Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff
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THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

he Compromise of 1850 proved to be an armistice rather than a settlement of the sectional crisis. The issues raised by America's geographic expansion in the 1840s, particularly the status of slavery in the territories, burst forth again in the 1850s to shatter the Union. Several earlier developments contributed to the intensifying sectional conflict in this period. The revivals of the Second Great Awakening and the abolitionist movement which began in the 1830s were important. So too was the democratic political system, with its ability to galvanize popular emotions. The unique features of the culture of the Old South, which largely derived from the institution of slavery, fostered fears among southern whites for their security and the security of slavery in the Union. And finally, the expansion of the market and the national transportation system had an uneven impact on the sections and weakened the traditional economic and political alliance, forged in the Jacksonian era, between the West and the South.

OVERVIEW

This chapter examines the fateful decade preceding the Civil War. It begins with two dramatic sectional incidents, the raid on Lawrence, Kansas, by a proslavery band in May 1856, and John Brown's retaliatory Pottawattomie massacre. The narrative highlights the symbolic importance of the struggle in Kansas to both sections and the escalating violence of the decade.

Sectional Changes in American Society

The coming of the war occurred against the backdrop of a fundamental economic transformation. The spread of railroads opened new lands to development and brought more regions into the wider market. Railroads and high grain prices in Europe stimulated the expansion of commercial agriculture in the North, making grain exports as crucial to the economy as cotton exports. The railroad network also served to link the West economically to the East rather than the South. Previously, most agricultural shipments from the Northwest had gone down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans; in the 1850s, the bulk of this trade went east on railroad lines. Railroads and commercial farming fundamentally altered the landscape and environment of the western plains. The earlier unbroken landscape gave way to an artificial ecosystem of animals, woodlots, and crops on independent farms arranged in a precise checkerboard pattern. At the same time, industry boomed in the North and an immense tide of immigration provided cheap labor for these factories and swelled the northern population (and thus political power) at the expense of the South. The arrival of so many immigrants created a number of social problems, particularly in cities where many settled.

With cotton prices relatively high, the South was prosperous in the 1850s. Even so, southern leaders complained about their section's dependence on the North for manufactured goods, shipping, and marketing services. Efforts to promote industrialization in the South or diversify its economy failed. The rising cost of slaves also reduced planters' margin of profit.

The Political Realignment of the 1850s

Friction between the native-born and immigrants eventually disrupted the Whig party and helped destroy the Jacksonian party system. At the same time, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and opening the remaining regions of the Louisiana Purchase to slavery under the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Thus the slavery issue was placed again at the center of national politics. Given these strains, the party system crumbled.

The first party to benefit from this political chaos was the secret nativist Know Nothing party, which called for restrictions on the political power of immigrants and Catholics. The party grew rapidly in 1854 and 1855, as thousands of voters enrolled in its lodges. So many Whigs joined the Know Nothings that the Whig party ceased to be competitive and disappeared.

But at the height of its power, the Know Nothing organization was split by sectional issues. A race ensued between northerners and southerners to settle Kansas, and the first elections in the territory were marred by massive proslavery fraud. Before long, fighting broke out in Kansas between proslavery and antislavery partisans. The continuing turmoil in Kansas and the attack on Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate Chamber in May 1856 greatly strengthened the new sectional Republican party. Aided by the Kansas and Sumner issues, the Republicans emerged in the 1856 election as the strongest party in the North and the second strongest party in the nation, after the Democrats. The Republican party opposed the expansion of slavery and argued that the aristocratic Slave Power threatened republican government and the rights of white northerners.

The Worsening Crisis

Despite the Republicans' strong and unexpected showing, the Democrats carried the 1856 election. James Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, assumed office in 1857 intending to dampen sectionalism. These hopes were ruined by the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court declared that Congress could not prohibit slavery from a territory. Since this was their principal demand, Republicans were outraged. Buchanan was further weakened by the beginning of a depression in 1857, which hurt the North more than the South.

Buchanan's attempt to force the admission of Kansas through Congress under the proslavery Lecompton constitution split the Democratic party along sectional lines. Stephen A. Douglas, the foremost supporter of popular sovereignty and the leading northern Democrat in the country, broke with the president on this issue and opposed the Lecompton constitution as the work of a small minority in Kansas. Congress rejected the Lecompton constitution, but Douglas was now the symbol of the deep sectional divisions in the Democratic party. In 1858 Abraham Lincoln challenged Douglas in Illinois for his senate seat. Douglas narrowly won re-election, but Lincoln's strong race brought him national recognition and stature.

Southerners were increasingly fearful of the future. The growing concentration of wealth and land produced fears that white opportunity was being lost and that without new lands, slavery and the southern economy would stagnate. Various proposals to relieve the South's internal crisis failed, and more and more southern whites felt morally and politically isolated.

The Road to War

John Brown's attack on Harpers Ferry in 1859 alarmed southerners. They considered Brown a murderer and were shocked at the support Brown received from prominent northern intellectuals. Disunion sentiment seemed stronger than ever. The Democratic party split into two wings in 1860, each with its own presidential candidate. The result in 1860 was a four-way contest for president, in which Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won with less than 40 percent of the popular vote. For the first time in American history, a sectional antislavery party had elected a president.

Following Lincoln's election, the seven states of the Deep South seceded and organized the Confederate States of America. Congress defeated all proposals to resolve the crisis, including the most important one offered by Senator John Crittenden. All compromise efforts were doomed, since neither the Republicans nor the secessionists of the Deep South were willing to make any concessions. When Lincoln sent supplies to the Union garrison in Fort Sumter, Confederate batteries opened fire and captured the fort. The North rallied to Lincoln's call for troops to restore the Union, and four more southern states--the upper South--seceded.

The Roots of a Divided Society

The diverging economies of the two sections, the weaknesses of the nation's political system, the ideology of republicanism with its fears of conspiracies against liberty, and the unique problems posed by slavery were all crucial to this outcome. The Civil War had begun.

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