John Spicer history review article: The 'cause' of the American Civil War

Very useful article to use whilst revising for the section B question. I do not own this material, you can find it on the history review website. All copyright goes to the respected owners!

More than 60 per cent of the electorate did not vote for Abraham Lincoln as President in November 1860, and he won the electoral college vote despite not carrying one Southern state. Lincoln's triumph prompted South Carolina to secede from the Union on 20th December 1860, and his reassurances that the institution of slavery would not be affected where it already existed failed to satisfy the doubts of other Southern states. By the time of his inauguration, six more states from the Lower South - Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas - had left the Union, and the Confederate States of America (CSA) had been set up. Lincoln arrived in Washington having travelled through the slave state of Maryland in disguise in order to avoid possible attack or assassination. A war was about to begin which would leave about as many dead as all of the other wars the USA has fought added together. That war would result in freedom for 4 million black slaves, and secure the future of the Union.

The causes of the American Civil War can perhaps be linked to one particular issue - that of slavery. In December 1860 Lincoln had written to the future vice-president of the Confederate states, Alexander Stephens, and reiterated his public pledge not to interfere with slavery where it already existed, but he also added: ‘I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.’ Later Stephens himself seemed to confirm the significance of the issue by saying that ‘African slavery ... was the immediate cause of the late rupture’, and stating that the Confederate government was based upon ‘the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery ... is his natural and normal condition.’ South Carolina’s declaration of their reasons for secession cited ‘an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery.’  

It can be argued that slavery played a part in every pre-war crisis, and that even where other factors have been put forward by historians they are in some way linked to slavery. But in many ways the secession of South Carolina was precipitate because Lincoln was in no position to abolish slavery anyway. Following the 1860 elections Lincoln's Republican Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery, did not control either house of Congress. To abolish slavery completely would have required a constitutional amendment, in other words a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress as well as three-quarters of the states to ratify the amendment. In 1860 15 out of the nation's 33 states - or 45 per cent - were slave states which collectively would never have ratified such an amendment. Lincoln could in reality do nothing to touch slavery where it already existed, but moves might be taken to bar slavery from the territories to ensure that all new states joining the Union in the future would be 'free soil'. 

The Southern states did not take Lincoln at his word when he said he was opposed merely to the expansion of slavery. Had he not argued that a house divided against itself could not stand? Stephen Douglas, who had run against Lincoln in the 1858 senatorial elections, had pointed out to his rival that 'the divided house' had in fact stood since the writing of the Constitution. Southern states were probably right not to trust Lincoln, because less than two years into the war he issued an Emancipation Proclamation which declared all black slaves in rebel states free. Some have argued that Lincoln intended all along to free the slaves, but he could not afford to tell people lest he lose the support of the four 'border' slave states that remained loyal to the Union throughout the conflict. These four states had much closer ties with the North than other Southern states; and slaveholding, broadly speaking, was less widespread there than further south. 

Territorial Expansion and 'Delaying the Inevitable' 

Historians often despise the use of the word 'inevitable' when examining the causation of an event. Such cataclysmic events as civil war tend to have a range and diversity of causes, and are rarely entered into lightly. And yet, given expansion in the number of states following the acquisition of huge areas of land, particularly with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the huge area acquired after the Mexican War, the issue of whether territories applying to become new states would be 'pro-slave' or 'free-soil' looked set to continue to rear its head and foment significant conflict. The Founding Fathers too must take their share of the blame for not doing more to deal with what became long-term causes. Such was their desire to create a stronger Union in 1787 that they were prepared to reach an uneasy compromise over the issue of slavery, a compromise, it could be argued, that could not last indefinitely. 

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 highlighted the dilemma perfectly. Missouri Territory had reached the required population to apply for statehood. In the Senate the number of slave states was equally balanced with the number of free states, and it looked highly likely that Missouri would join as a slave state, thus tipping the balance in the Senate in favour of the South. It can be argued that Henry Clay's solution - to create the new free state of Maine out of part of Massachusetts at the same time so as to keep the balance in the Senate, and agree upon a line of latitude to determine the status of future territories from the Louisiana Purchase joining the union - merely postponed a conflict of greater magnitude until a later date. Clay could also be regarded as guilty of delaying an inevitable face-to-face with his 'Compromise of 1850' which dealt with the land gained from Mexico in 1848. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was once again intended as a compromise, with popular sovereignty being championed by Stephen Douglas as a way of avoiding Congress or the Supreme Court having to rule on the legality of slavery; but this time the Compromise did not succeed in delaying conflict, though admittedly strife was contained to 'Bleeding Kansas', where a mini-civil war erupted between pro-slavers and free-soilers. 

Slavery: an Economic and Moral issue

In recent times historians have tried to play down economic differences between North and South, but it does seem true that the South was more reluctant to embrace new technology and business methods than parts of the North, and that the vast majority (about 80 per cent) of Southern workers were employed in agriculture on the eve of war compared with only about 40 per cent in the North. The idea that the North was considerably more urbanised that the South, however, is something of a myth since three-quarters of Northerners lived outside urban areas in 1860. The key difference, of course, lay in the fact that slaves formed the backbone of the labour force in the South. Many Northerners regarded this as unfair competition regardless of the moral issue .

