Transcript 1860 Election

The 1860 Presidential Election
in Missouri
Road map

The 1860 election in Missouri: teaching opportunities


The European Context
A diverse state: no easy conclusions


Comparisons that work:



Missouri splits the nation in half
Missouri Democrats: moderate, war, peace, copperhead, “StatesRights,” conservative Germans ….
Missouri Republicans: radicals, moderates, former Whigs, antiCatholic Nativists, German wide-awakes, …
The Election: national contest, local politics
Europe, 1848
Berlin Uprising, 1848
The crisis of democratic revolutions:
the “forty-eighters”




Unrest throughout Europe caused the
Revolutions of 1848
Middle-class liberals desired greater political
participation
Nationalities demanded independence
Conservatives manage to put down rebellions,
remain in place; punitive aftermath
Missouri: A Diverse People
Before statehood: French, Spanish, Native American
residents, as well as Indian and African slaves

1830s: German Catholics from the wine regions
1840s: radical Germans fleeing from political
oppression
1840s: Irish immigrants fleeing poverty and famine
About 114,000 slaves

Opposing viewpoints; two thirds were foreign-born



Germans in Missouri: wine regions
Augusta
Herrmann
Ozark Highlands
Ozark Mountain
Southeastern Missouri
Central Missouri
Western Missouri
Americans move to Missouri

Settlers from the upper south: Virginia,
Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee

Pro-slavery (though most did not own slaves)

Democrats
The Missouri Compromise
1824 Freedom Law





Provided that slaves who had resided in a free
territory or state could sue for their liberty
About 300 known suits; at least 2/3 were
successful
Most of the successful suits were brought by
female plaintiffs
Rachel v. Walker, 1834
Dred and Harriet Scott, 1846 - 1857
Missouri before the war
Slavery in Missouri, 1860
German Wide-Awakes, 1856
The Scott family sues for freedom
1846 - 1857
Trouble on the Western Border
Panic of 1857
Bank run, 1857

The price of peanuts
John Brown, 1800 - 1859
Harper’s Ferry, October 16-18, 1859
The Gateway: St. Louis in 1859
The Prize: The St. Louis Arsenal,1860
Democratic Nominees

John C. Breckinridge,
Kentucky

Stephen A. Douglas,
Illinois
Constitutional Union Party

John Bell, Tennessee
Political Convention Debacle:
The Democrats storm out – across the street in Charleston

Charleston, SC, April
23, 1860

Baltimore, MD, June 18,
1860
A few Republican Nominees:
May 1860, Chicago
clockwise: Simon Cameron, Salmon P. Chase, Wm. Henry Seward
… and a few more Republican
nominees

Edward Bates, MO

Abraham Lincoln, IL
Election politics: section and race
1860 cartoon lampooning
Democrat party divisions

The Democrats were divided into 3 races
and 2 parties

The Republicans supported Lincoln
because:
 He was moderate on slavery
 Famed for Lincoln-Douglas debates
 Would win Illinois (Western state,
important swing state)

The main issue in 1860: the extension of
slavery

Lincoln and Republicans barely
campaign in the South; do not appear on
any southern ballots except border states

Missouri is the only state in the
Union to carry all 4 candidates in its
slate
1860: Two momentous decisions for
Missouri

The Governorship: Claiborne Jackson vs. Gov.
Robert Stewart (August 1860) – CFJ was a
“Douglas” Democrat, secretly pro-secession

The Presidency: Abraham Lincoln vs. Stephen
A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John
Bell (November 1860)
Governor Claiborne F. Jackson
1805 - 1862



Runs against Sample
Orr, a Constitutional
Union candidate
… and against Gov.
Hancock Lee Jackson, a
Breckenridge Democrat
… and also against
James Gardenhire, a
Republican
Missouri 1860 gubernatorial results

Claiborne Fox Jackson (SAD): 46.9 %

Sample Orr (CU):

Hancock Lee Jackson: (BD)
7.2 %

James Gardenhire: (Rep.)
3.8 %
41.9 %
Presidential Running mates
1860 Presidential Election
in Missouri Counties
1860 Presidential election results in
Missouri, by county
1860 Election Results

Bell wins three states (Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee)

Breckenridge carried the South

Lincoln carried the Northern states and won the
electoral vote, though earning less than 40% of all votes cast: Douglas won two states

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union
Causes of the Civil War
The Unfinished Capitol, 1861
James Buchanan, 1791 - 1868
Inaugural, March 4, 1861
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellowcountrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The
Government will not assail you. You
can have no conflict without being
yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in heaven
to destroy the Government, while I
shall have the most solemn one to
"preserve, protect, and defend
it."34 I am loath to close. We are
not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion
may have strained it must not break
our bonds of affection. The mystic
chords of memory, stretching from
every battlefield and patriot grave to
every living heart and hearthstone
all over this broad land, will yet swell
the chorus of the Union, when again
touched, as surely they will be, by
the better angels of our nature.
Camp Jackson



"Oh! Oh! Oh! Ah! Ah! Ah!—
The time of our glory is acoming.
We yet will see the time, when
all of us will shine,
And drive the Hessians from
our happy land of Canaan."
Walnut Street riot, 1861
Two paths to radicalism:
Politics and the Home Front






Loyalty Oaths
Forced enrollments
Punitive fines
Exiling dissidents
Democrats: what
about a loyal
opposition?
The radicals have the
floor!



Women have to take
over men’s work at
home
Dissident women are
silenced or exiled
New opportunities for
a diverse people