James Buchanans Really Bad Year

1
James Buchanans Really Bad Year

• 1856-1857

2
1857

• Slide toward civil war grows steeper
• Three major crises in a single year
• Democrats straining to keep themselves together
• Demonstrates limitations of the system under this
  kind of stress
• Right James Buchanan, photo by Matthew Brady,
  ca. 1850s, Library of Congress

3
Crisis 1 Kansas, 1854-1857

• Bleeding Kansas state of civil war within the
  territory beginning late 1854
• All agreed NE to be free
• KS different
• Near Missouri
• Both sides rush to control it first

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Rush to Kansas

• New England Emigrant Aid Society
• 1200 colonists
• Churches, philanthropists
• Funding and organization
• Other groups follow same model

• Southerners move in
• A lot less organized and efficient
• Closer proximity
• Trying to get in as quickly as possible to
  prepare for elections in March, 1855

5
Elections stolen

• Border Ruffians
• Thousands cross in to vote and return home
• Fraud and intimidation
• Slavery wins
• Fraud apparent even Democrats territorial
  governor says so

6
Two different governments for Kansas

• Pro-slavery legislature meets
• Expelled anti-slavery members
• Adopts strict slave code
• Makes it a felony to question legality of slavery
  in Kansas

• Free state forces form their own government
• Topeka, 1855
• Write own constitution
• Hold legislative elections
• Neither government controlled the state
• Both began collecting arms by 1856

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Pro-slavery forces attack

• Lawrence, Kansas
• May 21, 1856
• Proslavery militia attacks
• Burn and loot town
• One killed

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Antislavery forces respond

• John Brown and the Pottawatomie Massacre
• May 24-25, 1856
• Five proslavery settlers killed
• Guerilla war result
• 1856 alone, 200 killed and 2 million in property
  damage
• Right John Brown, photo ca. 1856, National
  Archives

9
Kansas disrupts Congress

• Sen. Charles Sumner (R-MA) speech The Crime
  Against Kansas
• May 20-21,1856
• Singled out other senators for criticism
• Andrew Butler (D-SC)
• Beaten nearly to death by Rep. Preston Brooks
  (D-SC) on May 22, 1856
• Right Cartoon by John L. Magee, 1856.

10
Buchanan makes it worse

• After coming into office chooses new governor
• Robert Walker of Mississippi
• Walker not what youd expect
• Told Buchanan than proslavery people not in
  majority
• Urged him to support free state forces to make
  Kansas Democratic
• Buchanan appears to listen

11
Lecompton Constitution

• Proslavery forces hold elections for their own
  state constitution in December, 1857
• No complete up or down vote
• Either with slavery
• Or without slavery
• Rigged election favored slavery

12
Walker cries foul

• Tells Buchanan that he must oppose Lecompton
  since it was an obvious fraud
• Buchanan goes along, influenced by Southerners in
  the cabinet
• Walker resigns
• Democrats split openly now
• Buchanan and southerners
• Douglas and the independents

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Crisis 2 Scott v. Sanford

• Kansas bad, this makes the wider situation worse
• Scott case winding through courts since early
  1850s
• Facts
• To the United States Supreme Court, 1856
• Dred Scott, portrait by Louis Schultze, 1882

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Opinion and its importance

• 7-2 against Scott, but seven different sets of
  reasoning
• Chief Justice Roger Taney in majority
• His ruling becomes binding
• Sweeping defense of slavery
• Right Roger B. Taney, photo by Matthew Brady,
  ca. 1850s, Library of Congress

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What Taney said

• Scott lacked standing to sue since he was not a
  citizen
• Citizenship only from birth and naturalization
• Blacks had no rights which the white man was
  bound to respect

• Missouri Compromise unconstitutional
• Fifth Amendment prevents Congress limiting
  slavery
• Congress cannot, neither can states or localities
• Undid popular sovereignty
• Made Republican Party platform of 1856
  unconstitutional

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Reaction

• In North anger
• Buchanan and Taney
• Slavery can now spread everywhere
• Threat to free labor
• In South jubilation
• Swept aside limits on slavery

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Crisis 3 Panic of 1857

• International trade problems for US
• End of Crimean War
• Decline in wheat prices
• Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. fails
• Banking and stock panic
• Overproduction
• Factories shut down
• Glutted manufacturing

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Blame game

• Northerners blame Democrats and by extension the
  South
• Tariff of 1857
• Southerners claim Panic demonstrates superiority
  of their system
• Cotton prices more stable
• Slave prices and values hold
• Slave labor could have eased manufacturing bottom
  line