LECTURE #12: Union in Peril (1852-1860)

Presented byDerrick J. Johnson, MPA, JD

Advanced Placement United States History

School for Advanced Studies

The Election of 1852

The presidential election of 1852 in many ways paralleled the election of 1844.

Once again, the incumbent President was a Whig who had succeeded to the presidency upon the death of his war hero predecessor; in this case, it was Millard Fillmore who followed General Zachary Taylor.

The election was devoid of much discussion of the slave issue, but the growing tensions were still there.

The Election of 1852

The Whig party passed over the incumbent, Fillmore, for nomination — casting him aside in favor of General Winfield Scott.

The Democrats nominated a "dark horse" candidate, this time Franklin Pierce. The Whigs again campaigned on the obscurity of the Democratic candidate, and once again this strategy failed.

The Election of 1852

Pierce defeated Scott with 254 electoral votes (1,607,510 popular votes) to Scott’s 42 (1,386,942 popular votes).

As a result of his victory, Pierce, at age 48, will become the youngest elected president, until his record is broken by Ulysses S. Grant (46 years old) and then by John F. Kennedy (41 years old).

President Franklin Pierce Born: November 23, 1804 Died: October 8, 1869 Term in Office: (1853-1857) Political Party: Democratic

The Franklin Pierce Presidency

The Franklin Pierce Presidency

The Pierce Cabinet

Office Name Term

President Franklin Pierce 1853–1857

Vice PresidentWilliam R. King 1853

None 1853–1857

Secretary of State William L. Marcy 1853–1857

Secretary of Treasury James Guthrie 1853–1857

Secretary of War Jefferson Davis 1853–1857

Attorney General Caleb Cushing 1853–1857

Postmaster General James Campbell 1853–1857

Secretary of the Navy James C. Dobbin 1853–1857

Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland 1853–1857

The Franklin Pierce Presidency

Supreme Court Appointments by President Pierce

John Archibald Campbell – 1853

States Admitted to the Union

None

Ostend Manifesto

Upon ascending to the presidency, Pierce adopted pro-southern policies and dispatched three American diplomats to Ostend, Belgium, where they secretly negotiated to buy Cuba from Spain.

The Ostend Manifesto that the diplomats drew up was leaked to the American press in the United States and provoked an angry reaction from antislavery members of Congress.

Pierce was forced to drop the scheme.

Gadsden Purchase

Although Pierce failed to acquire Cuba, he succeeded in adding a strip of land to the American Southwest for a railroad.

In 1853, Mexico agreed to sell thousands of acres of semi-desert land to the U.S. for $10 million.

The Treaty was negotiated by the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, James Gadsden and the negotiated land forms the southern sections of the New Mexico and Arizona.

Kansas-Nebraska Act Sen. Stephen Douglas devised a plan for building

a railroad and promoting western settlement. Douglas needed to win southern approval for his plan to build a transcontinental railroad through the central United States.

To get the approval he wanted, Douglas agreed to introduce the Kansas Nebraska Bill, which proposed to divide the Nebraska Territory into two territories (Kansas & Nebraska).

The law would allow both territories, which were above the 36 parallel, to decide whether to become slave territories or free.

After three months of debate, the Congress passed the bill an President Pierce signed it into law.

The Know-Nothing Party The Whig Party eventually broke up as a single

party in the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Two new parties came into being as a result of the Whig Party’s demise.

The Know-Nothing Party Categorized the growing ethnic tensions of the

country. The America Party was dominated by Nativist

hostility towards immigrant and Catholics. This party drew support away from the Whigs

at a time when they were reeling from the 1852 defeat.

The American Party would reach its zenith during the mid-1850s, but they would lose influence as sectionalist concerns got bigger.

The Republican Party

The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin in 1854 as a direct reaction to the passage of the Nebraska-Kansas Act.

A coalition of Free-Soil partiers, Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats.

Its platform called for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act and Kansas-Nebraska Act.

The Republicans initial position on slavery was that they were not opposed to slavery in the “Old South” but they were against its expansion into the new territories.

Bleeding Kansas Senator Stephen Douglas expected the slavery issue

in the territory to be settled peacefully by the anti-slavery farmer majority, who migrated to Kansas. However, settlers from Missouri also migrated to Kansas.

Northerners and Free-Soilers created the New England Emigrant Aid Company to offset the slaveholding settlers from the South.

Fighting soon broke out between the two groups, which became known as “bleeding Kansas.”

Proslavery Missourians created a legislature in Lecompton, Kansas and passed a constitution legalizing slavery. Antislavery settlers form a government in Topeka, Kansas which was anti-slavery.

In 1856, pro slavery forces attacked a free-soil town, killing two people.

Bleeding Kansas Abolitionist John Brown, with his four sons, led an

attack on a proslavery farm at Pottawatomie Creek in retaliation. Five slave holding settlers were killed.

The Pierce Administration kept aloof from the turmoil in Kansas and it did nothing to stop the violence there or promote honest elections.

As a result of the situation in Kansas, the Democratic Party started to become more divided than ever before.