The Marxist/Progressive interpretation, identified particularly with Charles and Mary Beard writing in the 1920s, suggests that the war can be seen in terms of a capitalist North fighting against a feudal South, but most support for the Republican Party seems to have come from small farmers rather than big businessmen, and the party was divided on issues like the tariff, a national bank, and nativism, and embraced a range of views on the position of blacks in society. However, Eric Foner has argued that 'free labour' lay at the heart of Republican ideology, and this does suggest some sort of economic motive. William Seward, who was to become Lincoln's Secretary of State, said in 1858 that the social systems of slave labour and free labour were incompatible. Yet it can be argued that war followed secession because the North, despite appearing to have a more balanced and dynamic economy, could not afford to lose the South. The South provided 60 per cent of US exports, and possibly 15-20 per cent of the price of raw cotton went into the pockets of creditors, insurers, owners of warehouses and shipowners, most of whom were Northerners or British. An independent Confederacy could have boycotted Northern products, reduced Northern dominance of Southern trade and prevented free access down the Mississippi - factors which, in the short term, may have had a severe impact on the Northern economy.

There is evidence to suggest that until the 1850s the majority of Northerners were not sympathetic to those who favoured the abolition of slavery on moral grounds. In the 1830s William Lloyd Garrison revived the anti-slavery movement with his newspaper The Liberator and the setting up of the American Antislavery Society, but he faced much Northern opposition. Nevertheless the autobiographical book of former slave Frederick Douglass published in 1845 and Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin published in 1852 undoubtedly raised the consciousness of many to the repugnant nature of slavery, and Lincoln is even reputed to have said to Stowe on meeting her in 1862, 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.' The tightening up of the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the 1850 Compromise also led to the appearance on Northern streets of armed slave-catchers who often worked with federal government support, thus further alienating Northern opinion. In 1854, for example, President Pierce spent over $100,000 and brought in troops to ensure that escaped slave Anthony Burns was returned to Virginia. Textile magnate Amos Lawrence may have been exaggerating somewhat when he commented: 'We went to bed one night old fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists', but there was maybe some truth in what he said. 

States' rights

Along with the issue of slavery, states' rights is often cited as a main cause of secession. Jefferson Davis, the man who became President of the Confederacy, claimed after the war that the South had fought for states' rights rather than to save slavery. It may be tempting to argue that the state right of paramount importance to Southerners was the right to own slaves. Yet when South Carolina threatened to secede over states' rights back in 1832, inspired by John Calhoun's rhetoric, it was over the tariff issue and not slavery, and as early as 1799, when none other than Thomas Jefferson had championed states' rights in the face of the draconian Alien and Sedition Acts, personal liberty was the issue at stake. Admittedly South Carolina was not supported by other states in 1832, but the above examples tend to undermine Hugh Brogan's argument that the states' rights doctrine had evolved out of a need to protect slavery. Brogan also seems to overlook the fact that states' rights had been a major concern from the writing of the Constitution itself and that the 10th Amendment had been added to calm the fears of both Northerners and Southerners who feared overmighty central government.

The South's apparent concern for states' rights ought, however, to have meant it responded with outrage when the Supreme Court in 1857 ruled in the Dred Scott case that a slave could not become free simply by living in a free territory, for the decision seemed to imply that if individual states barred slavery it had no legal basis. Yet Supreme Justice Taney's decision was met with widespread rejoicing in the South, where it was inferred that neither states nor Congress could legally bar slavery from anywhere. This rather betrayed Southern priorities.

The Southern states saw that they would become a permanent minority grouping of states if they remained in the Union and feared that it was only a matter of time before they would be outvoted by a Northern/Republican-dominated Congress on a regular basis. They were right. Years earlier the number of Northerners had outstripped Southern whites and the North had gained a majority in the House of Representatives. While the two main political parties retained genuinely nationwide support it did not matter. With the creation of the Republican party in the 1850s and its sectional support in the North, and given that the majority of settlers moving to the new territories came from the North, there was very little prospect that new slave states would be added to the Union in the years to come. The writing was on the wall for the South. Lincoln promised in 1861 that he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed, but in January 1863 he broke his word, and during the course of the war the Northerners remaining in a 'rump-Congress' took the opportunity to pass a range of laws which absent Southerners would certainly have opposed, thereby confirming the fears that Northerners would come to use Congress for their own sectional interests. 

Sectional Conspiracy Theories 

It is now generally accepted that the North and South had much more in common than divided them, but this does not necessarily mean that people living at the time did not believe in crude sectional stereotypes. The evidence suggests that, as time went by, rival conspiracy theories gained greater credibility. From the late 1830s in the North, the idea of a Southern 'Slave Power' bent on the expansion of slavery into new territories, curtailing freedoms and gaining control of the federal government, took hold. As Northern abolitionists stepped up their attacks on slavery so Southerners sought to justify their 'peculiar institution' more assertively, and in turn seemed to provide more evidence for conspiracy theorists. Some even claimed that the Southern slaveocracy had been responsible for the deaths by poison of two Presidents and had tried to kill three others. The 'Gag Rule' by which Congress had agreed not to discuss slavery during the period 1836-44, the fact that two-thirds of American soldiers who fought in the war against Mexico were from the Southern states, that various Southern-led expeditions tried to seize Cuba and Nicaragua in the 1850s, together with President Buchanan's apparent sympathies with pro-slavers in Kansas and the Dred Scott decision, seemed to many to confirm that a conspiracy existed. In fact no 'slave power' conspiracy did exist, but Eric Foner has argued that it became the 'ideological glue' of the Republican Party. 

