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Unit Five
The Road to War
• EQ: Which economic, social, and political
events contributed to the outbreak of the Civil
War?
• Video Clip
Runaway slaves
• Southerners believed they had the right to go
North and recapture runaway slaves
• Article 4 section 2 of the Constitution, any person
charged in any state with treason, felony, or other
crime who shall flee from Justice, and be found in
another state, shall on demand of the executive
authority of the state from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the state having
jurisdiction of the crime
• Northern citizens thought differently
• They gave shelter to runaways and helped
them escape
Victory in the Mexican War
• US victory in the war with Mexico made the
slave issue more troublesome-led to greater
sectional division
• The victory added new land for settlement
• Territorial expansion brought the issue of
slavery in the territories to national attention
• Should slavery expand westward?
• Southerners asked for new laws to help them
recapture runaway slaves in free territories
Polk’s Viewpoint
• Polk, Southern Democrat and a slaveholder
• Slavery in the Southwest not an issue
• The dry climate not conducive to growing the
types of crops that made slavery profitable
• There was heated debate in Congress about
the issue
• Polk could not dismiss the slave issue, was
afraid it would divide the Democratic Party
and possibly divide the Union
Wilmot Proviso
• August 1846, Representative David Wilmot,
(D), Pa.
• Proposed an addition to a military spending
bill
• Wilmot Proviso, any territory gained from
Mexico would not allow slavery or involuntary
servitude
• Wilmot and a group of Northern Democrats
felt Polk was pro-Southern
• 1. Polk supported a new tariff that helped the
South at the expense of the Northern
manufacturers
• 2. Polk had compromised on the Oregon
Territory with the British where slavery was
likely to be banned
• 3. Polk had gone to war with Mexico for land
Southerners would occupy
• The Wilmot Proviso upset Southerners, no
slavery in the new territories would threaten
slavery everywhere
• The Proviso passed the House with a coalition
of Northern Democrats and Whigs
• The Senate refused to vote on it
Calhoun Resolutions
• Senator John C. Calhoun from SC presented a
series of resolutions (Calhoun Resolutions) to
counter the Wilmot Proviso
• The Senate refused to consider them
• Calhoun argued:
– The states owned the territories of the US in
common
– Congress had no right to ban slavery in the
territories
• Calhoun warned of political revolution,
anarchy, and civil war if the North did not
address Southern concerns
Popular Sovereignty
• Slavery divided the nation along sectional
lines- North against the South
• Moderates in Congress looked for a way to
settle the issue without Congressional
involvement
• Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan:
– The citizens of each new territory would be
allowed to decide for themselves if they wanted
to permit slavery or not = popular sovereignty
• Popular sovereignty was a popular idea in
Congress
• It would remove slavery as a national issue
• It was more democratic, the people would
decide
• Abolitionists argued it denied African
Americans their right not to be enslaved
• Northerners in the Midwest supported
popular sovereignty
• They felt most settlers in the new territories
would come from the North and would ban
slavery in their states
Conscience Whigs
• 1848 election the Whigs nominated Zachery
Taylor, this split the Whig Party in the North
• Northern Whigs called Conscience Whigs
opposed slavery
• They believed Taylor would expand slavery
westward
Cotton Whigs
• Other Northern Whigs supported Taylor, voted
with Southern Whigs
• They were tied to the Northern cloth
manufacturers who needed Southern cotton
• Known as Cotton Whigs
Liberty Party/Free Soil Party
• Conscience Whigs quit the party with Taylor’s
nomination
• Joined with anti-slavery Democrats from New
York who were angry over the nomination of
Lewis Cass over Martin Van Buren
• Joined with abolitionists to form the Liberty
Party
• They then formed the Free Soil Party
• Opposed to slavery in the Western territories
• Some Free Soilers against slavery, felt it was
immoral, most wanted to keep western land
for white farmers
• If slavery expanded west, it would be hard for
free men to find work
• Party slogan; “Free soil, free speech, free
labor, and free men”
The Election of 1848
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Lewis Cass, Democrat
Zachery Taylor, Whig
Martin Van Buren, Free Soil
Cass, popular sovereignty
Van Buren, against slavery in the territories
Taylor avoided the slave issue
Election day, Free Soilers split the Whig vote, and
the Democratic vote in New York, allowed Taylor
to win
California
• January, 1948, carpenter James Marshall found
small flakes of gold in the millrace at Sutter’s Mill
• Marshall and the remainder of John Sutter’s
employees were panning for gold in California
streams
• News of the gold strike did not reach the east
coast until the Fall of 1848
• The excitement and adventure associated with
the Mexican-American War now directed
towards California- the new El Dorado
• Thousands left farms and jobs to head west by land and sea
to make their fortunes
• Called “forty-niners”- the year the Gold Rush began in
earnest
• Miners came from all over America and the world
• Changed a quiet ranching area into a teaming and
tumultuous community searching for riches in California
rivers and streams
• 80% of the “forty-niners” were Americans- came from
every state
• Gold Rush was an eye-opening expansion of their horizons
for most who had only known hometown people
• Second largest group were from Mexico and the west
coast of Latin America
• The rest came from Europe and Asia
• Presence of Chinese miners surprised many Americans
• Chinese in California in 1849 and 1850,
• 1852 over 20,000 Chinese arrived in San Francisco to
share the wealth of the “Gum Sam” (Golden Mountain)
• Most Chinese, like Americans, came on a temporary
basis- return home as soon as they made some money
• Most of the Chinese miners were like American
miners- they were males who left wives at home
• Chinese miners dressed in blue cotton shirts,
baggy pants, and broad-rimmed hats
• Hard working Chinese miners were commonplace
in the mine fields
• Creation of “China Towns” added to threat of
economic competition- brought American
hostility
• Special tax on foreign miners in 1852 and in the
1870s- slowed Chinese immigration sharply
• 1849, beginning of Gold Rush- San Francisco,
major port of entry and supply point came to life
• Settlement of 1,000 in 1848- grew to a city of
35,000 in 1850
• Real money was made in California not panning
for gold but feeding, clothing, housing,
provisioning, and entertaining miners
• First to figure this out was a German Jewish
immigrant Levi Strauss- sold tough work pants to
miners- name became synonymous with the
product (Levi’s)
• Jerusha Marshall opened a 20 room
boardinghouse in San Francisco- wrote to eastern
relatives “ Never was there a better field for
making money than now presents itself in this
place…..We are satisfied to dig our gold in San
Francisco.”
