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1850 |
The
Compromise of 1850:
This legislation was designed to settle disputes arising from War with
Mexico (1846-1848), particularly those concerning slavery.
Senator Henry Clay, a Kentucky Whig and author of the Compromise
of 1820, drafted a bill addressing all aspects of the
controversy, but it was unable to gain passage. Senator
Stephen Douglas, an Illinois Democrat, divided the measure into
separate bills in order to secure congressional majorities on
each. Under the Compromise of 1850, California entered the
Union as a free state; the Utah Territory and New Mexico
Territories were opened to slavery on the basis of popular
sovereignty (i.e., territorial voters were allowed to decide the
issue); the slave trade (but not slavery) was abolished in the
District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.); the fugitive slave law
was strengthened; and the slave state of Texas gave up its claim
to land in the New Mexico Territory in return for the federal
government assuming debts incurred by Texas before it was
annexed as a state (1845). |
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1852 |
Presidential Election of
1852:
None of the four major candidates—Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan; James
Buchanan of Pennsylvania, former secretary of state (1845-1849); Senator Stephen
Douglas of Illinois; and William Marcy of New York, state political boss and
former secretary of war (1845-1849)—were able to secure the needed 2/3-majority
for the Democratic presidential nomination, so delegates finally selected on the
49th ballot a dark horse candidate, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire,
former U.S. senator (1837-1842) and Mexican War veteran. Senator William
King of Alabama was chosen as the vice-presidential nominee. The Whig
Party nominated General Winfield Scott, commander of U.S. troops during the
Mexican War (1846-1848). Navy Secretary William Graham of North Carolina
was nominated for vice president. In November, Pierce defeated Scott
254-42 in the Electoral College and 51%-44% in the popular vote.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin:
Originally published over a 10-month period in 1851 as a serial in an
abolitionist newspaper, National Era, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle
Tom’s Cabin was released as a book in March 1852. The story’s
depiction of the cruelty of slavery struck an emotional chord in the free North.
It was an immediate bestseller and was made into a popular play. |
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1854 |
Ostend Manifesto:
Secretary of State William Marcy instructed the U.S. minister to Spain, Pierre
Soulé, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba from Spain. After Soulé failed, he
consulted with the U.S. minister to Britain, James Buchanan, and the U.S.
minister to France, John Y. Mason, at Ostend, Belgium, in October 1854. They
signed a document urging another attempt at buying Cuba and, if Spain refused to
sell, then taking the island by force. When the secret proposal—soon called the
Ostend Manifesto—was leaked to the press, it created considerable controversy
because Cuba would have become another slave state. The Pierce administration
rejected the proposal.
Kansas-Nebraska Act:
In an attempt to spur population growth in the western territories in advance of
a transcontinental railroad, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced a
bill to establish the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In order to gain
Southern support, the bill stipulated that slavery in the territories would be
decided by the territorial voters (“popular sovereignty”). Therefore, the law
repealed the 1820 Missouri Compromise ban on slavery north of 36° 30' in the
lands of the Louisiana Purchase. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 put the
question of slavery in the territories at the center of public debate, which led
to the collapse of the Whig Party, gave rise to the anti-slavery-expansion
Republican Party, and eventually divided the Democratic Party in 1860. |
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1855-1856 |
Bleeding Kansas:
After the Kansas-Nebraska Act, settlers from the North and South arrived in
Kansas (Nebraska remained sparsely populated). Although most were concerned
primarily with homesteading, tensions between pro- and anti-slavery partisans
gave rise to a miniature civil war known as “Bleeding Kansas.” Two key incidents
involved pro-slavery men sacking Lawrence, Kansas, and a retaliatory attack by
abolitionist John Brown and four of his sons at Pottawatomie Creek, where they
murdered five pro-slavery men. During the period of Bleeding Kansas about 55
people were killed.
The Caning of Sumner:
The violence in Kansas provoked Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts to
deliver a harsh speech on the Senate floor, “The Crime Against Kansas,” in which
he assailed slavery and the South, singling out his Senate colleague, Andrew
Butler of South Carolina, for criticism. Butler’s nephew, Congressman Preston
Brooks of South Carolina, retaliated by repeatedly hitting Sumner with a cane
while the Massachusetts senator was seated at his desk on the floor of the
Senate. Sumner became a martyr in the North, especially to abolitionists, and
did not resume his senatorial duties for three years. Meanwhile, Butler began a
hero in the South.
The Presidential Election of 1856:
James Buchanan, the U.S. minister to Britain, won the Democratic presidential
nomination on the 17th ballot, defeating incumbent President Franklin Pierce and
Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois. The vice-presidential nomination went to
35-year-old John C. Breckinridge, a former congressman (1851-1855) from
Kentucky. The new Republican Party chose Western explorer John C. Fremont of
California as its first presidential nominee. William Dayton, a former senator
from New Jersey (1841-1851), was nominated for vice president. The nativist
American (“Know Nothing”) Party nominated ex-President Millard Fillmore
(1850-1853) for president and Andrew J. Donelson of Tennessee, former U.S.
minister to Prussia (1846-1849) and nephew of President Andrew Jackson, for vice
president. In the November election, Buchanan won the White House with an
Electoral College count of 174 to Fremont’s 114 and Fillmore’s 8. In the popular
vote, Buchanan had a plurality of 45% to Fremont’s 33% and Fillmore’s 22%. |
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1857 |
The Dred Scott
Case:
The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford involved a slave, Dred
Scott, who traveled with his master for several years, first in the free
state of Illinois and then in the free territory of Wisconsin. After his
master’s death, Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that his temporary
stay in free territory had made him free. On March 6, 1857, two days
after the inauguration of President James Buchanan, the U.S. Supreme
Court announced its decision. Writing for the 7-2 majority, Chief
Justice Roger Taney declared that Scott was still a slave with no
standing to sue; that black Americans (slave or free) were not citizens
and did not have civil rights protected by the U.S. Constitution; and
that neither territorial governments nor the federal government could
ban slavery in the territories. Under the reasoning of Dred Scott,
the central plank of the Republican Party platform—that the federal
government should ban slavery in the territories—and the Missouri
Compromise line (had it not been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act)
were not constitutionally permissible.
