Background to the Civil War

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Background to the Civil War

• Political Parties
• Wilmot Proviso
• Compromise of 1850
• Uncle Toms Cabin
• Kansas Nebraska Act--Bleeding Kansas
• Republican Party
• Dred Scott
• John Brown
• Election of 1860

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Political Parties

• Democratsstrongest in South
• More democratic
• Generally pro-slavery
• Whigsstronger in North
• More elitist
• Generally anti-spread of slavery
• BUT there were southern Whigs and northern
  Democrats

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Wilmot Proviso (August 1846)

• Proposal to prohibit slavery in new territories
  gained from Mexico
• Divided upon sectional lines
• Northern Democrats supported
• Whigs supported

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Possible solutions

• Extend Louisiana Purchase line across
• Popular sovereignty (Lewis Cass, Stephen
  Douglas)but when?
• Cass became Democratic nominee in 1848
• Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor
• Northern Whigs did not support Taylor
• Free Soil Party formed

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Zachary Taylor

• Southern slaveholder
• William Seward (antislavery) was chief advisor
• Southerners regretted his election
• Virginia newspapersRichmond Whig and Richmond
  Enquirer

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Compromise Proposal (Clay)

• California admitted free
• New Mexico and Utah with no reference to slavery
• Texas territory reduced Texas debts assumed
• Slave trade abolished in DC but slavery itself
  guaranteed

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Speeches

• Webster speak as an American
• Calhoun equilibrium destroyed
• Seward slavery an unjust, backward, dying
  institution. . . Higher law than Constitution

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Compromise of 1850

• President Taylor died in July
• Millard Fillmore (Buffalo) becomes president
• Fillmore disliked Seward (NY factions) and
  favored compromise
• Stronger fugitive slave law added
• Compromise passed

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William Graham (NC) to brother, Jan. 1851

• I think the settlement of the last session and
  the firm course of the Administration in the
  execution of the fugitive slave law have given a
  new lease to slavery. Property of that kind has
  not been so secure for the last twenty-five
  years.

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Fugitive Slave Law

• Most divisive of the compromise measures
• Law of 1793 allowed southerners to come North
  capture fugitive slaves
• Northern liberty laws gave captives legal
  rights
• Law of 1850 gave captives no legal rights

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Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)

• Prigg appealed conviction for kidnapping
• Supreme Court ruled Pennsylvania liberty law
  unconstitutional
• But also that enforcement of 1793 fugitive slave
  law was federal responsibility

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Northern reaction to Fugitive Slave Law

• Some northern states passed more liberty laws
• Northerners formed community committees to aid
  runaway slaves
• Underground Railroad
• Southerners saw vast conspiracy

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Fugitive Slave Law (1850)

• First 15 months, 84 fugitives returned, only 5
  released
• During decade, 332 returned, 11 declared free
• No statute of limitations
• Many blacks went to Canada

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Cases

• William and Ellen Craftprotected by Boston
  anti-slavery group
• Shadrachwaiter had escaped from
  Virginiacaptured in Boston but rescued and sent
  to Canada
• Thomas Simscaptured and sent South

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Christiana, Pennsylvania (Sept. 1851)

• Maryland slaveowner killed and son wounded
  attempting to capture slave. Resisters charged
  with treason, but case collapsed

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Fugitive Cases

• William McHenry (Jerry) rescued from police
  station in Syracuse
• Henry Box Brown
• Henry Long
• Anthony Burns

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Henry Long

• Russell County Virginia owner
• Long worked in Richmond
• Escaped to New York
• Returned to Richmond
• Sold south
• Richmond Enquirer covered story

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Uncle Toms Cabin

• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Best seller of all time in proportion to
  population
• Southerners hated it detestable and monstrous
• Pro-slavery novels Uncle Robin in His Cabin in
  Virginia and Tom Without One in Boston

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Kansas Nebraska Act

• Stephen Douglas
• Transcontinental RR
• Popular Sovereignty
• Repeal of Missouri Compromise
• End of Whigs
• Formation of Republican Party
• Emergence of Lincoln

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Bleeding Kansas

• Anti-slavery leaders to fight there
• New England Emigrant Aid Company
• Amos Lawrence
• Pro-slavery settlers from Missouri outnumbered
  anti-slavery Kansans
• Violence broke out1855-56

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John Brown in Kansas

• "These men are all talk. What we need is action -
  action!"
• Pottawatomie massacre
• James Doyle and two sons (slave-catchers and
  members of the Law and Order Party)

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Pro-slavery MissourianDavid Aitchison

• To Jefferson Davis and Robert Hunter
• We are organizing. We will be compelled to
  shoot, burn hang, but the thing will soon be
  over. . . .If we win we carry slavery to the
  Pacific Ocean, if we fail we lose Missouri
  Arkansas Texas and all the territories.

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Violence in Senate

• Sumner caned by Brooks, May 1856
• Northerners outraged
• Southern students contributed to buy Brooks new
  cane
• Southern reaction outraged Northerners even more

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Republican Party

• 1854
• Response to Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Free Labor, free land, free men.
• Opposed expansion of slavery

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President Buchanan, 1856

• Considered pro-South
• Accepted Lecompton Constitution for Kansas
  (pro-slavery)
• Northerners considered it a fraud
• Split Democratic Party
• More fighting in Congress
• Lecompton defeated Kansas statehood delayed
  until 1861

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Dred Scott

• Belonged to army surgeon from Missouri
• Had been taken to Illinois, Minnesota
• Scott sued for freedom in 1846
• Went to federal court

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Dred Scott

• Supreme Court heard case
• 3 questions
• Could Scott sue in federal court?
• Was he free from stays in free territories/state?
• Was Fort Snelling in Minn. Territory free
  territory?

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Dred Scott

• Chief Justice Roger Taney
• issued a comprehensive pro-slavery ruling
• Blacks could not sue in federal courts
• Stay in free territory did not make him free
• Congress had no right to ban slavery in
  territories

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Harpers Ferry, 1859
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Reaction to Harpers Ferry Raid

• Search Valley project newspapers
• Southerners used words like outrage,
  rebellion
• Northerners generally supported cause, but
  criticized methods

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Election of 1860

• LincolnRepublican
• DouglasDemocrat (northern)
• BreckenridgeDemocrat (southern)
• Bell(Constitution and Unionmostly Whigs)

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National Results, 1860

• 39.8 29.5 18.1 12.6

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Electoral College, 1860
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Election of 1860

• Voting by precinctAugusta
• http//valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/tablesandstats/
  augusta/aelection60_1.html
• Voting by precinctFranklin
• http//valley.lib.virginia.edu/VoS/tablesandstats/
  franklin/frelection60_1.html