James L. Roark ● Michael P. Johnson
Patricia Cline Cohen ● Sarah Stage
Susan M. Hartmann
The American Promise
A History of the United States
Fifth Edition
CHAPTER 14
The House Divided,
1846-1861
Copyright © 2012 by Bedford/St. Martin's
I. The Bitter Fruits of War
A. The Wilmot Proviso and the Expansion of Slavery
1. Slavery in the territories
2. The Wilmot Proviso
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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
4. Popular sovereignty
House, dominated by northern states, passed the Wilmot Proviso
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
B. The Election of 1848
1. Democrats, Whigs, and Free-Soilers
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Democratic convention nominated Lewis Cass, the man most closely associated
with popular sovereignty
Whigs nominated Mexican-American War hero Zachary Taylor and declined to
adopt a platform; hoped to unite 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 Bure
2. Slavery’s impact on the major parties
November election dashed the hopes of the Free-Soilers, who made slavery the
campaign’s central issue but failed to carry a single state
Taylor won the election, but the struggle over slavery in the territories had
shaken the major parties badly.
I. The Bitter Fruits of War
C. Debate and Compromise
1. Taylor’s plan
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encouraged California and New Mexico to draw up state constitutions and apply
for statehood as quickly as possible;
2. Clay’s resolutions
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
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
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
2. Fugitive Slave Act
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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
2. Response to the book
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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
Solomon Northup 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.
II. The Sectional Balance Undone
C. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
1. The election of 1852
2. Foreign expansion
• 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.
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3. Douglas and the railroad
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
• 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
2. The southern-dominated Democrats
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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
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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
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
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.
III. Realignment of the Party System
C. The Election of 1856
1. The Republican platform
• 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;
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
• 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
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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.
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2. Rival governments
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
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 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
• 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.
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2. The Supreme Court’s ruling
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
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.
IV. Freedom under Siege
C. Prairie Republican: Abraham Lincoln
1. Lincoln joins the Republican Party
2. Racial views
3. Political views
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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
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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
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
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John Brown stood trial for treason, murder, and incitement of a slave insurrection; he was executed on December 2,
1859.
2. National response
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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 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
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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.
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2. The Charleston 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
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
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
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.
V. The Union Collapses
C. Secession Winter
1. Southern Unionists
2. Secessionists
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South Carolina, which seceded on December 20, 1860; by
February 1861, six other Lower South states followed suit.
3. The Confederate States of America
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
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.