RHS 201

Thirteenth Assignment

Read Chapters 23 and 24 below, Tindall & Shi, Chapter 16, "The Civil War and the Spirit of Compromise" from the Davis book and submit resume on this article.

CHAPTER 23. THE COMING OF THE CIVIL WAR

CONDITIONS ATTACHED TO THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

Shortly after Congress had acted on the Compromise of 1850, a state convention was held in Georgia. It was dominated by Unionist Whigs, such as Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens, the later of whom was to become Vice Presidency of the Confederacy. The resolutions adopted by that body have come to be known as the Georgia Platform of 1850, and are representative of the moderate opinion of Southerners on the terms of the compromise.

Those resolutions stated that Georgia, while not wholly approving of the Compromise, would abide by it as a "permanent adjustment" of the sectional controversy. That is, Georgia served

notice that acceptance of the Compromise was conditional. They then listed a series of possible future actions by congress which, if taken, would cause Georgia to resist. Specifically Georgia

served notice that there be no further federal action against slavery. The concluding resolution voiced Unionist sentiments. But it did so in terms that sounded like an ultimation. It stated that "upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Bill, by the proper authorities, depends the preservation of our much beloved Union."

If, as the Georgia Platform of 1850 reveals, Southern acceptance of the Compromise was conditional, the same can be said of Northern acceptance of that pact. A wide body of Northern opinion, influenced now by almost two decades of abolitionist propaganda, had come to the conclusion that slavery was immoral. Consequently, to aid and abet the return of escaped slaves was a violation of one's conscience.

When the sovereign requires that which violates the conscience, hypocrisy results. Ralph Waldo Emerson marveled that "This filthy enactment was made in the nineteenth century, by people who could read and write," and urged his neighbors to break it "on the earliest occasion." Many apparently did, for fewer than 200 escaped slaves were apprehended under the law during the 1850s.

Throughout that decade, northern state legislatures, in order to square their conscience with the Fugitive slave law, embarked upon the dubious policy of executing the letter of the law, violated its spirit. The results were the so-called Personal Liberty Laws. These state laws forbade state officials, and in some cases, private citizens, from assisting in the recovery of runaway slaves.

They restricted the use of state facilities, such as lock-ups and jails, for the execution of "federal law." They increased the penalties for false imprisonment.

Northern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act also took the form of direct obstruction. The first escaped slave apprehended in Massachusetts became the object of public protest. When word spread that the slave was being held in the Boston jail, a mob numbering several thousands gathered to prevent his being extradited. It was eventually necessary to mobilize the state

militia in order to secure transport of that slave from the jail to the harbor where he was placed on board ship.

In short, the actions of Northerners throughout the decade presented Southerners with the opportunity of arguing that the single concession they had received from the Compromise, was in

principle and in practice, being repealed by the North. That argument, while neither invalid nor exaggerated was somewhat incongruous.

What had caused Southern congressmen to insist upon the Fugitive Slave Bill in 1850 had little to do with reality, but much to do with symbol. Their fear was the Underground Railroad. This

abolitionist institution which assisted runaway slaves had, up to 1850, operated with limited success. Only .03% of the slave population of the South had been "liberated" by the Underground

Railroad. Not so much the fear of losing slaves, but the fear of slave insurrection dominated Southern thinking. There was a logical, if not a factual correlation between the operation of the underground railroad and slave rebellion. Abolitionists encouraged slaves to escape bondage. The distinction between escaping bondage and insurrection became blurred at times; as did assisting escape slaves become indistinct from inciting to insurrection.

One other anomalie strikes the observer. The Fugitive Slave Act was talked about most often in the regions least affected by it. Nowhere was it more strongly objected to than in Massachusetts,

which witnessed few runaways within her borders. On the other side of the line, criticism over nonenforcement of the law was talked about more violently in Mississippi, which lost relatively few slaves, than in Kentucky, from which flight was much easier.

Like the Wilmot Proviso, the Fugitive Slave Act throughout the decade of the 1850s, became of more symbolic importance than of remedial importance. Politicians on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line could embrace extreme positions on it with local impunity. And they did.

THE REAPPEARANCE OF THE PARANOID STYLE

What that symbol meant for the South and for the North during the decade is but one piece of evidence to support a thesis by the abolitionists that there existed a conspiracy among slave holders whose ultimate aim was the expansion of slavery, the subversion of American ideals and the ultimate destruction of American institutions. In short, a rising tide of paranoia is visible

throughout the 1850s. That decade was one in which various movements, such as Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Mormonism and Anti-Masonry thrieved. All are evidence of an irrational atmosphere in which mass paranoia thrives and in which the abolitionist propaganda took root and thrived .

For years, abolitionists had been building an image, a caricature of Southerners in the minds of Northerners until the latter simply became divorced from realty. By the 1850s, their propaganda had convinced most northerners, that all people in the South, with the exception of a few "poor whites" were planters or slaves, the former living in hauty splendor with sadistic countenances, the latter brutalized to the extreme.

This had laid the ground work for the next stage in the abolitionist propaganda mill which came in the mid-1830's when Texas moved into the political arena. Abolitionists charged that the entire movement behind the effort to bring Texas into the Union was nothing more or less than a plot by slave holders to find "bigger pens to cram with more slaves." They warned Northerners that should the effort succeed, the "Slaveocracy" would push even further to find yet more pens, until freedom itself in the North would be extinguished.

That message had failed to attract widespread support in the 1830s. It had however, been rearticulated ad nauseam during the course of the Mexican-American War when further territorial expansion loomed as a war aim. When David Wilmot attached his famous amendment to the appropriation bill that polarized Congress, abolitionists again repeated the charge. And

in the decade of the 1850s, a series of events, each containing just enough "evidence" to lend credibility to the charge occurred.

SOUTH OF THE BORDER

The first event that lent conviction to the abolitionists "Great Slave Conspiracy Thesis" took place in Nicaragua and brought into prominence the name of William Walker. Walker was a soldier of fortune who had sold his guns to various interests in California during the gold rush there. When peace was established in that territory he turned south of the border and discovered the seceding pieces of the Republic of Mexico as a fertile place to sell his talents. With a small army of freebooters, Walker jumped into Central America, alternately selling his guns to one political faction and then another. In September, 1855, he concluded that he held the balance of power in one of the secessionist provinces - Nicaragua. Initiating a coup d'etat, he placed one of his followers in the presidential chair, imported more freebooters from the slave states and opened negotiations with various European powers for the one outstanding asset which Nicaragua possessed - a Canal site.

American interest in a canal somewhere in Central America had increased dramatically since California was admitted to the Union in 1850. The evident need for communication and transportation to tie California into the union had preoccupied Congress and the Executive branch. Foreseeing the feasibility of constructing a future canal, the State Department made a diplomatic claim to that end in 1850 when it entered into a treaty with Great Britain. The

Clayton-Bulwer treaty asserted that, in the event a canal was built in Central America, it would be jointly built, owned and operated by Britain and the United States.

Thus, William Walker's appearance on the scene made him something of a loose cannon in the diplomatic circumstances. For two years, Walker ruled Nicaragua, offending the commercial nations by his interference with trade, and threatening other Latin American nations. At length the combined powers of his enemies in the region moved to crush him. He appealed to the United States and to certain Southern congressmen for support, offering prospects that Nicaragua could be some day, incorporated as a territory into the United States.

Ultimately, Walker was forced out of Central America, seeking refuge in the United States where Southerners greeted him as a hero. Walker was a native of Tennessee. His private army

consisted almost exclusively of southerners. His supporters were to be found in the South. That was enough, thin as it was, for the abolitionists to charge once more that Walker was merely the latest expression of the Great Slave Conspiracy. Nicaragua, they warned, was being prepared by slave holders to be incorporated into the Union as another slave state. The Slavocracy was expanding, they declared.

