Chapter 2

In This Chapter

Constitutional issues again

The collapse of national political parties

The 1860 election as a turning point

T hroughout the 1850s, the North and South continued to diverge along economic, political, and social lines. They knew less and less about each other, and each came to believe the worst about the other side. National consensus and compromise became impossible to achieve.

As the differences between North and South became more pronounced in this decade, because Congress, the Supreme Court, nor the president could deal effectively with the divisive issue of slavery. Events pulled both the sections, the North and South, closer to the belief that only drastic action would resolve the nation’s problems.

Setting the Stage: Five Events Leading to War

When you examine the nature of the political struggle between 1850 and 1860, you can identify five separate events, each having a distinct effect on the nation. When viewed separately, they don’t seem to amount to much, but in the climate of the times, each event had a cumulative effect on the other, building a sense of nearly unbearable crisis and tension within the population that could not find release. The threat of open conflict, unthinkable in the country in 1850, became almost a predetermined conclusion by 1860.

One of the good and useful things about history is that it grants people the ability to look at events in the past, separated by time from the passions and confusion of the day-to-day events, and see how events connect in the long term. In doing this, certain events serve as guideposts to understanding how such a dramatic event as a civil war occurred. For your enjoyment and edification, the decade from 1850 to 1860 can be evaluated in terms of five steps that led to war. These five steps are:

The struggle for Kansas

The rise of the Republican Party

The Dred Scott decision

John Brown’s raid

The election of Abraham Lincoln

This chapter examines each one of these points in detail then puts them all together to provide a backdrop for the crisis that finally led to war.

Struggling for Kansas

As settlers continued to move into new territory, Congress was forced to deal with maintaining a balance of power between the Northern and Southern states. One approach had worked fairly well since 1820 — drawing a geographical boundary line (no slaves north of 36 degrees, 30 minutes — basically the border between Missouri and Arkansas). This system had worked because states entered the Union in pairs (Maine-Missouri; Arkansas-Michigan; Florida and Texas-Iowa and Wisconsin) and the new Northern states (except Iowa) came from territory that had outlawed slavery in 1787. The rich farmlands of the new Southern states were, for the most part, ideal for growing cotton and other profitable crops. Therefore, slavery followed the opening of these new states. In 1850 Congress had made an exception to the geographical boundary by allowing California in as a free state, but had been faithful to the boundary line with the disposition of New Mexico territory (see Chapter 1 for more information).

The Kansas-Nebraska territory posed another threat to the North-South relationship. All of that territory was above the 1820 geographical boundary, and therefore non-slave territory. The South couldn’t allow that to happen unless two new slave states could also be added, which didn’t look likely to happen in the near future. The territory north of the Missouri Compromise line was attractive farmland; in contrast, the arid high desert territory south and west of Texas below the compromise line reserved for slavery had little attraction for farmers, whether they owned slaves or not. A stalemate ensued.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Essentially, Douglas wanted to bypass the issue of slavery altogether in favor of westward expansion. Never believing slavery would expand into the Great Plains anyway, he proposed legislation that would allow the people who entered the territory to decide whether their state would allow slavery or not. This idea, called popular sovereignty, would take Congress off the hook and give the power to individual citizens to decide the issue for themselves. While it seemed the perfect solution for a democracy, the act threw everything out of balance. Under the logic of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, all territory could legally be opened to slavery, and the compromise boundary line of 1820 no longer held.

This outraged Northerners who were willing to take action to ensure that slavery would be restricted in new territories. With the rest of the unorganized territory legally open to slavery as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the South believed the time was now or never to assert its rights and ensure that its future power base in the West would be secure. By doing so, it would stave off what appeared to be the increasingly real threat of the North surrounding and eventually overwhelming the South. The stage was set for conflict in Kansas. Whichever section won political control of Kansas — by fair means or foul — had a good chance of controlling other territories and the political power in Congress those territories represented.

The violence begins

Between 1855 and 1856, Kansas experienced the horror of domestic insurrection serving as the first battleground of pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces. Northern abolitionist supporters sponsored settlers to move to Kansas and establish a non-slaveholding voting majority that would ban slavery in the new state. Southerners did the same thing. Pro-slavery groups from Missouri, called Border Ruffians, entered the state to stuff ballot boxes and intimidate non-slave owners. Soon violence became commonplace as each faction used open force and intimidation to gain an advantage. New Englanders sent rifles to Kansas to arm anti-slavery paramilitary groups. Pro-slavery raiders completely destroyed the town of Lawrence, Kansas. Amazingly, only two people were killed. But acts of retaliation followed, including the murder of five suspected pro-slave settlers at Pottawatomie Creek. A radical anti-slavery activist named John Brown led the band of six murderers.

