The Artios Home Companion Series
Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War
Teacher Overview
“The six years from 1853-1859 showed that slavery was a disturbing influence that could
not be quieted or removed. For the sake of slavery, attempts were made to annex Cuba, the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed, rival parties were allowed to wage civil war in Kansas,
the Supreme Court tried to establish a new principle in the territories, and Buchanan and
his friends attempted to force a proslavery constitution upon the people of Kansas…”
– Albert Bushnell Hart
R e a d i n g a n d A s s i g nm e nt s
In this unit, students will:
 Complete one lesson in which they will learn
about events foreshadowing the Civil War,
journaling and answering discussion questions
as they read.
 Define vocabulary words.
 Read selected chapters from Frankenstein,
journaling as they read.
 Learn about Book Study - Writing a
Literary Analysis.
 Complete their Literary Analysis.
 Visit www.ArtiosHCS.com for additional
resources.
K e y Pe o pl e a n d E v e nt s
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln
V o c a bu l a r y
Lesson 1:
sectionalism
Franklin Pierce
William Seward
Abraham Lincoln
Stephen Douglas
John Brown
Compromise of 1850
L e a di ng I de a s
History is HIS Story.
God’s story of love, mercy, and redemption through Christ.
He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he
purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring
unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
— Ephesians 1:9-10
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 1
God’s providential hand governs and times all events and provides for his
Creation according to His plan and purposes.
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does
not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he
needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he
marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this
so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not
far from any one of us.
— Acts 17:24-27
Godly leadership and servanthood are necessary for one to be a true reforming
influence.
Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be
first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and
to give his life as a ransom for many.
— Matthew 20:26-28
God raises up and removes leaders.
He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to
the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
— Daniel 2:21
Literature and Composition
Unit 27: Book Study - Writing a Book Analysis
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
Literature for Units 24 – 28
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924105428902#page/n19/mode/2up
U ni t 2 8 – A s s i g n m e nt s
 Read the assignment background information on Writing a Literary Analysis.
 Create an outline on one of the following topics:
▪ Write a literary analysis analyzing how Frankenstein fits one of these genres: Gothic,
Romanticism, Tragedy.
▪ Using this quote: “Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of
any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the
world. His success would terrify the artist,” analyze how Frankenstein can be seen as
a warning for modern science.
 From your outline, write a rough draft of your essay.
 Read your essay aloud and note any corrections that should be made. Write your final
draft and use the grading rubric to grade your work.
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 2
U ni t 2 8 – A s s i g n m e nt Ba c kg r o u n d
Writing a Literary Analysis
To analyze is to carefully examine; so when you write a literary analysis, you are carefully
examining a piece of literature. This may include examining how well the author illustrates
theme, how well the author presents the characters, or what effect the point of view has on the
story. With any analysis, it is important to use evidence to prove the ideas presented in your
essay.
A literary analysis should include a thesis statement, an introduction, body paragraphs,
and a conclusion:
A thesis statement gives the purpose of your essay. The thesis statement should answer
this question in one sentence: What are you proving in your essay? Here’s an example of a
thesis statement which answers this question:
“In Oliver Twist, Dickens reveals his theme of innocence of youth through the
actions of Oliver.”
The remainder of the essay should prove your thesis.
The introduction of your literary analysis should begin with a statement, question,
statistic or some other eye-catching phrase that encourages your reader to keep reading. It
should also provide any background information necessary for your reader to understand
your thesis statement and the position you are taking in your paper. At a minimum, the
introduction MUST include the title and author of the literary work analyzed. An example
introduction is:
Have you heard of the “Great London Waif Crisis”? No, it does not refer to the need
for skinny models we think of in modern times to eat food. It refers to the national
crisis of the late 1800s when many children were subject to cruel treatment and fatal
living conditions in London. Many wealthy and middle class citizens in the city chose
to turn their backs on the poor, because they viewed the poor as criminals who
deserved their fate. In order to shed light on this situation, Dickens began publishing
the story of Oliver Twist as a monthly serial. Each month, readers enjoyed the story
about the plight of Oliver, a poor orphan, trying to maintain his purity and innocence
as he comes in contact with criminals and other low-life characters who try to
persuade him to steal and cheat the wealthy. In Oliver Twist, Dickens reveals his
theme of innocence of youth through the actions of Oliver.
