HIST 2111U. S. History I

The irrepressible conflict?Chapters 20-21

Mike “Wheels” Breakey

Ugh—paper, what paper?

• TOPIC: Was the US Civil War an irrepressible conflict or could it have been avoided?

• 1000 words paper (about 3 pages minus title page and reference page)

• MLA format with reference page (APA is OK)• At least 4 references (and yes, the text is a fine

reference)• Opinion based in fact please!• Due April 29th—2 weeks

The Mexican War

Some of those who fought as young officers in the Mexican War1.Lee2.Longstreet3.Grant4.Sherman5.Stonewall Jackson6.George McClellan7.Ambrose Burnside8.PGT Beauregard9.Braxton Bragg10.George Meade

Blood and treasure

• Leadership—who had it?• Treasure—who had it?

• Again, as we talk about Civil War, the discussion of slavery and race are central.

• Discussing it is not the same as condoning it• The term black and white is merely a descriptor

Words of the Day• Proviso

– a clause in a document or contract that embodies a condition or stipulation

• Omnibus– An anthology of the works of one author or of writings on related subjects– pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once

• Nativist/Nativism– A sociopolitical policy favoring the interests of established inhabitants over those of

immigrants

• Popular sovereignty– the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people—that those chosen by

election to govern or to represent must conform to the will of the people– a doctrine, held chiefly by anti-abolitionists, that new territories should be free of

federal interference in domestic matters, especially concerning slavery– Said simply—states chose free or slave as part of the entry into the Union.

• Question—what had previously governed free or slave state?

Slavery and the results of the Mexican War

• Controversy over slavery– Moderates try to keep debate at periphery—WHY?– Victory in Mexican War makes this impossible—again WHY?

• Mexican acquisition of 525,000 square miles of territory in the West and Southwest, via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, intensifies debate because it is all “slave” territory

• Congress and Slavery– Invective abolitionists and proslavery extremists make political

compromise difficult for practical politicians

• Constitution makes slavery a state issue– Slave states equal free states– Constitutional amendment not politically possible

Slavery and the West

• Political Changes in Status of Slaves in U.S. Mostly Unchanged – Northern free states find ways to obstruct enforcement of Fugitive

Slave Act of 1793

• Va., Md., and Ky. Encounter serious runaway slave problems as slave cross state lines for freedom– Southern extremists propose reviving international slave trade—

rejected outright

• Congress regulated slavery in territories through the Missouri Compromise and limits on slavery– Mexican acquisition reopens question of expansion of slavery in the

territories of the West

Slavery and the West

• Wilmot Proviso– No slavery in territory from Mexico– Proviso passes House, but not Senate

• Calhoun defends right to take slaves to territories• Enter a new political Party

– Free Soil Party: no slavery in territories

• Election of 1848– Democrats: Lewis Cass– Whigs: Zachary Taylor– Free Soil: Martin Van Buren

• Taylor wins

The Crisis of 1850• 1848: gold discovered in California

– 1849: gold rush to California– December 1848: California applies for statehood as free state

• Admitting California creates crisis in Congress– Pro-slavery forces oppose admitting California as free state

• Henry Clay’s Omnibus Bill– California would be a free state– Boundary dispute settled between Texas and New Mexico– No reference to slavery in other new territories– South avoids adoption of Wilmot Proviso– Strengthening of Fugitive Slave Act and preserving slavery in Washington, DC

• Anything strike you as odd about the last piece of the omnibus bill?

The Crisis of 1850 (cont.’d)

• Omnibus Bill fails to pass• Compromise of 1850 passes in its place

– Abolitionists and proslavery democrats (Slavocrats) in Congress oppose Omnibus bill; Senators Clay and Webster speak for it

– Calhoun realistically warns of impending dissolution of the Union– President Taylor threatens veto

• Taylor dies; Millard Fillmore becomes president and is willing to sign a political compromise– Democratic Senator Stephen Douglass of Ill. splits bill into five separate

parts– Compromise of 1850 passes through Douglass’s legislative coalition-

building skills• Compromise of 1850 fails to ease deep sectional tensions in the

nation

Compromise of 1850• Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, over which it had threatened

war, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line• California's application for admission as a free state with its current

boundaries was approved– A Southern proposal to split California at parallel 35° north to provide a Southern

territory was not approved

• The South avoided adoption of the Wilmot Proviso and the new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory could decide in the future to become slave states (popular sovereignty), even though Utah and a northern fringe of New Mexico were north of the Missouri Compromise Line – These lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their existing settlers

were non-Southerners uninterested in slavery.

