Sectional Tension 1850-1861

Question 1

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

similarities

Answer 1

• a common language
• a shared religion
• the same legal, political and racial assumptions
• a celebration of the same history.

Question 2

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

• economic differences

Answer 2

• The South was an agrarian based economy
• The South main exportations were cotton, tobacco and sugar.
• –> By the mid-nineteenth century, cotton sales made up at least half of the USA’s total exports. Trade in cotton ensured that white southern society was prosperous and enterprising
• –> This shows how the Souths economy was not backwards.
• The North was far more modern and industrialising (although it was still overwhelmingly rural)

Question 3

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

• industrial differences

Answer 3

• The North was far more industrial
• The South had about 35% of the total population but produced only 10% of the nations manufactured output in the 1850s.
• The North has 2x the amount of railway track

Question 4

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

• urbanisation differences

Answer 4

• The North was far more urban than the south.
• In 1860 the southern states had only twenty towns over 5000 people.
• Even cities like Charleston and Richmond had populations of under 40,000.
• Only New Orleans with 175,000 inhabitants was comparable to northern cities in size.
• Only one southerner in fourteen was a town dweller compared with one in four northerners.

Question 5

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

• immigration differences

Answer 5

• The North had a growing number of immigrants.
• –> Between 1830 and 60 most of the 5m immigrants that come to the USA went to the North.
• By 1860 1 in 6 northerners was foreign born compared to 1 in 30 southerners

Question 6

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

• southern economic differences

Answer 6

• The tariff was a source of constant grievance to most southerners, who argued that it benefited northern industrialists at the expense of southern farmers.
• The South felt exploited in other ways:
• -> Southerners depended on northern credit to finance the growing of cotton, tobacco, sugar and rice;

–> they relied on northerners to market these goods;

–> they were reliant on northern vessels to transport them.

–> Inevitably much of the profits from King Cotton ended up in northern pockets.

Question 7

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

• Southern values

Answer 7

• Many southerners, disliked what they saw in the North and had no wish to industrialise and urbanise.
• There was a general southern belief that old agrarian ways and values were better than northern materialism.
• Many held a ‘romantic’ view of the southern way of life, seeing themselves as gracious and hospitable. Northerners, in contrast, were seen as ill-mannered, aggressive and hypocritical.
• Northerners were generally better educated than southerners and more responsive to new ideas.
• Northerners saw southerners as backward and out of touch with ‘modern’ ideas.
• The main difference between the regions, and the main reason for the growth of sectionalism, was slavery.

Question 8

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

Slavery

Answer 8

States ended slavery during the period 1780-1804

Why? –> It was not as profitable or efficient to use slaves as opposed to free labour in smaller farms, trading businesses, or workshops and factories as it was in cotton and tobacco growing regions of the south

• After the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the establishment of the 36 30 parallel slavery was outlawed in states north of this line.
• Below that, slavery was not only legal, but of central importance in a way that had never been true of the north

Question 9

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

Ideology towards slavery
- Northern opinion

Answer 9

• Because slavery had ended in north did not mean there was a very different outlook to race

–> Many in north did not want AA in their states and blamed slavery for introducing so many blacks into USA

Question 10

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

Ideology towards slavery
- Southern opinion

Answer 10

• South had ingrained racism, but it was a different kind:

–> Poorer whites often saw themselves as superior to slaves and feared the possibility that ending slavery would leave a substantial amount of African labour to compete with them.

• Slave owners saw slaves as property, not human beings.
• They saw the plantation economy of south as being dependent on slavery.
• Many did not dislike AA in the same way the north did, often there were almost family-like relations, at least on a superficial level

Question 11

How great were the differences between the North and South by 1850?

The expansion of cotton

Answer 11

• The invention of a new machine, the cotton gin, which separated the cotton seeds from the raw cotton, and the huge demand for cotton from Europe in late 18th century meant production rose as did the use of slaves in the South.
• By the 1830s the South was producing 2 million bales per year.
• King Cotton soon outstripped all other plantation crops in economic importance.
• The demand (mainly from Britain) meant that the cotton belt spread westwards – to Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.
• Cotton production needed a large amount of unskilled labour.

–> Slavery and cotton were therefore interlinked

Question 12

Sectionalism

Answer 12

• The development where different geographical areas of the USA came to think of themselves as distinct in their outlooks and interests.
• –> this led to view that the other “sections” were not only different but inferior and ultimately dangerous.

• Thus, not only did the geographical south develop a view that there was such a thing as a “southern” way of life, but many southerners also demonised what they identified as distinctly “northern”

Question 13

Reasons for sectional tension

Answer 13

• The growing difference between north and south that came to be the key development of sectionalism.
• Sectional consciousness had been fuelled by economic difference.
• The growth in the opposition to slavery and abolition movement

–> The actions of abolitionists did a great deal to heighten sectional animosity. They stirred the consciences of a growing number of northerners and kept slavery in the forefront of public attention. Southerners, while exaggerating the extent of support for abolitionism, correctly sensed that more and more northerners were opposed to slavery.

• States’ rights also heightened sectional tension
• -> Southern states argued that states should have more rights than the federal government.

Question 14

Missouri Compromise and how it increased sectional tension:

Answer 14

• The 36 30 parallel was introduced, states south of this line could be slave and north had to be free.

–> Showed the federal government was more important than states as states could no longer chose to be slave or free, it now depended on their geography.

==> Increased tension around states’ rights.

Question 15

How much did Western expansion affect sectional tension?

Which 2 key questions did it raise?

Answer 15

• Was slavery going to expand into new territories and was it set to strengthen as a permanent and integral part of the USA?
• Or was it going to be restricted from expanding westwards as a step towards eventually being phased out of US life?

Question 16

How much did Western expansion affect sectional tension?

The Mexican American War

Answer 16

The acquisition of modern-day New Mexico, California, Texas, Utah and parts of Colorado, Nevada and Arizona between 1845 and 1848 added vast areas of new land but also reawakened concerns expressed in 1819-20.

A Northern Democrat called David Wilmot attempted to solve the issue of the expansion of slavery to the newly gained territories of the Mexican American war by proposing his Wilmot Proviso.

Question 17

The Wilmot Proviso 1846 and sectional tension

Answer 17

• States that slavery was to be excluded from the territories gained by the Mexican American war.
• After a bitter debate, the proviso passed the House of Representatives.
• -> The voting was sectional: every southern Democrat and all but two southern Whigs voted against it. Most northerners voted for it.
• However, it failed to pass the Senate and never became law
• Nevertheless, for anti-slavery forces, the proviso became a rallying cry. Many northern state legislatures endorsed it.
• Most southern states denounced it and it further raised tensions about states’ rights as the South questioned whether Congress had any right to stop a legal form of property holding in territory for which many southerners had fought for.

Question 18

How much did Western expansion affect sectional tension?

The Compromise of 1850

Answer 18

• Congressional compromise of 1850
• Attempted to prevent conflict over what should happen to territory gained as a result of war with Mexico.
• The hope was to maintain the Union

Question 19

How much did Western expansion affect sectional tension?
The Compromise of 1850

What was decided?

Answer 19

• California would enter as a free state
• New Mexico and Utah were allowed to decide whether they would be free or slave states
• -> Popular sovereignty
• A stricter Fugitive Slave Law was enacted
• The slave trade was ended in Washington DC

Question 20

How much did Western expansion affect sectional tension?

Problems arising from the Compromise of 1850

Answer 20

• Fugitive Slave Act led to angry and often violent scenes as local people tried to disrupt the seizure of runaways in free states.
  o It seemed to benefit slave owners of south by compromising rights and beliefs of free states
  o South objected to criticism of slavery implied by the end of the Washington DC slave trade
• Northern opinion was concerned by implication of popular sovereignty
• -> It meant that power of deciding about slavery in the territories had been taken from Congress and handed directly to people in the territories
• -> Also implied slavery was an issue that could be left up to people’s opinions rather than being a moral issue which was too important to be left to people of a territory to decide.

• Sectional tensions increased, but the Compromise did seem to show that preserving the union was still possible.

Question 21

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Answer 21

Authorised federal marshals to raise possess to pursue fugitives on northern soil
The law not only targeted recent runaways but also those who had fled the south decades earlier.

Question 22

Response to the Fugitive Slave Act

Answer 22

• In response, vigilance committees sprang up in many northern communities to help former slaves escape to Canada.
• -> In 1854 a Boston mob broke into a courthouse and killed a guard in an effort to rescue the fugitive Anthony Burns, this became known as the Burns affair.
• Nine northern states ended up passing personal liberty laws, forbidding the use of state jails to imprison fugitives.
• -> These laws were intended to make it difficult to employ federal law.

Question 23

Impact of the fugitive slave act on increasing hostility

Answer 23

The fact that some free states went to such great lengths to negate the act caused huge resentment in the South.

–> However, resistance to the act was exaggerated by both Southerners and abolitionists.
In reality, most northern states enforced the law without much trouble, but it still managed to generate a substantial amount of hostility towards the North.

Question 24

Kansas and Nebraska:

Answer 24

By 1850 Nebraska was still largely unpopulated and since it lay above the 36 30 parallel any new states created in the area would enter the Union as free states.

–> The South therefore made every effort to delay territorial status to Nebraska.

Question 25

Kansas Nebraska Act 1854

Answer 25

In 1854 Senator Douglas introduced the Kansas Nebraska bill into Congress

• The bill repealed the Missouri Compromise and introduced popular sovereignty in its place.
• It divided the Nebraska territory into two: Kansas and Nebraska.
• –> There was little chance of slavery taking hold in Nebraska, since the climate was too cold for plantation agriculture. But it seemed possible that it might spread to Kansas

Question 26

Impact of the Kansas Nebraska Act

Answer 26

• The bill was considered as proof to many northerners that there was still a slave power conspiracy.
• -> This was another example of the South trying to expand its influence as if Kansas or Nebraska became slave states it could prevent any future attempts from congress to interfere with slavery.
• Led to the events described as Bleeding Kansas

Question 27

Bleeding Kansas

Answer 27

Result of the Kansas Nebraska Act

–> Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision.

–> Violence was evident in the sack of Lawrence in 1856 when pro-slavery activists sacked Lawrence, Kansas (a town founded by anti-slavery settlers) in the hopes of making it pro slavery.

Thus, violence erupted as both factions fought for control raising Northern hostility towards the South causing an increase in northern hostility.

Question 28

The Dredd Scott decision 1857:

Events

Answer 28

• Dredd Scott was a slave who had accompanied his owner to Illinois and Wisconsin before returning to Missouri. Scott then went before the Missouri courts claiming that he was free on the grounds that he had resided in a free state in a free territory.
• The Scott case eventually reached the Supreme Court who decided that: Scott could not sue for his freedom as black Americans did not have the same rights as white citizens.

Question 29

The Dredd Scott decision 1857:

Outcome

Answer 29

• The Northerners were horrified by this outcome as it seemed to further prove the point that the Supreme Court and Democrat Party were involved in a slave power conspiracy.
• Northerners saw it as an attempt to undermine the Republican Party and popular sovereignty.

==> The Dred Scott case was a significant factor in generating Northern hostility towards the South during the period as it was seen as further proof to Northerners that the Supreme Court and the Democrat Party were involved in a slave power conspiracy.

Question 30

John Browns raid- October 1859
cause
aims
events
outcome

Answer 30

Cause:
The bitter experience of violence in Kansas and the outrage at the Dred Scott decision led to a desperate act by John Brown

Aim and events:
Brown aimed to start a slave revolt in Virginia with a small group of followers:

–> He hoped that a small group of 20 would be joined by over 4000 men

–> He hoped to seize weapons and distribute them to Southern slaves in order to spark slave uprisings.

–> To gain arms for slaves, he raided a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia

Outcome
However:
- Local militia, angry farmers and townsmen and some US forces under Colonel Robert E. Lee suppressed the revolt.

• Brown’s son Oliver was shot while attempting to negotiate
• In all, 14 people died, including 10 of Brown’s men.
• Brown was tried and hanged in December 1859
• In the North, Brown was seen by some to be a hero

Question 31

John Brown raid and impact on increasing hostility

Answer 31

• To the South it confirmed that there was a threat posed by the abolitionists, which could lead to violence and rebellion.
• To the North it confirmed that the state was all too willing to defend the interests of slavery.
• The Brown incident made it harder for the South to accept Lincoln’s election and for the Republicans to accept any compromise after the election

Question 32

What was the importance of the election of Lincoln in 1860?

Parties stances on slavery in the 50s:

Answer 32

• The parties initially did not divide over slavery or other sectional grounds
• However, northern Whigs tended to be more critical of it than the southern Whigs
• Democrats in the south contained few opponents of slavery and the Democrats in the south were more outspoken defenders of the institution

Question 33

Who supported which party in the before 1850?

Answer 33

• Whigs had support in both north and south from those likely to benefit from a developed market economy, including many slaveholders who produced for the national and international markets
• Democrats had urban support as well as support of unskilled workers and smaller farmers, in addition to those who had an instinctive dislike of greater federal power

Question 34

Collapse of the Whig party and emergence of the Republican party:

Answer 34

• The Whig Party collapsed in 1852 as a result of divisions about the slavery issue
• The Republican Party emerged between 1854 and 1856 as a result of protests about the Kansas-Nebraska Act in May 1854
• By 1856, it was established enough to run a presidential campaign and in 1860 its candidate Abraham Lincoln won the election.

Question 35

Where did the Republican Party come from and gain its support from?

Answer 35

• The Party drew support from the relatively small political groups which opposed slavery in the so-called “Free-Soil” movement, and also former members of the Whig party, like Lincoln, who were opposed to the expansion of slavery
• Abolitionist and reform movements in the north supported it

Question 36

The Rise of the Know Nothing Party

Answer 36

• The rise of anti-immigrant feeling led to the creation of the so-called Know Nothing Party which supported rights of American-born citizens against foreign immigrants.
• It gained support from former members of Whig party in north who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act

Question 37

What did the Republicans stand for?

Answer 37

• Republican campaigns had stressed opposition to “Slave Power”
• They argued that interests of slave owners had destroyed the Missouri Compromise and led to bleeding Kansas
• They saw future of territories as belonging to free labour.
• They spoke for northern economic interests in supporting tariffs, improvements in communications and growth of free westward expansion.
• Though this obviously attracted abolitionists, the party was not committed to abolishing slavery directly

Question 38

Republican voters’ opinions on slavery and immigration

Answer 38

• The bulk of Republican voters did not vote to give AA a better life
• Many of them had anti-immigrant views and disliked “non-American” races and religions, such as Mormonism

Question 39

How the south perceived the Republican party

Answer 39

Slavery could still be seen as being at the heart of political disagreements

o Many in south could not see distinction between Republicans and abolitionists and saw new party as a direct threat

Question 40

The Lincoln-Douglas debates
1858

+ result

Answer 40

The debates were confined almost exclusively to three topics: race, slavery and slavery expansion.

The two did differ in one key respect:

• Douglas never once said in public that slavery was morally wrong.
• Lincoln may not have believed in racial equality, but he did believe that blacks and whites shared a common humanity: ‘If slavery is not wrong’, he said, ‘then nothing is wrong.’
• Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery and thought it went against the declaration of independence

Result:
- Lincoln lost the election but established himself as a powerful political figure

Question 41

The election of 1860

- possibility for conflict

Answer 41

The events of the 1850s had brought a growing number of southerners to the conclusion that the North had deserted the true principles of the Union.

• In southern eyes, it was the North, not the South, that was ‘peculiar’.
• -> It was the North that had urbanised, industrialised and absorbed large numbers of immigrants while the South had remained agricultural.
• The prospect of a Republican triumph in 1860 filled Southerners with outrage and dread. It was not merely that a Republican victory might threaten slavery.

==> More fundamentally, southerners believed that the North was treating the South as its inferior.

If a Republican did become president, then plenty of southerners were prepared to consider the possibility of secession.

Question 42

The election of 1860
The actual election:
who was it between?
Who won what?

Answer 42

The election was essentially two contests:

• In north, Lincoln stood against Douglas
• In south, Bell stood against Breckenridge
• In the end Lincoln won all northern states except New Jersey and 40% of the popular vote
• Douglas won 30% of popular vote but only Missouri and party of New Jersey gave him a majority and he failed to win almost any electoral votes

Question 43

Election of 1860

Outcome of the election
-> 2 points exposed

What was the danger now?

Answer 43

Election exposed two key points:

o Slavery was revealed to lack support of most of nation as was shown by the large number of people voting for candidates who were not pro-slavery

o The south faced the cold reality of having a president elected with overwhelmingly northern support who saw slavery as a moral evil

There was an obvious danger caused by the election of Lincoln:

• As South Carolina had a history of considering leaving the union, the obvious danger was that the more extreme political leaders would lead a movement to break away from a Lincoln-led union and form a slave state confederacy

Question 44

Why did compromise fail in the 1860’s

Crittenden compromise 1860

Answer 44

• Missouri compromise line 36 30 line would be extended to the pacific rather than stopping at Nebraska.
• Constitutional amendment guaranteed that there would be no interference with slavery in those states where it already existed
• Congress would be forbidden to abolish slavery in Washington DC

–> republicans rejected the compromise

Question 45

Why did compromise fail in the 1860’s

The Virginia peace convention 1861

Answer 45

In February 1861, a peace convention met in Washington, DC, to see if it could find measures that would bring the seceded states back into the Union.

• Attended by 133 delegates but no Confederate delegates came.
• After three weeks of deliberation, the convention supported proposals similar to those of Crittenden.
• These proposals were ignored by Congress and by the Confederacy.

Question 46

What did David Potter say about the failure to compromise?

Answer 46

‘it is probably safe to say that compromise was impossible from the start’.

Question 47

What were the 2 main reasons for failure to compromise?

Answer 47

• The Crittenden compromise proposed protecting slavery via a constitutional amendment meaning it would appear in the constitution

–> Republican deeply opposed this and they also opposed the extension of the 36 30 parallel.

• Another key reason is that there was a willingness from both sides that succession may happen, and it might even be beneficial.

–> Southern states which succeeded would be free to pass measures to protect slavery

–> With the prospect of being able to pass measures like this many leaders did not actively seek compromise.

Question 48

What explains the outbreak of hostilities in 1861?

The Problem of Fort Sumter

Answer 48

• The Confederacy had taken over most of the forts in the south except Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter.
• In 1861 Buchanan sent a supply ship to Sumter.
• South Carolina ships opened fire.
• The Union decided not to return fire and war was avoided.
• A truce was agreed: South Carolina would make no effort to seize the fort and Buchanan would send no further aid to Sumter.

Question 49

What explains the outbreak of hostilities in 1861?

Lincoln and the problem of Fort Sumter

Answer 49

• Fort Sumter became a symbol of national sovereignty for both sides.
• If the Confederacy was to lay claim to the full rights of a sovereign nation it could hardly allow a foreign fort in the middle of one of its main harbours.
• Retention of Fort Sumter was a test of Lincolns credibility
• The fort was going to run out of food and they could not afford to hold the fort.
• Fearing that conflict between the federal government and the confederacy might unite the entire south, Lincoln was urged to appease the Confederacy.
• Seward (Chief spokesman for the policy of masterly inactivity), sent assurances to the Confederate leaders that Sumter would be abandoned.

Question 50

What explains the outbreak of hostilities in 1861?

Fort Sumter- Lincoln acts

Answer 50

• Lincoln was determined to send ships to restock but not reinforce both forts.
• Lincoln made it clear that he had no intention of delegating power, abandoning Sumter or fighting more than one war at a time.
• On April 4th Lincoln, informed Anderson that a relief expedition would be coming.
• A small naval expedition finally left for Charleston April 9th.
• It was claimed that Lincoln deliberately manoeuvred the Confederacy into firing the first shots.
• Lincoln hoped to preserve peace but was willing to risk, and possibly expect war.
• Jefferson Davis ordered that Sumter be taken before it was resupplied.

Question 51

What explains the outbreak of hostilities in 1861?

Fort Sumter - The first shots of war

+ Result

Answer 51

• 12th April 4.30 am – Confederate guns open fire.
• April 13th – Anderson surrenders, his troops were allowed to march out and were evacuated to Washington DC.
• The attack on Sumter angered the North
• April 15th Lincoln issues a “Call to arms” (A presidential order calling up troops and putting the USA on a war-footing).
• Lincoln asks for 75,000 men and 90 days to put down the rebellion.
• April 19th Lincoln orders a blockade of the Confederacy, to prevent it trading with Britain and Europe.
• This action implied that the conflict was more a war than a rebellion.