The body paragraphs should begin with topic sentences that support your thesis. Each
paragraph should begin with a sentence that introduces the topic of that paragraph as it
relates to your thesis statement. The remaining sentences of your body paragraph should
support the idea presented in your topic sentence and should contain textual evidence from
the novel, play, etc. An example body paragraph is:
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Topic sentence:
When Oliver realizes that “making handkerchiefs” means stealing wallets, he is
shocked and cannot participate.
Explanation and textual support:
Oliver is taken in by Fagin and is taught how to make handkerchiefs. Because of his
innocence, Oliver thinks that they are actually making handkerchiefs and agrees to
accompany Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger in order to make money for the
gang. When they reach the city and Oliver realizes what they are actually doing,
Oliver is “perfectly amazed and stupefied by it.” More precisely, “In an instant the
whole mystery of the handkerchiefs, and the watches, and the jewels...rushed upon
the boy’s mind. He stood, for a moment, with the blood so tingling through his veins
from terror.” Dickens shows Oliver’s innocence in believing Fagin and his gang to
have his best interest at heart and shows his reaction to the realization that they are
criminals.
The conclusion completes your essay and highlights the important information
presented in your essay. One way to write your conclusion is to restate your thesis, restate
your topic sentences, and conclude with a thought-provoking statement or question. The
thing to avoid in conclusions is introducing new ideas. If you have more to say about your
topic, add another body paragraph. Remember, your conclusion lets the reader know that this
is the end of your essay. An example conclusion is:
Oliver remains innocent and good throughout the novel, and his actions illustrate
Dickens’ message of the innocence of youth. In his innocence, Oliver does not realize
the gang are criminals until he sees them steal a wallet. This realization does not
change Oliver; in fact, he maintains his goodness, which we see in his heroic actions
during the burglary. At the end of the novel, after all that Oliver has experienced,
Dickens still portrays him as innocent and good. In what ways can we be like Oliver
and resist becoming tainted by world?
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 4
Lesson One
History Overview and Assignments
Foreshadowing of Civil War
From 1853-1859 the antislavery people took the offensive in politics. Their national
antislavery ticket almost won the election of 1856; they attacked Douglas through a new
champion, Abraham Lincoln, and compelled him in 1858 to break with many of his
associates. Then a few of the most extreme abolitionists tried to show how vulnerable slavery
was by encouraging the John Brown raid.
R e a d i n g a n d A s s i g nm e nt s
Portrait of Dred Scott
V o c a bu l a r y
sectionalism
 Review the discussion questions and vocabulary, then
read the article: Foreshadowing of Civil War,
pages 6-14.
 Narrate about today’s reading using the appropriate
notebook page. Be sure to answer the discussion
questions and include key people, events, and dates
within the narration.
 Define the vocabulary words in the context of the
reading and put the word and its definition in the
vocabulary section of your history notebook.
 Be sure to visit www.ArtiosHCS.com for additional
resources.
K e y Pe o pl e a n d E v e nt s
Franklin Pierce
William Seward
Abraham Lincoln
Stephen Douglas
John Brown
Compromise of 1850
D i s c us s i o n Que s t i o ns
1. What was the objection to abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia?
2. Why did President Pierce want to annex Cuba?
3. Why did the Mormons go to Utah?
4. Did the Compromise of 1850 set aside the Missouri Act of 1820?
5. Describe the “Know-nothing” party.
6. Why wasn’t Seward nominated by the Republicans in 1856?
7. Why did Lincoln compel Douglas to announce his Freeport Doctrine?
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8. How did the Freeport Doctrine conflict with the Dred Scott decision?