A congressional committee investigating the incident took no action, pro-Northern newspapers played down the murders, and Brown was never pros-ecuted. This outraged Southerners, who claimed justice was being ignored in favor of a political agenda (this may sound familiar to you). As lawlessness took control, the country stood by as Kansas tumbled into anarchy, bleeding from a thousand wounds.

Rising from the Collapse: The Republican Party

The struggle for political power was reflected in the birth and death of a number of political parties between 1850 and 1860. To understand the rise of the Republican Party, one must first understand the collapse of the national party system, which occurred between 1854 and 1858. For over a decade, two political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, dominated American politics.

Disappearing Whigs and Southern Democrats

The Democrats supported states’ rights, the belief that the states should have dominant power rather than the central, or Federal, government. The Democrats supported the traditional view that there were limits to Federal power. The Whigs believed in progress and modernization, supporting a strong central government and the expansion of Federal power to support internal improvements to strengthen the national economy. The Whigs were strongest among prosperous farmers, manufacturers, and city dwellers both North and South. The Democrats had strong support among frontiersmen and small farmers, many of whom desired America to expand into western lands not yet owned by the United States. Clearly, the Democratic Party favored the South’s vision of what America should be. Up until 1850, the Whigs and the Democrats maintained balanced constituencies in both the North and South.

But the sectional political stakes that arose after the Compromise of 1850 (see Chapter 1), created such dissension within these two parties that neither could maintain its Northern and Southern coalitions. Essentially what happened is this: The Democrats became a pure Southern party, and the Whigs, unable to support a purely sectional party, disappeared.

The Free Soilers

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act illustrates how divisive the issue of slavery in new territories had become to the two dominant political parties. Northern Democrats especially paid a heavy political price for their support of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The Northern Democrats who had supported the measure in the House and Senate (and had given the bill the margin of victory to ensure its passage) were roundly defeated in the next congressional elections as outraged Northern voters turned to other parties more in favor with their anti-slavery views. The Democratic Party became more allied with the view of the South alone. The Whigs lost support as Southern members deserted them to join the Democrats. Northern Whigs lost members to other splinter parties that rose up in protest to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. One such group, the Free Soil Party, supported the Wilmot Proviso that endorsed no extension of slavery into new territories. The new party attracted dissatisfied Democrats, anti-slavery Whigs, and others generally disaffected with abolitionist radicalism. Free Soilers were allied by a simple interest to limit the expansion of slavery into the territories and not necessarily interested in offering Blacks any special advantages. In other words, free soil for many in the party was intended for Whites only.

The Know-Nothings

Another party was the Know-Nothings , which grew from a secret fraternal organization in New York in 1849. Any member, when asked about his affiliation with this organization responded with the cryptic phrase “I know nothing.” The Know-Nothings peaked in 1855, claiming a million members. By the next year they were gone. The main attraction seemed to be this: If you were tired of listening to arguments over slavery, the Know-Nothings offered their version of 100 percent Americanism by opposing the growing voting power of Irish and German immigrants. With a strong anti-Catholic bent (because many German and nearly all Irish immigrants were Catholic), the Know-Nothings demanded a 15-year naturalization period before being allowed to vote, and limits on the production and sale of alcohol. This, too, was directed at the immigrants, whose consumption of strong drink was part of their culture. Know-Nothings drew support from Whigs in both the North and South, and this desertion was the final act that led to the Whig Party’s final disappearance in 1855.

The Republican Party arrives

By 1856, a new coalition of anti-slavery Whigs, Free Soil Party members, and Know-Nothings had been formed to become the Republican Party. The catalyst for this action, like that for other new parties, was the Kansas-Nebraska Act. To many observers, the South had won a clear political victory; to forestall any further advances, this new party would base its support on one issue — to keep slavery out of Kansas and all other territories.

