Modern Boston History Exam

Week 1.4 History 385 - !1

Week 1.4 Irish Immigration and the Anti-Catholic Tensions History 385

Julie de Chantal

So far we have seen that Boston changed dramatically in the first years of the 19th century. Charles Bullfinch and other developers filled in the coves around the Shawmut Peninsula to increase the size of the city. They also developed communities, for example on Beacon Hill. We have also explored how City Officials addressed questions of infrastructure, enacted regulations to protect Bostonians (against fires for example), and laws to foster development both on a personal and city level (education). The industrial development led to the creation of the working class. The city became increasingly stratified, especially in terms of class divisions, as it diversified. We have finally seen how the population of Boston becomes more radical while still maintaining a certain conservative side.

Today, we will look into Boston best and worst time. • We will first look at the economic context of the city, in particular the Panic of 1837. • We will look at the Irish experience in the migration, and then how they settle in the

city, • We will look into the push for urbanization. • This will ultimately lead us to the march toward the Civil War and its impact on

Boston.

Panic of 1837 The Panic of 1837 is a period of deep economic recession which followed a period of economic growth (between mid-1834 and mid-1836). During this phase of economic growth, inflation was rampant in the United States. The price of the land, cotton and slaves all rose at the same time. A lot of the American financial system was tied to England and Europe. In the mid-1830s, English merchants still purchased a lot of cotton coming out of the United States and invested large sums of money in the American industry. They especially invested in the construction of transportation systems (canals, railroads), financed the expansion toward the West, and invested in the development of the American infrastructure.

At some point in 1836, the Bank of England realized that the monetary reserves of the country had dropped substantially over the years (possibly due to the fact that England had to import a lot of its food due to poor harvests). In response, the Bank of England raised interest rates from 3% to 5%. Because of the ways in which the markets were linked together, Banks in the United States were forced to do the same and to raise their interest rates. When the financial centers in New York and in Boston raised their interest rates and cut down on lending, they triggered the economic crisis. As a result, the demand for cotton plummeted by 25% in one month (February to March 1837). Since cotton was a source of revenue for the country, the effects were felt right

Week 1.4 History 385 - !2

away. (Cotton revenues had served to finance a large portion of the infrastructure and to stabilized the US dollar.)

Banking system in the US You have to remember that the banks in the United States were not centralized at the time. There was no Federal Reserve nor protection against bank failure. (Both of these will be invented during the Great Depression of the 1930s). There were also no trade barriers between countries. Congress attempted to restructure the banking system at the times but failed to do so. President Andrew Jackson, for example, vetoed the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States, which was a federally authorized national bank. The bank handled all fiscal transactions for the U.S. Government, and was accountable to Congress and the U.S. Treasury. The second attempt to regulate the system, through the Specie Circular of 1836, mandated that all western land purchased from the government be bought only with gold and silver coins. (To curb speculation on the land). The effect of these two policies was to transfer money in gold and silver away from the nation's main commercial centers on the East Coast (Boston, New York, and Philadelphia). With lower monetary reserves in their vaults, major banks and financial institutions on the East Coast had to scale back their loans, which was a major cause of the panic in the financial markets.

Effect on Boston As we discussed last week, Boston was a major banking center in the United States. A large portion of the middle-class jobs in Boston depended on a healthy financial market. Following the panic of 1837, ⅓ of the workers were unemployed with these numbers increasing until the winter of 1842-1843 (at the height of the Irish migration).

Political Power The antebellum era (pre-Civil War era) is often considered to be the golden age of American Participatory democracy. Limitations on white man’s suffrage (suffrage = vote) gradually disappeared. The payment of poll taxes was replaced by property tests (property ownership). Massachusetts still had the $1.50 poll tax, but it was minimal and virtually guaranteed suffrage to any white man. During the antebellum period, more people participated in political activity (voting, attending political rallies, discussing politics) than at any other time in history (even today).

Yet Boston’s white elite sought ways to control the democratic system and to eliminate a large proportion of potential voters. For example, polls closed at sunset which made it impossible for Boston workers who lived in Cambridge to make it home and vote before the polls closed. Only those who could leave work early or during the day (i.e. people who controlled their own schedule or could afford to take time off) could vote. Registration laws and residency requirements affected the number of people who voted. Property tax qualifications made it such that a portion of men over the age of 21 could not vote since they did not own a home.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !3

Voter registration dropped from 21% of all men over 21 in 1845 to 19% in 1855. Avoiding taxes or service in the militia obligations were major incentives not to register to vote. Apathy and cynicism also played into some folks decision not to register since they clearly understood that they had no say in city or state politics which was still controlled by the elite.

