Chapter 19
Drifting Toward Disunion
1854-1861
Stowe and Helper
• 1852: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet
Beecher Stowe
– Angered by Fugitive Slave Act
– 2nd Great Awakening
– International popularity
• 1857: The Impending Crisis by Hinton R.
Helper
– Effects on non-slaveholding whites
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896), Daguerreotype by Southworth and Hawes,
“The Book That Made This Great War” Lincoln’s celebrated remark to author Harriet Beecher
Stowe reflected the enormous emotional impact of her impassioned novel.
Battle for Kansas
• Popular sovereignty= call to action
• Henry Ward Beecher and New England
Emigrant Aid Company
• South=angry Kansas-Nebraska Act
meant to make Kansas slave!
• 1855 election for territorial legislatureborder ruffians
• Shawnee Mission vs. Topeka= who’s in
charge?
Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1860“Enter every election district in Kansas . . . and vote at the point of
a bowie knife or revolver,” one proslavery agitator exhorted a Missouri crowd. Proslavery Missouri
senator David Atchison declared that “there are 1,100 men coming over from Platte County to vote,
and if that ain’t enough we can send 5,000—enough to kill every Goddamned abolitionist in the
Territory.”
Bleeding Kansas
• 1856 free soil town of Lawrence burned
• John Brown- Osawatomie to
Pottawatomie Pottawatomie Creek in
May 1856
– 5 killed (proslavery?)
– Bleeding Kansas= civil war in Kansas!
• Lecompton Constitution 1857 free
soilers avoided polls
– Buchanan supported, Douglas= real popular
sovereignty division in Democratic party
John Brown (1800–1859)
Brooks Attacks Sumner
• 1856 Senator Charles Sumner
– South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler
• Congressman Preston Brooks insulted
• May 22, 1856: Brooks attacks Sumner
• House couldn’t expel Brooks, resigned
and reelected!
• Sumner’s speech sold tens of thousands
Preston Brooks Caning Charles
Sumner, 1856
Presidential Election of 1856
(electoral vote by state)
Dred Scott Decision
• Dred Scott= slave in Illinois and Wisconsin
in 1857
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Sued for freedom
Supreme Court ruled not a citizen
Chief Justice Taney to undermine free soilers
Slaves= private property (5th amendment)
Missouri Compromise= unconstitutional!
Can’t deny slavery even with popular
sovereignty!
– Democrats split, antislaveryites ignored
decision
Lincoln vs. Douglas
• 1858 Senatorial elections in Illinois
• Stephen Douglas (Dem) vs. Abraham
Lincoln (Rep)
• Douglas challenged to 7 debates
(Lincoln-Douglas Debates)
• Freeport Doctrine- popular sovereignty
vs. SC decision?
– Douglas= if people don’t want it, it won’t
happen
Lincoln vs. Douglas
• Douglas elected Senator (indirect
election by state legislature)
• Lincoln became a national name
• Douglas= presidential bid squashed
(against Lecompton Constitution and
Freeport Doctrine)
• Democratic party split North vs. South
Lincoln and Douglas Debate, 1858
John Brown
• Moved to Virginia October 1859
• Plan= attack federal arsenal at Harper’s
Ferry+ slave revolt
• 7 innocent people killed, 10 injured
• Robert E. Lee and Marines
• Brown convicted of murder and treason
insane?
• Execution= martyred, South= angry
Election of 1860
• Democratic Convention at Charleston
– Southerners against Douglas, walked out
• Democratic Convention at Baltimore
– Douglas nominated by Northern Dems.
– John C. Breckinridge nominated by
Southern Democrats
– Constitutional Union Party= moderate
Democrats with John Bell
Presidential Election of 1860: Electoral Vote by State
(top) and Popular Vote by County (bottom)
Election of 1860
• Republican Convention at Chicago
– Seward= too divisive, Lincoln nominated
– Platform geared toward all Northerners
– South declared a victory for
Lincoln=secession
– Lincoln won with 180 electoral votes,
election split perfectly between N and S
Secession
• December 1860: South Carolina
• Within 6 weeks, 6 more states seceded
(4 more to secede later)
• February 1861: Confederate States of
America (CSA)
– Jefferson Davis: president
• Lincoln stuck in lame duck time!
Southern Opposition to Secession, 1860–1861 (showing vote by county)
This county vote shows the opposition of the antiplanter, antislavery mountain
whites in the Appalachian region. There was also considerable resistance to
secession in Texas, where Governor Sam Houston, who led the Unionists, was
deposed by secessionists.
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889), President of the
Confederacy
Compromise?
• Crittenden Amendments (James Henry
Crittenden of Kentucky)
– 36°30’= no slavery north
– South of 36°30’= federal protection of
slavery (including future territories)
– When statehood came, all territories
could choose
– Lincoln rejected compromise
Reasons for Secession
• 11 Southern states seceded
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North= more populous= power
Feared Republican party
Sick of free soilers and abolitionists
Secession would be peaceful economic
ties between North and South
– Secession= opportunity, right to self
determination (linked to Revolution!)
– Had voluntarily entered Union, now leaving