From Compromise to Secession (1850-1861)
Introduction
• The decade of the 1850’s opened
with a compromise that was supposed to settle sectional differences; but it
quickly came undone
• Instead the 1850’s, lurched from
one sectional crisis to the next
• The most devastating of those
occurred on October 16, 1859
– John Brown and 18 followers
seized the federal arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry
– They intended to arm southern
white and black dissidents in a holy war against slavery
– Brown’s failed raid convinced
southerners that they had barely survived a northern plot to get them all
murdered in a slave insurrection
– Northerners, while initially
disavowing Brown, came, during his trial, to sympathize with him
• The whole incident set the stage
for civil war
The
Compromise of 1850
Introduction
• When the treaty ending the
Mexican War was signed in 1848, a delicate balance existed between free and
slave states
– 15 of each
• All the proposed solutions for
handling slavery in the Mexican cession were controversial
– Whether to prohibit it
– Open the whole area to
slaveholders
– Extend the Missouri Compromise
line to the Pacific
– Or apply popular sovereignty
• Other issues also divided the
North and South
• CA and UT asked Congress for
admission to the Union as free states
Zachary Taylor at the Helm
• President Taylor had encouraged
CA to make the request for statehood as a free state.
• Believing that the majority of
its residents opposed slavery, he urged Congress to welcome it into the Union
as a free state.
• Southerners were horrified at the
prospect of losing the balance of power in the Senate by admitting CA and
perhaps next NM as free states
• In protest, 9 southern states
sent delegates to a southern convention at Nashville
Henry Clay Proposes a Compromise
• Senator Clay proposed a
compromise to settle the territorial problem and other sectional controversies
•
But
his proposal was not gaining support, so a new person came with proposal.
• democrat Stephen Douglas
–
Basically
he just chopped up Clay’s ominous bill and submitted each bill separately.
1. Admit CA as a free state
2. Divide the rest of the Mexican
cession into NM and UT territories, with the future of slavery in each left up
to its residents
3. Settle the border dispute between
TX and NM in NM’s favor
4. Compensate TX by having the federal govt. pay
off the state’s past public debt
5. Allow slavery to continue in
Washington D.C. but ban slave trading there
6. Pass and enforce a tough new
fugitive slave law
• After heated debate and much
maneuvering, the compromise passed
Assessing the Compromise
• The Compromise of 1850 did not
settle the underlying differences between the sections
• As Stephen Douglass basically
used congressmen from different sects to get each individual passed, he had
basically backed Congress into signing into law the Compromise of 1850.
• The majority of congressmen in
one or another section opposed practically all of the specific bills that made
up the compromise.
• The one clear advantage that the
South gained, the passage of the stringent Fugitive Slave Act, backfired
The Compromise both benefited and
hindered the North and South.
1.
The
North:
o
Gets
California as a Free State and New Mexico and Utah as probable free states as
well.
o
B
.It also gets a favorable settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary as most
of the land went to New Mexico, a probable free state.
o
Abolition
of Slave trade in the District of Columbia.
2.
.The
South:
o
.By
stipulating popular sovereignty for NM and UT, the compromise buried the Wilmot
Proviso’s insistence that Congress formally prohibit slavery in these
territories.
§
However,
Congress leaves open the issue of whether it could prohibit slavery outside the
Mexican Cession which dismays southerners.
o
A
more stringent fugitive slave law
§
It
wasn’t that big a deal because of the small number of slaves that had been
taken into the Mexican Cession.
§
However,
it was a big deal because now southerners could pursue real fugitives on
northern soil.
Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
Act
• The law was blatantly stacked
against black people and sent federal marshals all over the country looking for
runaways
• This aroused widespread
opposition in the North
– Northern mobs attacked marshals
to rescue arrested fugitives
– Vigilance committees helped
runaways escape to Canada
– In the 1850s 9 states passed personal liberty
laws designed to interfere with enforcement of the Act: prohibited the use of
state jails to incarcerate alleged fugitives
• Lawyers used obstructive tactics
to drag out legal proceeding to raise slave catchers expenses.
• Whereas the Act embittered
northerners against the South, southerners resented the North’s refusal to live
up to the terms of the Compromise
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• By 1853, 1.2 million copies had
been sold
• Aroused many anti-southern
feelings and sympathy for slaves
• Stirred deep feelings and
prompted northerners and Europeans to regard all slave owners as monstrously
cruel and inhuman.
• Reflected prevailing stereotypes
of blacks.
The Impeding Crisis of the South
·
By
Hinton Helper
·
Described
slavery as a curse upon poor white southerners and questioned one of the most
sacred southern doctrines, the ideas that slavery made all whites equal. It’s
basically saying that slavery has a negative effect on the South’s economy.
