Transcript Slide 1

Chapter 19
• Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854–1861
I. Stowe and Helper: Literary
Incendiaries
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
– Political force for the North, it presented slavery
as an evil institution.
– It was very big in Europe. The constituents in
London and Paris were in love with this struggle.
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p397
• The Impending Crisis of the South – Hinton R.
Helper
– Helper had no loyalty to slavery or blacks… he hated
both.
– Attempted to prove that indirectly the
nonslaveholding whites were the ones hurt most
from slavery.
– Southern elite banned the book in the South for
fear that the nonslaveholding majority might
abandon them.
II. The North-South Contest for
Kansas
• New England Emigrant Aid Company
– Sent about 2,000 people into Kansas to push
abolitionist ideals.
• Betrayal?? The South had supported the
unspoken understanding that if they
supported Senator Douglas’s scheme, they
believed that Kansas would become slave
and Nebraska free.
• When Kansas’s territorial legislature was being
voted on (1855,) proslavery “border ruffians”
poured in to Kansas from Missouri to vote early
and often… they won the election.
• Upset with this fraud, free-soilers setup their
own government in Topeka. Meaning that
Kansans had two governments within their
borders.
• Breaking point – 1856 a gang of proslavery
raiders shot up and burned the town of
Lawrence.
III. Kansas in Convulsion
• John Brown – obsessed abolitionist
– Became involved in some pretty shady stuff
(including horse stealing.)
– He led a band of followers to Pottawatomie
Creek (May 1856) and killed five proslavery men.
• Civil war in Kansas begins 1856 and basically
continues until it merges with the Civil War
p400
Map 19-1 p399
• Proslavery side created the Lecompton
Constitution.
– People weren’t voting for whether or not they
wanted the constitution, but whether they wanted
it with or without slavery.
– If they voted against slavery however, a provision in
the constitution protected the owners of slaves
already in Kansas.
– Free-soilers boycotted the election and the
constitution was passed with slavery.
– Senator Douglas fought it in the Senate and brought
it to a true popular vote and with free-soil voters at
the polls it was defeated.
IV. “Bully” Brooks and His
Bludgeon
• Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts
gave a speech called “The Crime Against
Kansas.”
– During the speech he insulted South Carolina
and old senator Andrew Butler.
– Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South
Carolina was upset by the insults and decided to
beat Sumner within an inch of his life… Southern
Chivalry.
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V. “Old Buck” Versus “The Pathfinder”
• Republican platform = no extension of
slavery into the territories
• Democrats = popular sovereignty
VII. The Dred Scott Bombshell
• Dred Scott v. Stanford case – Dred Scott
(black slave) had lived w/master for five
years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory.
Backed by abolitionists, he sued for his
freedom on the basis of living on free soil for
so long.
– The court could’ve thrown out the case because
Scott was a slave and not a citizen, meaning he
couldn’t sue in federal courts, but they decided
to take on the decision anyway.
• Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland (slave
state) gave the majority decision of the court.
The ruling was that because a slave was private
property, they could be taken into any territory
and legally held there in slavery.
– They cited the 5th amendment which stated that
people cannot be deprived of private property
without due process of law.
• Republicans insisted that the ruling of the court
was only an opinion, not a decision. They were
defiant because they knew the majority of the
Supreme Court members were southerners.
VIII. The Financial Crash of 1857
• Economic hard times hit the North primarily.
– California gold inflated currency
– Over production of grain meant for the Crimean
War in Russia
– Frenzied speculation in land and railroads
• Thousands of businesses fail within the year
and those out of work soon began shouting
“bread or Death”
• During this time the South was enjoying
favorable cotton prices abroad, enabling them
to ride out the panic with ease.
– Which helped drive the overconfident South closer
to a showdown with the North.
IX. An Illinois Rail-Splitter Emerges
• Lincoln was a rustic lawyer that refused to
take a case if it went against his conscience.
• He was born in a Kentucky log cabin to poor
parents.
• He was mainly self-educated.
• He married “above himself” into the
influential Todd family of Kentucky.
• He ran for senator but lost to incumbent
Senator Stephen A. Douglas.
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X. The Great Debate: Lincoln Versus
Douglas
• Lincoln-Douglas debates
– Douglas had strong debate skills and was to
destroy Lincoln.
• Lincoln was ugly, awkward in front of a crowd, and
had a high-pitched voice.
– Lincoln posed the Freeport question... Suppose
the people of a territory should vote down
slavery (popular sovereignty.) The Supreme
Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed
that they could not. Who would prevail, the
Court or the People?
– Douglas’s reply became known as the Freeport
Doctrine… he said that no matter what the Supreme
Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people
voted it down.
– Douglas’s popular sovereignty stance helped him
win his spot in the Senate, but probably hurt his
chances at a presidential run. Lincoln on the other
had was in good position.
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XI. John Brown: Murderer or Martyr?
• John Brown plotted a daring scheme to
secretly invade the south and help the slaves
rise up in rebellion once and for all.
– After securing thousands of dollars from
abolitionists for guns, he led about 20 men into
western Virginia to seize the federal arsenal at
Harpers Ferry.
• In the process, he and his men killed 7 innocent
people (including a free black) and injured 10 others.
• Local slaves hadn’t really heard of the attack and
never rose up.
• The injured Brown and his men were quickly captured by
U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee.
– Brown has a long line of insane relatives which
probably explains a few things about him.
– Instead of locking him in an insane asylum they
decided to execute him, which portrays him as a
martyr for the cause.
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XII. The Disruption of the Democrats
• Democrats met in Charleston, South
Carolina, to meet with Douglas (the leading
presidential candidate in the northern wing
of the party.)
– After Douglas’s stand on the Lecompton
Constitution and the Freeport Doctrine
delegates from the cotton states walked out of
the Democratic National Convention.
• The southern Democrats organized their own
convention in Baltimore.
– There they built a platform around the extension of
slavery into the territories and annexation of slavepopulated Cuba.
XIII. A Rail-Splitter Splits the Union
• Lincoln’s Republican platform heavily favored
the northern groups.
– Free-soilers, nonextension of slavery.
– Manufacturers, a protective tariff.
– Immigrants, no abridgement of rights.
– Northwest, a Pacific railroad
– West, internal improvements at federal expense
– Farmers, free homesteads
• Southern secessionists said that they would
split the Union if the rail-splitter was elected.
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XIV. The Electoral Upheaval of
1860
• The election was really like two elections:
one in the North and one in the South.
• With the election of Abraham Lincoln
southern secessionists were given their
excuse to secede.
• Even with Lincoln’s election the South wasn’t
sitting too bad. They still had a 5 to 4
majority on the Supreme Court and
democrats controlled the House and the
Senate.
Table 19-1 p410
Map 19-3 p411
XV. The Secessionist Exodus
Map 19-4 p412
p413
XVI. The Collapse of Compromise
XVII. Farewell to Union
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p417