Civil War Emancipation

 Although the U.S. Civil War started as an attempt to preserve the Union, the issue of slavery was always the pivotal cause of the conflict. Southerners feared that Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 was the first step in dismantling the peculiar institution of the South. They believed that Republican claims limiting slavery and opposing its expansion into the new western territories were merely the prelude to abolitionist goals. Northern war aims, however, gradually changed as emancipation became part of the slow transformation of life in the South with the advance of Union armies.

 

Early Steps toward Slave Emancipation

 

The first hint of emancipation took place at Fort Monroe in 1861 when several slaves left Confederate lines and sought asylum from Union general Benjamin Butler. Confederate officers, under a flag of truce, demanded the return of the slaves, citing the Fugitive Slave Law. Butler, a lawyer in private life, replied that the runaway slaves were “contraband of war.” The now freed slaves were given the opportunity to work for the Union army, with pay, and fully emancipated.

 

Butler’s precedent encouraged other slaves to cross over battle lines and seek freedom in Union occupied territory. In March 1862, Congress passed a law that prohibited the military from returning fugitive slaves. The Second Confiscation Act emancipated any slaves within the confines of Union occupied territory.

 

The Seeds of General Emancipation in 1862

 

Union policies allowing for gradual emancipation were tempered by fears that any move toward a general emancipation of Southern slaves would alienate pro-Union sympathizers in the South. Lincoln had not forgotten that the Election of 1860 revealed pro-Unionist attitudes in the South, identified with the Constitutional-Unionist Party.

 

Additionally, Lincoln researched colonization possibilities. Options included transporting freed slaves to Central America or the Caribbean. Some 5,000 former U.S. slaves were sent to Haiti but most of them soon left. Another option included a compensated emancipation, perhaps based on the Russian model of 1861.

 

The Emancipation Proclamation

 

By the end of 1862, Lincoln had finished the Emancipation Proclamation. The document freed all slaves within the rebel territories at the time of signing. It did not free slaves in Border States. Lincoln publicized the proclamation months before signing it, using it as an ultimatum against the Confederacy. In essence, if the South returned to the Union, Lincoln would not sign the document.

 

But the South kept fighting. Lincoln’s first official act in 1863 was signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Southerners saw this as confirmation of their initial fears regarding Lincoln and the Republicans. Northern Democrats criticized Lincoln for deviating from the original war aims. What they failed to see was that the Proclamation was not motivated by abolitionist concerns. The document was as much a part of the strategy of war as any military action.

 

Facing the Realities of Emancipation

 

The Emancipation Proclamation opened the door to hitherto radical notions regarding former slaves. These questions included a Constitutional definition of citizenship, extending the franchise to black men, and increasing the use of blacks in the military. 180,000 blacks served in the Union army with great distinction.

 

Civil War emancipation was gradual, but by the end of the conflict a transformation in the South had radically altered the social landscape. Although it would take over 100 years for African Americans to fully experience the social and political fruits of emancipation, the events that began in 1861 began the long overdue process.

 

Sources:

 

Gabor S. Boritt, Lincoln the War President (Oxford University Press, 1992)

William K. Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation 1861-1865 (Viking Penguin 2001)

Page Smith, Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Volume 5 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982)

Published first November 26, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. Copyright

President Lincoln and the South

 By the time Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4^th, 1860, the Confederacy had already been born, giving visible evidence to the many threats of secession resulting from the 1860 election. Lincoln, however, in deference to the sitting President James Buchanan, never revealed any policies toward the South other than to repeat that he was not in favor of war and that “there need be no bloodshed…there is no necessity for it.” (Philadelphia, February 22, 1861)

 

Constitutional Differences between North and South

 

Lincoln’s supporters attempted to persuade the South that the newly elected Republican President would not tamper with slavery in the South. Harper’s Weekly of December 1, 1860, quotes Illinois Senator Trumbull from a speech delivered in Springfield stating that, “When inaugurated he [Lincoln] will be the President of the whole country…” and would protect and defend the laws of the nation.

 

Lincoln had written Stephen Douglas shortly after the election, asking Douglas to assure the South that the Republicans had no intention to “interfere with the slaves, or with them [the South], about their slaves.” Douglas replied that the Union could never be preserved without force and conveyed to Lincoln the moral arguments held by the South regarding slavery, something historian Page Smith refers to as the “religion” of the South.

 

Southern views, however, held that the Union was a confederation, in which the individual states were sovereign and exercised rights not encumbered by the notion of federalism. This idea can be traced back to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and the decades-long debates over nullification.

 

In defending the Union and denying the Southern position, Lincoln studied the early Supreme Court opinions of John Marshall, notably such cases as McColloch v. Maryland that stressed national supremacy. Justifying his use of war powers to the July 1861 Congress, Lincoln stated that, “no choice was left but to call out the war power…and so to resist force employed for its destruction, by force for its preservation.”

 

Preparing for the Coming War

 

In December 1860, many Southern state legislatures authorized the formation of militias and other military units in anticipation of the conflict that would surely result from eventual secession. On December 1^st, North Carolina’s governor recommended the “enrollment of all men between eighteen and forty-five years” to comprise a corps of ten thousand men.

 

In the North it was NY Senator William Henry Seward and General Winfield Scott who began to implement war plans, Scott moving his headquarters from New York City to Washington in December and beginning the process of building a volunteer militia, numbering 3,500 by inauguration day. Lincoln, however, remained silent on such matters. His first military order would be the night of the inauguration: a message to Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter reassuring support.