• San Francisco became a major American city
• White population of California went from an estimated
pre-Gold Rush number of 11,000 to over 100,000 by
1852The population increased so much that the
California Territory applied for statehood
• End of 1849 over 80,000 forty-niners in California
searching for gold
• Mining towns appeared overnight
• Chaos and violence
• To keep order in California a strong government was
needed
• California admitted to the Union as a state in 1850
Mining Camps
• Most mining camps boomed instantly, unlike San
Francisco most were empty in a few years
• Famous camps; Poker Flat, Angels Camp, Whiskey Bar,
Placerville, Mariposa
• Usually dirty, miners lived in tents of shacks- not willing
to take time from mining to build decent places to live
• Cooked meals of beans, bread, and bacon
• If they had money they bought meals at expensive
restaurants and boardinghouses- table may be no more
than a plank over two flour barrels
• Miner’s life- cheerless, uncomfortable, unhealthyespecially during long, rainy winter months
• Few distractions, except saloon and gambling hall
• Most miners young, unmarried, and unsuccessful
• Same percentage struck it rich in California
• Gold deposits accessible with pick and shovel (placer
mining) soon were gone
• Deeper deposits required capital and machinery
(corporate mining)
• Some areas in the Comstock Lode in Virginia City,
Nevada were a half a mile deep in the ground
• Miners who stayed in California had to give up
status of independent miner and become a wage
earner for large mining companies
• Like San Francisco, most reliable way to earn
money in the mining camps was to supply miners
• Mining communities had; saloonkeepers,
gamblers, prostitutes, merchants, and
restauranteurs
• Theses business people were transient like the
miners- ready to move with the news of a new
gold strike
• Most of the women in early mining camps were
prostitutes- some grew rich or married
respectably
• Most young women died of drugs, venereal
disease, or violence
• Other women were hardworking wives of miners
and made good money doing domestic workkept boardinghouses, cooked, washed clothes
• Wives of professional men also took advantage of
the monetary opportunity and kept
boardinghouses
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Some women made $100 per week washing clothes
French girls charged an ounce of gold just to sit next to a customer
Swiss women with on organ grinder made $4,000 in a few months
Women made up 3% of the population- about 800 women to
30,000 miners
Married American women reminded miners of home, mothers,
sisters, and wives- treated like queens
1849 California Constitution allowed married women the right to
own property separate from their
Husbands
Women had rights and economic opportunities in the Gold Rush
West that women back East did not enjoy
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Beef
$10.00
Butter
$20.00
Cheese
$25.00
Coffee beans $0.15
Crackers, in tins $0.15
Eggs $3.00
each
Flour $13.00 per bag
Oranges $0.15 each
Rice $8.00
per lb.
Optional
Boots
$6.00
Flannel shirts $1.50
Blanket
$5.00
Shovel
$36.00
per lb.
per lb.
per lb.
per lb.
per tin
$83.94
$363.76
$4.20
$223.85
$279.81
$559.63
$699.53
$4.20
$4.20
each
per bag
each
per lb.
per lb.
per lb.
per lb.
per lb.
