The document summarizes key political divisions and events in the 1850s leading up to the Civil War. It discusses the formation of the Republican Party in opposition to the expansion of slavery. It outlines the impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and Congress could not regulate slavery in federal territories. The debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas on the issues of slavery and territorial expansion are also summarized.

1. U.S. History Chapter 18: A Divided Nation Section 3: Political Divisions

4. New Divisions Election of 1856 Millard Fillmore Know-Nothing Party James Buchanan Democratic Party John C. Frémont Republican Party

13. “ When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were nut numbered among its "people or citizen." Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit. “ — Chief Justice Roger Taney, U. S. Supreme Court

14. “ They [African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” — Chief Justice Roger Taney, U. S. Supreme Court

18. “ For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government top the redress of grievances.” — Chief Justice Roger Taney, U. S. Supreme Court

19. “ The rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offence against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law. “ — Chief Justice Roger Taney, U. S. Supreme Court

21. “ We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that he people of Missouri are on the verge of making their state free; and awake to the realty, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave state.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1858

25. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates Lincoln stated he believed slavery to be wrong in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates