Slavery divides the Nations

• Popular sovereignty


  A principle in which the people are the only source of government power
• Personal liberty laws - the laws enacted by northern states to counteract the Fugitive Slave Act by granting rights to escaped slaves and free African Americans
• Compromise of 1850 - a political agreement that admitted California to the Union as a free state while permitting popular sovereignty in the territories and enacting a stricter fugitive slave law
• Explain the Southern perspective on slavery. - Southerners believed that God gave them the given right to have slaves. Most southern journalists, politicians, and economists argued that having no slavery was actually worse for the country than good. Southerners believed they were happier and healthier as slaves
• Harriet Beecher Stowe - was an American abolitionist and writer, best known for her antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852. She began writing her novel as a series of stories, which first appeared in the abolitionist newspaper National Era in 1851-1852
• What were the provisions of the Compromise of 1850?

  California was allowed into the Union as a free state cuz of that they will not allow slavery. All territory acquired from Mexico was under the policy of popular sovereignty. Many wanted to keep slavery
• Wilmot Proviso - a law, stating neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any land one from Mexico. This law was denounced by the Senate
• Underground Railroad - a system that existed before the Civil war in which African-American and white abolitionists helped escaped slaves travel to safe areas in the north, and in Canada
• How did Wilmot Provost spark controversy? It sparked controversy by trying to contain/stop slavery by making it illegal in the new territory of New Mexico. Obviously, The south was against the idea and the law failed to pass
• What was the Free Soil Party about? The Free Soil Party was focused on illegalizing slavery onto the westward expansion
• Why did the Northerners oppose the Fugitive Slave Act, and how did they respond to it? The fact that they were required to catch runaway slaves angered many Northern people, especially abolitionists. Other people in the North were angered because they felt forced to support the slave system. Many Northerners defied the law by fighting against slave owners who came to reclaim runaway slaves and refused to help slave-hunting parties. Personal literary laws were enacted in the Fugitive Slave Act
• Free-Soil Party - an antislavery political party in the mid 1800s
• Fugitive Slave Act - a law that required all citizens to aid in apprehending runaway slaves; a part of the Compromise of 1850
• Harriet Tubman - she escaped in 1849 from slavery and traveled to Philadelphia. She then became a conductor on the underground railroad, leading hundreds of enslaved people, including her parents, siblings, to freedom in the north
• List the Northern perspective on Slavery. Most Northerners still viewed African Americans as inferior and still had strong opinions on the ideals of slavery. Not all Northerners, white bankers, mill owners, merchants, or anyone involved with the trade of tobacco and cotton, wanted slavery to end because they felt bad for the plantation owners who owned the slaves. Northern workers didn’t want to abolish slavery because they were scared that the African Americans would take their jobs
• Define popular sovereignty. It’s a policy stating that voters in a territory would decide whether or not to allow slavery into that territory