Parties At the end of the 1830s, two major parties emerge: the Democrats and the Whigs. Outside of Boston, politics was usually controlled by the newly rich, the non-traditional elite, mostly composed of self-made men. In Boston, however, the Brahmins and their Irish counterparts (there were a few prominent Irish Catholic men in Boston at the time) still controlled the political system. Both Whigs and Democrats were divided over the question of tariffs but not in terms of ideology about democracy.

Whig Party (1833-1854) Leaders: Henry Clay (based in Kentucky) and Daniel Webster (based in Boston). The Party’s founders chose the “Whig” name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. The Party was originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson (in office 1829–37) and his Democratic Party. Whig leaders saw him as a dangerous man on horseback, a reactionary to modernity. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of the US Congress over the Presidency. They were proponents of Jefferson’s tradition of compromise, checks and balances, and territorial expansion. They favored national unity, support the creation of a federal transportation network, and the investment in domestic manufacturing. They were in favor of a program of modernization, federally controlled banking, and policies of economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing.

• Economic protectionism: they want to put in tariffs (taxes on importation or exportation which restrict free trade) in place to protect business interests.

They promoted an education reform to put in place a system of universal public education. As you can imagine, the party’s platform appealed to entrepreneurs, large planters, reformers, and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. Many active reformers supported the party because its leaders voiced an opposition to Jackson’s Indian Removal Act which led to the removal, relocation, and death of thousands of Native Americans. The Party was especially popular in Boston.

Democratic Party Emerged in 1830 from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In the 1830s, it was the party of Andrew Jackson who was a war hero from Tennessee. The Democrats shared Jefferson’s commitment to the concept of agrarian society (yeoman farmer, or people who owned their land and lived from their agricultural production). They feared the concentration of economic and political power. They believed that government intervention in the economy only benefited special-interest groups and created corporate monopolies that favored the rich. They were proponents of small government. They

Week 1.4 History 385 - !4

did not impose tariffs, instead, they favored laissez-faire, which in turn favored cotton planters in the South. They sought to restore the independence of the individual—the artisan and the ordinary farmer—by ending federal support of banks and corporations and restricting the use of paper currency, which they distrusted. They opposed education reform since they felt that public schools undermined parental responsibility. They also felt that public schools would undermine freedom of religion by replacing church schools. They promoted an aggressive policy toward Native Americans (Indian Removal Act). As you can imagine, they were extremely unpopular in New England. Most of their supporters lived in the South or on the frontier.

Boston’s political system Prior to 1822, the town was run by a Board of Aldermen, whose members were elected for 1- year terms. In 1822, the city was incorporated, and the new charter made it such that a mayor led the city council. The citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the “Town of Boston” to the “City of Boston” on March 4, 1822.

The city government, however, is still rudimentary. The whole city budget is of approximately $249,000 (1822 dollar value, approximately $4.5 million today). Most of social services (welfare, hospitals, etc) were provided by charities and other private organizations. The Public School system cost approximately $45,000 per year, covering 29 elementary schools, and the 3,827 students enrolled. There was no organized fire department. Residents of Boston took care of the engines, received a small compensation, and were exempt from militia duty. There was an organized police force of constables, but there was not enough officers to police the city appropriately. The frustration at the city for not enforcing laws and not answering the qualms of the Bostonians often led to rioting. In the 1830s, Boston probably won the title of “mob town, with its 147 riots in 1835 alone. Between 1830 and 1860, historians estimate that approximately 1000 people died in rioting in Boston.

Arrival of immigrants The arrival of immigrants challenged the already fragile equilibrium in the city. A large number of immigrants arrived in the city between 1830 and 1860. Most of them were French Canadians, French, Polish, Italians, Germans, Lebanese, and Irish. A large number of those immigrants used Boston as a port of entry to move to another location. For example, French Canadians settled in Lowell, Holyoke, Springfield, etc. Polish immigrants came to the Pioneer Valley. The Irish remained in Boston for the most part. In order to understand what happened and why they stayed in Boston, we have to examine the circumstances of their arrival.