 

Lincoln’s Position as President-Elect

 

It is wrong to suggest that Lincoln could have stopped South Carolina from leaving the Union, followed shortly thereafter by other Deep South states. It is also wrong to conclude that Lincoln caused the secession of Southern states. Stephen Douglas, who more than most men saw Lincoln as an implacable adversary, stated in a letter that, “…the mere election of any man to the Presidency…does not of itself furnish any just cause or reasonable ground for dissolving the Federal Union.”

 

Following the formation of the Confederacy and prior to the inauguration, Lincoln, on February 21^st, used the backdrop of Trenton, NJ to compare the patriot’s struggles at that famous battle with the struggles facing the nation in 1861. He never intimated war and even after the surrender of Fort Sumter called the action “insurrection,” ironically, the same term used by the South for slave rebellions.

 

Sources:

 

David Detzer, Dissonance: the Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc, 2006)

Harper’s Weekly, Vol. IV, No. 205, December 1, 1860, p.759.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt,” Lincoln the War President (Oxford University Press, 1992)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years (McGraw Hill Book Company, 1981)

Published first April 30, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Lincoln's Proclamation Combating Southern Secession

 On April 15^th, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation that called for 75,000 men from the various states “in order to suppress said combinations…” The Proclamation followed the surrender of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina after P.T. Beauregard’s bombardment. The South had fired the first shot, outraging the North. Excepting the Border States, Lincoln’s Proclamation was well-received but it would be weeks before the mostly untrained militia arrived in the nation’s capital.

 

Scope of the Proclamation

 

Lincoln opened the Proclamation by addressing the needs for his actions. The Laws of the United States were opposed and their execution “obstructed.” Lincoln listed the offending states: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. These “combinations” represented a force too powerful to be dealt with through ordinary channels of compliance such as the judiciary and the Federal Marshals.

 

The language of the Proclamation indicates that Lincoln viewed his response as a “police action” designed to “repossess” Federal property, i.e., forts, armories, and other assets. This was not a “Civil War” but an “insurrection.” There was to be no “…devastation…destruction…or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens…” Lincoln was well aware that pro-Union sentiment still existed in the South.

 

Lincoln, in calling a special July session of Congress, referred to unfolding events as “an extraordinary occasion.” As Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln believed that the Constitution supported his call for state militia volunteers to serve in the armies being planned in defense of Washington and the securing of Border States like Kentucky and Missouri.

 

As the Proclamation resulted in an outpouring of support and unity in the North, it extinguished lingering pro-Union sympathies in the South. Governor Jackson of Missouri replied to Lincoln that his request for men was “illegal” and “unconstitutional.” Both sides rushed to enlist men, dooming Lincoln’s “police action.” The April 27^th, 1861 Harper’s Weekly commented that, “Nobody – outside of lunatic asylums – doubts that civil war is an enormous calamity.”

 

Results of the Proclamation

 

Initial plans by the end of April suggested three separate army groups. The first, under the command of General Scott, would defend Washington with 50,000 men. A “New York Army” commanded by General Wood would be held in reserve while General Sumner was to encamp around the Cincinnati area with 75,000 men to protect the river systems, ultimately enabling Union troops to control the Mississippi. (“The War,” Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1861)

 

Most of the soldiers arriving from various Northern states were ill-trained. It took the troops several weeks to reach Washington, facing hostile opposition in Baltimore. Additionally, some of the army’s best officers resigned their commissions and returned to the South, as did Robert E. Lee, for example. The navy, it was predicted, would ensure that all Southern ports would be “hermetically sealed.”

 

In the South in the weeks following the Proclamation, war plans were also being refined. William T. Sherman, who visited Virginia months before these events, had already reported then that the South was preparing for war. General Beauregard wanted to attack Washington with 32,000 men but was overruled by Jefferson Davis on advice from Robert E. Lee. Although the advice was given based on military considerations, Davis did not want to be the aggressor, falling back on his oft repeated phrase, “I hope they leave us alone.”

 

The Proclamation Not a Call to War

 

Lincoln’s purposes were very clear: the Proclamation was not a call to war nor was it a war declaration – only the Congress can declare war. Any such war declaration would have legitimized the Confederate States of America. For Lincoln, the Proclamation was a carefully worded document aimed at recovering Federal property and forcing insurrectionists to comply with Federal law. It was the South that construed the Proclamation as a war declaration and responded accordingly.

 

Sources:

 

Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1861 (President Lincoln’s Proclamation reprinted, commentary, and daily news)

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (Vintage Books – Random House, 1986)

Published first in Suite101 May 3, 2009 by M.Streich. Copyright.

Surrender of Fort Sumter: Valor and Bravery

 

One of the most defining moments of the Civil War occurred on December 27, 1860, when Major Robert Anderson ordered the flag of the United States be raised over Fort Sumter, the island fortress in Charleston to which he had secretly transferred his command from Fort Moultrie a few hours earlier. Citizens in Charleston were outraged. Anderson’s symbolic action seemed to mock South Carolina’s Resolution seceding from the Union. Preparations were made by South Carolina to capture the fort.

