Chapter 15

Road To Civil War

Section 1: Slavery & the West

• In 1819 the differences between the North and the South where highlighted when settlers of Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a slave state.

• The differences highlighted grew into sectionalism—an exaggerated loyalty to a particular region of the country.

• The differences included:– Upsetting the balance between slave

and free state representation in the Senate.

– The North and South with different economic systems are competing for the western territories.

– Northerners wanted to restrict or ban slavery all together.

– Southerners, even those who disliked slavery, opposed the outsiders interference in Southern affairs.

• The issue over slavery had been an issue since the Constitutional convention.

• The arguments with Missouri’s request for statehood were settled in the Missouri Compromise in 1820. The plan allowed Missouri to enter as a slave state and Maine to enter as a free state.

• It also settled the debate in Congress over slavery temporarily by banning slavery in the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 degree North latitude.

• For 25 years the issue over slavery was put in the background until 1840.

• At this time the United States was looking to acquire more territory in the southwest—Texas which had slavery, California and New Mexico.

• Concerned that slavery would spread to these new territories and upset the balance in Congress a proposal was sent to Congress.

• The Wilmot Proviso specified that slavery should be prohibited in any lands that might be acquired from Mexico.

• The Southerners disagreed with this Proviso.

• Senator John C. Calhoun proposed that neither Congress nor any territorial government had the authority to ban slavery from a territory or regulate it in any way.

• Neither proposal won, but it did spark bitter debates.

• The debate led to the forming of a political party—the Free Soil Party which called for the freeing of the slaves “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men.”

• The 1848 election saw Zachary Taylor, a Southern war hero of the Mexican War, win the Presidency.

• Once President, Taylor urged California and New Mexico to apply for statehood.

• California did but it’s application became tangled up in with other issues before Congress.

• Issues such as:– Abolitionists wanted to ban slavery

in the nation’s capital– Southerners wanted a strong

fugitive slave law to return runaway slaves to their owners.

-The boundary line between Texas and New Mexico

- Lastly, admitting California would upset the balance between slave and free state in Congress.

•In 1850, Henry Clay presented a multi-part plan to settle all the issues. Because the Senators could not agree on the plan’s options as a whole, in August and September of 1850 a series of five separate bills were passed making up the Compromise of 1850.

• The Bills of the Compromise of 1850:– California is admitted as a free state– The New Mexico Territory would have

no restrictions on slavery– The New-Mexico/Texas border dispute

is settled in favor of New Mexico– Slave trade, but not slavery itself is

abolished in the District of Columbia– A stronger fugitive slave law

•During the debate over these issues, President Taylor suddenly died and Millard Fillmore became the new President

• Fillmore approved of the Compromise, calling it a “final settlement” of the conflict between the North and the South. He would soon prove to be wrong.

Section 2: A Nation Dividing• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and

the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) saw an increase of tension and hostility between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces in the United States.

• The new Fugitive Slave Act required all citizens to help catch runaway slaves. If you refused you could face a steep fine or imprisonment.

• Enforcement of the law led to mounting anger in the North.

• Slaveholders also increased their efforts to recapture runaway slaves. They even tried to capture runaways who had lived free in the North for years or seized free blacks and forced them into slavery.

• In spite of the penalties many Northerners refused to cooperate, northern courts even refused to convict those of breaking the Fugitive Slave Law.

• In 1854, Senator Stephan Douglas from Illinois, hoping to encourage settlement of the West and open the way for a transcontinental railroad proposed organizing the territory west of Missouri and Iowa into the territories of Kansas and Nebraska.

• He also proposed overturning the Missouri Compromise that would keep these territories free and allow the issue of slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty.

• While the North protested, arguing that according to the Missouri Compromise that these should be free territories, President Franklin Pierce supported the bill and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed.

• Southerners had supported the bill because they figured that the slaveholders in Missouri would spread across the border and settle in Kansas.

• Right after the Act had been passed it became a race to see who could get the most supporters into Kansas, pro-slavery from Southern Missouri and Arkansas or anti-slavery from Northern Missouri and Iowa.

• In the Spring of 1855 the Kansas legislature was voted on and a pro-slavery legislature was elected. The wrote a constitution that allowed slavery and even bar anti-slavery representatives to serve in the State Congress.

• The anti-slavery forces refused to recognize this government and formed their own. Establishing the free town of Lawrence as their government seat.

• In the meantime, border ruffians, armed groups of pro-slavery voters crossed the Missouri border to vote in the pro-slavery elections and attempted to warn off any more anti-slavery settlers.

• Both governments applied to national Congress for statehood. The President and the Senate approved the pro-slavery government and the House approved the anti-slavery government.

• Both sided began to arm themselves. In 1856, a band of pro-slavery supporters attacked Lawrence. Sacking the town, burning the hotel and governor’s home, and destroyed two newspaper offices.

• John Brown, an abolitionist with a mission from God, went into a rage when he heard about Lawrence. He led his people along the Pottawatomie Creek where they seized and killed five supporters of slavery.

• The Pottawatomie Creek Massacre and the attack on Lawrence led newspapers to refer to “bleeding Kansas”.

• The bloodshed only stopped when the territorial governor called in 1300 troops to suppress the guerrilla forces.

•The bloodshed even made its way into Congress when Charles Sumner a Massachusetts Senator made speeches against slavery and verbally attacked proslavery Senator Andrew P. Butler.•Butler’s cousin, Representative Preston Brooks walked into the Senate chamber and beat Sumner over the head and shoulders with a cane.

Section 3: Challenges to Slavery

• The arguments during and after the Kansas-Nebraska Act had pushed the North and South further apart.

