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What is it?

Slavery arrived in North America along side the Spanish and English colonists of the 17th and 18th centuries, with an estimated 645,000 Africans imported during the more than 250 years the institution was legal.  But slavery never existed without controversy. The British colony of Georgia actually banned slavery from 1735 to 1750, although it remained legal in the other 12 colonies. After the American Revolution, northern states one by one passed emancipation laws, and the sectional divide began to open as the South became increasingly committed to slavery. Once called a “necessary evil” by Thomas Jefferson, proponents of slavery increasingly switched their rhetoric to one that described slavery as a benevolent Christian institution that benefited all parties involved: slaves, slave owners, and non-slave holding whites.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Initially seen as contrary to freedom but tolerated in order to produce the U.S. Constitution, by the 1830s the "peculiar institution" found advocates who saw it as a "positive good." Its expansion into Missouri, southern outrage over federal tariffs, and westward expansion into new territory produced a volatile and persistent debate over slavery that increasingly threatened to divide the American union.

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What was it?

In the growth years following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Congress was compelled to establish a policy to guide the expansion of slavery into the new western territory. Missouri’s application for statehood as a slave state sparked a bitter national debate.  In addition to the deeper moral issue posed by the growth of slavery, the addition of pro-slavery Missouri legislators would give the pro-slavery faction a Congressional majority. Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state, preserving the Congressional balance. A line was also drawn through the unincorporated western territories along the 36°30' parallel, dividing north and south as free and slave.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Southerners who opposed the Missouri Compromise did so because it set a precedent for Congress to make laws concerning slavery, while Northerners disliked the law because it meant slavery was expanding into new territory.

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What was it?

In August of 1831, a slave named Nat Turner incited an uprising that spread through several plantations in southern Virginia. Turner and approximately seventy cohorts killed around sixty white people. The deployment of militia infantry and artillery suppressed the rebellion after two days of terror. Fifty-five slaves, including Turner, were tried and executed for their role in the insurrection.  Nearly two hundred more were lynched by frenzied mobs. Although small-scale slave uprisings were fairly common in the American South, Nat Turner’s rebellion was the bloodiest.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Nat Turner destroyed the white Southern myth that slaves were actually happy with their lives or too docile to undertake a violent rebellion. His revolt hardened pro-slavery attitudes among Southern whites and led to new oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves.

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What is it?

The immediate cause of the Mexican-American War was a disputed boundary between the United States and Texas on the Nueces Strip. Mexico did not recognize Texas as legitimate American territory and Texas admission to the United States antagonized Mexican officials and citizens.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

The Mexican-American War reopened the slavery-extension issue, which divided the North and South and which had been largely dormant since the Missouri Compromise. Abolitionists saw the war as an attempt by the slave states to extend slavery and enhance their power with the creation of additional slave states out of the soon-to-be-acquired Mexican lands. On August 8, 1846, Rep. David Wilmot of Pennsylvania attempted to add an amendment to a treaty appropriations bill. The Wilmot Proviso—banning slavery from any territory acquired from Mexico—was never passed, but it led to acrimonious debate and contributed greatly to the rising sectional antagonism.

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What is it?

The Wilmot Proviso was a piece of legislation proposed by David Wilmot at the close of the Mexican-American War. If passed, the Proviso would have outlawed slavery in territory acquired by the United States as a result of the war, which included most of the Southwest and extended all the way to California. Wilmot spent two years fighting for his plan.  He offered it as a rider on existing bills, introduced it to Congress on its own, and even tried to attach it to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. All attempts failed.  Nevertheless, the intensity of the debate surrounding the Proviso prompted the first serious discussions of secession.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

The Wilmot Proviso highlighted competing economic interests that inflamed North-South tensions around the topic of slavery, pushed the country closer to the Civil War, and continued to divide America well after the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

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What is it?

With national relations soured by the debate over the Wilmot Proviso, senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas managed to broker a shaky accord with the Compromise of 1850.  The compromise admitted California as a free state and did not regulate slavery in the remainder of the Mexican cession all while strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act, a law which compelled Northerners to seize and return escaped slaves to the South.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

With the Compromise of 1850, Congress had addressed the immediate crisis created by the recent territorial expansion. But one aspect of the compromise – a strengthened fugitive slave act – soon began to threaten sectional peace.

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What is it?

Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Because it was often presumed that a black person was a slave, the law threatened the safety of all blacks, slave and free, and forced many Northerners to become more defiant in their support of fugitives.

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What is it?

