American Stories:
A History of the United States
Second Edition
Chapter
14
The Sectional Crisis
1846–1861
American Stories: A History of the United States, Second Edition
Brands • Breen • Williams • Gross
Dubious Support After his constituents learned
of Preston Brooks’s caning of Senator Sumner, they
sent Brooks a gold-handled cowhide whip to use on
other antislavery advocates.
The Sectional Crisis
1846–1861
• The Compromise of 1850
• Political Upheaval, 1852–1856
• The House Divided, 1857–1860
Brooks Assaults Sumner
in Congress
• Representative Brooks beat Senator
Sumner with a cane over Sumner’s
condemnation of the South wanting to
extend slavery to Kansas Territory
• Agitation over extension of slavery led
to the creation of the Republican Party
• Violence on the Senate floor
foreshadowed violence on the
battlefield
The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850
• North and South conflict violently over
slavery’s extension into the territories
• Professional politicians mediate conflict
The Problem of Slavery in the
Mexican Cession
• Slavery traditionally kept out of politics
• Congressional power over slavery
includes:
 Setting conditions to make territories
states
 Forbidding slavery in new states
• Mexican Cession of 1848 puts status of
slavery in new territory into question
The Wilmot Proviso Launches the
Free-Soil Movement
• Mexican War mobilizes antislavery
groups
• Wilmot Proviso
 Amendment to Mexican War Appropriations
Bill by David Wilmont (D-PA)
 Ban all blacks from new territories to
preserve for white farmers
 Links racism and anti-slavery
The Wilmot Proviso Launches the
Free-Soil Movement (cont’d)
• Proviso passes in House, fails in Senate
• Battle over the Proviso foreshadows
sectional conflict of 1850s
Forging a Compromise
• Henry Clay’s 1850 compromise package
 California admitted as a free state
 Slave trade prohibited in District of
Columbia
 Strong fugitive slave law
 Enlarged New Mexico territory to be
admitted on basis of popular sovereignty
TABLE 14.1
The Election of 1848
Forging a Compromise (cont’d)
• President Taylor opposes, VP Fillmore
supports Clay’s compromise
• July 1850 Taylor dies
• Compromise passed as separate
measures
A Fragile Compromise Henry Clay, shown here
addressing the Senate, helped negotiate the
Compromise of 1850 to settle the dispute over the
extension of slavery in territories acquired in the
Mexican-American War. Daniel Webster, seated at
left resting his head on his hand, supported Clay’s
proposed compromise. Ardent states’ rightist John
C. Calhoun, standing third from right, led the
opposition.
Forging a Compromise (cont’d)
• Part of Compromise of 1850
• Those accused of being fugitive slaves
denied Constitution rights
• Very unpopular in Abolitionist areas
• Anthony Burns case in Boston 1854
Map 14.1 The Compromise of 1850 The
“compromise” was actually a series of resolutions
granting some concessions to the North—especially
admission of California as a free state—and some to
the South, such as a stricter Fugitive Slave Law.
Political Upheaval , 1852–1856
Political Upheaval,
1852–1856
• Whigs and Democrats manage
controversy in 1850
• Sectionalism destroys both parties in
1850s
Caution! This abolitionist broadside was printed
in response to a ruling that fugitive slave Thomas
Sims must be returned to his master in Georgia.
The Party System in Crisis
• Parties need new issues after 1850
• Democrats succeed
 Claim credit for the nation’s prosperity
 Promise to defend the Compromise of 1850
• Whigs fail, become internally divided
• 1852: Whig Winfield Scott loses in a
landslide to Democrat Franklin Pierce
TABLE 14.2
The Election of 1852
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Raises a Storm
• 1854: Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska bill
 Apply popular sovereignty to Kansas,
Nebraska
 Repeal Missouri Compromise line
• Act passes on sectional vote
• Northerners outraged, Democratic
party split
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Raises a Storm (cont’d)
• Whig indecision causes party to
disintegrate
• “Anti-Nebraska” candidates sweep,
North Democrats become sole Southern
party
• Free Soil Party grows, becomes
Republicans
• President Pierce’s effort to acquire Cuba
provokes antislavery firestorm
Map 14.2 The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act applied the principle of
popular sovereignty to voters in the Kansas and
Nebraska territories, allowing them to decide for
themselves whether to permit slavery in their
territories. The act repudiated the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery
in the territory of the Louisiana Purchase north of
36°30’ latitude.
