I.
Sectional
Differences:
A.
The Breadbasket West:
St.
Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Chicago
Chicago: 1833:
150 houses
1847:
17,000 people
1860:
109,000 people
B.
The Urbanizing North
1820:
6.1%
1860:
20%
1860: 110,274 industrial establishments
(128,300 in entire country)
1860 Northern City Population
1.
New York City - 813,669
2.
Philadelphia - 565,529
3.
Brooklyn - 266,661
4.
Baltimore - 212,418
5.
Boston - 177,840
6.
Cincinnati - 161,044
7.
St. Louis - 160,773
8.
Chicago - 112,172
9.
Buffalo - 81,129
10.
Newark - 71,941
(The only Southern city to
compare was New Orleans with 168,675 citizens) Source: 1860 U.S. Census
C.
The Oligarchic South
--1860:
5.6 million whites
--1700
own around 100 slaves
--46,274
own around 20 slaves
--slave population was 3.84 million
--26,000 free blacks in the South
--36%
of families in South own
slaves in 1830
--25% of families in South own
slaves in 1860
--Traveling the 1,460 miles from Baltimore to
New
Orleans in 1850 meant riding five different railroads, two stage coaches, and
two steamboats.
--By 1850, 20 percent of adult white
southerners
could
not read or write, compared to a national figure of 8 percent.
DO THESE DIFFERENCES MATTER?
Wilmot
Proviso (1846)
II.
COMPROMISE OF 1850
1845:
15-13 (Texas and Florida)
1846:
15-14 (Iowa)
1848:
15-15 (Wisconsin)
1. Fugitive Slave
Act
2. Abolish slave
trade in D.C.
3. Cali in as Free
State
4. Popular
Sovereignty in new territories
5. Resolved
boundary dispute btw. Texas
and New Mexico
III. The Trouble Escalates:
A. Transcontinental Railroad
--Stephen Douglas
B. Kansas-Nebraska Act
C. “Bleeding Kansas” (1854-1858)
--New
England Emigrant Aid Company
--“Beecher’s
Bibles”
--John
Brown
--Pottawatomie
Creek (May 24, 1856)
D. The Caning of Sumner
(1856)
SOUTHERN RESPONSE:
Louisville,
Kentucky, Journal (28 May 1856)
The assault of Brooks upon Sumner in the
Senate Chamber has created a prodigious excitement throughout the North. The
assault is deeply to be regretted, because in the first place it was a very
great outrage in itself, and because in the second place it will, especially if
not promptly and properly punished at Washington, greatly strengthen the
anti-slavery and anti- Southern feeling in the Northern States and thus help
the Black Republican party.
Columbia,
South Carolina, South Carolinian (27 May 1856)
We were not mistaken in asserting, on
Saturday last, that the Hon. Preston S. Brooks had not only the approval, but
the hearty congratulations of the people of South Carolina for his summary
chastisement of the abolitionist Sumner.
Immediately upon the reception of the
news on Saturday last, a most enthusiastic meeting was convened in the town of
Newberry…The meeting voted him a handsome gold-headed cane, which we saw
yesterday, on its way to Washington, entrusted to the care of Hon. B. Simpson.
Here in Columbia, a handsome sum, headed
by the Governor of the State, has been subscribed, for the purpose of
presenting Mr. Brooks with a splendid silver pitcher, goblet and stick, which
will be conveyed to him in a few days by the hands of gentlemen delegated for
that purpose. In Charleston similar testimonials have been ordered by the
friends of Mr. Brooks.
And, to add the crowning glory to the
good work, the slaves of Columbia have already a handsome subscription, and
will present an appropriate token of their regard to him who has made the first
practical issue for their preservation and protection in their rights and
enjoyments as the happiest laborers on the face of the globe.
IV. Party Politics
A. Decline of the
Whigs
B. Rise and Fall of
the "Know-Nothings"
C. Rise of the
Republicans
--The
Election of 1856--
Buchanan(Dem.) vs.
Fremont(Rep.) in North
Buchanan vs. Fillmore in South
(American/Know-Nothing/Whig)
V. On the Verge of War:
A. Dred Scott
An Excerpt from Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery.
Washington recounts a conversation with an elderly black man who said he had been
born in Virginia and sold into Alabama in 1845. I asked him how many were sold
at the same time. He said, “There were five of us: myself and brother and three
mules.”
B. Panic of 1857
C. Lincoln-Douglas
Debate for Senate
(Rep.) (Dem.)
August 21, 1858 (first debate)
Douglas:
I would never consent to confer the right
of voting and of citizenship upon a negro.
I believe that this new doctrine preached by
Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are
trying to array all the Northern States in one body against the South, to
excite a sectional war between the Free States and the Slave States, in order
that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. (Douglas)
Lincoln’s
Response:
I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose
directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the
States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have
no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social
equality between the white and the black races.
There is a physical difference between the two, which in my
judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of
perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a
difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I
belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the
contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the
world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the
Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.
A house divided against itself cannot stand…I believe that this
country cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. (Lincoln)
D. John Brown's Raid
E. The Election of
Lincoln
Lincoln
(Rep.)
Douglas
(Dem.) {border and North}
Breckinridge
(Dem.) {South}
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address:
March 4, 1861
In your
hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the
momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You
can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have
no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the
most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to
close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion
may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords
of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.
Fort Sumter, the
first official “battle” of the Civil War, would occur a month later (April 12, 1861)
