America: A Narrative History Chapter 15

But slavery had come to an end in the rest of Mexico, he noted, and if new Mexican territory should be acquired, Wilmot declared, “God forbid that we should be the means of planting this institution [slavery] upon it.

Calhoun argued that the fifth amendment which forbids Congress to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law meant that slaves were property and it could not be taken from anyone.

it promised to open the lands quickly to non- slaveholding farmers, who would almost surely dominate the territories.

Word of the gold strike spread quickly. n 1849 nearly one hundred thousand Americans, mostly men, set off for California, determined to find riches; by 1854 the number would top three hundred thousand. The California gold rush constituted the greatest mass migration in American history.

The Compromise of 1850, devised by Henry Clay, sought to reduce sectional conflict. Texas surrendered it claim to new mexico and everything about the missouri line. California was accepted as free state. The South prevented adoption of the Wilmot Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in the new territories. and Slave trade was banned in D.C

The act did more than strengthen the hand of slave catchers; it offered a strong temptation to kidnap free blacks in northern “free” states. The law denied alleged fugitives a jury trial. In addition, federal marshals could require citizens to help locate and capture runaways.

It portrayed slaveholders as monsters and made the brutal realities of slavery real to readers.

She had decided to write the novel because of her disgust with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Stephen A. Douglass proposed it. It created the territories of Nebraska and Kansas and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise.

They opposed it because it went against the missouri compromise. They felt like if the missouri compromise wasnt gonna be honored then the fugitive slave act shouldnt either.

Kansas was torn between pro-slavery and anti-slavery. Violence soon broke out between abolitionists and slaveholders.

John Brown was an over zealous abolitionist. He believed that slavery was the worst of all sins. Brown set out with four of his sons and three other men for Pottawatomie, Kansas, the site of a pro-slavery settlement near the Missouri border, where they dragged five men from their houses and hacked them to death with swords in front of their screaming families.

It was a landmark decision by the U.S Supreme Court which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court.

A national financial crisis. It was brought on by a reduction in foreign demand for American grain, overly aggressive railroad construction, a surge in manufacturing production that outran the growth of market demand, and the continued confusion caused by the state banknote system

Debates that lasted from August 21 to October 15, 1858. At the time and since, much attention focused on the second debate, at Freeport, where Lincoln asked Douglas how he could reconcile his concept of popular sover- eignty with the Dred Scott ruling that citizens had the right to carry slaves into any territory.

He wanted to free all slaves in the state. They reacted by fighting back and eventually surrounding Brown's men. Brown was eventually hanged for treason.

He lost the popular vote however won greatly in the electoral college.

Lincoln’s election convinced many white southerners that their only choice was secession, which would likely lead to war. In their view, the “Black Republican,” as they called Lincoln, was determined to end slavery. Many slaves believed the same thing.