etween 1819 and 1860, the critical issue that divided
the North and South was the extension of slavery in
the western territories. The Compromise of 1820 had
settled this issue for nearly 30 years by drawing a
dividing line across the Louisiana Purchase that prohibited
slavery north of the line, but permitted slavery south
of it.
The seizure of new territories from Mexico reignited
the issue. The Compromise of 1850 attempted to settle
the problem by admitting California as a free state
but allowing slavery in the rest of the Mexican cession.
Enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law as part of the Compromise
exacerbated sectional tensions.
The question of slavery in the territories exploded
once again when Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed
that Kansas and Nebraska territories be opened to white
settlement and that the status of slavery be decided
according to the principle of popular sovereignty. The
Kansas-Nebraska Act convinced many Northerners that
the South wanted to open all federal territories to
slavery and brought into existence the Republican party,
committed to excluding slavery from the territories.
Sectional conflict was intensified by the Supreme Court's
Dred Scott decision, which declared that Congress could
not exclude slavery from the western territories and
by the abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry,
Virginia.
Background
Some people, said Senator William Seward of New York
in 1858, believed that the conflict between North and
South was the work of "fanatical agitators."
He disagreed. The roots of the conflict go far deeper:
"It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing
and enduring forces."
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Learn more about the unraveling of the bonds that had held the country together for seven decades
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