Southerners had their own version of a conspiracy theory and came to believe in the existence of a 'Black Republican' plot aimed at destroying slavery. Within months of the first edition of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator coming off the presses in 1831, 60 whites had been killed in Virginia by black slaves in the Nat Turner revolt. Further abolitionist agitation and such publications as Uncle Tom's Cabin added weight to conspiracy theory. The final straw for many Southerners came with John Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in 1859. Brown and his extended family, who had carried out the notorious Pottawatomie Massacre of pro-slavers in Kansas, stepped up their campaign by trying to seize weapons so that slaves could be armed to rebel. Despite outright condemnation of the raid from men such as Lincoln, rumours abounded in the South that Brown had had the support of Northern businessmen and politicians, and - whether they were true or not - people believed them. The execution of Brown shocked Northern opinion, which further convinced Southerners that there was no future for them in the Union. 

If Northerners believed that Southerners who said they would secede were bluffing, they were tragically wrong; and if Southerners believed that Northerners would not fight to bring them back into the Union, they too were fatally mistaken.

The Role of Individuals 

Historians James Randall and Avery Craven claimed in the 1940s that politicians, leaders and other individuals on both sides were unusually incompetent in the period leading up to the war, and Michael Holt in 1978 argued that the real cause of the crisis that led to war was the disintegration of the Whig-Democrat party system and the complete loss of faith in politicians at national level. It can be argued, however, that the Whig-Democrat system had survived by avoiding the issue of slavery or by reaching compromises that could only last in the short term. As far back as 1820, with the Missouri Compromise, Congress had voted sectionally rather than along party lines. Perhaps by 1860 politicians had become more ideological and were not prepared to bury the issue of slavery and pretend that all was well with the Union. Nevertheless it can certainly be contended that men like John Calhoun, William Seward and Jefferson Davis were sectional politicians who lacked national followings and who stood to gain from conflict. Presidents Pierce and Buchanan have been severely criticised for their roles in allowing the conflict to escalate in the 1850s. John Brown was described as 'the meteor of war' by Herman Melville and his raid has been seen by many historians as the single most important factor in the build-up to war. Ed Bearss has pointed out that the most crucial consequence of Brown's raid was the reorganisation of the militia in the South which marked a preliminary stage to the formal raising of a Confederate army. The Democrat Stephen Douglas certainly was not a sectional politician, but it was his desire for personal profit, both financial and political, by championing the building of a transcontinental railroad through his home state of Illinois, that led him to advocate the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He thought that through popular sovereignty, that is by allowing settlers in Kansas territory to vote on whether they wanted slavery or not, Congress and the Supreme Court could avoid the thorny question of the legality of slavery; but he had misjudged the mood in the North and the growing moral distaste for slavery. His campaign helped to lead to the demise of the Whig Party and the subsequent rise of the Republican party - and, finally, to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was another non-sectional politician, the man who could have allowed the seceding Southern states to go their own way but whose iron resolve to save the Union, and refusal to yield when last-ditch attempts at compromise were made in the Crittenden Plan, ensured that war would happen. 

Conclusion

Contemporary Northern writer Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, 'We have gone to war, and we seem to have little, or at least, a very misty idea of what we are fighting for ... The Southern man will say, we fight for states' rights, liberty and independence. The middle and Western states man will avow that he fights for the Union; whilst our Northern and Eastern man will swear that, from the beginning, his only idea was liberty to the Blacks, and the annihilation of slavery.'

The causes of secession are not necessarily the same as the causes of the war itself, but the slavery issue refused to go away. Whether rival historians have cited economic reasons, states' rights, conspiracy theories, or sectional politicians, they have unwittingly confirmed the significance of slavery or the expansion of slavery as the main cause of the war. The main economic difference between North and South was slave labour, the key state right for most Southerners was the legality of slavery, and where conspiracists and agitators stirred up emotions they did so over the issue of slavery. Had slavery not existed in the states, is it then possible to imagine that a war would have happened? 

Issues to Debate

• How convincing is the argument that slavery was the single most important factor in producing the Civil War?
• How important was the issue of states' right in causing the conflict?
• What role did Abraham Lincoln play?

Further Reading:

• Ken Burns, The Civil War (video 1989)
• Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation (McGraw Hill, 2000)
• Hugh Brogan, The Penguin History of the USA (Penguin, 1999)
• Henry Steele Commager, The Blue and the Gray (The Fairfax Press,1982)
• Alan Farmer, The Origins of the American Civil War 1846-1861 (Hodder and Stoughton, 2002)
• Brian Holden Reid, The Origins of the American Civil War (Longman,1996)
• Michael Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (Norton,1978)
• Maldwyn Jones, The Limits of Liberty 1607-1992 (OUP, 1995)
• James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (Penguin, 1990)
• Kenneth Stampp (ed), The Causes of the Civil War (Simon and Schuster, 1991)
• Hugh Tulloch, The Debate on the American Civil War Era (MUP, 1999)

John Spicer is course leader for history and politics at Ashton-under-Lyne Sixth Form College. He is joint author of Spotlight on US History 1763-2000 (Routledge, 2004).