• A stronger Fugitive Slave Act• The slave trade was banned in Washington D.C.

The Crisis of 1850 (cont.’d)

• The Old Guard passes – Andrew Jackson dies in 1848– Calhoun dies in 1850– Clay, Webster die in 1852

• With them may have died the chance for compromise• Extremists and Moderates

– Extreme southerners: “fire-eaters”– Extreme northerners: radical abolitionists

• Significant militant antislavery faction in Congress• Southern Whig party dwindles—begins to dissolve

– Abolitionists unpopular among northerners seeking a political compromise

• Some Northern Democrats sympathetic to South (doughfaces)

The Crisis of 1850 (cont.’d)

• President Franklin Pierce elected in 1852– Relies on Jefferson Davis of Mississippi for political advice and names him

Secretary of War– Davis tries to take revive imperialism of 1840s with unsuccessful efforts to

annex Hawaii, Cuba

• South wants transcontinental railroad along a southern route to help region economically– Davis facilitates Gadsden Purchase ($10 million) to purchase 30,000 square

miles of land from Mexico necessary for transcontinental railroad for the South

• Northerners want a northern route for the transcontinental railroad—for the same reasons– One key player in this was Stephen Douglas– Had business ties to the Union Pacific Railroad

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1850• Northern route for the transcontinental railroad has issues

– Railroad must pass through unorganized territory– South will not vote to organize territory

• Douglas proposes Kansas–Nebraska Act– Tries to organize Kansas and Nebraska territory– Problem—both are north of the line from the Missouri Compromise– South will never go for it UNLESS?

• Hey, what about allowing the new citizens to vote?– Act allows for “popular sovereignty” to decide slavery in unorganized Kansas

Territory and Nebraska Territory

• Specifically undermines the Missouri Compromise• Popular sovereignty sounds very American doesn’t it?• Why would it be opposed?

Bleeding Kansas

• Kansas– Slave or free?

• Increases sectional controversy– Free-soilers and border ruffians– Anti-slavery groups aid emigration to Kansas– Fewer southerners emigrate to Kansas

• “Border ruffians” from Missouri worsen crisis– They shoot up and burn Lawrence

• John Brown kills group of proslavery settlers– Actually hacks them to death!

• Extremists on both sides no longer rational—tolerance and compromise—no sir!

Bleeding Kansas (cont.’d)

• Senator Charles Sumner and Senator Preston Brooks– Sumner insults South Carolina in Senate– Congressman Brooks canes Sumner in Senate

• Southerners honor Brooks– Send him 100s of canes

• Massachusetts honors Sumner• Fugitive Slave Act (1850) angers North

– Levied harsh punishments on any person helping a runaway slave “directly” or “indirectly”

– South pleased with act at first

• Underground Railroad extended to Canada by 1856– North resistance continued despite Fugitive Slave Act

The rise of the Republican Party

• Republican Party– Whigs in death spiral– Free-soil, Liberty, other third parties– Antislavery northern Whigs form Republican Party

• Key players are William Seward and Abraham Lincoln

– "free labor, free land, free men"• Against slavery in the territories (expansion)– Develops comprehensive program—part of which was

exportation to Liberia– Only attracts voters in North

A Hardening of the Lines

• Election of 1856• Democrats run James Buchanan

– Buchanan free from taint of Bleeding Kansas• Republicans choose John C. Frémont

– Buchanan wins, especially in the South

• The Dred Scott Decision of U.S. Supreme Court

A Hardening of the Lines

• The Dred Scott Decision of U.S. Supreme Court– Missouri Compromise unconstitutional– Slavery cannot be prohibited by Congress in territories

• Taney’s majority opinion fuels political panic and anger of Republicans and antislavery northerners– Taney “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate

with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”

• So, what did this do to the idea of popular sovereignty?

A Hardening of the Lines (cont.’d)

• Republicans smell a rat—the great slaveholding conspiracy• Missouri Compromise was clear yet

– Kansas-Nebraska– Popular Sovereignty– The Dred Scott decision – Now Kansas asks to become a slave state (Lecompton constitution)

• Enter the 1858 Illinois Senate election– Democrat Stephen Douglas vs. Republican Abraham Lincoln– Debate Dred Scott decision; popular sovereignty

• Douglas says—HEY, territories can keep out slavery by not passing slave codes (his so-called Freeport Doctrine)– Douglas wins the battle– Lincoln wins he war? How?

