Bleeding Kansas and the Election of 1856
Kansas Territory was organized out of Indian Territory and then
the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened it for white settlement. The first
white settlers came from Missouri, a slave state. By the mid1850s abolitionists in the North took an increasingly militant
stance against slavery's expansion. Free-soil New Englanders left
for Kansas and arrived in the summer of 1854 to found the town
of Lawrence. By 1855, Kansas featured two governments – a
proslavery one in Lecompton and a free-soil one in Topeka.
Before a territory can become a state, it must host a constitutional
convention and at that convention delegates decide whether
Kansas would enter the Union as slave or free. By 1856 the two
factions warred openly over that decision for slave or free.
Three events in May 1856 illustrate how close to the brink of civil
war the slavery question had pushed the United States:
1.
Proslavery forces burned and looted the free-soil town of
Lawrence in the now aptly named "Bleeding Kansas."
2.
John Brown and his sons retaliated against those who
sacked Lawrence by murdering 5 unarmed proslavery
neighbors at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas.
3.
In the Capitol on the Senate floor, Congressman Preston
Brooks of South Carolina brutally beat and permanently
injured Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts after
Sumner, a slavery opponent, insulted Brooks's slaveowning uncle Senator Andrew Butler.
Below is a lithograph from a northerner's perspective of the
caning. At the right Brooks attacks Sumner while Representative
Lawrence Keitt of South Carolina brandishes his cane to prevent
anyone from interfering. The quote at the top is from a speech by
antislavery activist Henry Ward Beecher in support of Sumner:
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"The symbol of the North is the pen: The symbol of the South is
the bludgeon." The artist not only opposes slavery, but also a
highly prized southern value of chivalry. The tensions between
North and South no longer play out in abstract legislative debates
but in personal confrontations.
Brooks Caning Sumner
Lithograph on wove paper, John H. Bufford, Boston, 1856. From American
Treasures of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Digital ID#
vc35.4
>
Election of 1856
Everyone in the nation now read about "Bleeding Kansas" and the
Sumner beating while another presidential race exposed how
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deeply divided the nation had become. In the 1856 election, the
Democrats' disagreements over the Kansas-Nebraska Act
resulted in their refusing to nominate Douglas or the Democratic
President Franklin Pierce who had supported the act and instead
choosing a compromise candidate James Buchanan of
Pennsylvania to oppose the Republican John C. Frémont and
former president Millard Fillmore of the American Party. ]Recall in
the text the discussion of nativism that arose in response to the
waves of immigrants and the formation of the American Party).]
The race foreshadowed that of 1860 for it split starkly along
sectional lines. Frémont opposed Buchanan in the North, winning
11 of 16 free states. In the South, Buchanan defeated Fillmore.
Buchanan won the election with only 45 percent of the popular
vote because he was the only national candidate.
Buchanan entered office in 1857. Kansas, a Supreme Court
decision, and an economic panic marked his first year as
president.
©Susan Vetter 2011
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