Part 1
Slavery or Freedom
In the West
In 1820, Thomas Jefferson was in
his late 70’s. The former
president had vowed “never to
write, talk or even think of
politics.” Still he voiced alarm
when he heard about a fierce
debate going on in Congress.
“In the gloomiest moment of the
revolutionary war, I never had any fears
equal to what I feel from this
source…We have a wolf by the ears, and
we can neither hold him nor safely let
him go.”
The “wolf” was the issue of slavery.
Jefferson feared that the bitter quarrel
would tear the country apart.
 Louisiana was the first state carved
out of the Louisiana Purchase.
 Slavery was well established there, so
not many people protested it coming
in as a slave state.
 When Missouri asked to join the
United States a few years later, there
was an uproar.
 There were 11 slave and 11 free states.
 If Missouri came into the Union, the
balance would be upset.
 After many months, Senator Henry
Clay proposed the Missouri
Compromise.
 Missouri would come in as a slave
state, and Maine would come in as a
free state.
 An imaginary line was drawn on the
southern border of Missouri. Slavery
was permitted south of that line.
The Missouri Compromise applied
only to lands from the Louisiana
Purchase. Arguments started about
what to do with land from the Mexican
Cession. A bill called the Wilmot
Proviso called for banning slavery in
the region, but Southerners in the
Senate were able to defeat it.
By the mid 1800’s, sectionalism was
starting to split the country apart.
Sectionalism is loyalty to a state or a
region rather than the whole country.
The South saw the North as a threat
to their way of life. Many
Northerners saw the South as a foreign
country where American rights and
liberties did not exist.
Northern abolitionists demanded that
slavery should be banned, and that it
was morally wrong. By the late 1840’s,
many northerners agreed.
Southerners felt slavery should be
allowed everywhere, and that escaped
slaves should be returned to the South.
Many Southerners who didn’t even own
slaves agreed with these ideas.
 Some people who
were moderate
(trying to see both
sides of an issue)
suggested that the
Missouri
Compromise line
should be
extended to the
ocean.
 Other moderates said
that popular
sovereignty should be
used to decide the
slavery question in
new regions. Popular
sovereignty is when
people decide an
issue by voting on it.
The debate over slavery led to the
birth of a new political party.
Many Northerners in both the
Whig and the Democratic parties
did oppose the spread of slavery.
However, neither party could take
a strong stand for fear of losing
support in the South.
In 1848, antislavery people from both
parties met in Buffalo, New York to
form the Free Soil Party. Their slogan
was:
“Free soil, free speech, free labor, and
free men.”
Their main goal was to stop slavery
from spreading any further. Only a few
wanted to totally end slavery in the
United States.
 In this election,
the Free Soilers
chose former
president Martin
Van Buren. The
Democrats chose
Lewis Cass. The
Whigs chose
Zachary Taylor, a
hero from the war
with Mexico.
 Van Buren wanted
to ban slavery in
the new regions.
Cass wanted to use
popular
sovereignty.
Taylor was slave
owner from the
south.
Zachary Taylor won the election.
However, the Free Soil candidate
won 10% of the vote, and 13 Free
Soilers were elected to Congress. In
the Election of 1848, The Free Soil
Party had a great showing for a
party that was only 3 months old.
This election showed that slavery
was definitely a national issue.