The Crisis of Union: 1850s
President Millard Fillmore
(1850–1853) (Whig) (N Y)
The California Question
• Gold had been found in California, and the people
who moved there asked congress to accept them as a
free state. South disagreed because they thought that
the Missouri compromise line should be extended.
The South threatens to leave the Union.
• Southerners plan to meet in Nashville, Tenn. In the
summer of 1850 to discuss secession from the nation
and forming a nation of their own.
Henry Clay to the rescue,
for the last time.
1850: Compromise, or the
Omnibus Bill
• Henry Clay proposes the compromise which
(1) accepts California as a free state, (2)
Popular Sovereignty in the territories - allows
the people choice if they want slavery or not.
(3) Passage of a strict fugitive slave law
(4) outlaws the slave trade in Washington DC.
(5) Texas compensated for giving territory to
New Mexico
The Compromise of 1850
The Concurrent Majority Question
• John C. Calhoun (SC) Suggests a constitutional
amendment that would allow the north and the south
to have two different presidents (the concurrent
majority) Calhoun’s plans fails in the senate.
• Calhoun was dying and could not even deliver his last
speech. He laid on a stretcher in the Senate while his
speech was read.
• After Calhoun’s last speech was read for him, he
stated, “The South! The South! God knows what will
become of her!”
Nashville Convention
• 1850: Nashville, Tenn. Convention: First
southern secession convention -- South
Carolinians call for the southern states to
gather, but they decided that the time is
not right. The Compromise of 1850 had
already passed.
The end of the Great Triumvirate
• 1850 – 1852: Old men die off: Calhoun,
Webster and Clay all die, young, powerhungry and war happy men take their
places. Enter the third generation of
politicians: the new men are extremists.
The Dough faced politicians
• The Whig party collapses and the Know
Nothing Party is in full swing. Enter the
Dough faced Presidents (Northerners with
Southern sympathy, northerners who felt
bad for the south and would do anything
they could keep peace between north and
south)
President Franklin Pierce
(1853 – 1857) (Dem.) (N H)
Gadsden Purchase
• 1853: Arranged for
the Gadsden
Purchase from
Mexico- $10 Million
for the land to build a
trans- continental
railroad to California.
• Became the official
stage coach route.
Other plans for expansion
• Pierce wanted to bring Cuba, Belize and
Nicaragua into the Union for the South.
The plan for Nicaragua came with a
proposal to build a canal through
Nicaragua.
• In balancing his expansion into central
America, Pierce planned to take Canada
for the Northerners.
Stephen A. Douglas
“The little Giant”
• 1854: Kansas-Nebraska
Act The Kansas Nebraska Crisis --Stephen
A Douglas (Illinois) plan
divided the Nebraska
territory into two states,
Kansas and Nebraska, in
order to run a
transcontinental railroad
from Chicago (Illinois) to
California.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
• He planned on popular sovereignty so the
states choose for themselves if they
wanted slavery or not. Everyone assumed
that Nebraska would become free state
and Kansas become slave state.
• At the heart of the plan was that Douglas
planned to sell his western land holdings
and the train would run through his
property, which would make him wealthy.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Enter the Republican Party
• 1854: Birth of the Republican Party - A
storm of protest broke out in the north over
the problems in Kansas and the passage
of the Kansas - Nebraska act. The new
party openly criticized slavery and slave
owners. Basically these are free soilists
and abolitionists with political power.
Republican Platform
• 1. Western Homestead Act – 160 Acres for
anyone who pays the $10.00 filing fee.
• 2. Internal Improvements for the West
• 3. High Protective Tariffs for Northern
Industry
• 4. Free Soil in the West
Bleeding Kansas
• 1856: Bleeding Kansas: As was assumed,
Nebraska became a free territory, but the people
in Kansas could not decide upon if they wanted
slavery or not. Some people had slaves and
others were strongly opposed to slavery. A Civil
War broke out in Kansas between pro-slavery
people and anti-slavery people.
• The country looked to “Bleeding Kansas” and
wondered if war could spread.
Both sides killed innocent people
President James Buchanan
(1857 – 1861) (Dem.) (Penn.)
• The only bachelor
president in American
History. His niece
served as first lady for
him.
Cotton is Crowned “King” of the
American economy
• 1857: Sen. James Hammond (SC) - said
for Southerners to not fear the north
because all of Europe would support the
South due to their need for southern
cotton to fuel their economy. He said,
“Without the South’s cotton England would
topple headlong and carry the whole
civilized world with her - save the South.
