Download United States Congress 1850

[BDMUNC 2014s] Committee Update
United States Congress 1850
Topic Area: Tension between the North and the South
Inside:
A.
B.
C.
D.
Historical Development since 1850
Causes to the Civil War (Expansion)
Some Important People
Assignments
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Attribution
Dais of United States Congress 1850,
Summer Conference of Bright Dream Model United Nations Conference 2014
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Historical Development
Since 1850
A. Post-Mexican War
Soon after the Mexican War started and long before negotiation of the new US-Mexico
border, the question of slavery in the territories to be acquired polarized the Northern
and Southern United States in the most bitter sectional conflict up to this time, which
lasted for a deadlock of four years during which the Second Party System broke up,
Mormon pioneers settled Utah, the California Gold Rush settled California, and New
Mexico under a federal military government turned back Texas's attempt to assert control
over territory Texas claimed as far west as the Rio Grande. Eventually the Compromise
of 1850 preserved the Union, but only for another decade.
The compromise of 1850
The victory of the United States over Mexico resulted in the addition of large new
territories conquered from Mexico. Controversy over whether these territories would
be slave or free raised the risk of a war between slave and free states, and Northern support
for the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in the conquered territories,
increased sectional tensions.
The controversy was temporarily resolved by the Compromise of 1850, which allowed
the territories of Utah and New Mexico to decide for or against slavery, but also allowed
the admission of California as a free state, reduced the size of the slave state of Texas by
adjusting the boundary, and ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in the District
of Columbia. In return, the South got a stronger fugitive slave law than the version
mentioned in the Constitution, which required that Northerners assist Southerners in
reclaiming fugitive slaves. Many Northerners found it extremely offensive.
B. Founding of the Republican Party
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Convinced that Northern society was superior to that of the South, and increasingly
persuaded of the South's ambitions to extend slave power beyond its existing borders,
Northerners were embracing a viewpoint that made conflict likely; however, conflict
required the ascendancy of a political group to express the views of the North, such as
the Republican Party. The Republican Party – campaigning on the popular, emotional
issue of "free soil" in the frontier – captured the White House after just six years of
existence.
The Republican Party grew out of the controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska legislation.
Once the Northern reaction against the Kansas-Nebraska Act took place, its leaders acted
to advance another political reorganization.
C. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
The act was designed by a Democratic Senator, Stephen Douglas, the same person who
had the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska
Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern
Transcontinental Railroad. It became a problem when popular sovereignty was written
into the proposal so that the voters of the moment would decide whether slavery would
be allowed or not. The result was that pro- and anti-slavery elements flooded into Kansas
with the goal of voting slavery up or down, leading to a bloody war inside Kansas,
featuring the famous antislavery hero John Brown. Proslavery forces said every settler had
the right to bring his own property, including slaves, into the territory. Antislavery "free
soil" forces said the rich slave owners would buy up all the good farmland and work
them with black slaves, leaving little or no opportunity for non-slave owners. As such,
Bleeding Kansas was a proxy war between antislavery forces in the North and proslavery
forces from the South over the issue of slavery in the United States; its violence indicated
that compromise was unlikely and thus it presaged the Civil War.
D. Assault on Summer 1856
On May 19 Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner gave a long speech in the Senate
entitled "The Crime against Kansas", which condemned the Slave Power as the evil force
behind the nation's troubles.
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Three days later, Sumner, working at his desk on the Senate floor, was beaten almost to
death by Congressman Preston S. Brooks, Butler's nephew. Sumner took years to recover;
he became the martyr to the antislavery cause who said the episode proved the barbarism
of slave society. Brooks was lauded as a hero upholding Southern honor. Although
Representative Anson Burlingame managed to publicly embarrass Brooks in retaliation,
the original episode further polarized North and South, strengthened the new
Republican Party, and added a new element of violence on the floor of Congress.
E. The Lecompton Constitution
The Lecompton Constitution was the second of four proposed constitutions for the state
of Kansas. The document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855
Topeka Constitution. The territorial legislature, consisting mostly of slave-owners, met
at the designated capital of Lecompton in September 1857 to produce a rival document.
Free-state supporters, who comprised a large majority of actual settlers, boycotted the
vote. President James Buchanan's appointee as territorial governor of Kansas, Robert J.
