CHAPTER 15: THE COMING CRISIS (1850s) Lincoln-Douglas Debates -Lincoln faced Douglas for the place of Senator

of Illinois (Douglas won the election) -Reopened the issue of morality of slavery -Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong, and should be abolished -Douglas believed that the legitimacy of slavery in the state should be determined through popular vote -Habitants of Illinois fervently participated in observing the debates America in 1850 -America has formed a strong sense of national identity -Country had grown to continental dimensions -Population increased enormously -National wealth grew to be much richer -Southern cotton continued to be the nations principal export, but was no longer the major influence on the domestic policy -The growth of manufacturing in the Northeast and the rapid opening up of rich farmlands in the Midwest assured the future of the United States as a manufacturing nation -Pride in democracy was one unifying theme -Newspapers, magazines, and communication improvements of all kinds created a national audience for the American scholars and writers who emerged during this decade -Most of the writers of the American Renaissance were social critics -The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne -Moby Dick by Herman Melville -Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass -Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was largely popular, and became a call to action to help the escaped slaves and end the brutality of slavery The Compromise of 1850 -Politicians created organized party structures that overrode the sectional differences -Politicians from all sections of the country cooperated, because they knew their party could not succeed without national appeal -The issue of slavery had already split the national religious groups -Presbyterians in 1837 -Methodists in 1844 -Baptists in 1845 -The debate that preceded the Compromise of 1850 was the final act -Henry Clay (West) -John C. Calhoun (South) -Daniel Webster (North) -On July 9, 1850, President Zachary Taylor died

-Vice President Millard Fillmore was a much weaker man who did not seize the opportunity for presidential action -Calhoun: Southern states have the right to secede, since the Congress do not have constitutional right to prohibit slavery in the territories -Webster: South and North should try to reconcile and compromise -Slave Power: A group of aristocratic slave owners who not only dominated the political and social life of the South, but conspired to control the federal government as well, posing a danger to free speech and free institutions throughout the nation -Clay: Compromise! -South: Stronger support of Mexican-American War -Whigs: Opposed the war for antislavery reasons, along with the Free-Soil Party -Both North and South favored manifest destiny, but each on its own terms -With the Gag Rule passed, northerners saw southern slaveowners to be evil and oppressive -South still argued that southern cotton is the engine of the national politics, and condemned northern manufacturers of hypocrisy for practicing wave slavery -Compromise Terms -California was admitted as a free state -Remaining territories relied on popular sovereignty -Stronger fugitive slave law to be enforced in all states -Compromise looked to be successful, yet the fugitive slave law was later turned out to be an inflammatory measure -Fugitive Slave Law -Northerners were appalled by professional slave catchers, who captured escaped slaves and sold them into slavery again -Increased the power of slave owners to capture escaped slaves -Some free blacks migrated to Canada, where they were not welcomed -Frederick Douglass spoke out fearlessly in support of armed resistance -The Election of 1853 -Hardship in nominating conventions -Whigs never again fielded a presidential candidate -The Politics of Expansion -Young America Movement: Writers and politicians who believed in the democratic policy of Manifest Destiny -A desire to conquer Central America and Cuba with the intention of extending slave territory -President Pierce dispatched Commodore Matthew Perry to open Japan to American trade, Japan agreed

The Crisis of the National Party System -Kansas-Nebraska Act proposed to open those lands that had been northern part of Indian Territory to American settlers under the principle of popular sovereignty -Kansas-Nebraska Act -Douglas wanted the rail line to terminate in Chicago, IL, his home state -Land west of Iowa and Missouri had to be organized into territories -To get congress to agree, Douglas needed the votes of southern Democrats -Douglas miscalculated: A storm of protest arose throughout the North -Bleeding Kansas -Missourians took up land claims of Kansas and established proslavery strongholds -The first party of New Englanders arrived in the summer of 1854 and established the free-soil town of Lawrence -Kansas soon became a bloody battleground as the two factions struggled to secure the mandate of popular sovereignty -1856: Lethal preparations became open warfare -John Brown led his sons in a raid on the proslavery settlers of Pottawatomie Creek, killing five unarmed people -Nativism: Anti-Immigrants, Anti-Catholics -Drew former Whigs under the terms of never telling what the purpose was -Know-Nothings The Difference Deepen -The issue of sectional difference deepened through the looting and burning of Lawrence, Kansas by John Brown and violence on the Senate floor -The Dred Scott Decision -Supreme Court attempted to solve the political controversy over slavery -Chief Justice Taney declared that since blacks are not citizens, they do not have the rights to ask for a court suit -Sectional difference -Northerners disagreed with the decision -The Lecompton Constitution -Southern states proslavery Lecompton Constitution was rejected by the congress -Sectional differences widened -The Panic of 1857 -August 1857: The failure of an Ohio investment house -A wave of panic selling ensued, leading to business failures and slowdowns that threw thousands out of work -It affected cotton much less, so South was not damaged too harshly -South Secedes (from the Lower South, starting with South Carolina) -Form Confederate State of America