9. Was John Brown justified in inciting a slave insurrection?
10. What were the propositions to reopen the slave trade in the fifties?
11. Who put forth the principle of popular sovereignty?
12. Describe the principle of popular sovereignty.
13. Why did the Kansas-Nebraska Bill pass the Senate?
14. Was John Brown justified in killing the Shermans and Doyles?
15. Describe a railroad journey in the 1850’s.
16. What was the outcome of John Brown’s trial?
Adapted from the book:
Essentials in American History
by Albert Bushnell Hart
Foreshadowing of Civil War (1853-1859)
Slavery was primarily a matter for state
legislation, like the question of title to land;
but it became a national question because
the federal government had to take
cognizance of slavery in four ways:
(1) Congress had power to legislate for
the District of Columbia in all cases
whatsoever. The question of slavery in the
district, which came up about 1827, was
pressed by the abolition politicians after
1835, and accented by the discussion in
1850, as to the sale of slaves in the district.
(2) Congress had complete power over
the foreign and interstate slave trade: the
foreign slave trade was prohibited by acts
of 1807 and later amendments, but a
movement began in the far South in 18591860 to reopen the African slave trade; the
domestic trade was never restricted, except
in the District of Columbia.
(3) Congress had power over the
recovery of fugitive slaves, and exercised it
by the two acts of 1793 and 1850.
(4) Congress had power to regulate the
territories, and exercised it by four
successive acts prohibiting slavery in
definite areas: (a) the Ordinance of 1787,
for the Northwest Territory, reaffirmed by
an act of Congress of 1789; (b) the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, covering the
Louisiana cession north of 36° 30’; (c) the
Texas resolution of 1845, prohibiting
slavery in any states which might be
created out of any part of Texas north of
36° 30’; (d) the Oregon Act of 1848,
prohibiting slavery in that territory. In New
Mexico and Utah, by the Compromise of
1850, Congress evaded its responsibility,
leaving the question to be settled by the
people who might be on the ground when
the time came to organize states. It was
clear that any future annexation of territory
would lead to a fierce contest to decide
which section should control it.
Nevertheless, in his inaugural address
(March 4, 1853), President Pierce hinted
that he favored the annexation of Cuba. His
secretary of state, William L. Marcy, and
secretary of war, Jefferson Davis, disagreed
on that question; and Pierce vacillated,
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according as one or the other of these two
men had influence over him. As minister to
Spain he appointed Pierre Soule, of
Louisiana, an ardent “fire eater,” as
extreme advocates of slavery were called,
and an annexationist, who bent all his
energies to acquire Cuba. When the
steamer Black Warrior was seized in
Havana for a technical violation of the
customs regulations (March, 1854), the
president threatened war.
While this question was pending,
Buchanan, minister to England, and
Mason, minister to France, were ordered to
confer in Belgium, and they drew up the
“Ostend Manifesto” (October 18, 1854),
which is an open and unblushing avowal of
the doctrine that might makes right, and
that Cuba must be annexed in order to
protect slavery. This remarkable document
says that if Spain refuses to sell Cuba for a
fair price, “then by every law, human and
divine, we shall be justified in wresting it
from Spain if we possess the power” lest
“We permit Cuba to be Africanized.”
Marcy’s influence at last prevailed, and the
United States accepted a settlement of the
Black Warrior difficulty (February, 1855),
so that no excuse for war remained.
Perhaps the main reason for holding
back from Cuba was the storm that burst
on the administration because of its action
on the Nebraska question. After 1820 the
region west of the Missouri River remained
without a territorial government, for it had
no white population till the overland travel
to California began in 1849. Senator
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, chairman of
the committee on territories, introduced a
bill for the organization of Nebraska
Territory (January 4, 1854), accompanied
with a long argument to show that slavery
would be legal there, because the
Compromise of 1820, applying to that
region, had been set aside by the
Compromise of 1850. After various twists
and turns Douglas incorporated into his
bill the clear statement that the clause of
the Missouri Act of 1820, which forbade
slavery in certain territory, “is hereby
declared inoperative and void.” To support
this disturbing principle, Douglas
reinvented the doctrine of “popular
sovereignty,” or “squatter sovereignty,”
namely, that the people of a territory had
the same right to legislate on local affairs,
including slavery, as the people of the
states.