A Hardening of the Lines (cont.’d)

• John Brown again – Plans guerrilla-style slave insurrection– Plans to begin with attack on Harper’s Ferry

• Brown raids Harper’s Ferry arsenal – Robert E. Lee captures Brown– Brown tried for treason; hung– Some abolitionists honor Brown as martyr– Many Southerners hysterical in reaction to Brown’s raid at Harper’s

Ferry

The Election of 1860

• Democrats split– Northern Democrats run Stephen Douglass– Southern Democrats run John C. Breckinridge

• Republicans decide for moderate—almost an unknown, that would appeal to the majority– Republicans finally nominate Lincoln

• Lincoln opposes expansion of slavery • Fourth party enters race

– Constitutional Unionists, composed of remnants of Whigs and Know-Nothings in the South

– Run John Bell of Tenn. as presidential nominee

The Election of 1860 (cont.’d)• Republican Victory

– Lincoln gains 40% popular vote and wins in electoral college– Most Americans want settlement

• South Carolina fire-eaters demand secession– South Carolina secedes December 20, 1860—even before inauguration

• The Deep South follows– Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10), Alabama (January 11), Georgia

(January 19), Louisiana (January 26), Texas (February 1)

• Buchanan unable to shape compromise• Inauguration (March 4)• Ft. Sumter (April 12) • Lincoln's call up (April 15)--75,000 troops for 90 days• The rest follow

– Virginia (April 17), Arkansas (May 6), Tennessee (May 7), North Carolina (May 20

The Crittenden Compromise—the last chance?

• Crittenden Compromise Seeks to Resolve Sectional Crisis, December 1860– Proposed extension of 36º 30’ Missouri Compromise line to California– Guarantee slavery to the north of the Missouri Compromise line– Guarantee slavery to the south of the Missouri Compromise line

• Lincoln turns it down—WHY?• He was elected on a platform to stop the spread of slavery• He cannot accept slavery in territories• Crittenden Compromise fails to be enacted other similar

efforts at political compromise also fail

The Confederacy

• Confederate States of America– Montgomery original capital– Richmond in May of 1861

• Confederate Constitution similar to that of U.S. Constitution with some differences– Defined states as sovereign and independent, but called their

new government permanent– Chief executive (president) elected to one six year term and

cannot stand for re-election – All federal laws to remain in effect, until repealed

• Constitution protects slavery; individual states cannot interfere with slavery

Leaders

• President Jefferson of CSA– Former Secretary of War—Washington insider– Moderate—not a fire-eater– Cold personality, irritable, inflexible– Surrounds himself with yes-men

• President Abraham Lincoln of United States– Knows value of unity, competency– Appoints rivals to cabinet– Brunt of jokes, criticism– Sharp native intelligence, humble, keen political skills and intellect

The Waiting Game

• A war of nerves• Two Southern forts in U.S. hands

– Fort Sumter, South Carolina—in Charleston harbor– Fort Pickens, Pensacola– Neither strategically important (at that time)

• Jefferson Davis willing to let status quo stand for the moment and delaying confrontation

• Lincoln decides to re-supply forts without force– Confederates fire artillery, beginning April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter,

reducing Sumter to rubble– First battle of the bloodiest war—no casualties

• PGT Beauregard leads Confederates against his old instructor at Wets Point, Major Robert Anderson

• Following day, the fort surrenders and war erupts• Is this what Jeff Davis wanted?

The Border States Take Sides• Border states

– Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas join CSA• Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri stay with Union, despite strong

secessionist sentiment in these slave states• Now it was key for Lincoln to keep the remaining Border

States in the Union– Politically shrewd maneuvers and strategic deployment of troops by

Lincoln keeps Md., Ky., and Mo. In the Union– Fifty western Virginian counties secede from Virginia to form Union

state of West Virginia– Delaware, a slave state, remains in the Union

Quotes

• LeRoy Pope Walker, a close friend of Davis and Confederate Secretary of War– All the blood that would be spilled in the coming

Civil War could be wiped up with a pocket handkerchief

• Lincoln’s first inaugural address

Next week• April 22—chapters 22-23• Last quiz—yeah! Chapters 18-21

• April 29—chapter 24, final exam review• April 29—paper due• May 6 Final—normal time (5:30pm)