Walker, although a strong defender of slavery, opposed the blatant injustice of the
Constitution and resigned rather than implement it. This new constitution enshrined
slavery in the proposed state and protected the rights of slaveholders. In addition, the
constitution provided for a referendum that allowed voters the choice of allowing more
slaves to enter the territory.
Both the Topeka and Lecompton constitutions were placed before the people of the
Kansas Territory for a vote, and both votes were boycotted by supporters of the opposing
faction. In the case of Lecompton, however, the vote was boiled down to a single issue,
expressed on the ballot as "Constitution with Slavery" v. "Constitution with no Slavery."
But the "Constitution with no Slavery" clause would have not made Kansas a free state;
it merely would have banned future importation of slaves into Kansas (something deemed
by many as unenforceable). Boycotted by free-soilers, the referendum suffered from
serious voting irregularities, with over half the 6,000 votes deemed fraudulent.
Nevertheless, both it and the Topeka Constitution were sent to Washington for approval
by Congress.
A new referendum over the fate of the Lecompton Constitution was proposed, even
though this would delay Kansas's admission to the Union. Furthermore, a new
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constitution, the anti-slavery Leavenworth Constitution, was already being drafted. On
4 January 1858, Kansas voters, having the opportunity to reject the constitution
altogether in the referendum, overwhelmingly rejected the Lecompton proposal by a
vote of 10,226 to 138. And in Washington, the Lecompton constitution was defeated by
the federal House of Representatives in 1858. Though soundly defeated, debate over the
proposed constitution had ripped apart the Democratic Party. Kansas was admitted to the
Union as a free state in 1861.
F. Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 1858
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Stephen
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, the Republican who sought to replace Douglas in the
Senate. The debates were mainly about slavery.
Douglas defended his Kansas Nebraska Act which replaced the Missouri Compromise
an on slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north and west of Missouri with popular
sovereignty, which allowed residents of territories such as the Kansas to vote either for
or against slavery. Douglas put Lincoln on the defensive by accusing him of being a Black
Republican abolitionist, but Lincoln responded by asking Douglas to reconcile popular
sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. Douglas' Freeport Doctrine was that residents
of a territory could keep slavery out by refusing to pass a slave code and other laws
needed to protect slavery. Douglas' Freeport Doctrine, and the fact that he helped defeat
the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, made Douglas unpopular in the South, which
led to the 1860 split of the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern wings. The
Democrats retained control of the Illinois legislature, and Douglas thus retained his seat
in the U.S. Senate (at that time United States Senators were elected by the state
legislatures, not by popular vote); however, Lincoln's national profile was greatly raised,
paving the way for his election as president of the United States two years later.
G. Split of the Democratic Party 1860
The Alabama extremist William Lowndes Yancey's demand for a federal slave code for
the territories split the Democratic Party between North and South, which made the
election of Lincoln possible.Yancey tried to make his demand for a slave code moderate
enough to get Southern support and yet extreme enough to enrage Northerners and
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split the party. He demanded that the party support a slave code for the territories if later
necessary, so that the demand would be conditional enough to win Southern support.
His tactic worked, and lower South delegates left the Democratic Convention at Institute
Hall in Charleston, South Carolina and walked over to Military Hall. The South Carolina
extremist Robert Barnwell Rhett hoped that the lower South would completely break
with the Northern Democrats and attend a separate convention at Richmond, Virginia,
but lower South delegates gave the national Democrats one last chance at unification by
going to the convention at Baltimore, Maryland before the split became permanent. The
end result was that John C. Breckinridge became the candidate of the Southern
Democrats, and Stephen Douglas became the candidate of the Northern Democrats.
Yancy's previous 1848 attempt at demanding a slave code for the territories was his
Alabama Platform, which was in response to the Northern Wilmot Proviso attempt at
banning slavery in territories conquered from Mexico. Both the Alabama Platform and
the Wilmot Proviso failed, but Yancey learned to be less overtly radical in order to get
more support. Southerners thought they were merely demanding equality, in that they
wanted Southern property in slaves to get the same (or more) protection as Northern
forms of property.
