Neziah Aglubat

12NOV09

PD 2

SECTION 3

1. Slavery Divides Whigs

➢ The Whig party became more divided in 1852 when General Winfield Scott
became Whig nominee for president.
➢ Scott owed his nominations to the northern Whigs who opposed the fugitive
slave act.
➢ Southern Whigs, on the other hand, backed the compromise and the act to
appear pro union and pro slavery.
➢ Franklin Pierce had the election when the Whig vote of the south went from
50% to 35% in 1852.
➢ The Kansas Nebraska Act brought the demise of the Whigs.

2. Nativism

➢ The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner believed in nativism. This is the

favoring of native born Americans over immigrants.
➢ They were named the “know-nothing” party due to their continuous answer
of “I know nothing”.
➢ The southern know-nothings split over slavery with the northern know-
nothings, so they looked for an alternative to democrats and the north began
toward the Republican Party.

3. The Free-Soilers

➢ In 1848, the free soil party which opposed the extension of slavery into the
territories
 ➢ Northern soilers prohibited black settlement in their communities and
denying blacks to vote.
➢ Free Soilers objected to slavery’s impact on free white workers in the wage-
based labor force, which the North depended on.
➢ They were convinced that a conspiracy existed on the part of the diabolical
slave power to spread slavery throughout the United States.

4. Republican Party

➢ In February 1854, Northern Whigs held a meeting with antislavery Democrats

and free-soilers to form a new political party.
➢ The new Republican Party was formed on July 6th and organized in Jackson,
Michigan. Among its founders was Horace Greely.
➢ The Republican Party was in competition with the Know Nothing Party, since
both parties targeted the same audience.
➢ The republicans, by 1855, had set up party organizations in about half of the
Northern States, but they lacked a national organization.
➢ Between, Bleeding Kansas and Bleeding Summer, the Republicans had the
issues they needed in order to challenge the democrats for the 1856
presidency.

5. The Election 1856

➢ The republicans chose John C. Fremont, the famed Pathfinder who had
mapped the Oregon Trail and led U.S. troops into California during war with
Mexico, as their candidate.
➢ Southerners selected former president Millard Fillmore.
➢ The democrats eventually nominated James Buchanan, a minister to Great
Britain and he had antagonized neither the North nor the South. John C.
Breckinridge was Buchanan’s running mate.
➢ Buchanan received only 45% of the popular vote; however, he won’t the
entire south aside from Maryland.
➢ Fremont carried 11/16 of the Free states, came in second with 33%.
➢ Fillmore took the rest of 22%.
➢ The Democrats could win the presidency with a national candidate who could
compete in the North without alienating the Southerners.

SECTION 4

1. Dred Scott

➢ After Scott’s owner died he began a law suit to gain his freedom. He claimed
that he had become a free person while living in a free territory for several
years.
 ➢ On March 6, 1857 Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that slave didn’t have the
rights of citizens. Also, Dred Scott had no claim to freedom, because he had
been living in a slave state when he made the law suit.
➢ The court also ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Congress
couldn’t forbid slavery in any part of the territories. This would interfere with
slaveholders’ right to own property, a right to own property, a right to be
protected by the Fifth Amendment.

2. Lecompton Constitution

➢ A proslavery government in Lecompton, Kansas wrote a constitution and

applied for admission to the Union.
➢ Free soilers outnumbered proslavery settlers in Kansas by nearly ten to one-
rejected the proposed constitution because it protected the rights of
slaveholders.
➢ Stephen Douglas cared more about popular sovereignty so he persuaded
Congress to authorize another referendum on the constitution.
➢ The constitution was rejected this time. Douglas was seen as a hero.

3. Lincoln V. Douglas

➢ The Republican Party decided that Lincoln should counteract the “Little
Giant’s” well-known name and extensive financial resources. Lincoln;
therefore, challenged Douglas to a series of debates on the slavery issue.

Lincoln Douglas

➢ Believed slavery was immoral. ➢ Believed in popular sovereignty

➢ A labor system based on greed.
➢ Doubted that slavery would cease
to spread without a legislation
outlawing it in the territories.
➢ Lincoln tried to make Douglas look
like a defender of slavery.
➢ Lincoln asked a crucial question to
Douglas, Could settlers of a
territory to exclude slavery before
the territory became a state?
➢ Believed slavery was a backward
labor system but it wasn’t
immoral
➢ Douglas hoped that the people
would understand so they would
vote Kansas and Nebraska free.
➢ Believed that with popular
sovereignty slavery would go
away on its own.
➢ Accused Lincoln of being an
abolitionist and an advocate of
racial equality.
➢ Douglas’ response to Lincoln’s
question became known as the
Freeport Doctrine.
➢ He contented, “Slavery can’t exist
a day or an hour unless it is
supported by local police
 regulations.”
➢ Douglas won’t the senate seat but
his response worsened the split of
the North and the South
democratic parties.

4. John Brown

➢ John Brown was studying the slave uprisings that occurred in ancient Rome
and on the French Island of Haiti.
➢ Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several Northern Abolitionists.
➢ On the night of October 16, 1859, he led men into Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
His purpose was to start a general slave uprising but seizing the federal
arsenal.
➢ Brown held 60 of the town’s most prominent so slaves would join him.
However, no one did.
➢ Brown was caught and turned over to Virginia to be tried for treason.
➢ He hoped his actions would trigger a Northern fury and start a war for
abolition.
➢ A little before 2 months after the attack, brown was sent to be hanged for
high treasons.
➢ Many Northerners expressed admiration of him although Lincoln and Douglas
did not.

5. The Republican Convention

➢ The convention took place in Chicago.

➢ The first day was passed in forming committees, listening to prayers and
gossiping about politics.

6. Lincoln, Seward and the Election

➢ Seward was the best example of the presidential candidate.

➢ The delegates rejected Seward and his irrepressible conflict between the
North and the South.
➢ Lincoln urged that he will stop slavery but he wouldn’t try to interfere with
the Southerners’ slaves.
➢ The Southerners saw him as a black republican, if elected, would be the
greatest evil ever be fallen in this country.
➢ Northern Democrats backed Stephen Douglas and his doctrine of popular
sovereignty.
➢ The Southerners backed John Breckinridge.
➢ Lincoln emerged as the winner, defeating his combined opponents in the
electoral vote by 180 to 123.
7. SOUTHERN SECESSION !

➢ South Carolina led the way, seceding from the Union on December 20, 1860.
➢ William Tecumseh Sherman, superintendent of Louisiana State Seminary of
Learning and Military academy, received the news 4 days after.
➢ Many southern planters believed that, “States’ Rights!” meant complete
independence of southern states from federal government control.
➢ Many thought secession was the only way to preserve the slave labor system.
➢ Mississippi Followed South Carolina, then Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia,
and Louisiana.
➢ The Confederacy was formed on February 4, 1861.
➢ It noted that each state was sovereign and independent, a provision that
would try to unify the South.
➢ The delegates from the Confederate Convention elected Jefferson Davis as
their president and Alexander Stephens as vice president.
➢ Mass resignations were happening in D.C., due to the mass secessionists in
Congress and the Cabinet. The federal government seemed to be melting
away.