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The American JourneyA History of the United States, 7th Edition

By: Goldfield • Abbott • Anderson • Argersinger • Argersinger • Barney • Weir

Chapter

•The Politics of

Sectionalism

•1846-1861

14

The Politics of Sectionalism

1846-1861

Slavery in the Territories

Political Realignment

The Road to Disunion

Conclusion

Learning Objectives

Why was the issue of slavery in the territories so

contentious?

What factors contributed to the Republicans’ rise to political

prominence?

Why were Southerners so alarmed by the election of

Abraham Lincoln in 1860?


From the late 1840s until 1861, northern and southern

leaders attempted to fashion a solution to the problem of

slavery in the territories.

The Wilmot Proviso

Proposed by Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot in 1846,

the Wilmot Proviso called for outlawing of slavery in any

territories acquired from Mexico.

The debate over the proviso aroused distrust and suspicion

between Northerners and Southerners as Congress

divided along sectional lines.

The Wilmot Proviso (cont'd)

Wilmot Proviso

The amendment offered by Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot in

1846 which stipulated that “as an express and fundamental condition

to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico . . .

neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of

said territory.”

The Election of 1848

To defuse the slavery issue, Democratic presidential

nominee Lewis Cass proposed the doctrine of popular

sovereignty that let the people decide on whether slavery

would be permitted or not.

The Election of 1848 (cont’d)

The Whig nominee Zachary Taylor was silent on the slavery

issue but northern Whigs bolted the party and formed the

Free-Soil Party with a platform of “free soil, free speech,

free labor, free men.”


Taylor won the election.

Popular Sovereignty

A solution to the slavery crisis suggested by Michigan senator Lewis

Cass by which territorial residents, not Congress, would decide

slavery’s fate.

The Gold Rush

The discovery of gold in California triggered a rush that

brought more than 100,000 people to the territory.

San Francisco was transformed from a small port to a

bustling metropolis.

The Compromise of 1850

When California applied for admission to the Union, the

issue of parity among slave and free states arose.

President Taylor supported a version of popular sovereignty.

The Compromise of 1850 (cont’d)

Henry Clay offered the Compromise of 1850 that was

eventually passed when Illinois Senator Stephen A.

Douglas offered the proposals as separate initiatives.

The Compromise of 1850 (cont’d)

The major benefit for southerners was a stronger Fugitive

Slave Act.

Fugitive Slave Act

Law, part of the Compromise of 1850 that required authorities in the

North to assist southern slave catchers and return runaway slaves to

their owners.

MAP 14–1 The Compromise of 1850

Response to the Fugitive Slave Act

Free African Americans in the North responded to the

Fugitive Slave Act by forming associations for protection

and resistance.

Frederick Douglass convened the National Black

Convention in 1853 to establish a national council but it

failed.

Slavery in the Territories (cont'd)

Compromise of 1850

The four-step compromise which admitted California as a free state,

allowed the residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories to decide

the slavery issue for themselves, ended the slave trade in the District

of Columbia, and passed a new fugitive slave law to enforce the

constitutional provision stating that a slave escaping into a free state

shall be delivered back to the owner.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel ignited a firestorm over

slavery, moving many northerner whites to more active

antislavery participation.

Southerners condemned Uncle Tom’s Cabin.


The Compromise of 1850 had divided the Whigs.

Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce won a landslide over

Whig candidate General Winfield Scott.

Political Realignment

Young America’s

Foreign Misadventures

Franklin Pierce supported the Young America movement to

expand American influence into the Caribbean and Latin

America.

The Ostend Manifesto called for the United States to buy

Cuba and aroused an uproar in the United States and

other nations.

Young America’s

Foreign Misadventures (cont'd)

William Walker attempted to gain control of Nicaragua but

failed.

Ostend Manifesto

Message sent by U.S. envoys to President Pierce from Ostend, Belgium,

in 1854, stating that the United States had a “divine right” to wrest

Cuba from Spain.