Cartoon on the Ostend Manifesto
In this controversy Douglas represented
a strong influence that eastern men did not
understand. Born in Vermont in 1813, he
early went to Illinois, where he held
various state offices, including that of judge
of the Supreme Court. In 1847 he was sent
from Illinois to the Senate, and there
represented those crude, boisterous, but
determined political forces that had earlier
made Jackson president. He came from a
constituency which was accustomed to care
for itself, and which therefore thought it
reasonable that the people of a territory
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should settle the question of slavery as that
they should settle the question of schools.
Later in life he made the significant
admission that he “did not care whether
slavery was voted down or voted up”; but
he was intensely ambitious, and there is no
doubt that he looked forward to the next
presidential election, and hoped to
convince the southern Democrats that he
was at the same time safe and powerful.
Stephen A. Douglas, About 1850
Of all American public men, Douglas
was the fiercest debater. Though a short
man, he had a big voice that poured forth
anything that came into his mind,
especially a coarse and effective personal
abuse of those who opposed him. He was
quick, forcible, and undaunted, and never
much concerned him about accuracy or
consistency. His main defect was that he
could not understand or measure the moral
opposition to slavery.
The Nebraska Bill infuriated a great
part of the northern people, for no public
man had suggested in the discussion of
1850, that the compromise then passed
applied anywhere outside of New Mexico
and Utah, or that the Act of 1820 ceased to
apply to the Louisiana Purchase. The
protest was expressed in a paper called the
Appeal of the Independent Democrats
(January 16, 1854), drawn up by Salmon P.
Chase, abolition senator from Ohio, which
declared the bill to be “part and parcel of
an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast
unoccupied region immigrants from the
old world and free laborers from our own
states.”
In the course of the discussion, the new
territory was divided into two territories,
Kansas and Nebraska, showing a plain
expectation that Kansas, which lay
immediately west of Missouri, would
become a slaveholding community to
balance California. In spite of the bitterest
opposition, ably led by Chase, Douglas got
37 votes in the Senate against 14, and then
forced the bill through the House by 108 to
100, and arranged with Pierce, who signed
the bill, May 30, 1854. Perhaps Douglas
began to see his error when, on the test
vote on the Nebraska Bill in the House, half
the northern Democrats refused to go with
him; and when in the congressional
election in the fall of 1854, most of the
other half lost their seats.
The inevitable effect of the KansasNebraska Act was quickly revealed when
hundreds of Missourians crossed over into
Kansas and entered up land for farms,
which most of them did not mean to
occupy. The challenge was accepted by
several emigrant aid companies, founded
in New England, which within about three
years sent out six thousand free-state men,
as permanent settlers, many of them
armed with a new weapon of precision, the
Sharp’s rifle. The purpose of the
Missourian neighbors (commonly called
“Border Ruffians”) was shown in the
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 8
election of March, 1855, for members of
the first territorial legislature; 2,905 legal
voters somehow were credited with 6,307
votes. Hundreds of armed Missourians
came over into Kansas to set up or drive
away election officers at their will, and thus
elected a large majority of the legislature. It
met (July, 1855) and passed a code of laws
that established slavery, and made it a
crime even to assert that “persons had not
the right to hold slaves in this territory.”
To protect themselves against this
minority rule, the anti-slavery people
framed a state constitution at Topeka
(November, 1855) and attempted to set up
a government. The rival settlers and
neighbors in the spring of 1856 came to
civil war in which about two hundred lives
were sacrificed and the free-state town of
Lawrence was sacked. Among the most
reckless of the free-state people was a man
named John Brown, who turned up
whenever there was a fight; and in May,
1856, he directed his men to seize and kill
some proslavery neighbors at Osawatomie.
President Pierce could not keep order, but
under his direction, the antislavery Topeka
legislature was dispersed by United States
troops, July 4, 1856.
Both the Whig party and the
Democratic were rent in twain by the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and a great political
upheaval came in 1854. An attempt was
made to form an American Party on the
principles of dislike of Catholics and
distrust of foreigners. It was backed by a
powerful secret society, the “Supreme
Order of the Star Spangled Banner,” the
members of which, because they always
replied to any question about their society,
“I know nothing about it,” were commonly
called “Know-nothings.” The Know-
nothings secured the state government of
Massachusetts, and extended even into the
southern states, and they soon claimed
more than a million votes, but broke into
factions over the slavery question in 1856.
A stronger political combination was
found in a union of the Free Democrats
with “anti-Nebraska” Whigs and
Democrats. To this new party in various
conventions the name “Republican” was
given, perhaps for the first time at Jackson,
Michigan, in July, 1854. By all sorts of
fusions and coalitions of Know-nothings,
Republicans, Whigs, and Democrats, the
Anti-Nebraska people carried fifteen of the
thirty-one states in 1854, and elected
eleven senators and a small majority of the
House of Representatives.
In 1855 the Republicans, called by their
opponents “Black Republicans,” girded
themselves up for the presidential election.
Instead of nominating Seward, their ablest
man, they put up John C. Fremont, who
was popularly supposed to have conquered
California. To the grief of Stephen A.
Douglas, the Democrats passed him over
precisely because he had roused such
opposition by helping the South in his
Kansas-Nebraska Bill; they nominated for
the presidency James Buchanan of
Pennsylvania.
An incident of the presidential year was
a speech made by Senator Charles Sumner
of Massachusetts entitled “The Crime
against Kansas,” which in coarse and
violent language assailed Senator Butler of
South Carolina. Preston Brooks,
representative from South Carolina and a
kinsman of Butler, assaulted Sumner in the
Senate Chamber and beat him insensible.
Brooks was censured by the House,
resigned, and was triumphantly reelected
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by his constituents; but his brutal violence
seemed to the North an evidence of a
purpose to silence antislavery men in
Congress.
In the election of 1856 Buchanan got
174 electoral votes to 114 for Fremont; and
the Republicans failed to secure the House
for 1857-1859. Yet, Fremont had 1,300,000
votes against 1,800,000 for Buchanan and
carried every northern state except New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois.
Ex-president Fillmore, candidate of the
Know-nothings and the remnant of the
Whigs had 875,000 votes, but carried only
one state, Maryland.
Since neither Congress nor the
squatters proved capable of settling the
question of territorial slavery, the Supreme
Court of the United States tried its hand, in
the case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford. Dred
Scott, the slave of a Dr. Emerson, was
taken by his owner in 1834 to Rock Island,
Illinois (within the bounds of the Old
Northwest Territory), in 1836 to Fort
Snelling (in the Louisiana Purchase, north
of Missouri), and then brought back to
Missouri (a slave state). Some years
afterward, Dred Scott sued for his freedom,
on the plea that his master had taken him
to free regions.
After four preliminary suits, the case
was finally decided by the federal Supreme
Court in March, 1857, eight judges out of
nine drawing up separate opinions. Six
judges united in the decree of the court to
the effect that the Missouri Act of 1820 was
unconstitutional from the first, because
Congress had no power to regulate slavery
in the territories. So far the court went
along with Douglas; then four judges, and
perhaps a fifth, turned squarely against
Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty,
by holding that nobody could prohibit
slavery in a territory, because the right of
property in a slave was distinctly affirmed
in the Constitution. That is, the court, so
far as it could, held slavery to be a national
institution, the normal thing in every
territory, and beyond the reach of any
power except a state legislature.
The chief justice also laid down the
doctrine, with which the majority of the
court appeared to concur, that free
Africans could not become citizens of the
United States; that they had never been
included in the political community, and
that in the minds of the Revolutionary
fathers they “had no rights which the white
man was bound to respect.” This and all
the other proslavery opinions were bitterly
contested by Justices McLean of Ohio and
Curtis of Massachusetts, who further
insisted that technically there was no
ground for any decision whatever. In their
opinion, Dred Scott left Missouri a slave
but was immediately manumitted by his
master; and the Court’s decision was forced
and so contrary to historical facts that the
Republican leaders declared that they were
not bound by it.
Notwithstanding the excitement over
the slavery question, the questions that
seemed at the time most vital were those of
daily business, and the United States had
never been so prosperous as from 1845 to
1857. California gold furnished a new
export of specie, and breadstuffs were in
great demand abroad. Exports in 1856
were nearly three times as great as 1846.
To carry this trade and that of other
countries, American shipping reached the
highest point in our history -- 3,300,000
tons in 1860. These were the days of the
magnificent clipper ships, wooden sailing
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craft of excelling speed and handiness,
making voyages from England to New York
sometimes in fewer than fourteen days,
and from China to New York in about eight
days.
Screw steamers as yet were mostly
ships of war, but the ocean paddle
steamers grew in size and speed till they
could cross the ocean in twelve days. In
1847 Congress granted a subsidy to two
lines of steamers: $850,000 a year to the
Collins American line, New York to
Liverpool; and $200,000 a year to a line
from New York to Bremen. The Collins line
was carelessly managed, lost several ships,
and broke down in 1858.
Internal communication advanced with
equal strides. The railroad mileage in 1840
was 3,000; in 1850, 9,000; in 1860,
30,000. Till 1850 there was hardly such a
thing as a through railroad line; but in 1851
the New York and Erie Railroad was
finished from New York to Lake Erie, and
in 1853 a continuous chain of separate
lines of railroad reached Chicago from the
east. In 1859 railroads from the north and
east reached New Orleans. Railroads now
began to be consolidated into systems by
uniting them end to end; for example, the
ten short connecting lines from Albany to
Buffalo, in 1853, were united under the
New York Central.
Beginning with a grant to Illinois
Central in 1850, the United States aided
western railroads by immense grants of
public lands. It was a natural suggestion
that a road might be built to the Pacific in
the same way, and Congress went so far as
to send out several exploring expeditions,
especially one of 1853, which surveyed
various practicable routes. Though a
railroad was built by American capital
across the Panama Isthmus, a canal still
remained only a dream; the task was too
great for private capital; and there was
violent dispute over the meaning of the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty, till (1860) Great
Britain gave up all claim to a protectorate
over territory near the Nicaragua route.
The revenues of the government rose so
fast that a new tariff was passed by a nonpartisan vote (March 3, 1857). Every
member from Massachusetts and every
member from South Carolina voted for the
bill, which decreased the existing low
duties of 1846 by about a fifth; and the
average rates of duties was brought down
to about 20 percent.
Before the new tariff could have any
effect, a commercial panic came upon the
country, caused principally by the
expenditure of about $70,000,000 on
railroads in ten years. The panic began in
August 1857, and in October all the banks
in the country suspended specie payment;
many railroads failed; and first and last,
more than five thousand business houses
broke, with losses of more than
$150,000,000. The federal government
saw its annual revenue reduced from
$76,000,000 to $46,000,000, and it was
obliged to issue treasury notes for its
expenses. Still there was no such
widespread suffering and no such check to
business as after the panic of 1837, and by
1860 business was again normal.
Till the Pacific railroad was built, much
of the traffic overland to California went by
wagon roads that passed through Utah
Territory, near Great Salt Lake. This region
had been settled by the Mormons, who
were forced to abandon Nauvoo in 1846.
Under their new prophet, Brigham Young,
they reached Great Salt Lake the next year,
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and set up what they called the
independent State of Deseret. Polygamy
was announced to be a part of the religious
and political system of the community, and
to be based on a direct revelation from the
Almighty. To their great disappointment,
the Mormons found themselves in the
United States by the Mexican cession of
1848; but when Utah Territory was created
in 1850, it was thought expedient to make
Brigham Young governor.
Mormon Church Buildings, Salt Lake City
Tabernacle, built 1870; Temple, built 1893
The overland traffic to California
disturbed the Mormons, who wanted to be
let alone and always made trouble for their
federal officials. In 1857 Buchanan
appointed a new territorial governor, but
Brigham Young refused to give up his
office, called out armed men, and when
1,500 troops were sent, forbade them to
come into the territory. During the
following winter the Mormons captured
the supply trains of the troops and tried to
starve them out. When the government
proposed to send out a large force, the
Mormons yielded sullenly; but they kept up
their religious organization, like an
independent state, and it was more than
thirty years before the laws of Congress
against polygamy were executed among
them.
The danger point in American politics
was still in Kansas, where a proslavery
convention at Lecompton prepared a
constitution (November, 1857). President
Buchanan promised that the work of the
convention should be submitted to popular
vote; but the convention provided that the
voters might cast their ballots for
“Constitution with Slavery” (i.e. with a
separate article distinctly establishing
slavery), or for “Constitution with no
Slavery,” which left in bondage slaves then
in the territory, and forbade free Africans
to live in the state.
At an election under proslavery
authority, 6,063 votes were counted for
“Constitution with Slavery” and 576 for
“Constitution with no Slavery.” But the
free-state men now secured control of the
legislature, which ordered a second
election, at which the vote was, for
“Constitution with Slavery,” 138; for
“Constitution with no Slavery,” 24; against
the Constitution altogether, 10,226. A plan
to admit the state under the discredited
Lecompton constitution, against the will of
the majority, was warmly supported by
Buchanan, but was frustrated by Douglas,
who could not abjure his own doctrine of
squatter sovereignty, that the people of a
territory ought to govern themselves.
Under a compromise act called the English
Bill (May 14, 1858), the Lecompton
constitution was sent back to the people of
Kansas, with a splendid offer of public
lands if they would vote to accept
statehood under it. On the final test vote,
the people of Kansas by a decisive majority
of 9,500 rejected the attempt to make them
a slave state against their will, and
remained a territory till 1861.
In opposing the Lecompton
constitution, Douglas undoubtedly
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 12
remembered that his term in the Senate
was about to expire, and that the
legislature chosen in Illinois in 1858 would
elect to the vacancy. As a rival claimant to
the seat, Abraham Lincoln came forward,
who wrote up his autobiography as follows:
“Born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin
County, Kentucky;
“Education defective;
“Profession a lawyer;
“Have been a captain of volunteers in
the Black Hawk War;
“Postmaster at a very small office;
“Four times a member of Illinois
Legislature;
“And was a member of the lower house
of Congress.”
Lincoln rose steadily from the squalor
of a poor white family living in Kentucky,
Indiana, and Illinois. After trying surveying
and storekeeping, in which he made a flat
failure, he studied law, went to the
legislature, was an early Whig, and became
known throughout the state for his good
stories, homely sayings, and honest
attention to the cases entrusted to him. In
1841 he had his first sight of slaves, and he
called slavery “a thing which has, and
continually exercises, the power of making
me miserable.” From 1847 to 1849 he sat in
Congress.
When the Kansas-Nebraska question
arose, Lincoln came out firmly for the antiNebraska cause. In 1855 he was all but
elected Republican senator from Illinois; in
1858 he was designated by the Illinois
Republican convention as their candidate
for the senatorship, and accepted in a
magnificent speech, of which the text was:
“A house divided against itself cannot
stand. I believe this government cannot
endure permanently half slave and half
free.”
He next took the bold step of
challenging Douglas, the most effective
stump orator in the country, to a series of
joint debates. Before tremendous
audiences his eloquence and power caused
people to forget his personal awkwardness.
Douglas tried to turn the question into a
personal controversy, and he accused
Lincoln of seeking the social equality of the
African, to which Lincoln memorably
replied: “In the right to eat the bread
without the leave of anybody else, which
his own hand earns, he is my equal, and
the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal
of every living man.”
The culmination of the debate was
reached at Freeport. When Lincoln put the
question whether the people of a territory
(i.e. Kansas) in any lawful way could
prohibit slavery, Douglas’s reply,
commonly called the “Freeport Doctrine,”
was that the people of a territory could
prevent slavery by “unfriendly legislation”;
that is, Lincoln compelled him to stand by
his squatter sovereignty, and to ignore the
Dred Scott decision. The answer so far
satisfied Douglas’s constituents that he
secured a small majority of the Illinois
legislature and was reelected to the Senate;
but when he went back to Washington, he
found that his party colleagues were
against him. Lincoln had practically
obliged Douglas to break with the southern
Democrats, who controlled the party
organization.
The most striking event of the year 1859
was the attempt of John Brown, already
known in Kansas, to arouse a slave
insurrection. His plan was to establish a
camp for run-away slaves in the southern
mountains. He secured money and counsel
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 13
from some New England friends, recruited
twenty-two men, and hired a farm in the
Maryland mountains near the town of
Harpers Ferry. He descended upon that
place October 16, and seized the United
States arsenal, which had no guard, sent
out parties to capture some of the white
planters, and tried to rouse the
neighboring slaves, who were expected to
carry off a quantity of the arms. The next
day the whole countryside was in an
uproar; the slaves did not rise, and Brown
hesitated until too late to escape; the
engine house in which he had fortified
himself was finally taken by United States
marines, under Colonel Robert E. Lee;
Brown was wounded and captured, and ten
of his men (including a son) were killed,
along with five of his assailants.
It is greatly to the credit of Virginia that
this intractable man had a fair and open
trial. He was duly convicted of murder and
treason against the Commonwealth of
Virginia. He met his death like a hero, and
won the respect of his jailers and southern
visitors; he never had the slightest feeling
of remorse or guilt. In his last letter to his
family he solemnly said, “John Brown
writes to his children to abhor, with
undying hatred also, that sum of all
villanies, slavery.” Moderate northern
people expressed their condemnation of
Brown’s methods, but could not help
admiring his heroic spirit; and John Brown
probably did more than any other man to
convince the South that slavery was no
longer safe within the federal Union; for he
showed that there were abolitionists who
were perfectly willing to sacrifice their own
lives to free other people’s slaves.
The six years from 1853 to 1859 showed
that slavery was a disturbing influence that
could not be quieted or removed. For the
sake of slavery, attempts had been made to
annex Cuba, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was
passed, rival parties were allowed to wage
civil war in Kansas, the Supreme Court
tried to establish a new principle in the
territories, and Buchanan and his friends
attempted to force a proslavery
constitution upon the people of Kansas.
From 1853 to 1859 the antislavery
people had taken the offensive in politics.
Their national antislavery ticket almost
won the election of 1856; they attacked
Douglas through a new champion,
Abraham Lincoln, and compelled him in
1858 to break with many of his party
associates. Then a few of the most extreme
abolitionists tried to show how vulnerable
slavery was by encouraging the John
Brown raid.
John Brown in 1859
After six years of struggle, nothing was
decided: Cuba was not annexed; Kansas
was not a slave state; the Dred Scott
decision was openly defied by the
Republicans. The only thing clear was that
this fierce controversy was driving the two
sections further and further apart, that
they distrusted each other more and more;
and that neither president nor Congress
nor Supreme Court could suggest any
middle view on the subject of slavery that
would satisfy both north and south.
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Unit 28: Foreshadowing the Civil War - Page 14