H. Election of 1860
The United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the
expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. In 1860, these issues broke the
Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union
Party appeared. In the face of a divided opposition, the Republican Party, dominant in
the North, secured a majority of the electoral votes, putting Abraham Lincoln in the
White House with almost no support from the South.
I. Presidency of Lincoln 1860
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States,
beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats,
and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first president from the
Republican Party. His victory was entirely due to the strength of his support in the North
and West; no ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states, and he won
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only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.
As Lincoln's election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the
Union before he took office the next March. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina
took the lead by adopting an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Six of these states then
adopted a constitution and declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate
States of America.
Lincoln encountered an unprecedented political and military crisis after the beginning
of the American Civil War – Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, and he responded as
commander-in-chief, using unprecedented powers. He expanded his war powers, and
imposed a blockade on all the Confederate shipping ports, disbursed funds before
appropriation by Congress, and after suspending habeas corpus, arrested and imprisoned
thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers. Lincoln was supported by Congress
and the northern public for these actions. In addition, Lincoln had to contend with
reinforcing strong Union sympathies in the border slave states and keeping the war from
becoming an international conflict.
J. Secession
Since slavery was the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s, the
Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern
leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860
election. After Lincoln had won without carrying a single Southern state, many Southern
whites felt that disunion had become their only option, because they felt as if they were
losing representation, which hampered their ability to promote pro-slavery acts and
policies.
Before Lincoln took office, seven states had declared their secession from the Union.
They established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America on
February 4, 1861.
Seven Deep South cotton states seceded by February 1861, starting with South Carolina,
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states formed
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the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president,
and a governmental structure closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution.
The Seven Deep seceded from the Union following the sequence:
(1) South Carolina（1860.12.21）
(2) Mississippi（1861.1.9）
(3) Florida（1861.1.10）
(4) Alabama（1861.1.11）
(5) Georgia（1861.1.19）
(6) Louisiana（1861.1.26）
(7) Texas（1861.2.1）
Within two months, an additional four Southern slave states declared their secession and
joined the Confederacy: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. The
northwestern portion of Virginia subsequently seceded from Virginia, joining the Union
as the new state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. By the end of 1861, Missouri and
Kentucky were effectively under Union control, with Confederate state governments in
exile.
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Causes to the Civil War
(Expansion)
A. General Analysis
Historians have identified at least four main causes of the conflict between the North
and the South: (1) slavery, as a growing moral issue in the North, versus its defense and
expansion in the South; (2) constitutional disputes over the nature of the federal Union
and states’ rights; (3) economic differences between the industrializing North and the
agricultural South over such issues as tariffs, banking, and internal improvements; (4)
political blunders and extremism on both sides, which some historians conclude resulted
in an unnecessary war.
Free-Soil Movement
Northern Democrats and Whigs supported the Wilmot Proviso and the position that all
blacks—slave and free—should be excluded from the Mexican Cession (territory ceded
to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848). In the North, antislavery forces and racists alike could
find common ground in their support for the free- soil position. Unlike the abolitionists,
who insisted on eliminating slavery everywhere, the Free-Soilers did not demand the
end of slavery. Instead, they sought to keep the West a land of opportunity for whites
only so that the white majority would not have to compete with the labor of slaves or
free blacks. In 1848, northerners favoring this approach to the territories organized the
Free-Soil party, which adopted the slogan “free soil, free labor, and free men.” In addition
to its chief objective—preventing the extension of slavery—the new party also advocated
free homesteads (public land grants to small farmers) and internal improvements.
Popular Sovereignty
Lewis Cass, a Democratic senator from Michigan, proposed a compromise solution that
soon won considerable support from both moderate northerners and moderate
southerners. Instead of Congress determining whether to allow slavery in a new western
territory or state, Cass suggested that the matter be determined by a vote of the people
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who settled the territory. Cass’ approach to the problem was known as “squatter”, or
“popular sovereignty”.
B. Reactions to the Compromise of 1850
In the ensuing Senate debate over the compromise proposal, the three congressional
giants of their age—Henry Clay of Kentucky, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, and John
C. Calhoun of South Carolina—delivered the last great speeches of their lives. (Born in
the same year, 1782, Webster and Calhoun would also die in the same year, 1850; Clay
died two years later.) Webster courageously argued for compromise in order to save the
Union, and in so doing alienated the Massachusetts abolitionists who had supported him.
