homework
patick8
Republican night-time parade.
This horror, this nightmare abomination!
Can it be in my country! It lies like lead on
my heart, it shadows my life with sorrow . . .
— Harriet Beecher Stowe, December 16, 1852
153 THE COMING CRISIS
THE 18505
135,016 SETS. 271,160 VOLUTES
MP,
UNCLE TOMS CABIN
WHY DID people in the North and the South tend to see the issue of slavery differently? FOR SALE Rana
The Greatest Book of the Age.
WHAT WAS the intent of the Compromise of 1850?
WHAT EXPLAINS the end of the Second American Party System and the rise of
the Republican Party?
WHAT WAS the outcome of the Dred Scott decision?
WHY DID the South secede following the Republican Party victory
in the election of 1860?
38o CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
AMERICAN COMMUNITIES Illinois Communities Debate Slavery
`"THE PRAIRIES ARE ON FIRE," ANNOUNCED THE NEW YORK EVEMNG POST
correspondent who covered the debates. "It is astonishing how deep an interest in politics these people take." The reason was clear: by 1858, the American nation was in political crisis. The decade-long effort to solve the problem of the future of slavery had failed. For most of this time, Washington politicians trying to build broad national parties with policies acceptable to voters in both the North and the South had done their best not to talk about slavery. That the Lincoln–Douglas debates were devoted to one issue alone—slavery and the future of the Union—showed how serious matters had become.
Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and his Republican challenger, Springfield lawyer Abraham Lincoln, presented their views in three hours of closely reasoned argu- ment. But they did not speak alone. Cheers, boos, groans, and shouted questions from active, engaged listeners punctuated all seven of the now famous confrontations between the two men. Thus, the Lincoln–Douglas debates were community events in which Illinois citizens—who, as did Americans everywhere, held varying political beliefs—took part.
Stephen Douglas was the leading Democratic con- tender for the 1860 presidential nomination, but before he could mount a campaign for national office, he had first to win reelection to the Illinois seat he had held in the U.S. Senate for twelve years. His vote against allowing slavery in Kansas had alienated him from the strong southern wing of his own party and had put him in direct conflict with its top leader, President James Buchanan. Because the crisis of the Union was so severe and Dou- glas's role so pivotal, his reelection campaign clearly previewed the 1860 presidential election.
Lincoln had represented Illinois in the House of Repre- sentatives in the 1840s but had lost political support in 1848 because he had opposed the Mexican-American War. Develop- ing a prosperous Springfield law practice, he had been an influ- ential member of the Illinois Republican Party since its founding in 1856. Lincoln was radicalized by the issue of the extension of slavery. Even though his wife's family were Kentucky slave owners, Lincoln's commitment to freedom and
his resistance to the spread of slavery had now become absolute: for him, freedom and the Union were inseparable.
The first of the seven debates, held in Ottawa, in northern Illinois, on Saturday, August 21, 1858, showed not only the seriousness but also the exuberance of the democratic politics of the time. By early morning, the town was jammed with people. The clouds of dust raised by carriages driving to Ottawa, one observer complained, turned the town into "a vast smoke house." By one o'clock, the town square was filled to overflowing, and the debate enthralled an estimated 12,000 people. Ottawa in northern Illinois, was pro-Republican, and the audience heckled Douglas unmercifully. But as the debates moved south in the state, where Democrats predomi- nated, the tables were turned, and Lincoln sometimes had to plead for a chance to be heard.
Although Douglas won the 1858 senatorial election in Illinois, the acclaim that Lincoln gained in the famous debates helped establish the Republicans' claim to be the only party capable of stopping the spread of slavery and made Lincoln himself a strong contender for the Republican presidential
nomination in 1860. But the true winners of the Lincoln–Douglas debates were the people of
Illinois who gathered peacefully to discuss the most serious issue of their time. The young German immigrant Carl Schurz, who attended the Quincy debate, was deeply impressed by its democratic character.
He noted, "There was no end of cheering and shouting and jostling on the streets of
Quincy that day. But in spite of the excitement created by the political contest, the crowds remained
very good-natured, and the occasional jibes flung from one side to the other were uniformly received with a laugh."
The Lincoln–Douglas debates are famous for their demonstration of the widespread public belief in commonality and community to resolve disagreements. Unfortunately, differ- ences that could be resolved through conversation and friend- ship in the local community were less easy to resolve at the national level. In the highly charged and highly public political atmosphere of Congress, politicians struggled in vain to find compromises to hold the national community together.
Lincoln -Douglas debates Series of debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign during which Douglas and Lincoln staked out their differing opinions on the issue of slavery.
WHY DID people in the North and
the South tend to see the issue of
slavery differently?
myhistehlab Review Summary
IMAGE KEY for pages 378-379
a. Dred Scott and his family, c. 1857. b. Republican night-time parade. c. A portrait photo of John Brown
(1800-1859).
d. An old fashioned black stovepipe hat
with a narrow brim like the one worn by Abe Lincoln.
e. A poster of Uncle Tom's Cabin with an illustration of a slave woman standing
in the doorway of a log cabin. The copy
describes various editions of the book
for sale.
f. Robert Marshall Root's painting of the
Lincoln-Douglas debate. g. A contemporary colored engraving of
the inside of the Armory at Harper's
Ferry, Virginia, where John Brown and
his men were trapped by the fire of the
U.S. Marines under the command of
Col. Robert E. Lee, October 18, 1859. h. Gold ore and gravel in a shallow pan
like those used by '49ers.
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S CHAPTER 15 381
AMERICA IN 1850
IN he America of 1850 was a very different nation from the republic of 1800. Geographic expansion, population increase, economic development, and the changes wrought by the market revolution had transformed the strug- gling new nation. Economically, culturally, and politically Americans had forged a strong sense of national identity.
EXPANSION AND GROWTH
America was now a much larger nation than it had been in 1800. Through war and diplomacy, the country had grown to continental dimensions, more than tripling in size from 890,000 to 3 million square miles. Its population had increased enormously from 5.3 million in 1800 to more than 23 million, 4 million of whom were African Amer- ican slaves and 2 million new immigrants, largely from Germany and Ireland. Com- prising just sixteen states in 1800, America in 1850 had thirty-one states, and more than half of the population lived west of the Appalachians. America's cities had undergone the most rapid half century of growth they were ever to experience (see Map 15.1).
America was also much richer: it is estimated that real per capita income dou- bled between 1800 and 1850 Southern cotton was no longer the major influence on the domestic economy. The growth of manufacturing in the Northeast and the rapid opening up of rich farmlands in the Midwest had serious domestic implications. As the South's share of responsibility for economic growth waned, so did its political importance—at least in the eyes of many Northerners. Thus, the very success of the United States both in geographic expansion and in economic development served to undermine the role of the South in national politics and to hasten the day of open conflict between the slave South and the free-labor North and Midwest.
POLITICS, CULTURE, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
Pride in democracy was one unifying theme in a growing sense of national iden- tity and the new middle-class values, institutions, and culture that supported it. Since the turn of the century, American writers had struggled to find distinctive American themes, and these efforts bore fruit in the 1850s in the burst of creative activity termed the "American Renaissance." Newspapers, magazines, and commu- nication improvements of all kinds created a national audience for the American scholars and writers who emerged during this decade.
During the American Renaissance, American writers pioneered new liter- ary forms. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in works like "Young Goodman Brown" (1835), raised the short story to a distinctive American literary form. Poets like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson experimented with unrhymed and "off-rhyme"
verse. Henry David Thoreau published Walden in 1854. A pastoral celebration of his life at Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, the essay was also a searching meditation on the cost to the individual of the loss of contact with nature that was a consequence of the market revolution.
Indeed, although the midcentury popular mood was one of self-congratula- tion, most of the writers of the American Renaissance were social critics. In The Scar-
let Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Nathaniel Hawthorne brilliantly exposed the repressive and hypocritical aspects of Puritan New England in the colo- nial period and the often impossible moral choices faced by individuals. Hawthorne's friend Herman Melville, in his great work Moby Dick (1851), used the story of Cap- tain Ahab's obsessive search for the white whale to write a profound study of the nature of good and evil and a critique of American society in the 1850s. The strongest social critique, however, was Frederick Douglass's starkly simple autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), which told of his brutal life as a slave.
INDIANA OHIO
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382 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 185os
MAP EXPLORATION To explore an interactive version of this map, go to httpdAvww.prenhall.com/faraghertIcimap15.1
CANADA
LOUISIANA
PACIFIC
OCEAN
FLORIDA
Gulf of
Mexico
MEXICO
People per square mile
More than 6
2 to 6
Fewer than 2
MAP 15.1 U.S. Population and Settlement, 1850 By 1850, the United States was a continental nation. Its people, whom Thomas Jefferson had once thought would not reach the Mississippi River for forty generations, had not only passed the river but also leapfrogged to the West Coast. In comparison to the America of 1800 (see Map 9.1 on p. 210), the growth was astounding.
WHAT WERE the reasons behind these growth patterns?
