Sectional Politics

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Sectional Politics

• Chapter 4

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The Rise of theSlavery Issue

• Should slavery be allowed in the Mexican Cession?
• David Wilmot (Penn.) had already suggested that
  slavery be outlawed in the Mexican cession.
• The Wilmot Proviso
• John C. Calhoun (S.C.) wanted to allow slavery.
• A more moderate proposal by Pres. Polk was to
  extend the Missouri Compromise
• Others such as Lewis Cass (Mich.) and Stephen
  Douglass (ILL.) wanted popular sovereignty
• Allow the people of each territory rather than
  Congress decide the status of slavery.

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Presidential election of 1848

• Both parties tried to avoid the issue of slavery
• Democrats nominate Lewis Cass (and deny power of
  Congress to interfere with slavery) popular
  sovereignty
• Whigs choose Zachary Taylor, a slaveholder from
  Louisiana who owned more than 100 slaves (and
  adopt no platform at all)
• Development of the Free Soil Party
• Rebellious northern Democrats
• Antislavery Whigs (Conscience vs. Cotton
  Whigs)
• Members of the antislavery Liberty party
• Nominate Martin Van Buren
• Slogan free soil, free speech, free labor, free
  men
• Election goes to Taylor

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California Statehood

• By 1849 California had enough residents to be
  admitted as a state (Gold Rush).
• The balance of power between the North and the
  South stood at 15 each.
• Taylor calls for admission of California as a
  free state and thought slavery should be banned
  in all of the Mexican cession. He was convinced
  that slavery would never flourish in the West.
• Taylors suggestion touched off the most serious
  sectional crisis the Union had yet confronted.

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The Great Debate

• Henry Clay decided that a grand compromise was
  needed to end all disputes between the North and
  the South and to save the Union.
• Already, Mississippi had summoned a southern
  convention to meet in Nashville to discuss the
  crisis and extremists were pushing for secession.
• The Senate debated the compromise for six months.
  Finally Stephen Douglass took over and passed
  each part of the compromise individually.
  President Taylors death in July 1850 helped push
  forward the compromise.

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The Compromise of 1850

• California admitted as free state
• Rest of Mex. Cession divided into two
  territories New Mexico Utah under
  popular sovereignty
• The slave trade, not slavery itself, would be
  abolished in the District of Columbia
• A new, more rigorous Fugitive Slave Law

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The Fugitive Slave Act

• Enabled southerners to reclaim runaway slaves in
  the North
• Denied an accused runaway a trial by jury and it
  required all citizens assist federal marshals in
  its enforcement
• Northern reaction to the act found the fugitive
  slave act hard to swallow

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Uncle Toms Cabin (1852)

• By Harriet Beecher Stowe
• A tremendous commercial success, it was perhaps
  the most effective piece of antislavery
  propaganda.
• Presented a powerful moral indictment of the law
  and of slavery as an institution.

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The Election of 1852

• Both the Whigs and the Democrats
  endorsed the Compromise
• Democrats turn to Franklin Pierce who defeated
  Whig candidate Winfield Scott
• Even more significantly, the antislavery Free
  Soil Party did not receive many votes.
• With the slavery issue seemingly losing political
  force, it appeared that the Union had weathered
  the storm unleashed by the Wilmot Proviso.

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Sectional Changesin American Society

• The Growth of a Railroad Economy
• In the 1850s, railroad construction took cottons
  place as the driving force behind the economy.
• Reorientation of western trade
• Urbanization in the North reached over 50 for
  first time in 1860
• Rising Industrialization in the North
• Influx of immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s
  threatened the sectional balance of power.

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Sectional Changes in American Society

• Southern economic dependence

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The Gadsden Purchase, 1853

• Ideas for a transcontinental railroad
• President Pierce wanted to build a southern route
  for a railroad
• With the Gadsden Purchase, the U.S. gained 45,000
  square miles of Mexican desert, which contained
  the most practical southern route for a
  transcontinental railroad.

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The Railroad Affects Politics

• Sen. Stephen Douglas (Ill.) wanted to build a
  transcontinental railroad from Chicago.
• This could not be done until the rest of the
  Louisiana Purchase was organized.

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Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

• Repealed the Missouri Compromise
• Created two territories based on popular
  sovereignty,
• Most northern opponents of the bill focused on
  the expansion of slavery and the Slave Power
  rather than the moral evil of slavery.
• Once President Pierce endorsed the bill, it
  passed and the Missouri Compromise was repealed

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The Political Realignment of the 1850s

• Collapse of the Second American Party System
• The fight over the bill divided the political
  parties along sectional lines and effectively
  destroyed the Whig party and the Republican Party
  emerged to take its place, uniting around the
  ideal of free labor.
• The Republican Party
• No base in the South.
• Intended to elect a president by sweeping the
  free states, which now controlled a majority of
  the electoral votes.
• Election of 1856
• Democrat James Buchanan (Penn.) beats Republican
  John C. Freemont (Calif.) in a close election.
  Republicans began preparing for 1860.

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The Worsening Crisis

• Bleeding Kansas
• Violence broke out between two rival governments
  one free one slave
• Bleeding Sumner
• The violence spread when Congressman Preston
  Brooks (S.C.) attacked Sen. Charles Sumner
  (Mass.) with his cane.
• The Dred Scott Decision
• Chief Justice Taney says that African-Americans
  could not be citizens and that Congress could not
  ban slavery.
• Encouraged political extremism.

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The WorseningCrisis

• The Panic of 1857
• Economic issues increase sectional tensions
• The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
• Douglas and Lincoln on the slavery issue.
• Lincoln lost the senatorial contest in Illinois.
• Lincolns performance marked him as a possible
  presidential contender for 1860.

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John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry (1859)

• An abolitionist seized the unguarded federal
  armory at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in hopes of
  starting a slave insurrection.
• He was captured and executed.
• Another blow weakening the forces of compromise
  and moderation.

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A Sectional Election (1860)

• Actually two contests
• North Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) vs. Stephan
  Douglass (N. Dem.)
• South John Breckinridge (S. Dem.) vs. John Bell
  (Constitutional Union)
• Lincoln wins less than 40 of popular vote with
  virtually no support in the South.
• For the first time, the nation had elected a
  president who headed a completely sectional party
  and who was committed to stopping the expansion
  of slavery.

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The Road to War

• Secession seemed the only alternative left to
  protect southern equality and liberty.
• South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860.
• The rest of the Deep South followed and formed
  the Confederate States of America on February 7,
  1861.
• The Upper South and border states declined to
  secede, hoping that once again Congress could
  patch together a settlement.
• Crittenden Compromise fails

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