What made this thin charge convincing was that it was made in conjunction with yet another diplomatic embroglio America found itself with in the Caribbean. Cuba, one of the few remaining

colonies of Spain in the Western Hemisphere had been torn by strife since the beginning of the 19th century. In 1850, that strife erupted into a full-scale revolution. The insurrectionists

shrewdly established their headquarters outside of Cuba, primarily in the Gulf Coast cities of Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana. There they sought and received much public sympathy and not a little financial support.

In 1851, a strike force of some 500 insurrectionists, including several prominent Americans who enlisted, invaded the north coast of Cuba. They were promptly suppressed by the 40,000 Spanish

soldiers on the island. The Americans, including the son of the Attorney General were captured and sentenced. Public indignation was the response in the United States.

Ever alert to the possibility of another invasion, the Spanish naval forces increased their vigilance. In so doing, they stopped and boarded an American ship in international waters, which quickly escalated into a diplomatic crisis. Britain and France, seeing in the Cuba revolution a repeat perhaps of the Great Bear Revolt in California during Polk's administration, asked for a commitment from the United States that it did not intend to possess Cuba. The request was immediately rebuffed by Secretary of State Edward Everett.

That refusal to disavow any intention of future annexation stirred the abolitionists cry. See, they said, the South is preparing yet another pen to cram with slaves. Given the fact that

slavery still existed in Cuba at the time, and that the entire economy of the island was devoted to staple production, particularly sugar, the abolitionist indictment appeared credible.

Events quickly escalated. In Europe, the American ambassadors to Great Britain, France and Spain had been instructed to convene and offer advice to the State Department since the Cuban insurrection now touched upon those nation's interest. The three ambassadors met in the small town of Ostend in Belgium. There they drafted a memorandum, known as the Ostend Manifesto. It recommended that the U.S. offer to buy Cuba from Spain, and if rejected by that country,

Cuba should be taken by force.

The Ostend Manifesto of 1856, coincided with the Democratic national convention which met at Cincinnati in June of that year. In the resolutions adopted by that party and put forth as a

platform of principles, the Democrats approved the invasion of Cuba, the usurpations of Walker and applauded the Ostend Manifesto, thus tying the issue of Cuba and Nicaragua together. The

abolitionists press went into high gear denouncing the Democrats as the party of Slaveocracy.

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT

Joined in the imagination of the abolitionists with the Cuba and Nicaragua events was a domestic issue which had was raised in 1854 when Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced the Kansas- Nebraska Bill. This bill proposed that territorial governments be

established out of a portion of the Louisiana Territory. The bill also proposed that on the issue of whether or not slavery should be legally recognized in the territories, this should be "left to the

decision of the people residing therein, through their appropriate representatives."

That proposal, which Douglas termed "Popular Sovereignty," was in reality a red herring. Behind the proposed Bill was one of the more complex set of influences and expectations to see the light of day during the decade. Some background is in order. Stephen A. Douglas was not only a politician, but an Illinois lawyer. Among his list of clients he included the Illinois Central

Railroad which was pushing for the development of Chicago as the terminus for a transcontinental railroad.

The proposal for a transcontinental railroad had been bandied about since the Mexican-American war alerted Americans of the need for a transportation and communication system to tie California in with the rest of the Union. We have seen how this recognition

resulted in several forays in the diplomatic arena. It was about to impact on the domestic arena also.

Douglas undoubtedly had his client's interest at heart when he introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The War Department had done several preliminary studies on the feasibility of construction such a railroad. All had indicated that a route anchored at Vicksburg or New Orleans in the East and running through southern Texas to San Francisco, was the most feasible, from both an engineering and a political point of view. The engineering factor was the difficulty in breaching the Rocky Mountains should central route be chosen which would anchor the Eastern terminus in St. Louis with direct access to Chicago and all lines East. A second liability of a central route was that any railroad built there would traverse Indian Territory.

Southerners, formerly hostile to government subsidies for internal improvements, began to change their minds when they looked at a map and fathomed the implications of tying in California to Texas, Mississippi and the deep south. And thus, with the backing of southern politicians, the U.S. government in 1853 purchased an areas of Mexican territory that now forms the southern portion of the state of New Mexico, known as the Gadsden Territory, to permit a proposed railroad to avoid traversing the southern rockies. The sectional scramble for the transcontinental railroad route was on. Stephen A. Douglas, challenged and definitely on the defensive,

countered the year after the Gadsden Purchase with the Kansas- Nebraska Act.

By establishing territorial government in the region, Douglas bill would overcome one of the two objections. Still there was the problem of overcoming the War Department's recommendation of a Southern route based upon the engineering factors. 1854 was not

the first year in which Douglas had sought to establish territorial government in the Indian lands of the region. Indeed, the effort had been made for at least nine years before Douglas brought it up in 1854. And in 1854, Douglas had to contend with the recommendation of the War department and the effects of the Gadsden Purchase. For this, Popular Sovereignty was devised.

The Kansas-Nebraska bill thus stated:

all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories

and in the new states to be formed therefrom are to be left

to the people residing therein, through their appropriate

representatives.

Douglas recognized that implicit in the doctrine - that the issue of slavery would be decided by the settlers in the territory - was a repudiation of the Compromise of 1820. That Compromise had declared all of the Louisiana Territory North of the Southern border of Missouri to be "free territory." Since both Kansas and Nebraska would lie North of that border, the Bill held open the

possibility that Southerners could bring slaves into the region. Thus, Douglas anticipated, enough Southern votes would be garnered to overcome their support for a Southern based railroad.

But souther politicians quickly recognized that popular sovereignty was a dodge. The Missouri Compromise would exclude slaves from entering the territories to be created until after a

decision was reached by the territorial governments. Thus, Douglas was forced to make another concession: an amendment to the bill to repeal the Missouri Compromise insofar as it excluded slavery north of 360, 30' north latitude.

But wouldn't that compromise alienate the votes of Northern representatives? Here again, Douglas revealed that the "Popular Sovereignty" issues was designed as a red herring. To the Northern politicians who raised this objection, Douglas pointed out that geography had already decided the issue. The plains of Kansas and Nebraska he pointed out, would never support cotton or any other staple. The soil and climate of the region was fit for grain production and grazing only. Thus Northern politicians could vote for the bill and gain the benefit of tying in the industries of the North with the markets of the West, without fear of allowing slavery to expand.

One other factor behind the Bill deserves mention. Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat, had his eye on the White House. He had already established something of a national reputation by taking

over the reigns of the Compromise of 1850 after Henry Clay despaired of compromise. As a Western politician, Douglas needed to unify the Democrats, which meant he had to dispose of the

vexation which the slave issue presented. Popular sovereignty, he believed would do just that. By removing the issue of slavery from the federal level and placing in at the territorial level, the

Democratic Party could be united - and united behind Stephen A. Douglas, who proposed it.

Political ambition thus combined to produce a Bill involving not one, not two, but three of the most contentious issues of the period. Western lands were again about to be incorporated,

internal improvements were on the table and the issue of slavery had be brought up in the national arena. There was only one fallacy in Douglas' reasoning. On the one hand, Douglas was asking

the South to vote its ideology (expansion of slavery) and ignore it's interest (a southern based railroad). But on the other hand, he was asking the North to vote its self-interest (a northern based railroad) and ignore its ideology (expansion to slavery).

What if just the opposite occurred. What if, people in the North forgot their interest in having all of the railroad lines running from New England through to Illinois extended to the

Pacific Ocean and saw the Kansas-Nebraska Act as yet another instance of a plot by slave holders to expand the institution of slavery? If that occurred, than Stephen A. Douglas' Bill would

backfire. His presidential ambitions would be shattered Precisely that scenario occurred. A veritable storm of indignation was heard throughout the North. In editorial, speeches

and countless sermons, Douglas' bill was denounced "as a gross violation of a sacred pledge." Abolitionists pointed to it as proof of their thesis. What had formerly been the paranoid

sentiments of the abolitionists was fast becoming the view of a majority in the North.

