CHAPTER 15 A Divided Nation
Trouble in Kansas SECTION 15.2
ELECTION OF 1852 1852 - four candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many turned to Franklin Pierce, a little-known politician from New Hampshire. He promised to honor the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. Southerners trusted Pierce because of this.
The opposing Whigs also held their convention in 1852. Choosing war heroes as their delegates had been successful in the past (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor). The Whigs passed over current president Millard Fillmore because they believed his strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act would cost (lose) votes. Instead, they chose Winfield Scott, a Mexican War Hero, as their candidate. But, he was not trusted by Southerners because he did NOT fully support the Compromise of 1850. In the end, Pierce won the election of 1852 by a large margin. This is seen as a major defeat for the Whigs.
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT A proposal to build a railroad to the West coast helped revive the slavery controversy and opened a new period of sectional conflict. Because of this new act, the question of slavery is to be decided by popular sovereignty by the people who vote in the elections there. This sparked violent conflict between pro-slavery and antislavery groups.
DOUGLAS AND THE RAILROAD Stephen Douglas wanted to build a railroad that ran to the Pacific Ocean from Chicago, Ill. He knew a territory needed to be created out of the Louisiana Purchase. The Missouri Compromise required that land to be made of free territory. Douglas needed southern support to build the line. The only way he could get support was if the new territory west of the state of Missouri was opened to slavery.
TWO NEW TERRITORIES This plan would divide the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase into two territories - Kansas and Nebraska - and would allow the people in each territory to decide on the question of slavery. Many in the north were against the idea. The act would eliminate the Missouri Compromise s restriction on slavery north of the 36 30 line! Eventually, the measure passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law. Lost amid all the controversy was Douglas s proposed railroad to the Pacific Ocean. Congress would not approve the construction of such a railroad until 1862.
KANSAS DIVIDED Anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups rushed their supporters to Kansas. This can t be happening! More than 5,000 pro-slavery voters crossed the border to vote and then returned home. As a result the state turned to pro-slavery. Strict laws would be passed that made it a crime to question slaveholder s rights and said that hose who helped fugitive slaves could be put to death. An anti-slavery legislature would be created 25 miles away. Despite opposition, President Pierce only recognized the pro-slavery legislature.
BLEEDING KANSAS Many moved to Kansas to homestead in peace but now were affected by the dispute. In April 1856, a congressional committee arrived in Kansas to decide which government was legitimate. Although the committee members deemed the election unfair, the federal government did not agree.
ATTACK ON LAWRENCE In May 1856 a pro-slavery jury charged anti-slavery leaders with treason. About 800 men rode to Lawrence to arrest the anti-slavery leaders, but they had fled. Instead they took their anger out on the town by setting fires, looting buildings, and destroying presses used to print anti-slavery newspapers.
JOHN BROWN S RESPONSE On the night of May 24, 1856 John Brown and his men killed five pro-slavery men in Kansas in what became known as Pottawatomie Massacre. Brown dragged pro-slavery men out of their cabins and killed them with swords. He declared his actions were ordered by God. Kansas collapsed into civil war. About 200 were killed. The events in Bleeding Kansas became national front-page stores.
BROOKS ATTACKS SUMNER Charles Sumner, a senator from Massachusetts criticized pro-slavery people in Kansas and personally insulted a fellow senator who favored slavery from South Carolina. In retaliation, Representative Preston Brooks, a relative of that senator, used a walking cane to beat Sumner unconscious in the Senate chambers. Many southerners will send Brooks canes through mail! (An example of fan-mail?) He was given a fine of $300. Northerners will give him the nickname of Bully Brooks. It took Sumner three years before he was well enough to return to the senate.
Political Divisions CHAPTER 15.3
POLITICAL PARTIES UNDERGO CHANGE Stephen Douglas predicted the Kansas-Nebraska Act would raise a storm and it did as it brought the slavery issue back into the national spotlight. People from four groups, Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, and abolitionists joined together in 1854 to form the Republican party, a party united against the spread of slavery in the West. Some Whigs and Democrats joined together and formed a new party called the American Party, or the Know- Nothing Party.
DELEGATES CHOSEN The Democrats nominated James Buchanan for President in 1856. The Republicans chose John C. Fremont as their nominee for President in 1856. On election day, Buchanan won 14 of 15 slave states; Fremont won 11 of 16 free states and Fillmore won only one state: Maryland. The winner of the 1856 election was Buchanan.
