners resent the Fugitive Slave Act ID: 708818
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Slide1
Lesson 15.2:
The Crisis DeepensSlide2
Essential
Question
What impact did the Fugitive Slave Act have on the slavery debate?Slide3
Focus Questions
What could happen to people accused of being fugitives under the Fugitive Slave Act?
Why did Northerners resent the Fugitive Slave Act?
Why was the Kansas-Nebraska Act so controversial?Slide4
Focus Questions
How did the official Kansas legislature become packed with proslavery representatives
?
What was the cause of “Bleeding Kansas”?
Why did Preston Brooks attack Senator Sumner of Massachusetts and hit him 30 times with his cane? Slide5
Vocabulary
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Abolitionist and author who opposed the Fugitive Slave Act
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – novel which portrayed the brutality of slavery.
Fugitive Slave Act – 1850 law which helped slaveholders recapture runaway slaves. Slide6
Vocabulary
4. Popular Sovereignty – a system in which the residents vote to decide an issue.
5. Kansas-Nebraska Act – 1854 law that established territories and gave their residents the right to decide whether to allow slavery.
6. John Brown – Extreme abolitionist responsible for the murder of 5 proslavery people.Slide7
1815
1825
1835
1840
1850
1820 Missouri Compromise drawing the line at 36
0
30’
1850 Compromise of 1850 admitted California and set up new fugitive slave laws.
1846 Wilmot Proviso wanted to ban slavery in territory won from Mexico.
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the War giving America the Mexican Cession
1848 Gold discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California
1846 Beginning of the Mexican American WarSlide8
Disagreements over slavery led to increased tensions between the North and the South.
What We Already Know…Slide9
California’s request for statehood led to Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850.
What We Already Know…Slide10
The Compromise of 1850 contained a controversial new fugitive slave law.
What We Already Know…Slide11
Fugitive Slave Act:
1. People accused of being
fugitives could be held without an arrest warrant.
2. Instead of a jury trial, a
federal commissioner ruled on each case
.
3.
The commissioner received five dollars for releasing the defendant and ten dollars for turning the defendant over to a slaveholder
.Slide12
The law forced Northerners to help recapture runaway slaves.
The law also penalized officials. If they did not arrest an alleged runaway slave, they were forced to pay a fine of $1,000 ($28,000 in today’s money.)
Fugitive Slave Act:
Any person aiding a runaway slave
by providing food or
shelter
was subject to
six months
imprisonment
and a $1,000 fine.
By obeying the Act they were forced to support slavery.Slide13
Fugitive Slave Act:
Southerners believed slaves were property and should be returned.
Northerners realized that, by supporting the Fugitive Slave Act, they were supporting slavery.
Should they obey the law and support slavery, or should they break the law and oppose slavery?Slide14
Fugitive Slave Act:
During this time Southern slave catchers
roamed the North, sometimes capturing free African- Americans instead of runaway slaves.Slide15
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
, along with her brother were active abolitionists who helped runaway slaves and actively campaigned against slavery.
Outraged by the Fugitive Slave Act she
wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852 which dramatically portrayed slavery as brutal and immoral. Slide16
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The novel includes dramatic scenes, such as the dangerous escape of a slave named Eliza and her baby
across the frozen Ohio River.
The book was criticized by Southerner’s as being inaccurate . Slide17
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and helped fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s.
Legend has it that when
President Lincoln met
Stowe he said, “So this is the
little lady who started the great war.”Slide18
Kansas - Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement.
The act was designed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The idea was to open up many thousands of
new farms and make
possible a Midwestern
Transcontinental Railroad.Slide19
Kansas - Nebraska Act
Hoping to ease tension over the slavery issue, Douglas included popular sovereignty - each state would vote to decide for itself if it would be a free state or a slave state.Slide20
Territorial
Legislation
Kansas - Nebraska Act
Compromise of 1850
Missouri Compromise of 1820
Free
Slave
Territory open to slavery
Territory closed to slavery
Not property of USSlide21
Kansas - Nebraska Act
The Act only created more tension because it would potentially allow slavery north of the 360
30 parallel undoing the Missouri Compromise of 1820
and the Compromise of 1850!
Obviously, Southerners supported the bill, but it angered opponents of slavery
.
This turned Kansas into a battleground over slaverySlide22
Bleeding Kansas
Most Americans accepted that Nebraska was expected to become a free state. Settlers from both sides of the slavery issue flooded the
Kansas territory to
acquire lands
and vote on the
issue of slavery.Slide23
Bleeding Kansas
At the time of the
election in March 1855, there were more proslavery settlers than antislavery settlers in the territory
.
But the proslavery forces did not want to risk losing the election.
Five thousand Missourians came and voted in the election illegally. Slide24
As a result of the election, the official Kansas legislature was packed with proslavery representatives. Antislavery settlers boycotted the official government and formed a government of their own.
Bleeding KansasSlide25
With political authority in dispute, settlers on both sides armed themselves.
Bleeding Kansas
In May, a group of
proslavery supporters
attacked and sacked
the headquarters of the anti-slavery anti-anti-slavery governor
in Lawrence Kansas
.
This incident became known as the Sack of Lawrence.Slide26
Bleeding Kansas
Seeking revenge for the sack of Lawrence, an extreme abolitionist named John Brown and seven other antislavery men attacked proslavery residents and murdered five of their proslavery neighbors
as they slept at a cabin near Pottawatomie Creek.Slide27
Bleeding Kansas
As news of John Brown’s attack (known as the Pottawatomie Massacre) spread, civil war broke out in Kansas…
… a war that lasted three years giving the territory the name, “Bleeding Kansas.” Slide28
In late May, 1856,
Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a rousing anti slavery speech before the Senate.
Violence in Congress
In very
insulting terms
, he
attacked
the pro-slavery forces in Kansas, the institution of slavery in general, and pro-slavery
Senator Andrew Butler
of South Carolina in particularSlide29
Nearby, in the House of Representatives, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks got wind of Sumner’s speech.
Violence in Congress
Senator Butler was related to Congressman Brooks,
who angrily decided he must defend the honor of his family and of the South.Slide30
Violence in Congress
Congressman Brooks went to the Senate chamber looking for Sumner. He found Sumner working at his desk and viciously beat Sumner unconscious with a cane.
Many Southerners
cheered Brooks’
defense of the
South, but most
Northerners were
shocked at such
violence in the Senate.Slide31
Violence in Congress
“Bleeding Kansas” and “Bleeding Sumner” became rallying cries for antislavery Northerners, as well as for a new political party that was
beginning to
emerge.