Indignation in the North ran so strong that the month following its passage, rioting mobs in Boston, demonstrating against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, vented their rage against the Fugitive Slave Act by storming the Boston jail in an effort to free a fugitive slave named Anthony Burns. Federal troops were needed to effect the transport of Burns from the jail to a waiting ship. The cost was over $14,000. Burns was the last fugitive to be returned from Boston.

Ironically, few voices were raised on behalf of Native Americans, who once again were called upon to pay the price of western expansion. Only Texas senator San Houston denounced

Douglas's bill, not only for its violation of the Compromise of 1820, but for the treaty rights of Indians, who held the territory "as long as grass shall grow and water run." But then, Douglas

never comprehended how people could get so wrought up over abstract rights.

THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICANS

Stephen A. Douglas's misreading of public reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was revealed in the off-year elections of 1854, when fusion candidates triumphed in various parts of Indiana,

Ohio, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. All of the candidates who triumphed over the regulars were critical, if not completely hostile to Douglas's Bill.

Newspaper editors railed against the Bill throughout the North and the West. Some 3,000 New England clergymen denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as "a great amoral wrong, as a breach of faith eminently unjust to the moral principles of the community." On the floor of the Senate, Salmon P. Chase denounced the proposal. "It is Slavery that renews the strife," he charged. "It is slavery, with its insatiate demands for more slave territory and more slave States." Douglas was personally denounced with the most derogatory term permitted in the public arena. He was, Chase said, a "Doughface," meaning a Northern man with Southern principles.

Several politicians from main line parties, particularly the northern wing of the Whig party, seeing in the anti-Kansas outburst the possible basis of a new political coalition, seized the

opportunity. In the summer of 1855, Salmon P. Chase, who would go on to become Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, succeeded in creating a Committee of Correspondence with local anti-Kansas forces in the west. In the north, a group of "Conscience-Whigs" as they called themselves, began organizing themselves in opposition to the Bill. By the fall of 1855, they had merged with Chase's forces. Thus was born the Republican Party, which in February,

1856, held its first preliminary convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where other splinter movements appeared.

Present at the Pittsburgh convention were the Free Soilers, western politicians united in opposition to the expansion of slavery, although not hostile to its existence in the South.

Second were the "Conscience Whigs," who had gained that label after 1847 when they voted in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. Less ideologically opposed to slavery than many of the Free Soilers,

many of the Whigs recognized the political reality of the day.

Southern Whigs were on the verge of deserting their northern brethren for their lack of support of the 1850 Compromise. Meanwhile, another third party, The American Party, better known as

the "Know-Nothings" was gaining momentum at the expense of the Whigs.

These Whigs brought two vital ingredients to the new Republican Party. First, they brought leadership, in the persons of such men as Salmon P. Chase, Thurlow B. Weed, William H. Seward and Thaddeus Stevens. These were men who had risen quickly on the political horizon during the early years of the decade. They were also men noted more for their extreme sectional views than for their nationalism. Second, the Whigs brought to the Republicans a party apparatus, a political structure founded upon the various state and urban machines built up since the days when the Jacksonian movement made the machine a vital instrument in the political process.

Independent Democrats also merged with the Whigs and Free Soilers at Pittsburgh. These were the elements of the national Democratic Party who had become disenchanted by their exclusion

from the inner circle of the Democrats, such as Martin Van Buren's "Barnburner" faction; or who came over in response to William Seward's famous tract "Appeal to the Independent Democrats."

This tract, one of the most potent of the propaganda documents nicely reflects the extent to which the slave issue could become the red herring to disguise partisan and sectional interests. It

opened with the warning that "the freedom of our institutions," and "the permanency of our Union," were in immediate danger. It followed by charging that passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill would "open all the unorganized territory to the ingress of slavery." It arraigned the Bill "as a gross violation of a sacred pledge; as a criminal betrayal of precious rights; as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World, and free laborers from our own states, and to convert it into a dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves."

Having paid direct tribute to the Abolitionists "Great Slave Conspiracy Thesis," Seward continued. He asserted that, should the Kansas-Nebraska Bill become law, the building of the

transcontinental railroad could be stopped; markets lost, a homestead law would be virtually worthless and further migration of northerners into the west terminated. No economic interest, no fear of the restless upper North and Northwest was neglected in this diatribe: homesteads, railroads and markets were at stake according to Seward. And all were tied up with the expansion of slavery and at the mercy of the Slaveocracy.

The positive response of northerners to "The Appeal" convinced politicians they had hit the right buttons. Not only former Whigs were coming over, but also sizeable numbers of "Independent Democrats." Although of secondary importance as far as mass votes were concerned, this element included several old-line Jacksonians such as Francis P. Blair and Thomas Hart Benton, men with national statute.

Then too came the "Lunatic Fringe," as they were derogatorily called. Single issue groups abounded in politics. Unable to find a sounding board within the two party system, most were willing to try their luck with a rising third party, in this case the Republicans. There were representatives of the Temperance Party, the nativists, the Feminists and the Abolitionists. Again,

numerically small, but vocally important they lent a certain amount of color to the Republicans, and earned for them tie title of the "party of the Pulpit and Petticoats" from the Democrats.

Thus at its birth, the Republican party was largely a coalition of dissident elements, highly sectional in nature, highly emotional in appeal, with no "bread and butter" issues. It was united only in its opposition to the expansion of slavery into the West and its firm conviction that the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was about to permit that. Having nominated its first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, the famous "Pathfinder," the party ran on a slogan rather than a platform:

Arise, arise, ye brave,

And let your war-cry be

Free speech, free press, free soil, free men,

Fremont and victory.

Well, it was a rousing slogan, but not a winning one. John C. Fremont and the Republicans went down to defeat at the hands of the Democrats who nominated James Buchanan, a Pennsylvania "Doughface." But close observers of the election expressed amazement at the

performance of the Republicans. Buchanan received 174 electoral votes and 1,838,160 popular votes. As a Democrat, Buchanan carried the South solidly and the states of Pennsylvania, Illinois and Indiana. The Republicans received 114 electoral votes, and 1,341,264 popular votes. They carried New England, New York, Ohio and the North-West. South of the Mason Dixon line, the Republican Party did not even appear on the ballot in most states.

Whereas the sectional outcome of the election was striking enough, the second observation was equally striking. The Whigs virtually disappeared as a party. The American Party, or Know-

Nothings made fools of themselves by allowing the Republicans to outmaneuver them. That party had nominated Millard Fillmore, who had never even attending a meeting of the Know-Nothings. Even so, the American Party had itself eclipsed the Whigs by gaining 871,731 popular and 8 electoral votes. In the aftermath of the election of 1856, most of these nativists went over to the Republican Party. Never before or since had a Third Party risen so far so fast. But as the Democratic victory showed, the Republicans did not yet have the winning formula.

"BLEEDING KANSAS"

Fortunately, for the Republicans, events in the newly created territory of Kansas, kept the issue of slavery on the front burner of American politics. Just what happened in Kansas, and why it

happened will probably never be fully known. Kansas simply disappeared as a reality from 1854 on. It was replaced by "Bleeding Kansas," as journalists on both sides of the Mason-Dixon

line called it. In short, the public focused upon the violence that broke out in the territory, and interpreted that violence as a miniature Civil War between the sections.

And violence there was. But much, if not most of the blood shed in the newly opened territory of Kansas had nothing to do with slavery. Bloodshed and violence were common along the frontier throughout American history. Violence is particularly noticed when a territory is initially settled. The absence of law enforcement officials, the rush to acquire valuable lands, quarrels over water rights, speculators with prior claims versus settlers asserting the right of preemption, and the background of the settlers themselves, all contributed to this endemic violence.

