US History: Colonial Era to the Present · Module 6 of 15
Sectionalism & the Road to War
How slavery split the nation into increasingly irreconcilable regional camps.
Slavery & Abolitionism
- By the mid-1800s, slavery was deeply entrenched in the Southern economy — especially cotton production — while a growing abolitionist movement in the North sought to end it.
- Figures like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were prominent abolitionists who argued slavery was morally wrong and should be immediately abolished.
Why did the Southern economy become so dependent on slavery by the mid-1800s?
Solution. The invention of the cotton gin (1793) made cotton far more profitable, dramatically increasing demand for enslaved labor to grow and pick it, tying the Southern economy tightly to slavery.
Missouri Compromise & Compromise of 1850
- The Missouri Compromise (1820) admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and banned slavery north of the 36°30′ line in the rest of the Louisiana Territory.
- The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state, and included a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, which required the return of escaped enslaved people even from free states.
What was one controversial part of the Compromise of 1850?
Solution. The Fugitive Slave Act, which required citizens — even in free states — to help capture and return escaped enslaved people, angering many Northerners.
Kansas-Nebraska Act & "Bleeding Kansas"
- The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) let the settlers of those territories decide the slavery question themselves through "popular sovereignty," overturning the Missouri Compromise's line.
- This led to "Bleeding Kansas" — violent conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers competing to control the territory's future.
What was "popular sovereignty" in the context of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and why was it controversial?
Solution. It let settlers in a territory vote on whether to allow slavery there; it was controversial because it opened the possibility of slavery expanding into areas previously banned by the Missouri Compromise, and led to violent conflict in Kansas.
The Election of 1860 & Secession
- Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories, won the election of 1860 without any Southern electoral votes.
- Following his election, Southern states, fearing threats to slavery, began seceding from the Union, starting with South Carolina (December 1860).
Why did Lincoln's election trigger Southern secession, even though he did not initially call for abolishing slavery where it already existed?
Solution. Southern states feared that Lincoln's opposition to slavery's expansion into new territories threatened slavery's long-term survival and political power in the country, so several states chose to secede rather than remain under a Republican president.
Check yourself
2 of this module's 5 quiz questions. Pick your answers, then check them in the app, with an explanation for every question.
1. What crop and invention deepened the South's dependence on slavery?
2. What did the Missouri Compromise (1820) establish?