Chapter 10: The Union and Peril
Section 1: The Divisive Politics of Slavery
Differences between the North and the South
-These two sections had developed different ways of life by the 1850s.
-North- Industry and Immigration
-Many immigrants from Europe entered the industrial workplace in growing numbers. Many would become voters and vote against slavery.
-They feared expanding slavery for two to reasons:
-First, it might bring slave labor into direct competition with free labor.
-Second, it threatened to reduce the status of white workers who could not successfully compete with slaves.
- South- Agriculture and Slavery
-1/3 the nation's population lived in the South in 1850.
-The South produced fewer than 10% of the nations manufactured goods.
-The conflict over slavery rattled the Southern society.
-In many Southern states African-Americans were in the majority.
-Many Southern whites feared that any restriction of slavery would lead to a social and economic revolution.
Slavery in the Territories
-August 1846- Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot introduced an amendment to a military appropriations bill proposing that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in any territory that the US might acquire as a result of the war with Mexico.
-This was known as the *Wilmot Proviso. It also stated that California as well as the Territories of Utah and New Mexico would be closed to slavery.
-This divided Congress along regional lines.
-Southerners felt that the proviso would undermine constitutional protections.
-The House of Representatives approved the proviso, but the Senate rejected it.
-1850 Statehood for California- because of the gold rush, California's population grew so quickly that it skipped the territorial phase of becoming a state.
-California's constitution forbid slavery, thus, going against the Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30’.
-Southerners had hoped the compromise, which was struck in 1820, would apply to new Territories.
-General Zachary Taylor, who succeeded Polk as president in 1849, supported California's admission as a free state.
-He felt that the slavery issue should be left up to the individual territories rather than Congress.
-Southerns’ saw this as a move to block slavery and they began to question whether the South should remain in the Union.
The Senate Debates
-In the 31st Congress in December 1849, the question of California's statehood topped the agenda. Of equal concern was the border dispute in which the slave state of Texas claimed the eastern half of the New Mexico territory where the slavery issue had not yet been settled.
-As passions arose, some Southerners threatened *Secession.
-What could be done, if anything, to prevent the US from becoming two nations?
-Clays Compromise- Henry Clay presented to the Senate, a series of resolutions, later called the *Compromise of 1850, which he hoped would settle "all questions in controversy between free and slave states, growing out of the subject of slavery."
-It contained provisions to appease Northerners as well as Southerners.
-For the North- it provided that California be admitted as a free state.
-For the South- it proposed a new and more efficient fugitive slave law.
-Other provisions allowed residents of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah *Popular Sovereignty- the right of residents of a territory to vote for or against slavery. This would appeal to both the North and the South.
-Calhoun would debate the Southern case for slavery, while Webster, a northern man, urged Northerners to try to compromise with the South by passing a stricter fugitive slave laws, and urged Southerners to think of the dangers of succession. These two men were on the same side, for the first and last time ever.
-The Senate first rejected the compromise. Discouraged, Clay left Washington.
*Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois would pick up where Clay left off. He took on one resolution at a time, hoping to get each passed individually.
-President Taylor’s death in 1850 aided Douglas's effort because Taylor’s successor, *Millard Fillmore supported the compromise.
-After Calhoun's death had removed an obstacle, the Compromise of 1850 was voted into law.
-President Fillmore saw the compromise as a "final settlement" of the question of slavery and sectional differences. (This would not last too long.).
Section 2: Protest, Resistance and Violence
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
*Fugitive Slave Act- a component of the Compromise of 1850, under this law, alleged fugitives were not entitled to a trial by jury, the right to counsel, or able to testify in their own behalf. Only a statement by the slave owner was allowed.
-Nine states passed *Personal Liberty Laws- which forbade the imprisonment of runaway slaves and guaranteed that they would have a jury trial.
-Northern lawyers would drag these cases out, often three or four years, in order to increase the slave catchers expenses.
-The South was furious by this resistance.
*The Underground Railroad- a system of routes along which runaway slaves were helped to escape to Canada or to safe areas in the free states.
-The "conductors" hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards as they escorted them to the next "station."
*Harriet Tubman- was one of the most famous "conductors", born a slave in 1820, she suffered a severe head injury when a plantation overseer hit her in the head with a lead weight.
-When her owner died, she escaped slavery and went to Philadelphia.
-She would help over 300 slaves; including her parents flee to freedom. (The North Star guided the slaves’ way.)
-Later, she became an ardent speaker for abolition.
-1852- Abolitionist *Harriet Beecher Stowe, published *Uncle Tom's Cabin. (The novel became an instant bestseller.)
-It delivered the message that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle.
-In response, Northern abolitionists increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, while Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the South as a whole.
Tensions in Kansas and Nebraska
-Stephen A. Douglas was pushing to organize the huge territory west of Iowa and Missouri in 1844.
-In 1854 he proposed to divide the area and two territories: Nebraska and Kansas.
-He wanted to establish new railroad systems and believed that most of the nation wanted to see the Western land incorporated into the Union.