But what set Kansas apart from other territories was the fact that both sides, North and South, seeing in the Kansas-Nebraska Act a tacit violation of the Compromise of 1820, were prepared to

influence the territory. The Abolitionists in the North, announced the formation of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which subsidized settlers from the North into Kansas, providing them with both Bibles and rifles to establish a "free soil" dominance. Although of marginal value, since the company aided only fewer than 1250 settlers in the territory, it loomed large in the

consciousness of contemporaries - both North and South. Once again, image over reality was paramount.

In the South, particularly in neighboring Missouri, similar societies sprang up spontaneously to advertise and subsidize Southern immigration into Kansas. From that point forward all

public reference to events in that territory were made in terms of "free Kansas" and "slave Kansas." The fact that no slaves had been brought into the territory was conveniently ignored. Images, not reality prevailed.

The first territorial government named by President James Buchanan, Andrew H. Reeder set about to bring territorial government to the region. He called for territorial elections to

create a Constitution. When elections were held, several thousand "Border Ruffians" from Missouri, led by Senator David R. Atchison crossed over from neighboring Missouri and cast illegal votes. Reeder promptly declared the election to be fraudulent, but did not invalidate it, or the pro-slavery majority elected. That legislature, which met at Lecompton, adopted a drastic slave code and expelled the few anti slave members.

The "free soil" faction refused to recognize the legality of the Lecomptom government and promptly organized its own with a capital at Topeka, drafting a constitution which excluded both slaves and free blacks from the territory. From that point on, violence carried a distinctly "Civil War" appearance. In May, 1856, the Lecompton government sent a militia unit (or posse) to Lawrence, a free soil village whose settlers, heeding the advise of Henry Ward Beecher, a noted anti-slave minister, that rifles would do more than Bibles in Kansas, resisted Lecompton's

authority and dubbed their guns, "Beecher's Bibles." There the posse burned several builds and tore up two printing presses. No one was killed, but the free soil advocates turned the incident

into "The Sack of Lawrence," much as James Otis had turned a scuffle on the Boston Commons into "The Boston Massacre" earlier.

Soon after the Lawrence incident, a left wing abolitionist named John Brown with a vigilante force consisting of his four sons, one son-in-law and two others, attacked a settlement

supporting the Lecompton government along the Pottawatomie Creek. This became the "Pottawatomie Massacre" throughout the South where hot heads transformed the incident much as Sam Adams had turned an incident on the Boston Commons into a Massacre.

While men, and women, were dying in Kansas, another wound was suffered by Stephen A. Douglas. Popular sovereign became a casualty in the political arena. Instead of resolving the issue of slavery in the territories and removing it from the factious debate at the national level, just the opposite occurred. And to the advantage of the Republicans

The Democratic administration of Franklin Pierce had not helped the situation, but reacted with ineptness. It denounced the Topeka government and recognized the Lecompton government, forcing northern Democrats into supporting a territorial government elected by what a Democratic Governor, Andrew Reeder, had disavowed. The fact that Pierce was interested primarily in adding a Democratic state to the union was overlooked as the slavery issue prevailed.

The Republicans were quick to take advantage of the propaganda value of the issue. The day before the raid on Lawrence, Senator Charles Sumner, Republican from Massachusetts delivered himself of an emotional diatribe against the Democrats in general. He referred to the Border Ruffians as "hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization," their entry into Kansas as "the rape of a virgin territory," motivated by "a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime."

Singling out Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, Sumner lit into that aging Senator. He referred uncharitably to the South Carolina Senator's tendency to drool and, with a sexually explicit simile, accused Butler of having "chosen a mistress...who...though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight - I mean the harlot, Slavery."

Admitting the intemperance of other speeches of the day Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas" speech was so intemperate and provocative that Senator Stephen A. Douglas interpreted it as an

attempt by the Republicans to provoke a physical fight. If so, Sumner was not to be denied. Two days after the speech, Democrat Preston Brooks of South Carolina, a relative of the defamed Butler, entered the Senate chamber, approached Sumner, whose back was to him, and struck him repeatedly with his cane. Even this incident was turned to propaganda value by the Republicans. The physician summoned to attend Sumner, administered four stitches and pronounced the patient fit to resume duty after three days rest. The physician was summarily dismissed by Francis

P. Blair. A new physician was procured who pronounced Sumner to be in need of extensive recuperation. Sumner left for Europe where he "recuperated" from his wounds, "a martyr to Southern brutality."

The incident further polarized the nation. Northerners who would never otherwise have excused the vulgarity of Sumner's words, flocked to his defense. Southerners, who would never have countenanced striking without warning - and from behind as Brooks had done, found excuses for this behavior. Each side saw the other as epitomizing darkness and evil. Emerson stated this polarization well when, writing of the incident said, "I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute one state. We must either get rid of slavery, or get rid of freedom."

Meanwhile, back in Kansas, a new governor, Robert J. Walker, had taken over from Reeder. His solution was to start from scratch with another election. But the "free soil" faction, denouncing Walker, who was a native of Mississippi, as a member of the slaveocracy intent on "fixing" the election, refused to participate in the elections. The pro-slave forces won a clear victory and promptly established a pro-slave constitution, The Lecompton Constitution.

However, in the fall elections of 1856, for the creation of the first territorial legislature, the free soil men not only participated, but won. Having gained control of the legislature, the free soilers voted to resubmit the Lecompton Constitution to the voters for ratification, which they did. However, in this vote, the pro-slavery forces refused to participate, thus adding to the confusion.

Walker, by now despairing of being order out of the chaos, announced his retirement and advised the new administration of James Buchanan to start over again. But Buchanan, following

President's Pierce desiring of adding a Democratic state to the rooster, and unwilling to alienate Southern Democratic whose votes had made him President, upheld the Lecompton constitution, and government, with such tenacity that Senator Douglas found himself opposing his President.

To end the chaos, Buchanan proposed a compromise. The people of Kansas could enter the Union now, with its present, pro-slave Constitution, or it could wait until its population increased and change its constitution. The proposal was put to the settlers of the territory. They chose to wait.

Douglas, for all his manueverings, was devoted to the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty. Furthermore, he could hardly have maintained his position in Illinois and the West, had he supported Buchanan and the Lecompton Constitution. But the break with the President was hard for Douglas to make. By doing so, Douglas saved his position. Illinois sent Douglas back to Congress in the election of 1858 over his Republican rival, Abraham Lincoln. But in saving his position in his home state, Douglas sacrificed his chances at becoming president. Douglas had forever alienated southern politicians who, by virtue of the two-thirds rule of that party, could - and did - block his nomination in 1860.

The Abolitionists "Great Slave Conspiracy" was becoming a canon in the North.

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CHAPTER 26. THE SEPARATION

Despite the startling showing of the Republican Party in the 1856 election, there were those who predicted that they would prove to be merely a "flash in the pan." Old parties, like old colleges, traditionally die slowly. More to the point, the Republican Party had no positive platform. No one could say what the Republicans stood for. They could only say what the Republicans stood against - expansion of slavery into the West. That gave the Republicans an

emotional issue, but one which was likely to run dry as soon as the paranoia of the Kansas issue died down, which it eventually did.

That the Republican Party did not meet this fate, is due largely to fortuitous circumstances. Between 1856 and 1860, the Republican Party was the net gainer of most of the economic, social and political issues that occupied the attention of the public. The Republicans were the immediate and direct beneficiaries of the Panic of 1857. While not steep enough to be labeled by

contemporary economists as a depression, the economic indicators were severe. Some 5,123 bankruptcies were filed, representing $291,901,000. And more important, the Panic was confined almost exclusively to the industrial section of the Union - the North.

Coming as it did, at a time when the emotional atmosphere of the Union was already poisoned by the slave issue, the psychological effects of the panic may have been stronger than the strictly

economic suffering. Scenes of febrile, and quite literal panic, were common. Southern spokesmen took the opportunity to crow about the social stability of their institutions and the economic stability of agriculture to the annoyance of northern industrialists.

