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Wilmot Proviso
Popular Sovereignty Free-Soil Party California Gold Rush Forty Niners Secede Henry Clay John C. Calhoun Stephen A. Douglas |
Fugitive Slave Act
Compromise of 1850 Controversial Abolitionists Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin Sentiment Kansas Nebraska Act Republican Party |
Border Ruffians
John Brown Pottawatomie Massacre Guerrilla War Preston Brooks Charles Sumner Dred Scott John Brown's Raid 1860 Election Fort Sumter |
Storm BrewingBy the middle of the 1800s storm clouds of war began to hang above the United States over the question of slavery and whether or not it would be allowed to expand into the new territories in the West. There was constant political conflict that with little resolution or fixes. One of the key questions and problems arose over whether Kansas would be a slave state or free. If the two sections of the North and South could not find a solution, there would be war.
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Slavery in the Territories
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From 1845 to 1848, the United States went to war with Mexico over the border of Texas. Many Americans were against the war because they viewed it as a stunt that pro-slavery politicians wanted in order to expand the western border of slavery with the new territories the country would gain if it won the war with Mexico. On August 8, 1846, David Wilmot, a democrat from Pennsylvania, proposed a bill that would allow only Texas to be a slave state in the new land the U.S. was sure to wrestle away from Mexico. Called the Wilmot Proviso, it ignited a fierce debate over the expansion of slavery. Wilmot wanted to make sure that pro-slavery politicians did not get too much power by allowing for slavery's expansion. The Wilmot Proviso was eventually defeated but it illustrated the deep divide between pro slavery and anti-slavery forces.
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Popular Sovereignty - Senator Lewis Cass, a Democrat from Michigan, tried to calm down the slavery issue argument in Congress by introducing a new idea to use in the territories when it came to slavery. He said that voters living in the territories that were to become states should vote on the issue directly and decide for themselves, this idea is called popular sovereignty. Many believed, especially in the South, that popular sovereignty was a good idea, others did not. Those against it said that it wasn't right to decide the fate of a new state as free or slave if the African-Americans in those states did not have a voice in the matter.
While some Americans were absolutely against slavery and wanted it to end altogether (they were called abolitionists), others were not for ending slavery where it already existed, but were for preventing slavery from expanding into the new territories. People who wanted to end it from expanding only did not believe they had a political party that reflected their views, so they formed a new party, called the Free-Soil Party.
California Gold Rush
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In 1848, a new issue brought the slavery debate to the center stage of debate. After the U.S. won the Mexican American War in 1848, the land no known as California became U.S. soil. On January 24, John Sutton discovered gold on the American River. Once word spread that gold had been discovered in California, the news spread like wild fire and people began packing up their belongings and moving west to California to seek their fortune in what became known as the California Gold Rush. In 1849, nearly 100,000 Americans set off for California to pan and mine for gold. Five years later there were more than 300,000 Americans in California, more than enough people to qualify for the territory to petition (or ask) Congress to become a state. Those first 100,000 Americans who rushed to become to California to become rich with gold, were known as forty niners. The California Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in American history. It led to railroads and towns springing up all along the route to California. Gold found in California led to economic (money) prosperity (lots of it) and boosted the U.S. economy.
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Early gold rush photo taken in California.
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The Compromise of 1850
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With the new crisis (problem) over slavery growing larger as California and then New Mexico wanted to become states, a series of debates began in the Senate that would try to reduce the crisis that was growing between the North and South. If California and New Mexico were brought in as free states, Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina said that the South would secede, or leave, the Union. If California was admitted to the Union as a free state, the balance of power would shift to the anti-slavery states with 16 free states and 15 slave states. Henry Clay of Kentucky, already known as a great speaker that was good at seeing both sides of most issues, stepped in to create a compromise.
Henry Clay
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Clay's CompromiseHenry Clay proposed 8 resolutions or ideas, six of which were attempts to compromise differences between the North and South:
1. Admit California as free state 2. Organize New Mexico & Utah without restrictions or rules against slavery, allowing popular sovereignty to take place. 3. Created Texas as smaller state (it at one time was twice the size it is now). 4. The U.S. would pay all of Texas' debts off it had created during the Mexican American War (Texas was the reason the war started in the first place and it cost a lot of money to fight it). 5. The District of Columbia would retain or keep slavery, BUT (see number 6). 6. The sale of slaves in the nation's capital was abolished or outlawed. 7. Create a more strict fugitive slave law (one that would actually be enforced) 8. Congress would no longer be able interfere or get involved in the slave trade in the future. |
 John C. Calhoun
When the debate over Clay's proposal began, the first to speak was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Calhoun urged Congress to reject Clay's proposal saying that any attempt to limit the rights of slave owners of taking their slaves to the new territories would result in the Southern states leaving or seceding from the U.S. They threatened to leave also if California was admitted as a free state. Calhoun claimed that slaves were property and Americans had the right to take their property wherever they chose. As tensions began to heat up, then President Zachery Taylor, a man who was Southern but was against any talk of the South seceding, died unexpectedly. His successor and former vice president, Millard Fillmore, became the new President. Fillmore supported Clay's compromise. A young senator from Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, proposed that each of Clay's proposals be voted on individually and not as an all or nothing package. Douglas was a democrat that was known to be sympathetic, or friendly, to the South. Douglas stood 5'4" was known as the Little Giant for his great and power speeches, despite his short stature (short build).
