Transcript document

Chapter 19 Drifting Towards
Disunion
A House Divided Against Itself Cannot
Stand. I Believe This Government
Cannot Endure Permanently Half Slave
And Half Free AL 1858
Stowe and Helper: Literary incendiaries
• Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin rocks
the Union. Bestseller
and “Tom Shows”.
• Hinton R. Helper’s The
Impending Crisis of the
South. Thesis stated
slavery kept poor
whites down (worried
slavocracy)
Bleeding Kansas
• After the Kansas Nebraska
Act many abolitionists and
slaveocrats rush into
Kansas.
• One group was the New
England Emigrant Aid
Society and their “Beecher
Bibles”
• Two different territorial
governments (slave and
free) were set up in Kansas
Bleeding Kansas
• Abolitionist John Brown led
an attack at Pottawatomie
Creek that killed 5
presumed proslaveryites.
• Lecompton Constitution of
Kansas fraudulently
included slavery in the
Constitution of Kansas.
(Democrat Stephen Douglas
worked against this, cost
him Southern support)
“Bully” Brooks and His Bludgen
• Massachusetts Senator Charles
Sumner in a scathing speech
entitled “ The Crime Against
Kansas” lambasts the slavocrats
moving to Kansas and the
Southern Senator Andrew Butler
• South Carolina Congressman
Preston Brooks beats Sumner
almost to death
• Brooks was reelected with the
slogan “Use Knockdown
Arguments”
1856 Presidential Election
• Democrat James
Buchanan (popular
sovereignty platform).
• Republican John C.
Fremont (non-extension
of slavery platform)
• American or Know
Nothing Party Millard
Fillmore (“Americans
Most Rule America
platform”)
The Dred Scott Bombshell
•
Scott and his lawyers appeal the case to the
U.S. Supreme Court. In Scott v. Sanford the
Court states that Scott should remain a slave,
that as a slave he is not a citizen of the U.S.
and thus not eligible to bring suit in a federal
court, and that as a slave he is personal
property and thus has never been free. The
court further declares unconstitutional the
provision in the Missouri Compromise that
permitted Congress to prohibit slavery in the
territories. In fact, the compromise is already
under assault as a coalition of political
leaders-some slaveholders, others
westerners who resent the federal
government's ability to dictate the terms of
statehood-claim that territorial residents
should be able to determine on what terms
they enter the union. The decision in Scott v.
Sanford greatly alarms the antislavery
movement and intensifies the growing
division of opinion within the United State.
The newly-formed Republican Party, which
opposes the expansion of slavery, vigorously
criticizes the decision and the court.
1857 -1858
• Panic of 1857
• High unemployment,
depressed grain prices
• Calls for Homesteads,
higher tariff rates
• Abraham Lincoln from
Springfield Illinois
Lincoln Douglas Debates
• In 7 debates for the United States
Senate Lincoln and Douglas
argued over the extension of
slavery question.
• Douglas’s Freeport Doctrine…
Douglas said even with Dred Scott
decision if territory did not pass
laws to enforce slavery, slavery
would naturally die out…Douglas
wins reelection to Illinois Senate
but Southern Democrats will
never accept him as a
Presidential candidate
• Lincoln emerges as a Republican
leader
Harper’s Ferry
John Brown’s Raid
at Harper’s Ferry
•
On October 16, 1859 Brown led a group of
twenty-one men on a raid of Harper's
Ferry, Virginia (modern-day West Virginia).
A federal arsenal was in the town, and
Brown hoped to capture the buildings and
the weapons stored inside of them. He
then intended to distribute the guns and
ammunition to slaves in the region,
creating an army of African Americans
that would march through the South and
force slaveholders to release their slaves.
Brown and his men succeeded in
capturing the arsenal, but local residents
surrounded the buildings, trapping the
abolitionists inside. A detachment of
United States Marines arrived and
stormed the arsenal on October 18,
capturing seven men, including Brown.
•
The state of Virginia charged Brown with
treason. During this time, slave states
commonly accused people who
encouraged or led slave rebellions of
treason against the state. The court found
Brown guilty and sentenced him to death.
On December 2, 1859, Brown was hanged.
He became a martyr for many
Northerners. Some of these people feared
that the United States had become a
government dominated by Southern slave
owners. Many white Southerners became
convinced that all abolitionists shared
Brown's views and his willingness to utilize
violence. Brown's Harper's Ferry raid
raised issues for the presidential election
of 1860. It was also one of the events that
led to the eventual dissolution of the
United States and the civil war that
followed.
1860 Presidential Election
• Northern Democrats select
Stephen Douglas (platform
popular sovereignty).
• Southern Democrats select
John C. Breckinridge
(platform was extension of
slavery / annex Cuba for
slave land)
• Constitutional Union Party
nominate John Bell….status
quo on slavery (former
Whig party)
• Republicans nominate
Abe Lincoln
• Platform…nonextension of slavery,
protective tariff,
immigrant rights, Pacific
Railroad, internal
improvements,
Homesteads for farmers
1860 Presidential Election Results
Secession After Lincoln’s 1860 Election
Confederate States of America
• Richmond Virginia was the capital
• Jefferson Davis was President,
Alexander Stephens was VicePresident
Confederate Capital
Jefferson Davis
The Collapse of Compromise
•
Senator Crittenden wanted to reestablish the Missouri Compromise
line of 36-30’ in all the territories that
now belonged or might in the future
belong to the United States. Slavery
would be permitted south of the line,
forbidden north of the line. Southern
members indicated they would
accept this compromise if the
Republicans agreed as well.
President-elect Lincoln was
consulted, and he said no. First of all,
in his view, it would encourage slave
states to embark on imperialistic
ventures in Latin America where they
could acquire more slave states; and,
furthermore, it abandoned the basic
Republican Party principle of no
expansion of slavery into the
territories. Thus, this compromise
was rejected.
Senator Crittenden
The End of Compromise