Autonomous states come together to form a union called
The Union in Peril
The Divisive Points of Slavery
Differences Between North and South
Senator Calhoun (John C. Calhoun was vice president under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. His last words were: “The South. The poor South.”) called on the North to give the South “justice, simple justice.” He demanded that slavery be allowed throughout the territories won in the war with Mexico. If it was not, he declared, the South would secede, or withdraw, from the Union. Once again, the issue of slavery had brought about a political crisis, deepening the gulf between the North and the South.
Industry and Immigration in the North
The North industrialized rapidly as factories turned out ever-increasing amounts of products, from textiles and sewing machines to farm equipment and guns. Railroads—with more than 20,000 miles of track laid during the 1850s—carried raw materials eastward and manufactured goods and settlers westward. Small towns like Chicago matured into cities almost overnight, due to the sheer volume of goods and people arriving by railroad. Telegraph wires strung along the railroad tracks provided a network of instant communication for the North. Immigrants from Europe entered the industrial workplace in growing numbers. Many became voters with a strong opposition to slavery. They feared the expansion of slavery for two main reasons. First, it might bring slave labor into direct competition with free labor, or people who worked for wages. Second, it threatened to reduce the status of white workers who could not successfully compete with slaves.
Agriculture and Slavery in the South
Unlike the North, the South remained a predominantly rural society, consisting mostly of plantations and small farms. The Southern economy relied on staple crops such as cotton. Though one-third of the nation’s population lived in the South in 1850, the South produced under 10 percent of the nation’s manufactured goods. At the same time that Northern railroad lines were expanding, Southerners were mostly using rivers to transport goods. In addition, few immigrants settled in the South, because African Americans, whether enslaved or free, met most of the available need for artisans, mechanics, and laborers. Those immigrants who did settle in the South, however, displayed significant opposition to slavery. For example, German-American newspapers in Texas and in Baltimore, Maryland published editorials in favor of universal voting rights and freedom for African Americans. The conflict over slavery rattled Southern society. In three Southern states, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina, African Americans were in the majority. In Alabama and Florida, African Americans composed almost half of the population. While blacks dreamed of an end to slavery, many Southern whites feared that any restriction of slavery would lead to a social and economic revolution. Furthermore, Calhoun warned that such a revolution would condemn blacks as well as whites “to the greatest calamity, and the [South] to poverty, desolation, and wretchedness.” Slavery in the Territories
On August 8, 1846, Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot heightened tensions between North and South by introducing an amendment to a military appropriations bill proposing that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in any territory the United States might acquire as a result of the war with Mexico. In strictly practical terms, the Wilmot Proviso meant that California, as well as the territories of Utah and New Mexico, would be closed to slavery forever. The Wilmot Proviso The Wilmot Proviso divided Congress along regional lines. Northerners, angry over the refusal of Southern congressmen to vote for internal improvements, such as the building of canals and roads, supported the proviso. They also feared that adding slave territory would give slave states more members in Congress and deny economic opportunity to free workers. Southerners, as expected, opposed the proviso, which, some argued, raised complex constitutional issues. Slaves were property, Southerners claimed, and property was protected by the Constitution. Laws like the Wilmot Proviso would undermine such constitutional protections. Many Southerners feared that if the Wilmot Proviso became law, the inevitable addition of new free states to the Union would shift the balance of power permanently to the North. The House of Representatives approved the proviso, but the Senate rejected it. Congressman Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia issued a dire prediction. “The North is going to stick the Wilmot amendment to every appropriation and then all the South will vote against any measure thus clogged. Finally a tremendous struggle will take place and perhaps [President] Polk in starting one war may find half a dozen on his hands. I tell you the prospect ahead is dark, cloudy, thick and gloomy.” Statehood for California
As a result of the gold rush, California had grown in population so quickly that it skipped the territorial phase of becoming a state.
