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CHAPTER 6: CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR, Politics and Rebellion, 1850-1860

Contents Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: 1 Documents: 7 Document 1, Slave Anthony Burns Describes his Capture via the Fugitive Slave Act (PBS.org, 1855) 7 Document 2, The Boston Post and The Southern Press Review Uncle Tom’s Cabin (University of Virginia, 1852) 8 Document 3, John Brown writes to his father about “Bleeding Kansas” (Digital History, 1855) 12 Document 4, The Dred Scott Decision, 1857 (PBS.org, 1857) 13 Document 5, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Freeport, Illinois, 1858: Senator Douglas explains Popular Sovereignty (ushistory.org, 1858) 14 Document 6, John Brown Speaks to the Court in his trial re: the Raid on Harper’s Ferry (PBS.org, 1859) 15 Document 7, Lincoln Argues that the Republican Party only wants to limit the expansion of slavery, not destroy it where it currently exists, 1860 (Abraham Lincoln Online, 1860) 16 Document 8, South Carolinian William Gibson Explains the Secessionist Sentiment in South Carolina (Digital History, 1860) 19 Document 9, Lincoln’s Response to Secession in his First Inaugural Address (Library of Congress, 1861) 19 Post-Reading Exercises: 20 Works Cited 21

Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: The idea of Manifest Destiny suggested to Americans that we, as a people, as a nation, were destined to spread our settlement, spread our ideology, spread our democracy and civility to the westernmost regions. This migration to the Far West, however, brought to the surface some of the issues that had really challenged the federal government and national unity—issues dealing with slavery. The Missouri Compromise, it seemed, had solved the issues over the spread of slavery, but as Texas, New Mexico, the Oregon territory and California began applying for statehood, it quickly became clear that the slavery issue was far from solved. In fact, it would be the slavery issue that would simmer below the surface as tensions between the North and South rose. The 1850s opened up with the Compromise of 1850, which was supposed to deal with the issue of slavery in territories obtained from Mexico, as well as some other issues surrounding slavery. Though the Compromise was ultimately passed, the spirit of compromise was missing which signaled that the slavery issue had not been fully dealt with.

One of the pieces of legislation embedded in the Compromise of 1850 outlined a Fugitive Slave Act. This Act legally obligated Northerners to assist in the capture of fugitive (runaway) slaves and the return of those fugitives to their southern owners. Additionally, the Slave Act declared that any official or federal marshal would be subject to a $1,000 fine for not assisting in the recapture of runaway slaves. This became such a hot issue because: a) many people living in the North at this time were anti-slavery; and b) after the Compromise was enacted, some southerners began coming to the North to recapture slaves who had escaped from them years ago, slaves who were now living lives as free blacks in the North.

Northern anti-slavery mobs would often use force or violence to ensure that the Fugitive Slave Act was not enforced in their regions and simultaneously rallied new northerners over to the cause of anti-slavery (many Northerners who might otherwise not have been opposed to slavery were nonetheless upset at a pro-Southern law). For Southerners, however, this mob violence and these attempts to thwart the Fugitive Slave Law, this lack of respect for southern property and southern rights, was extremely troublesome and seemed a clear violation of the Compromise.

For example, in Boston, escaped slave Anthony Burns was tracked down by his master in 1854, which you’ll read about in the first document. Burns was arrested, but Boston abolitionists protested—whites and blacks headed to the Boston courthouse to try and free Burns. A melee broke out, during which a deputy was killed. President Franklin Pierce ordered federal protection to get Burns back to the South. Burns was ultimately declared a fugitive slave and returned to his master (though friends purchased his freedom within a year and Burns returned to Boston a free man). Why did southerners believe the Fugitive Slave Act was a legal right and necessity? Why were northerners so opposed to it?

The tensions between the North and South grew stronger after this event. When Harriet Beecher Stowe’s seminal novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852, the divisions between North and South seemed abundant and clear, as you’ll see in the two reviews of the book—one from a Northern press, the other from a Southern newspaper (Document 2).

