John m. Murrin, et al.
Liberty, Equality, Power
A History of the American People
Chapter 14
The Gathering Tempest
1853 - 1860
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Depicted the
cruelty of slavery
• Influenced
northerners to defy
Fugitive Slave Act
• South lost potential
support of the UK
and France
Kansas
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
– Popular Sovereignty
• Origin of idea?
– Reversed Missouri
Compromise
– Political Effects
• Whig Party
• Republican Party
Kansas & Slavery
• New England Emigrant Aide Company
– Sent settlers to KS to vote against slavery
– “Beecher’s Bibles”
• Pro-slavery forces from MO
Kansas & Slavery
• More votes than settlers
• Pro-slavery vote count highest
• Dueling governments formed in KS
Bleeding Kansas
• Free-soil town of Lawrence raided
• John Brown kills 5 pro-slavery men
at Pottawatomie Creek
• Lecompton Constitution scheme
• Low scale civil war that will be
engulfed by the large one
• Denied statehood until 1861
Brooks – Sumner
• Can this really happen?
• Did people really give Brooks gifts?
Trade, Slavery & Foreign Policy
• Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
– US & UK Canal Agreement
• No exclusive rights or control
• No fortification of canal
• No new colonies
• Ostend Manifesto
– Attempt to buy Cuba
• Gadsden Purchase
– Mexican land purchase for railroad
• “Opening” Japan
Election of 1856
• Democrats – James Buchanan
– Popular Sovereignty
• Republicans – John C. Fremont
– Against extension of slavery
– Southern “fire-eaters” threatened secession
• American Party – Millard Fillmore
– Anti-Immigration
Dred Scott v. Sanford
• Slave sued for his freedom
• Chief Justice Taney wrote for the
majority
– Blacks were not citizens
– Slaves, as property, were protected by
the Constitution
– Congress could not regulate slavery
– Hoped to “settle” the matter
• Result?
The Economy of the1850s
• Northern States
– Mass Production
• Eli Whitney & System of Interchangeable Parts
– Transportation System
• Canals
• Roads
The Economy of the1850s
• Southern States
– “Colonial” Economy
– King Cotton
Hinton Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South
• White southerners who did not own slaves were
indirectly hurt by slavery
• Widely read in the North – banned in the South
• Fostered Free-Labor Ideology
Panic of 1857
• Overspeculation, inflation, &
overproduction (grain crops)
• Hurt North more than South
• Reinforced illusion of “Cotton is King”
Lincoln – Douglas Debates
• 1858 IL senate race
• Douglas = Freeport
Doctrine
– Action by territorial
legislatures could
keep slavery out
• Lincoln lost, but
became a nationally
known figure
John Brown & Harper’s Ferry, VA
• Raided and seized
federal arsenal
• Tried to start a slave
rebellion
• Captured by R.E.
Lee
• Tried by a military
court
• Hanged
• Mythologized
Election of 1860
Election of 1860
• Lincoln Elected
• SC & 6 other states secede
• President Buchanan
believes he did not have the
authority to use force to
maintain the union
• Remember the lame-duck
period?
Confederate States of America
• Constitution
mirrored US,
except…
• Jefferson Davis
elected President
• Original capital =
Montgomery, AL