DRED SCOTT DECISION The Dred Scott Decision is considered one of the most important in the history of the Supreme Court Dred Scott was a slave belonging to an army surgeon named Dr. John Emerson. Scott was taken to free territories and when he returned to Missouri the doctor died making him the property of Emerson s widow. In 1846 Scott sued for his freedom in Missouri state court saying that he had become free when he lived in free territory.
SUPREME COURT DECISION In 1857 Scott s case reached the Supreme Court. The justices, many from the south, had three issues to decide on. 1. The Court had to rule on whether Scott was a citizen. (Only citizens could sue in federal court.) 2. The Court had to decide if his time living on free soil made him free. 3. The Court had to determine the constitutionality of prohibiting slavery in parts of the Louisiana Purchase.
SUPREME COURT S RULING On the first issue to be decided, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney decided that the nation s founders did not intend to give African Americans the same rights as whites meaning that all African Americans, whether slave or free, were not citizens under the U.S. Constitution. If Dred Scott did not have rights under the constitution, then he did not have the right to file suit in federal court. On the second issue Justice Taney said then because Scott returned to Missouri, his status as free or slave, depended on the law of Missouri. The third issue said that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional as the Fifth amendment said that nobody could be deprived of LIFE, LIBERTY, or THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS without due process of law.
Because slaves were property of people could not be prohibited from taking them into a federal territory. Under this ruling, Congress had no right to ban slavery in any federal territory. The Dred Scott decision favored those in the South but deeply upset those in the North.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES In 1858, there was an important election that took place in the U.S. Senate. Illinois Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. His opponent was Democrat Stephen Douglas, who had served in the senate for 11 years. These two men squared off in what became known as the Lincoln Douglas Debates.
LINCOLN S ARGUMENTS Lincoln stressed that the spread of slavery in the West was the central issue of the campaign. He talked often about the Dred Scott Decision. Lincoln: African Americans were entitled to all rights listed in the Declaration of Independence. Despite believing that, he didn t necessarily believe that African Americans were the social or political equals of whites.
DOUGLAS ARGUMENTS Douglas argued that Lincoln thinks that the Negro is his brother Criticized Lincoln for the idea that the U.S. could not remain half slave and half free. When pressed by Lincoln about the problems with supporting popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision, Douglas responded by saying that it did not matter what the Supreme Court decided about slavery. He argued that it is up to the people to make the decision as slavery could not exist anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations.
Freeport Doctrine put the question of slavery back into the hands of American citizens. In the end, Douglas ended up winning the Senate seat but Lincoln ended up becoming a strong and important leader of the Republican Party.
The Nation Divides SECTION 15.4
RAID ON HARPER S FERRY John Brown an abolitionist from the North who wanted to start an uprising by arming local slaves John Brown s Raid - a night when Brown and his men took over a federal arsenal in Harper s Ferry, VA in hopes of starting a slave rebellion. Fearing he would be outnumbered, Brown sent several of his men to the countryside to get slaves to join the cause. None showed up. After fleeing to a fire house, federal troops arrived and stormed the house and captured John Brown. END RESULT: John Brown was convicted of treason, murder, and conspiracy and was sentenced to death. Brown s raid caused many southerners to use the attack as an excuse to get out of the union.
ELECTION OF 1860 The Election of 1860 saw four parties and their candidates run for president: Northern Democrats: Stephen Douglas Southern Democrats: John Breckenridge Constitutional Union: John Bell Republicans: Abraham Lincoln
ELECTION OF 1860 Lincoln was against the spread of slavery but promised not to abolish it where it existed. RESULT: Lincoln won 180/183 electoral votes in free states (enough to win the election) but took no southern states which upset the South. The South realized it was losing power.
SOUTHERNER S REACTIONS Within weeks of Lincoln s election, South Carolina s legislature called for a special session to consider the question of secession. In an attempt to solve the problem, Sen. John Crittenden proposed a series of amendments to protect slavery. Lincoln and the Republicans opposed the amendments and they were defeated.
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA December 20, 1860 South Carolina officially broke from the union leading to the creation of the Confederate States of America. They were followed by: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. New President: Jefferson Davis
LINCOLN TAKES OFFICE March 4, 1861 Lincoln was inaugurated. In his address, Lincoln understood the south s need to secede but disagreed with it. He hoped to bring the south back on its own, without a war. THE SECESSION OF SOUTHERN STATES HINTED AT THE VIOLENCE TO COME