Expansion of Slavery Activity

Expansion of Slavery/American Sectionalism Student Pack Major Events Worksheet Instructions Using the packet of primary source documents and the background information sheet, retrace the events that led from sectionalism, to secession, and finally to the Civil War. To begin you will need to read the background information dealing with each event. Once you have read the background information, read each document dealing with each event (i.e., the Missouri Compromise). Take your time and discuss the information. Other people in your group may have a different idea about the same document, so read the documents out loud if necessary. Rushing can cause mistakes. TAKE YOUR TIME! Finish by answering the questions for each event. Mapping Instructions This assignment will require the use of four blank maps, which are provided. This portion of the group activity will require some basic artistic skills. You will be drawing boundaries based on the information you read in these four major documents: the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott Decision. A current U.S. map can be used as a reference. You will also use the Call to Freedom textbook. Be as accurate as possible. Use different colors for each. Create a KEY at the bottom for labels and colors. 1. Missouri Compromise Map: Based on your readings of the Missouri Compromise, draw the line from Missouri to the Pacific (36’30’ line). Color free states 1 color and slave states another color. (p. 333 in Call to Freedom) 2. Compromise of 1850 Map: Based on your readings of the Compromise of 1850, draw and shade in the approximate boundaries of California, Utah, and New Mexico Territories. Use 1 color for free states, and 1 color for states who used popular sovereignty. (p. 458 in Call to Freedom) 3. Kansas Nebraska Act Map: Based on your readings of section 19 of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, draw and shade in the approximate location and boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska. (p. 458 in Call to Freedom) 4. Dred Scott Decision Map: Draw shade in the location and boundary of Minnesota Territory. You may use the current state boundary. (on PowerPoint) Put every group member’s name and the date on each map! Major Events Worksheet Names____________________________________________________ Date_______________________________ Period______________ Dates: Answer each question and evaluate how the event affected the people of the United States. 1820 – Missouri Compromise – What were the three elements of the Missouri Compromise? What was Jefferson’s Opinion? 1846 – USA Declares War on Mexico – Why did the Mexican-American War begin? 1848 – Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo – What did America gain as a result of the Mexican-American War? How would this affect the Missouri Compromise (1820)? 1850 – Compromise of 1850 – What were the major solutions proposed by the Compromise of 1850? What about New Mexico? Nevada? Utah? Arizona? D.C.? 1854 – Kansas Nebraska Act – What problems resulted from the K/N Act? What law did it enforce? 1857 – Dred Scott Decision – What side did the Supreme Court take in its decision (Pro-slave or Abolition)? What was the “justification” for this decision? 1860 – Election of 1860 – Describe Lincoln’s views in 1861. How did Southerners respond to his election? Sectionalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Secession Background Information Documents Summary Documents The Missouri Compromise of 1820 The Missouri Compromise was passed despite the battle that was brewing in Congress over Missouri becoming a new state. Missouri wanted to enter the Union (United States) as a slave state, but Missouri was too far north to be considered a “Southern state.” So Congress came up with a plan. The plan was to allow Missouri to become a state and keep its slaves and Maine would become a state and have no slaves. With both becoming states at nearly the same time and one having slaves and the other none, it maintained the balance in Congress between free and slave states. The other part of the Compromise was that a line would be drawn from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean. Any state wanting to enter the Union south of this line had to be a slave state, and any state entering the Union north of this line would have to be a free state. This compromise worked perfectly until 1849 and was a law until 1857. The Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850 was passed because California wanted to enter the Union after the Mexican War as a free state, but the line from the Missouri Compromise cut the state in half. The Southern states did not want California (a very large state) to enter the Union as a free state without another state entering the Union as a slave state. The compromise that was worked out started the slide toward sectionalism and secession. The Compromise of 1850 had five different parts: 1. California would enter the Union as a free state. 2. Utah and New Mexico Territories would have the right to decide whether they would enter the Union as slave or free states. This became known as popular sovereignty. 3. Texas would lose land to New Mexico Territory but would get $10 million to pay off a debt with Mexico. 4. The slave trade would end in Washington D.C. This only ended the sale and trading of slaves, not the ownership of slaves. 