Political Realignment

Stephen Douglas’s Railroad Proposal• A transcontinental railroad would

secure the union• Removing the “Indian Barrier” was

the only way to accomplish this• He proposed to establish a

government for the Nebraska Territory to establish a northern route for the railroad

• Southerner’s defeated the proposal– They were upset because the route

was in the north and the new Nebraska Territory was above the Missouri Compromise line

Kansas Nebraska Act

• Stephen Douglas’s reaction to the southern disagreement with his first proposal

• Splits the Nebraska territory in two : Kansas and Nebraska

• Establishes popular sovereignty in both territories

• This allows southerner’s to bring slaves into an area that formerly banned slaves

Kansas Nebraska Act

• Repeals the Missouri Compromise• Anger’s politicians in the north• “part and parcel of an atrocious plot” to make a

free territory a “dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves”

• Passes into law• Douglas is hated in the north • he says to an angry mob “It’s Sunday, I’m going

to Church, and you can go to hell”

Kansas Nebraska ACt

Bleeding Kansas

• Kansas has the right location and climate to support slavery

• Massive drive to bring settlers to Kansas from both North and South

• Politicians have strong words from both sides• Missouri residents began to move west• Antislavery organizations fund and arm

migrants

Bleeding Kansas

• Fraudulent votes from Missouri residents allow proslavery people to elect a territorial government– Pass laws making aiding a fugitive slave a capital

crime– Makes talking against slavery a felony

• Free-staters establish their own government in Topeka

Bleeding Kansas

• A small civil war errupts• Dubbed “Bleeding

Kansas” by journalists• “The sack of Lawrence• Pottawatomie Creek

– John Brown– Killed 5 men with

broadswords

• Senator Brooks hits Senator Sumner with his walking cane

Northern Political Re-alignment

• Northern Democrats, Northern Whigs, and Free-soilers

• Slavery was the main reason for the re-alignment

• Immigration and Religion• Know-nothings– Both anti-immigrant and anti-catholic– Nationalist– Want to ignore the slavery issue– They support public health and education

Republican Party

• Formed from northern Know Nothings, Northern Whigs and Democrats

• Strong state and federal governments to promote economy and social reform

• Overriding bond in their opposition to the extension of slavery

• Anti-Southern• Sectional in nature• They directly Oppose the Democrats who are

top heavy with Southerners

Election of 1856• Republicans and Know

Nothings face a national election for the first time

• Democrats are divided– James Buchanan – Pennsylvania

• Republicans and “North Americans”– John C. Fremont

• Split Know Nothings– “South Americans” – Millard

Fillmore

• Buchanan Wins

The Dred Scott Case

• Dred Scott is a slave owned by an army surgeon in Missouri

• He traveled with his master to Illinois and Wisconsin

• While traveling his master dies

• He sues his widow for freedom based on the grounds that Illinois and Wisconsin territory barred slavery

The Dred Scott Case• The case reaches the supreme

court• 5 of the 9 justices are from slave

states– Chief Justice Roger Taney

• They dismiss the suit for two reasons– Black people are not citizens of

the United States and therefore Dred Scott cannot sue• Slaves are “beings of an

inferior order…so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”

The Dred Scott Case– Black people are not citizens of the United States and therefore

Dred Scott cannot sue• Slaves are “beings of an inferior order…so far inferior that they

had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”

– Even if Dred Scott could sue, his residence in Wisconsin did not make him free because the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional

– The compromise deprived citizens of their property (slaves) without due process which violated the Fifth Amendment

• Essentially Taney rules that congress cannot bar slavery from the territories

Lecompton Constitution

• Free-staters in Kansas boycott the June election– Fear that pro-slavery would make fraudulent votes

• They do vote in October and win, but there are some irregularities– 20 voters had cast 1200 votes for proslavery

candidates– In one community of 6 houses 1600 names were at

the polls – all in the same handwriting – all from the Cincinnati city directory

Lecompton Constitution

• Although free-staters controlled the territorial legislature, pro-slavery forces created a constitution that allowed slavery in Kansas

• Buchanan ignored official pleas to not allow the constitution – violates the Kansas Nebraska Act– Popular sovereignty

