The American Promise – Lecture Notes
Chapter 14 – The House Divided, 1846 - 1861
.
I. The Bitter Fruits of War
A. The Wilmot Proviso and the Expansion of Slavery
1. Slavery in the Territories—Most Americans agreed that the Constitution had
left the issue of slavery to the individual states to decide; northern states had
done away with slavery, while southern states had retained it; however, debate
still persisted over the issue of slavery in U.S. territories.
2. The Wilmot Proviso—In August 1846, Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot
proposed that Congress bar slavery in all lands acquired in the war with Mexico;
Mexico had already abolished slavery there; Northerners of both parties
supported the Wilmot Proviso; they wanted to preserve the West for free labor
and to reserve the land for the settlement of whites.
3. The South’s Outrage—Southerners thought it was a slap in the face to
slaveholding Mexican War veterans; southern leaders understood the need for
political parity with the North to protect the South’s interests, especially slavery.
4. Popular Sovereignty—The House, dominated by northern states, passed the
Wilmot Proviso; the Senate, with a slave state majority, rejected it; in 1847,
Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan offered a compromise through the doctrine of
“popular sovereignty”: letting the people who actually settled in the territories
determine the fate of slavery for themselves; argued it fit with the American
traditions of democracy and self-government; plan’s most attractive feature was
its ambiguity about the precise moment when settlers could determine slavery’s
fate; as long as the matter of timing remained vague, popular sovereignty gave
hope to both sides; Congress failed to pass legislation related to slavery in the
territories; the unresolved question became an issue in the 1848 presidential
election.
B. The Election of 1848
1. Democrats, Whigs, and Free-Soilers—Ailing Polk chose not to seek
reelection; Democratic convention nominated Lewis Cass, the man most closely
associated with popular sovereignty; the Whigs nominated Mexican-American
War hero Zachary Taylor; Whigs declined to adopt a platform; hoped to unite
1 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
their party by nominating a military hero and remaining silent on the slavery
issue; Taylor himself owned more than 100 slaves; Whigs looked for an
alternative; Charles Sumner called for “one grand Northern party of Freedom”; in
the summer of 1848, antislavery Democrats and antislavery Whigs founded the
Free-Soil Party; nominated Martin Van Buren.
2. Slavery’s Impact on the Major Parties—The November election dashed the
hopes of the Free-Soilers, who made slavery the campaign’s central issue but
failed to carry a single state; major parties went through contortions to present
their candidates favorably in the North and in the South; Taylor won the election,
but the struggle over slavery in the territories had shaken the major parties badly.
C. Debate and Compromise
1. Taylor’s Plan—When Taylor assumed office, he shocked the nation by
championing a free-soil solution to the problem of slavery in the western lands;
encouraged California and New Mexico to draw up state constitutions and apply
for statehood as quickly as possible; these territories had a predominantly
antislavery population.
2. Clay’s Resolutions—Congress convened in December 1849, beginning one
of the most contentious and most significant sessions in its history; Southerners
resisted Taylor’s plan; Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky proposed a series of
resolutions that sought to balance the interests of the free and slave states; admit
California as a free state but organize the rest of the Southwest without
restrictions on slavery; Texas would agree to a new boundary with New Mexico;
abolish the slave trade but not slavery in Washington, D.C.; create a more
effective fugitive slave law; but antislavery advocates and “fire-eaters” (radical
secessionist Southerners) both savaged Clay’s plan.
3. The Omnibus Bill—In May 1850, a Senate committee produced a bill known
as the Omnibus Bill that combined Clay’s resolutions into a single comprehensive
package; Clay predicted that a majority of Congress wanted compromise and
that each would vote for the package even if it contained provisions it disliked;
the Omnibus Bill failed.
4. Douglas’s Strategy—Illinois senator Stephen Douglas broke the Omnibus Bill
into its various parts and skillfully ushered each part through Congress;
agreement looked very much like Clay’s original plan; California entered the
2 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
Union as a slave state, New Mexico and Utah would be decided by popular
sovereignty, Texas accepted a new boundary with New Mexico, and the slave
trade in Washington, D.C., would be abolished, but the fugitive slave laws would
be more stringent; in September 1850, Millard Fillmore, who had become
president when Taylor died suddenly in July, signed each bill, collectively known
as the Compromise of 1850, into law.
II. The Sectional Balance Undone
A. The Fugitive Slave Act
1. The Debate over Runaway Slaves—Some northern communities had passed
“personal liberty laws” that provided fugitives with some protection; also formed
vigilance committees to help runaways by obstructing white Southerners who
came north to reclaim them; furious about northern interference, Southerners in
1850 insisted on the stricter fugitive slave law that was passed as part of the
Compromise.