In late 1850, California held a constitutional convention, adopted a state constitution, elected a governor and a legislature, and applied to join the Union. California’s new constitution forbade slavery, a fact that alarmed many Southerners. They had assumed that because most of California lay south of the Missouri Compromise line of 36°30’, the state would be open to slavery. They had hoped that the compromise, struck in 1820, would apply to new territories, including California, which would have become a slave state. General Zachary Taylor, who succeeded Polk as president in 1849, supported California’s admission as a free state. Moreover, he felt that the South could counter abolitionism most effectively by leaving the slavery issue up to individual territories rather than to Congress. Southerners, however, saw this as a move to block slavery in the territories and as an attack on the Southern way of life—and began to question whether the South should remain in the Union.
The Senate Debates
The 31st Congress opened in December 1849 in an atmosphere of distrust and bitterness. The question of California statehood topped the agenda. Of equal concern was the border dispute in which the slave state of Texas claimed the eastern half of New Mexico Territory, where the issue of slavery had not yet been settled. In the meantime, Northerners demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, while Southerners accused the North of failing to enforce the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. As passions rose, some Southerners threatened secession, the formal withdrawal of a state from the Union. Could anything be done to prevent the United States from becoming two nations?
Clay’s Compromise
Henry Clay worked night and day to shape a compromise that both the North and the South could accept. Though ill, he visited his old rival Daniel Webster on January 21, 1850, and obtained Webster’s support. Eight days later, Clay presented to the Senate a series of resolutions later called the Compromise of 1850, which he hoped would settle “all questions in controversy between the free and slave states, growing out of the subject of Slavery.” Terms of the Compromise
Clay’s compromise (summarized on the chart shown on page 308) contained provisions to appease Northerners as well as Southerners. To satisfy the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. To satisfy the South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. Other provisions of the compromise had elements that appealed to both regions. For example, a provision that allowed residents of the territories of New Mexico and Utah popular sovereignty—the right of residents of a territory to vote for or against slavery—appealed to both North and South. As part of the compromise, the federal government would pay Texas $10 million to surrender its claim to New Mexico. Northerners were pleased because, in effect, it limited slavery in Texas to within its current borders. Southerners were pleased because the money would help defray Texas’s expenses and debts from the war with Mexico. On February 5, Clay defended his resolutions and begged both the North and the South to consider them thoughtfully. The alternative was disunion—and, in Clay’s opinion, quite possibly war.
Calhoun and Webster Respond
Clay’s speech marked the start of one of the greatest political debates in United States history. Within a month, Calhoun had presented the Southern case for slavery in the territories. He was followed three days later by Daniel Webster, who began his eloquent appeal for national unity by saying, “I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. . . . ‘Hear me for my cause.’” He urged Northerners to try to compromise with the South by passing a stricter fugitive slave law, and he warned Southern firebrands to think more cautiously about the danger of secession. Webster’s speech became one of the most famous in the history of the Senate. Spectators packed the Senate chamber for the event.
The Compromise is Adopted
The Senate rejected the proposed compromise in July. Discouraged, Clay left Washington. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois picked up the pro- compromise reins. To avoid another defeat, Douglas developed a shrewd plan. He unbundled the package of resolutions and reintroduced them one at a time, hoping to obtain a majority vote for each measure individually. Thus, any individual congressman could vote for the provisions that he liked and vote against, or abstain from voting on, those that he disliked. It appeared as though Douglas had found the key to passing the entire compromise. The unexpected death of President Taylor on July 9 aided Douglas’s efforts. Taylor’s successor, Millard Fillmore, made it clear that he supported the compromise. In the meantime, the South was ready to negotiate. Calhoun’s death had removed one obstacle to compromise. Southern leaders came out in favor of Clay’s individual proposals as being the best the South could secure without radical action. After eight months of effort, the Compromise of 1850 was voted into law. President Fillmore embraced the compromise as the “final settlement” of the question of slavery and sectional differences. For the moment, the crisis over slavery in the territories had passed. However, the relief was short-lived. Even as crowds in Washington celebrated the passage of the compromise, the next crisis loomed ominously on the horizon—enforcement of the new fugitive slave law.
