Third Party System [1854–1890s] I Flashcards
Review - Evolution of the Two-Party System Timeline
Political scientists and historians have divided the development of America’s two-party system into roughly six eras: (1) First Party System [1789–1824] between the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party; (2) Second Party System [1828–1854] between the Whig Party and Democratic Party; (3) Third Party System [1854–1890s] between the anti-slavery/discrimination Republican Party and pro-slavery/discrimination Democrats; (4) Fourth Party System [1896–1932] Republican and Democrats with Progressive Era and limited government; (5) Fifth Party System [1933–1972] Domination of New Deal Democrats; and (6) Sixth Party System [1972-Present] Liberal-Democrat and Conservative-Republican realignment.
Evolution of the Two-Party System Timeline: Third Party System (1854–1890s)
This era was marked by the emergence of the anti-slavery/discrimination Republican Party and polarization with the pro-slavery/discrimination Democratic Party. This polarization caused the Civil War and continued afterwards until the Reconstruction Era ended with the Compromise of 1877. Both parties became broad-based voting coalitions and the race issue pulled newly enfranchised African Americans (Freedmen) into the Republican Party while white southerners (Redeemers) joined the Democratic Party. Other than anti-slavery/discrimination, the Republicans also adopted many of the economic policies of the Whigs, such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads, and aid to land grant colleges. After the Compromise of 1877, the Democratic Party regained its strongholds in southern states and influence in the national government, undoing much of the Reconstruction Era.
Review - Timeline: Cotton is King - The Antebellum South, 1800-1860
1794: Eli Whitney patents cotton gin. 1803: U.S. purchases Louisiana Territory from France. 1811: Charles Deslondes leads slave revolt in Louisiana. 1831: Nat Turner leads slave rebellion. 1845: United States annexes Texas. 1850: John C. Calhoun’s “Disquisition of Government” is published. 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. 1854: Ostend Manifesto is made public. 1855: William Walker conquers Nicaragua and legalizes slavery.
Timeline: Troubled Times - The Tumultuous 1850s
1850: Henry Clay brokers ‘Compromise of 1850’. 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes ‘Uncle Toms Cabin’. 1854: Anti-Slavery Whigs, Democrats, and Free-Soilers form Republican Party; Congress passes Kansas-Nebraska Act. 1856: Preston Brooks canes Charles Sumner. 1857: Supreme Court hands down Dred Scott decision. 1858: Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in Illinois. 1859: John Brown raids Harpers Ferry. 1860: Lincoln elected president.
*Free Soil or Slave? The Dilemma of the West*
The acquisition of lands from Mexico in 1848 reawakened debates regarding slavery. The suggestion that slavery be barred from the Mexican Cession caused rancorous debate between North and South and split the Democratic Party when many northern members left to create the Free-Soil Party. Although the ‘Compromise of 1850’ resolved the question of whether slavery would be allowed in the new territories, the solution pleased no one. The peace brought by the compromise was short-lived, and the debate over slavery continued.
Explain how the Missouri Compromise affected the political climate of the 1850s.
In 1820, the ‘Missouri Compromise’ temporarily maintained a balance of free and slave states until the ‘Mexican-American War’, roughly 30 years later gave the U.S. more land to the west. The South soon found itself losing ground when California petitioned to be admitted into the Union as a free state, thus threatening the balance between slave and free states. The ‘Compromise of 1850’, with its ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ further divided the country toward the path of civil war.
Millard Fillmore (W)
Born of humble origins in New York State, Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) became a lawyer and won election to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 1833. He served four terms in Congress but left in 1843 to mount an unsuccessful run for the governorship of New York. In 1848, he emerged as the Whig Party candidate for vice president under Zachary Taylor, and after Taylor’s victory he presided over months of early debate in Congress over the controversial Compromise of 1850. Taylor died suddenly in mid-1850 and Fillmore succeeded him, becoming the nation’s 13th president (1850-1853). Though Fillmore personally opposed slavery, he saw the Compromise as necessary to preserving the Union and enforced its strong ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ during his presidency. This stance alienated Fillmore from voters in the North, and in 1852 he failed to gain the Whig nomination.
