National Expansion, Sectional Divisions, and Slavery

The Tensions that led to

the Civil War

Growth of the Continental Nation

Growth of Slavery

Both Kentucky and Tennessee adopted slavery as part of their Both Kentucky and Tennessee adopted slavery as part of their agricultural economy. The creation of Mississippi Territory in agricultural economy. The creation of Mississippi Territory in 1804 was another ‘advance’ for slavery. The Missouri 1804 was another ‘advance’ for slavery. The Missouri Compromise opened the southern parts of Louisiana to slaveryCompromise opened the southern parts of Louisiana to slavery

Slaves – People or Property?

Under the laws of most southern states, slaves were property, not people. They had almost no legal rights and could be bought and sold at will. Although some southern states tried to prevent a child from being sold away from his mother, in practice slave families were broken up whenever an owner wished to sell the father or mother. This bothered many in the north – and in the south, where less than 5% of the white population owned any slaves at all.

Texas Republic

After winning independence from Mexico, the new republic of Texas immediately asked to become part of the United States. Northern Senators and Congressman opposed this, because the addition of another slave state would upset the delicate balance between slave and free states (established by the Missouri Compromise).

Texas would remain an independent republic until 1845.

Manifest Destiny

By the early 1830s, statesmen, editors, and land speculators were saying that it was the “manifest destiny” (obvious fate) of America to “take possession” of North America. Even painters made use of the image of American destiny (like William Ranney’s “Advice on the Prairie” -- 1853).

“Oregon Country”

In the northwest, Americans claimed the basin of the Columbia River because of the voyage of one American sea captain. The British claimed the same region because of the voyage of a British sea captain. As more and more American settlers crossed the “Oregon Trail” and established farms in the Willamette Valley, tensions with Great Britain grew.

Slavery – The Growing Dispute

As the nation’s desire for new land grew, so too did the arguments over slavery. Northern abolitionists cast copper tokens (used as pennies) that called for the end of slavery. Southerners accused the northern states of harboring runaway slaves. Compromises became more unlikely.

Anti-Slavery Across Oceans

A British traveler who accompanied the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray on a tour of America captured the grim realities of a slave auction. The British Navy was suppressing the Atlantic Slave trade.

Polk’s Platform

The Election of James K. Polk as president in 1844 opened a new phase in both national expansion and the arguments over slavery. As president, Polk (a old friend of Andrew Jackson) had 3 major goals:

1. Bringing Texas into the U.S.

2. Obtaining America’s clear claim to the Oregon region.

3. Creating a Federal Treasury to handle the government’s money.

Settlement in OregonMany Americans, led by Michigan politician Lewis Cass (left) and others who were deeply invested in Oregon land, wanted Britain to cede the rights to “Oregon” as far north as Alaska. But, facing the likelihood of war with Mexico, Polk reached a compromise that placed the border between Oregon and Canada at its current location – the 48th parallel, north latitude. As the population of a new U.S. territory, Oregon’s inhabitants voted to outlaw slavery.

War with Mexico

Ignoring warnings from the government of Mexico, which had yet to acknowledge the independence of Texas, Polk persuaded Congress to admit Texas as a new state. In 1846, Mexican troops and American cavalry exchanged shots along the Rio Grande River, which led Congress to declare war.

Completing the Continental Map

Victory in the Mexican War added enormous new lands to the United States. Coastal California and the lands near Santa Fe were already well populated, much of the rest was desolate but had potential mineral wealth. The big issue was: how would territories be organized – and would the territories permit slavery?

The War and Slavery

Many northerners saw the war with Mexico as an unnecessary war that was initiated by southerners to expand the lands open to slavery. Soon after the fighting began, David Wilmot (left) a relatively unknown Congressman from Pennsylvania, brought the slavery debate into the war. He proposed an amendment to a bill that would pay for the war; the amendment stated that “no lands” obtained from Mexico as a result of the war would be open to slavery.

The Wilmot Proviso

Wilmot’s amendment – the “Wilmot Proviso” – opened bitter debate over the war and the expansion of slavery. While leading Senators and Congressman argued over the Proviso, a young Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, said nothing on the issue. By the end of the Mexican War, however, Lincoln was in agreement with the “Free Soil” movement – which wanted no more territories open to slavery.

The 1848 ElectionSlavery lurked in the background during the 1848 election. The Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, one of the victorious Mexican War generals, while the Democrats ran Lewis Cass. Taylor avoided the slavery question, while Cass said the choice should be decided by “the locals” living in a territory. But a third party – the Free Soil Party – nominated former president Martin Van Buren, who called for an end to the Missouri Compromise: no more territories with slavery.