• It had also divided the Democratic Party along sectional lines. The Northern Democrats split from the Southern Democrats and joined the Anti-slavery Whigs.

• The differing views had also split the Whig Party.

• In the North a new political party will form from the anti-slavery Whigs, Northern Democrats and Free-Soilers in 1854 they are the Republicans.

• The goal of this new party was to uphold liberty and overthrow the Slave Power.

• The main message was that the government should ban slavery from the new territories.

• The Republican Party immediately showed it’s strength by winning control of the House of Representatives and many of the Northern state governments.

• However, they had almost NO support in the South.

• In 1856, the Democratic Party, which had become a Southern Party since the North—South split in 1854, secured the Presidential vote for James Buchanan by endorsing the idea of popular sovereignty in the new territories.

The Dred Scott Decision• Dred Scott was a slave bought by an

army doctor in the slave state of Missouri.

• The doctor moved his family to Illinois and then the Wisconsin Territory—both free states. Later the family will move back to Missouri.

• After the doctor died, in 1846 Scott will sue for his freedom based on the fact that he had once lived in free territory.

• The case made it all of the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

• With this decision the Court had the opportunity to rule on the question of slavery in the territories.

• Roger B. Taney was the Chief Justice. The Taney Court ruled that Scott was still a slave and as a slave he was not a citizen and did not have the right to sue his owners for freedom.

• The decision also stated that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in any area.

• Taney declared that the Missouri Compromise was illegal and unconstitutional.

• In effect the decision meant that the Constitution protected slavery.

• This decision did not settle the issue. In fact, it divided the country even more.

• The Republicans strongly rejected the message sent by the court on the allowance of slavery.

Lincoln/Douglas Debates• In 1858, the focus of the nation was on the

Illinois congressional election. Here a young Republican upstart Abraham Lincoln was challenging the experienced Democrat Stephen Douglass for a Senate seat.

• Many people considered Douglass for the 1860 Presidential election winner.

• Lincoln was relativity an unknown. So he challenged Douglass to a series of debates so people could hear his message.

•During the debates Lincoln pushed Douglass on his support of popular sovereignty. His responses satisfied his Southern supporters.

•But many Northerners were not happy with Douglass.

•The debates did accomplish what Lincoln wanted them to—he gained a national reputation and put him in a good position for the 1860 election.

• After the 1858 congressional elections, Southerners began to feel threatened by the growing Republican party power.

• That fear was increased in 1859 on October 19th when John Brown lead 18 men on a raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.

• His target was an arsenal so he could arm slaves to create a rebellion against slave holders.

• They were quickly defeated and publicly hung. This caused Brown and his men to be viewed as a martyr by many abolitionists.

• For many abolitionists John Brown’s death was a rallying point.

• When Southerners learned of Brown’s connection to the abolitionists, their fears of a Northern conspiracy against them seemed confirmed.

Section 4: Secession and War• The question leading to the Election

of 1860 was Would the Union break up?

• This is reflected in the nominations for president.

• The Northern Democrats supported Stephen Douglass on a platform of popular sovereignty.

• The Southern Democrats supported John C. Breckinridge on a platform of support for the Dred Scott Decision

• A group of moderates had formed the Constitutional Party. They nominated John Bell and took no position on slavery.

• The Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln. Their platform argued that slavery should stay where it was at and should not spread to the territories.

• However, many southerners feared a Republican win would lead to slave revolt.

• Because the Democrats were divided, Lincoln will win the election for president in 1860 even though he did not win one southern state.

• The more populous North had outvoted the South.

• Many in the South did not trust the Republican promise not to disturb slavery where it already existed.

• So the threat of secession finally came true on December 20, 1860 when South Carolina—lead by John C. Calhoun held a special session and voted to secede.

• By February 1861, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia had joined South Carolina in their secession from the Union.

• They sent delegates to a conference in Montgomery, Alabama and formed a new nation and government called the Confederate States of America.

• They named Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis as their President.

• They argued that their secession and new government on the theory of state’s rights.

• They argued that states voluntarily choose to enter the Union and the Constitution is a contract between the Union and that state, but when the national government breaks that contract they have the right to leave.

• Southern states argued that by not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act the national government had broken the contract.

• Lincoln was not yet president when the southern states seceded. President James Buchanan sent a message to Congress stating that the Southern states had no right to secede, but he had no way of stopping them.

• As Lincoln’s inaugural address approached many wondered what the would say and do about the situation.

• Also under debate is what Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas would do as they were slave states who had chosen to stay with the Union.

• In his address, Lincoln said that secession would not be permitted and vowed to hold federal property in the South and to enforce the laws of the United States.

• He also pleaded with the people of the South for reconciliation: “We are not enemies, but friends. We

must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

• Some of the federal properties in the South had already been seized by the Confederate government in the Southern states.

• The major challenge for Lincoln came the day after his inauguration when Lincoln received a dispatch that the fort on Harper’s Ferry in the Charleston Harbor was low on supplies and the Confederates were demanding it’s surrender.

• Lincoln sent an unarmed expedition with supplies to the Fort. He informed the governor of South Carolina that Union forces would not “throw in men, arms, or ammunition” unless they were fired upon first.

• Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his advisor made a fateful choice and ordered Confederate forces to attack the Fort before the Union supplies could arrive.

• On April 12, 1861 the attack began. 33 hours later the Fort surrendered on April 14.

• Lincoln issued the call for 75,000 troops to fight to save the Union.

• Volunteers quickly joined up.• Meanwhile, Virginia, North Carolina,

Tennessee and Arkansas seceded and joined the Confederacy.

• THE CIVIL WAR HAD BEGUN!