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Chapter 19. Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854–1861. I. Stowe and Helper: Literary Incendiaries. Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe Political force for the North, it presented slavery as an evil institution.
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Chapter 19 • Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854–1861
I. Stowe and Helper: Literary Incendiaries • Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe • Political force for the North, it presented slavery as an evil institution. • It was very big in Europe. The constituents in London and Paris were in love with this struggle.
The Impending Crisis of the South – Hinton R. Helper • Helper had no loyalty to slavery or blacks… he hated both. • Attempted to prove that indirectly the nonslaveholding whites were the ones hurt most from slavery. • Southern elite banned the book in the South for fear that the nonslaveholding majority might abandon them.
II. The North-South Contest for Kansas • New England Emigrant Aid Company • Sent about 2,000 people into Kansas to push abolitionist ideals. • Betrayal?? The South had supported the unspoken understanding that if they supported Senator Douglas’s scheme, they believed that Kansas would become slave and Nebraska free.
When Kansas’s territorial legislature was being voted on (1855,) proslavery “border ruffians” poured in to Kansas from Missouri to vote early and often… they won the election. • Upset with this fraud, free-soilers setup their own government in Topeka. Meaning that Kansans had two governments within their borders. • Breaking point – 1856 a gang of proslavery raiders shot up and burned the town of Lawrence.
III. Kansas in Convulsion • John Brown – obsessed abolitionist • Became involved in some pretty shady stuff (including horse stealing.) • He led a band of followers to Pottawatomie Creek (May 1856) and killed five proslavery men. • Civil war in Kansas begins 1856 and basically continues until it merges with the Civil War
Proslavery side created the Lecompton Constitution. • People weren’t voting for whether or not they wanted the constitution, but whether they wanted it with or without slavery. • If they voted against slavery however, a provision in the constitution protected the owners of slaves already in Kansas. • Free-soilers boycotted the election and the constitution was passed with slavery. • Senator Douglas fought it in the Senate and brought it to a true popular vote and with free-soil voters at the polls it was defeated.
IV. “Bully” Brooks and His Bludgeon • Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a speech called “The Crime Against Kansas.” • During the speech he insulted South Carolina and old senator Andrew Butler. • Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina was upset by the insults and decided to beat Sumner within an inch of his life… Southern Chivalry.
V. “Old Buck” Versus “The Pathfinder” • Republican platform = no extension of slavery into the territories • Democrats = popular sovereignty
VII. The Dred Scott Bombshell • Dred Scott v. Stanford case – Dred Scott (black slave) had lived w/master for five years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by abolitionists, he sued for his freedom on the basis of living on free soil for so long. • The court could’ve thrown out the case because Scott was a slave and not a citizen, meaning he couldn’t sue in federal courts, but they decided to take on the decision anyway.
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland (slave state) gave the majority decision of the court. The ruling was that because a slave was private property, they could be taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery. • They cited the 5th amendment which stated that people cannot be deprived of private property without due process of law. • Republicans insisted that the ruling of the court was only an opinion, not a decision. They were defiant because they knew the majority of the Supreme Court members were southerners.
VIII. The Financial Crash of 1857 • Economic hard times hit the North primarily. • California gold inflated currency • Over production of grain meant for the Crimean War in Russia • Frenzied speculation in land and railroads • Thousands of businesses fail within the year and those out of work soon began shouting “bread or Death”
During this time the South was enjoying favorable cotton prices abroad, enabling them to ride out the panic with ease. • Which helped drive the overconfident South closer to a showdown with the North.
IX. An Illinois Rail-Splitter Emerges • Lincoln was a rustic lawyer that refused to take a case if it went against his conscience. • He was born in a Kentucky log cabin to poor parents. • He was mainly self-educated. • He married “above himself” into the influential Todd family of Kentucky. • He ran for senator but lost to incumbent Senator Stephen A. Douglas.
X. The Great Debate: Lincoln Versus Douglas • Lincoln-Douglas debates • Douglas had strong debate skills and was to destroy Lincoln. • Lincoln was ugly, awkward in front of a crowd, and had a high-pitched voice. • Lincoln posed the Freeport question... Suppose the people of a territory should vote down slavery (popular sovereignty.) The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed that they could not. Who would prevail, the Court or the People?
Douglas’s reply became known as the Freeport Doctrine… he said that no matter what the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down. • Douglas’s popular sovereignty stance helped him win his spot in the Senate, but probably hurt his chances at a presidential run. Lincoln on the other had was in good position.
XI. John Brown: Murderer or Martyr? • John Brown plotted a daring scheme to secretly invade the south and help the slaves rise up in rebellion once and for all. • After securing thousands of dollars from abolitionists for guns, he led about 20 men into western Virginia to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. • In the process, he and his men killed 7 innocent people (including a free black) and injured 10 others. • Local slaves hadn’t really heard of the attack and never rose up.
The injured Brown and his men were quickly captured by U.S. Marines under Robert E. Lee. • Brown has a long line of insane relatives which probably explains a few things about him. • Instead of locking him in an insane asylum they decided to execute him, which portrays him as a martyr for the cause.
XII. The Disruption of the Democrats • Democrats met in Charleston, South Carolina, to meet with Douglas (the leading presidential candidate in the northern wing of the party.) • After Douglas’s stand on the Lecompton Constitution and the Freeport Doctrine delegates from the cotton states walked out of the Democratic National Convention.
The southern Democrats organized their own convention in Baltimore. • There they built a platform around the extension of slavery into the territories and annexation of slave-populated Cuba.
XIII. A Rail-Splitter Splits the Union • Lincoln’s Republican platform heavily favored the northern groups. • Free-soilers, nonextension of slavery. • Manufacturers, a protective tariff. • Immigrants, no abridgement of rights. • Northwest, a Pacific railroad • West, internal improvements at federal expense • Farmers, free homesteads • Southern secessionists said that they would split the Union if the rail-splitter was elected.
XIV. The Electoral Upheaval of 1860 • The election was really like two elections: one in the North and one in the South. • With the election of Abraham Lincoln southern secessionists were given their excuse to secede. • Even with Lincoln’s election the South wasn’t sitting too bad. They still had a 5 to 4 majority on the Supreme Court and democrats controlled the House and the Senate.