But it wasn’t this lack of respect, it wasn’t this fight against the Fugitive Slave Act, that really inflamed sectional tensions. It was the Kansas-Nebraska controversy of the 1850s that would take center stage; it would be this controversy that would loosen all of the compromise threads that had precariously held the nation together. The Kansas-Nebraska controversy was a controversy that the Compromise of 1850 was supposed to have solved; it was over the issue of slavery in the territories. By the 1850s, you see, white settlement wasn’t just going to regions won from Mexico, it wasn’t just expanding to new southwestern regions; by the 1850s, white settlement had moved into the Great Plains region as it became clear that land that was once thought unfit for living (although it had been deemed acceptable for Indians during Indian Removal in the 1830s) was actually quite inhabitable. Problems arose, however, after Senator Stephen Douglas began a move to organize the territory in order to prepare it as a railroad hub. The major problem was that the territory was part of the Louisiana Purchase and was above the 36’30 parallel set by the Missouri Compromise—remember, territory above the 36’30 parallel was designated as free from slavery according to the Compromise. Not surprisingly, then, Southerners didn’t want the territory to be made a state unless they could negate the Missouri Compromise and introduce slavery into the territory. Senator Douglas tried to be shifty about this—he split the territory into two territories—Kansas and Nebraska—and suggested that each should be admitted to statehood and should vote on the issue of slavery using the tenets of popular sovereignty, which you learned about in the last chapter.

Immediately after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, a number of both Northern and Southern settlers began moving there. This is important because, remember, the Kansas-Nebraska Act said that the issue of slavery would be decided based on popular sovereignty: the inhabitants would vote on whether they wanted slavery or not. And if you have people from the North and the South moving there, there could be some problems. Some moved because they liked the prospect of new land. Others, southerners, moved because they wanted to fill the region with pro-slavery advocates. Still others, northerners and free-soilers, moved because they wanted to outnumber pro-slavery advocates. During the popular sovereignty vote to decide the status of slavery in Kansas, however, chaos ensued, and both pro-slavery and free-soiler blood was shed in Kansas over the issue of slavery in the territories, with ten men losing their lives. Free-soiler John Brown describes his side of “Bleeding Kansas” in Document 3. What were his justifications for “Bleeding Kansas” turning out the way it did?

With all of these fears becoming increasingly entrenched among Northerners, and with a similar fear among Southerners that the North was out to destroy slavery at any cost, the 1850s opened up with a great deal of sectional tension. Indeed, during the 1850s, three events took place that proved to be the final straws: the Dred Scott decision, John Brown’s raid of Harpers Ferry and Lincoln’s election to the presidency.

The first event was the Dred Scott decision. Northerners, you’ll remember, had fought vehemently against enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act—they did not want to help Southerners retrieve runaway slaves and, in many cases, impeded Southerners’ ability to do so. The issue got even trickier when the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford (Document 4) went to the Supreme Court. Dred Scott was a Missouri slave who had been taken to Illinois, a free state. He brought a suit to the Supreme Court arguing that since he had been brought by his master to a free state, since he was a resident of a free state, that he should be freed from slavery. The Supreme Court came back with a decision that said that blacks were not citizens and, therefore, could not bring a suit in federal courts. Furthermore, the decision argued that slaves were property, and, as such, slaveowners could bring them anywhere. This decision had landmark implications—it meant that a slaveowner could move to a free state and bring slavery with him. This meant that slaves could be brought to Pennsylvania, to New England, to New York—places where slavery had been outlawed for years. Essentially, the decision meant that no place was protected from the institution of slavery. How do you think Northerners felt about this decision? Southerners?