Background of Ireland’s difficulties with Great Britain The potato blight, a fungus-like infection, attacked the crops in Ireland during the 1840s. Facing starvation, a number of people left Ireland to come to America. Although the effect of the potato blight is undeniable, the reality is a bit more complicated than that.

Since the Act of Union in January 1801, Ireland had been part of the United Kingdom. The executive power was in the Hands of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Chief Secretary for

Week 1.4 History 385 - !5

Ireland who was appointed by the British Government. Irish voters sent 105 representatives to the House of Commons and the Irish representative peers elected 28 of their own to the House of Lords (senate if you will). By the end of the 1830s, the power was concentrated in the hands of the landowner elite.

Although Ireland had representatives, the British government still wondered how to govern the country properly. UK Prime Minister at the time, Benjamin Disraeli, pointed to 3 major issues in governing Ireland:

• Absentee landlords (aristocracy was not on site) • starving population • alien Church (remember that the Church of England is led by the king or Queen of

England while the Catholic church is led by the pope)

Restrictions imposed on the population In addition, the cotter system impoverishes the population. In this system, peasants rented a home (simple habitation) and 1 ½ acres of land to grow potatoes, oats, flax, etc. The land was held on a year-to-year basis and the rent was often paid in labor. The rented land was often of poor quality, and could not be used for other purposes. Yet, there was a lot of competition for the land. A very small minority of the peasants were prosperous enough to retain a small amount of money after rent and other expenses were subtracted from their pay. In the early 19th century, their situation worsened as the population continued to increase. The Corn Laws, which restricted the importation of grains (any grain which needed grinding) by imposing tariffs on the imports, increased the price of food for the populace, but enriched the landowners.

If we return to the potato famine… by the time that the blight attacked the crops, the peasants’ diet relies heavily on potato and some milk. The Irish peasants were already in a precarious position, and had very little recourse to improve their situation. Rent increased and became so high that many were evicted from the land. The government attempted to pass a Tenant-Right bill to protect the tenants, or to use the strategy put in place in Belgium to block exportation of food but to open their ports to importation. Nothing helped the peasants.

The only solution left to the Irish peasants was to leave the island. Between 1841 and 1851, the population in Ireland drops by 1.5 million people. The normal growth rate should have been over 9 million during the same period of time. Statisticians estimate that approximately 21,770 people died of starvation, 400,720 died of disease. Contemporary historians believe that these numbers underestimate the overall death toll.

Experience in the Migration Irish migrants chose Boston as their final destination because of the support that they had received from the Irish community already established in the city. Bishop Fitzpatrick for example, had called upon the community to share their “last loaf of bread” with those unfortunate souls whose “wild shrieks of famine and despair” could be heard across the Atlantic.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !6

Members of the community sent gifts to Ireland, estimated at $150,000, before the famine was over. Even protestants in the city contributed to the relief efforts.

In 1847, a group of Boston merchants succeed in getting Congress to let them use the Jamestown (a sloop of war) which was in Charlestown to transport provisions to Ireland. The ship was commanded by Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, a Brahmin, and a voluntary crew enlisted. On Saint-Patrick’s Day, the Boston Laborers’ Aid Society (all-Irish charity) came to the vessel to help load the ship, free of charge. On board, they had 800 tons of grains, meal, potatoes, other foodstuffs, and clothing. They left on March 27 and arrived 15 days later in Cork Harbor. Upon the arrival of the ship, the local population cheered and a band played Yankee Doodle.

While Bostonians expected the arrival of Irish people due to the famine, they did not expect the number of people who would come to the city. In 1847 alone, 37,000 migrants arrived. Usually, the city absorbed between 4 and 5 thousand immigrants a year, not more that that. From that point on, the city was nicknamed the Dublin of America

Getting to Massachusetts Migrants sailed from different ports in Ireland or in England depending on where they could get a cheap ticket. Some sailed on the British Cunard Line ships, a line for which passages were subsidized by the British Government. The trip could take anywhere between 2 weeks and 40 days depending on the speed of the ship and of the weather on the Atlantic Ocean. To give you an idea, the RMS Titanic, which unsuccessfully crossed the Atlantic in 1912, was supposed to take 7 days to get from England to New York City. It was the largest and fastest ship of its time.

