Motives for Expansion and Western Settlement Chapter 6 Section 3

Stephan A Douglas  Stephen A. Douglas was the senator from Illinois who encouraged southern hopes by proposing that settlers in Kansas and Nebraska decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery in their territories in which Congress ended up voting in favor for.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)  The terms of the Missouri Compromise no longer applied to Kansas and Nebraska.  Instead, the people of these territories would exercise popular sovereignty by voting on whether or not to allow slavery.

Violent Outcome  In Kansas, after the passage of Senator Douglas’s bill, fighting broke out between southern, proslavery settlers, and northern, antislavery settlers.  Armed clashes between northerners and southerners in “Bleeding Kansas” warned of the nationwide civil war that would soon follow.

Disintegration of the Whig Party  From the early to mid-1800s, the Whig party was one of the two major parties of the United States.  The Whig part supported High Tariffs to protect business, a national bank to control the currency, and internal improvements on roads and canals.  With supporters in both the North and the South, the Whig party at first took no stand on the issue of slavery.

Rise of the Republican Party  The Republican Party would replace the Whigs as they declined in popularity.  Founded in 1854, the Republican Party drew all its support from the North and the West.  The Republican Party was looked upon with suspicion and hostility as an antislavery, anti-southern party from the South’s point of view.

 As stated in the Republican platforms of 1856 and 1860, the new party stood for: 1. Keeping slavery out of the western territories. (The abolition of slavery in the south was a goal of only a minority of Republicans; it was not an official goal of the party) 2. Enacting a high protective tariff to encourage northern industries 3. Building a transcontinental, or nationwide, railroad stretching from the Atlantic coast all the way to the Pacific.

Election of 1856  In the election of 1856, Republican candidate for president, John C. Fremont, came in second in the national voting and first in the North. Was an election that proved that the Republican Party was now one of the two major parties in the nation.

Abraham Lincoln and the Secession Crisis  Abraham Lincoln, the man who would become the 16 th president, began his life on a small homestead in Kentucky.  When he was three years old, his father moved the family to Indiana where Abe grew up on the family farm teaching himself to read and write.  Although he had some primary school instruction, Lincoln was largely self-taught.

 Lincoln began his career as a lawyer and legislator.  His political beliefs included opposition to the expansion of slavery, internal improvements, and a high tariff.  On a personal and moral level, Lincoln opposed slavery.  Lincoln launched his political career as a Whig and when the Whig party began to disintegrate, Lincoln joined the newly formed Republican Party.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates  The person holding the Senate seat and running for reelection was the famed Democratic leader in the Senate, Stephan Douglas.  In various towns in Illinois, Lincoln, the tall Republican, debated the much shorter Democrat (the “Little Giant,” as Douglas was called) on the slavery issue.  Douglas defended his position on popular sovereignty; Lincoln attacked it.  Said Lincoln in one debate: “The Republican party looks upon slavery as a moral, social, and political wrong. They insist that it should be treated as wrong; and one of the methods of treating it as wrong is to make sure that it should grow no longer.”

Lincoln-Douglas Debates  It was during this race for the Senate that Lincoln gave his famous “house divided” speech.  A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave, and half free….I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.  Lincoln lost the Senate election to Douglas but the debates won Lincoln national attention.

Election of 1860  Angry feelings between northerners and southerners dominated politics in 1860 as Republicans and Democrats met in national conventions to choose their candidates for president.  The four candidates for president in the election of 1860 were Abraham Lincoln (Rep), Stephen Douglas (No. Dem), John Breckinridge (So. Dem), and John Bell (Const. Union).

 In this four-way race, Lincoln emerged as the winner although he won only 40 percent of the popular vote.  However, he won the heavily populated states throughout the North, thereby winning the electoral vote.  From the South’s point of view, it was the worst possible outcome.

Southern Secession  Only one month after Lincoln’s election, South Carolina announced its decision to secede from the Union.  Other southern states followed South Carolina’s example.  By March 1861, northern states and southern states were acting as two separate nations.  The Union had come apart.

Southern Secession  Many factors led to the Civil War.  The invention of the Cotton Gin by Eli Whitney insured that slavery would increase and spread and would never go away.  Among its underlying causes were cultural and economic differences, regional loyalties, southerners’ belief in easy victory, slavery as a moral issue, and a series of inflammatory events in the 1850s.  The South believed that it had to secede in order to preserve slavery, which it viewed as inseparable from southern culture.

 The industrial North and the cotton- dominated South also had differing economic interests, which led to political disputes such as the tariff question.  Sectionalism in the South was stronger than nationalism.  Southerners were also strong believers in states’ rights rather than in federal authority.  The South also believed that the North did not have the stomach to use armed force.  Many southerners also thought that English manufacture’s dependence on their cotton would oblige Britain to support them if war did come.

 Strong presidential leadership was lacking in the 1850s, and the two leading proponents of nationalism in the Senate, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, both passed away early in the decade.  By the 1850s more and more people began to view slavery as morally wrong and incompatible with democracy.  In addition, a series of inflammatory events acted to polarize and divide the nation in the 1850s.  Among these events were the Fugitive Slave Act, the publication of “Bleeding Kansas,” the Dred Scott decision, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860.