1800–1858: The North and the South Seek Compromise

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the Northern and Southern regions of the United States struggled to find a mutually acceptable solution to the slavery issue. Unfortunately, little common ground could be found. The cotton-oriented economy of the American South continued to rest on the shoulders of its slaves, even as Northern calls for the abolition of slavery grew louder. At the same time, the industrialization of the North continued. During the 1820s and 1830s, the different needs of the two regions' economies further strained relations between the North and the South.

The first half of the nineteenth century was also a period of great expansion for the United States. In 1803, the nation purchased the vast Louisiana Territory from France, and in the late 1840s it wrestled Texas and five hundred thousand square miles of land in western North America from Mexico. But in both of these cases, the addition of new land deepened the bitterness between the North and the South. As each new state and territory was admitted into the Union, the two sides engaged in furious arguments over whether slavery would be permitted within its borders. Urged on by the growing abolitionist movement, Northerners became determined to halt the spread of slavery. Southern slaveholders fiercely resisted, however, because they knew that they would be unable to stop antislavery legislation in the U.S. Congress if some of the new states were not admitted as slave states. In order to preserve the Union, the two sides agreed to a series of compromises on the issue of slavery.

Federal authority and states' rights

From the time that the original thirteen colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776, Americans worked to develop an effective system of democratic government. The first comprehensive rules of government passed were the Articles of Confederation, which were ratified (legally approved) in 1781. Under the terms of this document, the individual states held most of the country's legislative power. The Articles of Confederation also provided for the creation of a central or federal government to guide the nation, but this government was given so little authority that it was unable to do much.

Within a few years, most legislators agreed that they needed to make some changes. American leaders subsequently adopted the U.S. Constitution, which provided additional powers to the federal government. But congressional leaders also made sure that the individual states retained some rights, inserting language that was designed to strike a balance between federal and state power.

Complaints about this arrangement flared up from time to time in both the northern and southern regions of the country, as Supreme Court decisions (McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819) and other events expanded the scope of federal authority. Southerners became particularly skeptical of federal power because they worried that the national government might someday try to outlaw slavery over the objections of individual Southern states.

Then, in the late 1820s, federal actions on two major issues made Southern lawmakers angrier than they had ever been before. First, the federal government attached high purchase prices to most of the territory out west in order to increase its revenues. Southerners had hoped that the land would be inexpensive so that they could buy land to increase their production of cotton and other crops without spending too much money.

The action that most angered Southerners, however, was the federal government's decision to impose high tariffs, or taxes, on goods from other countries. This system of tariffs was passed in 1828 at the insistence of Northern businessmen, who knew that people would continue to buy their products if European goods were made more expensive by the tariffs. Southerners reacted furiously, calling the 1828 tariff a "tariff of abominations." They said that the tariff would force Southerners to buy products from Northern merchants who, protected by the tariff on foreign goods, would be able to charge higher prices. Ignoring Southern complaints, Congress passed a second Tariff Act in 1832 that was also seen as providing benefits to the North at the expense of the South.

Led by Senator John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), a former vice president of the United States, the South Carolina legislature decided to take a stand against the new tariffs. In November 1832, state legislators passed the Ordinance of Nullification, which described the new taxes as "unconstitutional, oppressive [harsh], and unjust." The language of the bill reflected the legislature's belief that the state had the right to disregard the new federal tariff laws because it did not support them. South Carolina backed up this proclamation of "states' rights" by calling for the organization of a militia (an army of regular citizens) to defend the state against any federal "invasion." Suddenly, South Carolina looked as if it was on the verge of trying to secede (withdraw) from the United States.

U.S. president Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) was appalled by the passage of the South Carolina bill, and he warned state officials that he was willing to use the military to enforce federal law. "Can any one of common sense believe the absurdity that a faction of any state, or a state, has a right to secede and destroy this union and the liberty of our country with it; or nullify laws of the union?" he wrote. "Then indeed is our constitution a rope of sand. . . . The union must be preserved, and it will now be tested, by the support I get from the people. I will die for the union." But even as Jackson prepared for military action, he tried to convince Congress to address South Carolina's complaints by making changes to the tariff laws.