A large number of passengers were sick during their journey. People were checked before boarding so that they could be accepted for immigration in the USA (i.e. not visibly sick). If they went through New York City, they stopped in Ellis Island. If they were sick once they arrived in Boston, they could be sent to Rainsford Island which served as a quarantine Hospital between 1737 and 1925.

After 1840, emigration from Ireland became a massive, relentless, and efficiently managed national enterprise. By 1890, 40% of Irish-born people lived abroad. By the 21st century, an estimated 80 million people worldwide claimed some Irish descent. This number includes more than 36 million Americans who claim Irish as their primary ethnicity.

Rise of Nativism in the city With the migration, we can see a rise of an anti-immigrant feeling (nativism) in the United States. Boston is no exception. Nativism came from the unleashed urban growth in combination with the arrival of the immigrants. Between 1830 and 1860, the four largest cities on the East Coast—NYC, Philly, Baltimore, and Boston—saw their population increase by 25 to 38%. Newly established immigrants were pushed toward cheap housing, which ultimately segregated the poor in specific neighborhoods.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !7

Cities faced a number of problems due to this pattern: • Development of slums: immigrants moved in with friends and relatives through

migratory chains. Families send a few male relatives first, then followed. They often lived in small quarters, sharing rooms with other people to offset the cost of rents.

• Poor sanitation: think about how the sewer system in the city was insufficient in 1833. If you increase population drastically, you can see an increase sewer issues. There was also no running water in most homes.

• Inadequate police and fire control: fires were still really common in the city. Petty crime often went unpunished.

• Gang and Ethnic warfare: Think Gangs of New York. Different gangs developed in the different neighborhoods and often confronted each other in turf wars.

• Drunkenness and Prostitution: Due to the ratio of men to women migrating to the city, prostitution remained a problem in the city. Alcohol was also part of British and Irish culture (it still is. If you go to England, everyone stops by the pub after work. They even close streets down to allow for more pub patrons to drink their beers quietly). In the United States, alcohol became a question of morality. The temperance movement pressured governments to outlaw the consumption, production, and distribution of alcohol.

• Extreme Poverty: As you remember, the Irish left their country impoverished and often in fairly bad shape physically. They were ready to take any job once they arrived in the country and were willing to work for low wages. Their desperation led unscrupulous employers to exploit them.

Let’s return to idea of nativism Overall, the reaction against the Irish was extremely violent. The idea of nativism is a really important concept throughout the 19th century. The term nativism is a relatively new term used to explain an old reality. It is difficult to define. The term was coined in 1840s as way to define the reaction of Americans to foreigners. The term was coined by the critics of nativists and not by the people who were nativists themselves. Those who were nativists called themselves Americanists.

What are the components of nativism? Nativism is based on a nationalism where its proponents believe that an influence originating abroad threatens the way of life of those living in America. For example, they saw Catholicism as a threat to American liberty. They also saw the arrival of pauper labor as a threat to American workers. An historian described the feeling as an “intense opposition to an internal minority on the ground of its foreign (i.e. Un-American) connections.” Nativists denounced the loyalty of some foreign or allegedly foreign group to an outside power. Seeing or suspecting a failure of assimilation, they feared disloyalty. Groups targeted by nativists changed in matters of weeks or months, depending on what was considered un-American at the time. Nativism ebbed and flowed depending on the perceived level of threat from the outside.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !8

Nativism in Boston The anti-Catholic sentiment was present in the colony since the settlement. Colonials passed laws against Catholicism, Quakerism, and any other denomination that they felt were not in accordance with the Puritan ideals. A few years after the Revolution, the Founding Fathers passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The act increased the time to citizenship to 14 years. It was a way to protect the American way of life since the Founding Fathers feared the arrival of foreign radicals to the country. Between 1840 and 1850, the influx of Irish Catholic had to be absorbed in the labor force. This challenged the relative stability that existed in the city. But they were not the only ones to arrive at the time.

A Chinese Community in Boston Starting in 1845, historians have evidence that Chinese immigrants were already established in the city. It was a small number at first but the community was growing. Most Chinese immigrant at the time settled on the West Coast, especially in the mining areas of Northern California. On one hand, because of their appearance and their traditional dress, these immigrants were obviously the target of nativist passions. However, on the other, some people were fairly happy to see them established in the city. For example, white merchants who had been part of the tea trade for decades were pleased to form new business alliances through Chinese merchants newly established in the city.

Captain Robert Bennett Forbes, whom I mentioned earlier as the captain who brought provisions to Ireland during the famine, had even brought a small steamer, the Spark, to China in 1849 to help with the trade. Forbes did a lot of dealings with Chinese merchants at the time. He was especially well known for his high quality tea leaves but also for his opium trade.

The same happened with Thomas Handasyd Perkins. A Brahmin, he had made a lot of money as a slave trader, a peddler of furs, and finally a smuggler of Turkish opium to China. China attempted to enact a ban on opium several times during the period. Perkins saw the threat with optimism. It would frighten away the competition. With his fortune, he supported the Boston Athenæum and the New England Institute for the Blind.

At the time, the Boston elite also loved what they considered “exotic.” In the 1840s, elites everywhere in the world used elements of the Chinese and Indian culture to decorate their homes.

Let’s get back to the difficulties of the Chinese community. The arrival of many immigrants pushed the city to fill the South Cove. The area was first settled by Yankees, but, as the railways developed, most of them left. The value of the properties dropped, allowing immigrants, especially Irish, Jews, and Chinese Bostonians to live there. As you can imagine, the area was not the best. They dealt with absentee landlords and poverty. Immigrants usually preserved their culture, which led the Yankees to believe that they could not assimilate properly. Because of this fear, nativism increased with the contact.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !9

Know Nothing Party The Native American Party, also known as the Know Nothing Movement, was founded in 1844 and dissolved in 1860. It came out of a number of secret nativist societies, which spread across the North. The party emerged as a response to the influx of immigrants and to the Revolutions of 1848 which took place across Europe. The Know Nothing promised to purify American politics by limiting the influence of Irish Catholics and of other immigrants. The party was empowered by the fear that immigrants would overwhelm the American way of life. The party was overwhelmingly popular in Boston, Salem, and other New England cities.

In the election of 1854, the faction carried Massachusetts. It was the party’s largest victory. As a result, the movement solidified into a true political party. The faction’s priorities fit really well with Bostonian’s concerns for morality. They promise:

• to crack down on crime • to close saloons, especially on Sundays, • and to appoint only native-born Americans to office.

But what allows such a bigoted party to rise? We talked about the Compromise of 1820 with the inclusion of Missouri and Maine as states. As you remember the debate about slavery was far from over even with the compromise in place. In 1854, the issues resurfaced. Since the 1840s, the appeal for the land in the West became more intense due to the arrival of a flock of immigrants. The need for infrastructure to get to and in the West became more pressing. There was a lot of discussion around the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Several proposals were discussed but ultimately failed because of the competition between Southern and Northern investors.

Stephen Douglass of Illinois attempted to draft a compromise similar to the Compromise of Missouri in order to settle the matter. The bill was supposed to repeal the Missouri Compromise and divide the territory into two entities Kansas and Nebraska. His proposal though challenged the ways in which the compromise had regulated slavery. Instead of stating that slavery was allowed South or North of a parallel, the bill called for popular sovereignty where the decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers instead of outsiders. The bill ultimately passed and led to a number of violent political confrontations known as the Bleeding Kansas where pro- and anti-slavery proponents entered confrontations. People like Charles Sumner opposed the bill.

Charles Sumner He was born in Boston in 1811. He was the son of a liberal Harvard educated lawyer and an abolitionist who had promoted integrated schools. His father had also opposed anti- miscegenation laws which prevented people from different racial origins to marry (i.e. he accepted people marrying whom they wanted notwithstanding their race).

As a young man, Charles Sumner went to Boston Latin School. He grew up with people like Wendell Phillips. He then went to Harvard and to Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the Bar in 1834. He travels to Europe and returns to Boston in 1840. He was a pacifist: he opposed

Week 1.4 History 385 - !10

the Mexican American War and made appeals for freedom and peace. He was also one of the lawyers to represent Black parents in the Roberts v. Boston case which challenged the legality of segregation in the city. He was named senator by the Free Soilers (those who opposed slavery in the case of Kansas Nebraska debate) and elected by one vote majority in 1851.

His election changed Massachusetts politics since his abolitionist stance contrasted with that of Daniel Webster who had supported the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. As a senator, Sumner became prominent in his attacks against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. In 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas Crisis, he criticized several aspects of the situation. His positions were always against what he considered to be “slave power” or the political arm of slavery.

The fact that liberal people like Sumner lived in Boston is one of the reason why the Know Nothing party won in 1854.