The election of 1852
• The Whigs=General Winfield Scott (Mexican War hero)
– The party’s platform existed
primarily of improving roads and harbors. They didn’t really focus on the
sectional issues that.
• Democrats=Franklin Pierce
– The Democrats rallied behind the
Compromise of 1850 and popular sovereignty in the territories
• Whigs were torn apart into
northern Whigs and southern Whigs over the sectional controversy
• Pierce won with all but four
state votes in the Electoral College
The
Collapse of the Second Party System, 1853-1856
Introduction
• During Pierce’s administration
the 2nd party system (Whigs vs. Democrats) collapsed
• In the 1850’s, the issues
(banking, internal improvements, tariffs, and temperance) that had been the
main focus of partisan politics were pushed from center stage
– New debate was over slavery’s
extension
• The Whig Party was internally
divided over the issue
– Disintegrated when Stephan A.
Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska bill threw the future of slavery in the territories
wide open
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Passage of this act in 1854 dealt
a shattering blow to the second party system
• It also renewed the sectional
strife that Clay’s compromise had aimed to quiet
• Stephen A. Douglas was eager to
advance the settlement of Kansas and Nebraska and to promote the building of a
transcontinental railroad through the area
• To accomplish these goals, he
needed to organize a territorial govt. for the region
• But he was running into southern
opposition because the area was north of the Missouri Compromise line and would
therefore be free
• To gain southern support, Douglas
introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill
– It repealed the Missouri
Compromise
• Organized the 2 territories
• Left the question of slavery in
both KS and NE up to popular sovereignty
• That gave the South a chance to
gain at least KS for the “peculiar institution
The Surge of Free-Soil
• Douglas was surprised at the
angry reaction in the North
– Many regarded the law as part of
an atrocious southern plot to spread slavery into KS, the rest of the LA
Territory, and even into the North
• Free-soil sentiment had grown
tremendously in the North
– Not primarily because of sympathy
for black slaves
• Many free-soilers were racists
– But because northerners wanted
the territories to be the place where upwardly mobile, enterprising, poor
Americans could become independent, self-employed farmers and businessmen
• If slavery invaded the
territories, it would discourage and drive out free labor
The Ebbing of Manifest Destiny
• Enthusiasm for expansion waned in
the free states
– northerners saw in each southern
move to acquire territory a plot to gain additional slave states
• This northern attitude became so
pronounced that Pres. Pierce had to repudiated southern-backed plans to buy or
seize Cuba
The Whigs Disintegrate (1854-1855)
• Southern Whigs had joined
Democrats in voting for the KS-NE Act
• Northern “conscience” Whigs, led
by Senator William Seward, and free-soil Democrats reacted angrily against both
of the major parties
• In the elections of 1854 and
1855, many of the disaffected Whigs turned first to the Know-Nothing (American)
Party
– Later they voted increasingly to
the new Republican Party
• As a result of these moves, the
Whig Party fell apart
The Rise and Fall of the
Know-Nothings, 1853-1856
• Know-Nothings was also called the
American Party
• It evolved out of a secret
nativist society called the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner
• In the North, the party combined
hatred of Catholics, immigrants, and slavery-extension
• It took a conspiratorial view of
the world in which the Pope and Slave Power were both plotting to extinguish
the American democratic republic
• In 1854 and 1855, the
Know-Nothings scored major victories in northern states such as MA
• However, the Party declined
rapidly after 1855
• It was pulled apart by the
slavery-expansion issue
• Its southern adherents supported
the KS-NE Act
– a position unacceptable to
northern nativists, who deserted to the emerging Republicans
The Republican Party and the
Crisis in Kansas, 1855-1856
• The Republican Party first
appeared in several northern states in protest against the KS-NE Act
• As the Know-Nothings waned by
1856, the Republicans became the main opposition party to the Democrats
• The Republicans were basically a
coalition of former northern Whigs and Democrats who wanted to restore the MO
Compromise, Liberty Party abolitionists, and free-soilers
• Little united them at first
except their opposition to the KS-NE Act
• However, the subsequent fighting
in KS between proslavery and antislavery forces greatly strengthened the party
and its free-soil stand
• Both proslavery and antislavery
settlers rushed to KS
• In 1855, when the first election
for a territorial legislature took place, thousands of proslavery Missourians
invaded KS for the day and voted illegally
• This fraud produced a rabidly
proslavery legislature
– Which from its capital in
Lecompton, KS, passed repressive laws aimed at squelching the free-soilers
• The free-soilers, considering the
Lecompton legislature a shame
– They organized a rival govt. in
Topeka
• After the sack of Lawrence and
John Brown’s Pottawatomie massacre
– A civil war broke out in KS
– Between the 2 govts. and their
followers
• Popular sovereignty had not
worked
• Popular sovereignty caused angry
debate between Pierce and Northern Democrats and Republicans
– Pierce and Northern
Democrats=recognized the fraudulent Lecompton govt.