Protest, Resistance, and Violence
Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad
Burns’s return to slavery followed the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, which was a component of the Compromise of 1850. Many people were surprised by the harsh terms of the act. Under the law, alleged fugitives were not entitled to a trial by jury, despite the Sixth Amendment provision calling for a speedy and public jury trial and the right to counsel. Nor could fugitives testify on their own behalf. A statement by a slave owner was all that was required to have a slave returned. Frederick Douglass bitterly summarized the situation. “The colored men’s rights are less than those of a jackass. No man can take away a jackass without submitting the matter to twelve men in any part of this country. A black man may be carried away without any reference to a jury. It is only necessary to claim him, and that some villain should swear to his identity. There is more protection there for a horse, for a donkey, or anything, rather than a colored man.” Federal commissioners charged with enforcing the law were to receive a $10 fee if they returned an alleged fugitive, but only $5 if they freed him or her, an obvious incentive to “return” people to slavery. Finally, anyone convicted of helping an alleged fugitive was subject to a fine of $1,000, imprisonment for six months, or both.
Resisting the Law
Infuriated by the Fugitive Slave Act, some Northerners resisted it by organizing vigilance committees to send endangered African Americans to safety in Canada. Others resorted to violence to rescue fugitive slaves. Nine Northern states passed personal liberty laws, which forbade the imprisonment of runaway slaves and guaranteed that they would have jury trials. And Northern lawyers dragged these trials out—often for three or four years—in order to increase slave catchers’ expenses. Southern slave owners were enraged by Northern resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act, prompting one Harvard law student from Georgia to tell his mother, “Do not be surprised if when I return home you find me a confirmed disunionist.” Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad
As time went on, free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, aid fugitive slaves in their escape. This network became known as the Underground Railroad. The “conductors” hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next “station,” often in disguise. One of the most famous conductors was Harriet Tubman, born a slave in 1820 or 1821. As a young girl, she suffered a severe head injury when a plantation overseer hit her with a lead weight. The blow damaged her brain, causing her to lose consciousness several times a day. To compensate for her disability, Tubman increased her strength until she became strong enough to perform tasks that most men could not do. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died, she decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. Shortly after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman became a conductor on the Underground Railroad. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves—including her own parents—flee to freedom. Neither Tubman nor the slaves she helped were ever captured. Later she became an ardent speaker for abolition. For slaves, escaping from slavery was indeed a dangerous process. It meant traveling on foot at night without any sense of distance or direction except for the North Star and other natural signs. It meant avoiding patrols of armed men on horseback and struggling through forests and across rivers. Often it meant going without food for days at a time. Harry Grimes, a slave who ran away from North Carolina, described the difficulties of escaping to the North. Once fugitive slaves reached the North, many elected to remain there and take their chances. Other fugitives continued their journey all the way to Canada to be completely out of reach of slave catchers. Meanwhile, a new abolitionist voice spoke out and brought slavery to the attention of a great many Americans.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
In 1852, ardent abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stirring strong reactions from North and South alike, the novel became an instant bestseller. More than a million copies had sold by the middle of 1853. The novel’s plot was melodramatic and many of its characters were stereotypes, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin delivered the message that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. Readers tensed with excitement as the slave Eliza fled across the frozen Ohio River, clutching her infant son in her arms. They wept bitterly when Simon Legree, a wicked Northern slave owner who moved to the South, bought Uncle Tom and had him whipped to death. In quick response, Northern abolitionists increased their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, while Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the South as a whole. The furor over Uncle Tom’s Cabin had barely begun to settle when a new controversy over slavery drew heated debate.
Tension in Kansas and Nebraska
Abolitionist feelings in the North further intensified when the issue of slavery in the territories—supposedly settled by the Compromise of 1850—surfaced once again. Ironically, Senator Stephen Douglas, who had helped to steer the compromise to victory, was the person most responsible for resurrecting the issue.