In early 1833, the tense situation was finally resolved. Both the federal and South Carolina governments agreed on a compromised system of reduced tariffs. But the so-called "nullification crisis" had a lasting impact in the United States. It further strained relations between the North and the South and convinced many Southerners that the concept of states' rights was their best weapon against Northern abolitionists. Finally, South Carolina's defiant stand introduced the idea of secession to a generation of Southerners. All across the South, from Richmond, Virginia, to New Orleans, Louisiana, white communities began to wonder if secession from the Union might ultimately be the only way for them to keep their way of life intact.

Missouri Compromise

Another factor that increased tensions between America's northern and southern regions was territorial expansion. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) had bought a huge parcel of land in North America from France for $15 million. This acquisition of land, known as the Louisiana Purchase, added more than eight hundred thousand square miles to the United States. The Louisiana Purchase was a very sound investment for America, since the land would eventually make up all or part of thirteen states (Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming).

After completing the transaction with France, the United States divided the Louisiana Territory into several smaller territories. It was agreed that as these territories became settled, they would be able to apply for statehood and join the Union. But when the Missouri Territory applied for statehood in 1818, the issue of slavery immediately emerged as an obstacle. Missouri had petitioned Congress for statehood as a slaveholding state. This news pleased the Southerners. After all, if Missouri was admitted as a slave state, the number of slave states in the Union would be greater than the number of free (nonslave) states by a twelve-to-eleven count. This in turn would mean that the South would have more senators in the U.S. Senate than the North, since each state was representated by two senators. (State representation in the United States' other major legislative body, the House of Representatives, was determined by population size; since the population in the North was higher than in the South, the North was able to send a greater number of representatives to the House than the South.) In the Northern United States, however, many people objected to the idea of admitting Missouri as a slave state.

At first it seemed as if North and South would never reach agreement on Missouri's status. Tempers flared as representatives of each side suggested solutions that were unacceptable to the other side. Politicians from the North argued that slavery should be banned in all new states, while Southern legislators insisted that each state should have the right to determine for itself whether to allow slavery within its borders. With each passing day, anger about the issue boiled a little higher. As the deadlock over the conditions of Missouri's admission continued, a worried Thomas Jefferson wrote that "this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once the knell [sign of disaster] of the Union."

Finally, a powerful senator from Kentucky named Henry Clay (1777–1852) put together a compromise plan that both sides grudgingly accepted. Under the terms of Clay's plan, Missouri would be admitted into the Union as a slave state. But at the same time, a section of the Northern state of Massachusetts known as Maine would be admitted into the Union as a free state. This arrangement would ensure a continued balance in the number of slave and nonslave states. In addition, Clay's Missouri Compromise of 1820 established a line across the midsection of American territory above which slavery would not be permitted. This line preserved most of the remaining land gained through the Louisiana Purchase from slavery. But as Northern abolitionists bitterly observed, Clay's compromise did not offer protection to present or future U.S. lands south of the line.

Few people were completely happy with the Missouri Compromise. Southern whites viewed the agreement as another indication that Northern antislavery feelings threatened to destroy their economic and social system. Northerners were distressed that the compromise allowed for the introduction of slavery into new territories. Both sides wanted to avoid a crisis, however, and most people were relieved when Clay's compromise was accepted. But even as the country congratulated itself for avoiding a showdown between the North and the South, a few people recognized that the Missouri Compromise had only delayed the clash over slavery that was brewing. Former U.S. president John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), for example, called the 1820 debate over slavery nothing less than "a title page to a great, tragic volume."

In the years immediately after the passage of the Missouri Compromise, arguments about the future of slavery in the United States subsided somewhat. In the late 1830s and 1840s, however, the Northern abolitionist movement became stronger than ever before, and arguments about the legality of slavery in America's western territories resurfaced. The citizens of the North and the South were forced to turn their attention back to slavery once again.

Slavery and the war with Mexico

During the 1840s, American slaveholding states watched with mounting anxiety and resentment as their economy and culture came under fire from their Northern countrymen. For many Southerners, it seemed as if the debate over slavery was spiraling out of control, and that they were losing the battle. After all, opposition to slavery was growing all across the North, and the network of abolitionists known as the Underground Railroad was safely delivering hundreds of fugitive slaves to Canada and free Northern states each year.