 

On April 16, 1861, The New York Times reported, in an editorial praising Robert Anderson, that when, “…the rebel batteries were opened upon him, he lost no time in replying, nor did he surrender…until he was disabled by smoke and flame…and the exhaustion of his men.” The Civil War had begun.

 

Major Anderson and the Defense of Federal Forts in Charleston

 

Major Anderson arrived in Charleston in the fall of 1860 and would witness the growing anxiety of the local Charleston population after Abraham Lincoln was elected President in November 1860. At fifty-five, Anderson had a long and distinguished career which included valorous action in the Mexican-American War.

 

He was also an expert, perhaps the nation’s foremost, in artillery usage and had trained Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard at West Point, the man who ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861. Anderson had pro-Southern sympathies and was a long time friend of Jefferson Davis. But he was also close to General Winfield Scott, whom he regarded as a father.

 

Unlike fellow West Point graduates, Anderson valued his oath as an officer and refused to put regional loyalties before his principles. This was the man determined to hold the three principle federal military outposts in Charleston: Castle Pinckney, Fort Moultrie (or Moultrie House), and Fort Sumter.

 

Lincoln’s First Action as a President Facing War

 

Historian James M. McPherson writes that, “The first official document that Lincoln saw as President – at one o’clock in the morning when he returned from the inaugural ball – was a letter from Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter stating that unless re-supplied he could hold out only a few more weeks.”

 

Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, had done little to mitigate the deteriorating situation in Charleston. Although the Star of the West had been dispatched with reinforcements and supplies, it was turned back after Charleston shore batteries warned off the ship.

 

Anderson and Sumter’s defenders were left to fend for themselves. Buchanan’s response was far more reserved that Andrew Jackson’s had been toward South Carolina during the nullification crisis many years earlier.

 

During his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln, though not referring to Fort Sumter directly, stated that, “The powers confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government.”

 

In his December 3, 1861 Annual Message to Congress and the American people, Lincoln reminded his listeners that, “The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peacefully, expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter…”

 

The Fall of Fort Sumter Begins the Bloody Civil War

 

For the moment, the South was exultant over the fall of Fort Sumter. An April 16, 1861 New York Times story published the response of Jefferson Davis: “Fort Sumter is ours, and nobody is hurt. With mortar, paixhan and petard we tender ‘OLD ABE’ our Beau-regards.”

 

On the day Abraham Lincoln died in 1865, Anderson – now a general, would again raise the Stars and Stripes over Fort Sumter, assisted by Frederick Douglass, the fugitive slave who rose to become a towering figure in the cause of abolition. The Union was preserved after four years of bloody battles. April 12, 1861 still represents an anniversary of decision and courage.

 

Sources:

 

David Detzer, Dissonance: The Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc., 2006)

David Detzer, Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War (Harcourt, Inc., 2001)

The Language of Lincoln: The Political Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Joseph R. Fornieri, editor (Regnery, 2003)

James M. McPherson, “Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender,” Lincoln The War President, Gabor S. Boritt, editor (Oxford University Press, 1992)

Published December 16, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Charles Finney: Great Evangelist in the 19th Century

 The early 19^th century was a period of transition for Americans as the new nation was coming to terms with an expanding political system, a national identity, and the on-going westward movement. It was during this time of change that Charles Grandison Finney gave up his law practice to preach an emotional Christianity that resulted in acute frontier revivalism. Finney’s contribution to the Great Awakening of that early century came to affect not only collective spirituality, but the abolition movement and temperance reform.

 

The Early Life of Charles Finney

 

Finney was born in Connecticut in 1792 to a family that neither prayed nor attended church. Ironically, prayer would eventually become the very tool enabling Finney to confront his own doubts and later use extensively during his frontier ministry. He purchased his first Bible at the age of 29 while working as a lawyer.

 

After leaving Connecticut, Finney’s parents moved to Oneida County in New York. As a young teen, Finney enjoyed the vigorous outdoor work and became particularly fond of hunting, an activity that stayed with him throughout his life. He attended Hamilton College, founded originally as the Hamilton Oneida Institute by Samuel Kirkland who had dedicated his life as a missionary to the Native Americans.

 

The Beginning of Revivalism

 

Charles Finney had no formal theological training, relying only on his own understanding of the Bible and occasional sessions with established ministers. He turned down offers to attend Yale and Princeton. He derived his energy through fasting and prayer, often spending long hours by himself in the forest.

 

As with the first Great Awakening in the 1730’s and 1740’s, Finney took his message outdoors to wherever people would listen, much like George Whitfield and John Wesley had done. Like that earlier time, mainline, established churches refused to open their pulpits to the emotional preaching of the revivalist preacher. Finney pioneered the use of “testifying” by converts that related their conversion experiences during mass meetings. He also promoted impromptu prayer.

 

Traveling throughout the Northeast, Finney spoke to thousands. In his Memoirs, he relates, “I preached out of doors; I preached in barns; I preached in schoolhouses…” The theme of his sermons focused on the individual need for personal salvation and more than once congregations stormed out of meeting houses after being confronted by their own indifference and, according to Finney, “wickedness.” In every case, they later returned and converted, often in very emotional personal experiences.

 

The Professor and Reformer

 

In 1835 Charles Finney became the driving force behind Oberlin College, newly founded to train young men as ministers. Significantly, Oberlin accepted black students at a time this was virtually unthinkable even by many northern institutions. Finney became a vocal advocate of abolition as well as temperance reform, a national problem in the early 19^th century.