-

The impact of the Mexican War

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the familiar territorial shape of the present-day US. The union gained a gigantic landmass from Mexico in the west, that makes up two-fifths of present territory. The only subsequent territorial gains in North America after the Mexican war were a small strip of additional land purchased from Mexico in 1853 known as the Gadsden purchase, and Alaska, which was purchased from Russia post-civil war and for long afterwards was not considered to be of any economic importance. The outcome of the Mexican War, however, was of great importance to the union.  Although the war had not been especially costly in military terms, it was the start of a train of events that, in the space of under 2 decades, led the nation to a civil war. The end of the Mexican war yet again divided northerners and southerners over the most important political issue of the time: slavery. inevitably, the key question was; should states created from this vast new territory become slave or free?

Prior to the Mexican cession, there had been no possibility of any extension of slavery. The last time that the union had been faced with this issue was after the Louisiana purchase of 1803; this had been resolved in the Missouri compromise of 1820 with the creation of the 36º30' line that divided northern and southern territories. In the late 1840's, due largely to high immigration rates from Europe in the US's northeastern cities, the population of the free states was increasing far more rapidly than in the southern slave states, thus, the slave states were becoming an ever-smaller minority in the house of representatives. In the senate, where states were equally represented regardless of population size (click here http://edexcela2historyrevisionusa.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/slavery-and-us-constitution.html to read my post on slavery and the US constitution if you need more information on this issue!) the south retained much greater political power, but even here the equality between N/S found in the early years of the republic was threatened unless new slave states territory could be found. Additionally, the remaining territory from the Louisiana purchase that had yet to be organised into states - present day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas - was all north of the 36º30' line of latitude, and would therefore eventually have to enter the union as free states, tipping the delicate balance of free/slave states in the north's favour.  Therefore, the Mexican cession was a highly important issue for southerners. 

The Wilmot Proviso, 1846

In 1846, northern Democrat David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced a resolution to this issue that polarized sectional opinion. The 'Wilmot Proviso' stated that as slavery was outlawed in Mexico, slavery should be banned from any territory gained from Mexico. Wilmot, who was not an abolitionist, argued that he simply wanted to maintain the status quo. He was motivated, he explained, not by any "squeamish sensitivity upon the subject of slavery, nor morbid sympathy with the slave". Instead, he stated that his concern was that if slavery were legal in the new territories, the opportunities for free white labourers to settle and prosper there would be reduced. Additionally Wilmot insisted with complete plausibility that he was indifferent to slavery where it already existed. In any case, by the late 1840's, slavery was legal only in states, not territories, and Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in a state. Territories were a different matter; no one up until now had disputed the right of Congress to settle the issue one way or another in areas that had not yet been granted full statehood. 

The proviso was a grenade lobbed into the delicate balance of the national two-party system. The potential for sectional break down was immediately apparent. Northern congressmen voted 83-12 in favour of the proviso, and southerners 67-2 against. The proviso passed the house of representatives on three occasions, but each time it was blocked in the senate, where the south still had the votes to wield a veto against it. Thus, as the proviso failed to pass the senate, it did not become law. Nevertheless, the proviso fuelled tensions, polarising opinions on both sides, with both northerners and southerners seeing their side of the question as not only a point of deep principle, but also an issue of great practical political significance. For anti-expansion and abolitionist forces, the proviso became a rallying cry. As for so many issues, opinion was sectional, with many northerners supporting the proviso and most southerners denouncing it.

The Calhoun Doctrine, February 1847:  

In the senate, John C. Calhoun - a campaigner of pro-states rights, who had been involved with the 1832 nullification crisis in South Carolina - presented a pro-southern view, that opposed the principles of the wilmot proviso: he argued that since the territories were the common property of all the states and were merely held in trust by Congress, southerners had a claim to the land and could not be discriminated against by being told that they could not take their particular species of 'property' (slaves) there with them. If the northern majority continued to violate the constitutional rights of the southern minority, he argued, then the southern states would have little option but to secede. 

The free soil party

One group of antislavery politicians saw an opportunity in this crisis over slavery expansion. For several years, antislavery reformers like Whiggish lawyer Charles Sumner had wanted to cut loose  from the system of compromise that existed within both of the two national parties and create a new "fusion" movement that would unite in one party those who opposed the extension of slavery. With what in retrospect appear to be unrealistically high hopes of breaking the old of the two-party system, delegates gathered in New York in August 1848 to found the free soil party. The nominee was former Democratic President Martin Van Buren, who brought with him faction of northern democrats who supported the Wilmot Proviso.

Popular Sovereignty 

If the national two-party system was to be preserved, and the sectional chasm that Wilmot had opened to be bridged, a new approach was needed, one that circumvented the Wilmot Proviso without endorsing Calhoun's doctrine, and that found a middle ground for northerners and southerners. Eventually, a solution was agreed to. The new states formed from new territories would decide on the issue of slavery themselves by popular vote. The phrase used to describe this policy - "popular sovereignty" - was coined by mid-western democratic senator Lewis Cass, and the idea was associated with him and senator Stephen Douglas. Consistent with democracy and self-government, this solution seemed to offer something for both northerners and southerners:

• It met the south's wish for federal non-intervention and held out the prospect that slavery might be extended to some of the Mexican territories. 
• It could be presented to northerners as an exclusion scheme; it seemed unlikely that settlers in the new territories would vote for the introduction of slavery. 

However, there were problems with the concept of popular sovereignty. Firstly, it went against previous practice. In the past, Congress had decided on what should happen in the territories. Did PS mean that Congress no longer held this power? There were practical difficulties too. The main issue was when exactly a territory should decide on the slavery question. Northern democrats envisioned the decision being made early, as soon as the first territorial assembly met. southern democrats, keen to ensure that slavery was allowed into the new territories, saw the decision as being made late, near the end of the territorial phase (after the territory had reached a population size of 60,000, when settlers were seeking admission into the union as states. In the interim, they envisioned that slavery would be recognised and protected. 
Despite this ambiguity, popular sovereignty was supported by many democrats. It was opposed by a few southerners who believed they had the constitutional right to take their 'property' anyplace they wanted, and by  some northerners who opposed slavery expansion under any circumstance.

The 1848 election

Much to everyones surprise, democratic nominee Cass was narrowly defeated in the 1848 election by the whig's nominee General Zachary Taylor, a Mexican war hero and Louisiana slaveholder. Essentially, the Whigs had decided that the only way to avoid further loss of support was to find an attractive candidate and to leave the squabbling about policy until after the election. The free soil party polled 10% of the popular vote, far more votes than the more radical Liberty Party had in 1844, but arguably had  less of an impact on the final result because they took votes in roughly equal numbers from Democrats and Whigs. The free soil party may have failed to win an election, but it was a movement of huge significance for the relationship between the slavery issue and the party system. What Free Soilers had realised was that the free states now had a sufficiently large population that if they could be united, they would produce sufficient Electoral College votes to elect a president even if the south voted as a block for someone else. For the first time in the short history of the American republic, a political party was making a serious bid for national power by appealing to only one section.

Lincoln's election & the secession of the deep south

Hey! Sorry I haven't posted for a few days, I've mostly been busy focusing on revision for other exams. Also, sorry for the fact that I'm not posting things in chronological order or in the order I said I would post them; I have notes on lots of stuff before the time period of this blog post, but I want to cover everything at least once in my own revision first before I go back and look over old stuff. But I promise that posts on the impact of the Mexican war and the nature of southern slavery etc are coming soon! Anyways, today I am going to be writing about the 1860 election and it's aftermath, namely, the secession of the deep south (i.e the seven original confederate states).

The 1860 election

The events of the 1850' s had greatly heightened and aggravated tensions between the North and South of the US, with events such as the Dred Scott case, the Kansas Nebraska Act, bleeding Kansas, the FSA, bleeding Sumner, and Buchanan's presidency exacerbating the situation. In 1860, there were 33 states in the Union, 15 slave and 18 free, tipping the political power balance in favour of the North. Many southerners suspected that most northerners held abolitionist views, and the prospect of a republican victory in the election filled them with dread and anger. If a Republican were to become president, then plenty of southerners were prepared to consider the possibility of secession. 

If the republicans were to be defeated, it was essential for southerners that the internal rifts within the democratic party should be healed. The democrats were the singular national institution which could prevent a sectional rupture in 1860. Another victory by a candidate who was supported by both northerners and southerners would have kept the south in power in Washington and bolstered the position of southern unionists. But when the Democratic convention met in Charleston in April 1860, this last bond of Union finally ruptured. With Kansas' application for statehood still blocked in Congress by wrangling over the legitimacy of the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, the delegates bitterly fought over the issue, with southerners demanding not only the immediate admission of Kansas as a slave state, but also that Congress should pass a federal slave code for the territories.
Southerners promoted the candidacy of vice president John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a fervent supporter of the Lecompton constitution, whilst most northern democrats championed Stephen Douglas, firm supporter of popular sovereignty. Each side was convinced, with some justification , that the nomination of the other's candidate would be electoral suicide in their own section. There was an impasse and the convention met again 6 weeks later in Baltimore, where the party officially split into two sides. A group of southern delegates broke off and nominated Breckinridge on a pro-southern rights platform, whilst the remaining delegates - mostly northerners and a few from deep southern states - nominated Douglas on a platform of pro-popular sovereignty. 

The republican party platform was more moderate than  it had been in 1856. They condemned John Brown's raid, and a provocative reference to slavery as a relic of barbarism was removed. In an effort to broaden their base, the republicans courted the economic interests of different regional groups, such as supporting a tariff on imported goods in order to protect US industry, an issue that was especially vital in Pennsylvania, a key electoral state. The nomination of Lincoln rather than Seward was part of the same strategy of broadening appeal. Their platform also called for a northern transcontinental railway, and for free 160-acre homesteads for western settlers. They were neutral in terms of nativist issues - which had not disappeared since the demise of the know-nothings - meaning that anti-catholic northerners had little option but to vote republican, if only because the democrat party remained the home of Irish and German Catholics. In terms of slavery, the republican platform was not an abolitionist one, but an anti-slave power one. Lincoln called for slavery not to be expanded westwards, not for abolition; this was exactly the same stance that Douglas took. However, a vote for Lincoln was a vote against the slave power. Republicans mobilised many young voters, including many British and some German migrants. Unlike southern radicals, republicans cast their sectionalism as nationalism. Without the burden of having to placate a southern wing, they could do this with a clarity that none of the other parties could match. 

A group of former Whigs and Know-Nothings formed the 'Constitutional Unionist Party' and nominated John Bell of Tennessee on a  platform that avoided specific pledges but placed itself firmly in the compromise tradition of Henry Clay. Their main strength lay in the upper south, and the party wanted to remove the slavery question from the political sphere, thus reliving sectional strife. 

The democratic split of 1860 is often considered to have ensured republican success. However in actuality, even without the split, the republicans, who simply had to carry the north, was odds-on favourite to win. Even if the democrats had pulled off a nationally united campaign, Lincoln would probably still have won. In fact, the split might have even slightly weakened the republicans, as the fact that Douglas could now campaign in the north without having to try and maintain a national democratic party cause (which, at this point in time, would have been very difficult) probably helped Douglas. Nonetheless, the republicans were the ones to secure a victory in November. Lincoln polled 54% of the vote in the free states and took the Electoral College votes of every free state except for New Jersey, Oregon, and California. Although nationwide he won only 40% of the vote, he had a clear majority in the Electoral College. The election reflected the depths of sectional polarisation; it had not been, in any genuine sense, a national campaign. Lincoln and Douglas had contested the free states and Bell and Breckinridge the slave states. Lincoln was not even on the ballot paper in most slave states. The election was proof, if any were needed, that not only was the nation divided but that the south was now in a minority. Northerners had just demonstrated that they could select a president without any regard to southern opinion. 


Secession

Rationally, there were excellent reasons for why Lincoln's election should not have sparked southern secession: 

• Lincoln had promised that he would not interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. 
• Even if Lincoln did harbour secret ambitions to abolish slavery, there was little he could do about it; the republicans did not control congress or the supreme court. 
• Secession would mean abandoning an enforceable fugitive slave law; thus, slaves would be able to flee northwards. 
• Secession might lead to civil war, which would threaten slavery far more than Lincoln's election (as it did).

However, few southerners regarded things so diplomatically. Most were outraged that an anti-slavery northerner had managed to become president, in spite of winning no states in the south. None of the southern states had voted Lincoln in; in 10/15, he did not gain a single vote. In the south he was depicted as a rabid abolitionist who would encourage slave insurrections. He would certainly stop slavery expansion. Southerners felt that they would thus be encircled by more free states formed from the western territories and that, ultimately, slavery would be voted out of existence in the US. Southerners felt deeply degraded by the north. They believed that they had been denied their fair share of the western territories and unfairly taxed through high tariffs to subsidise northern industry. Southerners felt they had had enough, and thus, honour demanded that a stand should be taken against the election of Lincoln, which they considered to be an outrage. Across the south, fire-eaters, who for years had agitated for the cause of southern secession and independence, capitalised on the sectional mood. They had lingered on the fringes of southern politics for years, and now, suddenly found themselves supported by 'mainstream' southern politicians. To nobody surprise, South Carolina was the first state to make a move. On November 9th, only two days after the election results, the South Carolina legislature called for elections to a secession convention, which would be met in December to decide whether the state would secede from the Union. This triggered a chain reaction across the deep south. Individual states initially committed themselves to individual action, but it was clear that southerners were also committed to joint action. On 20th December, the SC convention voted 169 to 0 for secession. The state defended its action, claiming that: 

• "A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of president of the US whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery."

By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had all passed secession laws similar to South Carolina's. By February 9, commissioners from the 7 seceded states, meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, had adopted a provisional constitution, with Jefferson Davis becoming the provisional president. 

Republicans saw events in the south as a continuation of the slave power conspiracy. They claimed that a few wealthy planters had conned the electorate into voting for secession, to which most southerners were not truly committed. 
The debate about whether secession was led by an aristocratic clique or whether it was a genuinely democratic act has continued. Slaveholders certainly dominated politics in many of the deep southern states. Apart from Texas, no state held a referendum on the secession issue. Areas with few slaves tended to vote against disunion, whereas areas where secession support was highest also had the highest proportions of slaves. 
According to historian David Potter, "to a much greater degree than the slaveholders desired, secession had become a slave owners movement". Potter believed that a secessionist, powerful, influential and wealthy minority had, with a clear purpose, seized the momentum and, at a time of excitement and confusion, won mass support. 

Nonetheless, Potter accepted that secessionists acted democratically and in a clear and open manner. Many non-slaveholders supported secession, nor did all the wealthy slaveholders support it; there was no conspiracy to thwart the will of the majority. Thus, it appears that secession was what southerners truly wanted in 1861.

Slavery and the US Constitution

Although the US Constitution was written prior to the time period at the beginning of the A2 specification, I think this is a very important topic to know about that is useful for understanding many of the later political issues to arise during the antebellum period 1820-61. 

Slavery and the United States Constitution

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - From the 1776 Declaration of Independence, authored by Thomas Jefferson

• When the American colonies broke from Britain, the Continental Congress asked Jefferson to write the declaration of independence. In this declaration, Jefferson expressed American grievances and explained why the 13 colonies were breaking away. His words proclaimed the US's ideals of freedom and equality, which today still resonate throughout the world. 

• Yet at the time these words were written, more than 500,000 African Americans were enslaved. Jefferson himself owned more than 100 slaves. Most of these slaves lived in the southern colonies, where they made up around 40% of the population. Many colonists, even slaveholders, claimed to hate the practice. George Washington, who owned hundreds of slaves, denounced slavery as 'repugnant'. But although many of them decried it, southern colonists relied on slavery. The southern colonies were among the wealthiest in the world, and their cash crops of cotton, tobacco and rice depended on slave labour; they were not going to give it up.
• The first US national government said nothing about the issue of slavery. It left the power to regulate slavery, as well as most other powers, to the individual 13 states. After their experiences with the English, the colonists distrusted the political system of having a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote.

However, this form of government proved to be ineffective. Therefore, it was decided that a new constitution would be written. The outline of the new government was soon agreed to. It would have 3 branches: 

1. The Executive
2. The Judiciary
3. A two-house legislature 

• Dispute arose over the legislature branch. States that had large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with smaller populations, however, wanted each state to have the same number of representatives. The argument over this issue carried on for months. In the end, the delegates agreed to the 'Great Compromise":                                                                                                                                                                                             One branch, the House of Representatives, would be based on state population. The other, the Senate, would have two members from each state, regardless of population.

• Part of this compromise included an issue that split the convention on North-South lines. The issue was: Should slaves count as part of the population? Under the proposed constitution, population would ultimately determine 3 matters: 

1. How many members each state would have in the House of Representatives. 
2. How many electoral votes each state would have in presidential elections. 
3. The amount each state would pay in direct taxes to the federal government.

• Only the southern states had large numbers of slaves. Counting them as part of the population would greatly increase the south's political power, but would also mean paying higher taxes. This was a price, however, that southerners were willing to pay. They argued in favour of counting slaves, but the Northern states disagreed. Thus, the delegates compromised: each slave would count as 3/5 of a free person. 
• Following this compromise, another controversy emerged: what should be done about the slave trade, the importing of new slaves into the US from Africa? 10 states had already outlawed it, and many of the delegates denounced it. However, the 3 states that did still allow it - Georgia and the two Carolinas - threatened to leave the convention if it were banned. Therefore, another compromise was agreed to: Congress would have the power to ban the trade, but not until 1808. 
• One final major issue concerning slavery confronted the delegates. Southern states wanted Northern states to return escaped slaves back to the south. The articles of confederation adbot guaranteed this. But when Congress adopted the North-West ordinance, within it there was a clause promising that slaves would be returned to their owners. Therefore, the delegates placed a similar fugitive slave clause in the Constitution (this was part of a deal made with New England States: in exchange for the FSC, the New England states got concessions on shipping and trade). 
• These compromises on slavery had a significant impact on the nation in the years to come up to the civil war in 1861. The FSC (enforced through legislation passed in 1793 and 1850 - watch this space for a post on the 1850 compromise, which will include details of the fugitive slave act) allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the north and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnapping and return to slavery of thousands of free African Americans. 
• The three-fifths compromise greatly increased southern representation in Congress and the Electoral College, which northerners for years afterwards would hold resentment for. In 12 out of the first 16 elections, a southern slaveholder won. 
• Extending the slave trade up till 1808 brought many more slaves into the US. South Carolina alone imported 40,000 new slaves between 1803 and 1808. So many slaves entered SC that slavery spilled over into the Louisiana territory and took root. 

• Northern states did not push too hard on the slavery issue in the late 18th century. Their main aim was to secure a solid form of republican government in the US. They feared antagonising the south, and additionally, most northerners viewed slavery as a dying institution with no economic future. However, in 1793, Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin, which made growing cotton on plantations - and therefore also slavery - extremely profitable. 
• The Declaration of Independence expressed lofty ideals of equality. The framers of the constitution, however, left critically important questions of real equality and fairness to future generations, a policy which would eventually come to have disastrous consequences for the nation. It would be a very long time before the 'great republic' that they had founded would approach the ideals expressed in the 1776 Declaration of Independence. 

Western Expansion: Texas, California, & the Mexican War

Journalist John O'Sullivan had coined the phrase 'Manifest Destiny' in 1845 to describe the USA's 'god given right' to possess all of the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

In the 1820's, Northern Mexico included what are now the states of Texas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and California. However, New Mexico and California were the two areas with large settlements. Americans had settled in Texas from the 1820's onwards. Most were southerners and many had taken their slaves with them. In 1829, Mexico passed a law to free its slaves, and in the following year prohibited further American immigration into Texas. American Texans defied both of these laws, and for some years, the Mexican government was too weak to enforce its authority. By 1935, there were around 30,000 American migrants in Texas (plus 5000 of their slaves) and only about 5000 Mexicans. 

