Name:_______________________________________ Period: ____
Participation Points: ___/ 10
Packet points: ___/ 32
Road to Civil War
BACKGROUND READING DIRECTIONS: As you read, pay close attention to the underlined
words. After each paragraph, define the underlined word in the box. Highlight the context clues from
the text that helped you define that word.
Slavery
The United States had been divided North and South from its beginning. The
framers of the Constitution did not even use the word "slave" in the document, fearing that
the Southern states would not join the new government. They made the awkward Threefifths Compromise which gave slave states the right to count slaves as three-fifths of a
person. This increased southern states’ representation in the House but denied any right of
citizenship to those slaves. With this agreement, Northerners and Southerners met in the
middle, neither side getting exactly what it wanted. Thus began a pattern whereby the
United States' leaders chose to compromise rather than take a chance on tearing the nation
apart.
In 1860, there were almost 4 million slaves in the southern part of the United
States. Unlike the increasingly industrial North, the South’s economy was based on
agriculture. This farm work depended on slave labor. The South’s most important cash
crop, cotton, made cotton growers very wealthy but required a lot of manual farming labor.
Slaves did that work. Worth $3 billion, slaves were also the most valuable property in the
South. Slavery was the basic social and economic institution in the South. White
Southerner’s greatest fear was that the federal government would free the slaves.
According to white Southerners, freeing the slaves would destroy the South’s economy,
culture, and way of life.
Slavery was the main difference between the North and the South. Southerners
wanted the chance to use slave labor in the western territories, while many Northerners
wanted to be able to establish farms out West under “free soil, free labor.” They did not
want to compete with the plantation owners who had the advantage of slave labor.
Abolitionists were a small minority in the North, but they tried very hard to convince their
fellow Northerners that slavery was wrong and should be abolished. Senators and
Congressmen from the North and South argued bitterly over the admission of each new
state.
As northern and southern politicians debated the issue of slavery in the western
territories, the feeling of sectionalism grew stronger and stronger. Sectionalism means that
the people in each region (or section) have loyalty to the section rather than the nation. The
North had many more people than the South did. If Northerners voted as a section, the
North would win every vote in Congress, and decide who would be President. Because
Southerners feared the North’s voting power in the federal government, many Southern
politicians argued for strengthening each state’s rights. If the states were more powerful
than the federal government, Southerners would be safe from federal laws passed by the
Northern majority. If the Congress passed a law that threatened slavery, Southern states
claimed the right to secede, or break away, from the United States.
Compromise (verb)
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Agriculture (noun)
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Abolish (verb)
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Sectionalism (noun)
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Total Points: ____/ 8
The Abolitionists
In the mid-1830s, a number of powerful voices were being raised in the North calling for a
complete end to slavery and especially for the abolition, or elimination, of slavery in any newly created states.
Abolitionists cited a “higher law” greater than the Constitution.
William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and many other New
England writers and religious leaders supported the abolitionist cause. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave
who later bought his own freedom, became a powerful voice calling for an end to slavery. Sojourner Truth, a
freed African America woman, gave speeches throughout the North and West opposing slavery. Harriet
Beecher Stowe wrote a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin about slavery that described the harsh treatment of
slaves and portrayed the white owners as brutal, evil people who abuse their slaves. Other radical newspaper
publishers, religious, and college leaders condemned slavery as evil. Gradually, through the 1840s and 1850s,
these voices convinced many Northerners that slavery must be abolished.
The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was not a railroad at all. It was an
escape route for fugitive slaves, and the “stations” were hiding places. Slaves
who decided to run from their owners were aided by several people in
Southern communities, border state residents, and Northern abolitionists.
Runaway slaves were hidden under loads in wagons and in barn lofts, cellars,
secret rooms, abandoned buildings, caves and closets.
These slaves were usually hidden during the day and
moved at night from one station to another as they traveled from slave
and Border States through Northern States to Canada.
One of the most famous “conductors”, or leaders, of
the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman. She was an escaped
slave who eventually led more than 400 fugitive slaves to freedom.
Fugitive (noun):
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BACKGROUND READING QUESTIONS
1. What was the three fifths compromise? _______________________________________________________________
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2. What does “states’ rights” mean? ____________________________________________________________________
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3. How did abolitionists get out their message? ___________________________________________________________
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Total Points: ____/ 8
MORE COMPROMISE, MORE DIVISION
The Compromises
At first, only radical abolitionists wanted to get rid of slavery in the
Southern States, but many Northerners were opposed to the expansion of slavery
into new states. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, proposed by Kentucky
Congressman Henry Clay, admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free
state. With this Compromise, Clay set a practice of admitting an equal number of
free and slave states and keeping a balance of power between the Northern and
Southern states.
