The Late 1850s
Compromise, Honor, and violence
Presentism
• If we want to truly understand the past, we can’t judge by today’s standards and mores.
• “Presentism, at its worst, encourages a kind of moral complacency and self-congratulation.
Interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally
superior.” [American Historical Association]
Southern response to Stowe
• Attack on Southern sense of honor
• “ultimate insult to the South’s honor”
• Slaveholders’ response: go positive
Pro-slavery arguments
• Biblical
• the story of Ham and his descendants
• that St. Joseph told a slave to return to his master
• enslavement was positive
• “for their own good”
• Slaves could not fend for themselves
• Economically positive good
• Better than “wage slavery” of North
• Emancipation impossible – race wars would result
Big picture
• South came to believe slavery was best possible society
• Anyone opposed slandered the South and its honor (the “chivalry”)
• Resentment grew on both sides
• But no one willing to fight…yet.
Everything would have stayed like this, except for….
• westward movement
• Abetted by federal government
• Laissez-faire in regulation
• But not in promotion
• RRs example
Effects of Gold Rush
• $7 billion into economy during 1850s
• San Francisco growth
• Populated other coast
• Pressure for transcontinental RR
• Serious attempt 1854
The calm before the storm
• Comp of 1850 didn’t last long
• Outrage over the Fugitive Slave Act
• And need for RR expansion
• Enter Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas
• Often called the most important non-president
• Ardent supporter of Manifest Destiny
• Wanted transcontinental RR to start in Chicago
• Major prize to be won
• Needs route approved from IL westward
• but there’s a problem…
Railroad politics…
• Land to west of Chicago was unorganized
• Needed to be given territorial status and organization before a RR could be built through
• and, according to Compromise of 1820, that land was supposed to be forever free of slavery
• Led to Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska bill
Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854
• created the KS, NB territories
• Needed Southern Congressmen’s support
• So the bill repealed the MO Compromise line
• and enabled each territory popular sovereignty
• Before statehood, slavery was allowed Northerners were furious
• Immensely polarizing law
• Lincoln was so outraged that he decided to re-enter politics
“Bleeding Kansas,” 1854-1861
The Fall of the House of Dixie
• What was the main effect on slaveholders?
• What effect did that have on the possibility of political compromise?
• Why did non-slaveholding Southerners support slavery?
• Why does Levine say that slaveholders’ supremacy seemed invincible in the 1850s?
• Eco
• Brutal working conditions = high profits
• Social
• Control of society
• Cultural
• Non-slaveholding whites’ support
• Political
• Control of govt
Congress as a microcosm of divisions and growing violence
• many Congressmen carried weapons on floor
• 70 violent confrontations in Congress between 1830-1860
• Congressional violence showed the deep divisions
• Southerners challenged Northerners
• Southerners’ inflated sense of “honor”
• Northerners were reluctant to engage
• Until late 1850s
• Southern bullying worsened
• Both sides growing more intransigent
• Northern voters began to demand that their representatives fight back
• Republicans vowed to fight the slave power in Congress
Violence on Senate floor, 1856
• Civil war in KS let to harsh words in Congress
• Sumner-Brooks confrontation
• Sumner: seen as a martyr in North
• Brooks was an instant hero in South
• Bleeding Kansas and this assault moved more northerners toward Republicans
• North & South seemed like separate civilizations.
• were they? all that matters is that people began to believe that they were.
The Supreme Court: The Dred Scott decision, 1857
• The chief justice wanted a case that would end the slavery debate. The question for the
Court:
• Can a slave be enslaved in free state?
• Three parts of the decision:
• 1. Scott was slave; not citizen – could not sue
• Blacks were never and could never be citizens
• 2. Residence in free state did not make him free
• 3. Congress had no right to ban slavery in MO Compromise
• Immediate outrage
Significance of Dred Scott decision
• Could nationalize slavery (where previously the default had been freedom)
• Slaves not freed even if they resided in and were worked in a non-slave state
• then slaves could be taken everywhere
• And remain slaves.
• Stripped Congress’s power over territories
• but Article 4, section 2 gives Congress authority over the territories!
• that means that Congress could not outlaw slavery in any territory before it became a
state—and then the state could decide whether to be slave or free.
• Reinvigorated the abolitionists
• Reinforced Republican Party
• and made the “slave power conspiracy” seem true
Contrast: U.S. (Dred Scott) v. Mexico
• Mexican Constitution (1856)
• enshrined what they called the “freedom principle”
• all born in Mexico were free
• no extradition of fugitive slaves
• free as soon as they “set foot” on Mexican soil
• Citizenship to any foreigner acquiring property or marrying Mexican
• universal suffrage
• Deep South whites alarmed
• their slaves were escaping south
• best estimate of total: 3,000 to 5,000
And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, financial depression hit.
Panic of 1857-59
• Over speculation in land, falling grain prices, RRs failed, overproduction, political
uncertainty
• 1400 banks closed/all deposits lost
• Credit tightened
• unemployment rose
• destitute/homeless families
• Southerners’ attitude: this showed their system was superior
• And South didn’t need the North
John Brown and Harper’s Ferry
• Brown’s life was one of utter failure. How did he finally succeed at something?
• From Tony Horwitz:
• Harper’s Ferry helped Lincoln’s election
• he used it to position himself as a moderate against his more radical challengers
(like Seward and Chase)