Political Realignment Deepens as the Crisis Grows

Chapter 3 Section 3

Conflict Over Slavery in the 1850s: Changing National Politics

• Analyze how deepening sectional distrust affected the nation’s politics.

• Compare the positions of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas on the issue of slavery.

• Explain the effect of John Brown’s raid on the slavery debate.

Objectives

• Know-Nothings – members of an anti-immigrant movement

• Republican Party – political party founded in 1854 that opposed slavery

• Dred Scott – a Missouri slave who sued for his freedom

• Roger B. Taney – chief justice of the Supreme Court that ruled against Dred Scott

Terms and People

• Abraham Lincoln – Republican politician from Illinois who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Stephen A. Douglas – an Illinois politician, rival to Lincoln, who supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Harper’s Ferry – Location of federal arsenal that John Brown tried to seize to arm a revolution against slavery

Terms and People (continued)

By the mid-1850s, negotiation and compromise seemed unable to resolve a deep divide that had developed between sections of the nation.

As westward expansion continued, these deep sectional differences threatened to tear the nation apart.

What developments deepened the divisions between the North and South?

•Politics reflected regional divisions. In the presidential election of 1856, there were five political parties.

Whig Party Failed to nominate a candidate

Republican PartyNew antislavery party, won one third of the popular vote and 11 northern states

Know-NothingsPut up a candidate but dissolved over the slavery issue

DemocratsWon with James Buchanan promising to stop the “agitation of the slavery issue”

Free-Soil Party Was absorbed into the Republican Party

•The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the case of Dred Scott, an enslaved man who sued for his freedom on the grounds that his owner had taken him to a free state.

Within a year of the election, another event intensified the divisions in the nation over slavery.

•Chief Justice Roger B. Taney handed down a controversial decision in March, 1857.

• The court ruled against Scott, saying that slaves were property and as such were not allowed to sue in court.

• The court further ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

• The Dred Scott decision pleased the South, but angered the North and abolitionists.

In 1858, in a race for the Illinois senate seat, Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln debated the issue of slavery.

The seven Lincoln-Douglas debates received national attention.

Lincoln Douglas

Spoke with direct and deliberate tone focusing on how slavery was a struggle between right and wrong

Had an energetic, commanding voice and spoke of the political issues

Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, popular sovereignty, and the Dred Scott decision

Supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act and popular sovereignty

Opposed the annexation of Texas

Supported the annexation of Texas

Lincoln and Douglas laid out their views.

•Douglas won the Senate seat by a slim margin.

•The debates gave Lincoln the national recognition that would be important in the 1860 presidential election.

Both candidates believed the issue of slavery had to be resolved peacefully, within the framework of laws.

His goal was to inspire local slaves to join a revolution that would defeat slavery.

Most abolitionists (black and white) refused to join Brown, although a few sent money for guns.

In 1859, Brown organized a small party of men and attacked a federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.

Radical abolitionist John Brown believed that violence was the best way to end the evil of slavery.

•John Brown’s raid failed in its purpose, but it intensified national division.

• Brown was arrested, tried, and executed.

• Although Lincoln and other Republicans condemned Brown, many northern abolitionists considered him a martyr.

• Southerners were outraged that a man who had planned a slave revolt was hailed as a hero.

The possibility of war between the North and South grew stronger.

By the end of the 1850s, attempts at compromise over slavery had failed.