• Passes the senate, but the house rejects it

Lincoln Douglas Debates

• Stephen Douglas – Northern Democrat• Abraham Lincoln – Republican– Kentucky Born Lawyer– Married rich – Mary Todd– Strongly opposed extension of slavery– Excellent speaker– Sense of Humor– Demeanor fit well with his constituency

• Senate Race in Illinois

Lincoln Douglas Debate

• Lincoln was new to the senate race• Douglas called him a radical– “The United States, like ‘a house divided against

itself,’ could not ‘endure permanently half slave and half free’”

• Lincoln responds by challenging Douglas to a series of debates in Illinois

• Douglas reluctantly agrees to 7 out of the 9 districts

Lincoln Douglas Debate

• The debates change the course of American politics– People from all over would come with their

families and picnic baskets to listen– Put the issue into sharp focus and defined the

difference between:• Republican and Democrat• North and south• Lincoln and Douglas

Lincoln Douglas Debates• Slavery issue– Douglas

• Not a moral issue; if whites want slavery so be it, if they don’t so be it

– Lincoln• Slavery is a moral issue• “The real issue in this controversy is the sentiment on the

part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong. The Republican party look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. That is the real issue. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world.”

Lincoln Douglas Debates

• Lincoln balanced his ideas about slavery with practical politics

• He distanced himself from abolitionists• He and the Republican party were anti-slavery

but were not advocates of racial equality• The debates brought Lincoln into the political

scene but he lost the senate race

North and South Differences

• Economy– North: Urban and Industrial– South: Rural and Agricultural

• Social and Religious– South:

• More violent • Values of Courtesy, honor and courage• Military service• High Illiteracy

– North• Education – Public Schools• Evangelical Protestantism

Harper’s Ferry• John Brown

– Fund Raising for violent frontier campaign

• He returns to Kansas to find peace

• He decides to attach a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

• He hopes to spark a slave uprising

• He captures the arsenal and waits for slaves to rally

• The Virginia militia and Colonel Robert E. Lee quickly put down the Raid

Harper’s Ferry

• Lincoln – “It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate.”

• He is sentenced to Hang in Virginia– Some regard him as a martyr

• This really freaks out the South

The Election of 1860

• Democratic Party– Charleston South Carolina convention – Northern Democrats -Stephen Douglas – no 2/3– Extremists favor secession – want Republicans to

win– South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and

Texas walk out– Reconvene in Baltimore in June

Election of 1860

• The delegates from the upper south refuse to seat the delegates who walked out in Charleston

• They Nominate Stephen Douglas• Lower South Democrats Nominate John C.

Breckinridge• Upper South Whigs create the Constitutional

Union party and nominate John Bell

Election of 1860

• The Republican convention saw two candidates: Lincoln and Seward– Seward’s strong hate for slavery and slaveholders

disadvantaged him– Lincoln separated himself from abolitionists and

Seward – Moderate Morality• Lincoln wins the Republican Nomination

Election of 1860

• Campaign in the south was Bell and Breckinridge

• Campaign in the north was Lincoln and Douglas• Republicans won the state house in Indian and

Pennsylvania and Lincoln’s election was inevitable

• Lincoln won with 40% of the vote – Becomes the 16th President

Secession

• Four days after Lincoln’s victory South Carolina calls a convention to consider secession– December 20, 1860 It’s delegates vote unanimously to

leave the Union• February 1, 1861 – Six other states decide to leave• The seven ceding states meet to form a country –

Confederate States of America– Jefferson Davis is Sworn in as President on February

18, 1861

Secession

• Interestingly:– The people who decided on secession spoke

highly of democratic freedom but did not put the decision of session to a popular vote

– They also, for many generations, claimed that secession was all about state’s rights, the most important of which was slavery

Secession

• CSA Vice President Alexander H. Stephens on the Confederate Constitution:

“The new constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, African slavery as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Our new government’s foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition”

Secession

• Secession was least popular among small non-slaveholding farmers

• Secessionists create powerful propaganda– Secession is a personal challenge to every southerner– It’s cowardly to remain in the union– Remaining in the union is submitting to despotism and

enslavement– Southerner’s were the true heirs of 1776– Northerners – Lincoln – meant to deprive Southerners

the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness