Chapter 15 - The Coming Crisis

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Series of seven debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign during which Douglas and Lincoln staked out their differing opinions on the issue of slavery

I.                    America in 1850

a.       Expansion and Growth

                                                            i.      War and diplomacy caused America to triple in size

                                                          ii.      890,000 square miles to 3 million square miles

                                                         iii.      Population increased from 5.3 million in 1800 to 23 million (4 million African Americans, 2 million immigrants) in 1850

                                                        iv.      16 states in 1800, 31 states in 1850

b.      Politics, Culture, and National Identity

                                                            i.      “Manifest destiny” was a model for liberal revolutions throughout Europe

1.       Italy, France, Germany, Hungary, and parts of Austrian Empire

2.       Lajos Kossuth – famed Hungarian revolutionary; visited the US in 1851

                                                          ii.      American Renaissance

1.       Burst of creative activity in writing

2.       Nathanial Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown”, The Scarlet Letter, and The House of the Seven Gables showed the hypocrisy of Puritan NE

3.       Poets with unrhymed and “off-rhyme” verse: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

4.       Herman Melville: Moby Dick used to critique the evil American society

5.       Frederick Douglas’ autobiography: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas was about his brutal life as a slave

6.       Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851)

a.       Combined the literary style of the then-popular women’s domestic novels with vivid details of slavery culled from firsthand accounts byf northern abolitionists and escaped slaves

b.      Christ-like slave Uncle Tom patiently endured the cruel treatment of his slave-owner Simon Legree

c.       All time American best seller in proportion to population

II.                  Compromise of 1850

a.       Political Parties and Slavery

                                                            i.      Politicians attempted to create an organized party structures that overrode deeply-rooted sectional differences

                                                          ii.      Failed: by 1848, sectional interests were the most important again

                                                         iii.      Religious groups were split based upon opinion of slavery

1.       Presbyterians in 1837, Methodists in 1844, and the Baptists in 1845

                                                        iv.      Theodore Weld, abolitionist leader, said the splits were inevitable

b.      Congressional Debate

                                                            i.      Preceded the Compromise of 1850

1.        Henry Clay (west)

a.       Argued for compromise

2.       John Calhoun (south)

a.       Believed South had the right to secede if necessary

b.      Argued using Nullification Crisis

c.       Congress did not have the right to prohibit slavery in territories because they were common property of all the states

3.       Daniel Webster (north)

a.       Rejected southern claims that secession was possible or desirable

                                                          ii.      President Zachary Taylor died of acute gastroenteritis during the middle of the debate

                                                         iii.      “Slave Power”

1.       Used first by Liberty Party leader James Birney in 1844

2.       Claimed a group of aristocratic slave owners conspired to control federal government and national politics

c.       Two Communities, Two Perspectives

                                                            i.      Both regions (north and south) supported expansion

                                                          ii.      Used basic rights/liberties to defend their opinion on expansion

1.       North spoke of personal liberties

2.       South meant their right own a particular type of property such as slaves

                                                         iii.      Created fixed stereotypes of each other

1.       South was labeled as an “economic backwater” that was dominated by a few slave-owning men  that lived off the profits of forced labor

2.       North was labeled as hypocritical because their factory workers were practically slaves (“wage slavery”) and they relied on goods produced in the south (cotton)

d.      Compromises

                                                            i.      Popular sovereignty

1.       Solution to the slavery crisis suggested by Michigan senator Lewis Cass by which territorial residents, not Congress, would decide slavery’s fate

                                                          ii.      Compromise of 1850

1.       5 separate bills embodying 3 separate compromises

a.       Admitted California as a free state

b.      Allowed the residents of New Mexico and Utah territories to decide the slavery issue for themselves

c.       Ended the slave trade in DC

d.       Passed a new fugitive slave law

e.      Fugitive Slave Act

                                                            i.      North encouraged slaves to escape and promised assistance/support

                                                          ii.      Northern free African Americans were often taken from their community and shipped south back into slavery: Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave

                                                         iii.      Fugitive Slave Law

1.       Required the authorities in the North to assist southern slave catchers and return runaway slaves to their owners

