Prequel to the Civil War

Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

Wilmot Proviso

• In 1846 David Wilmot introduced his “proviso”• “…neither slavery or involuntary servitude

shall ever exist” in any territory obtained from Mexico

Comp. of 1850• The Compromise will settle “all questions in

controversy between the free and slave states, growing out of the subject of slavery”

Comp. of 1850 (cont.)

• Cali = free state• Utah and N. Mexico decide• Texas-N. Mexico boundary settled• Sale of slaves in D.C. ends, slavery continues• Fugitive Slave Act

Words from Sen. Daniel Webster

• “I hear with pain, and anguish, and distress, the word secession, especially when it falls from the lips of those who are eminently patriotic… Secession! Peaceable secession!... There can be no such thing as peaceable secession…”

Stephan A. Douglas

• Senator (Illinois) introduces the compromise piece by piece

• Aided by new president, Millard Fillmore

Fugitive Slave Act

• “The colored men’s rights are less than those of a jackass. No man can take away a jackass without submitting the matter to twelve men in any part of this country. A black man may be carried away without any reference to a jury. It is only necessary to claim him, and that some villain should swear to his identity. There is more protection there for a horse, for a donkey, or anything, rather than a colored man.”

Solomon Northup

• Twelve Years a Slave (1853)• “ I at once accepted the tempting offer, both

for the reward it promised, and from a desire to visit the metropolis.”

• “The next morning they suggested that, inasmuch as we were about entering a slave State, it would be well, before leaving New-York, to procure free papers.”

Cont’d

• “I thought at the time I must confess, that the papers were scarcely worth the cost of obtaining them—the apprehension of danger to my personal safety never having suggested itself to me in the remotest manner.”

• “How long I remained in that condition— whether only that night, or many days and nights— I do not know; but when consciousness returned I found myself alone, in utter darkness, and in chains.”

Northern response

• Personal liberty laws (nullification???)• Underground Railroad (H. Tubman)• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (H. Beecher Stowe)

Nebraska and Kansas

• Stephan Douglas believed in popular sovereignty • N & K lay ABOVE the 36 ° line (Miss. Comp)• Douglas tried to nullify the Missouri Comp.• “If the people of Kansas want a slaveholding

state, let them have it, and if they want a free state they have a right to it, and it is not for the people of Illinois, or Missouri, or New York, or Kentucky, to complain, whatever the decision of Kansas may be.”

Miss. Compromise (1820)

Comp. of 1850

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

“Bleeding Kansas”

• March 1855 Election• Missourians cross the border, vote illegally• Create the city of Lecompton (proslavery)

Sack of Lawrence

• May 1856, 800 men destroy the city of Lawrence

Pottawatomie Massacre

• May 1856 • 5 men pulled from their homes• Hands chopped off• Stabbed them with artillery swords

John Brown

• Passionate idealist who believed that God sent him to fight slavery

Sumner-Brooks affair

• Senator Sumner (MA), “The Crime Against Kansas”

• Brooks (SC) defend Butler’s honor

Republican Party

• Free-Soil Party (1848)• Division in the Whig party over slavery (1852)• Know-Nothing Party (1854)

• No slavery in the territories!!

John C. Fremont

• First Republican candidate• Split vote in 1856 with M. Fillmore

Dred Scott v Sanford (1857)

• Slave from MO, taken to free territory• Returned to Missouri, should he be free?• Justice Roger Taney

Decision

• “We think they [slaves]… are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.”

• Also Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional (right to own property, 5th)

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• Illinois Senate race 1858• 7 outdoor debates over slavery• Douglas – Popular sovereignty• Lincoln- moral sin

Debates

• Lincoln “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about the social and political equality of the white and black races.”

• Douglas “Slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations.”

Harper’s Ferry

Hanging Dec. 1859

Election of 1860

• N. Democrats – Douglas• S. Democrats- John C. Breckinridge• John Bell of Tenn.• Abraham Lincoln