Chapter 4 Part 1- The election and secession

Question 1

Why was there a climate of fear surrounding the 1860 election?

Answer 1

Southerners believed that the North abandoned the true principles of the Union and the prospect of a Republican triumph in 1860 filled them with outrage and dread. Moreover, they felt that the North was treating the South as inferior to them. If a Republican became a president, many southerners were considering secession from the union.

Question 2

Who was the most likely Democratic candidate in 1860?

Answer 2

Douglas as he was the only Democrat that was likely to carry some free states- essential if the Democrats were to win the election.

Question 3

What had alienated him from Southerners?

Answer 3

His stand against the Lecompton constitution.

Question 4

Where was the Democratic convention held? Why was this an issue?

Answer 4

In Charleston. This was the most fire-eating of all the southern states.

Question 5

What was strange about the representation inside the convention?

Answer 5

The townspeople made it clear that they were opposed to Douglas. Nevertheless, delegates were appointed according to the size of the state’s population, ensuring that northern democrats outnumbered southerners.

Question 6

What happened at the convention?

Answer 6

Northerners blocked a proposal which would have pledged the party to protect the rights of slaveholders in the territories and some 50 delegates from the lower south walked out of the convention. The Democrats found it impossible to nominate a candidate.

Question 7

What happened at the Baltimore convention?

Answer 7

There was yet another mass southern walk out and with so many southern delegates gone, Douglas won the Democratic nomination. The southern democrats set up their own convention and nominated the current Vice President John Breckinridge of Kentucky on a platform which called for the federal government to protect slavery in the territories.

Question 8

Why was the Democratic split not as significant as it first seems?

Answer 8

Even without the split, the Republican party was odds-on favorite to win. Douglas also could campaign in the North without having to worry about maintaining a united Democrat Party.

Question 9

What was agreed at the Republican convention?

Answer 9

• Higher protective tariffs
• Free 160-acre homesteads for western settlers
• A northern transcontinental railway

Question 10

Who was favourite to win the Republican nomination? Why was he a tainted figure?

Answer 10

William Seward, governor of New York for four years and senator for 12. However, the fact that he had been a major figure in public life for so long meant that he had many enemies. He was seen as holding militant abolitionist views on slavery and had a long record of hostility to nativism. His nomination, therefore, might make the ex Know- Nothings think twice about voting Republican.

Question 11

What advantages did Lincoln have?

Answer 11

• He came from Illinois, a battleground state whose voters might decide the outcome of the 1860 election.
• His debates with Douglas in 1858 had enhanced his reputation.
• In 1859-60 he made dozens of speeches across the North, gaining friends and making himself known.
• Given that it was difficult to attach an ideological label to him, he was able to appear to be all things to men.
• His lack of administrative experience helped his reputation for honesty.
• The fact that the convention was held in Chicago (Illinois) allowed his campaign managers to pack the Wigwam with his supporters.

Question 12

Explain the steps that led to Lincoln securing the nomination

Answer 12

With the race now clearly between Steward and Lincoln, the votes of other candidates drifted to Lincoln. Lincoln’s campaign managers also almost certainly made secret deals with the delegates from Pennsylvania and Indiana, probably to the effect that Lincoln would appoint Simon Cameron and Caleb Smith to his cabinet.

Question 13

Which new party emerged in 1860?

Answer 13

The Constitutional Unionist Party. Composed mainly of ex-Whigs. Its presidential candidate was John Bell.

Question 14

Where was it’s support focused?

Answer 14

The upper South.

Question 15

What was the platform of the Constitutional Unionist Party?

Answer 15

The party wanted to remove the slavery question from the political arena, thus relieving sectional strife.

Question 16

How was the campaign characterised in terms of geographical battles?

Answer 16

In the North, the main fight was between Lincoln and Douglas. Bell and Breckinridge fought out in the South.

Question 17

Which candidate was most active? What did Lincoln do during the campaign?

Answer 17

Douglas. Lincoln remained home in Springfield, conferring with Republican chiefs but saying nothing. He did not try appeasing to the South.

Question 18

What methods did Democrats and Republicans deploy during the campaign?