Calhoun argued against compromise and insisted that the South be given equal rights in
the acquired territory. Northern opposition to compromise came from younger
antislavery law- makers, such as Senator William H. Seward of New York, who argued
that there was a higher law than the Constitution. The opponents managed to prevail
until the sudden death in 1850 of President Taylor, who had also opposed Clay’s plan.
Succeeding him was a strong supporter of compromise, Vice President Millard Fillmore.
Stephen A. Douglas, a politically astute young senator from Illinois, engineered different
coalitions to pass each part of the compromise separately. President Fillmore readily
signed the bills into law. The passage of the Compromise of 1850 bought time for the
nation. Because California was admitted as a free state, the compromise added to the
North’s political power, and the political debate deepened the commitment of many
northerners to saving the Union from secession. On the other hand, parts of the
compromise became sources of controversy, especially the new Fugitive Slave Law and
the provision for popular sovereignty.
C. Reactions to Fugitive Slave Laws
Underground Railroad as Example
The Underground Railroad, the fabled network of “conductors” and “stations” to help
escaped slaves reach freedom in the North or in Canada, was neither well organized nor
dominated by white abolitionists as is sometimes believed. Both northern free blacks and
courageous ex-slaves led other blacks to freedom. The escaped slave Harriet Tubman
made at least 19 trips into the South to help some 300 slaves escape. Free blacks in the
North and abolitionists also organized vigilance committees to protect fugitive slaves
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from the slave catchers. Once the Civil War broke out, black leaders such as Frederick
Doug- lass, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth continued to take an active role in the
emancipation of slaves and supported black soldiers in the Union cause.
D. Reactions from the South to
Northern Abolitionist Sentiments and Literature
Responding to the northern literature that condemned slavery as evil, proslavery
southern whites counterattacked by arguing that slavery was just the opposite—a positive
good for slave and master alike. They argued that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible and
was firmly grounded in philosophy and history. Southern authors contrasted the
conditions of northern wage workers—“wage slaves” forced to work long hours in
factories and mines—with the familial bonds that often developed on plantations
between slaves and master. George Fitzhugh, the boldest and best known of the proslavery
authors, questioned the principle of equal rights for “unequal men” and attacked the
capitalist wage system as worse than slavery. Among his works were Sociology for the
South (1854) and Cannibals All! (1857).
Effect of Law and Literature
The effect of the Fugitive Slave Law and the antislavery and proslavery literature was to
polarize the nation even more. Northerners who had earlier scorned the abolitionist
cause now became concerned about the moral issues posed by slavery. At the same time,
a growing number of southerners became convinced that the North’s goal was to destroy
the institution of slavery and the way of life based upon it.
E. Effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act renewed the sectional controversy that had been at
least partly resolved by the Compromise of 1850. In effect, it repealed the Compromise
of 1820. Northern Democrats condemned the law as a surrender to the “slave power.”
Furthermore, a new political party emerged whose membership was entirely northern
and western. Its overriding purpose was to express opposition to the spread of slavery in
the territories. This new antislavery party called itself the Republican Party.
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F. Cradle to Extremism
Know-Nothing party
In addition to sectional divisions between North and South, there was also in the mid1850s growing ethnic tension in the North between native-born Protestant Americans
and immigrant Germans and Irish Catholics. Nativist hostility to these newcomers led
to the formation of the American party—or the Know-Nothing party, as it was more
commonly known (because party members commonly responded “I know nothing” to
political questions). The Know-Nothings drew support away from the Whigs at a time
when that party was reeling from its defeat in the 1852 election. Their one burning issue
was opposition to Catholics and immigrants who, in the 1840s and 1850s, were entering
northern cities in large numbers.
Although the Know-Nothings won a few local and state elections in the mid-1850s and
helped to weaken the Whigs, they quickly lost influence, as sectional issues again became
paramount.
G. Dred Scoot v. Stanford: Cause and Effects
Congressional folly and presidential ineptitude contributed to the sectional crisis of the
1850s. Then the Supreme Court, far from calming the situation, infuriated the North
with its controversial proslavery decision in the Dred Scott case.