Apidi 14-2
gip Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
The most successful American novel of the mid-nineteenth century was also
about the great issue of the day—slavery. In writing Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe combined the literary style of the popular women's domestic nov-
els of the time (discussed in Chapter 12) with vivid details of slavery culled from
firsthand accounts by northern abolitionists and escaped slaves. Published in 1851,
it was a runaway best seller. More than 300,000 copies were sold in the first year,
and within ten years, the book had sold more than 2 million copies, becoming the
all-time American best seller in proportion to population. Turned into a play that
remained popular throughout the nineteenth century, Uncle Tom's Cabin reached an even wider audience. Uncle Tom's Cabin was more than a heart-tugging story: it
was a call to action. In 1863, when Harriet Beecher Stowe was introduced to Abra-
ham Lincoln, the president is said to have remarked, "So you're the little woman
who wrote the book that made this great war!"
135,000 SETS, 270,000 VOLUMES SOLD.
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN
FOR SALE HERE. AN EDITION FOR THE MILLION, COMPLETE IN 1 Vol, PRICE 3712 CENTS.
IN GERMAN, IN I Vol, PRICE 31 CENTS.
IN 2 WS,. CLOTH, 12 PLATES, PRICE SIDI. SI PERH ILLUSTRATED EDITION, IN 1 10, UITH 133 ENCRAIINES,
PRICES FROM *UM TO O&M).
The Greatest Book of the Age. This poster advertises Uncle Tom's Cabin, the best-selling novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The poignant story of long- suffering African American slaves had an immense impact on northern popular opinion, swaying it decisively against slavery. In that respect, the poster's boast, "The Greatest Book of the Age," was correct.
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 185os CHAPTER 15 4i116 383
CRACKS IN NATIONAL UNITY
S towe's novel clearly spoke to the growing concern of the Amer- ican people. The year 1850 opened to the most serious polit- ical crisis the United States had ever known. The issue raised
by the 1846 Wilmot Proviso—whether slavery should be extended to the new territories—could no longer be ignored (see Chapter 14) . Furthermore, California, made rich and populous by the gold rush, applied for statehood in 1850, thereby reopening the issue of the balance between slave and free states.
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was actually five separate bills embodying three separate compromises.
First, California was admitted as a free state, but the status of the remaining former Mexican possessions was left to be decided by popular sovereignty (a vote of the territory's inhabitants) when they applied for statehood. The result was, for the time being, fifteen slave states and sixteen free states. Second, Texas (a slave state) was required to cede land to New Mexico Territory (free or slave status unde- cided) . Finally, the slave trade, but not slavery itself, was ended in the District of Columbia, but a stronger fugitive slave law, to be enforced in all states, was enacted (see Map 15.2).
Jubilation and relief greeted the news that compromise had been achieved, but analysis of the votes on the five bills that made up the compromise revealed no consistent majority. The sectional splits within each party that had existed before the compromise remained. Antislavery northern Whigs and proslavery southern Democrats, each the larger wing of their party, were the least willing to compromise.
POLITICAL PARTIES SPLIT OVER SLAVERY
The Second American Party System, forged in the great controversies of Andrew Jackson's presidency (see Chapter 11), was a national party system. At a time when the ordinary person still had very strong sectional loyalties, the mass political party created a national community of like-minded voters. Yet, by the election of 1848, sectional interests were eroding the political "glue" in both parties. Although each party still appeared united, sectional fissures ran deep.
Political splits were preceded by divisions in other social institutions. Disagree- ments about slavery had already split the country's great religious organizations into northern and southern groups: the Presbyterians in 1837, the Methodists in 1844, and the Baptists in 1845. Theodore Weld, the abolitionist leader, saw these splits as inevitable: "Events . . . have for years been silently but without a moment's pause, settling the basis of two great parties, the nucleus of one slavery, of the other, freedom."
CONGRESSIONAL DIVISIONS
But was freedom national and slavery sectional, or was it the other way around? In the midst of the debate that preceded the Compromise of 1850, President Zachary Taylor died. A bluff military man, Taylor had been prepared to follow Andrew Jackson's precedent during the Nullification Crisis of 1832 and simply demand that southern dissidents compromise. Vice President Millard Fillmore, who assumed the presidency, was a much weaker man who did not seize the opportu- nity for presidential action.
WHAT WAS the intent of the Compromise of 1850?
myhistelylab Review Summary
Compromise of 1850 The four-step compromise which admitted California as a free state, allowed the residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories to decide the slavery issue for themselves, ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and passed a new fugitive slave law to enforce the constitutional provision stating that a slave escaping into a free state shall be delivered back to the owner.
Popular sovereignty A solution to the slavery crisis suggested by Michigan senator Lewis Can by which territorial residents, not Congress, would decide slavery's fate.
myhisto lab Overview: The Great Sectional Compromises
14-7 Hinton Rowan Helper, A White Southerner Speaks Out Against Slavery (1857)
14-4 John C. Calhoun, A Dying Statesman Speaks Out Against the Compromise of 1850
384 a CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
OVERVIEW The Great Sectional Compromises
Missouri Compromise
Compromise of 1850
Admits Missouri to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state; prohibits slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase Territory north of 36°30'.
Territory Covered: The entire territory of the Louisiana Purchase, exclusive of the state of Louisiana, which had been admitted to the Union in 1812.
Admits California to the Union as a free state, settles the borders of Texas (a slave state); sets no conditions concerning slavery for the rest of the territory acquired from Mexico. Enacts national Fugitive Slave Law.
Territory Covered: The territory that had been part of Mexico before the end of the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848): part of Texas, California, Utah Territory (now Utah, Nevada, and part of Colorado), and New Mexico Territory (now New Mexico and Arizona).
1820
1850
And southerners, personified by John C. Calhoun, were unwilling to com-
promise. Calhoun, who had uncompromisingly spoken for the slave South since
the Nullification Crisis in 1828 (see Chapter 11) insisted that the states rights'
doctrine was necessary to protect the legitimate rights of a minority in a democ-
ratic system governed by majority rule. Now in 1850 Calhoun broadened his argu-
ment to insist that Congress did not have a constitutional right to prohibit slavery
in the territories. The territories, he said, were the common property of all the
states, North and South, and slave owners had a constitutional right to the protec-
tion of their property wherever they moved. Calhon's position on the territories
quickly became southern dogma: anything less than full access to the territories
was unconstitutional. As Congressman Robert Toombs of Georgia put the case in
1850, the choice was stark: "Give us our just rights and we are ready to stand by the
Union. Refuse [them] and for one, I will strike for independence."
Calhoun's failing health served to make his ultimatum all the more omi-
nous. He brought an aura of death with him as he sat on the Senate floor for the
last time, listening to the speech that he was too ill to read for himself. He died
less than a month later, still insisting on the right of the South to secede if neces-
sary, to preserve its way of life.
The southern threat to secede confirmed for many Northerners the warn-
ings of antislavery leaders that they were endangered by a menacing "slave power."
Liberty Party leader James Birney, in a speech in 1844, was the first to add this
phrase to the nation's political vocabulary. "The slave power," Birney explained,
was a group of aristocratic slave owners who not only dominated the political and
social life of the South but conspired to control the federal government as well,
posing a danger to free speech and free institutions throughout the nation.
Birney's warning about the "slave power" in 1844 had seemed merely the over-
heated rhetoric of an extremist group of abolitionists. But the defensive southern
political strategies of the 1850s convinced an increasing number of northern voters
that "the slave power" did in fact exist. The long-standing proslavery strategy of
maintaining supremacy in the Senate by having at least as many slave as free states
admitted to the Union (a plan that required slavery expansion) now looked like a
conspiracy by sectional interests to control national politics. In northern eyes, the
South became a demonic monolith that threatened the national government.
Two COMMUNITIES, Two PERSPECTIVES Ironically, it was their common commitment to expansion that made the argu-
ment between Northerners and Southerners so irreconcilable. Basically, both
North and South believed in manifest destiny, but each on its own terms.
OREGON TERRITORY MINNESOTA
TERRITORY
IOWA
VERMONT MAINE
NEW YORK
PENNSYLVANIA
'"- NEW HAMPSHIRE MASSACHUSETTS
\ RHODE ISLAND
' CONNECTICUT
NEW JERSEY
UNORGANIZED
TERRITORY
WISCONSIN
OHIO
NORTH CAROLINA
TEXAS (annexed to
U.S. 1845)
ARKANSAS Compromise
MEXICO
0„ LOUISIANA
TEXAS (after 1850)
of 1850
SOUTH CAROLINA
TEXAS (claimed 1836-50)
1p TENNESSEE
Free states and territories
Slave states
To be decided by popular sovereignty
— — Missouri Compromise line
NEW MEXICO
TERRITORY
(1850)
Cy' GEORGIA ALABAMA
rn
Gulf of
Mexico
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
I I I 1
Missouri Compromise Line 36 °30'
PACIFIC
OCEAN
CANADA
UTAH TERRITORY
(1850)
INDIANA
DELAWARE
MARYLAND
ILLINOIS
CALIFORNIA
(admitted free, 1850)
INDIAN TERRITORY
MISSOURI
VIRGINIA
C`'
KENTUCKY
R.
MAP 15.2 The Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850, messier and more awkward than the Missouri Compromise of 1820, reflected heightened sectional tensions. California was admitted as a free state, the borders of Texas were settled, and the status of the rest of the former Mexican ter- ritory was left to be decided later by popular sovereignty. No consistent majority voted for the five separate bills that made up the compromise.
WHAT GROUPS opposed the Compromise of 1850? Why?
