inevitable avoidable

Spectrum of Causality

inevitable

“Irrepressible Conflict” school

avoidable

“Blundering Generation” school

Spectrum of Causality

Stephen A. Douglas,

US Senator 1847-1861

James Buchanan,

President 1857-1861

Abraham Lincoln,

President 1861-1865

John C. Calhoun,

US Senator 1833-1850

The “Blundering Generation” of American Politicians

The US in 1800 The US in 1850

Missouri Compromise, 1820

“THE BALANCE OF TRADE WITH GREAT BRITAIN SEEMS TO BE AGAINST US”

“Enslave a man, and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity.

In the constitution of human nature, the desire of bettering one’s condition is the mainspring of effort.”

--Horace Greeley

"The Hireling"Free but in name -- the slaves of endless toil...

In squalid hut -- a kennel for the poor,Or noisome cellar, stretched upon the floor,

His clothing rags, of filthy straw his bed,With offal from the gutter daily fed...

These are the miseries, such the wants, the cares,The bliss that freedom for the serf prepares...

"The Slave"Taught by the master's efforts, by his care

Fed, clothed, protected many a patient year,From trivial numbers now to millions grown,

With all the white man's useful arts their own,Industrious, docile, skilled in wood and field,To guide the plow, the sturdy axe to wield...Guarded from want, from beggary secure,

He never feels what hireling crowds endure,Nor knows, like them, in hopeless want to crave,

For wife and child, the comforts of the slave,Or the sad thought that, when about to die,He leaves them to the cold world's charity...

“The Hireling and the Slave” William John Grayson, 1855

Compromise of 1850

Missouri Compromise, 1820

Kansas-Nebraska Act

North Carolina Senator George Badger

Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade

If some southern gentleman wishes to take the . . . old woman who nursed him in childhood and whom he called ‘Mammy’ . . . into one of these territories, why in the name of God should anyone prevent it?

We have not the least objection . . . to the Senator’s migrating to Kansas and taking his old ‘Mammy’ along with him. We only insist that he shall not be empowered to sell her after taking her there.

Artist’s representation of the caning of Charles Sumner

May 22, 1856

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Stephen Douglas

Do you wish to turn this beautiful State into a free negro colony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves?

If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves . . . then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of the negro.

Abraham Lincoln

I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.

The cause of liberty and justice has triumphed in the late election. . . .

I am sorry that the people of South Carolina are making so much fuss about their defeat, but I have not the least apprehension that anything serious will result from it.

Williams Cullen Bryant

The great revolution has already taken place. . .

The country has once and for all thrown off the domination of the Slaveholders.

Charles Francis Adams

James Buchanan

Surely when we reach the brink of the yawning abyss we shall recoil with horror from the last fatal plunge.

By such a dread catastrophe the hopes of the friends of freedom throughout the world would be destroyed, and a long night of leaden despotism would enshroud the nations.

Our example for more than eighty years would not only be lost, but it would be quoted as a conclusive proof that man is unfit for self-government.

Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens

Our new government is founded upon. . . the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.

This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

If we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment on us ad libitum. A year will not pass, till we shall have to take Cuba as a condition upon which they will stay in the Union.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend” it.