Download The 1850s: Lots and Lots of Things Go Badly All at Once

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The 1850s: Lots and Lots of Things Go Badly All at Once
Name:
Ryan’s Master Copy
Date: February
3, 2010
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Dred Scott
John Brown
Part I: The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1954
Lincoln and Douglas
Annotations
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Background
 The Wilmot Proviso has divided the Country, 1846 (No Slavery in Mexican Acquisitions)
 Supporters either like it b/c they’re abolitionists or b/c they’re “free soilers” like Wilmot
 Opponents don’t like it b/c they want more land to build Cotton plantations, but also because
they see the proviso as an Abolitionist plot to end slavery altogether
 The Compromise of 1850 by Henry Clay, JC Calhoun, and Daniel Webster appears to solve
the problem by balancing new states (California = Free, Texas = Slave, by deferring
decision on the territories until later in Utah and New Mexico, and by ending the Slave
Trade in Washington DC while also adding a stricter Fugitive Slave Law
 Meanwhile, Zachary Taylor is elected president on the grounds that he has no opinions about
anything, and the Fugitive Slave Act makes people angry in the North
 Also making people angry: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
 Anyway, it’s at this point that Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas and his huge head decide
it’s a good idea to build a Transcontinental Railroad from CA to IL. No Southern
legislators will support it, because they think it’ll mean at least 2 new Free States when
Kansas and Nebraska are organized (b/c Northwest Ordinance and Missouri Compromise).
So Douglas comes up with a new plan.
What it Did
 Organized Kansas and Nebraska into territories on their way to statehood
 Allowed them to vote by Popular Sovereignty on whether or not to allow Slavery
 Effectively cancels the Missouri Compromise and Northwest Ordinance
Some Results
 The Whig party disintegrates because Southern Whigs support (Democrat) Stephen Douglas
 Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass get very, very angry. William Lloyd Garrison actually
gives a speech in Framingham, MA where he burns a copy of the Constitution and proclaims
“So perish all compromises with Tyranny! And let the people say Amen!” to which the
people said “Amen”.
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Part I Continued: Bleeding Kansas
Annotations
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Slavery in Kansas and Nebraska

Basically, there wasn’t slavery – residents were former Missouri residents who wanted their own land.
“I came to Kansas to live in a free state and I don’t want Niggers a-trampin’ over my grave.”
“Popular Sovereignty”, Border Ruffians, and Free-Soilers
 The attitude of the Planters and much of the South towards what freely electing what to do is best
summed up by Missouri Senator David Atchinson, who said “It is our duty to extend the institutions
of Missouri (slavery) over the Territory at whatever sacrifice of blood or treasure,” and to “kill every
God-damned abolitionist in the district.” Rumors spread of hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts
abolitionists coming to take female slaves as concubines and rig the vote. Atchinson, reportedly very
drunk, led a group of armed militants to the polls himself. These people got the nickname “Border
Ruffians”
 The result was a rush of angry Missourians into Kansas and violent intimidation at the polls. Slavery
won, but 2x more votes were cast than there were registered voters. Hmm…
 The new, totally illegitimate government set up shop in Lecompton, while the Free Soil/Abolitionists
created their own government in Lawrence
 The Federal Government did nothing but send a committee to investigate. Meanwhile, Planters and
Abolitionists started raising $$ to arm young men to go fight it out in Kansas. Henry Ward Beecher
buys Bibles and rifles…others sell slaves to buy weapons.
Pottawatomie Creek and John Brown
 In 1856, a mob from Lecompton attacks Lawrence, surrounds the town so everybody has to watch,
arrests the Governor, blows up a hotel with cannonballs, destroys their printing press, burns down the
Governor’s house. 1 proslavery fatality b/c the house fell on him.
 In response to that, and the Sumner Caning (more later) John Brown, aka the World’s Scariest Man,
takes his sons to find some of the ringleaders and they kill 5 people with broadswords.
 After that, it’s on; Brown leads an army of abolitionists in several successful battles against proslavery
forces. Around 200 people are killed during summer 1856. Finally, in 1861, Kansas passes a
constitution and enters the Union as a Free State (but the constitutional battle is also fraught). By
this time, Brown is dead.
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Part II: The Dred Scott Case, 1857
Annotations
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Dred Scott v. Sanford
In 1846, Dred Scott and his wife sued for freedom in Missouri, because their master brought them to
a free state and therefore, they thought, they ought to be free. The case took awhile to get to the
Supreme court, but in 1857, the decision came down.
The Decision – 3 Parts, Written by Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice (Catholic, Maryland)
1) A black man is a “being of an inferior order” with “no rights which white men are obligated
to respect”
2) The Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional b/c Congress can’t ban slavery because slaves
are property
3) Therefore, Dred Scott and his wife are still slaves
What it Meant
 In general, the North can’t not have Slavery, because if bringing one slave doesn’t set him
free, bringing hundreds of slaves wouldn’t set any of them free, either. The language of the
decision means that the North couldn’t even ban black people unless those people weren’t
slaves.