Similarly, both North and South used the language of basic rights and liberties in the debate over expansion. But free-soilers were speaking of personal liberty,
whereas Southerners meant their right to own a particular kind of property (slaves) and to maintain a way of life based on the possession of that property. In defending its own rights, each side had taken measures that infringed on the rights of the other.
By 1850, North and South had created fixed stereotypes of the other. To antislavery Northerners, the South was an economic backwater dominated by a small slave-owning aristocracy that lived off the profits of forced labor and deprived poor whites of their democratic rights and the fruits of honest work. The slave system was not only immoral but also a drag on the entire nation, for, in the words of Senator William Seward of New York, it subverted the "intelligence, vigor and energy" that were essential for national growth. In contrast, the dynamic and enter- prising commercial North boasted a free-labor ideology that offered economic opportunity to the common man and ensured his democratic rights.
Things looked very different through southern eyes. Far from being eco- nomically backward, the South, through its export of cotton, was, according to Southerners, the great engine of national economic growth from which the North benefited. Slavery was not only a blessing to an inferior race but also the corner- stone of democracy, for it ensured the freedom and independence of all white men without entailing the bitter class divisions that marked the North. Slave own- ers accused northern manufacturers of hypocrisy for practicing "wage slavery" without the paternal benevolence they claimed to bestow on their slaves.
QUICK REVIEW
Regional Stereotypes
• Northern perspective: South an economic backwater dominated by immoral slave owners.
• Southern perspective: North a beneficiary of cotton industry denominated by hypocritical manufacturers.
• By 1850s stereotypes were fixed in many people's minds.
385
In 1850, the three men who had long represented America's three major regions attempted to resolve the political crisis brought on by the applica-
tion of California for statehood. Henry Clay is speaking; John C. Calhoun
stands second from right; and Daniel Webster is seated at the left, with
his head in his hand. Both Clay and Webster were ill, and Calhoun died before the Compromise of 1850 was arranged by a younger group of
politicians led by Stephen A. Douglas.
386 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
myhistdrylab Exploring America: Anthony Burns
Fugitive Slave Law Part of the Compromise of 1850 that required the authorities in the North to assist Southern slave catchers and return runaway slaves to their owners.
By the early 1850s, these vastly different visions of the North and the South—the result of many years of political controversy—had become fixed, and the chances of national reconciliation increasingly slim.
In the country as a whole, the feeling was that the Compromise of 1850 had solved the question of slavery in the territories. The Philadelphia Pennsylvanian was confi- dent that "peace and tranquillity" had been ensured, and the Louisville Journal said that a weight seemed to have been lifted from the heart of America. But many Southern- ers felt that their only real gain in the contested compro- mise was the Fugitive Slave Law, which quickly turned out to be an inflammatory measure.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW
From the early days of their movement, northern abolition- ists had urged slaves to escape, promising assistance and support when they reached the North. Some free African Americans had given far more than verbal support, and most escaped slaves found their most reliable help within northern free black communities. Northerners had long
been appalled by professional slave catchers, who zealously seized African Americans in the North and took them south into slavery again. Most abhorrent in northern eyes was that captured black people were at the mercy of slave catchers because they had no legal right to defend themselves. In more than one case, a free African Amer- ican was captured in his own community and helplessly shipped into slavery.
As a result of stories like this, nine northern states passed personal liberty laws between 1842 and 1850, serving notice that they would not cooperate with federal recapture efforts. These laws enraged Southerners, who had long been convinced that all Northerners, not just abolitionists, were actively hindering efforts to reclaim their escaped slaves. At issue were two distinct definitions of "rights": Northern- ers were upset at the denial of legal and personal rights to escaped slaves.
The Fugitive Slave Law, enacted in 1850, dramatically increased the power of slave owners to capture escaped slaves. The full authority of the federal gov- ernment now supported slave owners, and although fugitives were guaranteed a hearing before a federal commissioner, they were not allowed to testify on their own behalf. Furthermore, the new law imposed federal penalties on citizens who protected or assisted fugitives or who did not cooperate in their return. A num- ber of free northern blacks, estimated at 30,000 to 40,000, emigrated to Canada to avoid the possibility of capture.
In Boston, the center of the American abolitionist movement, reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law was fierce. In the most famous Boston case, a biracial group of armed abolitionists led by Unitarian clergyman Thomas Wentworth Higginson stormed the federal courthouse in 1854 in an attempt to save escaped slave Anthony Burns. The rescue effort failed, and a federal deputy marshal was killed. Presi- dent Pierce sent marines, cavalry, and artillery to Boston to reinforce the guard over Burns and ordered a federal ship to be ready to deliver the fugitive back into slavery. When the effort by defense lawyers to argue for Burns's freedom failed, Bostonians raised money to buy his freedom. But the U.S. attorney, ordered by the president to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law in all circumstances, blocked the pur- chase. The case was lost, and Burns was marched to the docks through streets lined with sorrowing abolitionists. Buildings were shrouded in black and draped with American flags hanging upside down, while bells tolled as if for a funeral.
13-5 De Bow's Review, "The Stability of the Union," (1850)
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 18505 CHAPTER 15
387
In this volatile atmosphere, escaped African Americans wrote and lectured bravely on behalf of freedom. Frederick Douglass, the most famous and eloquent of the fugitive slaves, spoke out fearlessly in support of armed resistance. Openly active in the underground network that helped slaves reach safety in Canada, Douglass him- self had been constantly in danger of capture until his friends bought his freedom in 1847. Harriet Jacobs, who escaped to the North after seven years in hiding in the South, wrote bitterly in her Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) that "I was, in fact, a slave in New York, as subject to slave laws as I had been in a slave state . . . I had been chased during half my life, and it seemed as if the chase was never to end." Threatened by owners who came north for her, Jacobs was forced into hiding while northern white friends arranged her purchase. "A gentleman near me said, 'It's true; I have seen the bill of sale.' The bill of sale!' Those words struck me like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York!"
The Fugitive Slave Law made slavery national and forced northern com- munities to confront the full meaning of slavery. Although most people were still unwilling to grant social equality to the free African Americans who lived in the northern states, more and more had come to believe that the institution of slav- ery was wrong. The strong northern reaction against the Fugitive Slave Law also had consequences in the South. Northern protests against the Fugitive Slave Law bred suspicion in the South and encouraged secessionist thinking. These new currents of public opinion were reflected in the election of 1852.
13-7 George Fitzhugh, "The Blessings of Slavery" (1857)
13-6 Benjamin Drew, Narratives of Escaped Slaves (1855)
14-5
Frederick Douglass, Independence Day Speech (1852)
109512 Recaptured Slave circa 1854 Anthony Burns (1834 - 1862) surrounded by scenes of his capture. He was arrested in Boston in May 1854 on a charge of theft. Recognised as a fugitive slave, his return to Virginia was the cause of riots. After he was bought out of slavery, he later became pastor of a Negro baptist church in St. Catherine's Canada. PHOTO: HULTON GETTY / LIAISON AGENCY
Escaped slave Anthony Burns, shown here surrounded by scenes of his capture in 1854, was the cause of Boston's greatest protest against the Fugitive Slave Law. The injustice of his trial and shipment back to the South converted many Bostonians to the antislavery cause.
CAUTION!! COLORED PEOPLE
OF BOSTON, ONE & AIX You are hereby respectfully CAUTIONED aud
advised, to avoid conversing with the
Watchmen and Police Others of Boston,
For since the recent ORDER OF THE MAYOR Ss ALDERMEN, they are empowered to act as
KIDNAPPERS AND
Slave Catchers, And they have already been actually employed in
KIDNAPPING, CATCHING, AND KEEPING SLAVES. Therefore, if you value your LIBERTY, and the Welfare of the Fugitives among you, Shun them in every possible manner, as no many HOUIVDS on the track of the most unfortunate of your rate.
Keep a Sharp Look Out for KIDNAPPERS, and have
TOP EYE open. APRIL 94, 185L
This handbill warning free African Americans of danger circu- lated in Boston following the first of the infamous recaptures under the Fugitive Slave Law, that of Thomas Sims in 1851.
H
388 a CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S THE ELECTION OF 1852 The first sign of the weakening of the national party system in 1852 was the diffi- culty both parties experienced at their nominating conventions. After fifty-two ballots General Winfield Scott (a military hero like two of the party's previous three candidates), rather than the sitting President Fillmore, was nominated. Many southern Whigs were permanently alienated by the choice; although Whigs were still elected to Congress from the South, their loyalty to the national party was strained to the breaking point.
The Democrats had a wider variety of candidates. Lewis Cass, Stephen Dou- glas, and James Buchanan competed for forty-nine ballots, each strong enough to block the others but not strong enough to win. Finally, the party turned to Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, who was thought to have southern sympathies. Uniting on a platform pledging "faithful execution" of all parts of the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Law, Democrats polled well in the South and in the North. Most Democrats who had voted for the Free-Soil Party in 1848 voted for Pierce. So, in record numbers, did immigrant Irish and German voters, who were eligible for citizenship after three years' residence. The strong immigrant vote for Pierce was a sign of the strength of Democratic Party organizations in northern cities. Pierce easily won the 1852 election, 254 electoral votes to 42.
"YOUNG AMERICA": THE POLITICS OF EXPANSION
Pierce entered the White House in 1853 on a wave of good feeling. This goodwill was soon strained by Pierce's support for the expansionist adventures of the "Young America" movement.