Kansas and the
Rise of the Republicans
• Republican party unites former Whigs,
Know-Nothings, Free-Soilers, Northern
Democrats
• Appeals to Northern sectional
sympathies
• Defends West for white, small farmers
from Slave Power
Kansas and the
Rise of the Republicans (cont’d)
• “Bleeding Kansas” helps Republicans
 Struggle among abolitionists, proslavery
forces for control of Kansas territory
 Republicans use conflict to appeal for
voters
Sectional Division in the
Election of 1856
• Republican John C. Frémont seeks
votes only in free states
• Know-Nothing Millard Fillmore
champions sectional compromise
• Democrat James Buchanan defends the
Compromise of 1850, carries election
Sectional Division in the
Election of 1856 (cont’d)
• Election really 2 elections
 North: Freemont vs. Buchanan
 South: Fillmore vs. Buchanan
• Republicans make clear gains in North
TABLE 14.3
The Election of 1856
The House Divided , 1857–1860
The House Divided
1857–1860
• Sectional quarrel becomes virtually
irreconcilable under Buchanan
• Growing sense of deep cultural
differences, opposing interests between
North and South
Cultural Sectionalism
• Major Protestant denominations divide
into Northern and Southern entities
over slavery
• Southern literature romanticizes
plantation life
Cultural Sectionalism (cont’d)
• South seeks intellectual, economic
independence
• Northern intellectuals condemn slavery
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin an immense success
in North
The Dred Scott Case
• Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857): Supreme
Court can decide on slavery in the
territories
• Court refuses narrow determination of
case
The Dred Scott Case (cont’d)
• Major arguments
 Scott has no right to sue because neither
he nor any other black, slave or free, is a
citizen
 Congress has no authority to prohibit
slavery in territories, Missouri Compromise
unconstitutional
The Dred Scott Case (cont’d)
• Ruling supports Republican claim that
an aggressive slave power dominated
all branches of federal government
Debating the Morality of Slavery
• Lincoln




Decries “Southern plot” to extend slavery
Promises to work for slavery’s extinction
Casts slavery as a moral problem
Defends white supremacy in response to
Douglas
Debating the Morality of Slavery
• Douglas accuses Lincoln of favoring
equality
• Lincoln loses election, gains national
reputation
Little Giant Stephen Douglas, the “Little Giant”
from Illinois, won election to Congress when he
was just 30, years old. Four years later, he was
elected to the Senate.
The Election of 1860
• Democratic Party splits:
 North: Stephen Douglas, South: John
Breckenridge
 Constitutional Union Party: John Bell
• Abraham Lincoln nominated
• Platform to widen party’s appeal
A Rising Star Abraham
Lincoln, shown here in his first
full-length portrait. Although
Lincoln lost the contest for the
Senate seat in 1858, the
Lincoln–Douglas debates
established his reputation as a
rising star of the Republican
party.
The Election of 1860 (cont’d)
• Lincoln wins by carrying North
• South sees beginning of minority status
in politics
• South launches secession movements
Map 14.3 The Election of 1860 Many
observers have said that the election of 1860 was
really two elections: one in the North and one in
the South. From this map, can you see why the
candidate who won the northern election became
president?
Conclusion: Explaining the Crisis
Conclusion: Explaining the Crisis
• Republicans a strict sectional party
• Fundamental conflict of ideals
• Southern ideals
 Paternalism, generosity, prosperity
 Slavery defended on the grounds of race
Conclusion: Explaining the Crisis
• Northern ideals
 Inspired by evangelical Protestantism
 Each person free and responsible
 Slavery tyrannical and immoral
Timeline