per box
per pair
each
each
each
$167.89 per pair
$41.97 each
$139.91 each
$1007.33
• Little effort made to build communities- too busy
looking for gold
• Violence in the mining towns/camps was a
problem
• Racial discrimination- especially among Chinese,
Mexicans, and African Americans was common
• Miners had their claims jumped
• Thieves would rob miners of their gold, kill them,
or run them off and then file own claim to victims
strike
• Some miners used to law to take the claims of
other miners- take advantage of high tax on
foreign miners
• Most mining camps were temporary
• Gold played out, people moved- left ghost towns
• Mid 1850s immediate effects of the Gold Rush
were over
• California was left with a large population
• Growing agriculture and corporate mining
industries
• Gold Rush left California a population that was larger
and more affluent, in the case of San Francisco- more
culturally sophisticated than any other newly settled
territories
• Population of California was more culturally diverse
than the rest of the nation; Chinese, Mexican, and
European immigrants remained after the gold was
gone
• The “lesser races” were kept in a subordinate position
• Gold rush destroyed the foothill landscape
• Led to the virtual extermination of California Indians
• Many Californios were legally deprived of their
land grants
• Increase in racial animosity- especially for
Chinese
• Lack of stable communities and worsening
racial tensions; started in California and
followed “rushes” in Colorado, Montana,
Idaho, South Dakota, Arizona, and Alaska
The California Debate
• Congress was urged to create territorial
governments for California and New Mexico
• Congress divided over sectional lines, could not
decide whether or not to allow slavery in the
territories
• Taylor to avoid a fight in Congress let the people
of California make their own decision
• The population of California great enough to
apply for admission as a free state in December
1849, the Gold Rush forced national decision
making on the slave issue
• California admitted as a free state
• The slaveholding states a minority in the
Senate
• The South was fearful of losing political power
• This would open the door to limits on slavery
and state’s rights
• Talk of secession begins
Henry Clay’s Solution
• 1850, Senator Henry Clay attempts to find a
compromise to let California in as a state
• Clay, “The Great Compromiser”, Missouri
Compromise, nullification crisis, proposed 8
resolutions to solve the problem
• The resolutions were grouped in pairs, this
offered concessions on both sides
• 1. California admitted as a free state but
organized the remainder of the Mexican
Cession without restrictions to slavery
• 2. Settled the border dispute between Texas
and New Mexico in the favor of New Mexico,
but compensated Texas, the federal
government would take on the debts of Texas,
this gained Southern support, many
Southerners held Texas bonds
• 3. Outlawed the slave trade in Washington,
D.C. but not slavery
• 4. Congress could not interfere in the
domestic slave trade and would pass a new
fugitive slave act
– Concessions needed to ensure that after California
was admitted to the Union the North could not
use the advantage it gained in the Senate to
abolish slavery
Calhoun’s Response
• Clay’s resolutions sparked debate, any
compromise would require Calhoun’s approval
• Calhoun read a prepared speech in reply to
Clay
• 1. Northern agitation against slavery was a
threat to the South
• 2. Clay’s compromise would not save the
Union
• 3. The South needed acceptance of its rights
• 4. The return of fugitive slaves
• 5. A guarantee of a balance between sections
Daniel Webster’s Response
• Daniel Webster replied to Calhoun three days
later
• 1. called for national unity above sectional
loyalties
• 2. voiced support for Clay’s plan as the only
way to save the Union
Changes in leadership
• Clay’s bill did not pass Congress, due in part to
president Taylor who was opposed
• Taylor died in office that summer
• VP Millard Fillmore became president
• End of the Summer Calhoun was dead,
Webster now Secretary of State, and Clay had
given up leadership of the Senate
• Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois divided Clay’s
large compromise into several smaller bills
• Members of Congress now from different
geographical sections could abstain or oppose
parts of the bills they did not like and support the
other parts
• All of the parts of the compromise proposed by
Clay had been approved by the fall and Fillmore
signed them into law
The Compromise of 1850
• The Compromise of 1850 would for a short
time ease the tension caused by slavery
• A permanent solution would not be
accomplished by compromise
• 1. California admitted as a free state
• 2. Popular sovereignty would be used to settle
the issue of slavery in Utah and New Mexico
• 3. The Texas border dispute with New Mexico
was resolved, Texas received $10 million
• 4. The slave trade in Washington, D.C. was
abolished, but not slavery
• 5. Strong federal enforcement of a new
Fugitive Slave Act
Fugitive Slave Act
• Early days of abolitionist movement slaves had been
encouraged to escape
• Most escaped slaves found reliable help within
Northern free black communities
• Northerners appalled by Southern professional slave
catchers
• African Americans seized in the North were taken back
South and enslaved
• African Americans no legal rights to defend themselves
• Nine northern states passed personal liberty laws,
would not cooperate with federal recapture efforts
• Southerners insisted a stronger fugitive slave law
be part of the Compromise of 1850
• Fugitive Slave Act, 1850 increased the power of
the slave owners to capture escaped slaves
• Full authority of the federal government
supported slave owners
• Fugitives were guaranteed a hearing before a
federal commissioner, could not testify on their
own behalf- commissioner got $5 for African
Americans allowed to stay in the North and $10
for each African American sent South into slavery
• Law imposed federal penalties on citizens who
protected or helped fugitive slaves, or who did
not cooperate in their return
• As many as 30,000 to 40,000 African Americans
some free and some runaway slaves moved to
Upper Canada
• Resistance to the law was fierce in Boston
• Frederick Douglass supported armed resistance
to the law- “The only way to make the Fugitive
Slave Law a dead letter is to make a half dozen or
more dead kidnappers”
• Fugitive Slave Law brought the reality of slavery
to residents of free states
• Forced northern communities to confront the full
meaning of slavery
• Most people still unwilling to grant social equality
to free African Americans who lived in northern
states, more and more began to believe that the
institution of slavery was wrong
• Northern protests to the law raised southern
suspicion in the South and encouraged
secessionist thinking
Slave Power
• Northerners increasingly questioned why they should
compromise when the South would not
• Southern secession threats confirmed for many in the
North the warnings of antislavery leaders that they
were endangered by a menacing “slave power”
• Liberty Party leader James Birney, speech 1844
explained that the “slave power” 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, posing a danger to
free speech and free institutions in the nation
• Birney’s “slave power” was illustrated in the defensive
position of southern representatives in national politics
after 1830
• Proslavery strategy of maintaining supremacy in the
Senate by keeping at least as many slave states as free
states admitted to the Union- this required the
expansion of slavery
• Northerners viewed this a sectional conspiracy to
control national politics
• Defensive southern strategies of the 1850s convinced a
growing number of northern voters that the “slave
power” did exist
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
account of slavery
• Brought the slave issue to many households
• Changed the Northern perception of African
Americans and slavery
• Sold 300,000 copies the first year
• Depicted slaves as real people imprisoned in
horrible circumstances
• Touched readers, emotions ran from pity to outrage
where national arguments could not
• Southerners attempted to have the novel burned
• Attacked it as a false portrayal of slavery
• Southern outrage did not stop sales, ultimately sold
millions of copies
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a profound impact on public
opinion- many consider it one of the causes of the Civil
War
• Stowe was prompted to write the novel in response to
the Fugitive Slave Act
Election of 1852
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Both parties had problems at their nominating conventions
Whig Party leader Henry Clay was dead
William Seward of New York became the unofficial party head
Seward preferred General Winfield Scott to the pro-southern Millard
Fillmore
52 ballots later Scott won the nomination
This alienated many southern Whigs
This would be the last Whig candidate
Democrats had a wide choice of candidates
Lewis Cass (popular sovereignty), Stephen Douglas (Compromise of 1850),
and James Buchanan (self-described as a northern man with southern
principles
49 ballots none of the candidates could win the nomination
Convention turned to Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire- thought to have
southern sympathies
• Democratic platform- pledged faithful execution of all parts of the
Compromise of 1850, including the fugitive slave law
• Democrats polled well in the south and the north
• Most democrats who voted Free Soil in 1848 voted for Pierce
• Immigrant Irish and German voters voted for Pierce
• Strong showing among immigrants was due to strong Democratic
machines in the Northern cities
• Reformers complained of wide spread corruption and vote buying
by urban bosses
• One Ohioan reported that General Apathy is the strongest
candidate out here.