The Republican Party seized upon the opportunity. Not only was a Democrat in the White House to take the heat for the depression, but the Republicans were free of any competing interest to formulate a "cure" for the economic ills of the country. In short, the Republican party took the occasion to create a party platform in which they announced what they stood for in the positive sense. Dubbed, "Economic Nationalism," the platform that the Republicans came up with, was a neomercantile one which would have warmed the hearts of a Henry Clay or an Alexander Hamilton.

For the economically moribund industries of the North, the Republicans urged a broad program of internal improvements, particularly railroad construction. They passed this off as a

"pump priming" measure designed to stimulate not only internal improvements, but industrial production. All of course, was to be underwritten by government funding. Thus the Republicans took their stand on the first of the major issues of the period.

For unemployed workers in the North, the Republicans urged free lands in the West - a Homestead Act - 160 acres of western land to every adult male citizen willing to settle and improve the land. Shrewdly disguising the fact that this position was one championed

by the West, the Republicans could sell it to the North on the basis that it was designed to provide alternative employment to otherwise unemployed workmen. Thus the issue of incorporating and

distributing Western lands was addressed by the Republicans.

For both "home industry" and "the American worker," a protective tariff was needed, said the Republicans, to keep "un-American" goods off the market. It was truly a stroke of genius that caused the Republicans to combine Nationalism with protective tariffs, and to include workers among the beneficiaries of that mercantile device.

Only on the issue of a central bank did the Republican Party remain silent. That issue was too divisive to permit being addressed. So well received was this prescription for the Panic of

1857, that it was incorporated into the Republican Party Platform in 1860. Abraham Lincoln accepted it without reservation.

While the Republicans were hammering out the economic elements of their 1860 Platform, the "Great Slave Conspiracy Thesis" was being kept alive as an emotional force for them to exploit. They did so with a vengeance. In 1854, a small and relatively unimportant book had been

offered for publication. Written by a South Carolina native named George Fitzhugh and entitled Sociology for the South, its subtitle The Failure of Free Society gave away its thesis. Fitzhugh's work was yet another apology for the institution of bond slavery. It was similar in tone and content to that offered earlier by John C. Calhoun. However, it went one step further than Calhoun had gone. Fitzhugh became so ecstatic in glorifying the blessings of bond

slavery, that he recommended that all labor, including wage laborers of the North, be reduced to bond slaves. The reception of that book in the North reflects the degree to which opinion in that section had accepted the basic assumption of the Abolitionists "Great Slave Conspiracy Thesis." The otherwise moderate Horace Greeley, publisher and editor of the influential New York Tribune fulminated against not only the book, the South. For the abolitionists, Fitzhugh was a God send. Her at last, was proof positive of the conspiracy. Here was the core of the

diabolical Slaveocracy, ready and willing to extend the institution of bond slavery, not only to the West, but to the North.

Shortly after Fitzhugh's book appeared, a second publication from the South arrived. Hinton Rowan Helper wrote Present Crisis in the South, which caused as much a stir as the before mentioned book by Fitzhugh. Helper, a poor white from North Carolina, argued in this book that slavery in the South was harder on four out of five whites than it was on the slaves themselves. A somewhat unusual argument from a Southerner on first glance, the book reflected the class antagonisms between poor white farmers and planters that had been a political feature of the South since before Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 revealed them.

Utilizing the statistics from the census reports of 1790-1850, Helper compared the economic growth of the North to that of the South. The very evident backwardness of the South which those statistics revealed, were attributed to the impoverishment of free white labor imposed by the institution of slavery. That is, Hinton argued that only planters benefited from slavery. Free whites were penalized by being forced to compete with slave labor. And in that competition, free whites suffered.

Hinton Rowan Helper ended his book with a plea for the redress of grievances of the non-slave-holding South. Helper calculated that the almost 6 million non-slave-holders of that region were entitled to some seven billion dollars in damages: the difference between the wealth of the North and the South which, he argued would not have existed had slavery been abolished in his section.

After being banned in the South, Helper's book was published in the North, and the Republicans took both him and the book under their wing. They underwrote the publication of some 100,000 copies of that book, which proved not only financially profitable, but one of the most effective campaign documents in American history.

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

Of all events between 1856 and 1860 that rebounded to the advantage of the Republicans, none was more emotional than a Supreme Court decision handed down on March 6, 1857, just two day's after James Buchanan's inaugural. The case was styled Dred Scott v Sandford.

Dred Scott, a slave born in Virginia had been taken by his master to Missouri, had there been sold by his original owner to one Dr. John Emerson, an army surgeon. Emerson took Scott from St. Louis to Illinois and then to the Wisconsin Territory during his military postings. Title was later transferred to John F. Sanford (no misspelling), Executor of Dr. Emerson's estate. In 1846,

abolitionists, noting that Illinois was a free state and the Wisconsin Territory was closed to slavery by virtue of the Compromise of 1820, picked up the case and moved it forward. Dred

Scott's lawyer argued that Scott was a freeman by virtue of his residency in both Illinois and Wisconsin. Sanford, in answer to the charge, maintained that the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear

the suit because Scott was not a citizen and therefore not entitled to sue in a Federal Court.

As cases go, this was not a novel action by any means. Between 1822 and 1837 along, some eight cases of a similar nature had been engineered or otherwise brought before the Courts before the Dred Scott case arose. In each. the Court involved had essentially dismissed the case on narrow technical grounds including lack of "standing," i.e., that one must be either a person or a citizen in order to bring a suit, and that a slave was neither.

What was new in 1856 when, after almost 10 years of legal maneuvering the Supreme Court heard argument and rendered its decision in the case of Dred Scott v Sandford, was the highly

charged emotional atmosphere of the country, arising out of the Kansas-Nebraska turmoil. Thus, rather than dealing with the case on the narrow technical issue presented: Did Scott, admittedly a

slave under the laws of Missouri, have standing to bring suit in a Federal Court?, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, went beyond the issue. The Chief Justice declared that no black, whether slave or free and descended from a slave, could be a citizen of the United States. Further, Dred Scott's residency in free territory did not make him free because the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. That compromise, Taney stated, was a violation of the Fifth Amendment's guaranteed protection of property (which included slaves). Congress, Taney held, had a duty of protecting the property of all its citizens, including slaver property, in the Western territories.

The Abolitionist denounced Taney as a dupe of the Slaveocracy. Pointing out the fact that the Chief Justice was a Marylander, and a former slave owner himself (ignoring that he had manumitted his slaves earlier), they also pointed out that 8 of the 9 sitting justices were southerners. Taney was verbally flailed by moderate anti-slavers as well as radical abolitionists. Congress, it appeared, now lacked the power to dispose of the issue. If so, Abolitionists shouted, slavery would expand into the North where states would be unable to preserve freedom.

Further doubt on the "objectivity" of the Court was cast when it became known that President Buchanan had written to the sole Pennsylvania appointee to the Supreme Court, urging him to joinTaney and the other Southern appointees on the Court to include the broad constitutional issue in the decision. Buchanan had alluded to the upcoming decision in his inaugural address, promising to "cheerfully submit" to the Court's decision, "whatever this may be." To many, that pronouncement now appeared hypocritical at least and an unwarranted interference in the Court.

The influential New York Post, became a convert to the "Great Slave Conspiracy Thesis" when it opined in an editorial on the Dred Scott decision that the Supreme Court had joined the Buchanan administration in a conspiracy "of the most treasonable character." Moderates, such as Stephen A. Douglas, who had been trying to keep slavery out of the political arena, recognized that the Dred Scott decision was the death knell to their efforts. Popular Sovereignty, upon which Douglas had pinned so much of his hopes, and his political future, was virtually moribund. During the Illinois Senate race of 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a recent Whig convert to the Republican Party, taunted Douglas with the question of whether that gentleman was

prepared to uphold the law of the land (meaning the Dred Scott decision), and enforce the right

of slave holders to federal protection in the territories.