Many Northerners were distraught by the Dred Scott decision, which was only exacerbated a few months later when the new president, President James Buchanan urged Kansas to apply for statehood as a slave state, even though it was clear that Kansas still had a majority of antislavery residents. The Kansas issue wouldn’t even be resolved until after southern states began seceding from the Union in the early 1860s, but in 1857, Buchanan’s support of Kansas becoming a slave state seemed to signal even more loudly that a slave power conspiracy was at the helm of national politics. This, of course, would pave the way for Lincoln to become president.

Indeed, Lincoln stepped up to the podium in 1858 and began a series of debates with Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas that would outline the growing debate over slavery. The long and short of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was that Lincoln, and by extension the Republican Party, believed in a slave power conspiracy and wanted to end its power. Lincoln also did not want slavery to extend into the territories, he supported a free-soil ideology. You should note that he was not an abolitionist—the Republican Party was not demanding black equality or insisting that blacks could function as citizens. Douglas, on the other hand, supported the idea of popular sovereignty and he supported the South’s right to protect the institution of slavery, which you’ll read an excerpt from in Document 5. According to this document, what did the national debate over slavery look like? What were the basic tenets of popular sovereignty?

But it wasn’t their debates that really brought the issue to a head. It was John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry that really set Southerners off and made an unbridgeable gap between the North and South. You remember John Brown from Bleeding Kansas—well, in 1859 John Brown organized a militia of eighteen men to start a slave insurrection in the South. He hoped that he and his men could seize the weapons at the federal arsenal located at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and these weapons could be used by slaves to overthrow their masters and overturn the institution of slavery altogether. John Brown and his friends were not as successful as they hoped to be. A local militia put down Brown’s raid, capturing a number of his men—dead or alive—before weapons could be seized, before slaves could be called to rise up. John Brown was among the captured (Document 6) and was hung for treason at the end of 1859. John Brown’s raid, though unsuccessful, was the number one factor that convinced a number of southerners that they could no longer live safely within the Union. They feared that John Brown’s Raid was only the start of hundreds of potentially deadly slave insurrections—they feared that their property, their slaves, were at stake, and now their lives were too.

And when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, southerners became even more convinced. Lincoln’s election had been won with a platform supporting a high tariff, the building of a transcontinental railroad with a Northern hub, and arguing that neither Congress nor territorial legislatures could legalize slavery in the territories (only an official state could), as you can see in Document 7. This was all the proof southerners needed that the North was conspiring against their best interests, and even, their paranoid minds believed, would support slave insurrections (Document 8). And so it was that a number of southern states, in the immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s election would move to secede from the Union (Document 9). After reading these three documents, does it appear that Civil War was inevitable or that there were possible solutions that could help the United States avoid the war? Whatever possible solutions may have existed, though, it is clear that the events of the 1850s moved the nation closer to Civil War.

Documents:

Document 1, Slave Anthony Burns Describes his Capture via the Fugitive Slave Act (PBS.org, 1855)[footnoteRef:1] [1: Anthony Burns, “My friends…,” New York Tribune, n.d., in the Liberator, March 9, 1855.]

My friends, I am very glad to have it to say, have it to feel, that I am once more in the land of liberty; that I am with those who are my friends. Until my tenth year I did not care what became of me; but soon after I began to learn that there is a Christ who came to make us free; I began to hear about a North, and to feel the necessity for freedom of soul and body. I heard of a North where men of my color could live without any man daring to say to them, "You are my property;" and I determined by the blessing of God, one day to find my way there. My inclination grew on me, and I found my way to Boston.

You see, I didn't want to make myself known, so I didn't tell who I was; but as I came to work, I got employment, and I worked hard; but I kept my own counsel, and didn't tell anybody that I was a slave, but I strove for myself as I never had an opportunity to do before. When I was going home one night I heard some one running behind me; presently a hand was put on my shoulder, and somebody said: "Stop, stop; you are the fellow who broke into a silversmith's shop the other night." I assured the man that it was a mistake, but almost before I could speak, I was lifted from off my feet by six or seven others, and it was no use to resist. In the Court House I waited some time, and as the silversmith did not come, I told them I wanted to go home for supper. A man then come to the door; he didn't open it like an honest man would, but kind of slowly opened it, and looked in. He said, "How do you do, Mr. Burns?" and I called him as we do in Virginia, "master!"