The "Young America" movement began as a group of writers and politicians in the New York Democratic Party who believed in the democratic and national- istic promise of "manifest destiny." By the 1850s, however, their lofty goals had shrunk to a desire to conquer Central America and Cuba. During the Pierce administration, several private "filibusters" (from the Spanish filibuster°, meaning an "adventurer" or "pirate") invaded Caribbean and Central American countries, usually with the declared intention of extending slave territory.
The Pierce administration, not directly involved in the filibustering, was deeply involved in an effort to obtain Cuba. In 1854, Pierce authorized his minister to Spain, Pierre Soule, to try to force the unwilling Spanish to sell Cuba for $130 million. Soule met in Ostend, Belgium, with the American ministers to France and England, John Mason and James Buchanan, to compose the offer. At first appealing to Spain to rec- ognize the deep affinities between the Cubans and American Southerners that made them "one people with one destiny," the document went on to threaten to "wrest" Cuba from Spain if necessary. This amazing document, which became known as the Ostend Manifesto, was supposed to be secret but was soon leaked to the press. Deeply embarrassed, the Pierce administration was forced to repudiate it.
In another expansionist gesture in another direction, President Franklin Pierce dispatched Commodore Matthew Perry across the Pacific to Japan, a nation famous for its insularity and hostility to outsiders. The mission resulted in 1854 in a commercial treaty that opened Japan to American trade.
Overall, however, the complicity between the Pierce administration and proslavery expansionists was foolhardy and lost it the northern goodwill with which it had begun. The sectional crisis that preceded the Compromise of 1850 had made obvious the danger of reopening the territorial issue. Ironically, it was not the Young America expansionists but the prime mover of the Compromise of 1850, Stephen A. Douglas, who reignited the sectional struggle over slavery
expansion.
QUICK REVIEW
The Fugitive Slave Act
♦ Enacted in 1850.
♦ Increased the power of slave own- ers to recapture slaves.
♦ Federal government backed rights of slave owners.
x au _
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S CHAPTER 15 a 389
i
THE CRISIS OF THE NATIONAL PARTY SYSTEM
n 1854, Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act, proposing to open those lands that had been the northern part of Indian Territory to American
settlers under the principle of popular sovereignty. He thereby reopened the question of slavery in the territories. Douglas knew he was taking a political risk, but he believed he could satisfy both his expansionist aims and his presidential ambitions. He was wrong: he pushed the national party system into crisis, first killing the Whigs and then destroying the Democrats.
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
In a stunning example of the expansionist pressures generated by the market rev- olution, Stephen Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act to further the con- struction of a transcontinental railroad across what was still considered the "Great American Desert" to California. Douglas wanted the rail line to terminate in Chicago, in his own state of Illinois, rather than in the rival St. Louis, but for that to happen, the land west of Iowa and Missouri had to be organized into territories (the first step toward statehood). To get Congress to agree to the organization of the territo- ries, however, Douglas needed the votes of southern Democrats, who were unwill- ing to support him unless the territories were open to slavery (see Map 15.3).
The Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, but it badly strained the major political parties. Southern Whigs voted with southern Democrats in favor of the measure; northern Whigs rejected it absolutely, creating an irreconcilable split that left Whigs unable to field a presidential candidate in 1856. The damage to the Demo- cratic Party was almost as great. In the congressional elections of 1854, northern Democrats lost two-thirds of their seats (a drop from ninety-one to twenty-five), giv- ing the southern Democrats (who were solidly in favor of slavery extension) the
dominant voice both in Congress and within the party. Douglas had committed one of the greatest miscalculations in American polit-
ical history. A storm of protest arose throughout the North. Douglas, who confidently
WHAT EXPLAINS the end of the
Second American Party System and
the rise of the Republican Party?
myhisttkylab Review Summary
Kansas-Nebraska Act Law passed in 1854 creating the Kansas and Nebraska Territories but leaving the question of slavery open to residents, thereby repealing the Missouri Compromise.
A Japanese painting shows Commodore Matthew Perry landing in Japan in 1853. The commercial treaty Perry signed with the Japanese gov- ernment, which opened a formerly closed country to American trade, was viewed in the United States as another fruit of manifest destiny.
"The Landing of Commodore Perry in Japan in 1853." (Detail) Japanese, Edo period, 19th century. Handscroll; ink and color on paper, 10 7/8 x 211 1/8 in. (27.6 x 536.3 cm).
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, RES.11.6054. Photograph 2006 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
......
:Lt.; )
QUICK REVIEW
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
♦ Passed in 1854.
* Made the status of slavery in new territories subject to the principal of popular sovereignty.
♦ Act aroused storm of protest in the North.
4.4 14-6
Kansas Begins to Bleed 711, (1856)
390 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
This engraving shows "Border Ruffians"
from Missouri lining up to vote for slav-
ery in the Kickapoo, Kansas Territory,
election of 1855. The widespread prac- tice of illegal voting and of open vio-
lence earned Kansas the dreadful nick-
name of "Bleeding Kansas."
believed that "the people of the North will sustain the measure when they come to understand it," found himself shouted down more than once at public rallies when he tried to explain the bill.
The Kansas-Nebraska bill shifted a crucial sector of northern opinion: the wealthy merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, called the "Cotton Whigs," who had economic ties with southern slave owners and had always disapproved of abolitionist activity. Convinced that the bill would encourage antislavery feeling in the North, Cot- ton Whigs urged southern politicians to vote against it, only to be ignored. Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act convinced many north- ern Whigs that compromise with the South was impossible.
In Kansas in 1854, hasty treaties were concluded with the Indian tribes who owned the land. Some, such as the Kickapoos, Shawnees, Sauks, and Foxes, agreed to relocate to small reserva- tions. Others, like the Delawares, Weas, and Iowas, agreed to sell their lands to whites. Once the treaties were signed, both proslavery and antislavery white settlers began to pour in, and the battle was on.
"BLEEDING KANSAS"
The first to claim land in Kansas were residents of nearby Missouri, itself a slave state. Missourians took up land claims, established proslavery strongholds such as the towns of Leavenworth, Kickapoo, and Atchison, and repeatedly and bla- tantly swamped Kansas elections with Missouri votes. In 1855, in the second of sev- eral notoriously fraudulent elections, 6,307 ballots were cast in a territory that had fewer than 3,000 eligible voters. Most of the proslavery votes were cast by "border ruffians," as they proudly called themselves, from Missouri.
Northerners quickly responded. The first party of New Englanders arrived in the summer of 1854 and established the free-soil town of Lawrence, named for former "Cotton Whig" Amos Lawrence, who financed them. More than a thousand others had joined them by the following summer. Many northern migrants were Free-Soilers, and many were religious reformers as well. The contrast of values between them and the border ruffians was almost total.
Kansas soon became a bloody battleground as the two factions struggled to secure the mandate of "popular sovereignty." Free-Soilers in Lawrence received shipments of heavy crates, innocuously marked "BOOKS" but actually containing Sharps repeating rifles, sent by eastern supporters. For their part, the border ruf- fians called for reinforcements.
In the summer of 1856, these lethal preparations exploded into open warfare. First, proslavery forces burned and looted the town of Lawrence. In retaliation, a grim old man named John Brown led his sons in a raid on the proslavery settlers of Pottawatomie Creek, killing five unarmed people. A wave of violence ensued. Armed bands roamed the countryside, and burnings and killings became commonplace.
The rest of the nation watched in horror as the residents of Kansas slaugh- tered each other in the pursuit of sectional goals. Americans' pride in their nation's great achievements was threatened by the endless violence in one small part—but a part that increasingly seemed to represent the divisions of the whole.
THE POLITICS OF NATIVISM
The violence in Kansas was echoed by increasing violence in the nation's cities. Seri- ous violence marred the elections of 1854 and 1856 in New York. In New Orleans, anger over corrupt elections caused a self-appointed vigilance committee to erect barricades in Jackson Square in the heart of the city, where they skirmished for five
PACIFIC
OCEAN
CALIFORNIA
OREGON TERRITORY
(1848)
UTAH TERRITORY INDIANA
(1850) ILLINOIS
44 KANSAS 1854)
TERRITORY 0\"' R, (
MISSOURI KENTUCKY
NEW MEXICO /,.. TENNESSEE CAROLINA
NORTH Missouri Compromise Line 36°30'
INDIAN TERRITORY TERRITORY ARKANSAS SOUTH
(1850) (unorganized)
t14 CAROLINA
GEORGIA
,.. TEXAS ....
,,, ALABAMA .,
LOUISIANA GADSDEN PURCHASE
(1853)
NEBRASKA TERRITORY
(1854)
MINNESOTA TERRITORY
(1849) WISCONSIN
-1?
IOWA
MICHIGAN
OHIO
VIRGINIA
RHODE ISLAND
PENNSYLVANIA CONNECTICUT
NEW JERSEY
DELAWARE
MARYLAND
0,
VERMONT MAINE
NEW HAMPSHIRE
MASSACHUSETTS NEW YORK
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Free states and territories
[Al Slave states n To be decided by popular sovereignty, Compromise of 1850
To be decided by popular sovereignty, Kansas-Nebraska Act
— — Missouri Compromise line
I I
I I
CANADA WASHINGTON
TERRITORY (1853)
4 Gu lf of
el-1 Mexico (N 0
MAP 15.3 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, proposed by Steven A. Douglas in 1854, opened the central and northern Great Plains to settlement. The act had two major faults: it robbed Indian peoples of half the territory guaranteed to them by treaty and, because it
repealed the Missouri Compromise line, it opened up the lands to warring proslavery and antislavery factions.
