5.6 Failure to Compromise

Franklin Pierce, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Stephen A. Douglas, bleeding Kansas, New England Emigrant Aid Company, Pottawatomie Creek, Sumner-Brooks incident, Know-Nothing Party, Republican Party, John C. Frémont, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, LeCompton Constitution, Dred Scott v. Sanford, Roger Taney, Lincoln-Douglas debates, Abraham Lincoln, house-divided speech, Freeport Doctrine

slavery-related issues that further divided North and South

• morality of slavery

• constitutional rights of states to protect slavery

• economic policies of industrial north vs. slave-labor agricultural south

election of 1852

• Whigs nominated General Winfield Scott - ignored slavery and focused on internal improvements, causing the party to split into different factions

• Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce, won because he was a compromise - Northerner that supported the Fugitive Slave Law

the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

proposed by senator Stephen A. Douglas

allowed Nebraska Territory (Kansas and Nebraska) to decide slavery status with popular sovereignty

Bleeding Kansas

pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups moved settlers west to gain control of state, fighting broke out, Pierce administration did nothing

New England Emigrant Aid Company

formed by Northern abolitionists and free soilers, paid for passage of antislavery settlers to Kansas to gain power for anti-slavery movement

Pottawatomie Creek

John Brown and his sons, stern abolitionists, attack a pro-slavery farm and kill 5 in retaliation for pro-slavery attack on free-soil town of Lawrence

Sumner-Brooks incident

• Senator Charles Sumner makes personal charges against senator Andrew Butler in his speech “The Crime Against Kansas”

• Butler’s nephew, congressman Preston Brooks beats Sumner with a cane

ex-Whigs when the party died

• anti-immigration → Know-Nothing Party

• pro-slavery → Democratic Party (core south)

• against slavery expansion → formation of Republican Party

Republican Party

• formed in Wisconsin in 1854 in reaction to passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act

• strictly Northern/sectional party, Free-Soilers, antislavery Whigs, Democrats, abolitionists

• 2nd largest party

election of 1856

• Republicans: John C. Frémont, no expansion of slavery, free homsteads, pro-business tariff

• Know-Nothings nominated former president Millard Fillmore

• Democrats nominated James Buchanan and won

  • didn’t nominate president Pierce or Stephen Douglas because of ties of controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act

LeCompton Constitution

proslavery state constitution of Kansas submitted by Southern legislature - did not have majority support

• President James Buchanan asked Congress to accept the LeCompton Constitution and admit Kansas as a slave state

• Congress’s Republicans and some Democrats like Stephen Douglas rejected it

Dred Scott v. Sanford ruling

Southern Democratic Chief Justice Roger Taney and other justices ruled against Dred Scott because

• Scott had no right to sue - African Americans were not considered U.S. citizens

• slaves = property, Congress cannot exclude slavery from any federal territory

• the Missouri Compromise was ruled unconstitutional because of exclusion of slavery from Wisconsin and other northern territories

Dred Scott v. Sanford and northerners

northerners suspected that the Democratic president and supreme court had conspired specifically to plan the decision to answer the slavery question → thousands of Democrats started to vote Republican

Dred Scott v. Sanford and northern Democrats

northern Democrats like senator Stephen A. Douglas could not support popular sovereignty and Dred Scott v. Sanford decision simultaneously

Douglas lost hope for compromise and presidency

Abraham Lincoln

Republican candidate running against Stephen A. Douglas for Illinois senator, considered slavery a moral issue

house-divided speech

delivered by Abraham Lincoln, made him famous and viewed as a radical by the South

Freeport Doctrine

Douglas says that slavery could not exist in a community without citizens maintaining it through passage of the slave codes