 

While teaching theology at Oberlin, Finney continued to preach, notably in New York at the Broadway Tabernacle which had been built years earlier specifically around his preaching. Finney took revivalism to Boston and New York, although vigorously opposed by the staid ministers of established churches.

 

Finney and the Great Awakening

 

The religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening changed the spiritual lives of tens of thousands due to revivalist preachers like Charles Finney and his message of personal salvation and “active Christianity.” According to political scientist James Morone, the movement “pushed religion into the vernacular.”

 

Charles Finney’s eloquence rested in the fact that he preached to people on their level without resorting to the dry homiletics of carefully constructed sermons. His firebrand style of preaching was the very essence of revivalism as it roared through the American frontier communities and later the urban centers of the Northeast.

 

References:

 

Basil Miller, Charles Finney (Dimension Books, 1941)

James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (Yale University Press, 2003)

First published January, 26, 2010 by M.Streich. copyright

Josiah Henson: the Real Life Uncle Tom and the inspiration for the Book that helped start a Civil War

Born in 1789, Josiah Henson spent most of his life in bondage as a slave in the pre-Civil War South. From childhood on, Henson experienced the frequent brutalities of the master-slave relationship. Like Nat Turner, who led the most serious slave uprising of that time in Virginia in August 1831, Henson was a deeply religious man who knew the Bible well. Unlike Turner, Henson refused to use violence – even when given the opportunity to do so, and became the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom.”

 

Josiah Henson as a Slave

 

As a young child, Henson experienced the painful separation from most of his immediate family, a typical occurrence in the slave south where black families were frequently separated and sold to different plantation owners. He witnessed the brutal beating and humiliation of his father, someone he would never see again after his father was sold to a plantation owner in the Deep South.

 

Josiah Henson was highly intelligent and a leader, a characteristic noticed by his master, and was made an overseer, something rarely done in the case of slaves. After defending his master against another white man, Henson was severely beaten by the assailant, suffering from broken shoulders that never truly healed.

 

As a young man, Henson listened to the sermons of traveling preachers and memorized parts of the scriptures. Eventually, he was ordained a Methodist minister and began to preach himself, earning money he intended to use to buy his freedom and that of his wife and children. His Maryland master, however, had lied to Henson and sent him and his family to a brother’s plantation in Tennessee.

 

Opportunity to Murder and Flee

 

Henson became bitter. Ordered to accompany the master’s son to New Orleans, Henson was certain that he was destined to be sold in the New Orleans slave auctions, never to see his family again. During the voyage on the Mississippi, Henson crept into the son’s room at night with an axe, intending to kill the young man. As he attempted to raise the axe, he was overcome with the horror of his actions and left the room.

 

Upon arriving in New Orleans, the young man became ill and Henson nursed him back to health. Having concluded his business in the city, the son and Henson returned to Tennessee. By this time, Henson knew that he had to flee the South with his family. Late one night, he took his wife and children and fled toward the shores of the Ohio River. Beyond the river was Ohio, a free state.

 

Even after reaching Ohio safely, however, Henson realized that they had to make their way to Canada. Although Ohio was a free state, and most inhabitants opposed slavery, there was no guarantee that southern bounty hunters might not find his family and bring them back to Tennessee in chains. Canada was the only truly secure option.

 

Freedom in Canada

 

Settling as a free man in Canada, Henson developed a community that assisted other fugitive slaves. He was a preacher and a teacher, creating fine furniture from wood. His exceptional life story became the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom in the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in 1852. Stowe’s portrayal of slavery was a pivotal literary argument that helped to further polarize North and South during one of the most significant decades of the 19^th century.

 

Josiah Henson died in 1883. The Civil War had ended 18 years earlier. Ostensibly “free,” southern blacks were re-enslaved by Jim Crow laws and the hated doctrine of “separate but equal.” Henson’s long life, however, was a reminder of perseverance and ultimate delivery.

 

Sources:

 

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (New York: Harper Classic, 1965)

Josiah Henson: The Real Uncle Tom (VHS produced by Day of Discovery, RBC Ministries, 2005)

First Published October 6, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

 

The Charleston Democratic Convention in 1860: 

 The Democratic Party Convention in Charleston, South Carolina in the spring of 1860 foreshadowed the demise of the only national political party to potentially field a presidential candidate in the fall. Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas realized this when he wrote on June 20^th, “there is eminent danger that the Democratic party will be demoralized if not destroyed by the breaking up of the Convention.” Douglas had hoped to receive the nomination, but his supporters were thwarted by Southern fire eaters like William Yancey and even the sitting president, James Buchanan.

 

The Choice of Charleston for the National Convention

 

Every historian writing about the events of 1860 concur that Charleston was a poor choice for the Democratic Convention. Northern Democrats hoped to move the convention site to Baltimore, a more neutral location, but Southerners rejected this. South Carolina had long been in the forefront as a champion of Southern causes; the South’s greatest apologist, John C. Calhoun, had represented the state for decades.

 

It would be in Charleston where the first shots of the Civil War were fired on Ft. Sumter. In the spring of 1860, Charleston memories vividly recalled the late 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry and many Southerners believed John Brown had received help from Northern Republicans. The Charleston Mercury churned out daily propaganda, reminding its readers that the South was rapidly becoming a minority entity in the expanding United States.

