15) Issues and Events Leading to the Secession Crisis

Question 1

Compromise of 1850

Answer 1

• CA would be admitted as a free state
• Abolition of slave trade in DC
• Passage of more stringent fugitive-slave act
• Establishment of NM and Utah and they could decide if they wanted slavery

Question 2

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Answer 2

• Repealed Missouri Compromise of 1820 (Maine as free state, Missouri as slave state, 36/30 line)
• Status of slave or free states would be determined by popular sovereignty
• Permitted the expansion of slavery beyond southern states

Question 3

Dred Scott Case (1857)

Answer 3

• Dred Scott was a slave whose owner had taken him from slave state Missouri, then to free state Illinois, then finally back to slave state Missouri
• Abolitionists argued that since Scott had lived in a free state he was a free man
• Supreme Court rule that he was not a free man because he was not a US citizen and so could not sue in federal court
• Under Constitution, slaves were private property and thus could be taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery
• Slaves could not be taken from their masters, regardless of a territory’s “free” or “slave” status

Question 4

Consequences of Dred Scott Case (1857)

Answer 4

• Invalidated the Northwest Ordinance of 1878 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Decision widened the gap between North and South

Question 5

Republicans vs. Democrats of 1860 Election

Answer 5

• Republicans: led by Abraham Lincoln
• accepted slavery where it existed but opposed further extension of slavery into territories
• Northern Democrats: supported Stephen Douglass and popular sovereignty
• Southern Democrats: supported the extension of slavery into the territories and annexation of Cuba
• Lincoln won electoral vote
• SC and seven southern states seceded from the Union

Question 6

John Brown

Answer 6

• Abolitionist
• Seized the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, WV
• Purpose was to take the guns stored in the arsenal and give them to slaves nearby and lead them to rebellion
• He was captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee of US Army
• Tried and hanged

Question 7

How did most northerners feel about slavery?

Answer 7

• Most northerners were not abolitionists but they deeply resented efforts by Southerners to extend slavery to Kansas and other Western territories
• They believed that the west should be reserved for independent farmers and other free laborers

Question 8

How did southerners feel about slavery?

Answer 8

• Southerners fears growing economic power of the North
• Feared growing political power of the North as more western territories entered the Union as free states
• Worried that Northerners in Congress would abolish slavery and destroy their economy