The Know Nothing party won in a landslide in Massachusetts for the following reasons: • the new party was populistic (it appeals to the “common man”) • it was highly democratic • it was hostile to wealth, the elites, and their expertise. • it was suspicious of outsiders, especially Catholics • and it denounced what it perceived as the unfair competition between Yankee and

newly arrived Catholics

At the time, the Whigs were still popular among the elite of Boston while the Know Nothing were popular among the Yankee working-class.

Yet the Know Nothing are more progressive to some extent. • They supported the expansion of the rights of women. • They increased the rights of married women (give them more property rights and

more rights in divorce courts). • They opposed slavery. • They favored the regulation of the industry. • They also proposed measures to improve the status of the working class such as

regulation of railroads, insurance companies, public utilities. • They voted for the Textbook Act which provided textbooks free of charge to students

in the public school system. • They raised appropriations for public libraries and for the school for the blind.

They also had a reform agenda: (think of radical with conservative roots). • They founded a reform school for juvenile delinquents. • They blocked the import of “subversive” books and documents coming out of

Europe. • They instituted penalties for speakeasies, gambling houses, and bordellos.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !11

• They even passed a prohibition law that allowed for 6 months in jail for someone who sold one glass of beer, though juries refused to convict people for that reason.

What is most important about the Know Nothing though is that the Party’s number one priority was to attack the civil rights of the Irish Catholic immigrants.

• They removed the rights of state courts to process citizenship applications (making citizenship much more complicated to get).

• They required that all public schools do a compulsory reading of the Protestant Bible (they wanted to convert Catholic children to Protestant denominations.

• They disbanded Irish regiments and militias. • They removed Irish workers from state jobs to put Protestants in their place. • They also wanted to pass a constitutional amendment in the state that would require

that people had lived in Massachusetts for at least 21 years before they could get the right to vote and hold office, and asked Congress to raise the time to citizenship from 5 to 21 years.

Last, they formed an investigating committee to prove that there was widespread sexual immorality in Catholic convents. Later, the press had the time of their life when they realized that one of the top people on the investigating committee was using state funds to pay for prostitutes.

Overall their reform agenda cost a lot to the city and to the state. Because of the new taxes needed to support their agenda, the Know Nothing were not reelected. However, the ways in which the state sanctioned the discrimination against the Irish led to the rise of violence of private citizens against the Irish community. There was a rise in vandalism against Catholic private property. The Irish are described in “exotic terms,” for example as the “bedouin Arabs from the Wharves.” They were also described as thieves and criminals.

As the debate on slavery increased, the Irish became divided on the topic. As we saw, most abolitionists were from Brahmin families. In this sense, the Irish were not inclined to support the cause. In addition, they believed that the emancipated slaves would flock to the city and would challenge the precarious position that they have in the city.

Overall, the Irish saw the posturing of the abolitionists as being against the U.S Government. This fear was for cause, William Lloyd Garrison had described the Constitution of the United States as “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” Since the Irish felt the need to assimilate, the last thing that they wanted to do was to oppose the government

By the end of the 1850s, the country was marching toward the war. The election of 1860 triggered the armed conflict. The election represents how fractured the nation truly was at the time.

Week 1.4 History 385 - !12

There were four contestants for the war. • The Newly formed Republican had Abraham Lincoln as his candidate (he won

39.8% of the vote) • Stephen Douglass represented the Northern Democrats, won 29.5% of the vote • John C. Breckinridge was the Southern Democrat candidate with 18.1% • John Bell with the Constitutional Union won 12.6%

In Massachusetts • 106,533 votes to Lincoln • 34,370 Douglass • Bell 22,232 votes • No vote, obviously for John Breckenridge.

John Andrew The same year, John Andrew became the Governor of Massachusetts. He was born in what is now Windham, Maine. He grew up in Maine but was exposed to the thought of William Lloyd Garrison. He moved to Boston in 1837 to study law under Henry Fuller. He was admitted to the Bar in 1840. That year, he joined the Whig party. In 1854, he opposed the Kansas Nebraska Act, was an advocate against the Fugitive Slave Act. In 1857, he was elected as a representative. He took on more responsibilities and became the voice of abolitionism when Charles Sumner was injured. He took office in January 1861, only a few days before the war.

A month later, Democrat Joseph Wightman won Boston Mayoral race. The city enters an economic recession as an after shock of Lincoln’s election