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Stephen A. Douglas
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After much debate, the compromise was finally voted on and resolved (mostly because Calhoun who was old and sick died and could not argue and stop them from passing). In its final version, the Compromise of 1850 included the following: California was admitted as a free state, the territories of Utah and New Mexico would vote on whether they would be free or slave, a stronger fugitive slave act was created that made it a federal crime NOT to assist or help slave catchers from catching runaway slaves in any state (even Northern states). The public sale of slaves, but slavery itself, was outlawed in Washington D.C. President Millard Fillmore signed it into law.
The Compromise of 1850 defused, or stopped growing anger, of an explosive situation, but even still it was a temporary truce because it would not take long for more problems to arise.
The Compromise of 1850 defused, or stopped growing anger, of an explosive situation, but even still it was a temporary truce because it would not take long for more problems to arise.
The most controversial (controversial means that it was highly argued or there was a lot of disagreement) point of the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slave Act. Abolitionists (people that are very against slavery), were angry because according to the law, if a runaway slave was found in any Northern state, citizens, whether they agreed with it or not, were bound by law to assist or help in the capture of the runaway slave. Pretty soon, however, it became clear that the North had no intention of really following through with the Fugitive Slave Act, this angered Southerners and further made them feel like they were powerless against the anti-slavery people in the North.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
During the time the Compromise of 1850 was being argued in the 1850s, antislavery sentiment (sentiments mean, feelings) began to grow in the North. One of the main reasons for that growth was a book that became a best seller. Written by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin was about a mean and vile Southern slave owner named Simon Legree, who purchased a gentle and good natured slave named Uncle Tom. In the story Legree tortures Uncle Tom and eventually kills him, but not before Uncle Tom makes friends with many of the people on the plantation and helps some of them escape to freedom. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a huge success and helped transform support for the abolitionist cause of elimination slavery.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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The Kansas-Nebraska Crisis
By 1854, two more territories were ready to be considered for statehood, Kansas and Nebraska. Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted the territories to become states so that he could argue for the new idea of a trans-continental railroad to be built in his home state of Illinois. In order for that to happen, the areas the railroad would travel through, needed to be already organized states. Douglas proposed that his Kansas-Nebraska Act would use popular sovereignty to decide whether the new states would be free or slave. In May 1854, the Act passed the Senate and House of Representatives becoming law.
The dispute over the Kansas Nebraska Act angered anti-slavery people in Congress and led to the creation of a new political party, the Republican Party. The Republicans were formed in February 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, the new party was dedicated to keeping slavery from expanding into any new territories in the western half of the U.S.
Bleeding Kansas
Border Ruffians from Missouri
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act placed Kansas in the spotlight. Since the issue of slavery would be settled there over people that lived their voting on whether to be a slave state or night, people that were for and against slavery began flooding into Kansas in order to vote on the fate of Kansas. Pro slavery people and money were sent from slave states in support of Kansas being a free state. Abolitionists sponsored (paid) people, including immigrants, to move to Kansas as well. Pro slavery people from Missouri that moved to Kansas to vote for slavery were called border ruffians. So many pro-slavery Missourians moved to Kansas that it became clear that Kansas was most likely going to become a slave state. Outraged, free-state people refused to recognize the pro-slavery government that was forming because they believed it was bogus or not legit. They began to form their own delegates and free-state government. By 1856, Kansas had two governments, one free and one pro-slavery. Both sides began planning to use physical force to gain total control. Called Bleeding Kansas, it began in 1856 when pro-slavery forces invaded the town of Lawrence, Kansas, known for its large population of anti-slavery supporters.
John Brown later in life.
