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Chapter 15: The Union Broken 1850 to 1861

U.S. A NARRATIVE HISTORY, EIGHTH EDITION

DAVIDSON • DELAY • HEYRMAN • LYTLE • STOFF

The Union Broken 1850 to 1861

“The road to war was not straight or short. Six years elapsed between the Compromise of 1850 and the crisis in ‘Bleeding Kansas.’ Another four would pass before the first shot was fired. And the process of separation involved more than popular fears, ineffective politicians, and an unwillingness to compromise.”

What’s to Come

Sectional Changes in American Society The Political Realignment of the 1850s The Worsening Crisis The Road to War

Sectional Changes in American Society (1)

The Growth of a Railroad Economy • After 1839, replaced cotton as driving force for

American economic growth • Strengthening of western trade links with northern

cities • Growing prominence of commercial agriculture

• Direction of western trade shifted

MAP 15.1: GROWTH OF THE RAILROAD NETWORK, 1850 to 1860 Although many miles of railroad track were laid during the 1850s, total track mileage is misleading because the United States lacked a fully integrated rail network in 1860. The existence of five major track gauges (or widths) meant that passengers and freight often had to be transferred from one line to the next. And north-south traffic was further hindered by the lack of bridges over the Ohio River.

PROPORTION OF WESTERN EXPORTS SHIPPED VIA NEW ORLEANS, 1835 to 1860

In 1835 nearly 100 percent of western exports of corn, pork, and whiskey were being shipped via New Orleans. By 1860 only about 40 percent of pork and whiskey and 20 percent of flour and corn were. The change in shipping patterns weakened the political ties between the South and the old Northwest.

Sectional Changes in American Society (2)

Railroads and the Prairie Environment • With new technology and commercial farming,

prairie lands transformed

Railroads and the Urban Environment

• Growth of towns depended on their location along railroad lines

Rising Industrialization

• Growing percentage of American workers working in industry, especially in the North

Sectional Changes in American Society (3)

Immigration • Industrial growth relied on large factory labor

force • Influx of immigrants fed demand

• New sources of immigration emerged • Fleeing economic and political situations • Revolutions of 1848 prompted many, especially Germans

• Factories became more and more dependent on immigrant labor, including children

• Urban resources strained • Fear that new groups could not be assimilated precipitated

outburst of nativism

Sectional Changes in American Society (4) German immigrants enjoyed gathering for music and conversation in beer gardens. One of the most elegant and spacious of its day was New York City’s German Winter-Garden in the Bowery neighborhood. “There are immense buildings,” wrote one American, “fitted up in imitation of a garden…. Germans carry their families there to spend a day, or an evening.” ©Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY

Sectional Changes in American Society (5)

Southern Complaints • Planters prospered, but instead of machinery, they

invested in slaves • With immigration, the North surged in population,

strengthening its political power and its ability to settle western territories

“Despite southern prosperity the section’s leaders repeatedly complained that the North had used its power over banking and commerce to convert the South into a colony.”

PRICES OF COTTON AND SLAVES From 1815 to 1850 cotton and slave prices generally rose and fell together, as southerners plowed their profits from growing cotton into buying more land and slaves. During the 1850s, however, the booming southern economy and bumper cotton crops drove the price of slaves steeply upward compared to cotton prices, squeezing slaveowners’ profit margins and heightening southern anxieties about the future. Photo © Pixtal/agefotostock RF

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (1)

“Young America” movement looked to spread democracy by annexing territory to the U.S.

Gadsden Purchase brought control of 45,000 square miles of Mexican desert for a southern rail route

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (2)

The Kansas-Nebraska Act • Brainchild of Senator Stephen A. Douglas

• Wanted a northern route for the transcontinental railroad • Missouri Compromise repealed • Popular sovereignty applied to Kansas and Nebraska

territories • Northern Democrats, Whigs, Free Soilers outraged

• Charged the bill gave territory to “Slave Power” • Passed by a narrow margin

MAP 15.2: THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT When the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 opened the remaining portion of the Louisiana Purchase to slavery under the doctrine of popular sovereignty, conflict between the two sections focused on control of Kansas, directly west of the slave state of Missouri.

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (3)

The Collapse of the Second American Party System • Sparked by mounting sectional tensions of the 1850s

• System already weakened by divisions over immigration, prohibition, and perception of corruption

• Voters began switching allegiances, and a new party system emerged • Divided along clearly sectional lines

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (4)

The Know-Nothings • Independent parties flourished • Nativist impulse fed growth of the anti-immigrant

American Party—or “Know-Nothings” • Series of victories in 1854 elections • Bolstered by Whig desertions

• Party declined in 1856 in the wake of the growth of the antislavery movement

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (5)

The Republicans and Bleeding Kansas • With collapse of the Know-Nothings, northern

party members migrated to the new Republican Party

• Kansas became a referendum on slavery • Missourians stuffed ballot boxes in the elections of

1854, 1855 • Proslavery forces gained a commanding majority • Free-staters organized a separate government • Violence broke out between the two factions

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (6)

