Slavery is the root of their problems

During the mid 19th century, there was a lot of debate over the stand of slavery in the states. And while a lot of compromises and arguing was to be done to have equal participation from slave states and non-slave states alike, people refused to accept the fact that these debates would be utterly averted if they got rid of slavery. The essential question of the lesson was how slavery was the elephant in the room, meaning how slavery was the root of all the problems people were facing, yet no one wanted to talk about it, or admit that it was a problem. All of the information included below can also be found in a timeline, as well as some other extra information.

It all started with California. Around the 1850s, there was an even amount of states that did and didn't support slavery. However, as the rush to move west started, California wanted to become a state that was anti-slavery. Obviously, the people who supported slavery didn't like this. This led to the compromise of 1850. The compromise, in order for California to enter the union, was called the compromise of 1850, and had 5 clauses. The first is obvious, California becomes a state. Then, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona all become territories to decide their view on slavery later. Texas loses some land to the north, but in return are given some money to pay of debt to Mexico. Washington DC declares that there will be no more selling of slaves in DC, but you can still own slaves. Lastly, there was an amendment called the fugitive slave act, saying that if anyone finds a runaway slave, they have to by law return them.

This last act was infuriating to the north, as it meant no matter what they had to support slavery in some form.

Then there was the Gadsden purchase. This was a small piece of land that connected the south to the new territory, including the states listed above. This was purchased from Mexico to build a railroad connecting the rest of the south to the new territories. This was disliked by the north as now the south had easy access to the new territories. As these territories were fair game as far as slavery goes to both the south and the north, it was unfair to the north for the south to have such easy access to this land.

Then there was the caning of senator Charles Sumner. Sumner was the senator of Massachusetts. He gave a speech to congress iterating his hatred for slavery. After this, Senator Preston of South Carolina beat Sumner with his cane. Surprisingly, this benefited the north more as it helped show how barbaric the south tended to act.

The last piece of information I would like to talk about is the Dred Scott incident. Dred Scott was a slave living in anti-slavery territory. Eventually, he appealed to court saying since he was in a free state, he should be free. Congress' response was no, he was still slave. Not only this, but other things came from this incident. Slaves can not sue, slaves are not free by being in free territory, and the Missouri line, meaning slavery was abolished anywhere north of Missouri, was deemed unconstitutional. This was a big win to the south, and heavily angered the people to the north.

Finally, here is the time line mentioned above.