North vs. South:North vs. South:Images from major Images from major crises of the 1850scrises of the 1850s

Fugitive Slave Act (1850)Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

Top: Reward poster for a runaway slave

Right: Warning to blacks residing in Boston

Uncle Tom’s CabinUncle Tom’s Cabin (in print and on stage)(in print and on stage)

With its vivid word pictures of slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin translated well to the stage. Stowe herself was among the many who wrote dramatizations of the novel. Scenes of Eliza crossing the ice of the Ohio River with bloodhounds in pursuit and the evil Simon Legree whipping Uncle Tom outraged northern audiences and turned many against slavery. Southerners damned Mrs. Stowe as a "vile wretch in petticoats." ( Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.)

““Bleeding Kansas”Bleeding Kansas”

Armed antislavery men with John DoyThough no one would deny that their cause was noble, many of the men who flocked to Kansas to resist the expansion of slavery were no less violent than their proslavery adversaries. This photograph, taken in 1859, shows a gang of armed antislavery men who had just broken an accomplice (John Doy, seated) out of jail in neighboring St. Joseph, Missouri. Like proslavery "Border Ruffians," many of these men also served in guerrilla bands during the Civil War and some went on to careers as famous outlaws after the war was over. (Kansas State Historical Society)

Free State Battery, 1856The slave state of Missouri opposed the entry of antislavery advocates for years and, by the 1850s, actively tried to prevent their passage through Missouri on the way to Kansas. "Free-staters" traveled through Iowa instead, often bringing arms with them. This small cannon, left over from the Mexican War, helped create "Bleeding Kansas." (Kansas State Historical Society)

Attack in the Senate!Attack in the Senate!

Southern ChivalryCartoons like this one, showing the beating of antislavery Senator Charles Sumner by Preston "Bully" Brooks, confirmed northern images of white southerners as people who prided themselves on their genteel manners but who behaved like street toughs. (Library of Congress)