An embarrassed Douglas defended himself by turning the question around: Was Lincoln himself suggesting that the law of the land not be upheld? Finally, in a debate held on June 12, 1857 in Freeport, Illinois, Douglas made a last ditch effort to salvage the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty. In what is called the Freeport Doctrine, Douglas argued that the right of a citizen to bring slaves into a territory was worthless, unless territorial legislation existed to enforce the right. Thus all that was needed to keep slavery out of the territories was the absence of territorial legislation.

Technically, Douglas was right. But by 1857, asking any American, North or South of the Mason Dixon line, to make such a fine and rational distinction, was asking too much. Lincoln

dismissed the Freeport Doctrine with the dry wit that made him, as Douglas admitted, the best stump speaker in the West. The Supreme Court, Lincoln drolled, had rendered popular sovereignty "as thin as soup boiled from the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to

death." Douglas, like other moderates, found that the Dred Scott decision had pulled the rug out from underneath them, leaving only the extremist room to maneuver. And maneuver they did.

Even Lincoln was forced to shift ground. In his most famous speech of the Senatorial election of 1858, Lincoln proclaimed that a "house divided cannot stand," that the Union could not survive

half slave and half free but would become "all one thing, or all the other." That the "house" had, in fact, been divided for decades seemed to escape Lincoln. That the Union faced the extreme

alternatives, all free or all slave, was an abolitionist conclusion. That Lincoln, who had never advocated abolitionist doctrine should have nevertheless, accepted its conclusion, is

testimony of the growing extremism of the period.

Another expression of extremism was the speech of William H. Seward, perhaps the most prominent Republican of the day and the odds-on favorite among political insiders to capture the nomination of that party in its next convention. In a dramatic speech denouncing the Dred Scott decision, Seward did everything but expressly call for public repudiation and non-support for the law of the land. There was, Seward proclaimed, a "Higher Law" than the Constitution, meaning the law of God.

At least two Courts agreed with this view. In 1856, following the Dred Scott decision, the Ohio legislature, flouting the Supreme Court, adopted measures against the kidnapping of free blacks, and the Supreme Court of that state ruled any slave brought into Ohio, would be automatically declared emancipated. In a separate incident in 1859, a fugitive slave had been tracked down in

Wisconsin and hauled before a Commissioner of the United States. An Anti-Slave group in the state had secured a writ of habeas corpus from a state court, ordering the marshall to release the

slave. After much legal wrangling the case went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That Court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act to be unconstitutional. Further, the Court ordered the Clerk of Court to disregard any decision rendered on appeal by any Federal Court. Thus, when the Supreme Court in Ableman v Booth, overruled the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision, the legislature of that state responded with a states'-rights resolutions echoing Madison and

Jefferson's Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99. This exercise in what must be considered an extreme State's Rights Doctrine, was roundly applauded throughout the North. Seward's "Higher Law," had indeed supplanted the Sovereign's will.

Overlooked in this emotional outpouring was the reality of the Dred Scott decision. The Compromise of 1820 had been repealed in 1854 by Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill, three years before Justice Taney delivered his opinion. In addition the ruling of Justice Taney was obiter dictum - a statement outside the boundary of the law, not essential to the case and therefore not binding as precedent or law. It was, in the words of one observer who kept his wits when all others were losing theirs, "entitled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room."

AN INCIDENT AT HARPER'S FERRY

The final event of the decade, and the most electrifying in a series of momentous events, was a terrorist raid led by the Abolitionist, John Brown, upon the federal arsenal at Harper's

Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in the fall of 1859. Even after the passage of a century, it is difficult for contemporaries to view this incident without emotion. John S. Curry, a modern

artist commissioned to draw a mural in the Kansas State Capitol, painted John Brown as a prophetic giant unloosing the winds of conflict upon the nation. It is a view both sides of the impending conflict would agree with.

Before his raid caused Northerners to view him as an avenging angel and Southerners to compare him with a demon, John Brown was recognized by his contemporaries as first, a fanatic, and second, a personal failure at everything he had tried. At his trial, his court appointed lawyer pleaded insanity, and found no lack of testimony from friends and acquaintances to support that defense. Having failed as a farmer, failed as a businessman, and apparently having failed in marriage, John Brown had converted to Abolitionism. The conversion was religious. By 1854 he had apparently arrived at the extreme but logical conviction that the immediate emancipation of slaves could be accomplished only by violence.

Fifty nine years old at the time of his raid on Harper's Ferry, already a fugitive from justice with a $250 reward on his head for his part in the anti-slave raids conducted in Kansas, his immediate

followers consisted largely of his children, of whom he had twenty. Following the 1856 "Pottawatomie Massacre," John Brown had fled East to New England. There he embarked upon a fund raising effort, ostensibly for further efforts in Kansas. It was during this period that he matured a plan to attack the citadel of slavery.

By 1858, a secret committee which included such eminently respectable citizens such as Garrit Smith of New York, the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Professor Samuel G. Howe, Frank B. Sanford, George L. Stearns and the Reverend Theodore Parker, had been formed to support Brown. Brown's plan called for an armed attack upon the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Having emptied the arsenal of its arms, Brown proposed to liberate slaves in the surrounding region, flee to the mountains where he would establish a guerilla base camp. From

there, guerilla raids upon plantations, in which slaves would be freed and inducted into the army, would be conducted. As his army grew, the duration and extent of the raids would also grow until a mass uprising of black slaves would succeed in bringing the institution of slavery down. It was a vision that mid 20th-century Communist guerillas could have proposed.

Thus on the evening of October 16, 1859, John Brown and his "army," of 20 men crossed the Potomac River, seized the arsenal and then... did nothing. Having achieved the immediate objective by surprise, Brown and his army wiled away the few precious hours available doing nothing. By morning, the local militia had Brown and his followers bottled up inside a railroad engine house. The arrival of a unit of marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, ended the brief engagement. John Brown was captured. Among those hostages released was George Washington's great-grand-nephew. A speedy trial based upon the charges of treason, levying war against the State of Virginia, conspiracy to insurrection and murder, brought the expected verdict - Guilty.

There is much that troubles historians in dealing with John Brown. Although on first glance the raid might be considered as daring by some, it was viewed as completely irrational by many

contemporaries. Abraham Lincoln, upon receiving the news of the raid, noted that even the slaves had better sense than to participate in it. A thorough review of the facts leaves the historian almost at a loss to explain the degree of stupidity which characterized the plan and its execution from beginning to end. Brown had not been particularly secretive about his plans. Some

eighty persons were later discovered to have been privy to it, including the black abolitionist, Frederick Douglas, who declined a personal invitation to take part in the raid, believing it to be

suicidal. Ironically, the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, had received an anonymous letter six weeks before the raid, warning that John Brown intended to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

Floyd dismissed the letter as the work of a crank.

Little thinking and even less planning went into the raid. Having rented a farm in Maryland across the river from Harper's Ferry, Brown failed to gather any information about the location of

slaves in the region. Had he bothered, he would have discovered few indeed. The western counties of Virginia where the arsenal was located, had no plantations and hence few slaves. Harper's Ferry, with a population of 2,500 had 1,251 free blacks but only 88 slaves.

No contingency plans for escape or evacuation were made. No preparation of an advance camp site in the mountains were carried out. Most curiously, incriminating evidence was left in the

Maryland farm house being rented, including a trunk in plain view, with letters implicating his most prominent Northern supporters.

From these facts, some historians have concluded that John Brown never intended his raid to succeed. Rather he intended the consequences that followed; that he would be either killed or

caught and executed, as he was. It may well be that John Brown desired to become a martyr, and to ignite by his act, the cataclysmic violence that would destroy the institution of bond slavery. Offered the opportunity to say the last words as he stood on the gallow, Brown declined. But he slipped a note to one of the guards:

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of

this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.