He asked me if there would be any trouble in taking me back to Virginia, and I was brought right to a stand, and didn't know what to say. He wanted to know if I remembered the money that he used to give me, and I said, "Yes, I do recollect that you used to give me twelve and a half cents at the end of every year I worked for you." He went out and came back next morning. I got no supper nor sleep that night. The next morning they told me that my master said that he had the right to me, and as I had called him "master," having the fear of God before my eyes, I could not go from it. Next morning I was taken down, with the bracelets on my wrists -- not such as you wear, ladies, of gold and silver -- but iron and steel that wore into the bone.

Document 2, The Boston Post and The Southern Press Review Uncle Tom’s Cabin (University of Virginia, 1852)[footnoteRef:2] [2: W.B.S., “Review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” The Morning Post (Boston), May 3, 1852; n.a., “Review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Southern Press Review, 1852.]

The Boston Post Review:

SINCE “Jane Eyre,” no book has had so sudden and so great a success on this side of the Atlantic as “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” Everybody has read it, is reading, or is about to read it. And certainly it is one of the most remarkable literary productions of the time—an evident result of some of the highest attributes of the novel writer.

As all the world knows, “Uncle Tom's Cabini” purports to be a picture of slavery as it now exists in the Southern States. It is an attempt to present the accidental and inevitable evils of slavery side by side with the practical advantages of the system in its paternal care of a long depressed, if not actually inferior race. It paints both slaveholder and slave, and none can doubt the intention of the author to deal justly with both, nothing extenuating and setting down naught in malice. The incidents are stated to be drawn from the personal experience of the writer or her most immediate friends, and we believe it is universally admitted that as a mere story the book is of intense interest.

But we would here remark that some portions are very highly colored. The main facts stated, also, may have occurred somewhere or other, and at distant intervals of time; but the aggregation of so many rare horrors into two small volumes, produces a picture which we are happy to believe does not do justice to practical slavery in our southern states. In a word the effect of “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” as a whole, is grossly to exaggerate the actual evils of negro slavery in this country. As a didactic work, therefore, it should be swallowed with a considerable dose of allowance.

But it is not as an instructive work, chiefly, that we now desire to regard it. As chroniclers of the literature of the day, we have much more to do with the conception and execution of books, as merely literary works, than with their sentiment or effect, although these latter may be all that make them practically important. Suffice it to say, then, that “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” even with our dose of allowance, is the finest picture yet painted of the abominable horrors of slavery, (bad enough at the best, and inevitably,) and that it is likely to do more for the cause of liberal abolitionism, than all that has been preached, said and sung, for a long time.

But throwing aside the design or effect of the book under notice, and looking at it as a literary work merely, it must be confessed that if the incidents be exaggerated in themselves, or if they be so unduly crowded as to create an erroneous impression—admitting all this, we say—it must be owned that the incidents are treated artistically and with a master hand. The whole is truth-seeming if not true, and the whole book reads naturally and probably. It has nothing forced or awkward in its conduct.

And yet the management of the tale is among its lesser interests. Both in dialogue and in character Mrs. Stowe has produced a fiction which can scarcely be excelled, in its peculiar line. To be sure, her negroes often pronounce a word properly, while a few sentences later on they mangle it horribly by the same people. But such inaccuracies are of little consequence, and are soon lost in the tide of humor, pathos and oddity that flows from the lips of the queer children of Africa. The dialogue, both of the whites and blacks, is naturalness itself, having nothing either of books or the theatre in its composition.

