The Sectional Crisis - The American Yawp

I. Introduction

• The western expansion of slavery created conflicts in the United States.
  • Northern workers opposed slavery due to wage suppression and land issues.
  • Southerners feared non-expansion would empower abolitionists and lead to insurrection.
• Constant resistance from enslaved individuals required a pro-slavery government.
• Northerners and Southerners disagreed on the federal role in capturing escaped enslaved individuals.
• Enslaved labor was crucial to both Southern plantations and the industrial North.
• By 1860, tensions led to fears of government control and, ultimately, war.

II. Sectionalism in the Early Republic

• Prior to the American Revolution, slavery was globally accepted.
• The American, French, and Haitian revolutions challenged slavery.
• The Haitian Revolution created zones of freedom and unfreedom in the Atlantic.
• Debates on slavery in the expanding American West were significant.
  • The 1787 Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in certain areas.
• The Missouri Compromise was a major turning point, establishing a dividing line at 36°30′.
  • It exposed the divisiveness of the slavery issue.

III. The Crisis Joined

• The Missouri Compromise established a temporary sense of peace.
• Sectional tensions rose with westward expansion.
• Political parties and reform movements became deeply divided along sectional lines.
• The Democratic Party sought unity through expansion and white supremacy.
• The Whig Party, opposing Democrats, had diverse support but struggled with cohesion.
• Slavery debates ignited further with Texas and Florida's admission to the Union.
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 heightened tensions.
• Significant antislavery figures emerged, like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

IV. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men

• The conclusion of the Mexican War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo expanded slavery.
• The Free Soil Party emerged, opposing slavery's expansion.
• The Compromise of 1850 attempted to balance interests but worsened tensions.
  • It included a harsh Fugitive Slave Law.
• Antislavery movements gained momentum, with influential literature like "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) further inflamed sectional conflict.

V. From Sectional Crisis to National Crisis

• Bleeding Kansas illustrated the national scale of the crisis.
• The Dred Scott decision escalated tensions, declaring Black Americans couldn't be citizens.
• Abraham Lincoln emerged as a leading Republican figure.
• John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry intensified sectional animosity.
• The 1860 presidential election signaled an impending national crisis.
  • Lincoln's election and Southern secession led to the Civil War.

VI. Conclusion

• Slavery perpetually divided U.S. politics, eventually leading to war.
• The Missouri debates marked the beginning of deep sectional rifts.
• The Republican Party rose as a significant antislavery force.
• The secession crisis in 1860 underscored the irreconcilable nature of these divisions.
• War ultimately became the path to address the fate of slavery.