1. 6-3: The Secession crisis, 1854-1860

2. Learning Objectives
NAT 1.0 Explain how ideas about democracy, freedom, and individualism found expression in the development of cultural values, political institutions, and American identity.
NAT 2.0 Explain how interpretations of the Constitution and debates over rights, liberties, and definitions of citizenship have affected American values, politics, and society.
POL 1.0 Explain how and why political ideas, beliefs, institutions, party systems, and alignments have developed and changed.
POL 2.0 Explain how popular movements, reform efforts, and activist groups have sought to change American society and institutions.
WXT 1.0 Explain how different labor systems developed in North America and the United States, and explain their effects on workers’ lives and U.S. society.
CUL 2.0 Explain how artistic, philosophical, and scientific ideas have developed and shaped society and institutions.

3. Key Concept
Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.

4. Lecompton Crisis, 1854-1860 Rival State Governments
Pro- and anti-slavery activists flocked to Kansas to vote on status of slavery
“Border ruffians” and voter fraud
Pro-slavery government created
Free-soil Kansans denounced illegitimate government and formed their own
The majority of Kansas settlers were Midwesterners who generally opposed the spread of slavery but were more concerned with finding good farmland than deciding the national debate over slavery in the territories. Despite the large anti-slavery majority, large-scale election fraud occurred on the part of heavily armed Missouri “border ruffians” when they crossed into Kansas on election day to vote their pro-slavery principles.
Following the popular sovereignty vote, Kansas had two rival state governments, each claiming to be legitimate.

5. Lecompton Crisis, 1854-1860 Bleeding Kansas The Caning of Sumner
Eruption of guerilla war
John Brown and Pottawatomie Creek
200+ deaths
The Caning of Sumner
Both sides began arming themselves and soon a full-scale guerilla war erupted. In May 1856 a small band of anti-slavery zealots under the leadership of fanatical abolitionist John Brown killed and mutilated 5 unarmed men and boys at a pro-slavery settlement on Pottawatomie Creek.
That sane month, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts made a two-day speech entitled “The Crime Against Kansas,” in which he not only denounced slavery but also made degrading personal references to aged South Carolina senator Andrew Butler. Two days later, Butler’s nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, also of South Carolina, entered the Senate chamber and, coming on Sumner from behind, beat him about the head and shoulders with a cane, leaving him bloody and unconscious. The North was outraged while Brooks was hailed as a hero in the South. New canes were sent to him to replace the one he had broken over Sumner’s head.

6. Lecompton Crisis, 1854-1860 Lecompton Constitution
State constitution permitting slavery
Backed by President Buchanan, eager to avoid secession crisis
Final decision—Kansas cities reject slavery in fair election, do not become a state

7. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857 Background Ruling
Dred Scott a slave, not a citizen
Not allowed to sue in court
Court rules that slaves are property and thus cannot be excluded from any territory
A Missouri slave named Dred Scott was encouraged by abolitionists to sue for his freedom on the basis that his owner had taken him for a stay of several years in a free state, Illinois, and then in a free territory, Wisconsin. President James Buchanan urged the Supreme Court to set a precedent to resolve the slavery issue once and for all, thus removing it from the realm of politics.

8. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857 Significance
Invalidates Northwest Ordinance and Missouri Compromise
Takes extreme Southern position
Forces pro-slavery advocates to adopt position as well
Northerners more convinced of pro-slavery conspiracy

9. Panic of 1857 Economic recession
Northern region suffers most, giving the South “proof” that its slave system was superior economically

10. Lincoln-Douglas Debates
1858 Illinois Senate campaign
Candidates
Abraham Lincoln—Republican
Stephen A. Douglas—Democrat
Lincoln—Popular sovereignty refuses to acknowledge slavery as evil
Douglas—Lincoln is a radical abolitionist who opposed democracy
Douglas victorious, but Lincoln thrown into national spotlight
In one debate, Douglas issued his “Freeport Doctrine,” which claimed that the people of any territory could exclude slavery simply by declining to pass any of the special laws that slave jurisdictions usually passed for their protections.

11. Harpers Ferry
John Brown assaults federal arsenal to incite a slave uprising
Captured and executed as a martyr to abolitionists
Southerners convinced themselves that the entire Northern public approved of Brown’s actions
Only security for the Southerners may lay in a separate Southern confederacy

12. Election of 1860 Candidates Results Lincoln—Republican
Douglas—N. Democrat
Breckinridge—S. Democrat
Bell—Constitution Union Party
Results
Lincoln electoral victory, but no popular majority
Support came only from Northern states
The South could not win through normal political process
Republican Abraham Lincoln accepted slavery where it existed but opposed the further extension of slavery into the territories.
The Democratic Party split between Stephen Douglas in the North who advocated popular sovereignty, and John C. Breckinridge in the South who favored the extension of slavery into the territories and the annexation of Cuba.
John Bell ran as the candidate for the Constitutional Union Party, which drew support from North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Bell sidestepped the issues and called simply for the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws.

14. Secession Crisis Initial Secession Crittenden Compromise
South Carolina and the deep South seceded by February 1861
Crittenden Compromise
Constitutional amendment to prohibit abolition of slavery where it existed
Extension of Missouri Compromise line to Pacific Ocean
Thwarted by Lincoln
In Lincoln’s inaugural address he urged Southerners to reconsider their actions but warned that the Union was perpetual, that states could not secede, and that he would therefore hold the federal forts and installations in the South.
The Crittenden Compromise was a final proposal to save the union that was considered while the first states were seceding. President Lincoln encouraged Republicans to oppose the plan and it did not pass.

15. Secession Crisis Fort Sumter
Lincoln resupplied federal fort in South Carolina
Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered his army to force the Union troops to surrender
Union would only surrender if unsupplied
Confederacy opened fire
Lincoln’s declaration of insurrection
Call for 75,000 troops to put down rebellion
In response, Virginia and remainder of Confederacy seceded
Lincoln, in his desire to keep federal forts under Union control, resupplied Fort Sumter in South Carolina under the command of Major Robert Anderson. Lincoln informed the governor of South Carolina of his intentions and promised that he would not send arms, ammunition, or reinforcements unless Southerners initiated hostilities. On orders from President Jefferson Davis, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender the fort.

18. Secession Crisis Border States
Slave states that remained loyal to the Union
Delaware
Few slaves
No consideration of secession
Kentucky
Neutral
Maryland
Pro-slavery support crushed by Lincoln’s imposition of martial law
Missouri
Occupied by Union troops