And in respect to character-painting, “Uncle Tom's Cabin” may compare with any fiction of the day, English or American. It does not contain a figure that is not so vigorously sketched as to be fully individualized, and well able to stand alone. Every slave differs from his fellows in some essential features, and runs no risk of being mistaken for a sooty brother. Mrs. Shelby's "Sam," for instance, though visible in but a single scene, is as well drawn as if he were the sole hero of the fiction. Chloe the cook is not Dinah the cook, and neither of the young quadroon slaves of St. Clare could be mistaken for the quadroon George or his wife Eliza. The Quakers, also, who appear but once, are very nicely sketched, and Mrs. Shelby, who is scarcely seen but in a few chapters, at the beginning, is as perfect a portrait of an intelligent and right-hearted lady as we have lately seen. Topsy is a gem. Indeed, whether as regards black or white, everybody is hit off properly, and is nobody else but himself.

But coming to the principal characters, we must say that Uncle Tom himself, St. Clare, Marie, Eva and Miss Ophelia are given with a truth to nature that fairly astonished us, in our utter ignorance that a female author lived who was capable of such painting. Eva, indeed, is not to be criticized. She stands with Little Nell and Little Paul—unnatural, it may be, as a child of man, but a creation of exquisite beauty, tenderness, intelligence and affection—an embodiment, in baby form, of all that is highest, holiest, and best in human nature.

We hope the book in hand will be noticed by our leading reviews. As an American novel, merely, it deserves an elaborate critique, and we feel that our limited space does not do it justice.

We should like to sustain our praise by several extracts, but are obliged to refer our readers to the glowing pages themselves.

“Uncle Tom's Cabin,” as much as any novel we know of, is stamped on every page with genius. The author cannot touch a single incident without showing that she bears the sacred fire. How strong and wide may be the blaze we know not, but taking the present novel as the first effort in this line of writing, it is a wonderful composition, emanating from true genius, and produced with a nice tact and ingenuity, and a thorough knowledge of human nature, &c. The scene at Senator Bird's, the flight across the Ohio, the interview of George with the manufacturer, at the road side inn, the night-scene in the steamer—nay, many other passages—are not prominent portions of the work, but they are given in a masterly manner. Not one word in the book suggests mediocrity, whether the pictures of slavery please or displease. And the death of Eva! We have said that some chapters are beyond criticism—the reader will find them so. And with all the pathos and intensity of most of the story, there is no jot of dulness—no harping on one string. A vein of humor and drollery meanders through it, and one is often laughing with wet eyes.

But brilliant as is “Uncle Tom's Cabin” as a literary work, it is yet more creditable to the author in another point of view. It proves that unlike most women and very many men, Mrs. Stowe has the high ability of looking on both sides of one question. With feelings and principles equally opposed to slavery, for its unavoidable evils as well as its accidental abuses, she is yet able to paint the slaveholder as he lives and moves, with no touch of bigotry or fanaticism. No southerner need be ashamed of the noble, kind and generous St. Clare, or the angel-child, his daughter.

More than this, Mrs. Stowe has fairly presented the various arguments in favor of slavery, and the various feelings which exist in the mind of the south, in reference to this terrible evil. And, indeed, were it not for the incidental remarks in the book, one would be rather puzzled to say, from the dialogue alone, what were Mrs. Stowe's real sentiments. Both sides are presented with heart, soul and strength.

The entire fiction is filled with instances of this peculiar power of the author to look on both sides of a question at once, and this (so called) masculine quality of mind is sustained by an exceeding ease in the management of details and the handling of masculine facts of all sorts. One wonders, indeed, where a lady could pick up so much stuff, and how she could acquire such free and easy manners in disposing of it. Everything is fish that comes to her net, and she is equally at home with saint or sinner, black or white, high or low. She never suffers any mock modesty, reverence or respect for any world prejudice whatever to stand in the way of truth of portraiture or naturalness of dialogue.

“Uncle Tom's Cabin,” we believe, was first published in chapters, in the National Era. It there became known to a sufficient number of readers to give it a large circulation, when it appeared in book-form. Latterly, however, it has had an extraordinary run, and last week its sale had reached the large quantity of 3000 copies.