Answer 18

Republicans flooded the North with campaign literature, held torch lit processions and carried wooden rails, embodying the notion that Lincoln was a self made man who had once split wood for rails. Concentrated on the Slave Power conspiracy. Southern Democrats stereotyped all northern as ‘Black Republicans’ set on abolishing slavery.

Question 19

What was the result of the election? What facts and figures stand out to you?

Answer 19

In November, 81 percent of the electorate voted. Douglas obtained 1,383, 000 but won only two states. Liconol won 1,866,000 votes. Although he got no votes at all in ten southern states, he won 54 percent of the free-state vote, winning every states except New Jersey. Lincoln became president. Breckenridge, the most popular southern candidate, won less than half the vote in the slave states as a whole. If Douglas had won three other states, Lincoln would have not won the election.

Question 20

Why did northerners vote for Lincoln?

Answer 20

A vote for Lincoln was a vote against Slave Power. Anti catholic northerners had little option but to vote Republican, if only because the Democratic Party remained the home of Irish and German Catholics. Many northerners also approved the Republican economic proposals and Lincoln had a reputation for integrity.

Question 21

What reasons are given for indicating that secession was not a rational option?

Answer 21

• Lincoln had promised that he would not interfere with slavery in those states where it existed.
• Even if Lincoln harboured secret ambitions to abolish slavery, there was little he could do; his party did not control Congress or the Supreme Court.
• Secession would mean abandoning an enforceable Fugitive Slave Act; slaves would be able to flee to the North.
• Secession might lead to civil war, which would threaten slavery.

Question 22

What was the perception in the South?

Answer 22

Most were angry that a northern anti-slavery party had captured the presidency. Lincoln was depicted as a rabid abolitionist. He would certainly stop slavery expansion. Southerners feared that they would thus be enclosed by more free states and that ultimately, slavery would be voted out of existence.

Question 23

What problems did secessionists have?

Answer 23

• There was still much Unionist sympathy in the South
• There wasn’t a great southern organisation that might organize a secessionist movement
• Southerners were loyal to their state rather than the South
• The South was not united; there was not even unity on the best political strategy to adopt
• How to force the issue was another problem

Question 24

Which state was first to secede?

Answer 24

South Carolina

Question 25

Which governor was dismissed for opposing disunion?

Answer 25

Governor Sam Houston of Texas

Question 26

How did the states coordinate secession?

Answer 26

Individual states committed themselves, initially, to individual action. However, it was clear that southerners were committed to joint action.There was a liaison between the southern states at various level but particularly between southern congressmen. South Carolina sent commissioners to other southern states to propose a meeting, in Montgomery, Alabama on 4 February 1861, to create a new government.

Question 27

What choice did voters have in the Southern conventions in the winter of 1860-61?

Answer 27

Had a choice between immediate secession and cooperationists.

Question 28

BULLET POINTS ON PP94. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW THEM!!

Answer 28

• In Mississippi there were 12,000 votes for candidates whose positions where not specified and whose views remain unknown; 12,218 voted for cooperationist candidates; 16,800 voted for immediate secession. On 9 January 1861, the Mississippi convention supported secession by 85 votes to 15.
• On 10 January, a Florida convention voted 62 to 7 for secession- but cooperationists won over 35 percent of the vote.
• Alabama voted to secede by 61 votes to 39 on 11 January. The secessionists won 35, 600 votes, the cooperationists 28,100 votes.
• Secessionist candidates in Georgia won 44,152 votes, the cooperationists 41,632. The Georgia convention voted to secede on 19 January by 208 votes to 89.
• In Louisiana, secessionist won 20,214 , the cooperationists 18,451. On 26 January the Louisiana convention voted to secede by 113 votes to 17.
• A Texas convention voted on 1 February for secession by 166 votes to 8. Texas then had a referendum to ratify the convention’s actions. Secession was approved by 44,317 votes to 13,020.

Question 29

What arguments are there concerning a ‘slave power conspiracy’?

Answer 29

Republicans saw the events in the South as a continuation of the Slave Power conspiracy. They claimed that a few planters had conned the electorate into voting for secession, to which most southerners were not really committed.