Topic 12

Sectional Conflict: The Union Breaks Up

 

 

 

A. Trouble Begins during the War

 

  1. Question of slavery in the territories of the West came up in August 1846 when Polk asked Congress to pass a bill giving him $2 million to be used to conduct talks with Mexico (Two Million Bill).

 

 

  1. David Wilmot and The Wilmot Proviso – August 1846 – Slavery would not be permitted in any of the new territories acquired from Mexico. Touched off a bitter debate in Congress!

 

 

  1. Polk’s Response – Extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific coast

 

 

  1. Election of 1848 – Polk exhausted and did not seek reelection.

 

–        Lewis Cass – Democrats

 

–        Zachary Taylor – Whigs  

 

–        Martin Van Buren – Free-Soil Party: free land to western settlers and no slavery in the West.

 

–        The Ralph Nader of his day! – He drew enough votes away from the Democrats in his home state of NY to allow the Whigs to win.

 

–        Taylor 163, Cass 127 (NY: 36 electoral votes)

 

 

 

B. Zachary Taylor Takes Over

 

  1. The George Bush of his day, and he did not care what happened to slavery

 

 

 

  1. Taylor’s proposal:

 

–        Organize new state governments (not territorial governments) in California and NM.

 

–        Let the people there decide if they want slavery – “popular sovereignty”

 

–        Americans in California quickly wrote a state constitution prohibiting slavery.

 

–        Looked like NM would do the same!

 

 

  1. The Southern response – No!

 

 

 

 

  1. Henry Clay steps forward and tries to find a compromise:

–        Admission of California as a free state

–        Territorial governments in the rest – popular sovereignty

–        Slave trade abolished in D.C.

–        New Federal Fugitive Slave Act to help southern slave owners capture runaway slaves

 

  1. Zachary Taylor opposed but fate intervened

 

 

 

 

  1. Millard Fillmore becomes the new president

 

 

 

 

  1. Compromise:

 

–        California admitted as a free state

–        NM and Utah organized on basis of popular sovereignty

–        Slave trade abolished in D.C.

–        Federal Fugitive Act – State and local officials were to work with federal courts in recapturing runaway slaves.

 

 

 

C. Election of 1852

 

  1. Franklin Pierce (Democrat) opposed Winfield Scott (Whig)
  2. Outcome indicated for the time being most supported the compromise: Pierce was a strong supporter of the Compromise of 1850, and outcome of election indicated that most were generally satisfied with it, too. Pierce won 252-42.

 

D. The Pierce Presidency – Briefly, in the eye of the storm

 

  1. A metaphor: If slavery controversy that led to war can be compared to a hurricane, Pierce came to the White House in the eye of the storm.

But things happened that destroyed the eye, and the storm grew worse and led us to war in just a few years.

 

 

  1. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin – March 1852

 

–        Runaway best seller – 300,000 copies in a year (3 million today!)

 

–        Soon presented as a stage play, and many who never read the book were exposed to it in this way.

 

–        Told the story of the slave woman Eliza who was trying to escape from slavery across the frozen Ohio River from Kentucky to Ohio, and she is pursued by the cruel slave overseer Simon Legree.

 

–        The book and the play inflamed public opinion North and South

 

 

  1. The Kansas-Nebraska controversy – Grew out of the question of building a transcontinental railroad line, a line that would provide railroad transportation from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific coast.

 

–        Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois – Wanted a railroad from Illinois to the Pacific and organizing a territory west of Missouri would help. But needed something to attract southern votes.

 

–        Two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska – popular sovereignty

 

–        Strongly opposed in the North but Pierce supported and passed – May 1854

 

 

  1. Consequence: Bleeding Kansas

 

 

 

 

 

  1. The (modern) Republican Party and the election of 1856

 

–        Meetings held in many places in the North to protest the Kansas-Nebraska Act and out of these meetings came the new Republican Party

 

–        John C. Fremont vs. James Buchanan

 

–        Outcome tells us that the Republican Party was a sectional party; it had NO membership in the South

 

–       Meanwhile, the Whig Party was falling apart

 

 

 

E. The Buchanan Presidency

 

  1. The Dred Scott Decision – March 6, 1857

 

–        Dred Scott, a slave, was suing for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived outside the South with his owner, John Emerson, an Army surgeon.

 

–        Written by Roger B. Taney –