The Crisis of Union: 1850s

President Millard Fillmore

(18501853) (Whig) (N Y)



The California Question
Gold had been found in California, and the people
who moved there asked congress to accept them as a
free state. South disagreed because they thought that
the Missouri compromise line should be extended.
The South threatens to leave the Union.
Southerners plan to meet in Nashville, Tenn. In the
summer of 1850 to discuss secession from the nation
and forming a nation of their own.

Henry Clay to the rescue,
for the last time.
1850: Compromise, or the
Omnibus Bill
Henry Clay proposes the compromise which
(1) accepts California as a free state, (2)
Popular Sovereignty in the territories - allows
the people choice if they want slavery or not.
(3) Passage of a strict fugitive slave law
(4) outlaws the slave trade in Washington DC.
(5) Texas compensated for giving territory to
New Mexico

The Compromise of 1850
The Concurrent Majority Question
John C. Calhoun (SC) Suggests a constitutional
amendment that would allow the north and the south
to have two different presidents (the concurrent
majority) Calhouns plans fails in the senate.
Calhoun was dying and could not even deliver his last
speech. He laid on a stretcher in the Senate while his
speech was read.
After Calhouns last speech was read for him, he
stated, The South! The South! God knows what will
become of her!

Nashville Convention
1850: Nashville, Tenn. Convention: First
southern secession convention -- South
Carolinians call for the southern states to
gather, but they decided that the time is
not right. The Compromise of 1850 had
already passed.


The end of the Great Triumvirate
1850 1852: Old men die off: Calhoun,
Webster and Clay all die, young, power-
hungry and war happy men take their
places. Enter the third generation of
politicians: the new men are extremists.
The Dough faced politicians
The Whig party collapses and the Know
Nothing Party is in full swing. Enter the
Dough faced Presidents (Northerners with
Southern sympathy, northerners who felt
bad for the south and would do anything
they could keep peace between north and
south)

President Franklin Pierce
(1853 1857) (Dem.) (N H)


Gadsden Purchase
1853: Arranged for
the Gadsden
Purchase from
Mexico- $10 Million
for the land to build a
trans- continental
railroad to California.
Became the official
stage coach route.


Other plans for expansion
Pierce wanted to bring Cuba, Belize and
Nicaragua into the Union for the South.
The plan for Nicaragua came with a
proposal to build a canal through
Nicaragua.
In balancing his expansion into central
America, Pierce planned to take Canada
for the Northerners.
Stephen A. Douglas
The little Giant

1854: Kansas-Nebraska
Act The Kansas -
Nebraska Crisis --Stephen
A Douglas (Illinois) plan
divided the Nebraska
territory into two states,
Kansas and Nebraska, in
order to run a
transcontinental railroad
from Chicago (Illinois) to
California.

Kansas-Nebraska Act
He planned on popular sovereignty so the
states choose for themselves if they
wanted slavery or not. Everyone assumed
that Nebraska would become free state
and Kansas become slave state.
At the heart of the plan was that Douglas
planned to sell his western land holdings
and the train would run through his
property, which would make him wealthy.

Kansas-Nebraska Act
Enter the Republican Party
1854: Birth of the Republican Party - A
storm of protest broke out in the north over
the problems in Kansas and the passage
of the Kansas - Nebraska act. The new
party openly criticized slavery and slave
owners. Basically these are free soilists
and abolitionists with political power.

Republican Platform
1. Western Homestead Act 160 Acres
for anyone who pays the $10.00 filing fee.
2. Internal Improvements for the West
3. High Protective Tariffs for Northern
Industry
4. Free Soil in the West

Bleeding Kansas
1856: Bleeding Kansas: As was assumed,
Nebraska became a free territory, but the people
in Kansas could not decide upon if they wanted
slavery or not. Some people had slaves and
others were strongly opposed to slavery. A Civil
War broke out in Kansas between pro-slavery
people and anti-slavery people.
The country looked to Bleeding Kansas and
wondered if war could spread.

Both sides killed innocent people

President James Buchanan
(1857 1861) (Dem.) (Penn.)

The only bachelor
president in American
History. His niece
served as first lady for
him.

Cotton is Crowned King of the
American economy
1857: Sen. James Hammond (SC) - said
for Southerners to not fear the north
because all of Europe would support the
South due to their need for southern
cotton to fuel their economy. He said,
Without the Souths cotton England would
topple headlong and carry the whole
civilized world with her - save the South.
No, you dare not make war on cotton....
Cotton is King.