 

Stephen Douglas Clings to Popular Sovereignty

 

Although Douglas remained in Washington, recovering from serious illness, he was, according to Damon Wells, “…the only Democrat in 1860 who could unite his party and lead it to victory…” But Douglas advocated popular sovereignty in regard to the expansion of slavery in the western territories acquired in 1848. Seeking to circumvent the 1857 Dred Scott decision, Douglas formulated his Freeport Doctrine which still allowed citizens in a territory to decide the slavery issue.

 

Southerners would have none of it and Deep South delegates vowed to walk out of the convention if popular sovereignty was adopted instead of a plank in the party platform calling for a congressional slave code. Addressing the convention on the final day, Alabama’s extremist William Yancey exhorted his listeners that the North must protect the rights of the South and that failure to do so would lead to secession. The Committee on Resolutions, controlled by Southern extremists, declared in a resolution that it was “the duty of the federal government…to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the territories.” Slaves in the South were property.

 

The Role of James Buchanan

 

Douglas and Buchanan had clashed early in the Pennsylvanian’s presidency and the vengeful Buchanan had retaliated by withholding patronage. The 1860 convention contained numerous Buchananite delegations with instructions to stop any nomination of Douglas. According to scholar Damon Wells, Buchanan had promoted Charleston as the convention city, knowing that Douglas could never receive the party’s nod in this Southern capital.

 

The End of the Convention and the End of the Party

 

After the convention rejected the extremist resolutions, Yancey bolted the hall, followed by delegations from other Deep South states. But the two-thirds rule regarding nomination was still in place and was interpreted to include all seated delegates, including those that had bolted. This meant that Stephen Douglas would never achieve nomination.

 

The two-thirds rule was supported, ironically, by Border State delegates as well as those from New York. Historians explain New York’s stance on the basis of commerce with the South: disunion would hurt such trade and harm Northern manufactures. After fifty-seven ballots, the convention was deadlocked and adjourned.

 

Effects of the Charleston Convention

 

The Democratic Party split into three factions, causing party defeat in the Election of 1860. Although Stephen Douglas represented the Northern Democrats, he received the lowest number of electoral votes, yet it was Douglas who most vocally preached the message of federal “non intervention” by Congress “with slavery in the territories” (letter to William A. Richardson, June 20^th, 1860). The Charleston Convention may not have nominated Douglas, but it paved the way for a Lincoln victory.

 

References:

 

The Letters of Stephen Douglas, edited by Robert W. Johannsen (University of Illinois Press, 1961)

Eric H. Walter, The Fire-Eaters (Louisiana State University Press, 1992)

Damon Wells, Stephen Douglas: The Last Years, 1857-1861 (University of Texas Press, 1971)

Published first in Suite101 March 26, 2010 by M.Streich. copyright

John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid

 

Twenty-eight years after the bloody Nat Turner slave uprising, another potential insurrection took place at Harpers Ferry. Led by John Brown, the attack is frequently called the first act of the Civil War. To Southerners, Brown was an abolitionist agent supported by the new Republican Party. In the North, anti-slavery groups and sympathetic writers saw him as a martyr. As historian George M. Fredrickson writes, “No single man did more to heighten the sectional crisis of the late 1850s and increase the probability of civil war.”

 

John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid

 

At the time John Brown was planning the Harpers Ferry raid he was already well known nationally. His actions at Pottawatamie Creek in Kansas, in which five unarmed and innocent men were massacred, forced him to flee to Canada. As events in Kansas pointed to the admittance of the state as another slave state, Brown raided both in Kansas and Missouri.

 

Harpers Ferry, home of a Federal arsenal in Northern Virginia, was the focus of Brown’s attack. His plan was to take the armory, distribute its guns to slaves, and begin an insurrection to end slavery violently. Southerners would accuse him of attempting to ignite a race war. Although his “army” was few in number – 22 men, Brown firmly believed that thousands of slaves would rally to his cause.

 

John Brown was also deeply religious. He was convinced that he was the agent of God’s will by purging the nation of the evils of slavery, even if it meant bloodshed. A typical 19^th Century Protestant, Brown was heavily influenced by the Old Testament in much the same way Nat Turner had been years earlier.

 

Failure of the Harpers Ferry Raid

 

Although managing to secure a part of the armory, the raid was doomed to failure from the beginning. Several of Brown’s men sent to guard one of the bridges fired on a Baltimore & Ohio train passing over the bridge. The alarm was given. Church bells rang – the Southern warning of “insurrection,” and armed mobs formed.

 

Several of Brown’s men, including his sons, were shot. Despite cutting the telegraph lines and holding hostages, Brown and his party were subdued by Federal troops commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee. The October 16^th 1859 raid ended with Brown’s capture.

 

Trial, Execution, and Investigation

 

John Brown was taken to Charles Town for trial. Found guilty and sentenced to hang, Northern abolitions appealed to Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise to commute the sentence on the basis that Brown was insane and should be confined to an asylum. Wise rejected these appeals and John Brown was hung in December 1859.

 

Pro-Abolitionist newspapers, such as Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, painted Brown as a martyr who died in the cause of liberty. Poets and writers like Stephen Vincent Benet and Herman Melville immortalized Brown in verse. Even Henry David Thoreau had fallen under Brown’s spell.