When more territories in the West wanted to
Popular Sovereignty:
(noun)
become states, Clay designed the Compromise of
1850. It allowed California to enter as a free state and
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banned slavery in Washington D.C. To appease
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Southerners; Congress would let the Southwestern
territories use popular sovereignty, or give power to the people to vote, to decide
the slavery issue. The compromise also included a harsh fugitive slave law.
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Fugitive Slave Act
As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. It required Northern
citizens and Northern law officers to return escaped slaves to their owners. It included a huge $1000 fine and six
months jail time for people who refused to cooperate. Southern slave hunters often traveled through Border
States, capturing not only escaped slaves, but free African Americans as well, and then taking them to the
South. The Fugitive Slave Act caused widespread anger, increased participation in the Underground Railroad,
and helped widen the divide between North and South.
Kansas Nebraska Act
In 1854 Senator Stephen A Douglas from Illinois helped pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This law
provided that citizens in the new states in the West could use popular sovereignty to solve the slavery question.
Residents of Kansas would decide for themselves whether they would be free or slave state. Many Northern
citizens were furious at this act, which brought an end to the Missouri Compromise and led to increased
violence, especially in Kansas.
Kansas became the battleground before the Civil War actually began as Southerners from
Missouri and other states clashed with Northerners from many states. Radicals from both sides went to Kansas
to help fight and vote. Both groups got into violent conflicts and people on both sides of the issue were
whipped, abused, lynched (hung) and shot. Homes and farms were burned, many businesses were destroyed and
elections were not fair.
The violence from Kansas spilled over into the U.S. Senate. Charles Sumner, an abolitionist
senator from Massachusetts, gave an emotional speech on the Senate floor. In his speech, he attacked Andrew
Butler, a Senator from South Carolina. Butler was not present in the Senate the day of the speech, but word got
out. A few days later, Butler’s nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks marched into the Senate. Brooks beat
Senator Sumner with a heavy cane until he fell to the floor, bloody and unconscious. Sumner’s injuries were so
great that it took three years to regain his health.
Total Points: ____/ 2
More Compromises, More Division Questions
4. Explain one way Congress tried to compromise to solve the slavery debate. __________________________________
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5. Why might compromises not be the best solution? Explain. _______________________________________________
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6. Why did the Fugitive Slave Act make Northerners angry? __________________________________________________
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7. Why did violence break out in Kansas in 1854? _________________________________________________________
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THE CRISIS DEEPENS
Dred Scott Decision
In March 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a shattering blow to antislavery forces. It decided the
case of Dred Scott v. Sanford.
Dred Scott was an enslaved person who had once been owned by a U.S. Army doctor named Mr.
Emmerson. Emmerson, and Scott, lived for a time in Illinois and in the Wisconsin territory. Slavery was illegal
in both places. After leaving the army, Emmerson settled with Scott in Missouri.
With the help of anti-slavery lawyers, Scott sued for his freedom. He argued that he was free because he
lived in a state where slavery was illegal. In time, the case reached the Supreme Court. Neither northerners nor
southerners were prepared for what the Court decided.
Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the decision for the Court. Scott was not a free man, he
said, for two reasons. First, according to Taney, Scott had no right to sue in federal court because African
Americans were not citizens. Second, Taney said, merely living in a free territory did not make an enslaved
person free. Slaves were property, Taney declared, and property rights were protected by the U.S. Constitution.
But the ruling went even further! Taney wrote in his decision that Congress did not have the power to
prohibit slavery in any territory. Thus, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
Election of Abraham Lincoln
One northerner who spoke out against the Dred Scott decision was an Illinois lawyer named Abraham
Lincoln. The idea that African Americans could not be citizens, he said, was based on a false view of American
history. In a very short time, Lincoln would become a central figure in the fight against slavery.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln ran for U.S. President as a Republican. He took a stand against the spread of
slavery into western territories. The election results showed how divided the nation really was. Lincoln’s
election sent shock waves through the South. To many Southerners, it seemed that the South no longer had a
voice in the national government. They believed that the President and Congress were set against slavery.
Total Points: ____/ 8
The Crisis Deepens Questions
1. Why did Dred Scott claim that he was no longer a slave? _________________________________________________
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2. What did the Supreme Court decide in the Dred Scott case? (3 parts to the decision)
1. ___________________________________________________________________________________
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2. ___________________________________________________________________________________
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3. ___________________________________________________________________________________
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3. How would Americans from the North and South react to the Dred Scott decision? Fill in the thought bubbles to show
how opinions on the Supreme Court’s decision differed:
I think _____________
I think _____________
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Alabama
Iowa
4. Why was the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln such a big deal? ______________________________________
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Total Points: ____/ 8
8th grade social studies
Name:______________________________ Per:____
Opening Activities
Directions: Answer the question on the board in COMPLETE sentences. Your answer must rephrase the
question. See example below.
Question: What is your favorite color?
Answer: My favorite color is magenta
Monday Date: __________
Tuesday Date: __________
Wednesday Date:___________
Thursday Date: ____________
Friday Date:__________