– Republicans=decried the outcome
as a shame
• It also spread violence to
Congress with Preston Brook’s attack on Senator Charles Sumner
– Republican Senator Charles Sumner
gives a wrathful speech in which he verbally whipped most of the U.S. Senator
for complicity in slavery.
– He singles out Senator Andrew
Butler for his choice of harlot slavery as his mistress and for the loose
expectoration of his speech (a nasty reference to his tendency to drool).
– Two days later, a relative of
Butler, Preston Brooks (dem. representative) strode into the senate chamber and
beat the crap out of Sumner. Naw, JK. but he did strike him with a cane
repeatedly until it broke after the fifth or sixth blow.
The Election of 1856
• Republicans nominated John C.
Fremont
– Platform called on Congress to
exclude slavery from all remaining territories
• Democrats nominated James
Buchanan
– Backed popular sovereignty
• Know-Nothings nominated Millard
Fillmore
• Buchanan won
• Conclusion:
– The Republicans did remarkably
well in the North
• Had Fremont carried PA and either
IL or IN, he would have been elected
• Despite receiving almost no
southern votes
– The American Party
(Know-Nothings) was finished as a national party.
– As long as the democrats could
unite behind a single national candidate, they would be hard to defeat
• The election of 1856 foreshadowed
the emergence of a powerful political party (Republicans) that would win all
but four presidential elections between 1860-1932
The
Crisis of the Union (1857-1860)
·
Although
Buchanan disapproved of slavery, he believed that his administration could not
stop it. His administration encountered a secession of controversies,
o
first
over the Dred Scott decision
o
the Lecompton constitution,
o
the
raid by John Brown on Harpers Fairy
o
finally
concerning secession itself.
·
These controversies arose less from his own
actions but more from the fact that forces driving the country apart were
already spinning out of control.
o
Southerners looking north saw creeping
abolitionism in the guise of free soil, while northerners looking south saw an
insatiable slave power.
The Dred Scott Case, 1857
·
Dred
Scott, a slave, was taken from the slave state of Missouri to the Free state of Wisconsin. When
his master died, he sued for his freedom on the grounds of his residence in a free
territory.
·
The
Court faced two key issues:
a.
Did
Scott’s residence in free territory during the 1830s make him free?
b.
Regardless
of the answer to the above question, did Scott, again enslaved in Missouri have
the right to sue for his freedom in federal courts
• Decision was made 2 days after
Buchanan’s inauguration
• the Supreme Court entered the
controversy over slavery in the territories
• The Supreme Court was composed
mostly of southerners
• Ruled that blacks (slave or free)
were not citizens of the United States
• Also ruled that the Missouri
Compromise had always been unconstitutional because Congress had no right to
exclude slavery from any territory
– To do so violated the 5th
Amendment protection of property and property holders
• The Republicans denounced the
decision and prepared to ignore it
The Lecompton Constitution (1857)
• In KS, the proslavery legislature
proposed a state constitution that protected slaveholders and gave the settlers
the right to vote only on whether to allow more slaves into KS
• President Buchanan backed the
Lecompton constitution and called on Congress to grant KS statehood under it
• Stephen Douglas (author of the
KS-NE Act) broke with Buchanan and denounced the actions of the Lecompton
legislature
– Claimed it undermined the original
intent of popular sovereignty
• Northern Democrats and
Republicans applauded Douglas
• Southern Democrats applauded
Buchanan
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
(1858)
• In 1858, Douglas ran for
reelection to the Senate
• Abraham Lincoln was the
Republican nominee
– Not well-know or political
successful at the time
• Lincoln challenged Douglas to a
series of debates
– Lincoln begins with his famous
“House Divided” speech.- a nation cannot exist permanently half slave and half
free.
– Douglass used the debates to
portray Lincoln as a virtual abolitionist and an advocate of racial equality.
– In the debates, Lincoln attacked
slavery as morally evil but denied that Congress had the right to abolish it in
the South or that he favored equality for blacks
• Rather, he stuck to his position
that barring slavery from the territories
– Lincoln also forced Douglas into
making his Freeport Doctrine statement
• Lincoln asks if the people of a
territory could lawfully exclude slavery.
• Douglas replied with his Freeport
Doctrine: notwithstanding the Dred Scott decision, the voters of a free
territory could effectively exclude slavery by refusing to enact laws that gave
legal protection to slave property.