Dred Scott had been held as a slave in Missouri and then taken to the free territory of
Wisconsin where he lived for two years before returning to Missouri. Arguing that his
period of residence on free soil made him a free citizen, Scott went to a Missouri court
and sued for his freedom. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which rendered
its decision in March 1857 only two days after Buchanan was sworn in as president.
Presiding over the Court was Chief Justice Roger Taney, a southern Democrat.
A majority of the Court decided against Scott and gave the following reasons:
1. Dred Scott had no right to sue in a federal court because the Framers of the
Constitution did not intend people of African descent to be U.S. citizens.
2. Congress did not have the power to deprive any person of property without due
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process of law; and, if slaves were a form of property, then Congress could not exclude
slavery from any federal territory.
3. Because Congress’ law of 1820 (the Missouri Compromise) excluded slavery from
Wisconsin and other northern territories, that law was unconstitutional.
Southern Democrats were delighted with the Court’s ruling, while northern
Republicans were shocked and indignant. In effect, the Supreme Court declared that all
parts of the western territories were open to slavery. Republicans denounced the Dred
Scott decision of “the greatest crime in the annals of the republic.” Because of the timing
of the decision, right after Buchanan’s inauguration, many northerners suspected that the
Democratic president and the Democratic majority on the Supreme Court, including
Taney, had secretly planned the Dred Scott decision, hoping that it would settle the
slavery question once and for all. The decision increased northerners’ suspicions of a slave
power conspiracy and induced thousands of former Democrats to vote Republican.
Northern Democrats like Senator Douglas were left with the almost impossible task of
supporting popular sovereignty without repudiating the Dred Scott decision. Douglas’
hopes for a sectional compromise and his ambitions for the presidency were both in
jeopardy.
H. Further Notes on the Bleeding Kansas
John Brown’s Raid at Harpers Ferry
The fanatical and violent John Brown confirmed the South’s worst fears of radical
abolitionism when he tried to start a slave uprising in Virginia. In October 1859 he led
a small band of followers, including his four sons and some former slaves, in an attack on
the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His impractical plan was to use guns from the arsenal
to arm Virginia’s slaves, whom he expected to rise up in general revolt. Federal troops
under the command of Robert E. Lee captured Brown and his band after a two-day siege.
Brown and six of his followers were tried for treason, convicted, and hanged by the state
of Virginia.
Moderates in the North, including Republican leaders, condemned Brown’s use of
violence, but southerners were not convinced by their words. Southern whites saw the
raid as final proof of the North’s true intentions—to use slave revolts to destroy the South.
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Because John Brown spoke with simple eloquence at his trial of his humanitarian motives
in wanting to free the slaves, he was hailed as a martyr by many antislavery northerners.
(A few years later, when civil war broke out, John Brown was celebrated by advancing
northern armies singing: “Glory, glory, hallelujah! His soul is marching on.”)
I. Summary: A Historic Inquiry
Was slavery the primary cause of the Civil War? In the decades after the war, northern
historians argued emphatically that the South’s attachment to slavery was the principal,
if not the only, cause. They blamed the war on a conspiracy of slave owners—a small
minority of southerners—who wanted only to expand slavery at the expense of whites
and blacks alike.
Southern historians, on the other hand, viewed the conflict between the two sections,
North and South, as a dispute over the nature of the Constitution. They argued that
northern abolitionists and Free-Soil politicians attempted to overturn the original
compact of the states, and that the southern states seceded to defend the constitutional
rights threatened by northern aggression.
By the early 20th century, passions had cooled on both sides, and scholars of the
Progressive era (1900–1917) thought economic interests were the foundation of all
political conflict. Thus, Charles Beard, a leading historian of this era, viewed the sectional
conflict of the 1850s as a clash of two opposing economic systems: the industrial North
versus the agricultural South. His economic interpretation of the Civil War stressed the
importance of the Republicans’ commitment to the economic ambitions of northern
industrialists for high tariffs and of western farmers for free land.
