Slavery and Sectionalism
The Political Crisis of 1848-1861
Slavery ? In the
Territories
• Gold Rush
Slavery ? In the
Territories
• Compromise of 1850
– Dead on arrival/President
Taylor dies/Douglas
– Separate Legislation
• 1. California Free
• 2. NM and Utah-popular
sovereignty
• 3. Smaller Texas/debt removed
• 4. Banned Slave Trade/DC
• 5. Fugitive Slave Act
– Sectional divided begins
• N/S and Free Labor/Slave Labor
Which side won???
VP Fillmore
Henry Clay
John C.
Calhoun
He is actually sick and can’t
read his speech!!!!
Senator
Foote
(MS)
Senator
Benton
(MO)
Political Realignment
We get
to vote
free or
slave
We get
to vote
free or
slave
I’ll
protect
YOU!!!
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
– Introduced by S.A. Douglas
– Provisions
• Repealed ban on slavery above
36 30
• 2 territories
I think
we may
go free
– Opposition
• Northern Whigs & Dems -line
was untouchable
• Free- Soilers & Abolitionist“Slave Power”
Not!!! Over
my dead
body!!!
– Passed Congress on sectional,
NOT party lines/tearing parties
apart
– Result- death of Whig party
and creation of Republican
party
Political Realignment
• Republicans-antislavery
– Free-Soilers
– Ex-Whigs
– Antislavery-Democrats
• Know-Nothings-anti-foreign
– Nativism
• native American’s belief in their
superiority to the foreign born
(German & Irish Catholics)
– American Party /Know Nothing Party
• Condemned Both Parties
• Restrict office to native-born
• No fund for parochial schools
• 5 to 21 years for citizenship
• Big Question???? Who
would emerge as the next
second party??? Anti slavery
or immigrant?
Gangs of NY
Butcher Bill
aka Nativist
“KnowKnowings”
Boss Tweed
Irish Immigrant
Thomas Nast 1874
Political Realignment
• Ballots and Blood
– Border Ruffians (pro slavery)
• Le Compton Constitution
– Antislavery settlers
• New England Emigrant Society
– Amos Lawrence
• Lawrence Constitution
– US Congress- issue Le Compton
Const.
• Senate (Democrats) approved
• House (Republicans) did not
– Failed attempt
• “Crime Against Kansas”
– “Bleeding Kansas”
• Sacking of Lawrence/John Brown
– President Pierce sent 1,300 troops
to KS
“The Crime Against Kansas”
Sen. Charles Sumner
(R-MA)
Congr. Preston Brooks
(D-SC)
Actual Cane Used Notice end not there…
Teddy Roosevelt
1910 Square Deal Speech
Barrack Obama
December 6, 2011
Border War 2008
Missouri 37
Kansas 40 Final
Political Realignment
• Presidential Election of 1856
– Republican
• John C. Fremont “ Free Soil, Free
Speech, Free Men, and Fremont”
– Democrat
• James Buchanan “Northerner with
Southern tendencies”
– American
• Millard Fillmore
You are a “Black
Republican”!
– REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCE A
“VICTORIOUS DEFEAT”-A VERY
STRONG, SECTIONAL SHOWING
– DEMOCRATS WIN PRESIDENCY BUT
ELECTIONS SHOWS STRENGTH OF
NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY AND
INDICATES THAT MORE PEOPLE SAW
SLAVERY AS A THREAT TO US THAN
IMMIGRANTS (KNOW NOTHINGS
DECLINE)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
– Uncle Tom’s Cabin
I will send
Beecher bibles…
I will write a book
to end…
I was a
leader of
the 2nd
Great
Awakening
President James
Buchanan address
• Deepening Controversy
Political
Realignment
– 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford
• Supreme Court-Taney
– Slaves were property not
people, and as such no right to
sue
– Congress no right to regulate
slavery in Terr.
» Southern Position
– Comp of 1820 void/violates 5th
Amendment
– Pres. Buchanan supports
– Slave Power Conspiracy
» White House-Pro slave
» ½ Congress- Pro Slave
» Supreme Court-Pro Slave
– 1857 Le Compton
Constitution approved by
Senate and Buchannan and
rejected by House and Senator
Douglas
• Kansas indefinitely a Territory
(until 1861)
Sweet, I am free!!!
(He only lives for one
year free and then
sadly dies…)
We do not want
you. So, I will give
you back to the
Blows
I can’t have any
slaves, my
husband is antislavery!!! Your
Freedom has been
bought. You are
now FREE!!!
Once a slave always
a slave. Never can
be a citizen.
“A House divided can
not stand, and I
believe this
Government cannot
endure permanently
half-slave and half
free.”
A House Divided
• Lincoln-Douglas Debates 1858
– Series of debates that focused
on the issue of slavery
– Lincoln (Rep)
• Slavery immoral/stop the spread
to terr.
– Douglas (Dem)
• Popular Sovereignty
– Douglas wins Senator seat/
Lincoln becomes National figure
He is a “Black
Republican”
and he wants
to elevate
blacks
A House Divided
• John Brown’s Raid 1859
– Seized Federal Arsenal in
Harper’s Ferry, VA
– Captured and hung for
treason
– Brown hero in the
North?
– Brown struck fear in the
South?
A House Divided
• Election of 1860
– Democrats split
• North-Stephen A. Douglas
– Popular Sovereignty
• South- John C. Breckinridge
– Pro Slavery
– Constitutional Union
• John Bell
– Republican
• Abraham Lincoln-moderate
– Platform
» No extension of slavery
into new territories
– Sectional Outcome
• Lincoln wins with 40%
A House Divided
• Lincoln’s Platform
– No extension of slavery
into new territories
– Homestead Act to
encourage westward
expansion (free land)
– High Tariff for Northern
industries
– Transcontinental RR
– Internal improvements
paid by federal govt
A House Divided
• Secession
– South Carolina holds convention
and unanimously secedes
• 6 others soon followed
– Confederate States of America
• Jefferson Davis (Senator/War)-Pres
• Alexander Stephens-VP
• Slavery legal- Constitution
• Key principles of Confederate
constitution:
• Secession is a legal and natural right…
• Individualism (property rights) and
states rights
– President Buchanan
• Lame duck
– Crittenden Compromise
• Proposed Slavery Amendment
• Failed :Lincoln no/ CSA no
A House Divided
– Fall of Fort Sumter
• Lincoln would not
surrender Federal
property
• Lincoln re- supply
fort/CSA would not allow
• April 12, 1861 CSA assault
and take fort
– Lincoln
• Calls 75,000 army
• Civil War has begun
Fort Sumter: April 12, 1861