 

Southern leaders like Jefferson Davis believed that Brown was at the center of a conspiracy that involved the North as well as England. Initial Southern newspaper accounts claimed that Brown had received financial support from New York Senator William Henry Seward as well as Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

 

A subsequent Congressional investigation, chaired by Virginia Senator James Mason, found no evidence to support these charges. The committee found that Brown’s planning was so secret, no evidence could be produced from documents or witnesses to implicate Republicans.

 

The Legacy of John Brown

 

October 2009 will mark the 150 year anniversary of the John Brown raid. Countless articles and books have been written about him and his final attempt to end slavery violently, from the bottom up. To the extent that John Brown was either a visionary hero or a terrorist will be up to the interpretations of future historians.

 

Sources:

 

George M. Frederickson, “The Enigma of John Brown, “ American Past & Present, Robert A. Divine Et Al (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007)

Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (HarperCollins, 1997)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: a People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Volume Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Published in Suite101 June 13, 2009 by M.Streich. copyright

James Buchanan: Second Worst President Ever! Events that Led to Consolidation of the Republican Party and Secession in South Carolina

 

There are few, if any, happy endings in history. The 1856 election of James Buchanan should have signaled a happy ending after several years of rancorous political debate involving slavery, its extension into the territories, and the equally boisterous arguments over tariffs and national projects such as the transcontinental railroad. For all intents and purposes, “Bleeding Kansas” was an event of the past and 1857 began with the unexpected death of South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, the man responsibly for caning Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner.

 

In His March 4^th inaugural address, Buchanan alluded to a sense of finality tied to the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision, which was about to be announced. Buchanan saw his presidency as a time to “restore harmony” and to placate his Southern supporters by emphasizing a policy of non-interference with slavery. Buchanan, who had spent the last four years as U.S. envoy to Great Britain, noted that the nation’s prosperity depended upon union.

 

Why Buchanan Made a Good Candidate

 

Buchanan’s diplomatic sojourn, a political “get out of jail” free card during the turbulent days of the Pierce administration and the prelude toward Civil War in the Kansas territory, left him blissfully untainted within the Democratic Party. He represented a venerable candidate with an impressive portfolio whose hands were not tied to Bleeding Kansas or the actions of Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, whose 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was akin to Brutus’ treachery in the Roman Senate or Judas bargaining away the life of Christ for thirty pieces of silver.

 

Buchanan’s greatest support came from the South. He lost numerous Northern states to John C Fremont, the candidate of the upstart Republicans, and to Millard Fillmore, standard bearer of the so-called Know-Nothings. Buchanan almost lost Pennsylvania, his home state, if not for last minute infusions of cash by lobbyists. When it was all over, Buchanan was a minority president, elected with 45% of the popular vote.

 

The Tariff Issue in 1857

 

The lame duck Congress also passed a new tariff, signed by President Pierce before Buchanan’s inauguration. Lower tariff schedules were designed, in part, to stop the treasury surplus, seen as a growing temptation for public works projects deemed unnecessary. Buchanan, however, called fore the need to construct a “military road” connecting the east with the Pacific. A transatlantic cable was already in the works. The railroad, however, was already becoming associated with corruption.

 

Finally, Buchanan addressed the need for immigrants and their impact on growing national prosperity. These sentiments were aimed at the Know-Nothings who were rabidly anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic. Within the decade of the 1850’s, 424,000 had emigrated from Britain and 914,000 from Ireland.

 

Congress was a Pro Slavery Government

 

The Democrats controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress. The Supreme Court under Roger B Taney, a Maryland Catholic appointed by Andrew Jackson, was also pro-Southern. Southerners, however, feared the “Black Republicans” and their party platform calling for free soil status in the territories. Popular Sovereignty, Stephen Douglas’ Holy Grail, would shortly be obliterated by the Dred Scott v Sandford holding.

 

Buchanan’s patronage shone toward the South; indeed, most of his Cabinet appointments were Southern. It was a pro-slavery government, but happy endings cannot take root when the realities of other viewpoints claiming their own sense of morality challenge the status quo. Fremont may have lost the 1856 election, but many disenchanted Democrats saw it was a success. Senator John P. Hale, a fringe party candidate in 1852, reminded his listeners of the “handwriting on the wall.”

 

The next three years proved difficult for Buchanan. The 1857 tariff caused a panic – an economic downturn, and negatively affected iron manufacturing in Pennsylvania. Economic historians note that the economic state of affairs in Pennsylvania helped the Republicans carry the state in 1860. Lincoln won that general election without appearing on any southern ballot.

 

Buchanan’s Ineptitude

 

In 1859, John Brown attempted the capture of the Harpers Ferry federal arsenal in an attempt to ferment a general insurrection. Brown’s actions reminded Southerners that the North could not be depended upon to protect the South and its right to maintain the Slave Power. A year later, Lincoln won the 1860 election and South Carolina left the Union. Throughout it all, Buchanan dithered.

 

Buchanan had been in St. Petersburg, Russia during the nullification crisis. But President Jackson wrote him a long letter, detailing how he had stopped the secessionists almost three decades earlier. Buchanan must have forgotten the letter and the advice.

 

The Homosexual Theory

 

David Eisenbach’s book, written with Larry Flynt, suggests that Buchanan’s inability to reign in the South was tied to his relationship with William Rufus King. According to Eisenbach, “James Buchanan, the only bachelor president, fell in live with Alabama politician William Rufus King.” Eisenback states that, “Buchanan’s sexuality has long baffled historians.” Andrew Jackson ostensibly called Buchanan “Miss Nancy.”