WHY DID the act provoke such a passionate response from antislavery activists?
days with an opposing force composed largely of Catholics and immigrants. In Chicago, riots started in 1855, when the mayor attempted to close the saloons on Sun- day. German workingmen joined by Irishmen and Swedes paraded in protest and were met by 200 men of the National Guard, militia, and special police. The ensu- ing "Lager Beer Riots" ended with the imposition of martial law on the entire city.
This urban violence, like that in Kansas, was caused by the breakdown of the two-party system. The breakup of the Whig Party left a political vacuum that was filled by one of the strongest bursts of nativism, or anti-immigrant feeling, in Amer- ican history, and by the rapid growth of the new American Party, which formed in 1850 to give political expression to nativism. The new party was in part a reac- tion to the Democratic Party's success in capturing the support of the rapidly growing population of mostly Catholic foreign-born voters. Irish immigrants in par- ticular voted Democratic, both in reaction to Whig hostility (as in Boston) and because of their own antiblack prejudices.
The reformist and individualistic attitudes of many Whigs inclined them
toward nativism. Many Whigs disapproved of the new immigrants because they were poor, Catholic, and often disdainful of the temperance movement. Moreover nativist Whigs held immigration to be solely responsible for the increases in crime and the rising cost of relief for the poor that accompanied the astoundingly rapid urban growth of the 1830s and 1840s (see Chapter 13).
myhistcPylab Exploring America: The Unwelcome Mat
39 1
This nighttime meeting of supporters of the Know-Nothing Party in New York City was dramatically spotlighted by a new device borrowed from the theater, an incandescent calcium light, popularly called a limelight.
AY' 4
7 4 6
5 6
4 2 13 23 11
9 0-
5 35 5 13
27 6 —7 —3
'8
PACIFIC OCEAN
Gulf of Mexico
Nonvoting territories
3
.4TLANTIC OCEAN
Electoral Vote
(%)
JAMES BUCHANAN 174
(Democrat) (59)
John C. Fremont 114
(Republican) (39)
Millard Fillmore 8
(American) (3)
MAP 15.4 The Election of 1856 Because three parties contested the 1856 election, Democrat James Buchanan was a minority president. Although Buchanan alone had national support, Republican John Fremont won most of the free states, and Millard Fillmore of the American Party gained 40 percent of the vote in most of the slave states.
WHAT GROUPS constituted Buchanan's political base?
Popular Vote
(%)
1,832,955
(45)
1,339,932
(33)
871,731
(22)
392
CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
Nativism drew former Whigs, especially young men in white-collar and skilled blue-collar occupations, to the new American Party. At the core of the party were several secret fraternal societies open only to native-born Protestants. When questioned about their beliefs, party members maintained secrecy by answering, "I know nothing"—hence, the popu- lar name for American Party members, the Know-Nothings.
Know-Nothings scored startling victories in northern state elections in 1854, winning control of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40 percent of the vote in Penn- sylvania. But in the 1850s, no party could ignore slavery, and in 1855, the American Party split into northern (anti- slavery) and southern (proslavery) wings. Soon after this split, many people who had voted for the Know-Nothings shifted their support to another new party, one that com- bined many characteristics of the Whigs with a westward- looking, expansionist, free-soil policy. This was the Republican Party, founded in 1854.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND THE ELECTION OF 1856
Many constituencies found room in the new Republican Party. Its supporters included many former northern Whigs who opposed slavery absolutely, many Free-Soil Party sup- porters who opposed the expansion of slavery but were will- ing to tolerate it in the South, and many northern reformers concerned about temperance and Catholicism. The Repub- licans also attracted the economic core of the old Whig Party—the merchants and industrialists who wanted a strong national government to promote economic growth by sup- porting a protective tariff, transportation improvements, and cheap land for western farmers.
The immediate question facing the nation in 1856 was which new party, the Know-Nothings or the Republicans, would emerge the stronger. But the more important question was whether the Demo- cratic Party could hold together. The two strongest contenders for the Democratic nomination were President Pierce and Stephen A. Dou- glas. Douglas had proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Pierce had actively supported it. But it was precisely their support of this act that made Northerners oppose both of them. The Kansas-Nebraska Act's divisive effect on the Democratic Party now became clear: no one who had voted on the bill, either for or against, could satisfy both wings of the party. A compromise candidate was found in James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, the "northern man with southern principles." Luckily for him, he had been ambassador to Great Britain at the time of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and, thus, had not had to commit himself.
The election of 1856 appeared to be a three-way contest that pit- ted Buchanan against explorer John C. Fremont of the Republican Party and the American (Know-Nothing) Party's candidate, former president Millard Fillmore (see Map 15.4). In fact, the election was two separate contests, one in the North and one in the South. The northern race was between Buchanan and Fremont, the southern
1
Brooks Beats Sumner
i n a violent episode on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts suffered permanent injury in a vicious attack by Congressman Preston Brooks
of South Carolina. Trapped at his desk, Sumner was helpless as Brooks beat him so hard with
his cane that it broke. A few days earlier, Sumner had given an insulting antislavery speech.
Using the abusive, accusatory style favored by abolitionists, he had singled out for ridicule Sen-
ator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, charging him with choosing "the harlot, slavery" as his
mistress. Senator Butler was Preston Brooks's uncle; in Brooks's mind, he was simply aveng-
ing an intolerable affront to his uncle's honor.
So far had the behavioral codes of North and South diverged that each man found
his own action perfectly justifiable and the action of the other outrageous. Their atti-
tudes were mirrored in their respective sections. Protest rallies were held in most north-
ern cities; Sumner himself received sympathy letters from hundreds of strangers, all
expressing indignation, as one writer put it,
WHAT WOULD a southern version of this over "the most foul, most damnable and das-
tardly attack," and sympathetic illustrations
like this one appeared in northern papers.
In contrast, southern newspapers almost
unanimously supported Brooks, regarding it as a well-deserved whipping for an intol-
erable insult. A group of Charleston merchants even bought Brooks a new cane inscribed:
"Hit him again." ■
SOUTHERN CHIVALRY— ARCUMENTvERsus CLUB'S.
episode look like? Which version is "true"?
393
NK LiES/4/0
= 1 74 24 ••• " =
•••• ■•■.• •
was sworn
These sympathetic portraits of Harriet and Dred Scott and their daughters in 1857 helped to shape the northern reac- tion to the Supreme Court's decision that denied the Scotts' claim to freedom. The infamous Dred Scott decision was intended to resolve the issue of slavery expansion but instead heightened angry feelings in both North and South.
a394 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S one between Buchanan and Fillmore. Buchanan won the election with only 45 per-
cent of the popular vote, because he was the only national candidate. But the Repub-
licans, after studying the election returns, claimed "victorious defeat," for they
realized that in 1860, the addition of just two more northern states to their total
would mean victory. Furthermore, the Republican Party had clearly defeated the
American Party in the battle to win designation as a major party. These were grounds
for great optimism—and great concern—for the Republican Party was a sectional,
rather than a national, party; it drew almost all its support from the North. South-
erners viewed its very existence as an attack on their vital interests. Thus, the rapid
rise of the Republicans posed a growing threat to national unity.
THE DIFFERENCES DEEPEN
A lthough James Buchanan firmly believed that he alone could hold together a nation so split by hatred and violence, his self-confidence outran his abil-ities. He was so deeply indebted to the strong southern wing of the Democratic Party that he could not take the impartial actions necessary to heal "Bleed-
ing Kansas." And his support for a momentous pro-southern decision by the Supreme
Court further aggravated sectional differences.
THE DRED SCOTT DECISION In Dred Scott y. Sandford, decided on March 6, 1857, two days after James Buchanan
in, a southern-dominated Supreme Court attempted—and failed—to
solve the political controversy over slavery. Dred Scott had been a slave
all his life. His owner, army surgeon John Emerson, had taken Scott on
his military assignments during the 1830s to Illinois (a free state) and Wis-
consin Territory (a free territory, north of the Missouri Compromise
line). During that time, Scott married another slave, Harriet, and their
daughter Eliza was born in free territory. Emerson and the Scotts then
returned to Missouri (a slave state) and there, in 1846, Dred Scott sued
for his freedom and that of his wife and his daughter born in Wisconsin
Territory (who as women had no legal standing of their own) on the
grounds that residence in free lands had made them free. It took eleven
years for the case to reach the Supreme Court, and by then its importance
was obvious to everyone.
Declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional ChiefJustice
Roger B. Taney asserted that the federal government had no right to inter-
fere with the free movement of property throughout the territories. He
then dismissed the Dred Scott case on the grounds that only citizens could
bring suits before federal courts and that black people—slave or free were
not citizens. With this bold judicial intervention into the most heated issue
of the day, Taney intended to settle the controversy over the expansion of
slavery once and for all. Instead, he inflamed the conflict.