Stephen Douglas’s Railroad Proposal

Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted the transcontinental

railroad route to go through Chicago and Indian-occupied

Nebraska Territory.

President Pierce forced the Native Americans to cede land

for the railroad in 1853.

Stephen Douglas’s Railroad Proposal (cont’d)

Douglas sought congressional approval to set up a

government in the Nebraska Territory.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska Bill broke the territory into two

territories, Kansas and Nebraska.

Douglas supported popular sovereignty.

Northerners were outraged because the Bill repealed the

Missouri Compromise and showed the South’s

determination to spread slavery.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

President Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Bill which

became law.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Law passed in 1854 creating the Kansas and Nebraska Territories but

leaving the question of slavery open to residents, thereby repealing

the Missouri Compromise.

“Bleeding Kansas”

Northerners and Southerners rushed to settle Kansas and

gain a majority in the territory.

The proslavery forces fraudulently elected a legislature and

passed laws supporting slavery.

Sporadic violence erupted leading journalists to call the

conflict “Bleeding Kansas.”

“Bleeding Kansas” (cont'd)

“Bleeding Kansas”

Violence between pro- and antislavery forces in Kansas Territory after

the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.

MAP 14–2 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

Know-Nothings and Republicans: Religion and

Politics

Mounting violence polarized the North and South, widening

sectional conflicts within political parties.

Between 1854 and 1856, Northerners moved into new

political parties that changed the national political scene

and intensified the sectional conflict.


Politics (cont’d)

Anti-immigration feeling also contributed to the party

realignment. The Democrats tried to appeal to the Irish

immigrants but nativists formed the anti-immigrant, anti-

Catholic Know Nothing Party.


Politics (cont’d)

The Republican Party was formed in 1854 from a coalition

of antislavery Whigs and Democrats.

Know-Nothing Party

Anti-immigrant party formed from the wreckage of the Whig Party and

some disaffected northern Democrats in 1854.


Politics (cont’d)

Republican Party

Party headed by Thomas Jefferson that formed in opposition to the

financial and diplomatic policies of the Federalist Party; favored

limiting the powers of the national government and placing the

interests of farmers and planters over those of financial and

commercial groups; supported the cause of the French Revolution.


The election of 1856 was approached by a fragmented political party system.

The Know-Nothing and Republican parties each nominated candidates. John C. Frémont was the Republican candidate. The Know-Nothings split in northern and southern factions. Millard Fillmore represented the southern Know-Nothings while the northern group supported Frémont.


The Democrats were divided and nominated James

Buchanan who won the election.

The Dred Scott Case

Dred Scott sued for his freedom and the case eventually

reached the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney dismissed Scott’s case and

his opinion argued African Americans in the northern

states were not citizens and so could not initiate a lawsuit.

He also ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.

The Dred Scott Case (cont'd)

African Americans strongly responded to the Dred Scott

decision.

Outrage over the Dred Scott decision boosted Republican

fortunes in the North.

The Dred Scott Case (cont'd)

Dred Scott decision

Supreme Court ruling, in a lawsuit brought by Dred Scott, a slave

demanding his freedom based on his residence in a free state and a

free territory with his master, that slaves could not be U.S. citizens and

that Congress had no jurisdiction over slavery in the territories.

The Lecompton Constitution

Violence had subsided in Kansas but passage of the

proslavery Lecompton Constitution failed to pass in the

Senate.

The Panic of 1857 was a severe economic recession that

continued into the election year of 1858.

The Lecompton Constitution (cont’d)

The Democratic administration did nothing to alleviate the

worsening economic conditions while the Republicans

claimed legislation they sponsored could have prevented

the Panic.

The Lecompton Constitution (cont’d)

Lecompton Constitution

Proslavery draft written in 1857 by Kansas territorial delegates elected

under questionable circumstances; it was rejected by two governors,

supported by President Buchanan, and decisively defeated by

Congress.

Panic of 1857

Banking crisis that caused a credit crunch in the North; it was less severe

in the South, where high cotton prices spurred a quick recovery.