One of the most powerful spokesmen for this new party was a former Whig congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln (see Figure 2-1). Lincoln was not an abolitionist; like many Northerners, he felt slavery was the source of all troubles within the country. He expressed it in this way: “The real issue in this controversy — the one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong , and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong.” Lincoln’s party had no intention to interfere with slavery in the states where it currently existed. The Constitution guaranteed slavery there — it was unquestioned. The Republicans also had no interest in the most radical abolitionist position that demanded Blacks become the social and political equals of Whites. In fact, Lincoln expounded the Free Soil Party view that the new territories should be “an outlet for free White people everywhere.”

Figure 2-1:Abraham Lincoln, Republican Party spokesman.

” CORBIS

In the midst of political turmoil, with parties shifting support bases and other political parties disappearing, Lincoln masterfully and most often gave expression to the thoughts and feelings of many moderate Northerners. He soon became the leading spokesman for the party, traveling throughout the North addressing huge, enthusiastic crowds. By 1856, the year of the presidential election, the Republican Party dominated most legislatures in the North.

The Republicans and the 1856 Presidential Election

Today, we decry political leaders who are all symbol and no substance, thinking this is a product of our own times. Well, if you take a look at the election of 1856, you’ll find plenty of trends familiar to you. The Republicans nominated John C. Frémont, a famous western explorer, known as “The Pathfinder.” He was a former Free Soil Party leader, but it was his youth (43 years old) and his connection to the romance of the West rather than any clear political vision that made him an attractive candidate to many.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a Whig, ran against incumbent Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The two held a series of debates around the state arguing popular sovereignty versus limiting slavery in the territories, the basic idea expressed in the Wilmot Proviso. Lincoln faced an uphill battle against one of the most dynamic and important political leaders in America. Lincoln used the debate to smoke Douglas out on the issue of Supreme Court guarantees for slavery existing in the territories. Douglas clung to popular sovereignty, won the election, but lost the support of the South, which had been relying on the Supreme Court to guarantee slavery’s extension. Douglas’s denial of that position eventually brought an end to his political ambitions. Essentially, Lincoln sacrificed his chance to be a senator to cripple the sectional balance the Democratic Party relied on for survival.

The Democrats: Choosing a safe candidate

The Democrats nominated a pro-Southern Pennsylvanian, 65-year-old James Buchanan, whose only real qualification for office seemed to be that he had been out of the country for several years as ambassador, and thus out of the line of fire in the sectional dispute. Stephen A. Douglas, who engineered the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in part to build political support in the South for his presidential ambitions, was rejected as too controversial.

Millard Fillmore for president

The remnants of the Whigs and Know-Nothings combined to nominate Millard Fillmore, a man who has come to personify the political nonentity in our history. The Know-Nothings refused to even mention slavery, preferring to say only “the Union is in peril.”

Politics becomes sectional

The 1856 presidential election is important because it revealed the realignment of national politics by region. Although the Republicans lost the election to Buchanan, the party dominated the North, with the exception of a few key states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, and Indiana). This win was to be the South’s last political victory. The growing power of the Republicans in the Northern states and the number of Republicans who would enter the House and Senate were frightening prospects for Southerners. Power was shifting to the North.

As time went on, the South found fewer and fewer options in the face of the Republicans’ open hostility to the expansion of slavery. Southerners believed that if slavery could not expand naturally, the South would then be hostage to the interests of the North. Many Southern leaders had called for leaving the Union, or secession as the only hope for the future. A few Southern hot heads, soon called “fire eaters,” had threatened this in 1850; but their arguments were discounted. As Republican power grew in the North after 1856, however, Southerners began to take the words of the fire-eaters more seriously.

Abraham Lincoln: Early career, 1809–1860

Abraham Lincoln is most likely the greatest mythical character in all of American history. His image is common to every schoolchild: the tall, lanky, homely-faced man in plain dark clothes and a stovepipe hat. Born in poverty in Kentucky, Lincoln lived on the Indiana and Illinois frontier, where he developed a reputation as a man of ambition and intelligence, despite his lack of formal schooling. After several attempts at different careers, including a short term as a militia leader during the Black Hawk War in 1832, he settled on politics. From 1834 to 1842 he served in the Illinois state legislature. At 25, he read law and joined the bar in 1836. In 1846, he was elected to a term in Congress. After one term, he retired from politics and returned to law. The Kansas-Nebraska Act brought him back to politics. Refuting popular sovereignty, he spoke earnestly of his dislike of slavery and the necessity that it be banned from the new territories. In 1856 he joined the Republican Party, and the same year he was a contender for the vice-presidential nomination. In 1858 Lincoln challenged Douglas for the U.S. Senate seat. In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln lost the election, but gained a large following in the North for his ability to speak plainly and sincerely about the issue of slavery and its expansion into the territories. With a presidential election only two years away, Lincoln was on his way to political greatness.