Popular Sovereignty
As early as 1844, Douglas was pushing to organize the huge territory west of Iowa and Missouri. In 1854, he developed a proposal to divide the area into two territories, Nebraska and Kansas. His motives were complicated. For one thing, Douglas was pushing for the construction of a railroad between Chicago—his hometown, where he also owned real estate—and San Francisco. To get this route, he had to make a deal with Southerners, who wanted the railroad to start in Memphis or New Orleans. In addition, Douglas was anxious to organize the western territory because he believed that most of the nation’s people wished to see the western lands incorporated into the Union. Along with many other Democrats, Douglas was sure that continued expansion would strengthen his party and unify the nation. He also believed that popular sovereignty—that is, the right of residents of a given territory to vote on slavery for themselves—provided the most fair and democratic way to organize the new state governments. But what Douglas failed to fully understand was how strongly opposed to slavery Northerners had become. To Douglas, popular sovereignty seemed like an excellent way to decide whether slavery would be allowed in the Nebraska Territory. The only difficulty was that Nebraska Territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise line of 36°30’ and therefore was legally closed to slavery. Douglas assumed, though, that the territory of Nebraska would enter the Union as two states, one free and one slave, and thus maintain the balance in the Senate between North and South. Douglas was convinced that slavery could not exist on the open prairies, since none of the crops relying on slave labor could be grown there. However, to win over the South, Douglas decided to support repeal of the Missouri Compromise—which now would make slavery legal north of the 36°30’ line—though he predicted it would cause “a storm” in Congress. His prediction was right.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
On January 23, 1854, Douglas introduced a bill in Congress to divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. If passed, it would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. Congressional debate over the bill was bitter. Some Northern congressmen saw the bill as part of a plot to turn the territories into slave states; but nearly 90 percent of Southern congressmen voted for the bill. The bitterness spilled over into the general population, which deluged Congress with petitions both for and against the bill. In the North, Douglas found himself ridiculed for betraying the Missouri Compromise. Yet he did not waver. He believed strongly that popular sovereignty was the democratic way to resolve the slavery issue. With the help of President Franklin Pierce, a Democrat elected in 1852, Douglas steered his proposal through the Senate. After months of struggle and strife, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in May 1854. All eyes turned westward as the fate of the new territories hung in the balance.
Violence Erupts in “Bleeding Kansas”
The race for the possession of Kansas was on. New York senator William Seward threw down the gauntlet: “Come on, then, gentlemen of the Slave States. . . . We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas and God give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers as it is in right.” From both the North and the South, settlers poured into the Kansas Territory. Some were simply farmers in search of new land. Most were sent by emigrant aid societies, groups formed specifically to supply rifles, animals, seed, and farm equipment to antislavery migrants. By March 1855, Kansas had enough settlers to hold an election for a territorial legislature. However, thousands of “border ruffians” from the slave state of Missouri, led by Missouri senator David Atchison, crossed into Kansas with their revolvers cocked and voted illegally. They won a fraudulent majority for the proslavery candidates, who set up a government at Lecompton and promptly issued a series of proslavery acts. Furious over events in Lecompton, abolitionists organized a rival government in Topeka in fall 1855.
The Sack of Lawrence
Before long, violence surfaced in the struggle for Kansas. Antislavery settlers had founded a town named Lawrence. A proslavery grand jury condemned Lawrence’s inhabitants as traitors and called on the local sheriff to arrest them. On May 21, 1856, a proslavery posse of 800 armed men swept into Lawrence to carry out the grand jury’s will. The posse burned down the antislavery headquarters, destroyed two newspapers’ printing presses, and looted many houses and stores. Abolitionist newspapers dubbed the event “the sack of Lawrence.” The Pottawatomie Massacre
The news from Lawrence soon reached John Brown, an abolitionist described by one historian as “a man made of the stuff of saints.” Brown believed that God had called on him to fight slavery. He also had the mistaken impression that the proslavery posse in Lawrence had killed five men. Brown was set on revenge. On May 24th, he and his followers
pulled five men from their beds in the proslavery settlement of Pottawatomie Creek, hacked off their hands, and stabbed them with broadswords. This attack became famous as the “Pottawatomie Massacre” and quickly led to cries for revenge. It became the bloody shirt that proslavery Kansas settlers waved in summoning attacks on Free-Soilers. The massacre triggered dozens of incidents throughout Kansas. Some 200 people were killed. John Brown fled Kansas but left behind men and women who lived with rifles by their sides. People began calling the territory Bleeding Kansas, as it had become a violent battlefield in a Civil War.