If this latter interpretation is correct, than John Brown succeeded. Throughout the South the reaction was one not merely of alarm and fear, but one verging on hysteria. In the mind of every

Southerner the connection between Abolitionism and slave insurrection became fixed. Southerners now saw confirmation of their belief that the Abolitionists would in the future, be

actively inciting such rebellion again and again.

But, more troubling to Southerners was the reaction of the North to John Brown's raid. Rather than it being denounced as the terrorist incident it was, Northerners either sympathized with or

praised Brown's actions. Public spokesmen in the North occasionally condemned Brown publically, but unofficially condoned him. On the day of John Brown's execution, church bells were tolled in communities as far apart as Concord, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois. Both houses of the Massachusetts legislature adjourned on that day for public mourning. William Lloyd Garrison openly proclaimed his support for "every slave insurrection at the South

and in any slave country."

The New England literati became especially ecstatic in their praise of John Brown. Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to Brown in public as a "Saint," and predicted that when his martyrdom was perfected, he would "make the gallows as glorious as the Cross." Louisa May Alcott noted in her diary, the execution of "Saint John the Just." Henry David Thoreau described Brown as an "angel of light."

Captured documents from the farm house rented by Brown in preparation of the raid, left no doubt that Brown had not acted alone; that prominent New Englanders had known, or suspected, of his plan and supported him both morally and financially.

Paranoia overcame the South. Rumors of other impending slave uprisings spread like wild fire. Vigilante groups and "Committees of Public Safety" appeared spontaneously, to battle non-existing abolitionists and suppress imagined slave uprisings. In Texas, a horde of whites mobilized en masse to route the thousands of abolitionists rumored to be pillaging the northeastern section of that state. None were found.

Elsewhere every slave incident was magnified into an act of possible rebellion. Every white death of undetermined origin became an act of murder committed by a slave at the instigation of

the abolitionists. Vigilante groups of whites rounded up thousands of slaves who were tortured into "confessing" to non-existent plots. The confessions were published and fueled the paranoia in that section. Southern extremists turned this hysteria into a call for secession as the only way to protect the South from the inevitable destruction which awaited them if and when "Black

Republicans," who shielded the abolitionist and proclaimed loyalty to a "higher law" than the law of the land, should come into power.

Seward's famous speech in which he set forth the "higher law" appeal, also made reference to "an irrepressible conflict." Southerners seized upon that speech as proof positive that the

Republicans were indirectly, if not directly linked to John Brown's raid. The Tennessee legislature declared in a resolution that the incident at Harper's Ferry was "the natural fruit of this

treasonable 'irrepressible conflict' doctrine put forth by the great head of the Black Republican party and echoed by his subordinates." Both the volume and intensity of the Southern

reaction leave no doubt of the degree of fear expressed by them. To them, phrases such as "irrepressible conflict" and "a higher law," were synonymous with a declaration of war upon the South.

On January 11, 1860, barely a month after the execution of John Brown, the Alabama legislature met and issued instructions to the delegates in the up coming Democratic national convention. The Alabama Platform adopted, voicing the sentiments of the deep South,

instructed delegates to demand federal guarantees for the protection of slave property in the territories. That legislature also went on record to state that it would not submit to the rule

of a "foul sectional party," meaning the Republicans, and provided for calling a convention in the event of a Republican victory in the 1860 election.

THE ELECTION OF 1860

In the intervening weeks between the execution of John Brown and the Democratic National Convention of April, 1860, Southern extremists exploited the emotion generated by the incident at Harper's Ferry. State after state in the South went on record espousing doctrines formerly regarded as those of a minority radical group. States Rights, including the Right of Secession

become the new orthodoxy of the lower South. South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas endorsed the Alabama Platform. Thus by November, 1860, the lower South was on record. Secession from the Union would be the response to a Republican victory.

When the Democrats met in convention, moderates were still in control. Stephen A. Douglas had a clear majority of the delegate votes behind him. But a majority was not enough. The Democratic Party had long ago agreed to the two thirds requirement in order to appease its Southern wing. That rule prevented Douglas from gaining the nomination. Worse for Douglas, even before the balloting began, the Committee on the Platform had pushed through a resolution endorsing the Dred Scott decision. In effect, the Democratic Party abandoned the doctrine of popular sovereignty.

When it proved impossible for any candidate to capture the necessary two thirds majority, the Democratic convention adjourned. It was scheduled to meet later in Baltimore. Whether or not the delegates from the lower South would attend however, was problematic. The Democrats had rejected the demands set forth in the Alabama Platform calling for additional guarantees on slavery in the territories.

The Republican Party met in convention in Chicago on Mary 16th in a spirit of boisterous exuberance. The apparent split in the Democratic Party pointed toward a Republican victory. Behind the scenes of the convention candidates maneuvered for the nomination. William Seward was the most prominent contender. But, as is often the case, prominence in politics is a liability. Seward had too many personal enemies. Further, his identification with "higher law" and "irrepressible conflict," made him unacceptable to the moderate Republicans.

Also in contention at the Republican convention were Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Edward Bates of Missouri and Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky. But in the end, the convention selected Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The Republican leaders agreed that either an Indiana or an Illinois candidate was required. From Indiana they had no one with national name recognition. From Illinois then, the Republicans selected their standard bearer. Hanible Hamlin of Maine was nominated as Vice Presidential candidate. Few Republicans believed they had nominated their best men. Most believed they had nominated the men who stood the best chance of

being elected.

When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore, supporters of Stephen A. Douglas succeeded in unseating enough rival delegates to force through his nomination. This turn of events brought about the final rupture of that national institution. The Southern delegates in attendance bolted the party. In a rump session held in Charleston, the southern wing of the Democratic Party, under the control of extremists, nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, Buchanan's Vice President.

One final party entered the race. The former American or Know- Nothing Party (derisively called "Fillmore's Soreheads by the Republicans) linked up with remnants of the old Whigs to nominate a middle-of-the-road candidate, John Bell of Tennessee as the Constitutional Union Party.

When the votes in the November election were counted, the Republican margin in the electoral column was overwhelming. They polled 180 electoral votes against 72 for Breckinridge, 39 for Bell and 12 for Douglas. But never before or after has the electoral vote, upon which political contests are won or lost, so completely distorted the popular vote. Lincoln gained 1,866,352 popular votes, amounting to only 39.9% of the total. Douglas was second with 1,375,157, although he ran last in the electoral total. Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat garnered 847,453 and Bell, the American/Whig candidate, 589,581 popular votes. From a popular perspective, the American public had disavowed the Republicans by a margin of 2,815,617 to 1,866,452 votes. But Lincoln was president.

THE ACCOMPLISHED FACT OF SECESSION

True to their ultimatum delivered in the Alabama Platform, the legislatures of seven southern states adopted Ordinances of Secession between the election and March, 1861 when Lincoln took

the oath of office. Fully a month before Lincoln's inauguration, these seven states had met at Montgomery Alabama and formed the Confederate States of America. Although accompanied by much fanfare, secession produced nothing more than a torrent of words from Southerners, profound amazement from Northerners, and inaction from official Washington.

The administration of James Buchanan has been generally depicted as weak, vacillating and timid. And while it may be true that Buchanan is anything but a heroic figure, is not true that he

lacked a policy during the secessionist crisis. The President's objective during this period was to avoid war and bring the seven secessionist states back into the Union through a policy of

compromise.

To this end, Buchanan rejected the advice of the military to garrison army forts in the South, with the result that all but two, Fort Pickens in Florida and Fort Sumpter in South Carolina, were

seized by state militia before Buchanan left office. The president also negotiated directly with Southern politicians, now called "Commissioners." He also sponsored or endorsed three major efforts to reconcile the differences between the two sections. The most important, offered by ex-Vice President John J. Crittenden, called for two Constitutional Amendments: prohibiting the federal government from interference with slavery in the states and restoring the Missouri Compromise line. In addition, The Crittenden Proposal, as it is called, recommended federal

compensation to owners of runaway slaves and the repeal of the North's personal liberty laws. Compromise talks failed on one point. The President elect, Abraham Lincoln, refused to endorse

the proposals. Buchanan's efforts to resolve the crisis were thus stillborn.

