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Chapter 14

The Politics of Sectionalism

1846-1861

Martin Van Buren““The Little Magician”

1782-1862 8th President 1837-41

Vernon Maddux 16

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Compromise of 1850: This Legislation permits slavery in the Northern Territories which upset the 1820 Missouri

Compromise balance between slave and “free” states.

• 1846. Wilmot Proviso fails (no Mexican-derived territory should permit slavery).

• 1850. Fugitive Slave Act is greeted by an angry response in the North.

• 1852. Election of pro-slave president James Buchanan.

• 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.1850 Slave population in the US

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Zachary Taylor1784-1850

12th President 1849-50

• 1848. Whigs chose Taylor, a Louisiana slaveholder who was no Whig and had never voted.

• To soothe more traditional Whigs, the convention picked stalwart Millard Fillmore as vice-president.

• Taylor’s Whig victory held hope of a solution that could end the growth of slavery, but he proved fiercely resistant even to the most important Whig founders Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.

• July 9 1850 At the peak of the Sectionalism Crisis, Taylor died unexpectedly after two years in office.

“Old Rough & Ready”

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Millard Fillmore 13th President 1850-1853

• To ease the North-South crisis, the new president Millard Fillmore asked for resignations from Taylor's cabinet. He then appointed Daniel Webster, the major Northern advocate of compromise to be his Secretary of State. – Fillmore put Whig party hacks favorable to

compromise in every cabinet post. • As fast as Congress passed COMPROMISE

of 1850 bills, Fillmore immediately signed them –deeply irritating Southerners.

• Fillmore angered Northerners even more by strictly enforcing the FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. This required Northern police officers to capture and return escaped slaves to Southern owners.

Millard Fillmore 1800-1874

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The Compromise of 1850

In Practice

• Southerners hated the idea of restricting slavery in any way.

• Northern Abolitionists continually attacked slavery in print.

• Fillmore’s aggressive Federal policy of enforcing the fugitive slave laws especially infuriated people in New England.

• Northern black freemen were liable to be captured illegally and sent into Southern slavery.

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Harriet Beecher Stowe1811-1896

“The little lady who made this big war.“ Lincoln

• 1811. Harriet Elizabeth Beecher was born to Lyman Beecher, a famous Connecticut evangelist preacher.

• 1836. She married Calvin E. Stowe and had seven children.

• 1852. She wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabinin her despair after losing a child to cholera.Her father a famous preacher,

her cousin served with Custer in Kansas and was killed by Sioux

Indians in 1868.

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UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 1852• UTC is an appealing story of a

slave family torn apart by cruel owners.

• UTC first appeared as a serial in a magazine: National Era.

• A run-away best-seller, the book sold 5,000,000 copies worldwide, several million in England.

• As an American stage play, it appealed to a vast illiterate northern public (especially Irish).

• Its message of family destruction convinced even poor and racist Northerners to pursue an end to slavery.

Frightened, the mother flees from slave hunters across ice-covered Ohio River with her

baby in her arms.

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Political Realignment• Sen. Stephen Douglas proposed to build a

Transcontinental Railroad. • This resulted in the Kansas-Nebraska Act

and “Bleeding Kansas.”– LeCompton Constitution- Kansas.

• The rising Slavery crisis creates three new Political Parties: “Know-Nothings,” “Anti-Masons” and the “Republicans.”

• Lincoln-Douglas senatorial debates in Illinois brings Lincoln to national attention as a champion who would end slavery.

• Buchanan wins the election of 1856 and does nothing to ease the crisis.

Stephen Douglas 1813-1861

“The Little Giant”

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Rep. Brooks attacks Sen. SumnerSummer 1856

During a debate over Kansas, Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts openly scorned SC Sen. Andrew P. Butler, calling him “helpless without slaves to tend to him.”

The next day Butler’s nephew, SC Rep. Preston S. Brooks, attacked Sumner with his cane on the Senate floor.

Brooks beat Sumner so hard that the cane broke apart.

Sumner was severely injured.