• Which pleased northern Democrats
but made Douglas and his views unacceptable to the South
• Although Douglas won the IL
Senate seat, the election further split the Democratic Party
• It also made Lincoln “famous in
the North and infamous in the South”
The Legacy of Harpers Ferry
• John Brown’s raid touched off a
wave of fear and hysteria in the South
• Southerners believed Brown had
the backing of abolitionists and Republicans who were plotting to incite more
slave rebellions
• These fears played into the hands
of southern extremists
The South Contemplates Secession
• Southerners began to speak of
secession as the only way to protect themselves
• They regarded northern opposition
to the Fugitive Slave Act and to slavery in KS as unconstitutional
• They also saw it as an offense to
the South
– Which wounded southern pride
• Some argued that separation from
the Union would also permit the South to seize more territory in the Caribbean
and the West for slavery
The
Collapse of the Union (1860-1861)
·
While
Buchanan was in office, Southerners merely talked of Secession. However, with
Lincoln’s election, the wheels of the train that would eventually lead the
south to leave the union would be put in motion.
·
Indeed,
in the election of 1860, voters were deciding more than who would be the next
president would be; they were deciding the fate of the union.
The Election of 1860
• The Republicans broadened their
appeal in the free states in 1860 by supporting a protective tariff, federal
aid for internal improvements, and a homestead act
– Lincoln was there nominee for
President
• The northern and southern
Democrats were unable to agree on a platform so they split
– Northern Democrats=Douglas
• Still advocated popular
sovereignty
– Southern Democrats=John C.
Breckenridge
• Insisted that Congress must pass
laws protecting slavery in all territories
– Constitutional Union Party=John
Bell
• Appealed mostly in the border
states and Upper South
• Lincoln won
– His name did not appear on
southern ballots
– Won a majority of electoral
college
– Only 39% of popular vote
The Movement for Secession
• Believing that a Republican
president would unleash more John Browns on them
• The states of the Deep South
began to secede even before Lincoln took office
– SC led the way on Dec. 20, 1860
– AL, MS, FL, GA, LA, TX
• On Feb. 4, 1861, delegates from
those 7 states met in Montgomery, AL to form the Confederate States of America
• Even though Southern states left,
many were still not ready to leave. Jefferson Davis, the president of the
Confederacy stayed in the Union two weeks after his state of Georgia had left.
– The upper south especially was
hesitant as, unlike the lower south, depended heavily on economic ties to the
North.
The Search for Compromise
• KY senator John Crittenden
proposed a compromise to bring the Deep South back into the Union
• It included constitutional
amendments that guaranteed the federal govt. would never interfere with slavery
in the South
• That drew the MO Compromise line
across the remaining territories
– with slavery permitted south of
the line in all present and future U.S. territory
• Lincoln rejected the Crittenden
plan because he would not abandon the free-soil promise on which he had been
elected
– He regarded the plan as an
invitation to the South to seize territory in the Caribbean for slavery
• He also felt that he had won an
honest election
– That giving in to a losing
minority would damage the American tradition of majority rule
The Coming of War
• The Confederacy began to take
over federal forts within it region
• Soon after Lincoln’s
inauguration, the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston’s harbor
– thus firing the 1st shot in the
rebellion that became the Civil War
• Lincoln responded by proclaiming
that a rebellion existed in the Lower South
– Called for 75,000 militia
volunteers from the loyal states to subdue it
• Rather than send their troops to
fight against sister southern states, VA, NC, AR, and TN seceded and joined the
Confederacy
• The North was now aroused and
ready to fight to save the Union
– though not yet ready to abolish
slavery
Conclusion
• At no time prior to the Civil
War, did the majority of Americans call for the end of slavery in the South
• Rather, in the 1850’s, the gulf
between the North and South widened over the spread of slavery into the
territories
• Northerners believed their
freedom to pursue economic opportunity would be denied if they had to compete
against slave labor in the West
• Southerners claimed that to
curtail slavery in the territories violated their constitutional right to use
their property (slaves) as they saw fit
• Attempts to enforce the Fugitive
Slave Law, the KS-NE Act’s repeal of the MO Compromise, the subsequent fighting
in KS, the Dred Scott decision, and John Brown’s raid all further
embittered intersectional conflict
• National political parties
collapsed under the strain:
– the Whigs disintegrated
– The Democrats divided into
northern and southern wings
– A new strictly northern party,
the Republicans, emerged
• By the end of the 1850’s,
northerners were convinced the South meant to impose slavery throughout the
nation
• Southern states were ready for
secession as the only way to protect their “peculiar institution” from a North
that they saw as intent on destroying slavery even in the South
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