Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Road to the Civil War
The Road to the Civil War: Kansas-Nebraska
Unit 7: From the Civil War and Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era
The Compromise of 1850 and Popular Sovereignty
- 1850s: There was a continual debate over the future of the western territories. Would they become free states or slave states?
- By the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state, but the rest of the Mexican Cession (Utah and New Mexico territories) would be decided by popular sovereignty. This meant the people in the territory would decide the issue by vote.
- Southerners also wanted popular sovereignty to decide the future of the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
Can you foresee any problems with the use of popular sovereignty to decide whether new states would allow or prohibit slavery?
The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was drafted by Stephen A. Douglas, a Democratic senator from Illinois. He needed the vote of Southerners to build a transcontinental railroad that would pass through Chicago and the unorganized Nebraska territory. Southerners favored a southern route for the railroad, but Douglas offered a compromise: popular sovereignty would decide whether the Nebraska territory would allow or ban slavery, rather than following the “Missouri Compromise Line.”
The act caused many conflicts as pro- and anti-slavery activists went to Kansas to try to influence the vote on slavery, which led to electoral fraud.
- 1856: Violent clashes broke out between different factions.
- Some historians consider these the first acts of violence of the Civil War.
John Brown and “Bleeding Kansas”
In May 1856, pro-slavery men attacked the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas. In retaliation, the abolitionist John Brown attacked a pro-slavery settlement. Consequently, Kansas became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
In October 1859, Brown attempted a raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). He was captured, convicted of treason, and hanged. He was subsequently seen as an anti-slavery hero.
“I, John Brown, am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” (Last written statement of John Brown)
“It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him.” (Henry David Thoreau, “A Plea for Captain John Brown,” 1859)
“[I]t is impossible to see courage, and disinterestedness, and the love that casts out fear, without sympathy.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “John Brown,” 1860)
Abraham Lincoln: The Moderate Republican
- Born in 1809 in rural Kentucky (a slave state).
- Statesman and lawyer from Illinois (a free state).
- 16th US President (1861-1865).
- Led the US through the Civil War (1861-1865).
- Assassinated in 1865.
- Considered one of the best American presidents.
- A complex figure, representative of the moderate anti-slavery position held by many Whigs and later Republicans before the Civil War.
As a Whig politician from a free state, Lincoln was anti-slavery but not an abolitionist. In 1837, he signed a “Protest in Illinois Legislature on Slavery,” declaring “that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.”
He supported the American Colonization Society, suggesting that emancipated Blacks would emigrate to Liberia. In 1856, Lincoln joined the Republican Party, founded in 1854 by anti-slavery Whigs, anti-slavery Democrats, and “Free Soilers.” Their goal was to keep slavery out of the territories for the benefit of white laborers (free land, free labor).
The “House Divided” Speech
He became a Republican candidate for the US Senate in 1858 and delivered his famous speech, “A House Divided”:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”
Lincoln pointed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and the Dred Scott Decision (1857) as evidence that the United States was controlled by the interests of slavery. He lost the election to the Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas (author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act), but he gained notoriety through their debates.
The Election of 1860
- The Democratic Party was divided (North and South) and put forward two candidates: Stephen A. Douglas (Democratic) and John Breckinridge (Southern Democratic).
- The Republicans voted for Abraham Lincoln.
- A third party, the Constitutional Union Party, made up of Southern Whigs who refused to support Republicans or Democrats, put forward their own candidate, John Bell.
Lincoln won 40% of the popular vote, but he secured a majority in the Electoral College. As soon as he won, the secession began.
Secession and the Outbreak of War
Lincoln was firm that slavery must be banned from the territories, but he was no overt abolitionist. Lincoln interpreted the Tenth Amendment to mean that the Constitution protected slavery in those states where slavery existed, and so the US could not ban slavery in those states.
First Inaugural Address, 1861: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
In spite of Lincoln’s assurances, many in the South feared that slavery would be abolished under a Lincoln presidency. With his election, Southern states began to secede. However, abolishing slavery would have required an amendment to the Constitution; the amendment could not have been passed over the resistance of 15 slave states.
Other factors contributed to Southern fears around a Lincoln presidency: as a Northerner, Lincoln supported free land, free labor, and a free market, which were not in the interests of the Southern plantation economy.