 

Eisenbach’s theory is that Buchanan’s relationship with King tied him to a pro-Southern course of action, even though he was a Northerner from Pennsylvania.

 

Regardless, the four years of Buchanan’s administration might have either confronted heads-on any calls for secession, as Jackson had done earlier in South Carolina, or worked – as his inaugural address promised, to find a centrist position much as Martin Van Buren had accomplished, thereby avoiding the start of the nation’s bloodiest and most divisive war.

 

References

 

James Buchanan, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1757

Larry Flynt and David Eisenbach, PhD, One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents First Ladies and their Lovers Changed the Course of American History (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2011)

Page Smith, A Nation Comes of Age: A People’s Historybof the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume Four, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Kenneth M. Stamp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (Oxford University Press, 1990)

First Published in Suite101 April 21, 2012 in Decoded Past by M.Streich. copyright

Infamy at the US Supreme Court: the Dred Scott Decision

 On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in the matter of Dred Scott. All nine justices wrote opinions but only two, Benjamin Curtis and John McLean, offered dissents that supported Scott. News of the high court’s decision reverberated throughout the nation, further heightening sectional tension and bringing the country ever closer to a civil war. Dred Scott v Sandford was one of the final events in one of the nation’s most turbulent decades that would see the United States pulled apart in 1861.

 

Dred Scott: Free or Slave?

 

Scott began his legal battles in 1846 after his master, Dr. Emerson, died and title eventually passed to John Sandford of New York, brother of Emerson’s widow. Scott’s argument rested in the fact that Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon, had taken Scott first to the free state of Illinois in 1834 and then in 1836 to the free soil territory of Wisconsin. After returning to Missouri and being denied an offer to purchase his freedom, Scott sued, first in the Missouri courts and in 1854 in the US Circuit Court of Missouri. From there, the case was appealed by Scott to the US Supreme Court on a writ of error.

 

The court, led by Chief Justice Roger Taney, was inclined to dismiss the case for reasons of jurisdiction, but agreed to hear it after McLean and Curtis made it known that they were preparing opinions. At issue was the belief that Scott could not bring a federal lawsuit because he was not a citizen of the United States: Scott was both black and a slave. As Chief Justice Taney noted in his opinion, not even freedmen could be citizens.

 

Taney reasoned that Negroes had a long established servile position. Drawing from history, he enumerated the thoughts of the Founding Fathers who, in his opinion, never viewed blacks as equals. Taney then enunciated the doctrine of dual citizenship: although some northern states had extended citizenship to blacks, there was a distinct difference between federal and state citizenship.

 

Why Scott Was Still a Slave

 

Taney addressed the doctrine of vested interests, applying the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause and alleging that slaves, as legal property, could not be freed by law without just compensation. Additionally, the Constitution did not give Congress the power to regulate slavery: the right to hold slaves constituted a local property right. Hence, Scott was still a slave.

 

The Chief Justice interpreted the Constitution’s intent involving federal authority over territories as being derived from the power to create states and to acquire territory by treat, not from the clause that empowered the Congress to make “necessary rules and regulations.” Thus, Congress had no constitutional basis for addressing slavery in the states.

 

Taney then reasoned that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment. Although the Act had already been repealed by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, this part of the decision would make it far more difficult for Congress, in January 1861, to resurrect the 1820 Compromise short of a Constitutional amendment. The decision also damaged the logic behind popular sovereignty, the solution to slavery in the territories espoused by Lewis Cass and Stephen Douglas.

 

Summary

 

The decision was condemned by leaders of the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln felt the court needed reforming while future Republican leaders Ben Wade and Roscoe Conkling openly called for packing the court. Ultimately the Fourteenth Amendment overturned the Dred Scott Decision.

Published in Suite101 November 27, 2008 by M.Streich. copyright

The Kansas Nebraska Act: the "Little Giant" becomes Judas the Betrayer

 Congressional passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in March 1854 set into motion a national furor that would alter the political landscape and dash any hopes the bill’s author, Stephen A. Douglass of Illinois, had for being nominated to the presidency by a united Democratic Party. In late 1859, Douglas admitted that the Kansas-Nebraska Act, “revolutionized political parties…and formed the issues upon which the Democratic and Republican parties are now arrayed against each other.” Far from “imparting peace to the country and stability to the Union,” as Douglas wrote in 1854, the Act brought anger and discord.

 

Formation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act

 

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was forwarded out of the Senate Committee on Territories, chaired by Douglas, in early January 1854. Organization of the territory had been advocated by leaders in Iowa and Missouri, notably former Senator Thomas Benton. The Platte Country featured fertile land and timber for homes.

 

Douglas may also have been motivated by the proposed transcontinental railroad. Although the South favored a southern route advocated by Jefferson Davis, a member of the Franklin Pierce cabinet, Douglas was keenly aware that a central route would benefit southern Illinois. Further, Douglas had land holdings in Chicago which would increase in value with a line connecting the city to the central route. He would need southern support to achieve this goal.