The five southern members of the Supreme Court concurred in
Taney's decision, as did one Northerner, Robert C. Grier. Historians have
found that President-elect Buchanan had pressured Grier, a fellow Penn-
sylvanian, to support the majority. Two of the three other Northerners vig-
orously dissented, and the last voiced other objections. This was clearly a
sectional decision, and the response to it was sectional. Southerners
expressed great satisfaction and strong support for the Court.
Northerners disagreed. Many were so troubled by the Dred Scott deci-
sion that, for the first time, they found themselves seriously questioning
the power of the Supreme Court to establish the "law of the land." The
Know-Nothings Name given to the antiimmigrant party formed from the wreckage of the Whig Party and some disaffected Northern democrats in 1854.
Republican Party Party that emerged in the 1850s in the aftermath of the
bitter controversy over the Kansas-
Nebraska Act, consisting of former
Whigs, some Northern Democrats,
and many Know-Nothings.
WHAT WAS the outcome of the
Dred Scott decision?
myhistociylab Review Summary
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S CHAPTER 15 Eli 395 New York legislature passed a resolution declaring that the Supreme Court had lost the confidence and respect of the people of that state and another resolution refusing to allow slavery within its borders "in any form or under any pretense, or for any time, how- ever short."
THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION In Kansas, the doctrine of popular sovereignty led to continuing civil strife and the polit- ical travesty of two territorial governments. The first election of officers to a territor- ial government in 1855 produced a lopsided proslavery outcome that was clearly the result of illegal voting by Missouri border ruffians. Free-Soilers protested by forming their own government, giving Kansas both a proslavery territorial legislature in Lecomp- ton and a Free-Soil government in Topeka.
Free-Soil voters boycotted a June 1857 election of representatives to a conven- tion called to write a constitution for the territory once it reached statehood. As a result, the convention had a proslavery majority that wrote the proslavery Lecomp- ton constitution and then applied to Congress for admission to the Union under its terms. In the meantime, in October, Free-Soil voters had participated in relatively honest elections for the territorial legislature, elections that returned a clear Free- Soil majority. Nevertheless, Buchanan, in the single most disastrous mistake of his administration, endorsed the proslavery constitution, because he feared the loss of the support of southern Democrats. It seemed that Kansas would enter the Union as a sixteenth slave state, making the number of slave and free states equal.
Unexpected congressional opposition came from none other than Stephen Douglas, author of the legislation that had begun the Kansas troubles in 1854. Now, in 1857, in what was surely the bravest step of his political career, Douglas opposed the Lecompton constitution on the grounds that it violated the princi- ple of popular sovereignty. He insisted that the Lecompton constitution must be voted on by Kansas voters in honest elections. Defying James Buchanan, the pres- ident of his own party, Douglas voted with the majority in Congress in April 1858 to refuse admission to Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. In a new refer- endum, the people of Kansas also rejected the Lecompton constitution, 11,300 to 1,788. Kansas was finally admitted as a free state in January 1861.
THE PANIC OF 1857 Adding to the growing political tensions was the short, but sharp, depression of 1857 and 1858. Technology played a part. In August 1857, the failure of an Ohio invest- ment house—the kind of event that had formerly taken weeks to be widely known— was the subject of a news story flashed immediately over telegraph wires to Wall Street and other financial markets. A wave of panic selling ensued, leading to business fail- ures and slowdowns that threw thousands out of work. The major cause of the panic was a sharp, but temporary, downturn in agricultural exports to Britain, and recov-
ery was well under way by early 1859. Because it affected cotton exports less than northern exports, the Panic of 1857
was less harmful to the South than to the North. Southerners took this as proof of the superiority of their economic system to the free-labor system of the North.
It seemed that all matters of political discussion were being drawn into the
sectional dispute. The next step toward disunion was an act of violence perpe-
trated by the grim abolitionist from Kansas, John Brown.
JOHN BROWN'S RAID In the heated political mood of the late 1850s, some improbable people became heroes. None was more improbable than John Brown, the self-appointed avenger who had slaughtered unarmed proslavery men in Kansas in 1856. In 1859, Brown
V. 14-8 Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
QUICK REVIEW
The Dred Scott Decision
1857 attempt by Supreme Court to solve the political controversy over slavery.
▪ Court ruled that slaves were property and government could not restrain free movement of property.
• Decision invalidated the Missouri Compromise.
Bleeding Kansas Violence between pro- and antislavery forces in Kansas Territory after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.
Dred Scott decision Supreme Court ruling, in a lawsuit brought by Dred Scott, a slave demanding his freedom based on his residence in a free state, that slaves could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress had no jurisdiction over slavery in the territories.
Lecompton constitution Proslavery draft written in 1857 by Kansas territorial delegates elected under questionable circumstances; it was rejected by two governors, supported by President Buchanan, and decisively defeated by Congress.
Panic of 1857 Banking crisis that caused a credit crunch in the North; it was less severe in the South, where high cotton prices spurred a quick recovery.
396 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
OVERVIEW Political Parties Split and Realign Ran its last presidential candidate in 1852. The candidate, General Winfield Scott, alienated many southern Whigs, and the party was so split it could not field a candidate in 1856.
Remained a national party through 1856, but Buchanan's actions as president made southern domination of the party so clear that many northern Democrats were alienated. Stephen Douglas, running as a northern Democrat in 1860, won 29 percent of the popular vote; John Breckinridge, running as a southern Democrat, won 18 percent.
Antislavery party; ran James G. Birney for president in 1844. He won 62,000 votes, largely from northern antislavery Whigs.
Ran Martin Van Buren, former Democratic president, in 1848. Gained 10 percent of the popular vote, largely from Whigs but also from some northern Democrats.
Nativist party made striking gains in 1854 congressional elections, attracting both northern and southern Whigs. In 1856, its presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, won 21 percent of the popular vote.
Founded in 1854. Attracted many northern Whigs and northern Democrats. Presidential candidate John C. Fremont won 33 percent of the popular vote in 1856; in 1860, Abraham Lincoln won 40 percent and was elected in a four-way race.
Whig Party
Democratic Party
Liberty Party
Free-Soil Party
American (Know-Nothing) Party
Republican Party
myhistd ylab Overview: Political Parties Split and Realign
proposed a wild scheme to raid the South and start a general slave uprising. He
believed that discontent among southern slaves was so great that such an uprising
needed only a spark to get going. On October 16, 1859, Brown led a group of twenty-
two white and African American men against the arsenal. In less than a day, the raid
was over. Eight of Brown's men (including two of his sons) were dead, no slaves had
joined the fight, and Brown himself was captured. Moving quickly to prevent a lynch-
ing by local mobs, the state of Virginia tried and convicted Brown (while he was still
weak from the wounds of battle) of treason, murder, and fomenting insurrection.
Brown's death by hanging on December 2, 1859, was marked throughout
northern communities with public rites of mourning not seen since the death of
George Washington. Church bells tolled, buildings were draped in black, ministers
preached sermons, prayer meetings were held, abolitionists issued eulogies. Naturally,
not all Northerners supported Brown's action. But many people, while rejecting
Brown's raid, increasingly supported the antislavery cause that he represented.
Brown's raid shocked the South because it aroused the fear of slave rebellion.
Southerners believed that northern abolitionists were provoking slave revolts, a sus-
picion apparently confirmed when documents captured at Harpers Ferry revealed
that Brown had the financial support of half a dozen members of the northern elite.
Even more shocking to Southerners than the raid itself was the extent of north-
ern mourning for Brown's death. Although the Republican Party disavowed Brown's
actions, Southerners simply did not believe the party's statements. Senator Robert
Toombs of Georgia warned that the South would "never permit this Federal govern-
ment to pass into the traitorous hands of the Black Republican party." Talk of seces-
sion as the only possible response became common throughout the South.
WHY DID the South secede
following the Republican Party
victory in the election of 1860?
THE SOUTH SECEDES
y 1860, sectional differences had caused one national party, the Whigs, to col-
lapse. The second national party, the Democrats, stood on the brink of dis-
solution. Not only the politicians but also ordinary people in both the North
myhistdiylab and the South were coming to believe there was no way to avoid what in 1858 William Review Summary Seward (once a Whig, now a Republican) had called an "irrepressible conflict."
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S CHAPTER 15 397
THE ELECTION OF 1860
The split of the Democratic Party into northern and southern wings that had occurred during President Buchanan's tenure became official at the Democratic nominating conventions in 1860. The party convened first in Charleston, South Carolina. Although Stephen Douglas had the support of the plurality of delegates, he did not have the two-thirds majority nec-
essary for nomination. As the price of their support, Southerners insisted that Douglas support a federal slave code—a guarantee that slavery would be protected in the territories. Douglas could not agree without violating his own belief in popular sovereignty and losing his northern support.
After ten days, the convention ended where it had begun: deadlocked.
Northern supporters of Douglas were angry and bitter: "I never heard Abo- litionists talk more uncharitably and rancorously of the people of the South than the Douglas men," one reporter wrote. 'They say they do not care a damn where the South goes."
In June, the Democrats met again in Baltimore. The Douglasites, rec- ognizing the need for a united party, were eager to compromise wherever they could, but most southern Democrats were not. More than a third of the delegates bolted. Later, holding a convention of their own, they nominated Buchanan's vice presi- dent, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The remaining two-thirds of the Democ-
rats nominated Douglas, but everyone knew that a Republican victory was inevitable. To make matters worse, some southern Whigs joined with some border-state nativists
to form the Constitutional Union Party, which nominated John Bell of Tennessee. Republican strategy was built on the lessons of the 1856 "victorious defeat."