American disillusionment with World War I led historians to question whether the Civil
War was any more necessary or inevitable than the world war had been. Previously,
people had assumed that the Civil War was, in William Seward’s words, an “irrepressible
conflict between opposing forces.” Now, in the 1920s and 1930s, that assumption was
challenged by revisionist historians who argued that it was only the blundering of
politicians and the rash acts of a few extremists such as John Brown that were chiefly
responsible for secession and war. In an essay in 1940, James G. Randall summarized the
thinking of the revisionist school: “If one word or phrase were selected to account for
the war, that word would not be slavery, or states’ rights, or diverse civilizations. It would
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have to be such a word as fanaticism (on both sides), or misunderstanding, or perhaps
politics.” Politicians of the 1850s who worked for compromise (Clay, Douglas, and
Crittenden) were treated as the revisionists’ heroes, whereas Lincoln was criticized for
fomenting sectional passions with his house-divided and other speeches.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement provided the backdrop for rethinking
the causes of the Civil War. Historians who were sympathetic with African Americans’
struggles for civil rights returned to the view that slavery was the chief cause of disunion
after all. They argued that moral issues such as slavery are impossible to compromise.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a leading historian of the 1950s, wrote: “A society closed in the
defense of evil institutions thus creates moral differences far too profound to be solved
by compromise.” In this view, slavery as an inherently evil institution was at the root of a
conflict that was indeed “irrepressible.”
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Some Important People
a) Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Lincoln was the president and the leader of the Whig Party and State House of
Representatives in the 1830s and served as a Congressman for one term in the 1840s,
Lincoln showed his opposition against the expansion of slavery. In 1860, Lincoln was
elected as president of United Stated which caused seven southern states to become salve
free. On the issue of slavery, Lincoln was initially not an abolitionist—a moderate at best.
However, the status quo gradually pushed him to adopt an abolitionist outlook.
b) Stephen Douglas (1813-1861)
Stephen Douglas was well known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful
tactician in debate and passage of legislation. He was a champion of the Young America
movement which sought to modernize politics and replace the agrarian and strict
constructionist orthodoxies of the past. Douglas was a leading proponent of democracy,
and believed in the principle of popular sovereignty: that the majority of citizens should
decide contentious issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. As chairman of the
Committee on Territories, Douglas dominated the Senate in the 1850s. He was largely
responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery issues; however,
in 1854 he reopened the slavery question with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened
some previously prohibited territories to slavery under popular sovereignty. Opposition
to this led to the formation of the Republican Party.
In 1860, the conflict over slavery led to the split in the Democratic Party in the 1860
Convention. Hardline pro-slavery Southerners rejected Douglas, and nominated their
own candidate, Vice President John C. Breckinridge, while the Northern Democrats
nominated Douglas. Douglas deeply believed in democracy, arguing the will of the
people should always be decisive.
c) Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
An ex-slave and a naturally gifted orator, Frederick Douglass was among one of the
prominent roles of the abolitionist movement. Having escaped from slavery, he cried out
in vehemence against slavery in his autobiography. His life had been dedicated to the
abolitionist movement, and, though his ideas appealed to many in the north, his views
were still more moderate and reconciliatory than the radical abolitionists.
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d) John Brown (1800-1859)
The fanatical and violent John Brown confirmed the South’s worst fears of radical
abolitionism when he tried to start a slave uprising in Virginia. In October 1859 he led
a small band of followers, including his four sons and some former slaves, in an attack on
the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. His impractical plan was to use guns from the arsenal
to arm Virginia’s slaves, whom he expected to rise up in general revolt. Federal troops
under the command of Robert E. Lee captured Brown and his band after a two-day siege.
Brown and six of his followers were tried for treason, convicted, and hanged by the state
of Virginia.
e) Henry Clay (1777-1852)
Henry clay was known as the great “compromiser”. The major compromises that put the
lid on the hot pot of slavery were all more or less influenced by Clay. Although he had
not been president, his moderate view of abolition helped maintain peace and stability
that proved critical to the nation. His greatness lies in his being un-radical, reconciliatory
and political. His role proved indispensable to the faltering steps of the republic.
f)
James Polk (1795 –1849)
James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was
born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is noted for his foreign policy
successes. He threatened war with Britain over the issue of which nation owned the
Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain.
When Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, Polk led the nation to a sweeping
victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present
Southwest.