The Kansas violence also led to Senator Charles Sumner being caned over the head by Congressman Preston Brooks on the steps of the Capitol.

The Election of 1856

By 1856, the Whig Party had disintegrated and the Democrats were the dominate party. However two other new parties would challenge the Democrats hold on the White House.

The Know Nothing Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore as their party’s nominee, and the newly formed Republican Party nominated Senator John C. Fremont as their nominee.

Even though the Democrats had the advantage going into the election, the party’s good fortunes could not translate into a victory for President Pierce. The controversy surrounding Pierce over the Kansas Nebraska Act made him too controversial and politically unviable for re-election. The Democrats also rejected Senator Stephen Douglas for similar reasons. They nominated former Secretary of State James Buchanan, in lieu of Pierce or Douglas.

The Election of 1856

The Democrats won the election with 174 electoral votes (1,836,072 popular votes). The Republicans make a respectable showing with 114 electoral votes (1,342,345 popular votes). The Know Nothing Party won only 8 electoral votes and 873,053 popular votes.

The election of 1856 foreshadowed the emergence of a powerful political party in the Republican Party. The Republicans will go on to win all but four presidential elections from 1860 to 1932.

President James Buchanan Born: April 23, 1791 Died: June 1, 1868 Term in Office: (1857-1861) Political Party: Democratic

The James Buchanan Presidency

The James Buchanan Presidency

The Buchanan Cabinet

Office Name Term

President James Buchanan 1857–1861

Vice President John C. Breckinridge 1857–1861

Secretary of StateLewis Cass 1857–1860

Jeremiah S. Black 1860–1861

Secretary of Treasury

Howell Cobb 1857–1860

Philip Francis Thomas 1860–1861

John Adams Dix 1861

Secretary of WarJohn B. Floyd 1857–1860

Joseph Holt 1860–1861

Attorney GeneralJeremiah S. Black 1857–1860

Edwin M. Stanton 1860–1861

Postmaster General

Aaron V. Brown 1857–1859

Joseph Holt 1859–1860

Horatio King 1861

Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey 1857–1861

Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson 1857–1861

The James Buchanan Presidency

Supreme Court Appointments by President Buchanan

Nathan Clifford – 1858

States Admitted to the Union

Minnesota – May 11, 1858 Oregon – February 14, 1859 Kansas – January 29, 1861

Lecompton Constitution One of Buchanan’s first challenges as president

in 1857 was deciding whether to accept or reject a proslavery constitution for Kansas submitted by the southern legislature at Lecompton.

The Lecompton Constitution did not have the support of a majority of the settlers. Despite this fact, President Buchanan was willing to accept the document and accept Kansas into the union as a slave state.

However, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans in Congress banned together to defeat the measure.

In 1858, the Lecompton Constitution was brought up on referendum in Kansas and the Kansas people rejected the proslavery constitution.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

Dred Scott had been held as a slave in Missouri and taken to the free territory of Wisconsin where he lived for two years before returning to Missouri.

Scott argued that his period of residence on free soil made him a free citizen. After filing suit in a Missouri Court, the case finally reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dred Scott v. Sanford In 1857, only two days after Buchanan was sworn in

as president, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision against Scott. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roger Taney gave the reasons for its decision: Dred Scott had no right to sue in a federal court

because the Framers of the Constitution did not intend people of African decent to be U.S. citizens.

Congress did not have the power to deprive any persons of property without due process of the law; and, if slaves were a form of property, then Congress could not exclude slavery from any federal territory.

Because Congress’ law of 1820 (the Missouri Compromise) excluded slavery from Wisconsin and other northern territories, that law was unconstitutional.

Dred Scott v. Sanford The U.S. Supreme Court’s majority were very

conservative and mostly southern Democrats. As a result their ruling was consistent with the pro-slavery views of the South, who rejoined in the ruling.

The Republicans and northern Democrats denounced the ruling and they raised accusations of conspiracy on the high court.

The decision placed Senator Stephen Douglas in a very difficult position. He had to walk a tightrope between supporting popular sovereignty without repudiating Dred Scott.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Incumbent Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas was opposed by Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 Illinois U.S. Senate race.

An attorney and a former Whig congressman, Lincoln ran as a Republican. He debated Douglas in seven locations during the month leading up to the election.

The issues of slavery and the territories dominated all of these debates. At Freeport, Lincoln asked Douglas how the residents of a territory could exclude slavery in light of the Dred Scott decision. Douglas responded with the Freeport Doctrine, which states that a territory could exclude slavery if the laws and regulations written made slavery impossible to enforce.

Douglas won the seat, but Lincoln was recognized by many as an up and coming force in the Republican Party.

Brown’s Raids at Harpers Ferry

The Dred Scott case polarized the North and the South to the point that southerners feared a Republican victory.

To make matter worse, northern radicals provided money to John Brown, who was planning a slave uprising in Virginia.

In October of 1859, Brown led a small band of followers, including his four sons and some former slaves in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s plan was to use guns from the arsenal at Harper Ferry to arm Virginia’s slaves to rise up in revolt.

