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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo / Mexican Cession - 1848

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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo / Mexican Cession - 1848

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Ended the Mexican War, gave the US land in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, established an official border between Texas and Mexico. Led to debates over Western Expansion and the expansion of slavery in the new territory.

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Political party in America from 1848-1854, opposed expansion of slavery in the newly gained territory. Believed expansion of slavery would imbalance the free/slave states in the Union, thus creating unwanted conflict between regions

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The 1848 Election resulted in Whig candidate Zachary Taylor winning over Democrat Lewis Cass. Believed that slavery should not have been curtailed, but should not expand into the Western territory. Created a divide between slave and free states because of his controversial opinions about slavery.

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Compromise of 1850/Fugitive Slave Act - 1850

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Compromise of 1850/Fugitive Slave Act - 1850

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A package of five acts passed by Congress. Most importantly, it admitted California into the Union as a free state, split the Mexican Cession into two territories without mention of slavery, and passed the Fugitive Slave Acts, which allowed the capture of runaway slaves and the return to their owners, even if they were in the North. Many Northerners fought directly against the act, notably Abolitionists on the Underground Railroad. Southerners were allowed to be slave hunters and placed bounties on runaway slaves. This divide in response to the act furthered Sectionalism between the North and South.

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Know each part of the compromise

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A story written by Harriet Beecher Stowe about a steadfast slave saving the life of a little girl, whose father then purchases him. It humanized slaves by showing how they resisted being treated as inhuman and led many to realize that slaves are equal to free people. For this reason, the novel was banned in the South as a result of the pro-abolitionist sentiments and arguments within the novel, furthering the divide between regions in America.

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In 1852, Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce won the election over Whig candidate Winfield Scott. The Democratic Party was having trouble finding a candidate due to the great amount of division in the party, so Pierce was selected as a pro-slavery Northerner, and because he had little political background, so he could mold his beliefs on the majority population's opinions. His signing of the Kansas Nebraska Act developed sectionalism further into America

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An act that formed the remaining land from the Louisiana Purchase into two states, namely Kansas and Nebraska, and allowed them to vote on whether or not they would be slave for free states. This violated the Missouri Compromise which stated that territories acquired through the Louisiana Purchase would prohibit slavery. This caused a massive surge of people moving to the two new states in an attempt to sway the vote towards one side or the other.

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The Birth of the Republican Party - March, 1854

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The Birth of the Republican Party - March, 1854

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The Republican Party was formed to combat the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery. Consisted of mainly Northern Protestants, factory workers, and prosperous farmers. Many Whigs joined the Republican Party as they held similar beliefs and because their party was on its way to becoming disintegrated. Many Southerners threatened to secede if a Republican became president. The Birth of the republican party caused sectionalism because it allowed for another party for people to vote and this consequently caused a division in peoples ideas.

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A series of violent uprisings in the newly-founded state of Kansas led to the term "bleeding Kansas" being coined due to the amount of deaths caused by the uprisings. Americans began actually fighting and killing each other over a single idea, that being slavery.

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Pro-Slavery Democrat Preston Brooks publicly assaulted  abolitionist Republican Charles Sumner in the Senate building with a cane after Sumner criticized slaveholders on the Senate floor when discussing the Bleeding Kansas crisis. This represented a larger issue on the topic of slavery and how just one singular issue could cause a fight between 2 senators. Afterwards, both senators were considered heroes in their own regions, furthering the connection to Sectionalism

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James Buchanan was selected as the Democratic Party candidate over incumbent Pierce because of his beliefs that slavery was morally incorrect, but protected by the Constitution. By this time, the Democrats have been known to be the pro-slavery party, and the Republicans as the abolition party. Buchanan won over Republican John Fremont. He wanted to unite the country and maintain peace between the pro and anti slavery factions in the country, but the tensions continued to rise and showed how polarized the country had become.

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In 1833, John Emerson purchased a slave named Dred Scott, and moved to the Wisconsin territory, which banned slavery. After Emerson died, the Scott family was given to his wife who refused to let the Scott family purchase their freedom. Dred sued her in court, and the accusations went back and forth until Scott took it to the Supreme Court. Roger Taney was the supreme court judge who ruled that Dred Scott remain enslaved and said that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were not United States citizens and therefore had no right to sue in federal court. In addition, he wrote that the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because enslaved workers were their legal property. This event showed sectionalism because it angered many abolitionists and it supported the slaveholders which caused a divide in ideologies about the court case and about slavery as a whole.

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A proposed Kansas Constitution that protected slave holding in the state and excluded free people of color in its Bill of Rights. Rejected multiple times after backlash. In case it wasn’t obvious, the framers were pro-slavery. This showed that even in the new territories, there were citizens on both sides of the battle over slavery and that both sides were willing to fight each other for their ideals.

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John Browns raid was intended as a raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory so that he could initiate a slave revolt and free many slaves. The raid was a failure in the end as it resulted in the death of 10 of Brown’s men and they didn't end up freeing many slaves. This event is important because it demonstrated the extreme lengths some people would be willing to go to to free slaves and it created a further divide between the ideals of the North and South.

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Election of Abraham Lincoln - November, 1860

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Election of Abraham Lincoln - November, 1860

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Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, ran with a platform that was against slavery, but didn’t want to interfere with the South’s practice of it and only wanted to prevent its expansion. Lincoln won over Democrat Stephen Douglas and Southern-Democrat John Breckinridge after sweeping the Northern states. This was one of the most direct causes of the secession of the Southern states because they had previously threatened to secede if a republican candidate became president and this event also served as a catalyst for the Civil War

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Crittenden Compromise - December 18, 1860

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Crittenden Compromise - December 18, 1860

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An unsuccessful proposal to permanently protect slavery in the US Constitution, making it unconstitutional for future congresses to abolish slavery. It proposed re-establishing the Missouri Compromise from 1820 and making every state below its line pro-slavery. The proposal failed because it was too radical, as it included a provision stating that amendments could never be changed in the future. The compromise illustrated the stark difference in ideas between North and South at the time, thus showing how vastly different the two regions had become.

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Secession of South Carolina - December 20, 1860

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Secession of South Carolina - December 20, 1860

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South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union after the election of 1860. This triggered a cry for disunion among many other Southern states, most of which soon followed. The secession directly caused the spark of the Civil War during the Battle of Fort Sumter about six months later when the Confederates attacked a Union fort that was sanctioned in the state. The Secession of South Carolina and the other southern states was the single greatest effect of growing sectionalism in America as it resulted in the southern region of America forming their own country and separating from the Union.