The Republicans planned to carry all the states Fremont had won, plus Pennsylva- nia, Illinois, and Indiana. The two leading Republican contenders were Senator William H. Seward of New York and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Seward, the party's best- known figure, had enemies among party moderates, who thought he was too radical, and among nativists with whom he had clashed in the New York Whig Party. Lincoln, on the other hand, appeared new, impressive, more moderate than Seward, and certain to carry Illinois. Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot.
The election of 1860 presented voters with one of the clearest choices in Amer- ican history. On the key issue of slavery, Breckinridge supported its extension to the territories; Lincoln stood firmly for its exclusion. Douglas attempted to hold the mid- dle ground with his principle of popular sovereignty; Bell vaguely favored compro- mise as well. Although they spoke clearly against the extension of slavery, Republicans sought to dispel their radical abolitionist image. The Republican platform con- demned John Brown's raid as "the gravest of crimes," repeatedly denied that Republicans favored the social equality of black people, and strenuously affirmed that they sought to preserve the Union. In reality, Republicans simply did not believe
the South would secede if Lincoln won. The only candidate who spoke urgently and openly about the impending
threat of secession was Douglas. Breaking with convention, Douglas campaigned personally, in both the North and, bravely, in the hostile South. Realizing his own chances for election were slight, he told his private secretary, "Mr. Lincoln is the
next President. We must try to save the Union. I will go South." In accordance with tradition, Lincoln did not campaign for himself, but many
other Republicans spoke for him. The Republicans did not campaign in the South; Breckinridge did not campaign in the North. Each side was, therefore, free to believe
the worst about the other. The mood in the Deep South was close to mass hysteria. Rumors of slave
revolts swept the region, and vigilance committees sprang up to counter the
In a contemporary engraving, John Brown and his followers are shown trapped inside the armory at Harpers Ferry in October 1859. Captured, tried, and exe- cuted, Brown was regarded as a martyr in the North and a terrorist in the South.
Constitutional Union Party National party formed in 1860, mainly by former Whigs, that emphasized allegiance to the Union and strict enforcement of all national legislation.
8
5 35 13 4 5 5
6
4 27
13 23 8 -."3 15 3
12
12
PACIFIC .
OCEAN
10
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Gulf of Mexico
Nonvoting millEr,-A, territories
11 9
a398 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 18508
Electoral Vote Popular Vote
(%) (%)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
180 1,865,593
(Republican)
(59) (40)
John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrat)
72 848,356
(24) (18)
John Bell
39 592,906
(Constitutional Union)
(13) (13)
Stephen A. Douglas
(Northern Democrat)
12 1,382,713
(4) (29)
States that Republicans
lost in 1856, won in 1860 All.1.111111111.111111111 MAP 15.5 The Election of 1860 The election of 1860 was a sectional election.
Lincoln won no votes in the South, Breckinridge none in the North. The
contest in the North was between Lincoln and Douglas, and although
Lincoln swept the electoral vote, Douglas's popular vote was uncomfort-
ably close. The large number of northern Democratic voters opposed to
Lincoln was a source of political trouble for him during the Civil War.
WHAT DO the results of the election of 1860 tell us about support for Lincoln in the North on the eve of
the Civil War?
supposed threat. In the South Carolina up-country, the question of secession dominated races for the state legis- lature. Candidates such as A. S. Wallace of York, who advo- cated "patriotic forbearance" if Lincoln won, were soundly defeated. The very passion and excitement of the election campaign moved Southerners toward extremism.
The election of 1860 produced the second highest voter turnout in U.S. history. The election turned out to be two regional contests: Breckinridge versus Bell in the South, Lin- coln versus Douglas in the North. Lincoln won all eighteen of the free states (he split New Jersey with Douglas) and almost
40 percent of the popular vote. Douglas carried only Missouri but gained nearly 30 percent of the popular vote. Lincoln's electoral vote total was overwhelming: 180 to a combined 123 for the other three candidates. But although Lincoln had won 54 percent of the vote in the northern states, his name had not even appeared on the ballot in ten southern states. The true winner of the 1860 election was sectionalism (see Map 15.5).
THE SOUTH LEAVES THE UNION
The results of the election shocked Southerners. They were humiliated and frightened by the prospect of becoming a permanent minority in a political system dominated by a party pledged to the elimination of slavery. In southern eyes, the Republican triumph meant they would become unequal partners in the federal enterprise, their way of life (the slave system) existing on borrowed time. Mary Boykin Chesnut, member of a well-connected South Carolina family, con- fided to her diary, "The die is cast—no more vain regrets— sad forebodings are useless. The stake is life or death."
The governors of South Carolina, Alabama, and Missis- sippi, each of whom had committed his state to secession if Lincoln were elected, immediately issued calls for special state conventions. At the same time, calls went out to south- ern communities to form vigilance committees and volunteer militia companies. Cooperationists (the term used for those
opposed to immediate secession) were either intimidated into silence or simply left behind by the speed of events.
On December 20, 1860, a state convention in South Carolina, accompanied by all the hoopla and excitement of bands, fireworks displays, and huge rallies, voted unanimously to secede from the Union. In the weeks that followed, conventions in six other southern states (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) followed suit, with the support, on average, of 80 percent of their delegates. There was genuine division of opinion in the Deep South, especially in Georgia and Alabama, along customary up-country–low-country lines. Yeoman farmers who did not own slaves and workers in the cities of the South were most likely to favor com- promise with the North. But secessionists constantly reminded both groups that the Republican victory would lead to the emancipation of the slaves and the end of white privilege. And all Southerners, most of whom were deeply loyal to their state and region, believed that Northerners threatened their way of life. Throughout the South, secession occurred because Southerners no longer believed they had a choice.
In every state that seceded, the joyous scenes of South Carolina were repeated as the decisiveness of action replaced the long years of anxiety and tension. People
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THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S CHAPTER 15 399
danced in the streets, most believing the North had no choice but to accept secession peacefully. They ignored the fact that eight other slave states—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas—had not acted, though the latter four states did secede after war broke out (see Map 15.6). Just as Republicans had miscalculated in thinking south- ern threats a mere bluff, so secessionists now miscalculated in believing they would be able to leave the Union in peace.
THE NORTH'S POLITICAL OPTIONS
What should the North do? Buchanan, indecisive as always, did nothing. The decision thus rested with Abraham Lincoln, even before he officially became president. One possibility was compromise, and many proposals were sug- gested, ranging from full adoption of the Breckinridge campaign platform to reinstatement of the Missouri Compromise line. Lincoln cautiously refused them all, making it clear that he would not compromise on the extension of slavery, which was the South's key demand. He hoped, by appearing firm but moderate, to discourage additional southern states from seceding, while giv- ing pro-Union Southerners time to organize. He succeeded in his first aim but not in the second. Lincoln and most of the Republican Party had seriously overestimated the strength of pro-Union sentiment in the South.
A second possibility, suggested by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, was to let the seven seceding states "go in peace." This is what many secessionists expected, but too many Northerners—including Lincoln him- self—believed in the Union for this to happen. As Lincoln said, what was at stake was "the necessity of proving that popular government is not an absur- dity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the government whenever they choose."
The third possibility was force, and this was the crux of the dilemma. Although he believed their action was wrong, Lincoln was loath to go to war to force the seceding states back into the Union. On the other hand, he refused to give up federal powers over military forts and customs posts in the South. These were precisely the powers the seceding states had to command if they were to function as an independent nation. A confrontation was bound to come.
This special edition of the Charleston Mercury was issued on December 20, 1860, the day South Carolina voted to secede from the Union.
114
14-9 Abraham Lincoln, A House
Divided (1858) ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONFEDERACY
In February, delegates from the seven seceding states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and created the Confederate States of America. They wrote a constitution that was iden- tical to the Constitution of the United States, with a few crucial exceptions: it strongly supported states' rights and made the abolition of slavery practically impossible. These two clauses did much to define the Confederate enterprise. L. W. Spratt of South Car- olina confessed as much in 1859: "We stand committed to the South, but we stand more vitally committed to the cause of slavery. It is, indeed, to be doubted whether the South [has] any cause apart from the institution which affects her."
The Montgomery convention chose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as presi- dent and Alexander Stephens of Georgia as vice president of the new nation. Both men were known as moderates. The choice of moderates was deliberate, for the strat- egy of the new Confederate state was to argue that secession was a normal, respon- sible, and expectable course of action, and nothing for the North to get upset about. This was the theme that President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America struck in his Inaugural Address, delivered to a crowd of 10,000 from the steps of the State Capitol at Montgomery, Alabama, on February 18, 1861. Seces- sion was a legal and peaceful step that, Davis said, quoting from the Declaration of Independence, "illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent
Confederate States of America Nation proclaimed in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861, after the seven states of the Lower South seceded from the United States.
400 CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S a OVERVIEW The Irrepressible Conflict
1776 Declaration of Independence
1787 Northwest Ordinance
1787 Constitution
1803 Louisiana Purchase
1820 Missouri Compromise
1846 Wilmot Proviso
1850 Compromise of 1850
1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
1857 Lecompton Constitution
1857 Dred Scott Decision
1859 John Brown's Raid and Execution
1860 Democratic Party Nominating Conventions
Thomas Jefferson's denunciation of slavery deleted from the final version.