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional exploration of slave life was a cultural sensation.  Northerners felt as if their eyes had been opened to the horrors of slavery, while Southerners protested that Stowe’s work was slanderous. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the second-best-selling book in America in the 19th century, second only to the Bible. Its popularity brought the issue of slavery to life for those few who remained unmoved after decades of legislative conflict and widened the division between North and South.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Sales for Uncle Tom's Cabin were astronomical, eclipsed only by sales of the Bible. The book became a sensation and helped move antislavery into everyday conversation for many northerners. Despite the powerful antislavery message, Stowe's book also reinforced many racist stereotypes.

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What is it?

Under popular sovereignty, it is the residents of the territories who decide by popular referendum if the state is to be free or enslaved. Settlers from the North and the South poured into Kansas, hoping to swell the numbers on their side of the debate.  Passions were enflamed and violence raged. In the fall of 1855, abolitionist John Brown came to Kansas to fight the forces of slavery. In response to the sacking of Lawrence by border ruffians from Missouri whose sole victim was an abolitionist printing press, Brown and his supporters killed five pro-slavery settlers in the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre in Kansas in May, 1856. Violence existed in the territory as early as 1855 but the Sack of Lawrence and the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre launched a guerilla war between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces. Although the violence was often sporadic and unorganized, mass feelings of terror existed in the territory.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Republicans used Bleeding Kansas as a powerful rhetorical weapon in the 1856 Election to garner support among northerners by arguing that the Democrats clearly sided with the pro-slavery forces perpetrating this violence. In reality, both sides engaged in acts of violence—neither party was innocent.

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What is it?

Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court.  The case eventually rose to the level of the Supreme Court, where the justices found that, as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had none of the legal rights or recognitions afforded to a human being. The Dred Scott Decision threatened to entirely recast the political landscape that had thus far managed to prevent civil war. The classification of slaves as mere property made the federal government’s authority to regulate the institution much more ambiguous. Southerners renewed their challenges to the agreed-upon territorial limitations on slavery and polarization intensified.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

The Dred Scott Decision outraged abolitionists, who saw the Supreme Court's ruling as a way to stop debate about slavery in the territories. The divide between North and South over slavery grew and culminated in the secession of southern states from the Union and the creation of the Confederate States of America.

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What is it?

In 1858, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas faced a challenge for his seat from a relatively unknown one term former congressmen and “prairie lawyer” Abraham Lincoln. In the campaign that followed Lincoln and Douglas engaged in seven public debates across the state of Illinois where they debated the most controversial issue of the antebellum era: slavery. Although Douglas won the senate race, these debates propelled Lincoln to the national spotlight and enabled his nomination for president in 1860. In contrast, these debates further alienated Douglas from the southern wing of the Democratic Party and the arguments Douglas made in these debates come back to haunt him in 1860 destroying his presidential chances.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Douglas's position, while acceptable to many Northern Democrats, angered the South and led to the division of the last remaining national political institution, the Democratic Party.

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What is it?

Abolitionist John Brown supported violent action against the South to end slavery and played a major role in starting the Civil War. After the Pottawatomie Massacre during Bleeding Kansas, Brown returned to the North and plotted a far more threatening act. In October 1859, he and 19 supporters, armed with “Beecher’s Bibles,” led a raid on the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an effort to capture and confiscate the arms located there, distribute them among local slaves and begin armed insurrection. A small force of U.S. Marines, led by Col. Robert E. Lee, put down the uprising. There were casualties on both sides; seven people were killed and at least 10 more were injured before Brown and seven of his remaining men were captured. On October 27, Brown was tried for treason against the state of Virginia, convicted and hanged in Charles Town on December 2.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

As a result of this judgment by New England intellectuals and the ensuing martyrdom of Brown in the North, many Southerners viewed the raid as a larger Northern scheme to directly attack the South, leading to increased sectional distrust and accelerating the approach of secession in 1861.

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What is it?

Abraham Lincoln was elected by a considerable margin in 1860 despite not being included on many Southern ballots.  As a Republican, his party’s anti-slavery outlook struck fear into many Southerners. On December 20, 1860, a little over a month after the polls closed, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more states followed by the spring of 1861.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

When Abraham Lincoln's election produced no national consensus to settle the matter of slavery's future, a southern "secession" sealed the fate of the Union.

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What is it?

With secession, several federal forts, including Fort Sumter in South Carolina, suddenly became outposts in a foreign land.  Abraham Lincoln made the decision to send fresh supplies to the beleaguered garrisons. On April 12, 1861, Confederate warships turned back the supply convoy to Fort Sumter and opened a 34-hour bombardment on the stronghold.  The garrison surrendered on April 14. The Civil War was now underway. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to join the Northern army.  Unwilling to contribute troops, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee dissolved their ties to the federal government.

Why would this event have caused more sectionalism in the US?

Following Fort Sumter, Lincoln put out a call for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to serve an enlistment of 90 days to put down the rebellion in the South. Because of this, four more states - Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas - seceded from the Union.