*The Compromise of 1850*
The difficult process of reaching a compromise on slavery in 1850 exposed the sectional fault lines in the United States. After several months of rancorous debate, Congress passed five laws—known collectively as the Compromise of 1850—that people on both sides of the divide hoped had solved the nation’s problems. However, many northerners feared the impact of the ‘Fugitive Slave Act’, which made it a crime not only to help slaves escape, but also to fail to help capture them. Many Americans, both black and white, flouted the ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ by participating in the Underground Railroad, providing safe houses for slaves on the run from the South. Eight northern states passed personal liberty laws to counteract the effects of the ‘Fugitive Slave Act’.
Understand the issues that the Mexican cession caused in Congress and how each side wanted to solve them.
A lot of new land had been won in the Mexican-American War. There was debate about whether if it should be slave or free territory with Popular Sovereignty beating out the Wilmot Proviso. Throughout the middle part of the century, states had been added in pairs to maintain equal power in the Senate, but California was ready for statehood, without another state to balance it. Different parties had come up with ways to push their own agendas, but none of them could address all of the problems over slavery in the country, including Washington D.C. and Texas. Abolitionists wanted to end slavery in Washington D.C. and a bigger Texas would mean more representation for slave power in the House.
Fugitive Slave Acts
The ‘Fugitive Slave Acts’ were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves within the territory of the United States. Enacted by Congress in 1793, the first ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. Widespread resistance to the 1793 law led to the passage of the ‘Fugitive Slave Act of 1850’, which added more provisions regarding runaways and levied even harsher punishments for interfering in their capture. The ‘Fugitive Slave Acts’ were among the most controversial laws of the early 19th century.
Identify Henry Clay and paraphrase the Compromise of 1850.
The aging Senator Henry Clay, who had brokered peace in 1820, crafted a detailed compromise. When President Millard Fillmore took office following Taylor’s death, the deal had the support it needed to pass. The ‘Compromise of 1850’ had five points: (1) California became a free state. (2) Utah and New Mexico would decide the slavery issue for themselves without federal intervention. (3) Texas was paid $10 million to move its border east. (4) The Washington D.C. slave trade was abolished but not slave holding. (5) A tough, new ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ was approved. Although the Compromise of 1850 passed, it couldn’t please everyone for long.
Explain the Fugitive Slave Act.
The ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ was designed to make southern slaveholders feel that their right to own slaves was not being eroded. According to the new law, slaves who ran away to the north were not free, more federal officers worked claim cases and citizens were required to help track down escaped slaves. Furthermore, accused fugitives were denied trial, being processed instead by commissioners who had a financial incentive to return them to their owners. Besides the thousands of escaped slaves who were shipped back south, many truly free blacks became the victims of illegitimate claims without any legal recourse. The ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ outraged abolitionists. The Underground Railroad reached its peak in the following decade, and many northern states flat out refused to comply. Even northerners who had stayed silent before now voiced their opposition because the federal law required their assistance in retrieving runaways.
Explain how the Fugitive Slave Act fueled abolitionists to fight harder for an end to slavery.
The Fugitive Slave Act brought the force of law to every American’s doorstep, making them culpable for the continued bondage that existed for blacks in America, something with which many were not comfortable taking part.
Discuss slavery in the context of the 1850s.
The ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ and the continuing disintegration of the United States happened concurrently with the rise of abolitionist literature, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. They each worked in their own way to bring the United States to the breaking point, one where neither side could go forward to the future with the matter of slavery unresolved.
Franklin Pierce (D)
Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), the son of a onetime governor of New Hampshire, entered politics at a young age. He served as speaker of the state legislature before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1833. After two terms in the House and one in the Senate, Pierce returned to practicing law, only to emerge in 1852 as the Democratic presidential candidate. During Pierce’s administration (1853-1857), settlement was encouraged in the northwest region of the country, even as sectional tensions increased over the issue of slavery and its extension into new territories. The ‘Kansas-Nebraska Act’, which Pierce signed in 1854, enraged antislavery northerners and brought about the emergence of the new Republican Party. Pierce’s inability to handle the upheaval in Kansas led to repudiation by many Democrats, who denied him the party’s nomination in 1856.
*The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States*
The decade of the 1850s witnessed various schemes to expand the American empire of slavery. The ‘Ostend Manifesto’ articulated the right of the United States to forcefully seize Cuba if Spain would not sell it, while filibuster expeditions attempted to annex new slave states without the benefit of governmental approval. Those who pursued the goal of expanding American slavery believed they embodied the true spirit of white racial superiority.
Summarize how both parties chose their candidates in the election of 1852.
Southern Whigs favored the incumbent president, Millard Fillmore. But northern Whigs felt the ‘Compromise of 1850’ had been a sell-out, which they blamed on Fillmore. The Whigs finally settled on General Winfield Scott, a hero from the Mexican-American War. The Democrats, also dealing with divisiveness, finally chose Franklin Pierce. The Democrats liked that he was a northern man with southern sympathies. He was also a Brigadier General of the Mexican-American War (though this fact was downplayed). His ‘dark horse’ factor was also considered a good thing, since that strategy had worked in the past. President Franklin Pierce won an electoral landslide, but it wouldn’t take long for him to alienate many Americans and push the nation to the brink of war.
Explain the issue of slavery in Pierce’s presidency.
President Pierce’s aggression on expanding slavery was too much even for the Democrats, who refused to nominate him for a second term. He expanded the southern boundary of New Mexico with the ‘Gadsden Purchase’, thereby completing the last of the ‘lower 48’. The slavery question popped up again with the ‘Kansas-Nebraska Act’ and in his attempt to acquire Cuba, as revealed in the ‘Ostend Manifesto’.
Non-controversial foreign policy by Pierce.
Pierce reached into Asia and Central America. Among his few non-controversial actions was opening diplomatic relations with Japan, hoping that open trade would follow. He also expanded trade with Canada and moved the U.S. closer to acquiring Hawaii.
Describe the Gadsden Purchase and the Ostend Manifesto.
Pierce’s Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, convinced him to buy a strip of land at the southern border of the New Mexico territory for $10 million. With the ‘Gadsden Purchase’ in 1853, Pierce completed the remaining contiguous territory of the United States. Though the land was intended to be used as a route for the transcontinental railroad, it angered northerners both for its price tag and for its expansion of southern territory. In 1854, the ‘Ostend Manifesto’ was leaked. This letter, from some of his diplomats, revealed to the world that Pierce had attempted to buy Cuba (ostensibly to become a new slave state), and that he should consider military action if Spain refused to sell the land. Pressure from the American public and European leaders led him to abandon this plan.
Outline Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life story.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s (1811) weapon of choice against the tyranny of slavery was the pen, but early in her life and career as a writer, she was an unlikely choice to become a champion of the abolitionists. By 1850, at the age of 39, Harriet became increasingly aware of the plight of slaves and those runaways who were living free in the North. The passage of the ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ motivated her to write the seminal work of abolitionist literature and an American Classic, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ (1852). It made her a celebrity in the North and in Europe and fueled the abolitionist movement. She lived to see the end of slavery and the integration of former slaves into society before her death in 1896.
Analyze how literature such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped push the United States toward the abolition of slavery.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ (1852) provided word and image to those who may have put the idea of slavery out of their minds altogether, forcing them to come to grips with realities happening in their own country and forcing them to deal with the inevitable. She wrote with passion and conviction and breathed life into the characters (a pious and ever-patient slave Uncle Tom, the evil slave driver Simon Legree, and a saintly white child Eva), in a way that most Americans had never experienced. It is safe to say that many who read or watched Uncle Tom’s Cabin went in as moderates and came out as abolitionists.
*The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Republican Party*
The application of popular sovereignty to the organization of the Kansas and Nebraska territories ended the sectional truce that had prevailed since the Compromise of 1850. Senator Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) opened the door to chaos in Kansas as proslavery and Free-Soil forces waged war against each other, and radical abolitionists, notably John Brown, committed themselves to violence to end slavery. The act also upended the second party system of Whigs and Democrats by inspiring the formation of the new Republican Party, committed to arresting the further spread of slavery. Many voters approved its platform in the 1856 presidential election, though the Democrats won the race because they remained a national, rather than a sectional, political force.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The ‘Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854’ was an organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. Douglas introduced the bill with the goal of opening up new lands to development and facilitating construction of a transcontinental railroad, but the Kansas–Nebraska Act is most notable for effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise in favor of popular sovereignty, stoking national tensions over slavery, and contributing to a series of armed conflicts known as “Bleeding Kansas”. It outraged many Northerners, giving rise to the anti-slavery Republican Party. Ongoing tensions over slavery would eventually lead to the American Civil War.
