| Home |
 |
Student Resources |
|
Chapter 14 |
|
The caning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina demonstrated the growing sectional conflict of the 1850s and foreshadowed the violence on the battlefield between armies of the North and the South.
The Compromise of 1850
Conflict over slavery in the territories began in the1840s, and by the end of the decade, had risen to a crisis point. Compromise was still possible, however, because the second party system was built on nationally-based parties with a vested interest in maintaining peace. Additionally, though sectionalism existed, the North and South were not as divided as they would become.
The Problem of Slavery in the Mexican Cession
The Constitution gave the federal government the right to abolish the international slave trade, but no power to regulate or destroy the institution of slavery where it already existed. Additionally, the Constitution said nothing about the status of slavery in future states. Because Congress controlled the process of admittance, it could regulate the extension of slavery before a territory became a state and had done so in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. So long as both the free North and the slave South had some opportunities for expansion, compromise was possible.
The Wilmot Proviso Launches the Free-Soil Movement
The Wilmot Proviso of 1846 was proposed to ban African Americans, whether slave or free, from any territory acquired from the Mexican War. This blend of racist and antislavery sentiment appealed to many Northerners anxious to preserve new lands for free Whites. Although the House initially approved the Proviso, the Senate defeated it. In these Congressional votes, politicians broke down along sectional rather than party lines. This sectional divide was mirrored in state and local reactions to the Proviso as well, providing an ominous foreshadowing of the conflict to come.
Squatter Sovereignty and the Election of 1848
By the time of the election in 1848, the status of slavery in the Mexican cession was still unresolved. There were four positions on the issue. The two extremes were represented by the Wilmot Proviso and absolute federal protection of slavery in the territories. The two middle-ground positions were a proposal to extend the Missouri Compromise line, and a new approach—popular sovereignty—that would leave the question of slavery in a territory to the actual settlers. In the election, Whig Zachary Taylor, avoiding a stand on the issue but promising no executive interference with congressional legislation, defeated two challengers: Democrat Lewis Cass who urged “popular sovereignty,” and Free-Soiler Martin Van Buren who favored the Wilmot Proviso.
Taylor Takes Charge
Taking immediate action, President Taylor proposed admitting California and New Mexico directly as states, bypassing territorial status and the arguments over slavery in Congress. The possibility that only free states would emerge from the Mexican cession provoked intense southern resistance and talk of secession.
Forging a Compromise
Although Taylor resisted compromise until his death, his successor, Millard Fillmore, supported a series of resolutions known as the Compromise of 1850. After heated debate, members of Congress, who voted on the measures separately, agreed to admit California as a free state, organize the territories of New Mexico and Utah on the basis of popular sovereignty, retract the borders of Texas in return for assumption of the state’s debt, and abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia. The most controversial provision created a strong Fugitive Slave Law, denying suspected runaways any rights of self-defense, and requiring northerners to enforce slavery. As it had over the Wilmot Proviso, Congress at first broke down along sectional rather than party lines. By 1852, both parties endorsed the compromise, rendering them indistinct on the slavery issue.
Political Upheaval 1852-1856
The Compromise of 1850 may have weakened the second-party system as people sought alternatives to the dominant parties who looked much the same on the slavery issue.
The Party System in Crisis
The Compromise of 1850 robbed the political parties of distinctive appeals and contributed to voter apathy and disenchantment. Although a colorless candidate, Democrat Franklin Pierce won the election of 1852 over Winfield Scott, the candidate of a Whig party that was on the verge of collapse from internal divisions.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act Raises a Storm
In 1854, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas, anxious to expand American settlement and commerce across the northern plains while promoting his own presidential ambitions, pushed an act through Congress organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska on the basis of popular sovereignty. This repeal of the long-standing Missouri Compromise, along with publication of the “Ostend Manifesto” urging the United States acquisition of Cuba, convinced an increasing number of Northerners that Pierce’s Democratic administration was dominated by pro-southern sympathizers, if not conspirators.
An Appeal to Nativism: The Know-Nothing Episode
Appearing after the demise of the Whig party, the American, or Know-Nothing party appealed to the anti-immigrant sentiments of American citizens who feared and resented the heavy influx of European immigrants. Although enjoying temporary success, the Know-Nothing party soon lost influence and numbers because of inexperienced leaders, a lack of cohesion, and a failure to address the nation’s major problems including slavery in the territories.
