Chapter 18 and 19 Notes

North / Democrats

South / Whigs → Republicans

Definitions

Other

• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo officially ended the war with Mexico

  • The treaty granted the USA with land from Texas to California, making the issue of extending slavery

Northerners rallied behind the Wilmot Proviso, which said no slaves in any new territories, but the proviso was blocked by southern senators

The Popular Sovereignty Panacea

• southerners were called “fire-eaters”

• The Democratic National Convention at Baltimore turned to General Lewis Cass after Polk said he would not run for a second term.

  • Cass was the father of “popular sovereignty”

Popular Sovereignty: doctrine that stated that the sovereign people of a territory, under the principles of the constitution, should decide by themselves if they allow slavery

Political Triumphs for General Taylor

• The whigs met in Philadelphia and nominated Zachary Taylor as President.

• Henry Clay would have been a more logical choice, but Clay had too many enemies

• Antislavery men in the north created the Free Soil Party; they supported the Wilmot Proviso and were against slavery in the territories.

“Free Soil, free speech, free labor, and free men!”

• politicians focused on attacking personalities instead of addressing the issue of slavery

• Van Buren, a free-soil member, did not win any state but took enough votes from Cass in New York that Taylor was able to win

“Californy Gold”

• discovery of gold in California in 1848 brought the slavery issue back, “gold fever”

  • the biggest profiteers in the gold rush were the people that charged miners outrageous costs for things like laundry

• California was lawless and mostly men, and led to outbursts of crime

Oh what was your name in the States?

Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?

Did you murder your wife,

And fly for your life?

Say, what was your name in the States?

• California Constitution of 1849; excluded slavery and applied to Congress for admission.

Sectional Balance and the Underground Railroad

• in 1850, the south had Taylor as president, a majority of the cabinet and Supreme Court.

• California not allowing slavery was a threat to this, since it would throw off the 15 free states : 15 slave states balance.

• Texas was threatening to seize Santa Fe and keep land East of the Rio Grande

  

• Washington D.C. abolished the slave trade

• Stations: antislavery homes

• Passengers: runaway slaves

• Conductors: abolitionists

• Harriet Tubman: runaway slave and conductor, made 19 trips to the south and rescued over 300 slaves, given the nickname “Moses”

• Southerners began to rally for a stricter fugitive slave law. The current one was not effective at returning runaway slaves.

  • more slaves were probably freed by self-purchase or voluntary emancipation than running away, but it was an issue of pride instead of numbers

Twilight of the Senatorial Crisis

• by 1850, “fire-eaters” made vague threats of secession

• “immortal trio”: Clay, Calhoun, and Webster

• Henry Clay, “Great Pacificator”, proposed and defended a series of compromises that included the North enacting a more feasible fugitive slave law

  • backed up by Senator Stephen A. Douglas,

• Senator John C. Calhoun, “Great Nullifier”, approved Clay’s purpose but rejected his compromises because they did not have enough safe-guards. He wanted to return runaway slaves, allow slavery in the south and not in the territories.

• Daniel Webster upheld Clay’s compromise and wanted a new fugitive slave law “with teeth”.

  • Webster wrongly said that the West was not fit for plantation life anyways, so there is no need for slaves there.

    • Webster’s speech helped turn the north in favor of compromise.

• abolitionists in the North called Webster a traitor

Deadlock and Danger on Capitol Hill

• Old Guard: patching and preserving

• New Guard: purging and purifying

• William H. Seward, a senator, was very anti-slavery. He did not seem to realize that the compromise was what was holding the nation together.

  • He argued that God’s moral law was an even “higher law” than the Constitution. This probably cost him the presidential nomination of 1860.

• Taylor was bent on vetoing any compromise passed by congress. He was more concerned with Texas seizing Santa Fe, and he threatened to send troops down there to hang the “damned traitors”.

Breaking the Congressional Logjam

• President Taylor died during his term, and Vice President Millard Fillmore took over.

  • Fillmore signed a series of compromise measures that passed Congress, known as the Compromise of 1850

    • “Union Savers” in the north (like the immortal trio) supported the compromise

    • “fire-eaters” still opposed the compromise

• in mid-1850, southern extremists met in Nashville (ironically near the burial place of Andrew Jackson).

• Talks of secession finally dimmed and many assumed the issue of slavery would be buried.

Balancing the Compromise Scales

• The North got the better deal out of the Compromise of 1850

  • California tipped the Senate balance permanently against the South

  • slave trade is now banned in Washington DC

  • New Mexico and Utah were open for slavery, but the “highest law” made them favor free soil

  • The south needed another slave territory to restore balance, so they looked towards the Caribbean.

• The “Bloodhound Bill” of the fugitive slave law: fleeing slaves could not testify on their own behalf and were denied a jury trial. The federal commissioner who handled the case got $5 if freed and $10 if not.

  • The “Man-Stealing Law” also said those who aide runaways could be heavily fined, sent to jail, or even sent to join the slave catchers

• Many northern states passed “personal liberty laws”, which denied local jails to federal officials and overall blocked enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.

  “We execrate it, we spit upon it, we trample it under our feet.”