2. Fugitive Slave Act—To seize a slave, a slaveholder simply had to appear
before a commissioner and swear that the runaway was his; commissioner
earned $10 for every returned slave and $5 for every slave set free; law also
stipulated that all citizens had to assist officials in apprehending runaways; very
unpopular in the North, where brutal enforcement of the law had a radicalizing
effect; Southerners believed the North had betrayed the Compromise.
B. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1. Harriet Beecher Stowe—A member of a famous clan of preachers, teachers,
and reformers; wrote the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin to expose the sin of slavery;
published in 1852.
2. Response to the Book—A blockbuster hit; sold 300,000 copies in its first year
and more than 2 million copies within ten years; humanized slaves and showed
slavery’s destructive impact on the family; Northerners accepted the book as
truth, while Southerners considered it slanderous; crystallized northern sentiment
against slavery.
3. The Writings of Ex-Slaves—Ex-slaves, who knew of life in the slave cabins
firsthand, also produced stinging indictments of slavery; Solomon Northup
3 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
published Twelve Years a Slave (1853) and Frederick Douglass’s 1845 memoir
eventually sold more than 50,000 copies; but no work touched the North’s
conscience like Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
C. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
1. The Election of 1852—Both Democrats and Whigs sought to close the
sectional rifts that had opened within their parties: Democrats nominated Franklin
Pierce of New Hampshire, who had well-known sympathy with southern views;
Whigs’ northern and southern factions were hopelessly divided, allowing Pierce
to win the election handily; Free-Soil Party lost half its voters.
2. Foreign Expansion—Eager to leave the sectional controversy behind, Pierce
turned swiftly to foreign expansion; he wanted Cuba, but antislavery Northerners
blocked its acquisition; Pierce sent James Gadsden to negotiate the purchase of
30,000 square miles of territory south of the Gila River in present-day New
Mexico and Arizona.
3. Douglas and the Railroad—Gadsden Purchase stemmed from the desire for
the building of a southern transcontinental railroad; Stephen Douglas badly
wanted the transcontinental railroad for Chicago; in 1854, he introduced a bill to
organize the Nebraska Territory; called for popular sovereignty in a region where
the Compromise of 1820 had prohibited slavery; at southern insistence, he
added an explicit repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 in the bill.
4. Kansas-Nebraska Act—Douglas skillfully shepherded the explosive bill
through Congress in May 1854; Kansas-Nebraska Act split the huge territory in
half: Nebraska, west of the free state Iowa, and Kansas, west of the slave state
Missouri; with this act, the government also pushed the Plains Indians further
west, making way for farmers and railroads.
III. Realignment of the Party System
A. The Old Parties: Whigs and Democrats
1. The Collapse of the Whigs—The issue of slavery had distressed the Whig
Party as early as the Mexican-American War; by 1856, after more than two
decades of contesting the Democrats, the Whigs were hardly a party at all.
4 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
2. The Southern-Dominated Democrats—Collapse of the Whig Party left the
Democrats as the country’s only national party; Stephen Douglas’s use of
popular sovereignty divided northern Democrats and destroyed the dominance of
the Democratic Party in the free states; by 1854, the Democrats, although still a
viable party, had become a southern-dominated party; breakup of the Whig Party
and the disaffection of significant numbers of northern Democrats set many
Americans politically adrift, looking for a new alternative.
B. The New Parties: Know-Nothings and Republicans
1. Nativism and Know-Nothings—Dozens of new political organizations vied
for voters’ attention and out of the confusion, two emerged as true contenders; a
tidal wave of immigrants produced a nasty backlash among Protestant
Americans who believed the American government would be overrun by
Catholics from Ireland and Germany; led to the formation of the American, or
“Know-Nothing,” Party; exploded onto the political scene in 1854, capturing state
legislatures in the Northeast, West, and South and claiming dozens of seats in
Congress.
2. Antislavery and the Republican Party—One of the new antislavery
organizations provoked by the Kansas-Nebraska Act called itself the Republican
Party; attempted to unite all those who opposed the extension of slavery into any
territory of the United States; tapped into the basic beliefs and values of
Northerners; argued slavery degraded the dignity of white labor and that the
southern “Slave Power” was conspiring to take control of the Democratic Party
and expand slavery; believed only if slavery was restricted to the South could the
system of free labor flourish elsewhere.