• Pierce easily won the election of 1852, 254 electoral votes to 42
• Voter turnout below 70%, lower than it had been in 1836
The Underground Railroad
• The Fugitive Slave Act had heavy fines and prison
terms for whites and free blacks who helped
runaway slaves
• Still many continued their work with the
Underground Railroad
• An informal, well organized system that helped
thousands of slaves to escape
• Members of the Underground Railroad were
called conductors; they secretly transported
runaways North
• They gave shelter, food, and water along the
way to freedom in Northern states or Canada
• Many members were African American
Harriet Tubman
• Most well known conductor on the
Underground Railroad; Harriet Tubman
• Risked her life on many trips South to help
slaves escape
• Made 19 trips helped over 300 slaves escape
Isaac Brandt/Levi Coffin
• Isaac Brandt, Des Moines, Iowa used secret signals to
communicate with conductors on the Underground
Railroad
• Levi Coffin a Quaker born in North Carolina
• Allowed escaping slaves to stay at his home in Indiana,
where three major Underground Railroad routes came
together
• It is estimated that 2,000 African Americans stopped at
Coffin’s home
• Coffin relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio and aided 1,300
find freedom who had crossed the river from Kentucky
Westward Settlement and the
Transcontinental Railroad
• As settlers moved West so did sectional
tensions
• They remained Northerners or Southerners
• 1850s settlers and land speculators were
interested in the fertile lands of Missouri and
Iowa
• The territory was unorganized, until it was
organized as a territory it could not be
surveyed or settled
• The opening of Oregon and admission of
California as a state led to a call for a
transcontinental railroad
• Connect the West and East coasts
• 1850s, going to the West coast required
months of travel overland, or an ocean voyage
around the tip of South America
• A railroad would cut the time to travel from
one coast to the other to four days
The Gadsden Purchase
• Secretary of War Jefferson Davis sent James
Gadsden to buy land from Mexico for the
Southern route of the Transcontinental
Railroad
• Santa Anna agreed to sell 30,000 square mile
strip
• Part of Arizona and New Mexico
• In 1853 Mexico accepted $10 million dollars
for the land
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• In order to make a Northern route possible, Congress
had to organize the territory west of Missouri and Iowa
• 1853, Stephen Douglass proposed a bill to organize the
region into Nebraska
• The bill passed the House of Representatives, Southern
Senators refused to allow a vote in the Senate
• Southern Senators let Douglass know that if he wanted
Nebraska, he would have to push for the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise and allow slavery in the new
territory
• Douglass knew repeal of the Missouri
Compromise would divide the nation
• Wanted to open the Northern Great Plains to
settlement
• Douglass hoped to move a bill through
Congress that would split the Whig Party and
push the slave issue aside
• His attempts set the nation on a course to war
• 1. to gain Southern support for the bill, any
states in the Nebraska Territory would be
allowed to determine free or slave through
popular sovereignty
– Southern leaders would not support Douglass
while the Missouri Compromise still in effect,
slaveholders would not move to the Nebraska
Territory, the new states would be free
• 2. the next bill proposed the end of the
Missouri Compromise and allowed slavery in
the region
• Divide the region into two territories,
Nebraska to the North and Kansas to the
south and west of Missouri
• Nebraska would be free and Kansas would be
slave
• Northern Democrats, Whigs, and Free-Soilers
angry
• Charged that the abandonment of the
Missouri Compromise broke the promise to
limit the spread of slavery
• Democratic leaders in Congress garnered
enough support to pass the Kansas-Nebraska
Act May, 1854
Bleeding Kansas
• Kansas was the first open battleground for
those who wanted to extend slavery and
those opposed to it’s expansion
• Eastern Kansas similar fertile soil as Missouri
• Setters moving from Missouri would bring
slaves, claim Kansas a slave state
• Established proslavery strongholds in
Leavenworth, Kickapoo, and Atchison
• 1855 the second of several fraudulent elections,
6,307 ballots cast in a territory with fewer than
3,000 eligible voters
• To stop Kansas from becoming a slave state,
Northerners went to the territory to create an
anti-slave majority
• The first to arrive were a party of New
Englanders, summer 1854
• Established the free soil town of Lawrence,
named after former “Cotton Whig” Amos
Lawrence who paid for their migration
• A thousand more joined them by the next
summer
• Many migrants were free soilers and religious
reformers
• There was a contrast of values between them and
the border ruffians
• Nondrinking William Phillips refused an offer of a
drink from a Missourian, the response was “
That’s just it! This thing of temperance and
abolitionism and the Emigrant Aid Society are all
the same kind of thing.”
