VUS.6e Part 2
Divided Nation
Sectional tensions caused by debates over the nature of the Union
• South Carolinians argued that sovereign states could nullify the Tariff of 1832 and other acts of Congress. A union that allowed state governments to invalidate acts of the national legislature could be dissolved by states seceding from the Union in defense of slavery (Nullification Crisis).
• President Jackson threatened to send federal troops to collect the tariff revenues.
Sectional tensions caused by the institution of slavery
• Slave revolts in Virginia, led by Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, fed white Southerners’ fears about slave rebellions and led to harsh laws in the South against fugitive slaves. Southerners who favored abolition were intimidated into silence.
• Northerners, led by William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, increasingly viewed the institution of slavery as a violation of Christian principles and argued for its abolition. Southerners grew alarmed by the growing force of the Northern response to the abolitionists.
• Fugitive slave events pitted Southern slave owners against outraged Northerners who opposed returning escaped slaves to bondage.
The women’s suffrage movement
• At the same time the abolitionist movement grew, another reform movement took root —the movement to give equal rights to women.
• Seneca Falls Declaration
• Roles of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who became involved in the women’s suffrage movement before the Civil War and continued with the movement after the war