Taylor (right) won the election, but soon had to take a stand on slavery, when California asked for admission as a state in 1850.

Gold in California

As one of the spoils won from Mexico, California should have been organized as a territory. But the discovery of large deposits in 1848 ignited a massive migration to the area – 300,000 people rushed to California within 18 months.

Faced with the need to organize California quickly, the Congress took up a bill to admit it at once as a state. Most in California opposed slavery, and there was no slave-practicing territory available to also admit – and preserve -- the balance (in the US Senate) between slave and free states.

Southern senators refused to vote for California statehood without some concession for slavery.

Compromise of 1850

After considerable debate (and threats of civil war) the Congress, led by Henry Clay (KY) and Stephen Douglas (IL), fashioned a compromise: California was admitted as a state; the Congress passed a much tougher fugitive slave law to return escaped slaves to the South; Texas debts were assumed by the Federal government, and the sale of slaves in Washington DC was ended. These actions passed only because President Taylor, who planned to veto them, died from a sudden illness.

Know-Nothing Movement

For a time, the slavery issue was quiet. The Know-Nothings, an anti-immigrant political movement, tried to unite the nation with cartoons depicting Irish and German immigrants as a danger to the country. Their name (in the press) was due to habitually answering “I know nothing” if asked about the activities of the movement.

Ethnicities

A growing number of immigrants from Germany and Ireland changed the population mix in many parts of the nation. The influx of Catholic immigrants in particular resulted in tensions with Protestant groups.

Looking for New Slavery Land

The Compromise of 1850 did not settle the “slave issue” for long – slaveholders still wanted land for cotton expansion. Schemes were proposed to seize land in Central America or the Pacific for new cotton (and slave) lands. The most ambitious proposal – to buy Cuba from Spain (or seize it in a war if Spain refused to sell) --created a scandal in 1854.

Kansas Territory

In January 1854, Stephen Douglas (Senator for Illinois) proposed to create a territory in the west: Kansas. His bill provided that the inhabitants of Kansas would decide for themselves whether to have slavery – by “popular sovereignty,” or the choice of the people.

Douglas said his bill was for the purpose of helping Chicago’s railroads extend toward California. His enemies said the bill was designed to get Douglas support in the south for a presidential run in 1856.

Either way, the Kansas bill once again put slavery on the nation’s front page and accelerated bitter debates over slavery.

Violence in Kansas

Both pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates rushed to claim land in Kansas while Douglas’s bill was debated. Anti-slavery abolitionists charged that “border ruffians” from Missouri (a slave state) used violence to frighten others into accepting slavery.

Counter ViolenceSome abolitionists also promised to use violence to “keep Kansas free.” Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent minister and abolitionist in Massachusetts, raised money to buy rifles for “free soilers” in Kansas. These rifles – “Beecher’s Bibles” – were smuggled into Kansas from Iowa.

Meanwhile, with the collapse of the Whig Party, a new political party was being created in the Midwest – The Republican Party. The Republican party platform took a strong stand for the growth of industry, the granting of land to farmers, and prohibition of any in any future territories.

Southern leaders warned that, if the Republican Party ever gained power in Washington, the slave states would form a new nation.

A New Party

In 1856 the Presidential election was won by Democratic candidate James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, who was widely perceived to be a “northerner with southern principles” – a man committed to supporting slavery in order to win votes. Buchanan’s main opponent was John C. Fremont, a hero of the Mexican War. Fremont was the candidate of the newly organized Republican Party, which was dedicated to the policy of allowing no further expansion of slavery.

Violence in Congress

The issue of slavery in the territories raised tempers in Congress. After Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner denounced slaveholders in a speech, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks attacked Sumner in the Senate chamber, beating him severely. Several southern Congressmen challenged northern leaders to duels and many began carrying pistols and knives in the Capitol.

Controversy at Lecompton

In 1857, pro-slavery advocates met at the town of Lecompton Kansas, and wrote a draft constitution for the future state – the draft protected slavery as an institution in Kansas. There was a great deal of evidence to show that most of the population of Kansas opposed slavery, and that the organizers of the Lecompton meeting had used violence and secrecy to prevent anti-slavery representatives from attending the meeting. Even so, President James Buchanan tried to get Congress to accept the document and grant statehood to Kansas.