3. Women in Party Politics—Women as well as men rushed to the Republican
Party; they participated by writing campaign literature, marching in parades,
giving speeches, and working to influence voters; ultimately nurtured the
woman’s rights movement.
C. The Election of 1856
1. The Republican Platform—The election of 1856 revealed that the
Republicans had become the Democrats’ main challenger; slavery, not nativism,
had become the election’s principal issue; Know-Nothing Party split over the
Kansas-Nebraska Act but still managed to nominate Millard Fillmore in 1856;
5 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
Republicans focused on making every territory free; had written off the South;
nominated a political newcomer, John C. Frémont.
2. The Democratic Platform—Chose “a northern man with southern principles,”
James Buchanan of Pennsylvania; took refuge in the ambiguity of popular
sovereignty and portrayed the Republicans as extremists.
3. Struggle for National Power—The Democratic strategy helped carry the day
for Buchanan, but Frémont did astonishingly well; Republicans carried all but five
states north of the Mason-Dixon line; revealed the Democrats were badly
strained.
IV. Freedom under Siege
A. “Bleeding Kansas”
1. Free State versus Slave State—In Kansas, free-state and slave-state settlers
each sought majorities at the ballot box; in the North and South, emigrant aid
societies sprang up to promote settlement from free or slave states; Missourians
thought it important to secure Kansas for slavery.
2. Rival Governments—Not surprisingly, proslavery candidates swept the
territorial election of November 1854; new legislature enacted proslavery laws;
free-soil Kansas enacted its own legislature, which banned both slaves and free
blacks from the territory.
3. The Fighting Begins—Organized into rival governments and armed to the
teeth, Kansas was on the brink of civil war; fighting broke out on the morning of
May 21, 1856, when several hundred proslavery men entered the town of
Lawrence, the center of free-state settlement; the “Sack of Lawrence” inflamed
northern opinion; in retaliation, John Brown led a posse to massacre five
allegedly proslavery settlers; guerrilla warfare engulfed the territory.
4. “Bleeding Sumner”—“Bleeding Kansas” gave the fledgling Republican Party
fresh ammunition; the party also capitalized on northern outrage when Preston
Brooks, a young South Carolina member of the House, caned Massachusetts
senator Charles Sumner, who had delivered a speech titled “The Crime against
6 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
Kansas”; like “Bleeding Kansas,” “Bleeding Sumner” provided the Republican
Party with a symbol of the South’s “twisted and violent civilization.”
B. The Dred Scott Decision
1. Scott’s Argument—In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Scott argued that
because his master had taken him to Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free
territory, then according to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, he and his family
were free.
2. The Supreme Court’s Ruling—Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who hated
Republicans and racial equality, handed down the Court’s decision: Dred Scott
could not legally claim violation of his constitutional rights because blacks were
not citizens of the United States, and the laws of Scott’s home state, Missouri,
determined his status, and thus his travels in free areas did not make him free;
additionally, the Taney court ruled that Congress lacked the right to prohibit
slavery in the territories and the Missouri Compromise was therefore
unconstitutional (though it already had been voided by the Kansas-Nebraska
Act).
3. Curtis’s Dissent—Republican rebuttal to the decision relied heavily on the
dissenting opinion of Justice Benjamin R. Curtis; Scott was a citizen of the United
States, because free black men could vote in five states at the writing of the
Constitution; since Wisconsin had barred involuntary servitude, a slave’s status
would cease to exist entering the territory; the Missouri Compromise was
constitutional; resistance to the decision strengthened the young Republican
Party.
C. Prairie Republican: Abraham Lincoln
1. Lincoln Joins the Republican Party—Disintegration of the Whig Party meant
Lincoln had no political home; the Know-Nothings held no appeal; convinced that
slavery was unjust and morally wrong, he gravitated to the Republican Party;
condemned Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 for giving slavery new life.
2. Racial Views—Lincoln held what were, for his times, moderate racial views;
he denounced slavery and defended black humanity, but he also viewed black
equality as impractical and unachievable; believed social stability and black
progress required that slavery end and that blacks leave the country.
7 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
3. Political Views—Lincoln envisioned the western territories as “places for poor
people to go to, and better their conditions”; believed that slavery’s expansion
threatened westward-moving free men’s basic right to succeed; warned that
slaveholders were engaging in a conspiracy to nationalize slavery; believed the
nation could not “endure permanently half slave and half free”; Lincoln’s
convictions that slavery was wrong, that Congress must stop its spread, and that
it must be put on the road to extinction formed the core of the Republican
ideology; impressed Illinois Republicans, who chose him to challenge Stephen
Douglas in 1858.
D. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
1. The Lecompton Constitution—Douglas’s response to the Kansas crisis in
1857 helped shore up his standing in Illinois; in 1857, President Buchanan
approved a proslavery constitution (the Lecompton constitution) for the state of
Kansas, even though Free-Soilers outnumbered proslavery settlers by at least
two to one; Douglas broke with the Democratic administration and came out
against the proslavery constitution; in doing so, he declared his independence
from the South; he hoped his actions would make him appealing to voters.
2. Debating the Crucial Issues—A relatively unknown and a decided underdog
in the Illinois election, Lincoln challenged the incumbent Douglas to debate him
face to face; they met in a legendary series of seven debates; Lincoln badgered
Douglas with the question of whether he favored the spread of slavery; Douglas
worked the racial issue, calling Lincoln an abolitionist and an egalitarian
enamored with “our colored brethren”; Douglas won the hard-fought, closely
contested election, but the debates thrust Lincoln into the national spotlight.
V. The Union Collapses
A. The Aftermath of John Brown’s Raid
1. Brown’s Fate—For his attack on Harper’s Ferry, John Brown stood trial for
treason, murder, and incitement of a slave insurrection; he was executed on
December 2, 1859.
2. National Response—Northerners at first denounced Brown’s raid at Harpers
Ferry as dangerous fanaticism; denunciation gave way to grudging respect,
although most did not advocate bloody slave insurrection; churches marked the
hanging with toiling bells, hymns, and prayer vigils; Southerners wondered what
8 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
they had in common with people who celebrated Brown as a martyr and a
Christian hero, rather than a murderer and a robber.
B. Republican Victory in 1860
1. Sectional Hostility—Anxieties provoked by John Brown’s raid heightened
sectional hostility and estrangement; a southern business convention even called
for the reopening of the African slave trade; even the normally routine business
of electing a Speaker of the House threatened to turn bloody as Democrats and
Republicans battled over control of the office.
2. The Charleston Convention—When southern Democrats converged on
Charleston for their convention, they denounced Stephen Douglas and
demanded a platform that featured a federal slave code for the territories; the
Democrats split; the northern wing nominated Stephen Douglas for president and
approved a platform with popular sovereignty.
3. Southern Democrats—Southern Democrats nominated Vice President John
C. Breckinridge and approved a platform with a federal slave code; southern
moderates refused to support Breckinridge and formed a new party, the
Constitutional Union Party, to provide voters with a Unionist choice.
4. The Republican Platform—Republicans smelled victory, but they believed
they needed to carry all the free states to win; needing to make their platform
more broadly appealing, they expanded beyond antislavery, advocating free
homesteads, a protective tariff, a transcontinental railroad, and a guarantee of
immigrant political rights; Lincoln emerged as the Republican Party candidate for
president.
5. Sectional Contests—Election broke into two contests: in the North, Lincoln
faced Douglas; in the South, Breckenridge confronted Bell; after a
unprecedented number of voters cast ballots, Lincoln won in all eighteen free
states except New Jersey, which split electoral votes between him and Douglas;
Breckenridge, running on a southern-rights platform, swept the Lower South plus
Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina.
C. Secession Winter
1. Southern Unionists—Southern unionists pleaded for the South to let the dust
settle; Alexander Stephens reminded everyone that Lincoln had promised to
protect slavery where it existed; slavery could lead to war, which would loosen
the hinges of southern society and possibly even open the door to slave
insurrection.
9 of 10
The American Promise – Lecture Notes
2. Secessionists—For all of their differences, southern whites agreed they had
to defend slavery; disagreed about whether the mere presence of a Republican
in the White House made it necessary to exercise what they considered a
legitimate right to secede; debate was shortest in South Carolina, which seceded
on December 20, 1860; by February 1861, six other Lower South states followed
suit.
3. The Confederate States of America—On February 4, 1861, representatives
from the seven southern states that had seceded formed the Confederate States
of America, with Jefferson Davis as president and Alexander Stephens as vice
president; Lincoln’s election had split the Union and secession had split the
South; the eight slave states of the Upper South rejected secession, at least for
the moment; they had a smaller stake in slavery and thus fewer fears that
Republican ascendancy would bring economic catastrophe, social chaos, and
racial war.
4. Lincoln Takes Office—Nation had to wait until March 4, 1861, when Lincoln
took office, to see what he would do; began his inaugural address with
assurances to the South, conciliatory about slavery, but inflexible about the
preservation of the Union, declaring that the decision for civil war or peace rested
in the South’s hands.
10 of 10