  -William Lloyd Garrison, 1851

• Southerners were mad that the North counter-acted their only “gain” from the Compromise of 1850

• The Compromise of 1850 favored the North and allowed them to become more passionate about abolition, which indirectly won the Civil War for the Union.

Defeat and Doom for the Whigs

• Franklin Pierce was known as the second “dark-horse” candidate, a lawyer-politician from New Hampshire.

  • nicknamed “The Young Hickory of the Granite Hills.”, but then eventually the “Fainting General” because he fell off his horse

• Pierce had little enemies because he really had no spine and was weak and indecisive. He also supported the fugitive slave act.

• The Whigs had a convention in Baltimore, and decided to nominate another military war hero (since that had a trend of working) Winfield Scott.

• Northern Whigs who disliked the Pierce said “we accept the candidate but spit on the platform”. Southern Whigs who liked the fugitive slave act said “we accept the platform but spit on the candidate”

• Pierce won by a landslide

• The election of 1852 marked the end of the Whig party, since they were so disorganized

President Pierce the Expansionist

• victory in the Mexican War spread the spirit of Manifest Destiny

• Gadsden Purchase

• Willian Walker, an American adventurer, tried to get control of the Central America. He made himself president of Nicaragua and allowed slavery (made Greytown)

  • Nicaragua was vital to Great Britain because they feared the USA would monopolize trade arteries there

  • This was a challenge to the Monroe Doctrine

  • 1850, Clayton-Bulwer Treaty solved it. It said no one will fortify or have exclusive control over the time.

• Matthew C. Perry was the commander of the fleet that was headed for Japan

  • Perry got the Japanese to sign an 1854 treaty that opened the door to trade with Japan

Coveted Cuba: Pearl of the Antilles

• Cuba, with good sugar plantations, was the prime objective of Manifest Destiny in the south

• The north benefitted more from Manifest Destiny

• Polk offered $100 million to buy Cuba, but Spain was too prideful to sell to America

• “filibustering” expeditions to Cuba (from the Spanish word filibustero meaning “freebooter” or “pirate”). Armed men were killed by locals and this made southerners so mad that they attacked Spain’s consulate in New Orleans.

  • Spanish officials in Cuba forced a showdown when they got the American ship Black Warrior on a technicality

  • Pierce now wanted war with Spain, but the other major powers of Europe were busy with the Crimean War

    • a meeting with American ministers in Belgium led to the Ostend Manifesto

• the Ostend Manifesto said “either we buy Cuba for $120 million or we’re gonna fight”

  • this got leaked to the free-spoilers, and they were outraged since it would be another gain for slavery. the outrage caused Pierce to drop the fight for Cuba.

Pacific railroad Promoters and the Gadsen Purchase

• transportation to the west was difficult

  • Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War for Pierce, arranged to appoint James Gadsden as a minister to Mexico.

    • In 1853, Gadsden made the Gadsden Purchase for $10 million

• New Mexico became a formally organized territory

• The new railroad allowed the South to become richer

• Northerners didn’t like this, and said that Nebraska should also become an organized territory. The south didn't like the idea Nebraska being organized, since it set up another free-soil state.

Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme

• Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted to offset the Gadsden Purchase. (his reason: he wanted a northern railroad because he owned a lot of railroad shares and land)

  • He proposed that the territory of Nebraska be split into Kansas and Nebraska.

    • Their stance on slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty

    • It was assumed that Kansas would become a slave state and Nebraska would become a free state

• Douglas’s plan would not work since the Compromise of 1820 (Missouri Compromise) had forbid slavery in the Nebraska Territory, since it was north of the 36-30 line. To enact his plan, the Compromise of 1820 had to be nullified

  • This was not easy to reverse in congress.

    • Douglas was branded as a “Judas” and “traitor”

Congress Legislates a Civil War

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act finally passed

• The Republican Party came from the middle-west during this time, near Wisconsin and Michigan, as a moral protest against slavery

• the Dredd Scott decision had invalidated the Missouri Compromise

• in 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election

Stowe and Helper: Literary Incendiaries

• Harriet Beecher Stowe published her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin

  • the novel was wildly successful

    • might have inspired young men to join the “Boys in Blue” and fight in the Civil War

• Hinton R. Helper published his book 5 years later, titled The Impending Crisis of the South

  • his book expressed that nonslaveholding whites were the most marginalized

    • this book was banned in the South since it would make (white) voters more likely to abolish slavery

The North-South Contest for Kansas

• The New England Emigrant Aid Company sent 2000 people to Kansas

• riffles called “Beecher’s Bibles” (named after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother)

We cross the prairie as of old

The pilgrims crossed the sea,

To make the West, as they the East,

The homestead of the free!

• the south became angry once they realized that both Kansas and Nebraska could become free states

  • they nicknamed these northern abolitionists “Nebrascals”

• some southerners sent well-armed slave owners to Kansas

• in 1855, proslavery “boarder ruffians” poured in from Missouri to vote, then they set up their own puppet government at Shawnee Mission.

• Free-soilers established their own illegal government in Topeka.