 In specific, it meant that there was no way for the people in Kansas to vote down Slavery, so
they simply refused to become a state at all until 1861, by which time Lincoln was in the
habit of simply ignoring Taney.
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Part III: Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas
Annotations
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The Republican Party
 The Whig party falls apart b/c of Kansas/Nebraska
 An “American” party is created specifically to pass laws against Irish and German Catholics in the
North (Also called the Know-Nothings b/c that’s what they said when outsiders asked them about
their beliefs so as not to tip off the Pope. Seriously.)
 A new “Republican” party is created, combines “Free-Soil” supporters, Abolitionists, Social
Reformers, and eventually anti-immigrant castoffs after the Know-Nothings lose too much face for
their secret plotting and violent attacks on immigrants
 Republican vision was derisive towards the South. Considered them lazy, uneducated, immoral
[imagine how Puritans would react to the South and tone it down a little]
 Southerners call them “black Republicans” whose goal is to destroy the genteel, cultured,
paternalistic, slow-paced Southern lifestyle [well, the Planters thought that…]
The Current State of the Abolitionist Movement
 Douglass and Garrison aren’t speaking b/c Constitutional split and split over the use of violence.
 Douglass promises the women’s movement that he won’t accept the right to vote unless women can
also vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her people vehemently support the Abolitionist cause.
The Current State of the Federal Government
 The problem is best summed up by the Preston-Sumner incident with the Cane
 Sumner, MA Senator gave a 3-hour speech against the Fugitive Slave Act that called Stephen Douglas
“noisesome and squat”, and that the KNA’s co-sponsor Andrew Butler (SC) “has chosen a mistress
to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though
polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot, Slavery.”
 Preston Brooks, Butler’s cousin, came in the next day and beat him unconscious with a gold-tipped
cane while another SC rep pointed a gun around the room yelling “leave them be!”
 No charges were ever filed. People in the South sent Brooks more canes b/c he broke his over Sumner’s
unconscious body. Brooks died of croup the next year. Ha.
 President Buchannan (NMwSP) is a Democrat and a tool of the proslavery people
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Part III Continued:
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas
Annotations
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Abraham Lincoln’s House Divided Speech, 1858
The Republican party is led by Senator William Seward, a Senator from New York
But Abraham Lincoln, a relatively unknown, inexperienced guy, gets a fire started with a speech at the
Republican National Convention in 1858 – The House Divided Speech
 “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand” – he means you can’t have this split over slavery. The
country has to be all one thing or all the other.
 The Slave Power Conspiracy is real. It’s obvious that, given the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred
Scott decision, there are forces trying to legalize slavery everywhere.
 Abolitionist Republicans now love Lincoln the most, though all Democrats now hate him
1858 Lincoln – Douglas Debate and Illinois Senate Campaign
 Lincoln and Douglas have a series of 7 Debates across Illinois in their Senate run. Douglas wins, but
the debate makes national news because it’s so exciting. They had to speak for 90 minutes each.
 Debate was mostly about Slavery. Douglas took the position that Lincoln was a crazy abolitionist.
Lincoln took the position that slavery is wrong, and should be put on a course of extinction, by
which he meant limited rather than outlawed. Both men argued that whites are superior to blacks –
Lincoln’s position was that Slavery is wrong anyway, and Douglas’ was that it shouldn’t be up to
the Federal Government, either way. Really, Douglas’ position was that he wanted his Railroad,
dammit!
 Douglas wins the election, but Lincoln establishes the Republicans as the only counter to the Slave
Power, which is now a real fear in the North.
Who is Abraham Lincoln (Part I)?
 Does Lincoln say racist things because he needs to, or because he means them?
 Does Lincoln say he won’t abolish Slavery because he doesn’t want to, or because he thinks he can’t?
 If he is a racist, can he still be a hero?
 And what should we think about Stephen Douglas?
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Part IV: More Fun With John Brown
Or The Assault on Harper’s Ferry, 1859
Annotations
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What happened at Harper’s Ferry
 John Brown led a group of 22 men to attack an arsenal in Virginia. The plan was to start a massive
slave uprising and free all the slaves.
 Instead, all of Brown’s men got caught, 11 died, and nobody rebelled
 Brown was put on trial for treason and convicted
What happened at John Brown’s Trial
 It can’t be ignored that Brown was kind of a crazy person. He denied doing anything wrong and said
that nobody would complain if he’d done what he did on behalf of the powerful instead of the
oppressed.
 Just before he was hung, he wrote “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this
guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself
that without very much bloodshed it might be done.”