The Caning of Charles Sumner • May 22, 1856: Sumner caned by Representative

Preston Brooks in reaction to Sumner’s slander of a relative

• Brooks lionized as a hero in the South • In the North, the event gave credibility to claims

about “Bleeding Kansas” and the Slave Power

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (7) The caning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by Representative Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina inflamed public opinion. In this northern cartoon the fallen Sumner, a martyr to free speech, raises his pen against Brooks' club. Rushing to capitalize on the furor, printmakers did not know what the obscure Brooks looked like and thus had to devise ingenious ways of portraying the incident. In this print, Brooks' face is hidden by his raised arm. ©Bettmann/Getty Images

The Political Realignment of the 1850s (8)

The Election of 1856 • Democrats’ nominee: James Buchanan

• American Party, Millard Fillmore • Republicans, John C. Frémont

• Basic principles of the Republican Party included the ideal of free labor • Also gained support by attacking the Slave Power, or the

political influence of the planter class • Although Buchanan won election, the strength of

Frémont’s bid showed the potential of an antislavery party based in the North

The Worsening Crisis (1)

The Dred Scott Decision • Lawsuit filed by a slave for his freedom was

rejected by the Supreme Court • African Americans were not citizens • Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional

• Reaction to the decision further split the sections • Conflict aggravated by the Panic of 1857

• Relatively mild economic downturn, but severe psychological impact

The Worsening Crisis (2)

The Lecompton Constitution • Attempt to make Kansas a slave state

• Constitution crafted by proslavery forces to protect slavery

• Lecompton constitution defeated • Congress returned the constitution to Kansas for

another vote, in which it failed • Became clear Kansas would be a free state

“The attempt to force slavery on the people of Kansas drove many conservative northerners into the Republican Party.”

The Worsening Crisis (3)

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates • Republican Abraham Lincoln nominated to

challenge Stephen Douglas’s reelection to the Senate • “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

• Candidates were split on the slavery issue • Freeport Doctrine offered by Douglas

• Territorial governments could ban slavery by refusing the pass a slave code

The Worsening Crisis (4)

The Beleaguered South • Growing sense of crisis and isolation saw no relief

• Agricultural reform and new industry largely failed • Private military expeditions produced no new territory

“By the 1850s slavery had been abolished throughout most of the Americas, and in the United States the South’s political power was steadily shrinking. Only the expansion of slavery and the admission of new slave states held any promise of preserving the South’s political power and protecting its way of life.”

The Road to War (5)

John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, 1857 • With 21 followers, seized a federal armory in the hope

of fomenting a slave insurrection

Raid weakened forces of compromise

• Southerners shocked by northern sympathy

The Road to War (6)

A Sectional Election • Division within the Democratic Party led to two

candidates, Douglas and Breckenridge • Southern radicals pressed for a federal slave code and

ultimately selected their own nominee • Republicans nominated Lincoln

• Won the election with the smallest percentage of the popular vote in the nation’s history

“For the first time, the nation had elected a president who headed a completely sectional party and who was committed to stopping the expansion of slavery.”

MAP 15.3: ELECTION OF 1860 Although Lincoln did not win a majority of the popular vote, he still would have been elected even if the votes for all three of his opponents had been combined, because he won a clear majority in every state he carried except California, Oregon, and New Jersey (whose electoral votes he split with Douglas).

The Road to War (7)

Secession • Southerners saw Lincoln’s election as a clear threat

• Secession seemed the only alternative • Resolution unanimously passed, December 20, 1860

• Confederate States of America organized in February 1861 • Jefferson Davis president

• Upper South and border states declined to secede • Crittenden Compromise proposed an “unamendable

amendment” safeguarding slavery where it existed • Nobody interested in making concessions

The Road to War (8)

The Outbreak of War • Lincoln’s approach to the crisis was cautious

• Focused on preserving the Union • War started over possession of Fort Sumter in

Charleston harbor, April 1861 • Lincoln called for 75,000 to put down the rebellion, and

four more states in the Upper South seceded

MAP 15.4: THE PATTERN OF SECESSION Led by South Carolina, the Deep South seceded between Lincoln’s election in November and his inauguration in March. The Upper South did not secede until after the firing on Fort Sumter. The four border slave states never seceded and remained in the Union throughout the war. As the map indicates, secession sentiment was strongest in states where the highest percentage of white families owned slaves.

The Road to War (9)

The Roots of a Divided Nation • Diverging economies

• Northern factories and cities • Southern cotton boom, rural society, and dependence

on slavery • Weaknesses of the political system • Belief in conspiracies against liberty • Rapid expansion

Chapter 15: �The Union Broken �1850 to 1861
The Union Broken 1850 to 1861
What’s to Come
Sectional Changes in American Society (1)
MAP 15.1: GROWTH OF THE RAILROAD NETWORK, 1850 to 1860
PROPORTION OF WESTERN EXPORTS SHIPPED VIA NEW ORLEANS, 1835 to 1860
Sectional Changes in American Society (2)
Sectional Changes in American Society (3)
Sectional Changes in American Society (4)
Sectional Changes in American Society (5)
PRICES OF COTTON AND SLAVES
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (1)
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (2)
MAP 15.2: THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (3)
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (4)
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (5)
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (6)
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (7)
The Political Realignment of the 1850s (8)
The Worsening Crisis (1)
The Worsening Crisis (2)
The Worsening Crisis (3)
The Worsening Crisis (4)
The Road to War (5)
The Road to War (6)
MAP 15.3: ELECTION OF 1860
The Road to War (7)
The Road to War (8)
MAP 15.4: THE PATTERN OF SECESSION
The Road to War (9)