• The New England Emigrant Aid Society
recruited and outfitted anti-slavery settlers
headed to Kansas
• The pro-slavery governor of Missouri David
Atchison sent men from Missouri to Kansas in
the spring of 1855
• Thousand of Missouri border ruffians voted
illegally in Kansas, elected a pro-slavery
legislature
• Anti-slavery settlers held their own convention in
Topeka, Kansas; wrote a constitution that
outlawed slavery
• May 1856, Kansas has two governments
• May 21, 1856, border ruffians attacked the town
of Lawrence, Kansas; an anti-slavery stronghold
• The newspaper presses were destroyed, homes
and shops looted, a hotel and the home of the
elected free-state governor burned
• In response to the attack on Lawrence, John
Brown and his sons raided proslavery settlers of
Pottawatomie Creek, killed 5 unarmed people
• Bands roamed the countryside, burnings and
killings became commonplace
• John Brown and his followers were one of many
bands of murderers who were never arrested,
nor brought to trial, not stopped from
committing violence
• Peaceful residents of rural Kansas forced to flee
to military forts when rumors of armed bands
arrived
• Nation watched in horror as residents of Kansas
slaughtered each other in pursuit of sectional
goals
• “Bleeding Kansas” home to a territorial civil war;
pro-slavery versus anti-slavery settlers
• By the end of 1856, 200 dead and property losses
of $2 million
The Caning of Charles Sumner
• The bloodshed in Kansas led to debate in the
Senate
• May 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts, an abolitionist, gave a speech
accusing pro-slavery senators of forcing
slavery on Kansas
• Sumner singled out Senator Andrew Butler of
South Carolina, said Butler had “chosen a
mistress…..the harlot, slavery”
• May 22, 1856 Butler’s second cousin,
Representative Preston Brooks went to Sumner’s
Senate chamber, shouted that Sumner’s speech
was a libel on SC and Mr. Butler
• Brooks took his gold-handled cane and beat
Sumner severely
• Brooks became a hero of sorts to many
Southerners, some sent him canes inscribed with
“Hit him again”
• Northerners were shocked by the growing
support for Brooks and became more
determined to resist slavery
• They must strike back or be slaves
The Republican Party
• Northern Whigs, the Free-Soil Party, and antislavery Democrats joined together due to the
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• They took many names; the Anti-Nebraska
Party, the Fusion Party, the People’s Party and
the Independent Party
• By and far the most popular name was the
Republican Party
• The Republican Party was officially organized
at a convention in July, 1854
• The party wanted to revive the spirit of
Jefferson and the American Revolution
• Just as Jefferson chose the name to prevent
the U.S. from becoming a monarchy, the new
Republicans feared Southern planters were
becoming an aristocracy that controlled the
federal government
• The Republican Party did not agree on the
issue of abolishing slavery
• The Republican Party did agree to keep it out
of the territories
• A large number of Northern voters agreed
with the Republicans and other anti-slave
parties which made gains in the 1854
Congressional elections
The Know-Nothings
• Public displeasure with Northern Democrats
allowed the American Party or Know-Nothings to
make gains was well
• The party was an anti-Catholic and nativist party
• Opposed immigration, especially Catholic
immigration
• Used prejudice and fears of losing jobs to
immigrants, Know-Nothings won numerous seats
in the Congress and State Legislatures in 1854
• After the elections the Know-Nothings
experienced the same problems as the Whigs
• The party spilt over support for the KansasNebraska Act
• Violence in Kansas and the caning of Charles
Sumner made slavery a greater issue to most
Americans than immigration
• The Know-Nothings were absorbed by the
Republican Party
The Election of 1856
• To get support the Republican Party
nominated John C. Fremont who supported
Kansas as a free state
• Fremont had little political experience, but
had no skeletons in his closet
• The Democrats nominated John Buchanan
• He had served in Congress for 20 years
• Served as ambassador to Russia
• Buchanan was in England when the KansasNebraska debates took place
• Buchanan’s record showed he would make
concessions to the South to preserve the Union
• The American Party attempted to reunite their
membership
• Northern delegates walked out of the convention
because the party would not call for the repeal of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• The remaining members at the convention
nominated Millard Fillmore in hopes of getting
the former Whig vote
• The election was in reality two contests
• 1. Buchanan and Fremont in the North
• 2. Buchanan and Fillmore in the South
• Buchanan had solid Southern support, needed
only win his home state of Pennsylvania and
one other state
• Democrats campaigned that Buchanan was
the only candidate that could save the Union,
and the election of Fremont would lead to
Southern secession
• Buchanan won
Dred Scott vs. Sandford
• Dred Scott v. Sandford, decided March 6, 1857
• Southern dominated U.S. Supreme Court tried to end
the political controversy over slavery
• Scott had been a slave all of his life
• Owner, army surgeon John Emerson had taken Scott
with him on military assignments in the 1830s to the
Wisconsin Territory- free territory north of the Missouri
Compromise line
• Scott married another slave, had a daughter who was
born in a free territory
• 1846 Scott sued for freedom for himself, his wife, and
daughter- women had no legal standing on their own
• The case took 11 years to make it to the Supreme Court
• Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (Maryland) insisted on
reading the majority opinion in its entirety- took 4
hours
• Declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional on
the basis of the 5th amendment- no person may be
denied life, liberty, or property without due process of
law
• Taney and the Court asserted that the federal
government had no right to interfere with the free
movement of property throughout the territories
• Taney was supporting Calhoun’s states’ rights
argument an extreme viewpoint the law of the
land
• Taney dismissed the Dred Scott Case on the
grounds that only citizens could bring suits in
federal courts- black people slave or free were
not citizens
• Taney with judicial intervention into the issue of
the day intended to settle the issue over the
expansion of slavery once and for all
• Instead the Court made the situation worse
• Five southern members of the Court concurred in
Taney’s decision as did one northerner- Robert C.