No, you dare not make war on cotton....
Cotton is King.”
King Cotton
Dred Scott
Dred Scott Case
• The 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sanford
threw the nation further into turmoil
• Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken
by his owner into free territory where he
lived for four years
• The owner later returned to Missouri
where he died
• After his death, Dred Scott sued for his
freedom
Dred Scott case continued
• The Supreme Court ruled that Scott had no right
to sue because he was a slave, not a citizen
• It also declared that a slave owner could not be
deprived of his “Property” without due process of
law
• The decision struck down the Missouri
Compromise because it declared that it was a
violation of the Fifth Amendment to declare
slaves free of their owners without due process
of law- even if that slave entered a free state
• The decision outraged both abolitionists and
those who favored popular sovereignty
Charles Sumner (Massachusetts)
Preston Brooks (South Carolina)
Brooks – Sumner Affair
• Sumner insulted SC Senator Andrew
Butler for, “taking the harlot slavery as his
master” in his speech “The Crimes Against
Kansas.”
• Preston Brooks (House of Reps from SC)
entered the senate chambers and beat
Charles Sumner (Senator from Mass) with
his cane on the Senate floor.
The Fallout
• The North saw Brooks as a barbarian, the
South saw him as Chivalrous and sent him
canes to beat other northerners.
• Massachusetts left the senate seat empty
in protest against the violence.
Brooks beats Sumner
Financial Crash of 1857
• Brought on by in pouring Gold from the
West which caused tremendous inflation.
• Crimean War had increased the demands
for wheat and now it was no longer
needed so grain prices dropped.
• Over speculation in western land and
railroads.
• More people demand a homestead act
than ever before.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates for
Senate Seat of Illinois
“A House divided against itself can not
stand. I believe this government
cannot endure half slave and half
free.” Abraham Lincoln
• Douglas, who had hoped of being president one
day, wanted to appeal to both southern
Democrats and his northern constituents
• He argued that slavery could not be
implemented without laws to govern it
• If a territory had no slave laws then it could not
have slaves
John Brown’s body lies
a-mould’ring in the grave.
His soul is marching on….
John Brown’s 1859 Raid at
Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
• A man named John Brown and about 25
followers attacked a federal arsenal in
Western part of Virginia. His plan was to
take over the arsenal, take the guns and
distributed them to slaves and start a
general slave uprising.
• Brown took over the arsenal but never
distributed the guns.
The Fate of John Brown
• US troops under the command of Colonel
Robert E. Lee surrounded the arsenal and
forced Brown’s surrender
• Although Brown was hanged, his actions
intensified southern resentment of the
abolitionist movement and many saw it as
an affirmation that the South would have
to shed blood to protect its way of life.
Democratic Convention:
Charleston, SC 1860
• By the time of the presidential election of 1860
the country was at a boiling point over the issue
of slavery
• At its convention, the Democratic Party split
along sectional lines over the issue
• The Southern Democrats supported Vice
president John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky
• The Northern Democrats supported popular
sovereignty and nominated Stephen A. Douglas
of Illinois
Election of 1860
• The election of 1860: The Democratic
party split during the election over slavery.
The Whig party, now called the
Constitutional Party, ran a candidate, as
did the republicans. Abraham Lincoln
(Republican) won the election without
earning a single southern electoral vote.
With the election of a man who vowed to
end the spread of slavery, South Carolina
leaves the Union .
The Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln:
Illinois Republican and
Sixteenth President
• Abraham Lincoln:
President of the
United States of
America and the
first Republican
president in
history
South Carolina is first to leave the
United States, December 1860
Confederacy Formed
• By February of 1861, six other states had
seceded as well
• Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida,
Texas and Louisiana
• They then met in Montgomery Alabama to
draft their own constitution
• They elected Jefferson Davis as president
of the Confederate States of America
Crittenden Compromise
• Several Senators make attempts at
compromises to keep the Union together.
• The most workable was created by James
Henry Crittenden who suggested that the
36’ 30’ line be reinstated and that slavery
south of that line be forever protected in
existing and newly acquired territories in a
new Constitutional Amendment.
• Lincoln flat out rejected the compromise.
War comes to the Union
• On April 12, 1861, Confederate soldiers opened
fire on Fort Sumter before the ships could arrive,
forcing the union troops to surrender the
following day
• In response, President Lincoln issued a call for
75,000 volunteers to crush the rebellion
(200,000 respond).
• The so-called border states were forced to
decide whether to support the Union or the
Confederacy
Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor
The States Choose Sides