Western Lands and the Coming of the Civil War Making the Avoidable Seem Inevitable, 1848-1861

What to Do With Lands Acquired From Mexico As a Result of the Mexican War?

Slave or Free?

Who gets to decide?

4 Basic Positions • Let Congress Decide – Wilmot Proviso (Keep it out) – Divide territory (Missouri compromise Precedent) • Territories belong to all the citizens of all the states • Popular Sovereignty • Let the Supreme Court decide

1848 Election Lewis Cass—Democrat—Popular Sovereignty Zachary Taylor—Whig—divide territory/nationalism over sectional issue of slavery Free Soilers—Martin Van Buren—keep slavery out of the territories

Zachary Taylor

1848 Election Results • Taylor Won • Van Burenites hurt Democrats in New York and Whigs in Ohio • Democrats continued with popular sovereignty.

1848 Election Results

Gold Rush in California sped up process California Petitioned for Admission as a free state

Forging the Armistice of 1850 • Congress struggled to elect Speaker of House • Taylor hoped to admit California and New Mexico as states quickly without dealing w/ issue of slavery in Territories.

Clay’s Omnibus Proposal • California admitted as a free state • Remainder of Mexican Cession/no restrictions on slavery • Little Texas • U. S. assumes Tx’s debt • No slave trade in D. C.

• Slavery in D. C.

• Stronger Fugitive Slave Law • Congress can’t interfere with interstate slave trade

Henry Clay

Great Debates • Daniel Webster’s 7 th of March Address • Calhoun’s Valedictory • Seward’s Higher Law Speech

Valedictory of Great Triumvirate

Making the Armistice • No Votes for Omnibus bill • Death of Zachary Taylor/Millard Filmore played more constructive role.

• Stephen Douglas engineered passage of 5 bills containing essence of Omnibus • No real compromise.

• Fruits of Armistice exacerbated rather than ameliorated sectional tension

Stephen Douglas

Fruits of Armistice • Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 – Furthered belief of Slavepower conspiracy – Northern interposition/Personal Liberty Laws – Mobs rescued alleged runaways • Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Made abstraction of slavery personal to Romantic reading public

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Franklin Pierce Administration • Democratic Dark Horse and “Doughface” – Appointed Southerners to key posts; these folk appeared to pursue proslavery agenda – Ostend Manifesto

Franklin Pierce/1852 Election

Kansas Nebraska Act • Stephen Douglas wanted Kansas Organized • Needed Southern votes • Agreed to overturn Missouri Compromise • Popular Sovereignty seemed “democratic” • Weakened Democrats in North; “Appeal of the Independent Democrats” • Weakened Whigs in the South

Major Significance of KNA • Emergence of Republican Party • “Bleeding Kansas” – Difficult to Organize Territory without added burden of slavery – New England Emigrant Aid Society/Border Ruffians – Sack of Lawrence—May 1856 – Pottawatomie Creek Massacre—John Brown

John Brown

Impact of Bleeding Kansas • Confirmed image of Lawless Southern slaveholders in Northern Mind • Led to Sumner-Brooks Incident

Sumner—Brooks Incident

“Bleeding Sumner” • Southerners think Sumner got what he deserved • Northerners see Southerners as brutal barbarians • Transformation of Northern Politics (Rise of Republican Party)

Abraham Lincoln

Rise of Republican Party • American or Know Nothing Party was a dominant party in North and 2d to Democrats as National Party through May 1856 • Republicans ran 2d in 1856 Election— Bleeding Sumner made their anti-slavery message appealing • Research done by William E. Gienapp

1856 Election • John Charles Fremont (Republican) crusaded against those “twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and slavery” • James Buchanan—Doughface—popular sovereignty and nonintervention.

1856 Election Map

1857: The Year Everything Went Wrong • Dred Scott v. Sandford • Panic of 1857 • Lecompton Constitution

Dred Scott

Lincoln-Douglas Debates • Douglas won, but L.’s version of Anti slavery made him extremely popular • “In the right to eat the bread earned by the sweat of his brow, he is equal to me, to Judge Douglas, and to everyone else.”

John Brown’s Raid • A conspiracy to Arm Slaves in Rebellion • Many Northerners thought Brown “will make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” • Southerners especially fearful: “All northerners are abolitionists, and all abolitionists are John Browns.”

1860 Presidential Election • Charleston Convention divides Democrats/Federal Slave Code in Territories • Northern Democrats nominate Douglas; Southern Democrats nominate Breckinridge • Lincoln wins Republican nomination/no extension of slavery • John Bell of Tennessee is Constitutional Unionist Candidate

1860 Election Map • Lincoln—180 Electoral Votes • Douglas—12 elect. Votes • Breckinridge—72 Electoral votes • Bell—39 Electoral Votes

Secession of Lower South • South Carolina, followed by six other deep South states seceded before L. took office • Why?

– Internal Subversion thesis.

– Republican Cordon Strategy

Confederate States of America • • • •

Established in Montgomery, Ala.

Constitution based on U. S. Constitution Jefferson Davis/Alexander Stephens Emphasis on Right of Revolution and morality of slavery

Buchanan/Compromise • Buchanan took no provocative actions: Fort Pickens Truce and Fort Sumter standoff • Crittenden Compromise failed • House Committee of 33 proposed 13 th amendment failed