King Cotton


Dred Scott
Dred Scott Case
The 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sanford
threw the nation further into turmoil
Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken
by his owner into free territory where he
lived for four years
The owner later returned to Missouri
where he died
After his death, Dred Scott sued for his
freedom

Dred Scott case continued
The Supreme Court ruled that Scott had no right
to sue because he was a slave, not a citizen
It also declared that a slave owner could not be
deprived of his Property without due process of
law
The decision struck down the Missouri
Compromise because it declared that it was a
violation of the Fifth Amendment to declare
slaves free of their owners without due process
of law- even if that slave entered a free state
The decision outraged both abolitionists and
those who favored popular sovereignty

Charles Sumner (Massachusetts)
Preston Brooks (South Carolina)
Brooks Sumner Affair
Sumner insulted SC Senator Andrew
Butler for, taking the harlot slavery as his
master in his speech The Crimes Against
Kansas.
Preston Brooks (House of Reps from SC)
entered the senate chambers and beat
Charles Sumner (Senator from Mass) with
his cane on the Senate floor.
The Fallout
The North saw Brooks as a barbarian, the
South saw him as Chivalrous and sent him
canes to beat other northerners.
Massachusetts left the senate seat empty
in protest against the violence.

Brooks beats Sumner
Financial Crash of 1857
Brought on by in pouring Gold from the
West which caused tremendous inflation.
Crimean War had increased the demands
for wheat and now it was no longer
needed so grain prices dropped.
Over speculation in western land and
railroads.
More people demand a homestead act
than ever before.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates for
Senate Seat of Illinois
A House divided against itself can not
stand. I believe this government
cannot endure half slave and half
free. Abraham Lincoln
Douglas, who had hoped of being president one
day, wanted to appeal to both southern
Democrats and his northern constituents
He argued that slavery could not be
implemented without laws to govern it
If a territory had no slave laws then it could not
have slaves

John Browns body lies
a-mouldring in the grave.
His soul is marching on.
John Browns 1859 Raid at
Harpers Ferry, Virginia
A man named John Brown and about 25
followers attacked a federal arsenal in
Western part of Virginia. His plan was to
take over the arsenal, take the guns and
distributed them to slaves and start a
general slave uprising.
Brown took over the arsenal but never
distributed the guns.
The Fate of John Brown
US troops under the command of Colonel
Robert E. Lee surrounded the arsenal and
forced Browns surrender
Although Brown was hanged, his actions
intensified southern resentment of the
abolitionist movement and many saw it as
an affirmation that the South would have
to shed blood to protect its way of life.

Democratic Convention:
Charleston, SC 1860
By the time of the presidential election of 1860
the country was at a boiling point over the issue
of slavery
At its convention, the Democratic Party split
along sectional lines over the issue
The Southern Democrats supported Vice
president John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky
The Northern Democrats supported popular
sovereignty and nominated Stephen A. Douglas
of Illinois

Election of 1860
The election of 1860: The Democratic
party split during the election over slavery.
The Whig party, now called the
Constitutional Party, ran a candidate, as
did the republicans. Abraham Lincoln
(Republican) won the election without
earning a single southern electoral vote.
With the election of a man who vowed to
end the spread of slavery, South Carolina
leaves the Union .

The Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln:
Illinois Republican and
Sixteenth President

Abraham Lincoln:
President of the
United States of
America and the
first Republican
president in
history
South Carolina is first to leave the
United States, December 1860
Confederacy Formed
By February of 1861, six other states had
seceded as well
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida,
Texas and Louisiana
They then met in Montgomery Alabama to
draft their own constitution
They elected Jefferson Davis as president
of the Confederate States of America


Crittenden Compromise
Several Senators make attempts at
compromises to keep the Union together.
The most workable was created by James
Henry Crittenden who suggested that the
36 30 line be reinstated and that slavery
south of that line be forever protected in
existing and newly acquired territories in a
new Constitutional Amendment.
Lincoln flat out rejected the compromise.
War comes to the Union
On April 12, 1861, Confederate soldiers opened
fire on Fort Sumter before the ships could arrive,
forcing the union troops to surrender the
following day
In response, President Lincoln issued a call for
75,000 volunteers to crush the rebellion
(200,000 respond).
The so-called border states were forced to
decide whether to support the Union or the
Confederacy

Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor
The States Choose Sides