The Gathering Tempest: 1853 - 1860
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and should be reviewed.
Video Clips
In many of the cyberlectures, I
have added video clips from a variety of sources. I believe
that video often is very effective to bring a topic to life.
In some cases, especially the
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The Compromise of 1850 served as a
temporary "cease fire", but not a resolution of sectional
differences. The textbook provides an exceptional overview
and analysis of the
sequence of events
which ultimately "snowball"
into the outbreak of the Civil War. Although I will
highlight some of these events, the real question is why did
they culminate in a war? Historians have identified many
reasons or primary causes underlying the fragmentation of
the Union. Four significant causes, albeit not all
inclusive, should include:
1. Constitutional Disputes:
In basic terms, this is the continued escalation of the
controversy of federalism versus states rights. This issue
had been brewing since the Revolutionary War: the design of
the Articles of Confederation, the compromises of the
Constitution, the strict versus loose construction
philosophy as related to the Executive, Legislative and
Judicial powers, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, The
Hartford Convention, the Nullification Controversy, and the
various "Compromises". In many ways the unsuccessful;
resolution of this issue caused an environment that might be
described as waiting for the "straw that broke the camel's
back".
2. Economic and Related Cultural
Differences: A distinct difference between the accepted
"way of life" in industrial/urbanized North and the
traditional/agricultural South created extreme cultural
differences and "realities".
3. Slavery: By the 1850's
slavery had became an institution "peculiar" to the South.
The North had their "wage slaves" and many people in this
region were taking the moral high ground. At the same time,
the
South was defending its position
from Constitutional, Biblical and traditional perspectives
and promoting further expansion of its way of life. A
related Constitutional issue was that any attempt to
restrict slavery was a violation of their Fourth and Fifth
Amendment rights related to property.
4. Political Polarization
intensified conflicts related to tariffs, banking, internal
improvements and the position of specific political
candidates. Compromise was becoming impossible as the two
sides drifted apart.
As you read the chapters and
primary sources, attempt to compartmentalize the various
events under specific headings--each one a piece of the
puzzle creating a map of blue and grey. I believe the
following overview will assist with your general and final
analyses
1.
Visible Actions Directly Impacting Individuals:
Enforcement and Opposition to
the
Fugitive Slave Law
- Bounty hunters, threats of
prison and fines for those helping runaway slaves and
danger to free blacks improperly apprehended without
legal recourse. Troubling stories in local newspapers
outside of the South.
Rise of the Underground
Railroad to help slaves escape to freedom in the North
or Canada.
2. Literature and A War of Words
- In addition to the newspapers on both sides of the issue,
two significant books heightened awareness of the effect of
slavery:
Uncle Tom's Cabin
(read Chapter 30--that influenced thousands in
Europe and the United States) Harriet Beecher Stowe
wrote this emotional novel about the inhumanity of
slavery, the brutality of slave owners, the incredible
kindness and humanity of Uncle Tom. Many northerners and
Europeans reportedly were brought to tears by various
passages in the book and condemned slavery. President
Lincoln supposedly said upon meeting Stowe, "So you are
the little woman who wrote the book that made the great
war".
Impending Crisis of the South
by Hinton Helper provided statistical proof that slavery
had a negative economic impact on the South.
The Bible:
quotations were selected by both sides to bolster the
religious foundations of their position.
Sociology for the South and
Cannibals All!
were written by George Fitzhugh
promoted slavery, questioned equality for those unequal
to the majority race and criticized the wage slavery of
the North which doomed the poor and immigrants to
horrendous living conditions.
3.
Political Events
Kansas-Nebraska Act
(read
a summary of the diverse attitudes in the editorials in
twenty papers of this time period) repealed the Missouri
Compromise line marking the northern border of slavery
in the Louisiana Purchase. Expansion north was a new
possibility.
The resultant rise of a new
anti-slavery party the "Republicans"--in many ways, a
coalition of Free Soilers, antislavery Whigs and
Democrats.
Leaders were primarily moderates
from the North and West who opposed the expansion of slavery
to the new territories, but accepted its
continuance where it presently
existed.
The American Party or "The Know
Nothing Party" founded on the belief that predominantly
Protestant native born Americans must protect themselves
from immigrants and Catholics.
