American Civil War

E

Dred Scott Case

In 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States added to the mounting tension by its decision in the Dred Scott Case. In that case, Dred Scott, a slave, sued for his freedom on the grounds that when his master had taken him to free territories, Scott was no longer a slave. In separate opinions a majority of the justices held that Scott did not have the right to file suit in state or federal courts because he was not a citizen of the United States. As a slave, he was considered property. The justices continued to write that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from the territories. Therefore, the Missouri Compromise and other legislation limiting slavery were unconstitutional.

F

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

In 1858 Douglas was running for reelection to the Senate. His opponent was Abraham Lincoln, then the leader of the Republican Party in Illinois. In a series of seven debates, Lincoln and Douglas argued, among other things, the question of the extension of slavery. Douglas stood on his doctrine of popular sovereignty, holding that the people of the territories could elect to have slavery. They could also elect not to have it. Lincoln, on the other hand, argued that slavery was “a moral, a social, and a political wrong” and that it was the duty of the federal government to prohibit its extension into the territories.

Although the Republicans carried the state ticket and outvoted the Democrats, the Illinois legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate. The campaign, widely reported in the newspapers, had an importance far beyond the fate of the two candidates. It demonstrated to the South that the Republican Party was steadily growing in strength and that it would oppose the extension of slavery by every possible means. The campaign also showed Douglas to be an unreliable ally of the South. He had said repeatedly in the debates that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. In addition, Lincoln, hitherto known only locally, gained a national reputation even in defeat.

G

John Brown’s Raid

As soon as the 1858 elections were over, political maneuvering began over the 1860 presidential election. Many states were in the process of choosing delegates to the national conventions when news of a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), swept the nation. On October 16, 1859, the raiders had seized the federal armory and arsenal there. They surrendered two days later. Authorities found that the raid had been led by John Brown, whose raids and murders in Kansas and Missouri had already made him an outlaw. Brown and his followers had planned to march their army into the South to forcibly free slaves. Brown was arrested, tried, and convicted. When he was executed for his crime, thousands of Northerners hailed him as a martyr, while Southerners became increasingly fearful of armed intervention in their states by Northern abolitionists.

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H

Election of 1860

The slavery question overshadowed all others in the presidential election year of 1860. At the Democratic National Convention, held in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23, the delegates from the South refused to support Douglas, the leading contender, because of his position on slavery, and they prevented the naming of a candidate. The convention adjourned to meet on June 18 in Baltimore, Maryland. On May 16 the Republican National Convention met in Chicago, Illinois, and passed over the two most popular aspirants, William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. Instead they nominated the lesser known Abraham Lincoln. In Baltimore, at the reconvened Democratic convention after several days of wrangling, the Southern delegates walked out of the convention. Those who remained nominated Douglas. On June 28 the Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The Democratic Party, long a unifying force in the nation, was thus split over sectional differences into two bitterly opposed factions. The Constitutional Union Party, a group of conservatives who condemned sectional parties, placed a fourth ticket, headed by John Bell of Tennessee, in the field.

Because of this division, Lincoln won easily, although he did not receive a majority of the popular vote. The popular vote was: Lincoln, 1,866,452; Douglas, 1,376,957; Breckinridge, 849,781; Bell, 588,879. Lincoln won in the electoral college, where he received 180 votes against 72 for Breckinridge, 39 for Bell, and 12 for Douglas.

I

The South Secedes

During the campaign many Southerners had threatened that their states would secede from the Union if Lincoln was elected because they feared that a Lincoln administration would threaten slavery. Few people in the North believed them. A month before the election, however, Governor William Henry Gist of South Carolina wrote the governors of all the Cotton States except Texas that South Carolina would secede in the event of Lincoln’s election and asked what course the other states would follow.

As soon as it was certain that Lincoln had won, the South Carolina legislature summoned a special convention. It met on December 17, 1860, in Charleston. Three days later the convention unanimously passed an ordinance dissolving “the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States.” Similar conventions were held by other Southern states, and similar ordinances were adopted, although not by unanimous votes. The first states to follow South Carolina’s course in 1861 were: Mississippi, January 9; Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana, January 26; and Texas, February 1. In April, Lincoln called for states to send militias for national service to suppress the rebellion. The upper South refused to send their militias to coerce the seceded states. Instead they joined the lower South in secession beginning with Virginia on April 17th; Arkansas, May 6; North Carolina, May 20; and Tennessee, June 8.

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