Grier
• It is possible that President Buchanan had
pressured Grier- both were from Pennsylvania to
support the majority
• Two of the three other northerners on the Court
strongly dissented and the last voiced other
objections
• The decision was a sectional decision
Southern Reaction to Dred Scott
• Southerners expressed satisfaction with the
decision and voiced strong support for the
Court
• Georgia Constitutionalist announced
“Southern opinion upon the subject of
southern slavery….is now the supreme law of
the land….opposition upon this subject is now
opposition to the Constitution, and morally
treason against the Government”.
Northern Reaction to Dred Scott
• Northerners disagreed
• Many were so upset that for the first time they
found themselves questioning the power of the
Supreme Court to establish the law of the land
• New York legislature passed a resolution
declaring the Supreme Court had lost the
confidence and respect of the people of that
state
• Passed an additional resolution refusing to allow
slavery within its borders “in any form or under
any pretense, or for any time, however short”
• New York Republicans proposed an equal suffrage
amendment for free African Americans- were
disenfranchised by strict property qualifications
in order to vote
• State’s voters defeated the amendment
• Racist attitude hurt free African Americans in the
North, F. Douglass considered moving to Haiti
• Dred Scott Decision was a challenge for the
Republican Party
• Nullifying the Missouri Compromise took away free soil the
foundation of the Republican Party
• To challenge the Supreme Court was a formidable task
• Lincoln and William Seward, accused President Buchanan
of conspiring with the Southern Supreme Court justices to
subvert the American political system by withholding the
decision until after the presidential election of 1856
• Lincoln raised the possibility that the next Dred Scott
Decision would legalize slavery even in free states that
abhorred slavery
• Buchanan’s response to events in Kansas, including the
drafting of a proslavery constitution, provoked sectional
antagonisms
The Kansas Lecompton Constitution
• In an attempt to end troubles in Kansas,
president Buchanan called for the territory to
apply for statehood
• The pro-slavery legislature set a date for an
election of delegates to a constitutional
convention
• Anti-slavery Kansans boycotted the election,
claimed it was rigged
• A constitution was drafted in Lecompton,
1857 which legalized slavery
• Each side had its own referendum
• The anti-slavery forces voted the constitution
down
• The pro-slavery forces voted the constitution’s
approval
• Buchanan accepted the pro-slavery vote
• Buchanan asked Congress to accepted Kansas
as a slave state
• The Senate voted to accept Kansas as a slave
state
• The House of Representatives blocked
admittance
• During Congressional debates fistfights
occurred
• Southern leaders were surprised when Stephen
Douglas did not support them
• Hoped that Douglas a Northern leader and presidential
candidate would work to a compromise to keep the
South in the Union
• Buchanan and Southern leaders agreed to second vote
on the Kansas constitution, the South expected the
pro-slavery vote to win, if Kansans rejected the
Lecompton Constitution it would take an additional
two years for Kansas to gain statehood, 1858 Kansas
voters rejected the Lecompton Constitution, did not
want slavery in Kansas
The Panic of 1857
• Added to the nation’s political problems was a
short but sharp economic depression 1857-1858
• August 1857, an Ohio investment house failed
• News that would have taken weeks to be widely
known was subject of a news story that hit the
telegraph wires to Wall Street and other financial
markets
• Panic selling occurred, led to business failures,
and slowdowns that put thousands out of work
• Major cause of the panic was a sharp, temporary drop
in agricultural exports to Britain, recovery started in
1859
• Hurt cotton exports less than it hurt northern exportsPanic of 1857 was less harmful to the South than the
North
• Southerners used this a proof that the economic
system of the South was superior to the economic
system of the North
• Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina in
his celebrated “King Cotton” Speech, March 1858
• -When the abuse of credit had destroyed
credit and annihilated confidence; when
thousands of the strongest commercial houses
in the world were coming down…when you
came to a deadlock, and revolutions were
threatened, what brought you up?....We have
poured in upon you one million six hundred
thousands bales of cotton just at the moment
to save you from destruction…We have sold ijt
for $65,000,000, and saved you
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• 1858, Abraham Lincoln challenged Stephen
Douglas for his Senate seat
• Douglas the “Little Giant”, popular campaigner
who drew crowds
• Lincoln requested a series of debates
• This would expose Lincoln to larger crowds
than he could draw alone
• Video Clip
• Douglas accepted
• Lincoln had little political experience
• Was a small town store keeper, mill hand, rail
splitter, practiced law
• Lincoln had served in the Illinois State
Legislature
• Lincoln served one term in the US House of
Representatives as a Whig
• Lincoln was a skilled debater
• Lincoln was not an abolitionist
• Lincoln believed slavery was morally wrong and
opposed westward expansion of slavery
• Douglas was a supporter of popular sovereignty
• Douglas won the debates
• Lincoln made clear the principles of the
Republican Party, established a national
reputation as a man of clear, insightful thinking,
and able to argue with force and eloquence
The Freeport Doctrine
• Lincoln asked Douglas if citizens could vote to
exclude slavery before gaining statehood
• If Douglas answered yes, he would be
supporting popular sovereignty over the
Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott and lose
Southern support
• If Douglas answered no, he would abandon
popular sovereignty, on which he had built a
national following
• Douglas in an attempt to avoid a dilemma,
answered with what became known as the
Freeport Doctrine
• Douglas stated that he accepted the Dred
Scott decision, but that people could still keep
slavery out by not passing laws to regulate
and enforce slavery
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry
• John Brown, abolitionist, 1859 planned a raid on
the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Va.
