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1619-1819 American Slavery - "A Peculiar Institution"

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1619-1819 American Slavery - "A Peculiar Institution"

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During the early years of America's formation, nearly 645,000 Africans were brought to this new nation as slaves. Northern states had decided to prohibit and make slavery illegal in 1820. As the idea of Manifest Destiny started to spread, the debate over whether slavery should expand into newly acquired territories had deepened the sectional tensions between the Northern abolitionists, and Southern slaveholders. Southern states demanded to keep slavery alive in the new territories to keep their economy growing.

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The Compromise of 1850 was caused by tensions over the debate of adding slavery to newly acquired states. It was a compromise which added California as a free state and passed the Fugitive Slave Act. This did little to solve the main problem, which was slavery, and forced anti-slavery citizens to be involved in recapturing slaves, which causes deeper sectional tensions.

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The Kansas & Nebraska Act of 1854 was meant to allow the people who settle Kansas or Nebraska to choose what kind of states that they would be; either Democrat (South) or a Republican (North) state. This was known as popular sovereignty. The Act also led to the abolishment of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This led to sectional sension between the Republicans & the Democrates because they both wanted to make the state either pro-slavery or anti-salvery. This eventually led to "Bleeding Kansas." This was period of outbreaks of violent warfare between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces following the creation of the new territory of Kansas.

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The Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857 was a court case that made it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and there is where Scott (who was a slave) would fight for his freedom after his master had died but they were living in a free state. The result was as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had no legal rights or recognitions of a human. This had threatened all of the efforts to prevent the Civil war. This increased sectional tension because the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional which opened the debate over slavery's expansion again.

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Abraham Lincoln decided to challenge Stephen Douglass for Senator and caused 7 debates across the state of Illinois. These leading figures gave speeches to citizens and would try to convince the people whether slavery was good or bad, which ended in Douglass being Senator, but Lincoln gaining popular support for his upcoming presidential nomination. This contributed to the rising sectional tensions going on in American because it encouraged people who were neutral on the issue of slavery to pick one side.

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The John Brown’s Raid of 1859 was a raid of Harper's Ferry armory and was an attempt to start an armed revolt of enslaved people and destroy the institution of slavery. This raid was unsuccessful and all six of Brown's captured men were tried and hanged. But the reason that this event cause sectional tension was because the South had viewed it as a threat and believed the abolitionist were trying to end the way of life.

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The Election of 1860 was caused when people decided to nominate Abraham Lincoln as the Republican's running president even though he wasn't included in many Southern ballots. The election made South Carolina secede from Union a month after the polls were closed on December 20, 1860, and later caused six more states to do the same thing in 1861. This created deeper sectional tensions in America because it gave the idea that the nation wouldn't coexist with free and slave states.

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On April 12, 1861 Just before sunrise the first shots were fired toward Fort Sumter. This was the the first battle of the Civil War. This created sectional tenstion betweent the North and the South because there would not be turning back after the Confederate party and the North began to fight.