Reactions
 Abolitionists love him. Thoreau calls him an “angel”. Douglass says he proved that slavery must be
“met with its own weapons”.
 Lincoln thinks he’s a nut.
 The South freaks out both because of the raid and the possibility of revolts and because so many
Northerners think Brown is a hero (is he?). Suspected abolitionists are rounded up and evicted,
sometimes even beaten or whipped.
Sidebar
 Hinton Rowan Helper’s book, The Impending Crisis of the South comes out that same year, 1859. It
basically makes the argument, from a southern point of view, that Slavery is oppressive to everyone
except the Planters. This does not go over well.
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Part V: The Election of 1860
Annotations
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The Candidates and Their Positions
 Abraham Lincoln, Republican, stop the spread of Slavery + Social Reform + Free Land
 John Bell, Constitutional Union Party, prevent secession however possible
 Stephen A. Douglas, Northern Democrat, Popular Sovereignty
 John C. Breckenridge, Southern Democrat, Expand Slavery
Why This Election was So Odd
 No Republican even attempted to campaign in the South, and there were no ballots for
Lincoln there
 Highest voter turnout in US History (81%, only topped at 82% by the election in 1876 at the
end of Reconstruction)
How Abraham Lincoln Won
 He wins every single Free State, which is where most of the people live.
 Gets 40% of the vote (plurality) and 180 Electoral Votes
 Stephen A. Douglas only wins Missouri…hahahahaha
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Part VI: Secession
Annotations
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Who Seceded, When, and Why
 The South freaks out, assuming Lincoln is going to end slavery immediately, even though
he’s repeatedly said he won’t. For the Planters, it makes no difference. If Slavery can’t
expand, it will have to end as a system, and they know it.
 South Carolina, where slaves outnumber the white population, secedes first. Then all of the
lower South secedes (TX, LA, AL, MI, FL, GA)
Legality of Secession
 Not really clear. The only precedent is Andrew Jackson’s “treason” theory, but obviously
Lincoln isn’t going to ask Chief Justice Taney for a ruling.
Response
 Many Southerners oppose secession b/c they don’t care about slavery, or because they feel
loyal to the US, or because they fear war. The Planters feel like they have to fight, though,
and they’re the ones with all the power in the South, so that’s that. Also, lots of whites in
the South are either fooled by various exaggerations i.e. Northerners are plotting to arm
the slaves to go kill all the whites or simply want to defend the racial hierarchy that they
see as benefitting them.
 Many Northerners oppose the war, too, either because they don’t feel like the South affects
them (which isn’t true at all from an economic standpoint) or because they oppose war
generally, or because they think the South is more trouble than it’s worth. But the
Republicans can’t compromise on slavery’s expansion, and they can’t let the South go
with all that cheap cotton, either, so….
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Key Quotes: Lincoln
From the “House Divided” Speech, 1858
We are now far into the fifth year since apolicy was initiated with the
avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery
agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not
only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will
not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house
divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot
endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the
Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all
the other.
Lincoln, on Civil Rights for Blacks 1858
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing
about in any way the social and political equality of the white and
black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making
voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor
to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that
there is a physical difference between the white and black races which
I believe forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social
and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while
they do remain together there must be the position of superior and
inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the
superior position assigned to the white race
Key Quotes: Confederacy
Senator Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi
On the Future of Slavery, 1858
I want Cuba. I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican states. And a
footing in Central America will powerfully aid us in acquiring those other States. Yes, I
want these Countries for the spread of slavery. I would spread the blessings of slavery,
like the religion of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of the earth.
A Virginia Newspaper, On Why Secession is Necessary 1861
How anyone after reading the editorials of many of the leading papers published at the
North, can vote against secession, or even not vote at all, I cannot imagine. Is it not the
threatened policy of the North to invade our State and take from us by brute force, our
lands, our houses, and all that we possess, and divide it among themselves? Their cry is
"booty and beauty," which means, in plain English, as I understand it, to steal our lands
from us, and ravish our females. Any one that doubts can get the newspapers and read
for themselves.
Georgia State Legislature, Explaining Secession under Republican Rule
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of
the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were
boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers. With these principles on
their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North
demand that we shall receive them as our rulers. To avoid these evils we resume the
powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and
henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.
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Key Quotes: Lincoln II
Key Quotes: Hinton Helper
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On his purpose in waging the Civil War, or On Emancipation 1861
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.
The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be
"the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless
they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be
those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save
the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all
the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others
alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do
because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because
I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
On the evil of Slavery, 1858
I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of slavery. I
look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have derived it from the
parent government, and from our ancestors. I wish every slave in the United
States was in the country of his ancestors. But here they are, and the question is,
how can they best be dealt with?