Polk was a slaveholder for his entire life. During his presidency, many abolitionists harshly
criticized him as an instrument of the "Slave Power", and claimed that spreading slavery
was the reason he supported annexing Texas and later war with Mexico. Polk stated in
his diary that he believed slavery could not exist in the territories won from Mexico, but
refused to endorse the Wilmot Proviso that would forbid it there.
g) James Buchanan (1791 –1868)
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States (1857–1861), serving
immediately prior to the American Civil War. Buchanan, like many of his time, was torn
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between his desire to expand the country for the benefit of all and his insistence on
guaranteeing to the people settling the expanded areas their rights, including slavery.
President James Buchanan's appointee as territorial governor of Kansas, Robert J. Walker,
although a strong defender of slavery, opposed the blatant injustice of The Lecompton
Constitution and resigned rather than implement it.
Nevertheless, Buchanan now pushed for Congressional approval of Kansas statehood
under the Lecompton Constitution. Buchanan made every effort to secure Congressional
approval, offering favors, patronage appointments and even cash for votes. The
Lecompton bill passed through the House of Representatives, but failed in the Senate,
where it was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, leader of the northern
Democrats. Douglas advocated "popular sovereignty"; he rejected the fraudulent way the
Lecompton Constitution was supposedly adopted.
h) David Wilmot (1814 –1868)
David Wilmot was a U.S. politician; he was elected to the US Congress, serving 18451851, and to the US Senate, serving 1861-1863 to fill the remainder of a term. Wilmot
was a Democrat, a Free Soiler, and a Republican.
Although Wilmot opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, he supported
Polk in the initiation of the Mexican War, and was still considered a Democratic Party
loyalist.
i)
Lewis Cass (1782 –1866)
Lewis Cass was an American military officer and politician. Cass was nationally famous
as a leading spokesman for the controversial Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which
would have allowed voters in the territories to determine whether to make slavery legal
instead of having Congress decide.
j)
John Crittenden (1787 – 1863)
John Jordan Crittenden was a politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. As the Whig
Party crumbled in the mid-1850s, Crittenden joined the Know Nothing (or American)
Party. After the expiration of his term as attorney general, he was again elected to the
U.S. Senate, where he urged compromise on the issue of slavery to prevent the breakup
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of the United States. In December 1860, he authored the Crittenden Compromise, a
series of resolutions and constitutional amendments he hoped would avert the Civil War,
but Congress would not approve them. Crittenden was elected to the House of
Representatives in 1861 and continued to seek reconciliation between the states
throughout his term. He declared his candidacy for re-election to the House in 1863,
but died before the election took place.
Assignments
1. Please apply to join in our QQ Group. The Group Number is 201028402.
2. You are required to write two essays related to the topic of this committee:
a)
Essay 1: Analyze the path to civil war.
No longer than 250 words, clearly and specifically, with sufficient evidences.
b) Essay 2: Examine the role of the moderate and radical abolitionists, and how
they influenced the tension between the North and the South.
No more than 2 pages, with detailed explanations.
c)
Document Requirements:
 File Format: DOC or DOCX
 Font: Times New Roman
 Font size: 12
 Line and Paragraph Spacing: 1.5
 Align Text Left
d) Submitting Requirements:
 E-mail Subject: [Your State]_[Your Name]_Assignment_1
 To: [email protected]
 DEADLINE: 23:59:59, Jul. 7th, 2014
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Bibliography
Abraham Lincoln, Peoria Speech
The Britannica Encyclopedia
The Compromise of 1850 (1850)
David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen & Thomas A. Bailey (2006) The American Pageant
(13th Edition)
Eugene V. Resenick (2012) Barron’s AP United States History
Klein, Philip S. (1962). President James Buchanan: A Biography (1995 ed.)
Leonard Richards, The Slave Power:The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780–1860
(2000)
Paul Finkelman, Stephen E. Gottlieb (2009), Toward a Usable Past: Liberty Under State
Constitutions
Preparing for Advanced placement test, Amsco School Publications
Rhodes, James Ford (1906). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to
the End of the Roosevelt Administration
Richard W. Etulain, ed. (2010). Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific.
Stampp, Kenneth M., America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink
Roy Nichols Nichols, The Disruption of American Democracy: A History of the Political
Crisis That Led Up To The Civil War (1948)
William A. Pencak (2009). Encyclopedia of the Veteran in America
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