 

The Act resolved to open up the Kansas-Nebraska lands as two distinct territories. The slavery question would be decided by popular sovereignty, Douglas’ signature issue. Southern support, however, was lukewarm until Douglas agreed to include the Dixon Amendment, crafted by Senator Archie Dixon of Kentucky, that would effectively repeal the 1820 Missouri Compromise. The Badger Amendment, offered by North Carolina’s George Badger, ensured that no prior laws restricting slavery would be revived upon the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Act passed both house of Congress and was signed into law by President Pierce after receiving assurances from Jefferson Davis that the South supported the measure.

 

Reaction and Results

 

Members of the Whig Party deplored the Act and Douglas’ role in fashioning it. The “Little Giant” was subjected to intense criticism and scorn. William Cullom, a Tennessee Whig, suggested that the title of the bill should be amended to read: “A bill to make great men out of small ones and to sacrifice the public peace and prosperity upon the altar of political ambition.” That Douglas hoped to be the 1856 Democratic candidate was no secret. Douglas’ defense was that, “the Democratic Party is committed in the most solemn manner to the principle of Congressional non-interference with slavery in the States and Territories.” (February, 1854)

 

The Kansas-Nebraska Act led to “Bleeding Kansas,” a period of open warfare and bloodshed in Kansas between pro and anti-slavery parties that was only mitigated when federal troops intervened to restore order. The Act split political allegiances as Anti-Nebraska Democrats sought a new home in the emerging Republican Party, a movement that gathered disenchanted Whigs, Free Soilers, and “Known Nothings”. By 1856, the Republican Party offered its first national candidate, John C. Fremont, frontier hero of “Bear Flag Republic” fame.

 

Stephen Douglas continued to champion popular sovereignty even after the 1857 Dred Scott Decision made his position untenable. It was his undoing at the party convention in Charleston 1860 and remained his final solution in January 1861 during last minute emergency negotiations in the Congress failed to keep the Union intact.

Published in Suite 101 November 21,2008 by M.Streich. copyright

Political Parties in the 1850s: Rise of the Republican Party

 At the end of President Andrew Jackson’s first term in office there were two political parties, the National Republican and the Democrats. The Whigs, formed in opposition to Jackson, would become the American Whig Party. By the mid-term elections of 1854, the political landscape changed dramatically as old allegiances were dissolved over the questions of expanding slavery into the newly acquired lands from Mexico and the results of Stephen Douglas’ ill-fated Kansas-Nebraska Act. By 1860, four parties competed for the presidency, an election won by Abraham Lincoln.

 

Political Changes Began in 1848

 

Unable to capture the Democratic Party nomination in 1848 because of the prevailing two-thirds rule, Martin Van Buren left the convention to lead the newly formed Free Soil Party. The two-thirds rule stipulated that party candidates had to achieve a two-thirds majority of the delegate count. Van Buren did not have crucial Southern support.

 

The Free Soil Party was supported by former Liberty Party members. In 1844, Liberty Party candidate James Birney helped deny Henry Clay victory. An abolitionist-oriented third party, it opposed Texas annexation. Northerners that supported the Wilmot Proviso also gravitated to the Free Soilers, as did some Northern Whigs disenchanted by the Whig Party’s nomination of Zachary Taylor, a Southern slave-owner and part of the elite Southern Slaveocracy.

 

Immigration and the Know-Nothing Party

 

The Whig Party dissolved as a national force following their failed attempt in 1852 to elect General Winfield Scott. Out of the ashes of the Whig Party, several new parties emerged. Although the Free Soil Party was still active in 1854, the so-called “Know-Nothing” Party had reemerged, targeting the large numbers of immigrants entering the United States. This was a virulent nativist party that in 1856 received 8 electoral votes as the American Party, led by Millard Fillmore.

 

In the 1854 mid-term election, the American Party sent 62 members to the House of Representatives, just two more than the waning Whig Party. The newly formed Republican Party sent 46 representatives. By the 1858 mid-term election, the Whigs survived only in parts of New England, eastern Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

 

The Democrats and the Kansas-Nebraska Act

 

Stephen Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska Act was pivotal in splitting the Democratic Party. Anti-Nebraska Democrats gravitated to the American Party and then the Republicans. Nebraska Democrats would divide in 1860 into Breckinridge Democrats and Douglas Democrats. The Kansas-Nebraska Act also had the effect of uniting disparate Northern constituencies under the Republican banner.

 

By 1860 the efforts to unify Northern parties under the Republican platform were complete. Republicans drew strength from former Free Soilers, Northern Whigs, the now defunct American Party, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Democrats split at their 1860 Charleston Convention, resulting in two separate candidates: John C. Breckinridge whose faction favored secession, and Illinois “Little Giant” Stephen Douglas whose adherence to the doctrine of popular sovereignty alienated Southerners as well as Republicans.

 

The fourth party, led by John Bell, called itself the Constitutional Union Party, deriving its support from Southern pro-union Whigs and Southern Know-Nothings. Ironically, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had been a major catalyst in these political changes, yet by 1860 there were only two slaves in all of Kansas.

 

Parties and Issues in the 1850s

 

The on-going issue of expanding slavery was a chief cause of political realignments in the decade preceding the Civil War. It was the issue that ultimately led South Carolina to conclude it was no longer safe to remain in the Union. Failure to compromise led to a Civil War and the ascendancy of the Republican Party. Not until the election of 1884 would a Democrat again win the Presidency.

 

References:

 

Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2001)

Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1995)

Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (Basic Books, 2000)

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1978)

First published April 11, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright