Drifting Toward Disunion
Introduction
 The issue of slavery
continued to be
controversial in the
1850’s. When in 1860,
the newly formed
Republican Party
nominated for
President Abraham
Lincoln, an outspoken
opponent of the
further expansion of
slavery, the stage was
set for all-out civil war.
Stowe: Literary Incendiaries

Sectional tensions were further
strained in 1852, and later, by
Harriet Beecher Stowe, who
published her heartrending
novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe
was determined to awakening
the North to the wickedness of
slavery and mostly the fugitive
slave law. She would later
explain that God told her to
write it.

The success of her novel at
home and abroad was
sensational. Several hundred
thousand copies were published
in the first year, and the totals
soon ran into the millions as the
tale was translated into more
than a score of languages.
Stowe: Literacy Incendiaries
 When Mrs. Stowe was
introduced to President
Lincoln in 1862, he reportedly
remarked with twinkling eyes,
“So you are the little woman
who wrote the book that
made this Great War.” The
truth is that Uncle Tom’s
Cabin did help start the warand win it.
 Mrs. Stowe had never
witness’s slavery at first hand
in the Deep South, but she
had seen it briefly during a
visit to Kentucky, and she had
lived for many years in Ohio,
a center of Underground
Railroad activity.
The North-South Contest for
Kansas
 The rolling plains of Kansas had meanwhile been
providing an example of the worst possible workings of
popular sovereignty, but it was under abnormal
conditions.
 Northerners who mostly were in this area were just
ordinary westward moving pioneers, but small part of
the inflow was financed by groups of northern
abolitionists or Free-Soilers.
 Southerners who felt betrayed, and who supported
this scheme by Douglas had the unspoken
understanding that Kansas would become slave and
Nebraska free.
The North-South Contest for
Kansas
 Crisis conditions in Kansas rapidly worsened. When the
day came in 1855 to elect members of the first
territorial legislature, proslavery poured in from Missouri
to vote early and often. The slavery supporters
triumphed and then set up their own puppet
government.
 Tension mounted as settlers also feuded over conflicting
land claims. The breaking point came in 1856 when a
gang of proslavery raiders, alleging provocation, shot up
and burned part of the free-soil town. This outrage
was but the prelude to a bloodier tragedy.
Kansas in Convulsion
 John Brown was a fanatical figure. He was spare, graybearded, and iron willed, he was obsessively dedicated
to the abolition cause. Civil War in Kansas thus
erupted in 1856 and continued until it merged with the
largest scale Civil War 1861-1865. Altogether, the
Kansas conflict destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of
property.
 By 1857 Kansas had enough people, mostly FreeSoilers to apply for statehood on popular sovereignty
basis. The vote went like this: You vote for the
constitution on both sides, but either could say with
slavery or with no slavery.
Kansas in Convulsion
 If they voted against slavery, one of the remaining
provisions of the constitution would protect the owners
of slaves already in Kansas. So there would still be
bondage. Tons of people boycotted the polls.
 The scene next went to Washington: Pierce had been
succeeded by James Buchanan. He was under the
southern influence. Douglas was tossing away strong
support from the south he fought for fair play. The
outcome was a compromise submitted was that it would
come to popular vote.
 Buchanan by antagonizing Douglas, and the Democrats,
they were now dividing the Democratic Party. The Whig
party is dead and now the only political party is divided.
Bully Brooks and his Bludgeon

Bleeding Kansas also spattered
blood on the floor of the Senate in
1856, Senator Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts, a tall and imposing
figure, was a leading abolitionistone of the few prominent in
political life. He was highly
educated, but cold, humorless,
intolerant and egotistical; he had
made himself one of the most
disliked men in the Senate.

He delivered a speech in the
Senate in which he condemned
the proslavery men as hirelings
picked from the drunken spew and
vomit of an uneasy civilization. He
also referred to South Carolina and
to its white-haired senator Andrew
Butler, one of the best-liked
members of the Senate.

.
Bully Brooks and his Bludgeon
 Hot-tempered Preston Brooks of South Carolina resented the
insults to his state and to his senator, a distant cousin. On May, 22,
1856, he approached Sumner, then sitting at his Senate desk,
and pounded the orator with an 11 ounce cane until it broke. The
victim fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor, while several
nearby senators refrained from interfering.
 Brooks resigned and was then re-elected. Southern admirers
Brooks with canes, some of them gold-headed, to replace the one
that had been broken.
 The injuries to Sumner’s head and nervous system were serious.
He was forced to leave his seat for 3 years and he went to Europe
for treatment that was painful and costly. The Senate left his seat
empty and re-elected him.
 Bleeding Sumner was thus joined with bleeding Kansas as a political
issue. Copies of Sumner speech were sold by the tens of thousands.
Every blow that struck the senator doubtless made thousands of
Republican votes.
 The Sumner-Brooks clash and ensuing reactions revealed how
dangerously inflamed passions were becoming. The blows rained on
Sumner’s head were broadly speaking, among the first blows
of the Civil War.
Old Buck versus the Pathfinder
 This is about the election of 1856. It was between
Buchanan and Fremont. Mudslinging hit both candidates.
Buchanan was assailed because he was a bachelor: the
fiancée of his youth had died after a lovers quarrel. Fremont
was reviled because of his illegitimate birth, for his young
mother had left her elderly husband, a Virginia planter, to
run away with a French adventurer.
 Nine months later she was pregnant with John. More
harmful to Fremont was the allegation, which alienated
many bigoted Know-Nothings and other nativists, that he
was a Roman Catholic.
 A bland Buchanan won handily. His tally in the Electoral
College was 174 and 114 for Fremont, with Fillmore getting
8. The popular vote was 1,832,955 for Buchanan, to
1,339,932 for Fremont, and 871,731 for Fillmore.
The Dred Scott Bombshell

The Dred Scott v. Stanford
decision was handed down by
the Supreme Court on March 6,
1857, which ended a 2 day
honeymoon for Buchanan.

The case was simple. Dred
Scott, a black slave, had lived
with his master for 5 years in
Illinois and Wisconsin Territory.
Backed by interested
abolitionists, he sued for
freedom and on the basis of his
long residence on free soil.

