Important Items to Review – 1850s, Decade of Crisis

 

Recognize social, economic, political differences/similarities between the North & South

Henry Clay – Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850 – components/results

Role of Milliard Fillmore in this compromise?

Fugitive Slave Act

Harriet Tubman / Underground Railroad

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) – components/results

“Bleeding Kansas” / Sack of Lawrence

Charles Sumner incident

Election of 1856 (southern threats)

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Lecompton Constitution debate in Kansas

John Brown, Pottawatomie Creek (1856) and Harper’s Ferry (1859)

Panic of 1857

Abraham Lincoln/position on slavery debate

Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (famous speeches)

Views on secession

Formation of the Confederacy / Jefferson Davis

 

Famous Voices of Crisis:

William Lloyd Garrison à Frederick Douglass à Hinton Helper à Frederick Law Olmstead

George Fitzhugh à James DeBow

 

Parties:

Democratic Party (secession within the party)

Whig Party (decline after 1852)
Know-Nothing Party

Free Soil Party

à Republican Party

 

Important Presidential Elections:

1848    Zachary Taylor (Whig) – President                  defeated Lewis Cass (Democrat)

            Dies 1850 – Milliard Fillmore

 

1852    Franklin Pierce (Democrat) – President                        defeated Winfield Scott (Whig)

 

1856    James Buchanan (Democrat) – President                     defeated John C. Frémont (Republican)

                                                                                    defeated Milliard Fillmore (Know-Nothing)

 

1860    Abraham Lincoln (Republican) – President     defeated Stephen Douglas (Democrat-N)

                                                                                    defeated John Breckinridge (Democrat-S)

                                                                                    defeated John Bell (Constitutional Union Party)

 

Secession Cause and Effect:

Election of 1860 à Lower South Secession à Ft. Sumter à Lincoln’s response à Upper South Secession