• The raid was to free and arm slaves and to start
an insurrection against slaveholders
• Free African Americans, including Fredrick
Douglass did not support Brown, believing it was
doomed to fail
• The night of Oct. 16, 1859, Brown 22 white and
African American men seized the federal arsenal
• No plan for escape, did not notify the Virginia
slaves that the rebellion was to free
• A group of US Marines led by Robert E. Lee
arrived and 36 hours from the start of Brown’s
slaver rebellion it had ended with his capture
• 8 of Brown’s men including his two sons were
dead
• No slaves joined the raid
• To stop Brown from a lynching by local mobs the state
of Virginia tried and convicted Brown of treason,
murder, and fomenting insurrection
• Brown quite possibly insane was a noble martyr
• Brown’s closing speech prior to sentencing, “Now, if it
is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the
furtherance of the end 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
say, let it be done”
• Brown was hanged December 2, 1859
• Northern communities marked his death with
public rites of mourning that seen since the
death of G. Washington
• Church bells rang, buildings draped in black
• Ministers preached sermons, prayer meetings
held, abolitionists issued eulogies
• Ralph Waldo Emerson said that Brown would
“make the gallows as glorious as the cross”
• Henry David Thoreau called Brown “an angel of
light”
• Not all in the North support Brown’s actions,
Northern Democrats and conservative opinion
repudiated Brown
• Many did reject Brown’s Raid, did support the
antislavery cause Brown represented
• Brown’s Raid shocked the South
• Slave rebellion had been the greatest fear of the
South
• Southerners believed northern abolitionists were
provoking slave revolts
• This was to some degree confirmed when
documents taken at Harpers Ferry revealed
Brown had financial support from six members of
the northern elite
• “Secret Six”, Gerrit Smith, George Stearns,
Franklin Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
Theodore Parker, and Samuel Gridley Howe had
been willing to finance armed attacks on the
slave system
• More shocking to the Southerners than the raid was
the extend of northern mourning for Brown’s death
• Republican Party disavowed Brown’s actions
• Southerners did not believe the Republican Party’s
statements
• How could the South stay in the Union in the face of
Northern insolence
• Richmond Enquirer, “The Harpers Ferry invasion has
advanced the cause of disunion more than any other
event that has happened since the formation of the
government”
• Referring to the Election of 1860, Senator
Robert Toombs of Georgia warned “that the
South would never permit this Federal
government to pass into the traitorous hands
of the Black Republican party”
• Talk of secession as the only possible response
was common across the South
The Election of 1860
• Brown’s Raid was a turning point for the South
• Always fearful of slave uprisings
• To have Northerners attempting to arm slaves
and push them to rebellion was too much
• Republicans denounced Brown’s Raid
• Many in the South blamed Brown’s Raid on the
Republicans
• Both Brown and Republicans were opposed to
slavery
• April, 1860, Democrats met in Charleston, SC to select a
presidential candidate
• The slavery debate in the West had finally split the
Democratic Party
• The first Democratic nominating convention ended in
dispute
• The Northern Democrats supported popular sovereignty
• The Southern Democrats wanted the Party to uphold the
Dred Scott Decision and endorse a federal slave code for
the territories
• Stephen Douglas did not get enough votes for the
nomination
• Douglas supporters organized a rival delegation
to get Douglas nominated
• Southern delegates walked out
• Remaining delegates nominated Douglas
• Southern delegates held their own convention
and nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky
• Breckenridge supported the Dred Scott Decision
and a federal slave code for the territories
• Radical Southern Democrats hoped the Republicans
would win, allow the South to secede
• Whigs, feared the Union in danger, formed the
Constitutional Union Party, chose John Bell of
Tennessee- to uphold the Constitution and the Union
• The Republicans no hope for Southern votes, needed a
candidate who could win the North
• At the Chicago Convention, William Seward was the
Republican first choice, lacked appeal, it was decided
to nominate Abraham Lincoln, gained popularity in the
North due to the debates with Douglas
Lincoln’s Election
• During the campaign the Republicans tried to
show they were more than just an anti-slavery
party
• The Republican Party denounced John Brown’s
Raid
• The Republican Party reaffirmed the rights of
the Southern states to keep slavery within
their borders
• Supported higher tariffs
• Wanted a new homestead law for western
settlement
• Promoted a transcontinental railroad
• The Republican platform angered many
Southerners
• Douglas and Breckenridge split the Democratic
vote
• Lincoln won the election without any
Southern support
• The South saw the victory for the Republicans
as a victory for the abolitionists
• Southern culture and society in danger
• The South had no choice but secession
Secession
• The South Carolina legislature called a
convention after Lincoln’s election and voted
for the Ordinance of Secession
• By Feb. 1,1861 six additional states in the
lower South voted to secede
• South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded
• Many in the South viewed secession in the
spirit of the American Revolution, a fight for
American rights
Crittenden’s Compromise
• As the Southern states left the Union,
Congress tried to compromise to save the
Union
• Secessionists ignored Congressional attempts
and began to seize federal property in their
states
• Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, SC
• Fort Pickens in Pensacola Harbor, Florida
• And several islands off the Florida coast
remained under Federal control
• Congress unhappy with the seizures, still
looked for compromise
• Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden proposed