Violence in the Senate
Violence was not restricted to Kansas, however. On May 19, Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner delivered in the Senate an impassioned speech later called “The Crime Against Kansas.” For two days he verbally attacked his colleagues for their support of slavery. Sumner was particularly abusive toward the aged senator Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina, sneering at him for his proslavery beliefs and making fun of his impaired speech. On May 22, Butler’s nephew, Congressman Preston S. Brooks, walked into the Senate chamber and over to Sumner’s desk. “I have read your speech twice over, carefully,” Brooks said softly. “It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.” With that, he lifted up his cane and struck Sumner on the head repeatedly before the cane broke. Sumner suffered shock and apparent brain damage and did not return to his Senate seat for over three years. Southerners applauded and showered Brooks with new canes, including one inscribed with the words, “Hit him again!” Northerners condemned the incident as yet another example of Southern brutality and antagonism toward free speech. Northerners and Southerners, it appeared, had met an impasse. The widening gulf between the North and the South had far-reaching implications for party politics as well. The compromises that had been tried from the time of the Wilmot Proviso until the Kansas-Nebraska Act could not satisfy either the North or the South. The tensions that resulted led to new political alliances as well as to violence. As the two sections grew further apart, the old national parties were torn apart and new political parties emerged.
The Birth of the Republican Party
New Political Parties Emerge
By the end of 1856, the nation’s political landscape had shifted. The Whig Party had split over the issue of slavery, and the Democratic Party was weak. This left the new Republican Party to move within striking distance of the presidency.
Slavery Divides Whigs
Divisions in the Whig Party widened in 1852 when General Winfield Scott became the Whig nominee for president. Scott owed his nomination to Northern Whigs who opposed the Fugitive Slave Act and gave only lukewarm support to the Compromise of 1850. Southern Whigs, however, backed the compromise in order to appear both proslavery and pro-Union. Because of Scott’s position, the Whig vote in the South fell from 50 percent in 1848, to 35 percent in 1852, handing the election to the Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act brought about the demise of the Whigs, who once again took opposing positions on legislation that involved the issue of slavery. Unable to agree on a national platform, the Southern faction splintered as its members looked for a proslavery, pro-Union party to join, while Whigs in the North sought a political alternative.
Nativism
One alternative was the American Party which had its roots in a secret organization known as the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. Members of this society believed in nativism, the favoring of native-born Americans over immigrants. Using secret handshakes and passwords, members were told to answer questions about their activities by saying, “I know nothing.” When nativists formed the American Party in 1854, it soon became better known as the Know-Nothing Party. Primarily middle-class Protestants, nativists were dismayed not only at the total number of new immigrants but also at the number of Catholics among them. To nativists, the Catholic immigrants who had flooded into the country during the 1830s and 1840s were overly influenced by the Pope and could form a conspiracy to overthrow democracy. While the Democratic Party courted immigrant voters, nativists voted for Know-Nothing candidates. The Know-Nothing Party did surprisingly well at the polls in 1854. However, like the Whig Party, the Know-Nothings split over the issue of slavery in the territories. Southern Know-Nothings looked for another alternative to the Democrats. Meanwhile, Northern Know-Nothings began to edge toward the Republican Party.
