Nativism
• Increase in immigration
after 1845
• 3 million in decade after
1845
• Political power of
immigrants also increased
• Coalesced around issues of
temperance and schools
• Virulent and violent
response by “Native”
Americans
“Know Nothings”
• Emergence of the
American Party (KnowNothings)
• Result of the merger of
two secret fraternal
societies
– Order of the Star-Spangled
Banner and
– Order of United Americans
• Total number approx. 1
million
• Total population of approx
23,000,000
Publicity and Nativism
• Supported multifaceted anti-immigrant/nativist
agenda
• Appealed to Northern Whigs who had not
already become Republicans
• Scored big gains in elections in 1854
• Redirected by Republicans in 1855 toward
cause of antislavery
• Split along sectional lines over slavery after
1855–1856
• Decreasing immigration meant decline in
nativism
• 1853 saw another land purchase by the US
• The Gadsden Land purchase
• In part as a possible cross country railroad path
• Stephen A Douglas
• Pushing for a northern route west
from Chicago
• January 1854, introduced a Bill
that became known as the
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
• A railroad bill that turned into
much more
In order to get his bill passed he needed broad
support including southern congressmen
“All questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and
in the new States to be formed therefrom are to be left
to the the people residing therein, through their
appropriate representatives”
• He also put in a clause repealing the Missouri
compromise
• Once more this was there to draw southerners to
vote for his plan
• However, he underestimated the feelings over the
issue of slavery
• Huge opposition in North
• Many opposed any
expansion of slavery into the
territories
• One vocal opponent was
• Abraham Lincoln of Illinois
• Slavery “an unqualified evil
to the negro, the white man,
and to the state”
“The Monstrous injustice of slavery
deprives our republican example of its
just influence in the world – enables
the enemies of free institutions, with
plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites. . .
. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of
Independence, and with it the
practices, and policy, which harmonize
with it”
• With the Act, it was assumed,
correctly, that Nebraska would go
to the abolitionists
• Kansas however, was less certain
• It was next to a slave state in
Missouri
• For many the campaign for Kansas
was a precursor for the civil war
Bleeding Kansas
• In order to ensure that the “right”
decision would be made supporters from
both the
• Pro slavery and
• Anti slavery groups began to move into
Kansas
• Anti Slavery William
H. Seward
• “Since there is no
escaping your
challenge, I accept it
in behalf of the cause
of freedom. We will
engage in
competition for the
virgin soil of Kansas,
God give victory to
the side which is
stronger in numbers
as it is in right”
• Pro slavery Senator
David Atchison
• “We are playing for a
mighty stake”
• “If we win in we
carry slavery to the
Pacific ocean; if we
fail we lose Missouri,
Arkansas, Texas and
all the territories;
the game must be
played boldly”
• Struggle for control of Kansas became intense
after 1854
– Border ruffians from Missouri crossed into
Kansas to vote illegally for slave government
– Majority favored free soil and opposed slavery
• Kansas became the leading issue in politics
– Two competing legislatures by 1856
• Dispute led to caning of Senator Charles
Sumner
Lawrence
•
•
•
•
•
May 1856
Pro slavery group attacks Lawrence
Newspaper offices destroyed
Abolitionist Governors house burned
Free State Hotel Destroyed
Pottawatomie Creek
• Radical abolitionist
John Brown led his 4
sons and 3 other men
to Pottawatomie Creek
• Dragged 5 pro slavery
men from their homes
• Hacked them to death
in front of their families
•End 1856
•250 dead
•$2 million in property
damage
Election of 1856
• Republicans first truly sectional party in American
history
– Anti-slavery and old Whig support for internal
improvements
– Ran John C. Frémont
• Democrats endorsed popular sovereignty
– Nominated James Buchanan
• American Party nominated ex-Whig Millard
Fillmore
• Buchanan elected
– Allowed South to go on offensive over slavery
Counties Carried by Candidates in the 1856 Presidential Election
©2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning™ is a trademark used herein under license.