Southern reaction to the Republican Party

Many people in the cotton South came to believe that separation from the Union was inevitable to save their way of life. Others began to defend slavery as a positive good, a system of labor superior to that of the “wage slavery” of the industrial North. Still others spoke of filibusters, quasi-legal military expeditions to Central America and Cuba, to secure new American territory for slavery.

Northerners, increasingly united behind the Republican Party banner, spoke of Southern aggressive intentions to spread slavery everywhere in America. The “slave power” would not be satisfied until slaves could be bought, sold, and held in every state in the Union.

More and more moderate Northerners and Southerners began to see their opponents in extreme terms. Each side claimed virtue and righteousness in the face of what they viewed as a subversive, unmitigated evil. With both sides seeing their opponents as threats to their way of life and a growing sense that no solution was possible, every event after 1856 created a heightened sense of danger. Events moved decisions to a crisis point very quickly in the years between 1856 and 1860.

It is not surprising that in the midst of this intense sectional debate over constitutional rights and slavery that the Supreme Court should become involved. Many hoped the Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of extending slavery in the territories would put the issue to rest once and for all. Of course, many of these same people had hoped the Kansas-Nebraska Act would settle the issue forever, too.

The Dred Scott Decision

Dred Scott (see Figure 2-2), a slave belonging to an army doctor, had been taken from Missouri, which allowed slavery, to two non-slaveholding states, Illinois and Wisconsin, in the 1830s. After the doctor’s death, Scott claimed he was no longer a slave because he had resided in free states. The case wound its way through the lower courts until it came to the Supreme Court in 1856. Lawyers are sometimes more confusing than historians. Essentially, Scott’s lawyers argued that a slave once in free territory was a free man.

Figure 2-2: Dred Scott.

” Bettmann/CORBIS

In retrospect, the Supreme Court could have avoided a great deal of trouble by simply ruling in favor of the lower court’s decision, which pointed out that the Constitution did not recognize slaves as citizens. But because slavery and its extension into new territories had become such a contentious issue, the Court took on Scott’s case with the goal of settling the issue once and for all. Unfortunately, the Court was involving itself into a highly volatile political situation. This was not the time for another view to be added to a very angry debate. Nevertheless, Roger B. Taney, the chief justice (and a Southern Democrat), lit the fuse on the powder keg.

The Court ruled 7-2 against Scott’s claim. Interestingly, each judge decided to write his own opinion. Taney’s became the decision of record. On the basic issue of Scott’s freedom, the Court agreed with the lower court’s determination that Scott was not a citizen of either a state or the United States, and therefore could not bring a suit before a court. Taney could have stopped there; but he went on to find that Scott was still a slave because neither Congress nor any territorial legislature had the authority to restrict slaveryanywhere.

Secession, Northern style

People tend to associate the concept and word secession only with the South. Actually the first region to threaten to secede, or leave the Union, was New England. New England was a stronghold of the Federalist Party. During the War of 1812, New England, despairing over the United States’ apparent defeat and never supporting the war in the first place, threatened to leave the Union. In fact, the Federalists began organizing a convention to take the New England states out of the Union. The enthusiasm for this bold act quickly disappeared as news of American battlefield victories and a peace settlement arrived. The Federalists slunk away in shame and soon disappeared as a national political party.

The reaction to the decision

The reaction to Taney’s ruling was predictable: The South celebrated, crowing that the constitutional guarantees of property (described in the Fifth Amendment) were secured once and for all. No governmental body had the authority to restrict the movement of slaves, who had been declared inviolable property by the highest court in the land. The North condemned the ruling, describing it as a politically motivated act by a pro-Southern Supreme Court. The Court, they noted, seemed to ignore that the Constitution also spoke of guarantees to freedom in the same sentence that it guaranteed property in the Fifth Amendment. Northerners complained that Taney also forgot to look at Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, which clearly gives Congress the power to administer territories.

The can of worms is opened

In one blow the Supreme Court unwittingly toppled the delicate house of cards built since 1820 to maintain sectional harmony over the issue of slavery’s expansion. Neither popular sovereignty (the authority for people in the territories to decide whether or not to allow slavery to exist) nor the geographical limitations laid out by the Missouri Compromise were valid any longer. The Court’s decision opened all of the United States and its territories to slave owners. Congress (with its Northern voting bloc majority in the House of representatives) could do nothing about it. By declaring that no law could restrict the movement of slaves, the Court placed human beings in the same category as furniture or livestock. Property has no rights to itself, and as such under the Constitution, no one can be deprived of his property without due process of law.

