Slavery in the Territories

4/12/2012

Slavery a National Issue

Constitution? Missouri Compromise equal number of slave and free states Slavery banned north of the line drawn across the USA

Slavery in the West

Wilmot Proviso banned slavery in the new lands from Mexico (remember what we talked about these past few days?) Failed

Who decides?
Popular sovereignty allowed voters to decide if a new state should be free or slave Free soil party wanted to ban slavery from the western territories

Compromise of 1850
California wanted to join the USA as a free state Southerners feared that free states would soon outnumber slave states Crisis in the Senate

Compromise of 1850
Contained Five Parts Allowed California to enter as a free state Fugitive Slave Act all citizens had to help catch runaway slaves and return them to their masters

Uncle Toms Cabin

Antislavery novel written in 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe Story of Tom, a slave with a brutal master Made the South furious

Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the citizens of these territories to decide whether or not to allow slavery Fighting broke out guerilla warfare Bleeding Kansas People from both free and slave states streamed into the state to defend their beliefs