From Compromise to Secession

1
From Compromise to Secession

• Chapter 14
• 1850-1861

2
Introduction

• Why did the Compromise of 1850 come apart so
  quickly?
• How did the Fugitive Slave Act and the Election
  of 1852 contribute to the unraveling of the
  compromise?
• What effects did the Kansas- Nebraska Act and the
  fighting in Kansas have on the Whig , Democratic
  and Republican parties?
• How did the Republicans free soil stance bring
  northerners together in opposition to the South?
• Why did Southerners believe by 1860 that the
  North intended to end slavery everywhere in the
  nation?

3
Zachary Taylor at the Helm

• Encouraged California to apply for statehood as a
  free state
• Southerners were horrified because with the
  addition of California and possible New Mexico as
  Free States the balance of Power in Congress
  would be thrown off.

4
Henry Clay Proposes a Compromise

• Admit California as a Free State
• Divide the rest of the Mexican cession into the
  New Mexico and Utah territories, slavery
  determined by residents
• Settle border dispute between Texas and New
  Mexico in New Mexicos favor
• Compensate Texas by having the federal government
  pay states public debt
• Allow slavery to continue in Washington DC but
  ban slave trading there
• New Fugitive slave law

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Assessing the Compromise

• Compromise did not settle sectional differences
• Fugitive Slave Act backfired

6
Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act

• Federal Marshalls were required to look for
  runaways
• There was widespread opposition in the North
• Northern mobs attacked Marshalls to rescue
  fugitives
• Vigilante Committees helped runaways escape to
  Canada
• Nine States passed personal liberty laws designed
  to interfere with enforcement of the Act
• South resented Norths refusal to live up to the
  terms of the Act

7
Uncle Toms Cabin

• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Best seller in the North
• Banned in the South
• Criticism was that no one slave would endure all
  of those hardships, The author had never been to
  the South
• Aroused sympathy and anti-Southern feelings in
  the North

8
The Election of 1852

• Whigs nominated General Winfield Scott to run
  against Democrat Franklin Pierce for President
• Democrats rallied behind compromise and popular
  sovereignty.
• Northern and Southern Whigs are torn apart by
  sectional issues

9
The Collapse of the Two Party System

• 1850s issues were banking, internal
  improvements, tariffs and temperance
• Those were pushed aside by the debate over the
  extension of slavery
• Whigs were more internally divided that the
  Democrats

10
The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Stephen Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act
  in 1854
• Douglas wanted to promote the building of the
  Transcontinental Railroad
• To gain Southern support for the railroad Douglas
  proposed that the Missouri Compromise would be
  repealed, Kansas and Nebraska were organized into
  two territories and the issue of slavery would be
  determined by popular sovereignty

11
The Surge of Free Soil

• Douglas was surprised by the opposition in the
  North
• Northerners saw the Act as a plot to spread
  slavery into the Louisiana Territory
• Free Soil sentiment grew in the North
• Northerners were not particularly anti-slave,
  they wanted the territories for poor white
  American settlement and feared that slavery would
  discourage free labor.

12
The Ebbing of Manifest Destiny

• Enthusiasm for expansion began to wane because
  northerners saw expansion as a plot to advance
  slavery and slave holding states/political power
• Franklin Pierce eventually gave up plans to
  purchase Cuba because of opposition

13
The Whigs Disintegrate 1854-1855

• Southern Whigs joined with Democrats to pass the
  Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Northern Whigs led by William Seward and Free
  Soil Democrats turned to the American Party (Know
  Nothings) and then the New Republicans. Whig
  Party fell apart

14
The Rise and Fall of the Know Nothings 1853-1856

• Evolved from a secret nativist society called the
  Order of the Star Spangled Banner
• Anti-Catholic, Anti-immigrant, Anti expansion of
  slavery
• Pope and Slavery were plotting to overthrow
  American Democratic Republic
• 1854-1855 Know Nothings scored victories in
  Northern Cities and States
• Northern nativist left the party to join the new
  Republican Party and the Party declined

