The Politics of Slavery
The beginnings of the political
discussion on slavery
The beginnings of the political
discussion on slavery
...but this momentous question, like a fire
bell in the night, awakened and filled me
with terror. I considered it at once as the
knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for
the moment. but this is a reprieve only,
not a final sentence. a geographical line,
coinciding with a marked principle, moral
and political, once conceived and held up
to the angry passions of men, will never
be obliterated; and every new irritation
will mark it deeper and deeper.
-Thomas Jefferson
•Gag rules
•Reaction to slave rebellions/Nat
Turner
•States’ Rights philosophy
•Didn’t bring in Texas
Early Anti-Slavery efforts in politics:
JQ Adams: Petitioning
Congress
William Lloyd
Garrison: rejecting
politics for abolitionism
Post Jackson Politics
1840 election
William Henry Harrison:
John Tyler: Whig or….
Turns Democrat
Dies after one month
Virginia planter, pro-state’s
rights, supporter of Texas
annexation and slavery
Post Jackson Politics
Tyler’s Presidency
It’s all about Texas!
John Tyler: Whig or….
Turns Democrat
Dems want it to expand slavery after LP closed in 1820
No one wants him!
Whigs cautious about expansion and volatility of slavery debate
Whigs and MVB block Texas annexation in 1844!
Whigs picked Henry Clay to run again
Anti-Slavery MVB sought Dems. nomination, didn’t get
2/3’s nomination, Polk selected as dark horse
No magic for the Great Compromiser: Birney took votes
away from free soil Whigs in NY, southern Whigs defect
As a result: James K. Polk (D) was elected
Texas annexation announced by Tyler,
passed on 1st day of Polk’s presidency
Polk: Mr. Manifest Destiny
•A Slavocracy?
•Polk: Tennessee slaveholder, bought more during
his presidency.
•Added Oregon to America
•Mr. Polk’s War: Mexican-American War led to
Mexican Cession and annexation of Texas.
•Rejected Wilmot Proviso, advocated extending
Mizzou Comp line to Pacific
•Wanted Gadsden Purchase and purchase of Cuba
•Gave MD his all….grew sick and died 9
months after his one term presidency!
Treaty of GH and
$18 million gave
the U.S. the
Mexican Cession.
Free Soil Ideology
Starts with David Wilmot’s “Proviso”, connected to Polk’s
$2 million request for bribe to Mexico, based on NW
Ordinance
David Wilmot: “I would preserve for white free labor a fair
country…. Where the sons of toil, of my own race and
color, can live without the disgrace which association with
negro slavery brings upon free labor”
Free Labor supporters claimed that the south was stagnating, rejecting values
of progress and individualism and threatening democracy
A NATION OF SLAVEHOLDERS!
A SLAVOCRACY!
Free Soil-ites advocated not for abolitionism necessarily, but a limit on spread
of slavery: See Abe’s arguments in LD Debates
Ideology split Whigs, created the Free Soil Party and helped form the Republican
Party
Most of Mexican Cession
below Missouri Comp. line
Gadsden Purch. made to
make southern transcont.
RR route-strengthening
southern economy
Election of 1848
Zachary Taylor (W), war
hero, no political
experience
Martin Van
Buren runs for
the Free Soil
Party,
supporting limit
on spread of
slavery
Lewis
Cass (D),
proslavery
advocate
-Mexican Cession and California statehood threatens
Union, southerners threaten secession.
-Politics dominated by Clay, Webster, and Calhoun one
more time:
What to do?
-Taylor threatens veto of the Compromise Bill but….
dies after he ate milk, cherries and pickles at a 4th of
July picnic celebrating the start of the Wash.
Monument!
Official cause: bilious diarrhoea
Exhumed in 1991 to see if poisoned….
Final analysis: doctors “drugged him with ipecac,
calomel, opium and quinine (at 40 grains a whack),
and bled and blistered him too”
Stephen Douglas separates the
Bill into 5 Bills, Millard Fillmore
becomes president, supports
Compromise
•Clay becomes exhausted,
leaves DC and dies two years
later.
•Calhoun too sick to speak,
writes argument against….and
dies!
Compromise passes as five separate bills:
1. California admitted as free state
2. Slave trade abolished in D.C.
3. Utah and New Mexico admitted with pop sov
4. Fugitive Slave Law passed
5. Texas gave up land to NM and Arizona
1852 Election: Calm before the Storm
Democrat candidate: Franklin Pierce from NH
Whigs dump Fillmore, nominate Gen. Winfield Scott
Scott runs as anti-slavery Whig, loses pro-slavery
Whig support, splits party and loses election
President Franklin Pierce:
-Doughface: Northerner with southern
sympathies and worst prez ever?
-Added Gadsden Purchase (who can’t
laugh at the Gadsden Purchase?)
-Young America movement: Supported
Ostend Manifesto: seize Cuba was he 50
years too early?
-Kansas/Nebraska Act, Bloody Kansas
sinks his presidency
“Young America”, expansion of slavery, the new “Manifest Destiny”
Kansas Nebraska Act 1854
1. Stephen Douglas
promotes northern
route for transcont
RR
2. Southerners accept
popular sov. for both
Nebraska and
Kansas
3. Nebraska goes for
free soil
The Storm arrives! Northern Whigs, Free-Soilers and
Northern Democrats hate the K/N Act. It destroys the sacred
Missouri Compromise!
Bleeding Kansas
Kansas implodes into violence as Missouri
ruffians and pro slavery-ites invade
Republican Party is born-Northern Whigs
and Dems and Free-Soilers
Sacking of free-town Lawrence, KS
May 22, 1856
Border ruffians from Missouri
1856
May 22, 1856: The caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks:
-Sumner had attacked the Fugitive Slave Law, Stephen Douglas, Comp of 1850
and Brook’s uncle Andrew Butler from SC as a “pimp” to slavery’s harlot
May 24, 1856: John Brown is enraged by caning, attacks and hacks to
death pro-slavery supporters in Kansas at Pottawatomie Creek
1856: James Buchanan defeats John C. Fremont, Millard Fillmore helps as KnowNothing candidate draining Republican votes from Fremont
Buchanan: utterly helpless as president, promises in inaugural to not run again:
Help!: Dred Scott Case, Lecompton Constitution, L-D Debates, Harper’s
Ferry all blow up his presidency
Dred Scott: May 1857, the worst case in Supreme Court
history?
-SCCJ Taney, former slaveholder, rules:
-Scott has no rights as a citizen
-Fed govt had no right to enact Comp of
1820 therefore slavery is legal
everywhere!
Fall of 1858: Lincoln-Douglas Debates in Illinois
Nation is captured by Illinois senate race and
discussion about slavery
John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry:
a direct attack on the south in 1859
Murderer or Martyr?
Election of 1860
Free Soil vs
Popular
Sovereignty
Stephen Douglas (D) 5’4’’
Abraham Lincoln (R) 6’ 4’’
Election of 1860
December 20, 1860: South Carolina
secedes from the Union