2.       Fugitives were guaranteed a hearing before a federal commissioner

3.       Imposed federal penalties on citizens who protected or assisted fugitives

                                                        iv.      As result, 30,000 to 40,000 Blacks immigrated to upper Canada

                                                          v.      Boston was famous for abolitionists storming into courthouses, retrieving the convicted slave, and sending him or her to Canada; Webster and Filmore called it “mob rule”

1.       Shadrach Minkind

2.       Anthony Burns (failed attempt)

                                                        vi.      Frederick Douglas supported armed resistance

                                                       vii.      More and more northerners thought slavery was wrong and immoral

f.        Election of 1852

                                                            i.      Whigs struggled to find a suitable party-head and finally decided on William Seward of NY

1.       Seward preferred General Winfield Scott, a military hero like the party’s 2 previous candidates, to the pro-Southern Fillmore and managed to get him nominated

                                                          ii.      Democrats had more options

1.       Lewiss Cass, Stephen Douglas, James Buchanan, and Franklin Pierce

2.       Campaigns included pledging “faithful execution” to the Compromise of 1850

                                                         iii.      Democrats received support in North and South

                                                        iv.      Pierce won the election

g.       “Young America” : The Politics of Expansion

                                                            i.      Young American movement began as a group of writers and politicians in the NY Democratic Party who believed in the democratic and nationalistic promise of “manifest destiny”

                                                          ii.      Goals were to conquer Central America and Cuba

                                                         iii.      Private “filibusters” invaded Caribbean and Central American countries, mostly to proclaim the extension of slave territory

                                                        iv.      William Walker

1.       Led 3 invasions of Nicaragua

2.       Regional revolt in 1857

3.       Captured and executed by firing squad in Honduras

                                                          v.      Pierce’s attempts at expansion

1.        authorized minister Pierre Soule to Spain to purchase Cuba for $130 million

2.       Secret Ostend Manifesto, proclaiming the deep affinities between Cuba and America, was leaked and the Pierce administration repealed it

      3. Dispatched Commodore Matthew Perry across the Pacific to Japan, which resulted in a commercial treaty that opened Japan (which was traditionally hostile to outsiders) to American trade in 1854

III.                The Crisis of the National Party System

a.       The Kansas-Nebraska Act

                                                            i.      Law passed in 1854 creating the Kansas and Nebraska territories but leaving the question of slavery open to residents, thereby repealing the Missouri Compromise

                                                          ii.      Introduced by Stephen Douglas in order to further the Transcontinental Railroad to California

                                                         iii.      Strained the political parties: Southern Whigs were in favor, Northern Whigs were not

                                                        iv.      300 anti-Nebraska rallies broke out in the North

                                                          v.      Kansas 1854, Indians either: agreed to relocate to small reservations elsewhere, sold their land to the whites, or kept the western portion of the territory until Gold was discovered there in 1859

b.      “Bleeding Kansas”

                                                            i.      Missourians (proslavery) were the first to migrate and settle in Kansas

1.       Established Leavenworth, Kickapoo, and Atchison

2.       They had many fraudulent elections in attempt to politically control Kansas

3.       Majority were “border ruffians” - crazy, obnoxious frontiersman

                                                          ii.      New Englanders established free-soil towns such as Lawrence

                                                         iii.      Groups were complete opposites and clashed, creating a bloody battleground

1.       Free-Soilers in Lawrence received weapons from eastern supporters in boxes marked “BOOKS”

2.       Border ruffians were already armed and called for reinforcements from the South

                                                        iv.      Border ruffians burned and looted the Free-Soil town of Lawrence

                                                          v.      John Brown, a Free-Soiler, led his sons in a raid of the proslavery areas of Pottawatomie Creek, killing 5 unarmed people

                                                        vi.      Burnings and killings were common and peaceful residents were forced to take refuge at military camps

c.       Politics of Nativism

                                                            i.      Violence throughout the Nation was common (ie. New York, New Orleans, Chicago) and was caused by the sectional breakup of the Whig Party