The Southern Press Review:

We have just finished the perusal of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a work in two volumes, of more than three hundred pages each, which appeared originally in the National Era, in a succession of numbers, and has recently been re-published in its present form. The papers inform us that already, within eleven weeks of its re-publication, eighty thousand copies of it have been sold at the rate of a dollar to a dollar and a quarter per copy.

The authoress of this work is HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, wife of Professor Stowe, and daughter of Dr. Beecher. She resided for many years, before and after marriage, in Cincinnati. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is an anti-slavery novel. It is a caricature of slavery. It selects for description the most odious features of slavery—the escape and pursuit of fugitive slaves, the sale and separation of domestic slaves, the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters. It portrays the slaves of the story as more moral, intelligent, courageous, elegant and beautiful than their masters and mistresses; and where it concedes any of these qualities to the whites, it is to such only as are, even though slaveholders, opposed to slavery. Those in favor of slavery are slave-traders, slave-catchers, and the most weak, depraved, cruel and malignant of beings and demons.

It is a little curious, that the two works on slavery that have attained the largest circulation since the Wilmot proviso was proposed, have both emanated from Cincinnati. The first, the lecture on "the North and the South," by the senior editor of this paper; the other, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Of the lecture, about three hundred thousand copies were printed in pamphlets and newspapers. The novel will probably reach an equal circulation.

It deserves to be considered that the defense of the South was a documentary argument, consisting chiefly of a collection of all the evidence on the subject which existed in an authentic shape. The attack on the South is a novel—a romance. The system of the South relies on fact—the sentiment of the North flies to fiction. This is significant. For some time before, the North, the practical, calculating, unimaginative North, claimed the facts. But since the appearance of "the North and the South," that pretension has almost been abandoned. We have been struck by the almost total abstinence of the northern press from all allusion to the results of the last census, when discussing the slavery question. That census has vindicated triumphantly the positions of the lecture on "the North and the South." Now, what is the value of a work of fiction in this controversy? What would be its value even if even incident it contains were founded on fact, as the writer intimates? Why, just nothing at all. Every man who is accustomed to reason is familiar with the artifice of a discomfitted antagonist. When refuted in argument, when overwhelmed with evidence, he insists on relating an anecdote, or telling a story—he retreats into fiction, or cites a particular instance—although everyone capable of reasoning knows that any proposition can be maintained, or any institution be overthrown, if the citation of particular incidents is accepted as argument. Government, society, law, civilization itself would fall in an hour, if we were to listen to the stories of the wrong and ruin that incidentally or exceptionally attend them. Do not murderers escape—are not the innocent sometimes put to death under the administration of criminal law? And yet, who would abolish it, even if hundreds of novels were written to illustrate its defects, or under pretence of exposing its enormity? Do we not find bad men with wealth, or good men in want—then why not have a novel to prove it and to insist on the abolition of property? Nay, there is religion itself, whose institutions cannot be divested of superstition, hypocrisy and fanaticism. How many romances could be written and have been written to illustrate these latter? Yet must we abolish religion?

Mrs. Stowe may have seen, during her residence in Cincinnati, in the arrival and departure of emigrants, and in the trade and navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, more families separated forever; she must know that from that single city more husbands, brothers, sons and fathers have gone voluntarily, as she calls it, from wives, mothers and children, and, in the pursuit of trade, met with untimely death by fevers and cholera on the river, or in the wilderness, leaving their families to suffer from want, their children to perish from neglect, than probably all who have been separated by the slave trade. Why don't she write a romance against emigration, and navigation and commerce? They are all permitted by our laws.