The firestorm in the North

Northern radical abolitionists, were, of course, outraged by the Dred Scott decision, but, more importantly, Northern moderates were greatly upset by it too. The decision was too much for Northerners to take, so they declared that they would not obey the Court. This is the first instance of “Massive Resistance” to a Supreme Court decision. Several Northern state legislatures passed resolutions declaring the Court’s decision invalid and non-binding.

The results of the Dred Scott decision

The Dred Scott decision was a disaster for the South. Rather than protecting slavery, it brought many Northerners to the Republican Party, who now saw the party as the only bulwark against a Southern legal and political conspiracy to open the entire nation to slavery. The Court’s decision also unwittingly dealt a deathblow to the Democratic Party’s chances to maintain an inter-sectional political organization. Stephen Douglas’s popular sovereignty, whatever its merits, was the one issue that brought Northern and Southern Democrats together. It had allowed the party to win the presidency in 1856. Now that the Dred Scott decision declared popular sovereignty invalid, the party had no hope of winning the 1860 presidential election against a united and powerful Republican Party.

The Fugitive Slave Law in practice

As tensions heightened throughout the 1850s — with an open bushwhacking war going on in Kansas territory, elected representatives attacking each other in the halls of Congress, and Northern hysteria over the threat of slavery growing unchecked throughout the nation matched with Southern hysteria over Republican political power — yet another undeclared war erupted between Northern states and the Federal government. This was the battle over enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.

The Fugitive Slave Law was one of the deals cut during the Compromise of 1850 (see Chapter 1). At first few took notice of it, because in the Constitution, states were already required to cooperate in the return of fugitive (escaped) slaves. The new law only highlighted the role of Federal officers to enforce the old law and return escaped Blacks to the South. But after Kansas, Dred Scott, and growing Republican political power in Northern state legislatures, the Fugitive Slave Law became a symbolic point of moral resistance to slavery for Northerners. By the late 1850s, Federal marshals found themselves often faced with angry mobs attempting to kidnap captured Blacks and spirit them away, despite threats of arrest and severe penalties.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

In 1852, in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law, Harriet Beecher Stowe, a member of a prominent abolitionist family, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel portraying the problems of slavery in the South. The novel, typical in many ways with sentimental writing of this period, nevertheless tells a powerfully effective story using characters that have become stock characters in American culture: Little Eva, the pure little girl destined for heaven; Uncle Tom, the kindly, Christ-like Black servant; and Simon Legree, the brutal and degraded slave owner. It sold 100,000 copies in two months, and 300,000 in its first year. For 1852, these are impossibly large numbers. Like the bestseller Jaws in our own day, which made the idea of shark attack so real that everyone was afraid to swim in the ocean, Uncle Tom’s Cabin created frightening images of the South in the minds of its readers. Despite howls of outrage from Southerners, Stowe’s image of the South became reality, convincing thousands of Northerners that slavery’s very existence was a moral blight on the soul of America. When Abraham Lincoln met Mrs. Stowe in 1862, he reportedly said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”

Northern reaction to the Fugitive Slave Law

State legislatures, in direct defiance of the Supreme Court, passed personal liberty laws, which stated that a slave living in a free state was a free man. In effect, these laws accepted Dred Scott’s legal argument as legitimate and valid. The Supreme Court struck down these laws; in response, state legislatures simply refused to provide any assistance to the Federal government in prosecuting anyone who violated the Fugitive Slave Law.

The Underground Railroad

Some common citizens, angered by the government’s policy and spurred by strong moral convictions, turned to clandestine methods to guard Blacks from the hands of Federal marshals. This loose organization, called the Underground Railroad, sought to move escaped slaves and free Blacks to Canada, beyond the ability of the U.S. government to touch them. The Underground Railroad’s effectiveness as an organization has grown to mythical proportions over the years. While many noble and courageous people were involved in this act of defiance, many others took advantage of such altruism. Unscrupulous groups would entice escaped slaves by pretending to be part of the Underground Railroad. Instead of guiding them to freedom, however, they would turn the slaves over to Federal authorities and collect the reward money.

John Brown’s Raid

Tensions between North and South in 1859 were very high; for years, emotions never seemed to reach a peak. Every new incident drove emotions to new heights, but there never seemed to be a limit to how high they could go, or where they would take the antagonists. In this overwrought atmosphere of crisis and tension, John Brown reenters our story.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, John Brown (see Figure 2-3) and his followers had murdered several suspected pro-slavery Kansas settlers (see “The violence begins,” earlier in this chapter). After this attack, Brown and his group spent some time in Canada until the heat was off. By 1859, he had concocted a new and more ambitious scheme than simple nighttime murder and terror. He had become impatient with the lack of action in the country over slavery. What was needed, he kept saying, was action — do something, once and for all, to bring about the destruction of slavery in fire and blood.

His fanatic dedication to the destruction of slavery led him to believe that he could be a one-man instrument of its destruction. His plan to do this called for nothing less than instigating and leading a nationwide slave revolt and race war, creating a free Black nation within a nation. In essence, Brown sought to free slaves through the use of terror. Supported with money and arms from wealthy anti-slavery sponsors who wished to remain anonymous, Brown organized a group of 18 men to carry out his plan. Like most ideologically motivated terrorists, he considered the details of his plan less important than his most immediate need, which, of course, was to get weapons. After he seized weapons, he assumed that everything else would fall into place.

Figure 2-3: John Brown.

” Bettmann/CORBIS

Harpers Ferry

Brown selected Harpers Ferry, Virginia — the site of a Federal arsenal located at the junction of a key transportation intersection only a few miles from Washington, D.C. — as his target. After he captured the arsenal and its weapons, he planned to use the town as his base of operations to receive the thousands upon thousands of slaves who would escape and join him. He would then arm the slaves as they arrived and create a stronghold. As more slaves arrived, he would expand the area under his control through violent action until he had created a free Black nation.

On the night of October 16, Brown and his 18 followers entered Harpers Ferry and had no trouble gaining control of the arsenal and its production facility. Like most ideological terrorists who plan poorly, Brown was surprised that his intended victims did not cooperate with him. To add to his chagrin, the human avalanche of runaway slaves that he expected failed to appear. Therefore, he did what terrorists usually resort to: He took hostages, swore he’d never be taken alive, and waited for the inevitable.

Sending in the marines

The inevitable made its appearance soon in the form of a detachment of U.S. Marines hastily gathered from the Washington Navy Yard and sent by train to Harpers Ferry (see Figure 2-4). This ad hoc force had an army Colonel as its leader. This Colonel just happened to be available when the news arrived at the War Department in Washington. His second in command was an army cavalry Lieutenant, who just happened to be visiting the Colonel and decided to come along. Arriving soon after the Marines at Harpers Ferry, the Colonel conducted a reconnaissance, made an assessment of the situation, and gave orders for his force to prepare for a direct assault on the building where Brown and his group were holding their hostages. As you can always expect when marines are given such orders, the battle was both fierce and over in a few minutes. John Brown was wounded and captured. The calm and decisive Colonel was Robert E. Lee, one of the U.S. Army’s most capable officers. His Lieutenant friend was a cadet at West Point when Lee was superintendent and a frequent guest at his quarters. His name was James E. B. (Jeb) Stuart. Stuart would soon become one of the most well-known cavalry leaders in American history.

The results of John Brown’s raid

If this foolish act of a misguided fanatic had transpired ten years earlier, it would have certainly raised little attention outside of Virginia. In 1859, however, after all that had already occurred in the troubled decade, John Brown’s raid (as the incident became known) lost all proportion. The truth is that many Northerners shared the Southern outrage at Brown’s insane act of aggression. The voices of reason were largely drowned out, however, as everyone heard only what he or she wanted to hear from the other side. Today, a common expression states that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. So it was in 1859 with sectional reaction to the incident at Harpers Ferry. Southerners viewed Brown as a tool of abolitionist Republicans and a murderer; Northerners hailed him as a martyr who was willing to sacrifice himself for the holy cause of freedom. These opinions only hardened hearts further, and raised emotions to a fever pitch. By now, both sides were ready to jump at the least provocation, if only to release those long pent-up emotions in some grand violent act of retribution against the perceived enemy.

Figure 2-4:Marines attacking an engine house.

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John Brown’s end

Just two weeks after his raid, John Brown was tried and executed by the state of Virginia. On the day of his execution, the governor ordered militia and the Corps of Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute to guard the execution site against a possible abolitionist rescue attempt. The units formed a hollow square around the scaffold. Brown was hanged without incident. He faced death impassively, without any sign of fear. Another impassive and fearless man, the commander of the VMI detachment, watched Brown’s death. His name was Major Thomas J. Jackson, a Mexican War veteran and instructor at the school. In a short time the unpretentious, devout Jackson would become one of the most famous wartime leaders in American history.

“John Brown’s Body”

At the beginning of the war, Union volunteers marched off to war singing a song called “John Brown’s Body.” The first line of the song reflected how Brown had become a prophetic figure to many in the North:

“John Brown’s body lies a’moulderin’ in the grave! But his soul goes marching on!”

Julia Ward Howe heard soldiers singing the song as they marched below her hotel window in Washington, D.C. Filled with inspiration by the massed voices, she immediately sat down and composed new, more strident words to the tune she heard. That tune and her lyrics became more famous than the original as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a song that still stirs a powerful sense of patriotism. Listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing it, and you’ll never forget it. The original tune for “John Brown’s Body” (again with new lyrics) has become the battle song of U.S. paratroopers, titled “Blood on the Risers.” Unfortunately, it is doubtful that you’ll ever hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing this version.

The Fighting South, the Angry North

Following John Brown’s raid, the atmosphere became tense. When people believe they are trapped and are threatened with destruction, they take the only option left — to fight. In 1859, much of the Southern states certainly viewed the situation in this way. The North’s opposition to slavery as an institution left the South with very few options. They were defending constitutional guarantees, as they saw it, and those guarantees were worth fighting for.

The North also felt trapped by the debilitating effects slavery had on the nation. As long as the South maintained its hold on power, the nation would continue to stumble from one crisis to the next. The implied threat of the South using the Constitution and the Supreme Court to impose its repugnant system on the country angered and frightened many Northerners. Many believed the time was coming to resist such attempts at destroying freedom.

By 1859, without a broad national consensus and the ability to see beyond this growing sense of fear, the United States was spinning out of control. At one time, most Americans believed that sectional trouble could be blamed on radical agitators on both sides; this was no longer the case, however. Many Americans came to see some sort of armed clash between the North and South as inevitable, an “irrepressible conflict” in the words of William Seward, a Northern Republican.

The Election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860

Almost a year after Brown’s death, Americans voted in a presidential election. Abraham Lincoln, whose voice over the past three years had become the voice of the Republican Party, was nominated for president. Lincoln had made speeches in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, and New York, proclaiming as eloquently as anyone of his century that slavery was a moral wrong, “founded on both injustice and bad policy” as he put it. Quoting the Bible, the source of his most inspired speeches, Lincoln told his audiences that the country was “a house divided against itself.” “I believe,” he said, “this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free .” He dissected the Southern defense of slavery, exposing it in a way that the average man could understand.

Although the party had several stronger and more politically powerful candidates, Lincoln emerged as the compromise nominee at the Republican convention because he had the approval of both the very fractious right wing (former Whigs) and left wing (abolitionists) of the party. The Republicans adopted a strong sectional platform, supporting the Wilmot Proviso (see Chapter 1), internal improvements, a transcontinental railroad, and support to immigration. The astute reader will note that slavery is missing from this platform. High moral ideals often take a backseat when the political stakes (like the presidency) are so high. Even though clearly a sectional party, the Republicans hedged their bets a bit to try and capture votes outside the North.

Another party

The Know-Nothings, who had changed their name to the American Party in the last presidential election, now became the Constitutional Union Party. Their strategy, true to form, centered on ignoring the slavery issue completely. Their platform was summarized in a slogan that couldn’t possibly insult anyone: “We are for Constitution and Union.” This party (such as it was), with its clever matching name and slogan, nominated John Bell of Tennessee, who had strong support from voters in Maryland and Kentucky.

The Democrats divide

The Democrats, after the Dred Scott decision, could no longer maintain a North-South coalition. The party broke into two separate parties, each nominating a candidate advocating a sectional platform. The pro-North wing nominated Stephen Douglas, the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the man who had defeated Lincoln in the 1858 Illinois Senate race. These Democrats vaguely supported both popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. Because there was no clear-cut statement that supported congressional protection for slavery in the territories, several Southern states took action to force the issue. South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia delegates established a pro-South wing of the party and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, Buchanan’s vice president.

Thus the election of 1860 had four candidates, each appealing to the voters as the only true defender of the Union. The Democrats spent a great deal of effort attacking each other. The well-financed Republicans spent their money on large and enthusiastic demonstrations on behalf of their candidate. This left Lincoln to say very little at all, in spite of Southern Democrats decrying Lincoln as an enemy of the South. At this time, Lincoln might have been able to calm fears and explain his views, but decided not to, thinking that the South would not believe anything he said. At any rate, the Republican strategists had written off the South and concentrated on the populous states in the Midwest where the electoral votes were concentrated. Of course, presidents are not elected by popular votes (individual votes cast by citizens), but electoral votes. Electoral votes are a number value assigned to each state based on its population. Whoever wins the most number of popular votes in a state, wins those electoral votes; whoever wins the most electoral votes, wins the election.

The Republican strategy worked. Lincoln won every state in the North except New Jersey. Oregon and California joined to give the Republicans 180 electoral votes and the presidency. Breckinridge won most of the South with 72 electoral votes. Bell captured 39 electoral votes with Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. Douglas took 12 electoral votes in two states, New Jersey and Missouri. Although the aggregate popular vote didn’t count, a breakdown of these votes is instructive. The three other candidates received 1 million more popular votes than Lincoln did. In the popular vote, interestingly, Lincoln received no votes at all in ten Southern states. In the rest of the South, he had a negligible tally. Another interesting fact emerges about Southern voting. The popular vote in the South was split between the three other candidates, indicating no agreement about the future of the nation, except to prevent Lincoln’s election. See Figure 2-5.

One of the interesting quirks of democracy that fascinates and puzzles the non-democratic world is the way that the voters, whose candidate does not win, accept the judgment of the majority allowing the business of the nation to go on. Although we don’t think about it much, in reality this unstated agreement is a very fragile condition, which forms the base of the democratic process. In November 1860, that base was shattered. For the first time in American history, the voters of the losing party refused to accept or abide by the results of an election.

Figure 2-5: The results of the electoral votes by party for the U.S. election of 1860.

The South’s view of the election

Here’s how the South analyzed the results of the election. The Republicans won 180 electoral votes. This meant that even if only one candidate had opposed Lincoln, with the entire South united in support, Lincoln would have still won the election. The South simply lacked the electoral votes to offset the advantage of the Northern states.

Clearly, Southern political power had disappeared, and the Republican Party now could dominate the House and the presidency at will. There would be no congressional guarantees of slavery or protection of Southern rights coming from a House of Representatives dominated by the North. Without any words of conciliation coming from the Republicans, many Southerners feared the worst and began to contemplate the last option they believed they had left — leaving the Union.

So Who Started the War?

This is a good question to ask about now. Who gets the blame for bringing the nation to such a terrible fate? The answer can very much depend on your partisan point of view. You can blame Lincoln for maneuvering Jefferson Davis into a confrontation, knowing that Davis had no choice but to resist the resupply effort. Lincoln even told him about the relief expedition just to make sure Davis’s forces would be ready when it arrived. You can blame Jefferson Davis for being overly aggressive, seeking confrontation with the U.S. government over Sumter out of a misplaced sense of Southern national pride. You can also blame both of them equally for setting conditions neither could fulfill.

The problem was that compromise was impossible for either president. It was inevitable that shots would have been fired. Lincoln had pledged to save the Union in March; 40 days later, he was at war. If Lincoln did not force a decision, the Confederacy would have gone on unmolested, mocking Lincoln’s oath. Davis pledged to defend the new Confederacy in February; 50 days later, he was at war. If Davis didn’t force a decision, the Confederacy would have no legitimacy, and the act of secession would be meaningless.

By authorizing the attack on Sumter, Davis made a conscious decision, knowing that the Confederate states could not leave the Union peacefully as he had hoped. He was perfectly willing to risk war, however, to secure the independence of the new nation. Lincoln, too, made a conscious decision by calling for 75,000 volunteers to crush what he called a rebellion. He knew full well that his action risked losing all of the slave states to the Confederacy and thus initiating a war of terrifying magnitude. Yet he was willing to risk such a war for the principle of the Union.

Well, there you have it — plenty of blame to go around. Like it or not, history shows us that sometimes there just aren’t simple answers. Issues of war and peace can be mighty tough to sort out, and leaders can find themselves in a crisis with no other option except war. You pick your position and come out fighting.