The House Divided

CHAPTER 14: THE HOUSE DIVIDED, 1846–1861

I. The Bitter Fruits of War

A. The Wilmot Proviso and the Expansion of Slavery

1. Slavery in the territories

2. The Wilmot Proviso

3. The South’s outrage

4. Popular sovereignty

B. The Election of 1848

1. Democrats, Whigs, and Free-Soilers

2. Slavery’s impact on the major parties

C. Debate and Compromise

1. Taylor’s plan

2. Clay’s resolutions

3. The Omnibus Bill

4. Douglas’s strategy

II. The Sectional Balance Undone

A. The Fugitive Slave Act

1. The debate over runaway slaves

2. Fugitive Slave Act

B. Uncle Tom’s Cabin

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe

2. Response to the book

3. The writings of ex-slaves

C. The Kansas-Nebraska Act

1. The election of 1852

2. Foreign expansion

3. Douglas and the railroad

4. Kansas-Nebraska Act

III. Realignment of the Party System

A. The Old Parties: Whigs and Democrats

1. The collapse of the Whigs

2. The southern-dominated democrats

B. The New Parties: Know-Nothings and Republicans

1. Nativism and Know-Nothings

2. Antislavery and the Republican Party

3. Women in party politics

C. The Election of 1856

1. The Republican platform

2. The Democratic platform

3. Struggle for national power

IV. Freedom under Siege

A. “Bleeding Kansas”

1. Free-state versus slave-state

2. Rival governments

3. The fighting begins

4. “Bleeding Sumner”

B. The Dred Scott Decision

1. Scott’s argument

2. The Supreme Court’s ruling

3. Curtis’s dissent

C. Prairie Republican: Abraham Lincoln

1. Lincoln joins the Republican Party

2. Racial views

3. Political views

D. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

1. The Lecompton constitution

2. Debating the crucial issues

V. The Union Collapses

A. The Aftermath of John Brown’s Raid