                                                          ii.      Whigs disapproved of the immigrants

1.       Poor, Catholic, and disdainful of the temperance movement

2.       Did not support revolutions, which many Americans took pride in

3.       Felt they caused an increase in crime and rising cost of relief for the poor

                                                         iii.      Know-Nothings (American Party)

1.       Anti-immigrant party formed from the broken Whig Party and some dissatisfied Northern Democrats in 1854

2.       When questioned about their beliefs, party members maintained secrecy by responding “I know nothing”

3.       Won many northern state elections (ie. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania)

4.       By 1855, the party split based on differing sectional opinions regarding slavery

                                                        iv.      Republican Party

1.       Party that emerged in 1854 in the aftermath of the bitter controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, consisting of former Whigs, northern democrats, and many Know-Nothings

d.      The Republican Party and the Election of 1856

                                                            i.      Adopted the economic views of the old Whig party: merchants and industrialists who wanted a strong national government to promote economic growth

                                                          ii.      The new Republican Party quickly established because of the sectional crisis

                                                         iii.      While the Democrat Party was falling apart due to ill support in the North, the Republican Party and Know-Nothings continued to grow

                                                        iv.      Candidates of 1856 election: Democratic James Buchanan vs. Republican explorer John Fremont vs. Know-Nothing’s Millard Fillmore

                                                          v.      Buchanan won because he was the only national candidate

                                                        vi.      Republicans were close, but accepted “victorious defeat” because they knew they only needed support from 2 more states and would wait it out

IV.                The Differences Deepen

a.       The Dred Scott Decision

                                                            i.      Dred Scott v. Sanford

1.        Dred Scott, a lifelong slave, was taken on military assignments to free states Illinois and Wisconsin by his master John Emerson

2.       Scott met and married another slave named Harriet during that time and they had a daughter named Eliza, who was born in a free territory

3.       Emerson took Scott and his family back to Missouri (slave state) and Scott sued for his freedom as well as his family’s

4.       It took 11 years to reach the Supreme Court

                                                          ii.      Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and asserted that the federal government had no right to interfere with the free movement of property throughout the territories. He then dismissed the Dred Scott case altogether, stating that only citizens could bring suits before federal courts and black people were not considered citizens.

1.       All southern Supreme Court members and one Northerner (Grier) supported Taney’s decision

2.       Historians found that Buchanan had pressured Grier into voting with the majority

                                                         iii.      The Southerners supported this decision while the Northerners disagreed

                                                        iv.      Republicans thought the decision foreshadowed the future expansion of slavery

1.       Both Abraham Lincoln and William Seward accused President Buchanan of conspiring with the southern Supreme Court judges

b.      The Lecompton Constitution

                                                            i.      Proslavery draft written in 1857 by Kansas territorial delegates elected under questionable circumstances

                                                          ii.      It was rejected by two governors, supported by President Buchanan (he wanted to ensure southern Democratic support) , and decisively defeated by Congress (particularly Stephen Douglas; he believed it violated the principle of popular sovereignty and that the Kansas citizens were not represented properly due to fraudulent elections)

                                                         iii.      Kansas was admitted as a Free State in January 1861, causing more bloodshed within the region

1.       Sporadic ambushes and killings

2.       Mass shootings of free-soilers

3.       Free-for-all involving thirty congressman broke out in the House

c.       The Panic of 1857

                                                            i.      Banking crisis that caused a credit crunch in the North; less severe in the South, where high cotton prices spurred a quick recovery

1.       Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina gloated about the South’s economic superiority in his “King Cotton” speech in 1858

                                                          ii.      Technology played a part: in 1857, the failure of an Ohio investment house was broadcasted to Wall Street and other financial markets, resulting in many people frantically selling, causing business failure and unemployment

                                                         iii.      Cause: a sharp, but temporary, downturn in agricultural exports to Britain, and recovery was well under way in early 1859

d.      John Brown’s Raid

                                                            i.      John Brown: Self-proclaimed avenger who slaughtered many proslavery men in Kansas in 1856

                                                          ii.      Brown wanted to cause a slave uprising and believed he would receive support once he sparked the interests of the slaves

