Drifting Towards Disunion

1. Drifting Towards Disunion 1854-1860

2. Incendiary Literature • Harriet Beecher Stowe & Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) • Portrayed the evils of slavery (physical abuse/splitting of families) • Helped start the war & helped win it

3. Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852 • Sold 300,000 copies inthe first year. • 2 million in a decade!

4. Harriet Beecher Stowe “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” - A. Lincoln (1862)

5. Hinton H. Helper (1857) • The Impending Crisis of the South • Tried to prove that non-slaveholding southerners suffered the most from slavery

6. “Bleeding Kansas” • Southerners believed that agreement had been reached that Kansas would be slave & Nebraska would be free

7. Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

8. New England Emigrant Aid Company • Northern abolitionists & free-soilers fought this assumption by sending pioneers westward • 2000 settlers many armed with “Beecher’s Bibles” - the new Sharps rifle

9. 1855: Pro-Slavery “border ruffians” crossed west from Missouri into Kansas on election day to elect the new government • Free-soilers elected their own government at Topeka

10. May 21, 1856: Pro-slavery raiders invaded the free soil town of Lawrence & burned part of the town border-ruffians • May 24, 1856: Pottawatomie Creek • John Brown & his followers hack 5 pro-slavers to death with swords

11. John Brown: Madman, Hero or Martyr? Mural in the Kansas Capitol buildingby John Steuart Curry (20c)

12. “Bully” Brooks (1856) • Senator Charles Sumner makes a speech in the Senate denouncing southern slavery & insulting Senator Butler of South Carolina

13. Congressman Preston Brooks of SC attacks & beats Sumner on the floor of the Senate - whips him with a cane • Incident underscored the inflamed passions arising from the issue of slavery & free-soil

14. “The Crime Against Kansas” Senator Charles Sumner(R-MA) Congressman Preston Brooks(D-SC)

15. Lecompton Constitution (1857) • Created by Pro-Slavery forces • Election forced voters to choose between the constitution with slavery or without slavery - slaves in the state would be protected no matter what

16. Free-soilers boycotted the election & constitution passes with slavery • President Buchanan backs the Lecompton Constitution • Douglas is against it • Entire constitution is submitted to a vote - free-soilers defeat it

17. Kansas does not gain statehood until 1861 • Buchanan & Douglas forces split the Democratic Party along sectional lines

18. Assess the moral arguments and political actions of those opposed to the spread of slavery in the context of TWO of the following:Missouri Compromise Mexican War Compromise of 1850 Kansas-Nebraska Act QUICKWRITE

19. Election of 1856 • Democrats nominate James Buchanan over Douglas & Pierce • Both have too much political baggage from the Kansas-Nebraska Act

20. Republicans nominateJohn C. Fremont, “The Pathfinder” - over “Higher Law” Seward

21. Republicans for free-soil • Democrats for popular sovereignty • American Party (“Know-nothings”) nominated ex-President Fillmore • Also endorsed by few remaining Whigs

22. 1856 Presidential Election James Buchanan John C. Frémont Millard Fillmore Democrat Republican Whig

23. Southerners threatened that a Republican victory would be a declaration of war • Buchanan won the electoral vote without gaining a majority of the popular vote

24. 1856Election Results

25. Republican loss was a gain for the North • Secession in 1856 would have been easier for the South

26. The Dred Scott Decision • Dred Scott, having lived in the North for 5 years, sued for his freedom

27. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Scott was a black slave & not a citizen, therefore could not sue

28. Pro-southern majority went further ruling that slaves, as property, could be taken into any territory & held in slavery there

29. The 5th Amendment denies Congress the power to deprive citizens of their property without due process

30. The Missouri Compromise, repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was now ruled unconstitutional • Northern free-soilers called the ruling merely an “opinion” & refused to abide by it

31. Southerners considered the unlikelihood of maintaining the bonds of Union with states that would not abide by rulings of the Supreme Court

32. The Panic of 1857 • Causes: • Inflation caused by gold • Overproduction of grain caused by the Crimean War • Over speculation in land & railroads

33. Results: • Northwestern grain growers hit the hardest • High cotton prices kept the South safe from recession • Power of the southern economy reinforced southern ideas that cotton was “king”

34. Increased westerners’ demands for free land • Demand for higher tariff rates

35. Homestead Act • Northerners increased demands for laws giving away government land as 160 acre farms • Easterners opposed in fear that free land would drain off the labor force

36. South opposed it because 160 acres was too small for slave farms • Buchanan would veto a homestead bill in 1860

37. The Illinois Rail Splitter • Illinois Senate election of 1858 pit Republican Abraham Lincoln against Democrat Stephen Douglas

38. Lincoln… • born in a log cabin • self-educated • married Mary Todd • became a trial lawyer • served one term in Congress (1847-49: “Spotty” Lincoln)

39. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” - Lincoln’s nomination speech

40. Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates at various locations from August to October 1858

41. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858 (Illinois Senate)

42. At Freeport, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a dilemma: • “If the people of a territory voted against slavery who would prevail --the courts or the people?”

43. The Freeport Doctrine • Douglas answered that court or no court, the people would ultimately decide the fate of slavery in the territories

44. Douglas defeated Lincoln - but because of the way Senators were elected - Lincoln actually carried more popular vote

45. Douglas’s victory, in defiance of the Dred Scott decision, further split him from southern Democrats

46. John Brown & Harper’s Ferry • John Brown began developing a plan to invade the South, start a slave uprising, & establish a black free state

47. JOHN BROWN

48. October 1859 - Brown & 20 followers seized the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in Western Virginia

49. PENNSYLVANIA Harper’s Ferry VIRGINIA DC

50. Colonel Robert E. Lee & the U.S. Marines captured Brown & 4 survivors • Brown is tried for treason & hanged • His death note warned that slavery would be purged only by “much bloodshed”