15
The Republican Party and the Crisis in Kansas
1855-1856

• First appeared in Northern States in protest of
  the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Formed a coalition between the Know Nothings,
  Northern Whigs and Northern Democrats who wanted
  to restore the Missouri Compromise
• Free Soilers strengthened by violence in Kansas

16
The Election of 1856

• Republicans nominated John C. Fremont- exclude
  slavery from new territories
• Democrats nominated James Buchanan- popular
  sovereignty
• Know Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore
• Buchanan won but Republicans carried many of the
  Northern states

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The Crisis of the Union 1857-1860

• Dred Scott- Supreme Court ruled that blacks slave
  or free were not citizens of the
• US. Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
• Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the
  territories
• Any laws denying slavery was a violation of the
  5th Amendment protection of property and property
  holders

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The Lecompton Constitution

• Proslavery constitution of the Kansas Territory
• Buchanan accepted the constitution and asked
  Congress to grant Kansas statehood
• Stephen Douglas denounced the constitution as
  being in violation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and
  opposed Kansas gaining statehood

19
The Lincoln- Douglas Debates 1858

• Stephen Douglas runs for re-election
• Abraham Lincoln chosen by the Republicans to run
  against Douglas for the Senate
• Lincoln attacked slavery as morally evil but
  denied that Congress had the right to abolish it.
  He stuck to the position of barring slavery from
  the territories
• Freeport Doctrine- Douglas said that slavery
  would only exist in places that supported it.
  Douglas won but his views split the Democratic
  party

20
The Legacy of Harpers Ferry

• John Brown attacks arsenal at Harpers Ferry
  Virginia
• Plan is to collect weapons, pass them out to
  slave army and attack the South
• Rumors in the South were that the Republicans and
  Abolitionists had backed the attack and were
  plotting to incite Slave Rebellion

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The South Contemplates Secession

• Conversations of secession became more frequent
  as Southerners began to look for ways to protect
  themselves
• Northern opposition to the slavery in Kansas and
  Fugitive Slave Act as unconstitutional and an
  offense to the South
• Some argued that separation from the North would
  allow the South to prosper economically and grow
  by taking more territory in the Caribbean and
  West

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Election of 1860

• Republicans broadened their appeal by supporting
  a tariff bill, internal improvements and the
  Homestead Act
• Abraham Lincoln is nominated to run for the
  Presidency
• Northern and Southern Democrats split
• Northern Democrats nominate Stephen Douglas,
  Southern Democrats nominate John C. Breckinridge
  who insisted that Congress must protect slavery
  and slaveholders
• Constitutional Party nominates John Bell.
• Lincoln wins only 39 of popular vote but
  majority of electoral votes/none from the South

25
The Movement for Secession

• Believing that a Republican President would
  impose protective tariffs that the South saw as
  unfair and restrictions on slavery the Deep South
  began to secede before Lincoln took office
• South Carolina- December 4th 1860
• Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana
  and Texas follow
• February 4th 1861 delegates from the seceding
  states meet in Montgomery Alabama to draw up the
  Confederate Constitution and form the Confederate
  States of America

26
The Search for Compromise

• Kentucky Senator John Crittenden proposes a
  compromise to bring the Deep South back into the
  Union
• It included Constitutional Amendments that the
  federal government would never interfere with
  slavery and renewed the Missouri Compromise to
  included territories added through Manifest
  Destiny
• Lincoln rejected the Crittenden Compromise
  because he would not abandon his free-soil
  promise

27
The Coming of War

• Soon after Lincolns inauguration, the US
  military stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston
  Harbor asked for reinforcements and supplies
• The Confederate officials called for US military
  to leave all installations in the South.
• Lincoln refused to allow Fort Sumter to be
  abandoned to the Confederate Government and
  attempted to resupply the fort to force the hand
  of the South.
• Confederate forces bombarded the fort from April
  12-14th of 1861 until the defenders of the fort
  surrendered
• Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to subdue
  the rebellion in the South
• Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee
  declared secession rather than send troops to
  fight sister southern states