Shattering the Union:
The Coming of the Civil War
John M. Sacher
University of Central Florida
john.sacher@ucf.edu
The Questions



Was the Civil War
inevitable?
Better question,
when did it become
inevitable?
How did Lincoln get
elected? Or, why
would someone
vote Republican?
Because northerners
were abolitionists.
No.
1860 Republican Platform
Slavery in the States

4. . . . the right of each state, to order and control its own
domestic institutions according to its own judgment
exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which
the perfection and endurance of our political fabric
depends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed
force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under
what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
Slave Power
Conspiracy
Abraham Lincoln,
1858
“. . . when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions
of which we know have been gotten out at different times
and places, and by different workmen – Stephen [Douglas],
Franklin [Pierce], Roger [Taney], and James [Buchanan], for
instance; and when we see these timbers joined together,
and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill . . .
and not a piece too many or too few, -- not omitting even
the scaffolding, -- or if a single piece be lacking, we see the
place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring
such piece in -- in such a case we feel it impossible not to
believe that Stephen and Franklin, and Roger and James, all
understood one another from the beginning and all worked
upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first blow
was struck.” (in “House Divided” Speech, 1858)
The Numbers

From Washington’s election until 1850….
Southern slaveholders occupied the:





Presidency 50 of 62 years
Speaker of the House 41 of 62 years
Chairman of House Ways and Means 42 of 62
years
18 of 31 Supreme Court Justices were
southern slaveholders
All of this despite the fact that northerners
are the majority in the U.S.
The Territories
The Missouri Compromise
The Compromise of 1850
Republican Platform
Slavery in the Territories


8. That the normal condition of all
the territory of the United States
is that of freedom . . . we deny
the authority of congress, of a
territorial legislature, or of any
individuals, to give legal existence
to slavery in any territory of the
United States.
This policy was called Free Soil
Stephen Douglas
“The Little Giant”
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
Voting on the Kansas Nebraska Act
US House—1854
Total Votes
113 In favor
100 Against
North
South


Whigs
For Against
0
47
14
7
14
54
Democrats
For Against
44
44
55
2
99
46
Total South 69 for 9 against
Total North 44 for 91 against (only 7 of these 44 are re-elected)
“Bleeding Kansas”
aka Popular
Sovereignty in action
Voting in Kansas, 1855
Eligible Voters
approx. 3,000
Free Soil Votes
791
Proslavery Votes
???
??? Judged fraudulent
Sen. Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts
“The Crime Against
Kansas” (May 1856)
The Sumner Brooks Affair, 1856
Down in Florida . . .
“Free Soil,
Free Labor,
Free Men,
Fremont”
The Republican Party Candidates, 1856
1856 Presidential Election
James Buchanan
Chief Justice Roger Taney
Dred Scott, Slave
Republican Platform
re: Dred Scott

7. That the new
dogma that the
Constitution of its own
force carries slavery
into any or all of the
territories of the
United States, is a
dangerous political
heresy . . .
Abraham Lincoln,
1858
“. . . when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions
of which we know have been gotten out at different times
and places, and by different workmen – Stephen [Douglas],
Franklin [Pierce], Roger [Taney], and James [Buchanan], for
instance; and when we see these timbers joined together,
and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill . . .
and not a piece too many or too few, -- not omitting even
the scaffolding, -- or if a single piece be lacking, we see the
place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring
such piece in -- in such a case we feel it impossible not to
believe that Stephen and Franklin, and Roger and James, all
understood one another from the beginning and all worked
upon a common plan or draft drawn before the first blow
was struck.” (in “House Divided” Speech, 1858)