Major Themes
Major national crises in the late 1850s culminated in the election of the Republican Lincoln to the presidency in 1860, resulting in the secession of seven states and the formation of the Confederate States of America
Major Questions
Why was sectional compromise impossible in 1860, when such compromises had previously worked in 1820, 1833, and 1850?
Pre-Reading
What issues, including slavery, seemed to divide North and South by the mid 1850s? List them.
Chapter Outline
Stowe and Helper: Literary Incendiaries
- Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novels Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Upset about the Fugitive Slave law, she was determined to awaken the North to the wickedness of slavery by laying bare its terrible inhumanity. Millions of copies of her book were sold at home and abroad. It was also put on stage. The book actually helped to start and win the Civil War. Uncle Tom left a profound impression on many in the North. Thousands of readers declared they would have nothing to do with enforcing the Fugitive State Law after reading it. Millions of youth that read it became the Boys in Blue who volunteered and fought in the Civil War.
- The Impending Crisis of the South was written by Hinton R. Helper, a nonaristocratic white man from North Caroline, five years after Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Being against slavery and blacks, he tried to statistically prove that nonslaveholding whites were the ones who suffered most from the millstone of slavery. His book was banned in the South but thousands of copies, in condensed form, were distributed as campaign literature by the Republicans.
The North-South Contest for Kansas
Newcomers to Kansas were mostly westward-moving pioneers in search of richer lands beyond the sunset. A small part of the inflow was financed by groups of northern abolitionists or free-soilers. The most famous of these antislavery organizations was the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which sent about 2000 people to the troubled area to forestall the South, and to make a profit. Southern spokesmen raised cries of betrayal. They had supported the Kansas-Nebraska act, with the unspoken understanding that Kansas would become slave and Nebraska free. The northeners were now out to "abolitionize" bothKansas and Nebraska. In 1855, proslavery border ruffians flooded Kansas to vote for a proslavery government, which won. Antislaveryites set up their own government in Topeka.
Kansas in Convulsion
John Brown came to Kansas, dedicated to the abolitionist cause. In retaliation for the attack on Lawrence, he led a band of followers to Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856, and hacked five men who were suspected to be proslaveryites to pieces.
Civil war in Kansas continued intermittently until it merged with the large-scale Civil War of 1861-1865. The Kansas conflict destroyed millions of dollars worth of property, paralyzed agriculture in certain areas, and cost scores of lives.
By 1857 Kansas had enough people, mainly free-soilers, to apply for statehood on a popular sovereignty basis. The proslaveryites created the Lecompton Constitution. People were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as a whole, but for either slavery or antislavery. If they voted against slavery, all the owners of slaves already in Kansas would be protected, thus ensuring that whatever the outcome, slavery would be present in Kansas. Antislaveryites boycotted this, so the proslavery forces approved the contitution with slavery late in 1857.
Buchanan threw his weight behind the Lecompton Constitution, but Douglas fought for fair play and democratic principles. The compromise was that the entire Lecompton Constitution was submitted to a popular vote.
"Bully" Brooks and His Bludgeon
- "Bleeding Kansas" also spattered blood on floor of Senate in 1856. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was a leading abolitionist and one of the most disliked men in the Senate. Made a speech,"The Crime Against Kansas" after miscarriage of popular sovereignty. He condemned the proslavery men and referred insultingly to South Carolina and its Senator Andrew Butler.
- Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina resented the insults to his state and its senator. On May 22, 1856, he approached Sumner and pounded him with an eleven-ounce cane until it broke. Sumner fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor.
- Counteroutrage put Brooks in the wrong, the House of Representatives couldn't muster enough votes to expel Brooks, but he resigned and was triumphantly reelected.
- Sumner was forced to leave his seat for 3.5 years and go to Europe for treatment for injuries to head and nervous system. Meanwhile, MA reelected him, leaving his seat empty. Bleeding Sumner joined Bleeding Kansas as a political issue.
- Free-soil North mightily aroused against "Bully" Brooks, copies of Sumner's speech were sold by the tens of thousands, each blow that struck the senator made thousands of republican votes-->south angered at Sumner's speech and at the North applauding it.
"Old Buck" Versus "The Pathfinder"
- Democrats met in Cincinnati to nominate their presidential standard-bearer of 1856-->shied away from Pierce and Douglas, finally chose James Buchanan, not tainted by the Kansas-Nebraska uproar but in a crisis "Old Buck" Buchanan was mediocre, irresolute, and confused. Democrats pushed popular sovereignty.
- Republicans met in Philadelphia and decided on John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder of the West, without political experience but wasn't tarred with the Kansas brush. platform came out vigorously against the extension of slavery into the territories.
- Antiforeignism was injected into the campaign: recent influx of immigrants from Ireland and Germany had alarmed "nativists". They organized the American party, known also as the Know-Nothing party because of its secretiveness. In 1856, the antiforeign and anti-catholic nominated the ex-president Millard Fillmore and adopted the slogan "Americans Must Rule America."
- Mudslinging bespattered both candidates. "Old Fogy" Buchanan was assailed because he was a bachelor, Fremont reviled because of his illegitimate birth and the allegation that he was a Roman Catholic.
The Electoral Fruits of 1856
- Buchanan, polling less than a majority in popular vote, won handily. tally in Electoral College was 174 to 114(Fremont) and Fillmore getting 8. Popular vote: 1,832,955=Buchanan, 1,339,932=Fremont, 871,731=Fillmore
- Republicans go down to defeat b/c doubts of Fremont's honesty, capacity, sound judgement and treats of southern "fire eaters" that election of a sectional "black republican" would be a declaration of war on them, forcing them to secede.
- many northerners, anxious to save union and business connections with south, intimidated into voting for buchanan-->innate conservatism triumphed
- fortunate for Union that secession and civil war did not come in 1856 following a republican victory, Fremont was no abraham lincoln and north was more willing to let south depart in peace than in 1860
- Republicans in 1856 rightfully claimed a "victorious defeat", the new party had made an astonishing showing against well-oiled democratic machine