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The taking of Lawrence by the Border Ruffians inspired the passions of abolitionist John Brown. Brown had been raised that slavery was evil and must be eradicated or eliminated. John Brown was a well known abolitionist by the time Bleeding Kansas began. Those who were against him called him crazy or insane, while those who supported his extreme views on anti-slavery ideas, he was known as a saint. Brown was 55 and had twenty children when he traveled to Kansas to do what he considered to be "God's work." Two days after Border Ruffians attacked the town of Lawrence, Brown arrived with four of his sons, and a son-in-law to a small town along the Kansas and Missouri border named Pottawatomie, Kansas. On the night of May 24, 1856, he and his group dragged five pro-slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with swords. Brown believed that only war could end slavery and he intended to start it. The Pottawatomie Massacre as it became known as, started a brutal guerrilla war in the Kansas territory (guerrilla warfare is the use of hit and run tactics by small groups of people. It often involves setting ambushes and trickery in order to get the upper hand on their opponents).
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Young John Brown
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Painting of John Brown that illustrates him starting a war over slavery.
Sumner and Brooks - Two days after the Pottawatomie Massacre, violence erupted in the Senate. Republican Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an abolitionist, made a powerful speech against slavery and Border Ruffians from Missouri. In the speech he insulted slave owners and accused them of starting the violence. He specifically singled out a slave owning elderly Senator from South Carolina named Andrew Pickens Butler. Sumner's speech enraged Butler's cousin, Preston S. Brooks, a South Carolina congressman. On May 22, 1856, Brooks stormed into the Senate chamber and confronted Sumner before beating him almost to death with a cane. With Sumner absent from the Senate floor recovering from his wounds, his empty seat was a reminder that violence was never very far away when dealing with the issue of slavery. Brooks was deemed a hero by Southerners, but it drove many senators and congressmen who were not necessarily anti-slavery, into the Republican party just because they were against the type of violence that Brooks displayed.
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Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v Stanford, further made many people angry. Dred Scott was a slave born in Virginia that had been taken first to St. Louis in 1830, then sold to an army surgeon who took him to Illinois and Wisconsin before returning to St. Louis in 1842. In 1846, Scott filed suit in Missouri, claiming that his residence in Illinois and Wisconsin made him free because slavery was outlawed in those areas. A jury decided in his favor, but the state supreme court ruled against him. When the case was appealed it went to the U.S. Supreme Court where the court ruled 7-2 against Scott. Chief Justice Roger Taney said that since Scott was a slave, he was property and had no right in court to file a suit at all. The Dred Scott v Stanford Supreme Court declared slaves property without the same rights as U.S. citizens. This angered abolitionists throughout the country.
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Dred Scott
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John Brown's Raid - Another incident that flamed the fans of disunion (disunion means the splitting of the country between North and South) occurred in 1859 when John Brown (same dude as the one in KS) took twenty men including three of his sons and several former slaves, and attempted to take the federal army arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (an arsenal is where weapons are stored). John Brown thought that he could capture the weapons in the arsenal and hand them out to escaped slaves and start a civil war to end slavery. He and his men were discovered before long and no escaped slaves joined him. Brown was eventually driven into a firehouse located near the arsenal and was surrounded. Two of Brown's sons were killed along with ten others in his small force. Brown eventually surrendered and was put on trial for treason and hanged. His raid frightened many in the South and proved to them that many people were working against them in the North in order to end slavery even if it meant starting a war to do it.
Firehouse in which Brown was surrounded.
The Election of 1860
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The election of 1860 was probably the most important election of the 1800s. It was between two political parties and their views on slavery and states rights. The Republicans, nominated Abraham Lincoln, a senator from Illinois who was against the expansion of slavery into the western territories, but was not against slavery where it already existed. The other side were the Democrats. The Democrats were divided on their views of slavery and could not agree on picking one single Democrat to run against Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats ended up running three candidates for president. They ran John Bell from Tennessee who based his views on what the Constitution said about slavery. Number 2 Democrat was John Breckenridge of Kentucky, Breckenridge was pro-slavery and owned slaves himself. Number 3 Democrat was Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois who was ok with slavery where it existed but said popular sovereignty should be used to decide if a state would be slave or not in the territories.
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Abraham Lincoln
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What ended up happening was, since the Republicans only ran Abraham Lincoln, every single Republican voted for him. Whereas the Democrats split their votes between the three candidates and because of that none had enough votes to beat Lincoln. Not a single state in the South voted for Lincoln, but since the population of the North is much larger than that of the South, Lincoln was still able to win. This showed the South that their vote did not matter. This angered the South which decided to secede (leave) the Union and create a separate country from the United States, called the Confederate States of America. Lincoln was not going to let that happen.
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With Lincoln's election South Carolina became the first Southern state to leave the Union, followed by the other Deep South states. In doing so, they also took over any military bases owned by the U.S. Army that were located in the South. One such base was Fort Sumter off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. On April 11, 1861, newly appointed Confederate General, P.G.T. Beauregard tried to convince the U.S. Army garrison stationed inside Fort Sumter to surrender, but they refused. On April 12, 1861, the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, the Civil War had begun.
Fort Sumter