The demise of the Whig Party
and the weakening of the Democratic Party.
The Election--won by James
Buchanan the Democratic Party nominee. However, the
Republican Party had an impressive showing and would
emerge to win all but four presidential elections
between 1860 and 1932.
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
:
A decision that pleased the South and shocked the
North--rather than ending the debate over slavery, it
further polarized the issue. The reason for the positive
Southern response can be found in the following
components of the Court's decision:
*Dred Scott had no right to sue in
a federal court because the framers of the Constitution did
not intend people of African descent to be United States
Citizens.
*Congress did not have the power to
deprive any person of property without due process of law,
and if slaves were a form of property, then Congress could
not exclude slavery from any federal territory.
*The Missouri Compromise excluded
slavery from Wisconsin and the other northern territories,
thus, the law was unconstitutional. Basically, the Supreme
Court declared that all parts of the western territories
were open to slavery.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Although
conducted during the campaign for Senator of Illinois,
(Lincoln lost this election), Lincoln's views on
slavery, its existence, and morality propelled him to
the level of a national figure--poised for the Election
of 1860.
4. Violent Actions
Bleeding Kansas: A horrendous
example of political manipulation and violence to
misrepresent "popular sovereignty" and undermine
democracy.
Caning of Senator Sumner by
Congressman Preston Brooks--what would happen today if a
similar event took place?
John
Brown at Harpers Ferry:
Hero or Terrorist/Psychopath or Savior?
Song
For A Martyr.
One of the best summaries of this
topic is provided by the authors of the textbook in the
instructor's materials for Chapter 14:
The slavery expansion issue
involved such a struggle for power that traditional ways of
settling disputes over power--the ballot and the
courts--worked less and less well as the decade continued.
Neither side accepted the outcome of the Kansas elections.
Southerners threatened to leave the Union if voters ever put
Republicans into power in the national government. By its
ruling in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court found that
much of the nation could not have cared less about what the
courts had to say about slavery's expansion.
Meanwhile, definitions of liberty
and equality were the subject of much debate. As
Abraham Lincoln
(visit for interesting
quotations) asked, were all men created equal, or did this
truth apply to white men? Or to Protestants and not
Catholics? Or did equality apply just to native-born
citizens and not immigrants? Ultimately, the question became
whether the United States was the champion of herrenvolk
democracy--democracy for the master race--or the champion
for a political system that embraced whites and the other
races, native-born and immigrant, men and women, Protestant
and Catholic? You may find some of
Lincoln's views
regarding secession and slavery
rather intriguing and worthy of
analysis in your essay assignment for this module.
The depth of the sectional division
over freedom was revealed when John C. Calhoun and other
southerners proclaimed that slavery protected the freedom of
all whites to ensure that slavery of the black race
continued. For Lincoln and many of his northern
contemporaries, this could not be more wrong. Either slavery
or freedom would have to die.
Are there any issues in the United
States with the potential to promote disunion and Civil War?
Why?
As you ponder these questions--here
are a few quotations from Abraham Lincoln during the
Lincoln-Douglas debates worthy of your review and comments:
In the first Lincoln-Douglas debate, in Ottawa, Illinois,
Lincoln, fending off Douglas's charge that he was a race
leveller
[A]nything that argues me into his idea of perfect social
and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and
fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a
horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. ... I have no purpose
to introduce political and social equality between the white
and the black races. There is a physical difference between
the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid
their living together upon the footing of perfect equality,
and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a
difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the
race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have
never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that
notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world
why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights
enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he
is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with
Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many
respects----certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or
intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread,
without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he
is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of
every living man ."
In the fourth debate, at Charleston, Illinois:
While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman
called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of
producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white
people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion
to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked
me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying
something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not,
nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the
social and political equality of the white and black
races,--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making
voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold
office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say
in addition to this that there is a physical difference
between the white and black races which I believe will for
ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social
and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live,
while they do remain together there must be the position of
superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in
favor of having the superior position assigned to the white
race.
For each module I recommend that you visit A Biography
of America
http://learner.org/resources/series123.html# ,
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Boston in cooperation with the Library of Congress and the
National Archives and Records Administration. These thirty
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access the presentation: The Coming of the Civil War.
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