The Supreme Court proceeded
to twist a simple legal case into
a complex political issue. They
ruled that Dred Scott was a
slave and not a citizen, and
could not sue the federal courts.
The Dred Scott Bombshell
 Reasoning: The reasoning was that the 5th amendment
clearly forbade Congress to deprive people of their property
without due process of law. The Court, to be consistent,
went further, The Missouri compromise, banning slavery
north of the 36 30 had been repealed 3 years earlier by the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. The court ruled that the Compromise
of 1820 had been unconstitutional from all of the territories.
 Southerners were delighted with this victory. Another
lethal wedge was driven between the northern and southern
Whigs of the once united Democratic Party.
 Northerners were angry at the Dred Scott setback. They
now insisted that this was an opinion and not a decision.
 Southerners would now question how much longer they had
to remain to a union that didn’t honor the Supreme Court.
An Illinois Rail Splitter
 The Illinois senator race of 1858 was now under the
national spotlight. Douglas’s term was about to expire and
Abraham Lincoln would run against him. Lincoln was a
lawyer, 6 feet 4 inches tall, and 180 pounds, presented an
awkward but arresting figure. Lincoln’s legs and arms and
neck were long and his head was crowned by coarse, black
and unruly hair: and his face was sad, sunken and weatherbeaten.
 Lincoln attended a frontier school, and he was an avid
reader, and mainly self-educated. He was a wrestler, and
weight lifter, and spent some time, among other pioneering
pursuits, as a splinter of logs for fence rails. He married
above himself socially. In fact Mary Todd and Lincoln broke
up because her family didn’t believe that Lincoln would be
good enough for her.
 Lincoln made a mark in the Illinois Legislature as a Whig
politician. He served one term in Congress. The passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act in that year lighted within him
unexpected fires. After this he emerged as one of the
foremost politicians and orators of the Northwest.
The Great Debate: Lincoln versus
Douglas
 The Lincoln and Douglas debates were arranged from
August to October 1858. At first glance the 2 of the
contestants seemed ill-matched. The well-groomed and
polished Douglas presented a striking contrast to the
lanky Lincoln, with baggy clothes and un-shined shoes.
 Old Abe had both affection and had a piercing, high
pitched voice and was often ill at ease when he began to
speak. But as he threw himself into an argument, he
seemed to grow in height, while his glowing eyes lighted
up a rugged face.
 Lincoln and Douglas went head to head on the issue
of slavery. Douglas did not hesitate to meet the issue
head on. Douglas believed that no matter how the
Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the
people voted it down. Law to protect slavery would have
to be passed in the territorial legislatures. Lincoln
believed that the territories should vote slavery down.
The Great Debate: Lincoln versus
Douglas
 The upshot was that
Douglas defeated Lincoln for
the Senate seat. Douglas
believed in popular
sovereignty which was still
very powerful in Illinois.
Senators were then chosen by
state legislatures: and in the
general election that followed
the debates. There were more
Pro-Douglas supporters.
 Lincoln even though he
lost he was still a very
prominent political figure. The
Lincoln-Douglas debate
platform thus proved to be
one of the preliminary
battlefields of the Civil War.
John Brown: Murderer or Martyr?
 John Brown with a handful of followers calls upon the
slaves to rise, furnish them with arms, and establish a
kind of black Free State as a sanctuary. Brown secured
several thousand dollars for firearms and arrived at
Harpers Ferry.
 He seized that arsenal in October 1859, killing seven
innocent people, including a free black, and injuring ten
or more. The slaves failed to rise and the wounded
Brown and his followers were captured by Robert E Lee.
 John Brown was convicted of murder and treason
after a legal trial. He presumed insanity and even had
some of his closest friends testify of him being insane.
Those attempts did not work, and he was sentenced to
death.
John Brown: Murderer of Martyr?
 As he was walking up to
the scaffolding, his demeanor
during the trial was dignified
and courageous, his last
words “This is a beautiful
country”, were to become
legendary, and he marched up
without flinching.
 The lasting effects were
inflammatory in the eyes of
the South. Many southerners
asked how they could remain
in the Union. Abolitionists and
other ardent Free-Soilers were
angry at his execution. Many
of them were ignorant of his
past. But the ghost of John
Brown would not be laid to
rest.
The Election Upheaval of 1860
 Lincoln had run a curious
race. He was the minority
president, which means
that 60 % of the voters
preferred some other
candidate. He was also a
sectional president, for in
ten other southern states,
where he was not on the
ballot, and he polled in
no popular votes.
 The election of 1860
was virtually 2 elections.
In winning the election in
the North, it had split off
the South. Douglas did
surprising well and ranked
second in the election.
The Secessionist Exodus
 The tragic train reaction of secession now began to
erupt. South Carolina left first, and they left 4 days
after Lincoln was elected. Most of the southern
states held a convention and mostly voted to secede
from the Union. During the next 6 weeks, 6 other states
left the Union.
 The States the left next were: Alabama, Mississippi,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Four more were
to join them later, bringing the total to 11.
 Those states met in Montgomery Alabama and created
a government known as the Confederate States of
America and they chose Jefferson Davis as their
president.
The Secessionist Exodus

Jefferson Davis was a West Point
graduate, former cabinet member
with wide military and
administrative experience: but he
suffered from chronic ill health.

Lincoln, even though he was
elected, he did not take office until
4 months later. President
Buchanan did nothing to keep
them in the Union, and he rid his
hand of them. At this time he was
70 and just washed his hands of it.

One important reason why he
did not resort to force was that the
tiny standing army of some 15
thousand men, which were widely
scattered, and were in the West.
When Lincoln came into the
presidency, he did the same thing
that Buchanan, which was called
the wait and see policy.
The Collapse of Compromise
 John Crittenden proposed an amendment to appease the
South. It stated that slavery in the territories was to
be prohibited north of 36 30 but south of that line it was
to be given federal protection in all territories existing or
hereafter to be acquired. Further states, north or south
of 36 30 could come into the Union with or without
slavery, as they should chose.
 Slavery supporters were to be guaranteed full rights in
the southern territories, as long as they were territories,
regardless of the wishes of the majority under popular
sovereignty.
 Lincoln refused this compromise and knew that he
would have to bear the responsibility.
Farewell to Union
 Secessionists who parted
company with their sister states
left for a number of avowed
reasons, mostly relating in
some way to slavery. They were
alarmed by the tipping of the
political balance against them.
The crime of the North was the
census returns, and they were
also dismayed by the renewal of
the Republican Party, which
seemed to threaten their rights
as a slaveholding minority.
Jefferson Davis was known
to have said: All we ask if to be
left alone.

With the burden of the North
gone, the South was
confident that its own peculiar
destiny more quietly, happily,
and prosperously.