End Tuesday
Dred Scott Case
• Involved question of whether residence in an antislave territory made a slave free
• Supreme Court heard case
– Majority of justices from South
– Declared Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery in the
Territories unconstitutional
– Hinged on defense/protection of private property
• Created intense partisan feelings throughout
country
• Intensified, rather than settled, slave controversy
Lecompton Constitution
• Effort to legitimize pro-slavery government and
prepare Kansas for entry into Union as a slave state
• Maneuvered to keep anti-slave settlers from voting to
guarantee a constitution that included slavery
• Buchanan administration recognized pro-slavery
constitution, recommended statehood for Kansas
• Generated controversy in Congress, which eventually
defeated statehood measure
• Issue split Democratic Party and discredited Stephen
Douglas with party
• Aided in election of a Republican president in 1860
Economy in the 1850s
• North becoming industrial
• More than a decade of
unprecedented growth after 1845
• Helped by high level of U.S. education
–U.S. second-leading industrial
producer in the world by later 1850s
–Role of industry / slavery in
creating distinct “North” and
“South”
• South relied increasingly on
slavery
• Region had what some called
“colonial” economy
–“King Cotton” defined region’s
economy
• Defended slave system as better
than the free market
Panic of 1857
• Both domestic and international causes
• Massive unemployment and widespread
hardship
• Prosperity had returned by 1858
• Economic crisis intensified sectional
hostility
– South fared better than rest of country
– North blamed South for blocking tariffs that
could have protected Northern industry
Free Labor Ideology
• All work in a free society was honorable
• Slavery degraded manual labor by equating it with
bondage
– Central component was social mobility
– Incompatible with slavery
• Key feature of Republican party’s platform
• Hinton Rowan Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South
(1857)
– Called on non-slaveholding whites to overthrow the slave
system
– Virtually banned in the South
– Huge impact in North
Lincoln–Douglas Debates
• Over election to U.S. Senate from Illinois in
1858
• Lincoln argument that nation could not
remain forever half-slave and half-free
• Douglas professed no interest in slavery per
se and defended its existence in the South
• Lincoln elevated to national prominence
• Douglas won senate seat
– lost favor in South
• Quiet since action in John Brown’s Raid at
Kansas – Regrouping
Harpers Ferry
– Hebrews 9:22
– Without shedding of
blood there is no
remission of sin
• Intended to take the
battle to the sinners
• Plan seize federal
arsenal
• foment a slave
• 17 whites and 5 blacks led by Brown
• Attack government arsenal at Harpers Ferry on
October 16, 1859
• Very little support
• Local militia quickly took Brown and supporters
• Raid lasted 36 hours
–Impact lasted longer
• In the south fear grew
• Slave revolts were seen everywhere
• Rumors of Brown based abolition
networks
• Lincoln’s speech still in their heads
• All part of a Northern conspiracy
•
•
•
•
•
•
In north
Brown seen by many as hero
On day of execution
Bells rang in hundreds of towns
Guns fired salutes
Ministers preached sermons of
commemoration
• Brown made “the gallows as glorious as the
cross”
Final Due Thursday December 17th
9:30 AM in my office
• Question for take home essay
• “America did not exist until
1877: discuss using evidence
from the class readings and
lectures”
The United States
is
are
Election of 1860
• Democrats meet in Charleston, South
Carolina
• Confrontation inside and outside the
building
• Douglas the leading figure
• Could not get 2/3rd majority needed
• 50 southern delegates walked out
• After 57 failed ballots
• Convention adjourned to meet again in 6
weeks in Baltimore
Baltimore
• Larger number of southern delegates walked
out
• Regular democrats eventually nominated
Douglas
• Southern Rights Democratic Party nominated
• Constitutional Union
Party
• Formed from:
• Southern Whigs who
could not vote
democrat
• Northern Whigs who
considered
Republicans to
radical
• Nominated John Bell
•
•
•
•
When democrats split
Doorway opened for republicans
No hope for 15 southern states
But of 5 northern states they didn’t get in
1856, only needed 2 or 3
• Crucial states
–Pennsylvania
–Illinois
–Indiana
• Lead candidate coming into Chicago
convention William H. Steward
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Seward respected
Served as a governor and a senator
Had a long career
This also caused problems
Long career = enemies
Emphasis shifted to Lincoln
Second choice votes
Also from crucial lower north state
Nominated on third ballot
• Republican platform
–exclusion of slavery from territories
–Higher tariffs