5. The Fugitive Slave Law was passed. This allowed slave owners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to the plantations. This essentially ended the North as a haven for runaway slaves, because slave owners could come after them anywhere in the United States. This Compromise divides or sectionalizes the North and South a little more. California and Texas were minor issues. Sectionalism grows mainly because of the Fugitive Slave Law and somewhat because of the institution of popular sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico Territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed because people were starting to move west of Missouri into unorganized territories. Congress decided to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act to help organize the territory into two different states. The policy of popular sovereignty was extended to the territory even though it was in conflict with the Missouri Compromise, (remember the line the Missouri Compromise drew across the nation that did not allow slavery above the line). Congress thought that under popular sovereignty Nebraska would enter the Union as a free state and Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state. This would maintain the balance in Congress between slave and free states. The problem was that anyone could emigrate to Kansas, and some Northerners organized mass migrations of antislavery people to go to Kansas Territory. Many people from the South and Missouri came to Kansas to vote for Kansas to be a slave state. The battle for Kansas caught the attention of the entire nation and caused the divide between the North and the South, known as sectionalism, to grow. The two sides fought many battles and many people died, while the nation watched and waited. The conflict that took place became known as “Bleeding Kansas.” Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court Decision of 1857 The Supreme Court Decision of 1857, about a man named Dred Scott, does not seem to fit with the items already discussed. The fact is the Dred Scott decision was the last straw for many people, and if you look at the date it’s not far from the start of the Civil War. Dred Scott was a slave who traveled with his owner to many places including the Minnesota Territory. They lived there for several years. Dred Scott decided to sue for his freedom under the premise that because he had lived in Minnesota Territory (north of the line set up by the Missouri Compromise) he should be free. A lower court agreed with Scott, but on appeal to the Supreme Court the decision was reversed. The chief justice of the Supreme Court wrote the decision for the court. In that decision Chief Justice Taney wrote that not only could Scott not get his freedom but also he and every other black person were considered property and had no rights anywhere in the United States. Also, Taney declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional (meaning it was against the Constitution and the law). Basically the Supreme Court said that slavery could legally exist anywhere in the United States no matter what a state government said because slaves were considered property and property can be taken anywhere. This decision made sectionalism grow even more between the North and South. The Election of 1860 Another major break between the North and South came in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States without winning the votes of a single Southern state. Almost immediately, South Carolina seceded from the Union, thus beginning the final steps toward civil war. Primary Source Excerpts Documents (From the Relevant Documents) Missouri Compromise (1820) “SEC. 8. And be it further enacted. That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state, contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited: Provided always, That any person escaping from slavery...may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed back to the person (slave owner)...” Source: Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson’s Opinion (April 22, 1820) “But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I consider it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in a practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. . . . I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it.” Source: Library of Virginia Compromise of 1850 “It being desirable, for the peace, concord, and harmony of the Union of these States, to settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy between them arising out of the institution of slavery upon a fair, equitable and just basis: therefore… …7. Resolved, That more effectual provision ought to be made by law, according to the requirement of the constitution, for the restitution and delivery of persons bound to service or labor in any State, who may escape into any other State or Territory in the Union. And, 8. Resolved, That Congress has no power to promote or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slaveholding States; but that the admission or exclusion of slaves brought from one into another of them, depends exclusively upon their own particular laws.” Source: Library of Congress Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) “SEC. 28. And be it further enacted, that the provisions of the act entitled “An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from, the service of their masters,” approved February 12th, 1793 … [are] in full force within the limits of the said Territory of Kansas and new territories and states admitted to this Union.” Source: Kansas Territorial Historic Society Dred Scott Case (1857) “The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States., and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the constitution... The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing… In the opinion of the…and the language used in the declaration of independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument... -Chief Justice Roger B. Taney – Source: United States Supreme Court Historical Documents, Majority Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States – Dred Scott vs. Sanford (1857) Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address (1861) “…Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered…. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so... …In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.” I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” Source: The Lincoln Institute, Springfield, IL