several Constitutional amendments
• Guarantee slavery where it already existed
• Reinstate the Missouri Compromise, extend it to
the California border; slavery prohibited north of
the line and protected south of it
• Lincoln urged Congressional Republicans to stand
firm
• Crittenden’s Compromise did not pass
• Virginia, a slave state held a convention, lasted 3
weeks no secessionist states attended, came up
with a modified version of Crittenden’s
Compromise, it also was defeated
Northern Political Options
• Compromise: from full adoption of Breckinridge’s
campaign platform to reinstatement of the
Missouri Compromise line
• Lincoln refused all, made it clear he would not
compromise on the extension of slavery, which
was the key demand by the South
• Lincoln hoped to appear moderate to discourage
any more southern states from seceding and give
pro-Union Southerners time to organize
• Lincoln and the Republican Party overestimated
the strength of pro-Union feelings in the South
• Second possibility- Horace Greely of the New York
Tribune, let the southern states go in peace- what
many secessionists hope for and expected
• Too many in the North including Lincoln believed in the
Union for this to happen
• Lincoln- “the necessity of proving that popular
government is not an absurdity. We must settle the
question now, whether in a free government the
minority have the right to break up the government
whenever they choose”
• At stake was the pride of the people in the federal
government as a model for democracies world wide
• Third possibility was force
• Lincoln felt the actions by the seceding states
were wrong- he did not want to go to war to
force them back into the Union
• He did refuse to give up federal power over
military forts and customs posts in the South
• The seceding South needed these powers in
order to function as an independent nation
• A confrontation would occur- Lincoln waited for
the other side to strike first
The Confederacy/Confederate
Constitution
• Seceding states met in Montgomery, Alabama
and decided to form a new nation
• The Confederate States of America
• Drafted a constitution based on the US
Constitution
• 1. each state remained independent
• 2 guaranteed slavery in Confederate Territory
• 3. banned protective tariffs
• 4. limited the President to one six year term
• Former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis
chosen as president
• Alexander Stephens named vice-president
• In his inaugural address President Davis “the
time for compromise has passed, the South is
determined to make all who oppose her smell
Southern powder and feel Southern steel”
Lincoln’s Inaugural Address
• The months before taking office Abraham
Lincoln watched as the nation splintered
• In writing his inauguration speech he had a
new country to the south
• And the real possibility more states would
leave the Union
• In his inauguration speech President Lincoln
spoke to the seceding states
• He stated there would be no interference with
slavery where it already existed
• Lincoln insisted that the Union of these states
was perpetual
• Lincoln did not threaten the seceding states,
but, intended to hold federal property in
those states
The fall of Ft. Sumter
• April, 1861 President Lincoln announced his
decision to resupply Fort Sumter
• President Jefferson Davis had to make a
decision
• To tolerate federal troops in the South’s most
important harbor was unacceptable
• To fire on the supply ship after Lincoln’s
warning would lead to war with the United
States
• President Davis decided to take Fort Sumter
before the supply ships arrived
• If successful peace would be maintained
• Confederate leaders sent a message to Major
Robert Anderson demanding Fort Sumter be
surrendered by the morning of April 12, 1861
• Anderson refused
• Confederate cannon fire from Charleston
bombarded Fort Sumter for 33 hours
• The fort was destroyed but there were no
deaths
• Anderson finally surrendered
• The Civil War had begun
The Upper South Secedes
• Fort Sumter fell, Lincoln called for 75,000
volunteers for 90 days of military service
• The call for troops created a crisis in the Upper
South
• Many did not want to secede, but when faced
with Civil War, no choice but to leave the
Union
• Virginia was first, passed an Ordinance of
Secession April 17, 1861
• The Confederate Congress responded by
moving the capital of the Confederacy to
Richmond, Virginia
• Early June 1861, Arkansas, North Carolina, and
Tennessee joined the Confederacy
Border States
• Upper South gone, Lincoln had to keep the
slaveholding border states
• Delaware not likely to secede
• Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, might
• With Virginia’s secession a Confederate State
was across the Potomac River from the
nation’s capital
• If Maryland seceded the capital would be
surrounded
• To keep Maryland Lincoln imposed martial law
in Baltimore
• Mobs there had already attacked federal
troops
• Military now controlled Baltimore
• Lincoln replaced civilian authorities and
suspended certain civil rights
• Anyone supporting secession was arrested
and held without trial
• Army officers imprisoned dozens of suspected
secessionist leaders
• Kentucky was divided over secession, it
controlled the south bank of the Ohio River
• Kentucky was important to the Union and
Lincoln declared it was neutral
• Lincoln agreed to leave Kentucky alone if the
Confederacy did also
• Kentucky remained neutral until Sept. 1861,
Confederate troops moved to occupy the
southwest corner of the state, Union then
moved in
• The Confederate invasion angered members
of the Kentucky legislature which voted to go
to war against the Confederacy
• Confederate supporters in Kentucky created a
rival government and seceded
• Missouri, with many Confederate
sympathizers, a state convention voted against
secession
• Pro-secession forces led by Governor
Claiborne F. Jackson struggled with the
convention
• Missouri remained in the Union with the
support of federal troops
• From the very beginning Lincoln was willing to
take political and constitutional risks to
preserve the Union
• The preservation now would be determined
on the battlefield