The Supreme Court enters the debate

In a misguided effort to put an end to the slavery debate, Chief Justice Roger Taney convinced the Supreme Court to make a statement on the issue. Using the case of Dred Scott, a slave who was suing for his freedom, Taney stated 1) Africans were not citizens; 2) slavery had a right, under the U.S. Constitution to exist in any Federal territory. Only a state government could prohibit slavery. Northerners denounced this opinion. Some predicted that enforcing it would trigger a civil war.

Popularizing Abolition

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s short novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was the sensation of the 1850s. Turned into stage plays, even musicals, its portrayal of slaveholders as vicious brutes did much to improve the image of the abolitionists.

The book was banned in the slave states. Vigilantes in the South threatened to hang anyone who was found with a copy of Stowe’s work or other abolitionist literature.

Douglas Vs. LincolnAs an obvious candidate for the Presidency and a leader of the Democrats in Congress, Stephen Douglas’s view of the Lecompton Constitution and the Dred Scott opinion was of vital importance. He opposed the entry of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution, dividing his party and clashing with Buchanan.

Running again for the Senate in 1858 (against Lincoln), Douglas argued at Freeport Illinois that voters would inevitably ignore an unpopular law – including a law that permitted slavery where it was not wanted.

This “Freeport Doctrine” broke the Democratic Party into northern and southern wings.

The debates between Lincoln and Douglas during the 1858 Senate contest became the subject of national attention. Lincoln lost the election but became a presidential contender with the new Republican Party.

Disruption of “the American Democracy”

As the 1860 election approached, the Democratic Party (which party members often called “the American Democracy”) was badly divided. Buchanan could not hope to be nominated for a second term. Douglas had more support than any other potential candidate, but because his “Freeport doctrine” implied that he would not protect slavery in the territories, southern leaders from Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama vowed to keep him from being nominated.

William Yancey of Alabama (left) and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi (right) planned to support a third-party candidate if Stephen Douglas won the Democratic nomination.

Uncertainty among the Republicans

Most observers expected the Republican nominee to be either William H. Seward of New York (left) or Salmon Chase of Ohio (right), both well known in the nation. But each had powerful enemies within the party. Other candidates, Like Edward Bates of Missouri, were considered too weak to win enough votes in the vital “midwest” states. Slowly, important Republican state leaders began to consider Lincoln the “least objectionable” choice.

The spark to the powder keg

In October 1859, John Brown, a violent abolitionist who was wanted for murders in Kansas, led a raid on the U.S. Army arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His plan, to arms slaves and lead a massive slave revolt in the south, came to nothing when Federal troops attacked the arsenal and captured Brown.

Brown the martyr

Brown's attack on Federal property could have allowed for his trial in a Federal court, but Buchanan permitted Brown to be convicted in state court for “treason against Virginia.” He was hanged in December 1859. Brown portrayed himself as a martyr for slavery, saying “if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice [ending slavery] let it be done.” The South resented it when northern newspapers portrayed Brown as a “friend of freedom.”

1860 in Baltimore

Democrats had hoped that the John Brown incident would produce unity in the party, “for the peace of America.” That hope died when no nominee could be chosen in Charleston. Douglas refused to accept a platform that firmly promised the expansion of slavery. Seven southern state delegations then walked out.

The party then held a second convention in Baltimore and Douglas was nominated. The “deep south” put up their own candidate, John Breckinridge of Kentucky.

Lincoln Elected

With the Democrats deeply divided, Lincoln, having won the Republican nomination, was elected president in 1860 – his name had not been placed on the ballot in most southern states and many southerners had sworn that their states would secede from the Union if an “anti-slavery” candidate was elected.

Several southern states held special conventions and announced secession before Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861.

A Final Attempt at PeaceIn February 1861, “elder statesmen,” including former president John Tyler (left), met in Washington at a “peace conference” where it was hoped some kind of compromise solution could be created to avoid war.

Although the conference proposed several ideas for laws to protect slavery, nothing came of these before violence in South Carolina sparked civil war.

As president, Lincoln stated he would not try to “interfere with slavery … where it exists. The South ignored his promise.

First Shot

South Carolina, Florida, and other seceded states formed a new “Confederate” government, and then began to take control of Federal armories and forts along the Atlantic and Gulf. In April, 1861, the commander of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, refused to surrender the fort. South Carolina militia troops bombarded and seized it.

Lincoln then called for troops to “suppress the rebellion.”