The Lecompton Constitution:
The rivalry in the Kansas Territory between pro- and anti-slavery
factions resulted in the establishment of two territorial legislatures,
each claiming legitimacy. The pro-slavery legislature at Lecompton
drafted a constitution in the fall of 1857 that would make Kansas a
slave state. That December, anti-slavery voters (a majority in the
territory) boycotted the popular referendum on the constitution, which
passed and was sent to Congress for consideration. Senator Stephen
Douglas condemned the Lecompton Constitution as a perversion of popular
sovereignty, but President James Buchanan endorsed it. Congress ordered
Kansas to hold another referendum on the Lecompton Constitution, which
voters defeated overwhelmingly in August 1858. (Kansas entered the Union
as a free state on January 29, 1861, after the secession of several
Southern slave states.) |
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1858 |
The Lincoln-Douglas
Debates:
In 1858, the Republican Party of Illinois took the unusual step of
nominating a candidate for the U.S. senate, Abraham Lincoln, before the
fall legislative elections (state legislatures elected U.S. senators
until 1913). In addition, incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas agreed to an
unprecedented series of debates held in seven towns across the state. In
the debates, Lincoln reiterated his “House Divided” speech in which he
warned that the nation could not endure permanently half-slave or
half-free; it would become all one or all the other. Douglas responded
to the Dred Scott decision with what became known as “the
Freeport doctrine” (named after the host town for the second debate). A
major supporter of popular sovereignty, the Democratic senator argued
that slavery would still not take hold in a territory if its legislature
refused to pass laws protecting the institution (“slave codes”), such as
those establishing slave-catching patrols and banning abolitionist
literature. In the election, Democrats won control of the state
legislature and then reelected Douglas to the U.S. senate. Lincoln’s
performance helped launch his campaign for the 1860 Republican
presidential nomination. |
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1859 |
Harper’s Ferry Raid:
John Brown, a radical abolitionist and veteran of “Bleeding Kansas,” failed in
his attempt to capture the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West
Virginia), and to use the weapons to foment a slave rebellion. Brown and his
co-conspirators were captured, tried, and hanged by the Commonwealth of
Virginia. Brown and his men became martyrs to the anti-slavery cause in the eyes
of some abolitionists. The incident reinforced the erroneous view of many white
Southerners that most Northerners were abolitionists.
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1860 |
The Democratic National
Conventions:
The Democratic National Convention convened in Charleston, South Carolina, on
April 23, 1860. The party was bitterly divided over the question of slavery in
the territories, with most Southerners favoring a federal slave code for the
territories and most Northerners opposing it. The Resolutions Committee endorsed
a territorial slave code, but the full delegation defeated the measure,
provoking most Southern delegates to withdraw from the convention. Senator
Stephen Douglas of Illinois was the leading presidential candidate, but failed
to reach the 2/3-majority necessary for nomination. The convention adjourned on
May 3 and reconvened in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18, at which time Douglas
was nominated for president and Hershel Johnson, a former governor of Georgia
(1853-1857), was nominated for vice president. The bolting Democrats, mainly
Southerners, also met in Baltimore, where they nominated Vice President John
Breckinridge for president and Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon for vice president.
Both sides claimed to represent the national Democratic Party.
The Constitutional Union Convention:
A group of mainly old-line Whigs and a few former American Party members met as
the Constitutional Union Party in Baltimore on May 9, 1860. On the second
ballot, delegates chose John Bell, a former Whig senator from Tennessee, as
their presidential nominee over Governor Sam Houston of Texas, Senator John
Crittenden of Kentucky, and former Representative John Botts of Virginia. Edward
Everett, the well-respected Whig politician, diplomat, academic, and orator from
Massachusetts, was nominated for vice president. The new party’s brief platform
emphasized “the Constitution of the country, the union of the states, and the
enforcement of the laws.”
The Republican National Convention:
Republicans met on May 16-18, 1860, in Chicago, Illinois, for their second
national convention. When the frontrunner for the presidential nomination,
Senator William Henry Seward, failed to receive a majority of votes on the first
ballot, momentum shifted to Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term congressman from
Illinois (1847-1849), who won on the third ballot. Delegates then selected
Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for vice president. The Republican platform
opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories without condemning
it in the South, criticized the judicial activism of the Dred Scott
decision, denounced John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, endorsed a federal
homestead law and a transcontinental railroad, and opposed stricter
naturalization laws.
Election Results:
On November 6, 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president with an
Electoral College majority greater than the combined total of his three
opponents: 180 for Lincoln to 72 for Southern Democrat John Breckinridge, 39 for
Constitutional Unionist John Bell, and 12 for Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas.
Lincoln won a plurality of the popular vote, 40% to Douglas’s 30%,
Breckinridge’s 18%, and Bell’s 12%.
Secession:
On November 10, 1860, the South Carolina legislature became the first to call
for a convention to consider seceding from the Union. Delegates were elected on
December 6, and the convention opened on December 17. On December 20, 1860,
delegates unanimously approved a secession resolution, becoming the first of 11
Southern slave states to leave the Union. |
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