• Kansans now had to choose between a fraud government or an illegal government

• angry proslavery raiders shot up and burned a free-soil town named Lawrence

Kansas in Convulsion

• John Brown, an abolitionist, was in Kansas. He was angry about the burning of Lawrence, so he led a group of men to Pottawatomie Creek and killed 5 pro-slavery men

  • he would later attempt (and fail) a raid on a U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, VA. Robert E. Lee would lead the troops to stop him.

• Civil war in Kansas flared up in 1856 until it merged with the larger Civil War of 1861-1865. The Kansas civil battles destroyed a lot of property

  • by 1857, Kansas had enough people (mostly free-soilers) to apply for statehood

  • The pro-slavery people made a tricky document called the Lecompton Constitution

    • the Lecompton Constitution made it so the people vote if the constitution was for or against slavery, but either way, those who already had slaves would keep them in Kansas.

      • abolitionists boycotted the polls, leading to pro-slaveryites approving the constitution with slavery

• James Buchanan was the president after Pierce (strongly under southern influence)

  • Senator Douglas disapproved of Buchanan’s ideas, so he fought for fair play and democratic principles

    • this led to a popular vote for the entire Lecompton Constitution, in which the free-soilers won their abolition in Kansas

      • Kansas would remain a territory until 1861

• Buchanan antagonized the Douglas Democrats in the North, and divided the Democratic Party (the only national party of the time).

  • the disruption of the last national party was the last break in a rope that was barely holding the Union together

“Bully” Brooks and His Bludgeon

• Senator Charles Sumner was an abolitionist who gave a speech titled “The Crime Against Kansas”, where he criticized South Carolina and specifically Senator Andrew Butler.

• Congressmen Preston Brooks (from South Carolina) was Andrew Butler’s cousin. He felt insulted and decided to hit Charles Sumner with his cane until it broke.

“Old Buck” Versus “The Pathfinder”

• Kansas democrats met to nominate their candidate for 1856. They chose James Buchanan because he was not involved with the Kansas-Nebraska controversies. He was nicknamed “Old Buck”.

• The Republican Party chose John C. Fremont, “The Pathfinder of the West”, lose because Northerners viewed him as a crazy radical.

• The Know-Nothing Party nominated former president Millard Fillmore. He was anti-foreign and anti-catholic. This was during a time of rising immigration rates from Ireland and Germany. The Know-Nothing party was largely nativists.

The Electoral Fruits of 1856

• Buchanan won over Fremont and Fillmore.

  • Fire-eaters claim that electing a “Black Republican” would be a declaration of war and that they would have to secede. This lead to northerns voting for Buchanan in order to save the Union.

The Dred Scott Bombshell

• Dred Scott, a slave, live with his master in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Abolitionists sued on his behalf for his freedom since Scott lived for a long time on free soil

  • The Supreme Court ruled that Scott was property, not a person, so he could not sue in federal courts.

  • The courts could have thrown out the case on this matter alone, but Chief Justice Taney wanted to make a decision.

  • This led to a rebuke of the Compromise of 1820: ruling that Congress had no power to ban slavery in the territories.

    • This was devastating to those in favor of popular sovereignty

The Financial Crash of 1857

• economic panic

• importation of gold from California inflated the currency

• demands from the Crimean War overstimulated grain production

• The north was hit harder than the south

  • this drove overconfidence in the southerners

• The Panic of 1857 was from a new law that reduced tariffs to 20%- the lowest since the War of 1812.

  • Republicans had 2 economic issues for the election of 1860: protection for the unprotected and farms for the farmless

An Illinois Rail-Splitter Emerges

• Senator Douglas’ term was going to expire in 1858, and Republicans chose to run Abraham Lincoln against him.

• Lincoln was modest, humble, and an unusual figure on the political scene.

The Great Debate: Lincoln Versus Douglas

• Lincoln bolding challenge Douglas to a series of debates

  • The most famous took place in Freeport, Illinois.

    • Lincoln asked what would happen if the people voted to abolish slavery, since the Dred Scott decision said they could not. Who would prevail, the court or the people?

    • Douglas’ reply is known as the “Freeport Doctrine”, stating that slavery would stay down if the people voted it down.

      • Senators were chosen by state legislatures; more pro-Douglas members were chosen but in areas where the population was more pro-Lincoln.

      • Douglas won the senator position, but Lincoln was now in the public’s mind.

John Brown: Murderer or Martyr?

• John Brown had a plan to invade the South and supply the slaves with guns to create a black free-state.

• At Harper’s Ferry, John Brown and his followers seized the federal arsenal.

  • killed 7 innocent people and injured 10 more

• U.S. Marines, led by Robert E. Lee, captured him. (2 years later, Lee would become a general in the Confederate army)

• John Brown would be charged with treason and murder and sentenced to death.

The Disruption of the Democrats

• Democrats were divided. They met in South Carolina, and fire-eaters regarded him as a traitor. The southern states left the convention. At the next convention, Douglas was nominated.

• Southern Democrats were angry with this, and select John C. Breckinridge as their nominee.

a group known as the Constitutional Union Party formed, consisting of mostly former Whigs and No-Nothings. They nominated John Bell.

A Rail-Splitter Splits the Union