Kansas and the Rise of the Republicans
Formed in protest to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Republican party adopted a firm position opposing any further extension of slavery. Election fraud and violence in Kansas discredited the principle of popular sovereignty and strengthened Republican appeal in the North. Led by seasoned politicians formerly of the Whig or Democratic parties, the Republicans capitalized on the violent link between “Bleeding Kansas” and “Bleeding Sumner” to arouse northern sympathies and gain votes.
Sectional Division in the Election of 1856
In 1856, Democrat and Southerner James Buchanan won the presidency over Republican John C. Frémont and Know-Nothing candidate Millard Fillmore. Though the race was almost entirely sectional, national unity was temporarily maintained. While Southerners were relieved at Buchanan’s victory, the strong showing of the overwhelmingly sectional Republican party caused them intense anxiety for the future.
The House Divided, 1857-1860
Sectionalism deepened during Buchanan’s term as president, and a series of incidents led to the actual division of the country.
Cultural Sectionalism
Before the actual political division of the nation occurred, American religious and literary leaders split into opposing camps over the morality of slavery. Literary abolitionism reached its apex with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book that forever linked slavery and violence in northern minds. Southern intellectuals reacted defensively to such outside criticism, banning Uncle Tom’s Cabin and other abolitionist books while constructing an elaborate pro-slavery argument that championed slavery as a positive societal good. Southern defensiveness eventually hardened into southern nationalism.
The Dred Scott Case
In a controversial case, the Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott was a slave and that African Americans (whether slave or free) had no rights as citizens. Further, the Court declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, denying that Congress had any power to prohibit slavery in the territories. Rather than resolve disputes over the slavery question, the decision intensified sectional discord. With five of the six judges voting in the majority decision pro-slavery Southerners, Northerners and Republicans saw the verdict as the latest act of the slave-power conspiracy
The Lecompton Constitution
Proslavery forces in Kansas resorted to electoral fraud to secure a convention to draft a slave state constitution. At Buchanan’s urging, the Senate voted to admit Kansas as a slave state. The House, however, defeated the LeCompton Constitution and sent it back to Kansas. When finally submitted to a fair vote by the residents of Kansas in 1858, the Lecompton Constitution was overwhelmingly rejected. The LeCompton controversy aggravated the growing sectional divide, implicating Buchanan in the slave-power conspiracy and dividing the Democrats along regional lines based on the slavery issue.
Debating the Morality of Slavery
In the 1858 Illinois Senate race, Republican Abraham Lincoln asked Democrat Stephen Douglas how he could reconcile the idea of popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. Douglas offered the “Freeport Doctrine,” a suggestion that territories could dissuade slaveholders from moving in by providing no supportive legislation for slavery. Coupled with his stand against the Lecompton Constitution, Douglas’s Freeport Doctrine guaranteed the loss of southern support for his presidential bid. Though he lost the Senate seat, Lincoln’s performance in the debates won him national recognition among the Republicans. By stressing the immorality of slavery, Lincoln sharpened the Republican stance against slavery, ensuring a showdown between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery positions in the election of 1860.
The South’s Crisis of Fear
Two events of 1859-1860 intensified southern fears of Republican intention: northern expressions of sympathy at the execution of crazed abolitionist John Brown and public endorsement by a prominent Republican politician and potential Speaker of the House of Hinton Rowan Helper's Impending Crisis of the South. The objective of John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, had been to equip a slave army and Helper’s book condemned slavery on economic grounds, urging lower-class Whites of the South to unite against planter domination and abolish slavery.
The Election of 1860
Unable to agree on a platform or candidate in 1860, the Democrats split: a northern wing nominated Stephen Douglas and endorsed popular sovereignty while a southern wing nominated John C. Breckinridge and demanded federal protection of slavery in the territories. Border state conservatives formed the Constitutional Union party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee. Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln on a Free-Soil position and a broad economic platform. Although he won only 40 percent of the popular vote, Lincoln swept the North for a majority of the electoral votes and election as president. Political leaders of the lower South immediately launched a movement for secession.
Conclusion: Explaining the Crisis
Rather than arising out of the mistakes of irresponsible politicians or of irreconcilable economic views, southern secession was prompted by profound ideological differences between the North and South over the morality and utility of slavery. Neither the other political conflicts over protective tariffs or states’ rights nor the growing social and cultural differences between the regions can stand alone as the reason for the country’s division. Such conflicts and differences emerge from the debate over slavery. Slavery was the only truly polarizing issue of the day.
|