Slavery prohibited in the Northwest Territory (north of the Ohio River).
Slavery unmentioned but acknowledged in Article I, Section 2, counting three-fifths of all African Americans, slave and free, in a state's population; and in Article I, Section 9, which barred Congress from prohibiting the international slave trade for twenty years.
Louisiana admitted as a slave state in 1812; no decision about the rest of Louisiana Purchase.
Missouri admitted as a slave state, but slavery prohibited in Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30'.
Proposal to prohibit slavery in territory that might be gained in Mexican-American War causes splits in national parties. California admitted as free state; Texas (already admitted in 1845) is a slave state; the rest of Mexican Cession to be decided by popular sovereignty. Ends the slave trade in the District of Columbia, but a stronger Fugitive Slave Law, leading to a number of violent recaptures, arouses northern antislavery opinion.
At the urging of Stephen A. Douglas, Congress opens Kansas and Nebraska Territories for settlement under popular sovereignty. Open warfare between proslavery and antislavery factions breaks out in Kansas.
President James Buchanan's decision to admit Kansas to the Union with a proslavery constitution is defeated in Congress.
The Supreme Court's denial of Dred Scott's case for freedom is welcomed in the South, condemned in the North.
Northern support for John Brown shocks the South.
The Democrats are unable to agree on a candidate; two candidates, one northern (Stephen A. Douglas) and one southern (John C. Breckinridge) split the party and the vote, thus allowing Republican Abraham Lincoln to win.
myhistc8~i ylab Overview: The Irrepressible Conflict
of the governed . . . and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at
will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."
LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION
The country as a whole waited to see what Abraham Lincoln would do, which
at first appeared to be very little. In Springfield, Lincoln refused to issue pub-
lic statements before his inaugural for fear of making a delicate situation worse.
Similarly, during a twelve-day whistle-stopping railroad trip east from Spring-
field, he was careful to say nothing controversial. Eastern intellectuals, already
suspicious of a mere "prairie lawyer," were not impressed. These signs of
moderation and caution did not appeal to an American public with a penchant
for electing military heroes. Americans wanted leadership and action.
Lincoln continued, however, to offer nonbelligerent firmness and modera-
tion. And at the end of his Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861, as he stood ringed
by federal troops called out in case of a Confederate attack, the new president
offered unexpected eloquence:
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.
QUICK REVIEW
Northern Response to Secession
♦ Buchanan did nothing in response to secession.
*Lincoln refused calls to compro- mise on the question of slavery.
*Lincoln also rejected proposals to let the seven seceding states leave the Union.
NEBRASKA TERRITORY
COLORADO TERRITORY
KANSAS
OHIO INDIANA
ILLINOIS WEST VIRGIN!
MISSOURI KENTUCKY
NEW JERSEY
DELAWARE
-4-- MARYLAND
WASHINGTON, D.C.
IOWA PENNSYLVANIA
INDIAN TERRITORY -, ARKANSAS
--__ May 6, 1861
. TENNESSEE ay 7,186f.
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
SOUTH CAROLINA Dec 20, 1860
SIA1PPI jr. Jan 9, 1861 "VP' is
LOUISIANA Jan 26, 1861
Gulf of Mexico
MEXICO
A FLORIDA
Jan 10, 61 7 Border states (did not secede) Seceded before Fort Sumter
Li] Seceded after Fort Sumter Counties that voted against secession
I I No returns Note: The western counties of Virginia remained loyal to the Union and were admitted as the state of West Virginia in 1863.
MAP EXPLORATION To explore an interactive version of this map, go to httpiAvww.prenhall.com/faraghertIc/map15.6
MAP 15.6 The South Secedes The southern states that would constitute the Confederacy seceded in two stages. The states of the Lower South seceded
before Lincoln took office. Arkansas and three states of the Upper South—Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee—waited until after the South fired on Fort Sumter. And four border slave states—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri—chose not to secede. Every southern
state (except South Carolina) was divided on the issue of secession, generally along up-country–low-country lines. In Virginia, this division was
so extreme that West Virginia split off to become a separate nonslave state admitted to the Union in 1863.
WHY WE E some states quicker to secede than others?
CONCLUSION
Americans had much to boast about in 1850. Their nation was vastly larger, richer, and more powerful than it had been in 1800. But the issue of slav-ery was slowly dividing the North and the South, two communities with sim- ilar origins and many common bonds. The following decade was marked by frantic
efforts at political compromise, beginning with the Compromise of 1850, continu-
ing with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and culminating in the Supreme Court's 1859 decision in the Dred Scott case. Increasingly, the ordinary people of the two re- gions demanded resolution of the crisis. The two great parties of the Second Amer-
ican Party System, the Democrats and the Whigs, unable to find a solution, were
destroyed. Two new sectional parties—the Republican Party and a southern party
devoted to the defense of slavery—fought the 1860 election, but Southerners refused
to accept the national verdict. Politics had failed: the issue of slavery was irreconcil-
able. The only remaining recourse was war. But although Americans were divided,
they were still one people. That made the war, when it came, all the more terrible. 401
402 a CHAPTER 15 THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S
a CHRONOLOGY
Missouri Compromise
Nullification Crisis
Wilmot Proviso
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican- American War
Zachary Taylor elected president
Free-Soil Party formed
1849 California and Utah seek admission to the Union as free states
1850 Compromise of 1850 California admitted as a free state
American (Know-Nothing) Party formed
Zachary Taylor dies; Millard Fillmore becomes president
1851 North reacts to Fugitive Slave Law Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin published
1852 Franklin Pierce elected president
1854 Ostend Manifesto
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Treaties with Indians in northern part of Indian Territory renegotiated
Republican Party formed as Whig Party dissolves
1855 William Walker leads his first filibustering expedition to Nicaragua
1856 Burning and looting of Lawrence, Kansas
John Brown leads Pottawatomie massacre
Attack on Senator Charles Sumner
James Buchanan elected president
1857 Dred Scott decision President Buchanan accepts proslavery Lecompton constitution in Kansas
Panic of 1857
1858 Congress rejects Lecompton constitution
Lincoln—Douglas debates
1859 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
1860 Four parties run presidential candidates
Abraham Lincoln elected president
South Carolina secedes from Union
1861 Six other Deep South states secede Confederate States of America formed
Lincoln takes office
1820
1828-32
1846
1848
REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What aspects of the remarkable economic development of the United
States in the first half of the nineteenth century contributed to the sec-
tional crisis of the 1850s?
2. How might the violent efforts by abolitionists to free escaped slaves who
had been recaptured and the federal armed enforcement of the Fugitive
Slave Law have been viewed differently by northern merchants (the so-
called Cotton Whigs), Irish immigrants, and abolitionists?
3. Consider the course of events in "Bloody Kansas" from Douglas's Kansas-
Nebraska Act to the congressional rejection of the Lecompton constitution.
Were these events the inevitable result of the political impasse in
Washington, or could other decisions have been made that would have
changed the outcome?
4. The nativism of the 1850s that surfaced so strongly in the Know-Nothing
Party was eclipsed by the crisis over slavery. But nativist sentiment has been a recurring theme in American politics. Discuss why it was strong in the
1850s and why it has emerged periodically since then.
5. Evaluate the character and actions of John Brown. Was he the hero pro-
claimed by northern supporters or the terrorist condemned by the South?
6. Imagine that you lived in Illinois, home state to both Douglas and Lincoln, in
1860. How would you have voted in the presidential election, and why?
m hist lab YWhere it's a good time to connect 'to the pia
KEY ERMS
THE COMING CRISIS, THE 1850S CHAPTER 15 AL 403
Bleeding Kansas (p. 395) Compromise of 1850 (p. 383) Confederate States of America
(p. 399) Constitutional Union Party (p. 397) Dred Scott decision (p. 395) Fugitive Slave Law (p. 386)
Kansas-Nebraska Act (p. 389) Know-Nothings (p. 394) Lecompton constitution (p. 395) Lincoln-Douglas debates (p. 380) Panic of 1857 (p. 395) Popular sovereignty (p. 383) Republican Party (p. 394)
myhistOryllab Flashcard Review
RECOMMENDED READING William L. Barney, The Secessionist Impulse: Alabama and Mississippi in 1860
(1974). Covers the election of 1860 and the subsequent conventions that led to secession.
Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (2004). A look at the Kansas issue from the perspective of white settlers.
Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (1978). A major study by the leading historian on this controversial decision.
Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970). One of the first studies to focus on the free labor ideol- ogy of the North and its importance in the political disputes of the 1850s.
William A. Link, Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (2003). Draws connections between the changing circumstances of slavery and pol-
itics in the 1850s.
Robert E. May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (2002). A study of the activities and attitudes toward the adventurers.
David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist (2005). Argues that Brown's extrem- ism became the Civil War norm.
Kenneth M. Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (1990). A study of the "crucial" year by a leading southern historian.
John Stauffer, The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race (2001). Argues that radical abolitionists rejected the gender and racial conventions of their day.
For study resources for this chapter, go to www.myhis' torylab.com and choose Out of Many, Teaching and Learning Classroom Edition. You will find a wealth of study and review material for this chapter, including pretests and posttests, customized study plan, key-term review
flash cards, interactive map and document activities, and documents for analysis.
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