What were Lincoln's plans during the crisis? Historians can only speculate. Between the election in November, 1860 and his inauguration in March, 1861, Lincoln said little and did less. Far from cutting a heroic figure, the future president concerned himself with patronage matters. A reading of his First inaugural address fails to reveal any coherent plan or proposal. Other than

words of reassurance to the South, Lincoln offered nothing tangible. It may be that Lincoln entertained assumptions we know nothing about. It may also be that Lincoln, like others, was

overwhelmed by events and could only react to them.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: MYTH AND REALITY

Lincoln often referred to himself as one who 'temporarily occupied the White House." It bespoke well of the modesty and sincerity which public opinion attributes to Abraham Lincoln. But Lincoln was a man whose public attributes were carefully cultivated. And no one cultivated them more than Abraham Lincoln. In dealing with him, the historian must study both the man and the legend, recognizing that the legend of Lincoln has perhaps outdistanced the man.

In a 1948 article entitled "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth," Richard Hofstadter explored the legend of Lincoln and came to the conclusion that Lincoln was a consummate politician who created the image that is his legacy. The Lincoln drama is that of a self-made man, born in a log cabin, rising by his own efforts to become President; the epitome of the American success story. Then, the myth continues, Lincoln shoulders the burdens of a blundering

and sinful people, redeems them with hallowed Christian virtue, and "with malice toward none and charity for all" as he phrased it in his second inaugural address, attempts to bind up the wounds in the Union, having rescued the slaves from bondage.

Then, the myth continues, at the very moment of redemption, the savior of the Union pays the ultimate price of atonement. He is struck down by an assassin and dies in the redemption drama. The parallels with Christian themes are immediately apparent.

So much for the myth. What of the man? To answer that question is to delve into a complex personality. Lincoln was anything but simple. Contemporaries recognized that he was at time, as one acquaintance put it, "the ungodliest man you ever saw." Lincoln was, both simple, humble and at the same time ambitious and aggressive. At the outset of his political career in Illinois,

Lincoln seldom failed to strike a humble manner that was peculiarly his. "I was born and have ever remained," he said in his first campaign speech, "in the most humble walks of life." From that point on, he always sounded that theme. "I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln...If elected, I shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same."

Born in a log cabin in Kentucky to a small farmer, Lincoln turned his origins to political advantage, cultivating the image of himself as a hard-fisted rail splitter. At a Republican meeting in 1860, two of his supporters appeared carrying fence rails labeled "Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom in the year 1830." The time would come when Tad, Lincoln's youngest son, would say, "Everybody in this world knows

Pa used to split rails."

All of which is to say, that Lincoln was first and foremost a politician, as much by personal preference as by training. He leaped into politics almost at the beginning of adulthood and never

abandoned it, except when out of office. During those lulls, Lincoln turned to the practice of law. But it was politics, not law, that was Lincoln's great passion. His law partner, William

Herndon later wrote of Lincoln that politics was his life, newspapers his food, and ambition his motive power. "His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest."

Sizing up politics early in the frontier communities of Illinois, Lincoln chose between the Democrats and the Whigs. The Democrats were the party of the "common man," which meant the small grain farmers of the West, who hated banks, cities, gentility and government in general. The Whigs were the party of the "betters," championing internal improvements, a national bank, and protective tariffs. Lincoln never hesitated. He became a Whig, and therefore joined the Hamiltonian tradition. He never thereafter departed from that tradition. Henry Clay was his idol, "The American System," his platform.

His political philosophy reflects the assumptions of James Madison as set forth in Federalist Number 10, the stake-in-society theory of government. His credo was summarized in a newspaper statement of 1836 in which he said,

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government

who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for

admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes

or bear arms.

In that credo, Lincoln also reveals his position on the issue of slavery. It was one shared by most voters in Illinois. On the one hand, Lincoln was openly hostile to slavery. He was acute in

revealing the profoundly undemocratic assumptions behind slavery; in showing that the principle of exclusion upon which one minority, slaves, were barred from obtaining rights held by others,

could be both a precedent and a moral sanction for barring other minorities those rights.

Yet Lincoln firmly condemned the abolitionists, viewing them as a political plague to be contained if not eliminated. Lincoln is on record as subscribing to the Anti-Slave position that the long- term solution of the race issue required the recolonization of freed blacks in Africa. Politically he reconciled the latent racism of the anti-slavery position with his opposition to the

institution of slavery by publically adopting the Free Soil Doctrine. In a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois in 1856, he stated that position as follows:

The whole nation is interested that the best use shall

be made of these Territories. We want them for homes of

free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable

extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave

states are places for poor white people to remove from, not

to remove to. New free States are places for poor people

to go to, and better their condition. For this use the

nation needs these Territories.

Like other orthodox Whigs of the period, Lincoln found the slave issue to be divisive, not only for his party, but for the Nation. No crusader, he preferred eliminating that issue from national

debate. Events overcame him in this regard. From 1854 on, with the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln was, like other politicians, forced to deal with the issue.

FORT SUMPTER

In reading Lincoln's first inaugural address there is only one point reflecting firmness. In passing, Lincoln promised that he would "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts..." Since only two pieces of property remained under federal control, Fort Pickens in Florida and Fort Sumpter in South Carolina, Lincoln's reference, although oblique, was pointed.

Lincoln had prior to delivering this speech, be notified that the commanding officer at Fort Sumpter, Major Anderson, had advised the War Department that provisions and supplies were nearly exhausted and requested either resupplies or permission to evacuate an otherwise untenable position. In bringing this notice to the attention of his cabinet, several members advise further

conciliation. Among them was William Seward, now Secretary of State. In addition to recommending withdrawal from Fort Sumpter and Pickens, Seward proposed to reunify the nation by an immediate declaration of war upon a European power, preferably Spain;

although France or even Britain would serve.

Lincoln, in what many later historians consider to be his most careful and considered act, publicly notified the Governor of South Carolina, then part of the Confederacy, of his intent to resupply Major Anderson with provisions, minus men and ammunition. Further, Lincoln gave the date of that reprovisioning expedition, it being set for April 12, 1861. Thus Lincoln drew a line in the sand. He would hold the fort. If the South contested this, it was up to the South to fire the first shot.

In the early hours before dawn on April 12th, Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumpter. No shots were returned. On April 13, Major Anderson surrendered his forces and by agreement evacuated his troops without confinement. News of the engagement electrified both sides.

In response to the loss of Fort Sumpter, Lincoln issued a presidential proclamation calling for volunteers in the number of 75,000 men to serve for a term of 90 days, in order to, as the

President stated, suppress insurrection too strong for the local authorities to handle.

One wonders at the frame of mind revealed by this proclamation. Instead of 75,000 men and a 90 day campaign, the coming Civil War would require over two million in uniform, 620,000 of whom would die in a war spanning four years. Lincoln had greatly underestimated both the cost and the extent of the "insurrection." One also wonders at the frame of mind of Congress at this

pivotal juncture. Shortly after the failure of the Crittenden Compromise, a second effort was made. At the request of the Virginia legislature, twenty one states sent delegates to an

informal convention that met at the Willard Hotel in D.C. Presided over by former President John Tyler, it endorsed what came to be called the Corwin Amendment. The House of Representative approved it and the Senate also on the day before Lincoln took his oath of office. It was designated the 13th amendment and would have guaranteed slavery where it existed. It was not ratified by the necessary states.

Four years later, a new amendment, again designated as the 13th was sent to the states by Congress. This latter one did not guarantee slavery. It abolished slavery.