The Religious Revival of 1857–1858

In the midst of economic depression and sectional

controversy, a religious revival swept across the nation’s

cities in the winter of 1857–1858.

Its long-range impact was significant not only culturally, but

politically, as emerging issues took on a deeper moral

dimension.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

The Lincoln-Douglas debates pitted the incumbent

Democratic senator against former Whig congressman

Abraham Lincoln.

The debates were held throughout Illinois and highlighted

the differences between Democrats and Republicans and

North and South.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (cont'd)

Douglas won the election.

Lincoln-Douglas debates

Series of debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign during which

Democrat Stephen A. Douglas and Republican Abraham Lincoln

staked out their differing opinions on the issue of slavery in the

territories.

The Road to Disunion

North-South Differences

Ideological divisions were not the only differences dividing

North and South.

The North was increasingly urban and industrial while the

South remained rural and agricultural.

The rate of urban and industrial growth in the North was

greater than anywhere else in the world in the early

1800s.

North-South Differences (cont'd)

Other differences included more violent tendencies among

Southerners, a stronger inclination to serve in the military,

and a higher illiteracy rate.

Slavery accounted for many of the differences between

North and South.

MAP 14–3 Railroads in

the United States, 1860

South and North Compared in 1860

John Brown’s Raid

John Brown had become a celebrity in New England

intellectual and antislavery circles.

In 1859, Brown recruited a small “army” and attacked the

federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry hoping to trigger a slave

uprising.

Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee captured Brown and

his followers.

John Brown’s Raid (cont'd)

John Brown’s raid raised the worst fears of southerners.

John Brown’s Raid

New England abolitionist John Brown’s ill-fated attempt to free Virginia’s

slaves with a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in

1859.


Northern Democrats were united behind Stephen A.

Douglas but southern extremists disrupted the convention

hoping to combine a Republican victory with secession.

Northern Democrats nominated Douglas while southern

Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.


Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln and Whigs from

the Upper South formed the Constitutional Union Party to

nominate John Bell of Tennessee.

Lincoln won the election.


Constitutional Union party

National party formed in 1860, mainly by former Whigs, that emphasized

allegiance to the Union and strict enforcement of all national

legislation.

Wide Awakes

Group of red-shirted, black-caped young men who paraded through city

streets in the North extolling the virtues of the Republican Party during

the 1860 presidential election campaign.

MAP 14–4 The Election of 1860

Secession and Slavery

Abraham Lincoln’s victory prompted the secession of six

southern states.

Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and

Texas formed the Confederate States of America.

Confederate States of America

Nation proclaimed in Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861 after the

seven states of the Lower South seceded from the United States.

MAP 14–5 The Course of Secession

Presidential Inaction

A lame-duck president whose southern dominated cabinet had

left Washington, Buchanan did little to more than condemn

secession.

Peace Proposals

Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden tried to package a

series of constitutional amendments to solve the sectional

dispute but this effort failed.

Lincoln’s Views on Secession

Lincoln did not support compromise measures on

secession.

Lincoln counted on Unionist sentiment to keep the Upper

South from seceding.

The Emerging Sectional Crisis

Fort Sumter: The Tug Comes

Lincoln vowed to uphold federal law and was conciliatory,

but southerners wanted concessions.

Fort Sumter: The Tug Comes (cont'd)

The surrender of Fort Sumter began the Civil War.

Fort Sumter

Begun in the late 1820s to protect Charleston, South Carolina, it became

the center of national attention in April 1861 when President Lincoln

attempted to provision federal troops at the fort, triggering a hostile

response from on-shore Confederate forces, opening the Civil War.

Conclusion

Conclusion

The Wilmot Proviso began the process that ended with the

outbreak of the Civil War.

Political conflict over slavery eventually focused on northern

efforts to stop southern expansion and southern to

maintain their power and influence in the federal

government by expanding slavery in the western

territories.

Conclusion (cont'd)

By 1861, neither national political and other organizations

could mute sectional animosities.

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