-Douglas believed that popular sovereignty provided the most fair and democratic way to organize.
-The NebraskaTerritory was way north of the Missouri Compromise line and was legally closed to slavery.
-Douglas assumed that Nebraska would enter the Union as two states, one free and one slave state to maintain the balance in the Senate.
-He decided to support the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which caused a storm in Congress.
*Kansas-Nebraska Act- a law enacted in 1854 that established the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska and gave their residents the right to decide whether to allow slavery.
Violence Erupts in "Bleeding Kansas"
-Settlers from both the North and the South poured into the Kansas territory.
-By 1855, Kansas had enough settlers to hold an election for a territorial legislature.
-Several thousand of "border ruffians" from the slave state of Missouri, led by Senator David Atchison, crossed into Kansas, revolvers cocked and voted illegally, winning the majority of proslavery candidates.
-Before long, violence surfaced in the struggle for Kansas.
-"The Sack of Lawrence," a Kansas town, there was a raid by the proslavery posse on the anti-slavery people.
-News of this attack soon reached abolitionist *John Brown. Brown believed that God called on him to fight slavery.
-He was set on revenge. This attack became famous as the "Pottawatomie Massacre."
-The massacre triggered dozens of incidents throughout Kansas. Over 200 people were killed.
-People began calling the territory *Bleeding Kansas, as it had become a violent battlefield in the Civil War.
Section 3: The Birth of the Republican Party
New Political Parties Emerge
-By the end of 1856 the nation's political landscape had shifted. The Whig Party had split over the issue of slavery and the Democratic Party was weak. This left the new Republican Party to move in.
-One alternative was the American Party, which had its roots in a secret organization known as the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner.
-Members of this society believed in *Nativism- the favoring of native-born Americans over immigrants.
-When they formed the American party in 1854, it soon became known as the *Know-Nothing Party because members were told to say, "I know nothing" when asked about their activities.
-They too would split over the issue of slavery.
Two Forerunners of the Republican Party Emerged in the 1840s
-(1844) The Liberty Party- was the abolitionist party.
-(1848) The Free-Soil Party- that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories.
-Many Northerners were Free-Soilers without being abolitionists.
-On July 6, 1854 the new *Republican Party was formally organized in Jackson, Michigan. Among its founders was *Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune and staunch abolitionist.
-It was united in opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Act and in keeping slavery out of the territories.
-The main competition for them was the Know-Nothing Party.
-1856 Republicans chose *John C. Fremont, the famed "Pathfinder” who mapped the Oregon Trail and led US troops into California during the war with Mexico, as their candidate.
-Democrats nominated *James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. Buchanan would win the election. (Chart, page 320)
Section 4: Slavery and Secession
-(1858) For the next Senate election, the Republican Party nominated its state chairman, *Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, to run against Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas.
*1856 - The Dred Scott Decision
-The Supreme Court ruled that slaves did not have the rights of citizens.
-The court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
-Sectional passions exploded immediately.
-Voters would reject the Kansas proslavery Constitution -- making the south furious once again.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
-In the 1858 race for the U.S. Senate, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of seven open-air debates to be held throughout Illinoison the issue of slavery in the territory.
-The two men’s positions were simple and consistent.
-Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty, although he did not think slavery was immoral, he did believe that it was at backward labor system.
-Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral and that it was a labor system based on greed.
*Freeport Doctrine- the idea expressed by Douglas in 1858 was that any territory could exclude slavery by simply refusing to pass laws supporting it.
-Douglas won the senatorial seat.
Passions Ignite
-1859- John Brown believed that the time was ripe for uprisings in the US. While secretly being backed financially by prominent Northern abolitionists, he led a band of 21 men, black and white into *Harpers Ferry, Virginia. (Now West Virginia)
-His aim was to seize the federal arsenal and start a general slave uprising. He was hoping that the slaves would join the insurrection but no slaves came forward.
-Brown was hanged for high treason making Northerners even more furious at the South.
-Southern slaveholders were terrified; convinced the North was plotting slave uprisings everywhere.
-The call for secession was on.
Lincoln Is Elected President in 1860
-Southerners called Lincoln a "Black Republican."
-Although Lincoln did not win the popular vote or any electoral votes from the south, he went on to win the election. (Chart page 330).
-The outlook for the union was grim.
Southern Succession
-Lincoln’s victory he convinced the South that they had to act before his inauguration.
-South Carolina led the way seceding from the union on December 20, 1860.
-Mississippi followed on January 9, 1861, and Florida succeeded the next day.
-Within a few weeks, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas also seceded.
-On February 4, 1861, delegates from the secessionist states met in Alabama and formed the *Confederacy- or Confederate States of America.
-The Constitution resembled that of the United States, except that it "protected and recognized" slavery in the territories.
-It also stated that each state was to be "sovereign and independent." This would hamper efforts to unify the south.
*Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected President and Alexander Stephens, Vice President.
-President Buchanan announced that secession was illegal, but that it would also be illegal to do anything about it.
-With the North allow the South to leave the union without a fight?
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