But Mrs. Stowe complains that slavery gives to one man the power over another to do these things. Well, does not freedom, as she calls it? Cannot the landlord of Cincinnati turn out a family from his dwelling if unable to pay the rent? Cannot those who have food and raiment refuse them to such as are unable to buy? And does not Mrs. Stowe herself virtually do these very things? Suppose a poor man were to present himself to her and say, "Madam, I am a poor man with a large family, and we are destitute. And unless you prevent it, I shall be compelled to-morrow to hire myself as a hand on a flatboat to New Orleans, and besides exposing myself to the cholera and yellow fever, leave my wife in delicate health, my oldest daughter to the dangers of a large city without a protector, and my young ones to the diseases that depopulate the infancy of this place every summer. Now, I have read your novel, and I understand that you have already received a large fortune by the copy-right of it. Now, we are equals—except that I have none of your education, and that is not my fault. Yet somehow or other the laws of this freesoil State allow you to keep thousands of dollars in bank which you do not need, whilst I, for the want of a small part of it, am doomed to separation from all that I hold dear." We doubt whether Mrs. Stowe would recognize the cogency of this argument. But if she would, the laws of this country do not.

Document 3, John Brown writes to his father about “Bleeding Kansas” (Digital History, 1855)[footnoteRef:3] [3: John Brown letter to his father, 1855.]

I feel very thankful for the interest you still take in the different members of my numerous Family, & for all your efforts to do them good in things spiritual & temporal.... As I become a little more acquainted with this part of the Territory I think quite favorably of it; & I would by no means advise those of my friends who are here to leave in search of a better country. We feel more, & more certain that Kansas will be a Free State. At this moment there is quite an excitement here growing out of a report of the Murder of a young Free Stater man by a Missourian. Large numbers on both sides are said to be in Arms near Lawrence; & some anticipate a Bloody fight. We do not seem to get direct information of the true state of matters there; & I think of going immediately there to learn the facts in the case. The distance is about 35 Miles. I will endeavour to give you a more full account of the matter; if there should be much of it. I have no time fixed in my own mind as yet for my return; & have no thought of leaving before some time in the Spring.…

Document 4, The Dred Scott Decision, 1857 (PBS.org, 1857)[footnoteRef:4] [4: Copyright 3/97 by Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, Inc. From: Dred Scott v. Sanford. By: Finkelman. Reproduced by permission of St. Martin’s Press.]

The plaintiff [Dred Scott]... was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant [Sanford], in the State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for [Missouri], to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.

The declaration is . . . that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that... he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York…

The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution....

The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.... The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them…

The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, [Dred Scott] could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.

It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded....

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted....

... [T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted....

They 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. . . . He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion…

And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the

time…

…So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that character, his status, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Document 5, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Freeport, Illinois, 1858: Senator Douglas explains Popular Sovereignty (ushistory.org, 1858)[footnoteRef:5] [5: Stephen Douglas, “The Freeport Doctrine,” Freeport, Illinois, 1858.]

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution? I answer emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a Territory can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had answered that question over and over again. He heard me argue the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, in 1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my position on that question. It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations.... Those police regulations can only be established by the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still the right of the people to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfactory on that point.

Document 6, John Brown Speaks to the Court in his trial re: the Raid on Harper’s Ferry (PBS.org, 1859)[footnoteRef:6] [6: John Brown, “Address of John Brown to the Virginia Court,” Charles Town, Virginia: November 2, 1859. Reprinted from Annals of America. Copyright 1968, 1976 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Inc.]

I have, may it please the court, a few words to say.

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted, -- the design on my part to free slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to do the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.

I have another objection; and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case), -- had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends -- either father, mother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class -- and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

The court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done -- as I have always freely admitted I have done -- in behalf of His despied poor, was not wrong, but right. Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments. -- I submit; so let it be done!

Let me say one word further.

I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous than I expected. I feel no consciousness of my guilt. I have stated from the first what was my intention, and what was not. I never had any design against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit treason, or excite slaves to rebel, or make any general insurrection. I never encouraged any man to do so, but always discouraged any idea of any kind.