On the “economic necessity” argument
The North is the Mecca of our merchants, and to it they must and do make two
pilgrimages per annum—one in the spring and one in the fall. All our commercial,
mechanical, manufactural, and literary supplies come from there. We want Bibles,
brooms, buckets and books and we go to the North. We want pens, ink, paper, wafer
and envelopes, and we go to the North. We want furniture, crockery, glassware and
pianos, and we go to the North. We want toys, primers, school books, fashionable
apparel, machinery, medicines tombstones, and a thousand other things, and we go to
the North for them all. Instead of keeping our money in circulation at home by
patronizing our own mechanics, manufacturers, and laborers, we send it all away to
the North, and there it remains; it never falls into our hands again. Slavery, and
nothing but slavery, has retarded the progress and prosperity of our portion of the
Union and made us a tributary state to the North!
On Southern Whites
The lords of the lash are not only absolute masters of the blacks, who are bought and
sold, and driven about like so many cattle, but they are also the oracles and arbiters
of all non-slaveholding whites, whose freedom is merely nominal, and whose
unparalleled illiteracy and degradation is purposely and fiendishly perpetuated. How
little the "poor white trash," the great majority of the Southern people, know of the
real condition of the country is, indeed, sadly astonishing. The truth is, they know
nothing of public measures, and little of private affairs, except what their imperious
masters, the slave-drivers, condescend to tell, and that is but precious little, and even
that little, always garbled and one-sided, is never told except in public harangues; for
the haughty cavaliers of shackles and handcuffs will not degrade themselves by
holding private converse with those who have neither dimes nor hereditary rights in
human flesh.
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Key Quotes: F. Douglass
Key Quotes: JC Calhoun
Frederick Douglass on the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850
The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make half a dozen
or more dead kidnappers. A half dozen more dead kidnappers carried down South
would cool the ardor of Southern gentlemen, and keep their rapacity in check.
That is perfectly right as long as the colored man has no protection. The colored
men's rights are less than those of a jackass. No man can take away a jackass
without submitting the matter to twelve men in any part of this country. A black
man may be carried away without any reference to a jury. It is only necessary to
claim him, and that some villain should swear to his identity. There is more
protection there for a horse, for a donkey, or anything, rather than a colored
man—who is, therefore, justified in the eye of God, in maintaining his right with
his arm.
Address to the Southern People May 6, 1850
Calhoun Explains Why Secession May be Necessary
In the contest now going on, the constitutional equality of fifteen States is put in
question. Some sixteen hundred millions worth of negro property is involved,
directly; and, indirectly, though not less surely, an incalculable amount of property
in other forms. But to say this, is to state less than half the doom that hangs over
you. Your social forms and institutions, which separate the European and the
African races into distinct classes, and assign to each a different sphere in society,
are threatened with overthrow. Whether the negro is to occupy the same social rank
with the white man, and enjoy equally with him the rights, privileges, and
immunities of citizenship, in short, all the honors and dignities of society, is a
question of greater moment than any mere question of property can be.
On the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
The hell-black scheme for extending slavery over Nebraska, where thirty-four
years ago it was solemnly protected from slavery forever, has triumphed. The
audacious villainy of the slave power, and the contemptible pusillanimity of the
North, have begotten this monster. Let the old parties go to destruction; whither
they have nearly sunk the nation. Let their names be blotted out, and their
memory rot; and henceforth let there be only a free party, and a slave party. The
banner of God and liberty, and the bloody flag of slavery and chains shall then
swing out from our respective battlements.
On Henry Clay
Henry Clay is a bad man, but by God I love him.
On John Brown
Did John Brown fail? Ask Henry A. Wise, in whose house less than two years
after, a school for the emancipated slaves was taught. If John Brown did not end
the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery.
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Key Quotes: Sojourner Truth
Key Quotes: Miscellaneous
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Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.
I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking
about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here
talking about?
On the Effect of the Fugitive Slave Law in Boston, Anonymous
We went to bed conservative Whigs and woke up stark, raving
abolitionists!
Charles Lines, a Connecticut Settler, on Bleeding Kansas
(Lines had just seen a friend tortured by proslavery Border Ruffians)
How monstrous all these things appear to a thinking man. Wrong
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted
heaped upon wrong, the most sacred rights of free citizens despised
over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into
and trampled in the dust, and all for the purpose of fastening upon
carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?
Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, this young Territory a gigantic, wholesale wrong (slavery), frowned
and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as
upon and condemned by the whole civilized world.
much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a
woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and
when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a
woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of
audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's
rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart,
wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as
men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did
your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down
all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side
up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.
John Brown, on his Behavior
I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the
New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would
that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me,
further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I
endeavored to act up to that instruction. If it is deemed necessary
that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice,
and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with
the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded
by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!