As support for abolitionism increased in the North, the South became even more determined to defend itself and the institution of slavery. The confrontation reached a peak in the mid-1840s, when America acquired huge new parcels of western land. First, the United States annexed (added) Texas as a state in 1845, even though the region had once been a province of Mexico and was still viewed as Mexican territory by that country's rulers. The United States and Mexico quickly declared war over the disputed land. By the time a peace treaty ending the war was signed in 1848, America had not only won Texas, but had also wrestled another huge piece of western land from Mexican control. The United States would eventually divide this territory into all or part of a number of states, including California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

White Southern leaders knew that their ability to maintain slavery in their own states depended on whether slavery would be permitted in any of the new states that would be formed out of these new territories. Texas had been admitted into the Union as a slave state, but if the rest of America's new territories remained slave-free, then antislavery legislators would outnumber proslavery legislators. Abolitionists would then be able to pass antislavery legislation over the objections of the South, which would be forced to admit defeat or take the drastic step of trying to form a separate country through secession.

As Southern leaders vowed to protect slavery and the principles of states' rights in the debate over America's new lands, abolitionists signaled their determination as well. Mindful of changing Northern attitudes, some Northern politicians decided that they could no longer follow the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had divided North America into free and slave-permitting geographical regions. A new political party called the Free Soil Party was organized in the North with the specific purpose of ensuring that new American states and territories were kept slave-free. And in 1846, U.S. representative David Wilmot (1814–1868) of Pennsylvania introduced a bill in Congress designed to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico. This amendment, known as the Wilmot Proviso, was narrowly defeated by Southern legislators. But Northern abolitionists refused to give up on the bill, and they made repeated attempts to get it past furious Southern lawmakers.

As the battle over Wilmot's bill dragged on, South Carolina senator John Calhoun once again emerged as a leading spokesman for the South. He argued that since thousands of soldiers from the South had fought and died to help the United States win the western territories from Mexico, it was not fair to the South to deny it an equal say in determining the laws governing those territories. Calhoun and other Southerners also maintained that people living out West had the right to form a proslavery state government if they wanted to. Finally, they repeatedly stated their belief that any national law that restricted or outlawed slavery was unconstitutional and violated the rights of individual states to govern themselves as they saw fit.

Compromise of 1850

By 1850, the deadlock over slavery in America's western territories had become a crisis. People living in California, New Mexico, and other western lands did not want any delays in being admitted into the Union, but it appeared that there was no way for the North and the South to bridge the division between them. As their frustration grew, Southern policymakers started discussing the possibility of secession from the Union. Georgia congressman Robert Toombs (1810–1885), for example, said: "I do not hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God, that if, by your legislation, you seek to drive us from the territories of California and New Mexico, purchased by the common blood and treasure of the whole people . . . thereby attempting to fix a national degradation upon half the States of this Confederacy, [then] I am for disunion."

Northern leaders were very concerned about such statements. "There is a bad state of things here [in Congress]," wrote one Illinois legislator. "I fear this Union is in danger. . . . It is appalling to hear gentlemen, Members of Congress, sworn to support the Constitution, talk and talk earnestly for a dissolution of the Union." But antislavery feelings in the North had become so great that its representatives continued to resist laws that would allow slavery in the West. Moreover, they flatly warned the South not to make any attempt to secede. Convinced that the secession of the Southern states would be a crippling blow to America's growing military and economic power in the world, free-state politicians and newspapers threatened that the North would use force, if necessary, to keep the Union together.

Finally, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, who had authored the Missouri Compromise thirty years earlier, stepped into the middle of the raging debate with a series of suggested compromises designed to avert a tragic war. In a stirring speech to his fellow lawmakers, Clay confirmed that the North would never allow the South to secede without a fight. He also warned that if their differences did indeed explode into war, "we may search the pages of history, and [find no war that would be] so ferocious, so bloody, so implacable [unable to be pacified], so exterminating [deadly]." Clay went on to urge "gentlemen . . . whether from the South or the North . . . to pause at the edge of the precipice, before the fearful and dangerous leap be taken into the yawning abyss below, from which none who ever take it shall return in safety."