Brown’s Raids at Harpers Ferry Federal troops under the command of Robert E.

Lee captured Brown after a two day siege. Brown and six of his followers were convicted of

treason and hanged. The South cited the attack on Harper Ferry as

proof that the North wanted to use slave revolts to destroy the South.

Due to the simple eloquence of his final words at his trial, John Brown was hailed as a martyr by many anti-slavery northerners.

The Election of 1860

The final event that triggered the South’s decision to leave the Union was the election of 1860.

After John Brown’s raid, most Americans believed that the country was headed towards disunion.

The Democrats represented the last practical hope for coalition and compromise. They held their presidential nominating convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Stephen Douglas looked like he was the favorite going into the race. However, his nomination was blocked by a combination of Buchanan supporters and angry southerners.

The Election of 1860 The South Carolina convention resulted in deadlock

and a second nominating convention had to be held in Baltimore, Maryland.

Many of the delegates from southern states walked out, enabling Douglas to be nominated on the platform of popular sovereignty and enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law.

The Southern Democrats held their own convention in Baltimore and they nominated Vice President John C. Breckenridge as their candidate on the platform of unrestricted extension of slavery into the territories and the annexation of Cuba as another land where slavery could flourish.

The Republicans met in Chicago to choose their presidential nominee. They took advantage of the division between the two factions within the Democratic Party by drafting a platform that favored the exclusion of slavery from the territories, free land for homesteaders, protective tariffs for industry, and internal improvements to encourage western settlement.

The Election of 1860 Senator William H. Seward was the most popular

choice for the Republican nomination. However, because of his more radical stance on some of the issues, the Republicans decided to nominate a candidate who was less controversial. Abraham Lincoln was selected to be his party’s nominee due to the fact of his great debating skills and the regional appeal he had in key mid-western states.

Southerners warned that if Lincoln won the presidency that they would leave the union.

Fearing the consequences of a Republican victory, a group of former Whigs, Know Nothings and moderate Democrats formed a third party called the Constitutional Party. Their main platform items were preservation of the Union and enforcement of the laws.

They nominated John Bell of Tennessee. Douglas traveled the country, actively campaigning

for the presidency, while Lincoln confidently remained at home in Springfield, Illinois meeting with Republican leaders and giving statements to the press.

The Election of 1860

The election results were predictable. Lincoln won the presidency with 180 electoral votes (1,865,908 popular votes). Breckenridge came in second place with 72 electoral votes (848,019 popular votes), followed by Bell with 39 electoral votes (590,901 popular votes) and Douglas with 12 electoral votes (1,380,201 popular votes).

The Election of 1860 Despite Lincoln’s victory, he was a “minority

elected president.” Lincoln led the in the popular vote only because the Democratic Party was split. Breckenridge and Douglas’ votes combined surpassed Lincoln’s. It was evident that Lincoln had a giant task to win over those who did not vote for him.

President Abraham Lincoln Born: February 12, 1809 Died: April 15, 1865 Term in Office: (1861-1865) Political Party: Republican

The Abraham Lincoln Presidency

The Abraham Lincoln Presidency

The Lincoln Cabinet

OFFICE NAME TERM

President Abraham Lincoln 1861–1865

Vice President Hamlin 1861–1865

Andrew Johnson 1865

State William H. Seward 1861–1865

War Simon Cameron 1861–1862

Edwin M. Stanton 1862–1865

Treasury Salmon P. Chase 1861–1864

William P. Fessenden 1864–1865

Hugh McCulloch 1865

Justice Edward Bates 1861–1864

James Speed 1864–1865

Post Blair 1861–1864

William Dennison, Jr. 1864–1865

Navy Gideon Welles 1861–1865

Interior Caleb B. Smith 1861–1862

John P. Usher 1863–1865

The Abraham Lincoln Presidency

Supreme Court Appointments by President Lincoln

Noah Haynes Swayne – 1862Samuel Freeman Miller - 1862

David Davis -1862Stephen Johnson Field -1863

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase - 1864

States Admitted to the Union

West Virginia  – June 20, 1863 Nevada  – October 31, 1864

The Secession Despite the fact that the Republicans only

controlled the presidency and the Democrats controlled the Congress and the Supreme Court, the election of Lincoln was enough for many southerners to call for separation from the union.

In December of 1860, at a special convention, South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the union. Within the next six weeks, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas also seceded.

In February of 1861, representatives from the Deep South form the Confederate States of America. They created a constitution which legalizes slavery and limits the government’s power to impose tariffs.

The Secession President Buchanan, who was a lame duck

president, did very little to stop the South from seceding. However, the Congress was more active. Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky proposed a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to hold slaves in all of the territories south of the 36th parallel. Lincoln shot down the proposal because it violated the Republican Party’s position on the extension of Slavery.

Buchanan’s failure to stop the South from leaving the Union would leave his successor to inherit a civil war that would be, to date, the bloodiest war in American History.

THE END OF LECTURE #12