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Dred Scott“Dred Scott Decision”

• 1799. Dred Scott was born a slave on the Peter Blow farm in Southampton Co., Va.

• Although trained as a butler, Scott remained illiterate.

• 1820. Blow sold the Southampton farm and moved with his slaves to St Louis, Missouri.

Dred Scott 1799 - 1858

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Harriett Robinson ScottDred Scott Decision

• 1832. The slave owner sold Scott to Army Surgeon Dr John Emerson who transferred with his wife Irene, from St Louis to Ft Snelling, Wisconsin Territory (Minn.).

• 1836. At Ft Snelling, Dred Scott met Harriett, a slave for Maj. Lawrence Taliaferro, the fort’s Sioux Indian Agent.

• 1837. When approached by Dred and Harriett, Taliaferro agreed to their marriage, set Harriett free and, as Justice of the Peace, even performed the marriage ceremony. Harriett Robinson

c1818 - c1867

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Scott vs. SanfordDred Scott Decision

• Harriett and Dred had two daughters; Eliza born 1838 on a Mississippi riverboat and Lizzy born 1840, St Louis.

• 1843. Dr Emerson died and his widow remarried, now Irene Sanford

• 1845. To increase her income, she hires out Dred who offers to buy his freedom for $300.00, but Irene refuses.

• 1846. Dred persuades local St Louis lawyer to sue Irene Emerson-Sanford for his freedom.

• 1857. After several victories and reversals, the case goes to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.

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Roger Brooke Taney Appointed by President Jackson as 5th Chief

Justice of the Supreme CourtBorn March 17, 1777 on a slave plantation in Calvert Co., Md, Taney (tawn-ee) was educated by tutors until 15 then attended Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. When his father died, he freed all inherited slaves, however remained sympathetic to Southern ideals. 1857, Mar 6. Taney read his 56 page Scott vs. Sanford decision two days after swearing in the new president Buchanan. The decision, though absolutely true to the Constitution, stunned both sides of the slavery issue, ending all attempts at legal compromise.

Roger B. Taney 1777-1864

His sister married Francis Scott Key

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Scott vs. Sanford“A Supreme Court Decision that Nationalized Slavery”

Supported by five justices (vs. three), Taney decreed: • Dred Scott was forever a slave regardless of where he lived.Furthermore:• Under the Constitution, no black person, free or slave, could

ever be a citizen of the United States.• The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of

1850 were unconstitutional because Congress had no power to prohibit slavery within US territory.

DredDred ScottScott becomes becomes thethe central issue in the 1860 central issue in the 1860 election. The Republican Party chose the abolition of election. The Republican Party chose the abolition of slavery as its only plank, nominating Abraham Lincoln slavery as its only plank, nominating Abraham Lincoln to be its uncompromising antito be its uncompromising anti--slavery champion.slavery champion.

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John Brown• Oct 16 1859 Harpers Ferry Sunday

at 11:00 p.m., John Brown and 20 followers (5 blacks) capture the federal arsenal. Monday passes.

• Tues. at 1:00 a.m. Col. RE Lee, JEB Stuart and a company of U.S. Marines board a B&O train.

• At dawn Lee sends Stuart to demand surrender. Stuart recognizes “Mr. Smith” as John Brown, a radical abolitionist he knew from Kansas.

• On Stuart’s signal, Marines storm the arsenal and captured Brown.

• Dec. 2. 1859. Brown is hanged as a martyr to slavery at Charlotte, Va.

• One of his guards is John Wilkes Booth.

John Brown 1800-1859 Southern Paranoid Fears

Realized

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Election of 1860Abraham Lincoln

Two Terms 16th PotUS 1861-1865• Born Sinking Spring Farm near

Hodgenville (Larue Co.), Ky.• 1832. A lawyer, he was a

volunteer militia captain for 16 weeks in the Black Hawk War.

• 1856. Ran for US Senator from Illinois; lost to Steven Douglas.

• 1860. Nominated for President by the Republican Party. His only promise was to end US slavery.

• He won easily, but received no votes in the South.1809-1865