–Federal aid for construction of
transport network
• Music of election
• Lincoln & Liberty
–Jesse Hutchinson 1860
• Enthusiasm in the north matched
by fear in south
• All and every northern politician
seemed to be an abolitionist
• Destined to destroy the south
• A republican victory seen as the
end of southern control over its
own destiny
Wide-Awake clubs
• Southerners saw Lincoln’s nomination as
threat to slavery
• 2/3rds of time from 1789 – 1860
• Slave holding southerners had been presidents
– No northern president had ever won re-election
• Southern justices had been the majority of the
Supreme Court since 1791
• Lincoln’s election would destroy this control
• A secessionist from Georgia told southern nonslave holders that if Lincoln were in power
• “in TEN years or less our CHILDREN will be the
slaves of negroes”
Lincoln won with 40% of
popular vote
Lower South Secedes
• Lincoln’s election brought to fore Southern
thinking on the nature of the Union
• When joining union a state:
• Gave authority to federal government to act
as agent for various actions of sovereignty
• But did not give away fundamental
underlying sovereignty
• Any state could withdraw form compact
• And reassert individual sovereignty
• Most Northerners saw secession as
unconstitutional and treasonable
• Buchanan’s final message to congress
– Union “not a mere voluntary association of states”
if secession consummated
– United States Government would become a “rope
of sand”
• “The Doctrine of secession is anarchy”
• “The right of revolution, is never a legal right,
at most it is a moral right”
– Abraham Lincoln
• Failed attempts at compromise in 1860 and
1861
• South Carolina Legislature called convention
to vote on Southern belief
• December 20, 1860
– South Carolina withdrew from Union
– By vote of 169 to 0
• Seven Southern states had seceded by
Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861
• Mississippi
January 9, 1861
• Florida
January 10, 1861
• Alabama
January 11, 1861
• Georgia
January 19, 1862
• Louisiana
January 26, 1861
• Texas
February 1, 1861
Election of 1860
and Southern
Secession
Southern Music
Oh I’m a Good Old
Rebel
Maj. I Randolph
Confederate Army
Establishment of the Confederacy
• Seceded states met in Montgomery
Alabama
• Established a constitution for the
• Confederated States of America
• Constitution protected slavery in both the
states and the territories
• Strengthened state sovereignty
• limited governmental power
– No protective only revenue tariffs
• Sought to encourage upper South
to secede
• 1st step ignored radical
secessionists for position of
power
• Elected Jefferson Davis President
• Confederacy needed upper south states
• Without them it had
• Less than 1 5th of population
• Just 1 10th of free population
• 1 20th of industrial capacity of Union States
Fort Sumter
• Seceded states claim all
federal property
• In South Carolina demand
federal withdrawal from
Charleston Harbor
• Major Anderson
• Southerner
– Attempted to forestall war
• Star of West
• General Pierre G.T.
Beauregard
• Crisis point when Lincoln was inaugurated in
March 1861
• What to do?
• Decided to send unarmed supply ships to fort
• Informs the confederates
– Heads I win, Tails you lose
• Confederacy attacked fort before supplies
could arrive
– Started what became the Civil War in April 1861
• In North, Lincoln issued immediate call
for volunteers
• “The American Flag is seen everywhere
. . . Men are enlisting as soon as
possible”
– Response was overwhelming
• Militia 90 day
• Lincoln calls for three year volunteers
• In South, public responded enthusiastically
• “Everyone is in favor of secession [and]
perfectly frantic with delight”
• 8 slaves states still in union
• 4 secede after Fort Sumter
– Virginia
– Arkansas
– Tennessee
– North Carolina
• Not everyone had an
easy decision
• Robert E. Lee
• Believed south had
no legal right to
secede
• “I cannot raise my
hand against my birth
place, my home, my
children”
• Border states torn by divided sentiments
– Only Delaware remained firmly in the Union
– Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri contested
ground
• West Virginia created in 1863
– Anti-slave in orientation, loyal to Union
• Indian Territory and the Southwest
– Tribes allied the with Union and Confederacy
– Union kept control of West and Southwest
Balance Sheet of War
• North superior in almost every
category of measurement
–Higher population
–Larger military manpower
–Almost all of nation’s industrial
capacity and registered shipping
• South did have some advantage
– Greater military experience among its
commanders
– Rural nature of Southern life provided
civilians with valuable skills
– Had begun preparing for war earlier than
the North
– Had home-front advantage in defending
own territory
– Higher morale and deeper commitment to
cause of war