Let me say also, a word in regard to the statements made by some to those conncected with me. I hear it has been said by some of them that I have induced them to join me. But the contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, but as regretting their weakness. There is not one of them but joined me of his own accord, and the greater part of them at their own expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a word of conversation with, till the day they came to me; and that was for the purpose I have stated.

Now I have done.

Document 7, Lincoln Argues that the Republican Party only wants to limit the expansion of slavery, not destroy it where it currently exists, 1860 (Abraham Lincoln Online, 1860)[footnoteRef:7] [7: Abraham Lincoln, “Cooper Union Address,” New York: February 27, 1860. From Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler (Abraham Lincoln Association, 1953).]

…But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it; and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus violates; and, as I understand, that all fix upon provisions in these amendatory articles, and not in the original instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty or property without due process of law;" while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"…

…And now, if they would listen - as I suppose they will not - I would address a few words to the Southern people.

I would say to them: - You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite - license, so to speak - among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section - gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started - to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe that the principle which "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration…

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

…Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Document 8, South Carolinian William Gibson Explains the Secessionist Sentiment in South Carolina (Digital History, 1860)[footnoteRef:8] [8: William P. Gibson letter to Sarah Humphreys, “A happy Christmas to you…,” 1860.]

A happy Christmas to you--may each returning one be, to you, full of heartfelt joys. Pecuniary want keeps us at home, else we should have been at the old homestead several days ago. We are determined never to leave home again without the hope, at least, of making a trip of pleasure. Complaints, troubles and poor folks should be kept at home....

Political excitement was never so high--every body is rampant in favor of disunion. We had an election on this question one day before yesterday [December 20th] and it is predicted by the knowing ones that the State will go 30,000 votes majority for the secession ticket. I say hurrah for the biggest party.

Document 9, Lincoln’s Response to Secession in his First Inaugural Address (Library of Congress, 1861)[footnoteRef:9] [9: Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1861.]

In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of this office."

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that--

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one section as to another.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due…

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices…

…I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Post-Reading Exercises:

1. In a 1-2 page essay, explain the growing divisions between North and South in the period leading up to the Civil War. What were some of the issues that caused this growing division, according to the primary source documents in this chapter? You should be sure to incorporate specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this chapter.

2. In a 1-2 page essay explain how the opposing reviews of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Document 2) provide insight into the divisions that ultimately split the Union apart (you should use the remainder of the documents here). You should be sure to incorporate specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this chapter.

3. JOURNAL OPTION: For this chapter of OB, instead of answering Question 1 or 2, you may instead choose to turn in a 2-4 page typed document (double-spaced) with brief notes on each document in the chapter, as well as 5 questions about the chapter’s material. Please see the handout under Files titled “Journal Notes/Questions Guide” for more specific instructions on how to do this properly.

Works Cited Document 7: Abraham Lincoln Online. (1860, February 27). Abraham Lincoln Online. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm Document 3: Digital History. (1855). Digital History. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from John Brown, Letter to his father re: Bleeding Kansas: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=131 Document 8: Digital History. (1860). Digital History. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from William P. Gibson to his sister Sarah Humphreys on Secession: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=49 Document 9: Library of Congress. (1861, March 4). Library of Congress. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from LIncoln's First Inaugural Address: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt039.html Document 1: PBS.org. (1855, March 9). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Africans in America, Anthony Burns Speaks: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2916t.html Document 4: PBS.org. (1857, March). PBS.org. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from Africans in America, Dred Scott decision: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933t.html Document 6: PBS.org. (1859, November 2). PBS.org. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from Africans in America, John Brown's address to the court after Harper's Ferry Raid: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2943t.html Document 2: University of Virginia. (1852). University of Virginia. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/reviews/rere50at.html ; http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/reviews/rere27at.html Document 5: ushistory.org. (1858). ushistory.org. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: http://www.ushistory.org/us/32b.asp

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