                                                         iii.      His attempt, the planned raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, VA, in 1859 failed

1.       Led 22 white and black men against the arsenal, but made no provision to escape

2.       Failed to notify the VA slaves whose uprising he was supposed to initiate

3.       Brown was captured and 8 of his men (2 were his sons) were killed

4.       Brown was tried and convicted of treason, murder, and fomenting insurrection. He was hanged on December 2, 1859

                                                        iv.      Supported the South’s greatest fear- slave rebellion

1.       Documents were found showing Brown received financial support from 6 members of the northern elite, called the “Secret Six”: Gerrit Smith, George Sterns, Franklin Sanborn, Thomas Higginson, Theodore Parker, and Samuel Howe

2.       Northerners mourned for Brown’s death

V.                  The South Secedes

a.       The Election of 1860

                                                            i.      Democrats had trouble choosing a candidate due to sectional debates

1.       Northern Democrats chose Douglas who supported popular sovereignty

2.       Southern Democrats nominated Buchanan’s VP John Breckinridge of Kentucky

3.       Was honestly worried about the secession of the south

                                                          ii.      Constitutional Union Party

1.       National party formed in 1860, mainly by former Whigs, that emphasized allegiance to the Union and strict enforcement of all national legislation

2.       Nominated John Bell of Tennessee who supported compromise

                                                         iii.      Republicans built upon “victorious defeat” and acquired more support  

1.       Nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois who strongly opposed slavery

2.       Condemned John Brown’s Raid

3.       Did not believe south would secede if Lincoln won the presidency

                                                        iv.      Second highest voter turnout in history (81.2%)

                                                          v.      Election was 2 regional contests

1.       Breckinridge vs. Bell in the South

2.       Lincoln vs. Douglas in the North

                                                        vi.      Lincoln won

b.      The South Leaves the Union

                                                            i.      Results of the election humiliated and angered southerners

                                                          ii.      Governors of South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi (who swore to secede if Lincoln was elected President) called immediate state conventions

1.       Conventions were accompanied by bands, firework displays, and huge rallies

2.       Seven states ( South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) voted to secede from the Union with 80% support from their delegates

                                                         iii.      Cooperationists were those opposed to immediate secession, and they were either intimidated into silence of left out of events

                                                        iv.      Northerners hoped that non slave owning southerners (such as Yeoman farmers and city workers) would slow the secession, but most southerners were faithful to their region and believed the Northerners threatened their way of life

c.       The North’s Political Options

                                                            i.      Buchanan did not respond to the secession so Lincoln had to step up before he was inaugurated

1.       Lincoln denied suggested compromises and had faith (a little too much) in the pro-Union sentiment in the South

2.       First option: Give pro-Union members time to mobilize

3.       Second option (suggested by Horace Greeley of the New York Times): Let the seven seceding states “go in peace”. This method was widely unpopular with Lincoln and other Northerners

4.       Third option: Force the seceding states to join the Union again through war

                                                          ii.      Lincoln decided to wait for the South to “strike the first blow”

d.      Establishment of the Confederacy

                                                            i.      Delegates from the seven seceding states met in Alabama to create the Confederate States of America and establish a new constitution

1.       Constitution was almost identical to the US Constitution

2.       Differences: Strongly supported states’ rights and made the abolition of slavery practically impossible

                                                          ii.      Confederate States of America

1.       Nation proclaimed in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861, after the seven stated of the Lower South seceded from the US

                                                         iii.      Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was chose as President and Alexander Stephens of Georgia was chosen  as VP (both men were known as moderates)

                                                        iv.      In Davis’ Inaugural address, he stated that secession was a legal and acceptable course of action and the North should not get upset about it. It was simply progress.

e.      Lincoln’s Inauguration

                                                            i.      Before his inaugural address, Lincoln was careful not to say anything controversial and worsen the already delicate situation

                                                          ii.      These signs of moderation and caution did not appeal to the American public who wanted leadership and action

                                                         iii.      In his inaugural address, Lincoln offered “nonbelligerent firmness” and moderation, calling the pieces of the split nation “friends” and predicting that one day the Union would be reestablished