1. American National Identity in 1850
Pride in democracy was one unifying theme in a growing sense of national identity and new middle-class values, institutions, and culture that supported it.
An American Renaissance produced writers who focused on social criticism, including:
Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson who experimented with poetic form
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville who wrote about the darker side of human nature
Frederick Douglass’s autobiography and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) condemn slavery
Refer to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
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This poster advertises Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the bestselling novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This poignant story of long-suffering African American slaves had an immense impact on northern popular opinion, swaying it decisively against slavery. In that respect, the poster’s boast, “The Greatest Book of the Age,” was correct.
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3. The Compromise of 1850 (even messier than Compromise of 1820)
California came in as a free state.
Other southwest territories were to be settled by popular sovereignty.
A stronger fugitive slave law was enacted.
The slave trade was outlawed in Washington, D.C.
The Texas–New Mexico border dispute was settled.
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MAP 15.2 The Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850, messier and more awkward than the Missouri Compromise of 1820, reflected heightened sectional tensions. California was admitted as a free state, the borders of Texas were settled, and the status of the rest of the former Mexican territory was left to be decided later by popular sovereignty. No consistent majority voted for the five separate bills that made up the compromise.
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5. The Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
The issue of runaway slaves further divided the nation.
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 put the full force of the federal government behind slave catchers.
Mobs of northerners unsuccessfully tried to prevent the law from being carried out.
Black fugitives described their experiences as slaves, helping to raise Northerners’ consciousness.
Refer to handbill warning free African Americans.
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This handbill warning free African Americans of danger circulated in Boston following the first of the infamous recaptures under the Fugitive Slave Law, that of Thomas Sims in 1851.
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7. The Crisis of the National Party System
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8. Political Parties and Slavery
To win national elections in the 1830s and 1840s, Whigs and Democrats were forced to forge inter-sectional coalitions (that spanned the North and South).
But by 1848 sectional interests were dividing the Whigs and Democrats (into North and South).
The days of Andrew Jackson’s “gag rule” were over: every debate in Congress was infected with issue of slavery
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9. The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
Stephen Douglas pushed through a bill to open the Kansas territory.
To win southern support Douglas’ bill declared that the territory would be organized on the principle of popular sovereignty, even though slavery in that territory had been banned under the Missouri Compromise.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act proved to:
destroy the Whig Party
nearly destroy the northern wing of the Democratic Party
negate treaties with Indians removed to Kansas in the 1830s.
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“Bleeding Kansas”
The territory became a battleground of sectional politics.
On election day, proslavery Missourians crossed over the border and took control of the territorial legislature.
Northerners quickly responded by founding free-soil communities.
By the summer of 1856 open warfare erupted.
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This engraving shows “Border Ruffians” from Missouri lining up to vote for slavery in the Kickapoo, Kansas Territory, election of The widespread practice of illegal voting and open violence earned Kansas the dreadful nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.”
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13. The Republican Party and the Election of 1856
In 1856, Democrats nominated James Buchanan as a compromise candidate.
The Republican Party linked many Free-Soil supporters and former Whigs in the North.
Southern Know-Nothings ran Millard Fillmore.
Northern Republicans ran John C. Fremont who defeated Buchanan in the North.
Buchanan had to carry nearly the entire South to win the election.
The election signaled the rise of the Republican Party.
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MAP 15.4 The Election of 1856 Because three parties contested the 1856 election, Democrat James Buchanan was a minority president. Although Buchanan alone had national support, Republican John Frémont won most of the free states, and Millard Fillmore of the American Party gained 40 percent of the vote in most of the slave states.
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Seeing History Brooks Beats Sumner.
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16. The Differences Deepen
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17. The Dred Scott Decision (1857)
The Dred Scott decision worsened sectional divisions.
The Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories and that black people did not have the right to bring suits before federal court because they were not citizens.
While Southerners applauded the decision, Northerners denounced it.
Refer to “Dred Scott.”
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These sympathetic portraits of Harriet and Dred Scott and their daughters in 1857 helped to shape the northern reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision that denied the Scotts’ claim to freedom. The infamous Dred Scott decision was intended to resolve the issue of slavery expansion but instead heightened angry feelings in both North and South.
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The Panic of 1857
Adding to the conflict was a financial panic and sharp depression in 1857 and 1858.
The Panic affected northern more than southern exports.
Southerners believed the Panic showed the superiority of their system.
Refer to “Worried Crowd.”
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This painting by Charles C. Rosenberg and James H. Cafferty shows a worried crowd exchanging the latest news on Wall Street during the Panic of This was the first economic depression in which the telegraph played a part by carrying bad financial news in the West to New York much more rapidly than in the past.
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John Brown’s Raid
Sectional tensions intensified when John Brown raided the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in an unsuccessful effort to instigate a slave revolt.
Brown was a “Terrorist” in the South and a martyr [fallen hero] in the north
Refer to picture of John Brown and his followers.
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In a contemporary engraving, John Brown and his followers are shown trapped inside the armory at Harpers Ferry in October Captured, tried, and executed, Brown was regarded as a martyr in the North and a terrorist in the South.
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23. “The West: Death Runs Riot”
From 0:05 to 16:17

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The South Secedes
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The Election of 1860
Map: The Election of 1860
In the election of 1860, four candidates ran for president.
The Democrats split over a proposed slave code for the territories.
Stephen Douglas won the nomination but Southerners nominated John C. Breckinridge.
Southern and border state Whigs created the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell.
Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, a moderate.
Breckinridge and Lincoln represented the extreme positions on slavery in the territories.
Douglas and Bell tried to find a middle ground.
Lincoln won the election with 180 electoral votes by virtually sweeping the North.
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MAP 15.5 The Election of 1860 The election of 1860 was a sectional election. Lincoln won no votes in the South, Breckinridge none in the North. The contest in the North was between Lincoln and Douglas, and although Lincoln swept the electoral vote, Douglas’s popular vote was uncomfortably close. The large number of northern Democratic voters opposed to Lincoln was a source of political trouble for him during the Civil War.
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28. The South Leaves the Union
Map: The South Secedes
Southerners responded to the election of 1860 by initiating secession movements.
The Lower South seceded, eight slave states did not act.
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MAP 15.6 The South Secedes The southern states that would constitute the Confederacy seceded in two stages. The states of the Lower South seceded before Lincoln took office. Arkansas and three states of the Upper South—Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee—waited until after the South fired on Fort Sumter. And four border slave states—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri—chose not to secede. Every Southern state (except South Carolina) was divided on the issue of secession, generally along up-country–low-country lines. In Virginia, this division was so extreme that West Virginia split off to become a separate nonslave state and was admitted to the Union in 1863.
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This special edition of the Charleston Mercury was issued on December 20, 1860, the day South Carolina voted to secede from the Union.
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31. The North’s Political Options
Various Northerners unsuccessfully tried to find some compromise that would satisfy all sides.
Some Northerners were willing to allow the South to go in peace.
Lincoln believed that the idea of free government would be threatened if the South was permitted to leave.
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32. Establishment of the Confederacy
Southerners established the Confederate States of America.
Jefferson Davis, a moderate, was chosen as its president.
Davis tried to portray secession as a legal, peaceful step.
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33. Lincoln’s Inauguration
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
- Abraham Lincoln
Inaugural Address,
March 4, 1861
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Part Eight:
Conclusion
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