Antislavery Parties Form
Two forerunners of the Republican Party had emerged during the 1840s. In 1844 the tiny abolitionist Liberty Party—whose purpose was to pursue the cause of abolition by passing new laws—received only a small percentage of votes in the presidential election. Yet the Liberty Party won enough votes to throw the election to Democrat James K. Polk instead of Whig candidate Henry Clay. In 1848 the Free-Soil Party, which opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, nominated former Democratic president Martin Van Buren. Although the Free-Soil Party failed to win any electoral votes in 1848, it received 10 percent of the popular vote, thus sending a clear message: even if some Northerners did not favor abolition, they definitely opposed the extension of slavery into the territories.
The Free-Soilers
Many Northerners were Free-Soilers without being abolitionists. A number of Northern Free-Soilers supported laws prohibiting black settlement in their communities and denying blacks the right to vote. Free-Soilers objected to slavery’s impact on free white workers in the wage-based labor force, upon which the North depended. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison considered the Free-Soil Party “a sign of discontent with things political . . . Reaching for something better. . . . It is a party for keeping Free Soil and not for setting men free.” Free-Soilers detected a dangerous pattern in such events as the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. They were convinced that a conspiracy existed on the part of the “diabolical slave power” to spread slavery throughout the United States. Something or someone, according to the Free-Soilers, had to prevent this spread.
The Republican Party
In February 1854, at a school house in Ripon, Wisconsin, some discontented Northern Whigs held a meeting with antislavery Democrats and Free-Soilers to form a new political party. On July 6, the new Republican Party was formally organized in Jackson, Michigan. Among its founders was Horace Greeley. The Republican Party was united in opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Act and in keeping slavery out of the territories. Otherwise, it embraced a wide range of opinions. The conservative faction hoped to resurrect the Missouri Compromise. At the opposite extreme were some radical abolitionists. The Republican Party’s ability to draw support from such diverse groups provided the party with the strength to win a political tug of war with the other parties. The main competition for the Republican Party was the Know-Nothing Party. Both parties targeted the same groups of voters. By 1855 the Republicans had set up party organizations in about half of the Northern states, but they lacked a national organization. Then, in quick succession, came the fraudulent territorial election in Kansas in March 1855, and the sack of Lawrence, the Pottawatomie massacre, and the caning of Sumner in 1856. Between “Bleeding Kansas” and “Bleeding Sumner,” the Republicans had the issues they needed in order to challenge the Democrats for the presidency in 1856.
The 1856 Election
The Republicans chose John C. Frémont, the famed “Pathfinder” who had mapped the Oregon Trail and led U.S. Troops into California during the war with Mexico, as their candidate in 1856. The Know-Nothings split their allegiance, with Northerners endorsing Frémont and Southerners selecting former U.S. President Millard Fillmore. Although Fillmore had once been a Whig, for all practical purposes, the Whigs had now dissolved. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. Although he was a Northerner, most of his Washington friends were Southerners. Furthermore, as minister to Great Britain he had been out of the country during the disputes over the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Thus, he had antagonized neither the North nor the South. Buchanan was the only truly national candidate. To balance support between the North and the South, the Democrats chose John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky as Buchanan’s running mate. If Frémont had won, the South might well have seceded then and there. Judge P. J. Scruggs of Mississippi put it bluntly. “The election of Frémont would present, at once, to the people of the South, the question whether they would tamely crouch at the feet of their despoilers, or . . . Openly defy their enemies, and assert their independence. In my judgment, anything short of immediate, prompt, and unhesitating secession, would be an act of servility that would seal our doom for all time to come.” Buchanan, however, carried the day. Although he received only 45 percent of the popular vote, he won the entire South except for Maryland. Frémont, who carried 11 of the 16 free states, came in a strong second with 33 percent, while Fillmore brought up the rear with 22 percent. The meaning was clear. First, the Democrats could win the presidency with a national candidate who could compete in the North without alienating Southerners. Second, the Know-Nothings were in decline. Third, the Republicans were a political force in the North. The 1856 presidential campaign had been hard-fought. However, the dissension that characterized party politics in the mid-1850s was only a pale preview of the turmoil that would divide the nation before the end of the decade.