The measures put forth by Clay required both sides to make major sacrifices. Clay's compromise called for California to be admitted into the Union as a free state and authorized the abolition of the slave trade in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital. Southern lawmakers did not like either of these measures, but Clay included other conditions that they did favor. The first of these was a $10 million payment to the slave state of Texas to give up its claim to a section of the New Mexico territory and pay off debts. The second condition was a much stronger fugitive slave law designed to help Southern slaveholders recapture runaways in the North. Finally, the last piece of Clay's compromise gave each western territory the power to decide for itself whether to allow slavery within its borders. This idea, first suggested by U.S. senator Lewis Cass (1782–1866) of Michigan, weakened the slave states' boundaries set by the Missouri Compromise back in 1820.

No one was entirely happy with Clay's solution, and Congress proved unable to pass it in its original form. In fact, some of the most influential leaders in both the North and the South denounced it. U.S. senator William Seward (1801–1872) of the Northern state of New York, for example, rejected it because it still preserved slavery on American soil. The South's John Calhoun, meanwhile, bitterly opposed it as further evidence of Northern interference with Southern affairs. But U.S. senator Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861) of Illinois managed to guide each piece of Clay's compromise through Congress as a separate bill.

Still, the Compromise of 1850—as Clay's compromise came to be known—probably would have never become law if not for the death of President Zachary Taylor (1784–1850). Taylor's strong antislavery feelings and fierce loyalty to the Union made him view many Southern positions unfavorably, and he would have probably vetoed the agreement because of its pro-South elements. But when he died in July 1850, Vice President Millard Fillmore (1800–1874) took his place. Fillmore was much more willing to negotiate with the slave states, and he signed the compromise into law in September 1850.

Once again, the North and the South had managed to avoid coming to blows over their differences. People all across the nation breathed a sigh of relief when the agreement was reached. Nonetheless, hard feelings remained. Politicians and ordinary citizens alike recognized that the two sides had rolled to the very brink of war, only to pull back at the last instant. Everyone wondered whether the fragile peace would last.

Fugitive Slave Act

As it turned out, one piece of the Compromise of 1850—the Fugitive Slave Act—proved to be a disaster for the badly splintered country. At first, slaveholders in the South were quite satisfied with the law. It made the task of retrieving runaway slaves living in the North easier, and it called for severe penalties, including large fines and prison terms, for anyone who provided escaped slaves with food, shelter, or any other kind of assistance. Furthermore, it commanded all U.S. citizens "to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may be required."

But within a few months, it was clear that the Fugitive Slave Act infuriated Northern abolitionists, which ultimately hurt the Southern cause. The law had been designed so that a new class of federal officials, called commissioners, could help slaveholders capture runaways. But the law also made it possible for so-called "slavecatchers" to grab free blacks and claim that they were actually escaped slaves. Once captured, free blacks who were accused of being fugitives were given little opportunity to defend themselves. They had no right to a jury trial or to testify on their own behalf. Instead, they were brought before a commissioner, who decided whether these alleged fugitives would go free or be forced into enslavement in the South. This situation was made even worse by the fact that a commissioner received a higher salary from the government if he decided that a black brought before him was an escaped slave. As a result, many free blacks were falsely imprisoned and forcibly enslaved on cotton and sugar cane plantations in the South.

Angry Northern abolitionists vowed to fight the Compromise of 1850 at every turn. Even more importantly, however, the law turned thousands of other Northerners against slavery. "The pitiful spectacle of helpless blacks being seized in the streets and dragged off to slavery could unsettle the most prejudiced northern white," wrote Jeffrey Rogers Hummel. "Northern mobs, which once had directed their fury at abolitionists, now attacked slave catchers, broke into jails, and rescued fugitive slaves. . . . The national government tried vigorously to prosecute the [Northern white] law-breakers responsible for such defiance, but northern juries refused to convict."

As Americans in the North came to see the Fugitive Slave Act as little more than government-sponsored kidnapping, their support for the abolitionist movement soared. Moving testimony from fugitive slaves who came North via the Underground Railroad further added to proabolition feelings. Then, in 1852, a novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) called Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. Uncle Tom's Cabin was an enormously popular book that provided a sympathetic portrait of enslaved blacks. Written by Stowe in response to the Fugitive Slave Act, the novel became the most important work of literature in abolitionist history.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

The Fugitive Slave Act and the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin combined to create unprecedented (unheard of) Northern hostility toward the South and its continued defense of slavery. Then in 1854, a new law called the Kansas-Nebraska Act made relations between the North and the South even worse. This law sparked a terrible eruption of violence between pro- and antislavery factions that ultimately took the lives of more than two hundred people.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act had been crafted by Senator Douglas of Illinois in response to the growing national call for construction of a railroad that would extend from America's East Coast to its West Coast. Douglas wanted to build this "transcontinental" railroad through the middle of the country so that it would pass through the Chicago area. The senator, who was thinking about running for president some day, knew that if his route was chosen, he would be very popular with voters in his home state and other regions of the North. In addition, Douglas owned a lot of real estate along his proposed route, and he recognized that he could sell this land to merchants and other business owners for a great deal of money.

Douglas faced two major obstacles to his plan, however. First, his proposed route would take the railroad through a vast territory in the middle of the country that still had not formed any kind of government. Several attempts had been made to establish a territorial government in the region, but these had been blocked by Southern legislators, who knew that the territory's location would make it a nonslave state according to the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Second, the South wanted the transcontinental railroad for itself and resisted all efforts to route the railroad through the North.

As Douglas studied the situation, he recognized that there was one way that he could convince Southern legislators to give up their claim on the railroad. In return for their support of his proposed route through the North, Douglas submitted a bill that divided the disputed territory into two territories—Kansas and Nebraska—that could decide for themselves whether to permit slavery. Southern members of Congress accepted the deal, and even though many Northern lawmakers voted against Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act, it received enough support for passage.

Based on the concept of "popular sovereignty," which held that the citizens of each new state should be able to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was enormously popular with Southerners. It explicitly abolished the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had drawn a line across the country and outlawed slavery in thousands of square miles of American territory. This gave the South a golden opportunity to expand the practice of slavery.

In the North, however, the new law was greeted with disgust and mounting anger. Antislavery congressmen, led by Senator Salmon P. Chase (1808–1873) of Ohio, immediately issued a document called The Appeal of the Independent Democrats. It denounced Douglas's bill as "a criminal betrayal of precious rights" and "part and parcel of an atrocious plot [to convert the West] into a dreary region of despotism [acting like a ruler with total power], inhabited by masters and slaves. . . . Whatever apologies may be offered for the toleration of slavery in the States, none can be offered for its extension into Territories where it does not exist." These feelings were echoed by abolitionists all across the North, and millions of the region's citizens became convinced that the South meant to spread the stain of slavery all across the West.

The fight over slavery in "Bleeding Kansas"

The passage of Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act triggered a wild outburst of activity. Nebraska's reputation as a solid antislavery territory spared it from becoming a battleground for abolitionist and proslavery forces, and it was allowed to move toward statehood in relative peace. It was a different story in Kansas, however.

As soon as the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, abolitionist and proslavery forces rushed into the Kansas territory in order to claim the land, knowing that a vote of its citizenry would determine its status. "Come on, then, gentlemen of the Slave States," said Senator Seward of New York, who held the widespread belief that the frantic race for superiority in the territory would ultimately determine slavery's future throughout all of America. "Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of the cause of freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers as it is in right." Southerners recognized that the fight over Kansas was an important one as well. "We are playing for a mighty stake," wrote Missouri senator David Atchison (1807–1886). "If we win we carry slavery to the Pacific Ocean [but] if we fail we lose Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas and all the territories."

The struggle to control Kansas continued on throughout 1854 and 1855. Aided by a Northern antislavery organization known as the Emigrant Aid Society, settlers who supported a free state poured into Kansas. Many of these settlers were equipped with rifles known as "Beecher's Bibles" because they had been provided by a Brooklyn, New York, church headed by abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887).

Proslavery forces flooded the territory in even greater numbers, however. Many of these people actually lived in the neighboring slave state of Missouri, but they were determined to see slavery's expansion into Kansas. These "border ruffians" (bullies), as they were often called, threatened and intimidated abolitionist settlers, and they cast thousands of illegal votes on behalf of proslavery political candidates. By mid-1855, a proslavery territorial legislature had established itself in Kansas on the strength of these false votes. After being formally recognized by the federal government, these antiabolitionist lawmakers promptly passed a wave of proslavery laws and expelled all abolitionists holding political office in the territory.

But antislavery groups refused to give up. Instead, they met in Lawrence, Kansas, to formally protest the earlier elections and to request admission into the Union as a free-soil state (although they also called for a law that would have prevented any blacks—free or slave—from living in the territory). By mid-1856, two separate legislatures—one fiercely proslavery, the other equally dedicated to free-soil ideals—had been established in Kansas.

As the two factions struggled for supremacy, violence swept across the territory. In May 1856, hundreds of proslavery Missourians raided the abolitionist stronghold of Lawrence, terrorizing citizens and destroying buildings. This raiding party was led by Atchison, who resigned his Senate seat to lead the battle in Kansas. A few days after the attack on Lawrence, a radical abolitionist named John Brown (1800–1859) and a number of his sons captured five proslavery settlers and executed them with broadswords in front of their families. Throughout the summer of 1856, the federal government watched helplessly as lynchings (murders by a mob without a trial), horse theft, arson, and murder became common tactics throughout "Bleeding Kansas." The territory had become a nightmarish battle zone in which no one was safe.

The violence in Kansas even spread to the nation's capitol at one point. In May 1856, abolitionist senator Charles Sumner (1811–1874) of Massachusetts launched into a speech called "The Crime Against Kansas." During his speech, Sumner bitterly criticized several proslavery senators, including the uncle of Congressman Preston Brooks (1819–1857) of South Carolina. A few days later, Brooks strode over to Sumner's desk on the Senate floor and brutally attacked him with a cane. Beaten into semi-consciousness, Sumner took nearly three years to recover from his injuries. Southerners, meanwhile, called Brooks a hero. In the weeks following the attack, the South Carolina legislator received dozens of canes in the mail from admirers, many of whom urged Brooks to "Hit [Sumner] again." Brooks's attack, for which he was fined $300, remains one of the most infamous incidents in the history of Congress.

Buchanan supports the Lecompton Constitution

In early 1858, the federal government was finally able to regain some measure of control over the Kansas territory, and the violence lessened. Both sides continued to battle in the political arena, however. As order was restored, it became clear to proslavery Kansans that they were outnumbered by abolitionists. Supporters of slavery, though, had an important ally in President James Buchanan (1791–1868), a Democrat who was sympathetic to the South. Aided by Buchanan, the territory's proslavery leaders made one final attempt to add Kansas to the Union as a slave state by presenting to Congress a proslavery state constitution called the Lecompton Constitution. ("Lecompton" comes from the fact that the constitution was signed in Lecompton, Kansas.)

Buchanan's decision to support the Lecompton Constitution infuriated Stephen Douglas, the architect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas viewed the Lecompton Constitution as an obvious attempt to force slavery on the people of Kansas, even though the majority of its citizens did not want it. "Why force this constitution down the throats of the people of Kansas, in opposition to their wishes and in violation of our pledges?" asked Douglas. He further claimed that neither the North nor the South had the right to resort to "trickery or fraud" in the struggle over slavery. "If Kansas wants a slave-state constitution she has a right to it," said Douglas. "If she wants a free-state constitution she has a right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery cause is decided. . . . I will stand on the great principle of popular sovereignty, which declares the right of all people to be left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way."

Led by Douglas, a coalition of Republican and Northern Democratic legislators blocked the Lecompton Constitution from being passed. Buchanan and his allies did not give up though. Instead, they attempted to bribe the people of Kansas into joining the Union as a slave state. They passed legislation that guaranteed the people of Kansas a large amount of additional federal land if they voted to accept the Lecompton Constitution in a special referendum. If Kansas voted against the controversial constitution, on the other hand, it would be unable to petition for statehood until its population reached ninety thousand. But this effort to bribe the citizens of Kansas failed, and the Lecompton Constitution was defeated decisively. In 1861, three years after the Lecompton Constitution was rejected, Kansas was finally admitted into the United States as a free state.

Legislation triggers political upheaval

Kansas endured several years of fear and hatred in the years after Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act became law, but the Act's impact also was felt far beyond the Kansas and Nebraska borders. The entire nation was deeply involved with political change and uncertainty in the months and years following its passage. The law triggered the disintegration of the national Whig political party, which finally divided into Northern and Southern factions over the slavery issue. The Southern Whigs, also known as "Cotton Whigs," subsequently joined the proslavery Democratic Party, while members of the Northern Whigs and the Free-Soil Party combined to form the antislavery Republican Party in the North.

This political turmoil was reflected in the national elections of 1856. When the Whig Party fell apart, the Democratic Party stood as the only political party in America with significant influence in both the North and the South. As the only national party still in existence, the Democrats were able to nudge their presidential candidate, James Buchanan, into the White House. But the 1856 election results showed that the proslavery leanings that made the party so powerful in the South were eroding its popularity in the North. In addition, the 1858 fight over the Lecompton Constitution further bruised the Democrats, sparking bitter divisions among party leaders like Buchanan and Douglas.

The Republicans took full advantage of the growing fragmentation in the Democratic Party. Gathering support throughout the North with their message of abolitionism and economic opportunity in the West, Republicans replaced Democrats in many Northern states by the late 1850s. But Republican officeholders remained practically nonexistent in the South during this time. Indeed, the Democrats had assumed a stranglehold on positions of power throughout the South on the strength of their increasingly proslavery attitudes. As observers looked over the new political landscape, they saw that the North and the South were pitted against one another once again.

Words to Know

Abolitionists people who worked to end slavery

Emancipation the act of freeing people from slavery or oppression

Federal national or central government; also, refers to the North or Union, as opposed to the South or Confederacy

Industrialization a process by which factories and manufacturing become very important to the economy of a country or region

Secession the formal withdrawal of eleven Southern states from the Union in 1860–61

States' rights the belief that each state has the right to decide how to handle various issues for itself without interference from the national government

Tariffs additional charges or taxes placed on goods imported from other countries

Territory a region that belongs to the United States but has not yet been made into a state or states

People to Know

James Buchanan (1791–1868) fifteenth president of the United States, 1857–61

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) South Carolina politician; vice-president of the United States, 1825–32

Henry Clay (1777–1852) Kentucky politician who wrote Missouri Compromise and Compromise of 1850

Stephen Douglas (1813–1861) Illinois politician; defeated Abraham Lincoln in 1858 U.S. Senate election

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) primary author of America's Declaration of Independence; third president of the United States, 1801–9

William Seward (1801–1872) New York politician; U.S. secretary of state, 1861–69

John C. Calhoun, the South's Most Powerful Voice

John C. Calhoun was the American South's most passionate defender of slavery and states' rights for much of the first half of the nineteenth century. A native of South Carolina, he graduated from Yale College before marrying and settling down into the life of a wealthy Southern plantation owner. In 1810, Calhoun was elected to represent his home state in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the next forty years, he served his state and country in a variety of positions. Representing South Carolina, he served six years as a congressman (1811–17) and fourteen years as a U.S. senator (1833–43, 1846–50). As a federal official, Calhoun served eight years as secretary of war (1817–25) under James Monroe (1758–1831), seven years as vice president (1825–32) under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and one year as secretary of state (1844–45) under John Tyler (1790–1862).

In his early political career, Calhoun often expressed support for federal actions that might increase America's industrial or economic growth. During the 1820s, however, he became distrustful of the power of the federal government, which he viewed as a tool of the North. As Calhoun's fears about Northern bullying of the South increased, he stepped into the spotlight as a fierce advocate of slavery and principles of states' rights, which he believed had to be enforced to keep the South free from Northern interference. He also emerged as the leader of a group of proslavery Southerners who viewed secession as a workable alternative to continued membership in the United States.

For much of the 1830s and 1840s, Calhoun stood as one of the South's most powerful voices. After all, he had served as vice president, led the South during the Nullification Crisis of 1832–33, and engineered the admission of Texas into the Union as a slave state while secretary of state. His views, then, carried great weight with his fellow Southerners, and as the debate over slavery grew more heated, Calhoun's words were echoed by fellow legislators all across the South.

By the mid-1840s, Calhoun was convinced that ever-growing abolitionist sentiments in the North might well push the federal government into an attempt to force the South to emancipate (free) its slaves. He reacted to this threat with defiance, defending his unwavering conviction (belief) that slavery was a moral good and claiming that the U.S. Constitution gave each state the right to build its society as it saw fit. Calhoun urged his fellow white Southerners to stand by their convictions as well, warning that their entire society would collapse if the abolitionists triumphed. "If we flinch [on the issue of slavery] we are gone, but if we stand fast on it, we shall triumph either by compelling [forcing] the North to yield to our terms, or declaring our independence of them," he wrote in 1847.

By 1850, however, the powerful politician from South Carolina was struck down by illness. He continued to warn that Southern secession (withdrawal from the Union)—and possibly a bloody civil war—would follow any attempt by the North to outlaw slavery in America, but he became so sick that he had to rely on aides to read his senate speeches. Calhoun died in 1850, just as America began its last desperate decade of attempts to avoid war.

Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser

The architect of both the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay was one of the leading politicians of his era. Born in Virginia, he represented his adopted home state of Kentucky during his long political life. Working as both a U.S. senator (1806–7, 1810–11, 1831–42, 1849–52) and representative (1811–14, 1815–21, 1823–25), Clay built a reputation as a strong Union supporter and believer in federal authority.

Clay was a perennial contender for the American presidency, but although he was able to win the National Republican nomination in 1832 and the Whig Party nomination in 1844, he was never able to gather enough support to achieve victory in a general election. Despite his defeats to Andrew Jackson in 1832 and James K. Polk (1795–1849) in 1844, Clay is remembered as one of America's great statesmen. He was devoted to the continued preservation of the United States, and his peacemaking efforts throughout the first half of the nineteenth century earned him the nicknames "the Great Compromiser" and "the Great Conciliator."

The Rescue of Shadrach

After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, many Northern abolitionists vowed to ignore or challenge the law. One of the best-known examples of this defiance took place in Boston, Massachusetts, in February 1851, when a group of black freemen united to free a fugitive slave named Shadrach, who had been captured by federal marshals.

During his enslavement in Virginia, Shadrach had been known as Frederick Wilkins. But after escaping to Massachusetts in 1850, he adopted the name Shadrach and found work as a waiter at a coffeehouse in Boston, one of the North's centers of abolitionist activity. His slave past was discovered, however, and on February 15, 1851, he was seized by federal marshals and taken to a nearby courthouse. But within hours of his arrest, a group of black men broke into the courthouse and overpowered the marshals who were guarding Shadrach. His rescuers then hid him away and used the Underground Railroad to deliver him to Canada, where the Fugitive Slave Act could not be enforced.

Shadrach eventually settled in Montreal, Quebec, where he opened a restaurant. Back in the United States, meanwhile, his dramatic rescue triggered a storm of controversy, especially when federal prosecutors could not convince jurors to convict eight men (four black, four white) who were charged with helping Shadrach reach Canada. Clergyman Theodore Parker (1810–1860) spoke for many happy abolitionists when he wrote that "Shadrach is delivered out of his burning, fiery furnace. I think [his rescue] is the most noble deed done in Boston since the destruction of the tea [in the Boston Tea Party] in 1773." But President Millard Fillmore denounced the action, and enraged Southerners insisted that such defiance (bold resistance) of the Act could not be tolerated. "Every exertion [effort] must be made to cause the laws to be respected," stated a February 21, 1851, editorial in the Richmond Enquirer. "Now is the time to act with spirit; now is the time to assure the whole nation that the laws must be respected, and that 'the Union must be preserved.' A striking and decided example [of punishment has so far been lacking] to repress [restrain] the fury of the fanatics, and prevent a repetition of similar offences."