The efforts of the Mexican President, General Santa Anna, to enforce Mexican authority were resented by the American Texans, and over the winter of 1835-36, they declared independence. Santa Anna marched North with a large army, and battles were fought over the territory. In April 1936, an American-Texan army defeated the Mexicans at the battle of San Jacinto. Santa Anna was captured and forced to recognise Texan independence. 

Texas was now effectively independent. In 1837, most Texans, with the support of southerners, hoped to now join the USA. However, there were a number of issues with this. The primary stumbling block to Texas' annexation by the U.S. was that the act was almost certain to provoke war with Mexico, an eventuality which came to pass with the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846. However, there was another problem: slavery. Many northerners opposed Texas entering the Union, fearing that it could lead to the expansion of slavery. Texas was so large that the possibility of it entering as 5 new slave states was raised, meaning the balance between free and slave states would be heavily tilted in the south's favour, and the south would essentially have a political monopoly over the Senate. The issue of Texas was thus politically controversial, meaning that President Jackson shelved it, as did his successor Martin Van Buren. Therefore, between 1837 and 1845, Texas was an independent republic, unrecognised by Mexico and rejected by the US. 

Texas became a major issue again in the Presidential election of 1844, fought between Whig Henry Clay and Democrat James Polk. Polk, a southern slaveholder, was elected president on a platform that promised the annexation of both Oregon - an area claimed by Britain - and Texas. Outgoing Whig President Zachary Taylor, anxious to leave his mark on the events, therefore secured a joint resolution of Congress in favour of the annexation of Texas, and thus Texas was entered into the union - as a single slave state - in 1845. Congress then forged an agreement with Britain to divide Oregon at the 49th Parallel, restoring the free/slave state balance in the senate. 

Polk, who was a firm believer in Manifest Destiny, had another goal as President: to acquire California and New Mexico from Mexico, provinces where the Mexican population was small, americans were starting to settle in, and the Mexican government had little control. 

Polk attempted to purchase the California territory from Mexico, but they rejected his offer; the USA's annexation of Texas angered Mexico, who still claimed sovereignty over the state, and the fact that there were boundary disputes between Texas and Mexico was a further issue that the US now inherited. 

In 1845, President Polk sent troops into the disputed border area between Texas and Mexico, hoping to provoke an incident that would result in a war that would lead to US annexation of California and New Mexico. Fighting broke out between the two sides. Polk, in calling for a declaration of war, claimed that the Mexicans had "shed blood upon American soil" (although the soil in question was arguably not American). 

A majority of Americans, especially southerners, supported the war, but many northerners viewed it as a southern war of aggression. The Mexican war was the first war fought by US troops primarily on foreign soil, as most of the fighting occurred in Mexico. 

In September 1847, Winfield Scott captured Mexico City. A final peace treaty, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was signed in February 1848, under which Mexico confirmed the annexation of Texas and further ceded California and New Mexico, as well as areas that today make up Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. In return for this huge land mass, the US paid Mexico $15 million. 

Polk was dissatisfied with the treaty, as he felt that the US could have gained even more territory from Mexico. However, he reluctantly agreed to the treaty, which was confirmed by the Senate in May 1848.

My next post is probably going to be on the impact of the Mexican War between 1846-50, and then I am going to go back to my revision notes from a few weeks ago and write a few posts on the issue of southern slavery, which will most probably be: 

• Slavery and the US constitution
• The hierarchy of antebellum southern society
• Southern justifications for slavery
• The nature of American slavery

The Missouri Compromise of 1820

Firstly, please note that although I eventually hope to cover everything on the course, I will not necessarily be posting everything in chronological order...

In this post I shall be covering the first event between 1820-77 regarding the issue of westward expansion: The 1820 Missouri Compromise.

Introduction to Westward Expansion: "Manifest Destiny"

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to New Orleans, doubling the size of the USA. To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms. This was a traditionally Republican viewpoint that dominated US politics in the early years of US government prior to Jackson's presidency. 

In order to provide enough land to sustain this ideal population of virtuous yeomen, the United States would have to continue to expand.The westward expansion of the United States is one of the defining themes of 19th-century American history, but it is not just the story of Jefferson’s expanding “empire of liberty.” On the contrary, as one historian writes, in the six decades after the Louisiana Purchase, westward expansion “nearly destroyed the republic.”

By 1840, nearly 40 percent of the nation’s population lived in the trans-Appalachian West. Most of these people had left their homes in the East in search of economic opportunity. Like Jefferson, many of these pioneers associated westward migration, land ownership and farming with freedom. In Europe, large numbers of factory workers formed a dependent and seemingly permanent working class; by contrast, in the United States, the western frontier offered the possibility of independence and upward mobility for all (all white males, that is)

In 1845, a journalist named John O’Sullivan put a name to the idea that helped pull many pioneers toward the western frontier. Westward migration was an essential part of the republican project, he argued, and it was Americans’ “manifest destiny,” to carry the “great experiment of liberty” to the edge of the continent: to “overspread and to possess the whole of the land which Providence has given us,” O’Sullivan wrote. According to many politicians, the survival of American freedom depended on it.

The Missouri Compromise

In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions within the US. By 1819, the original 13 states had grown to 22, with 11 of them, all located in the south, being slave states, and the other 11, all located in the north, being free. In 1819 Missouri requested to join the Union as a slave state, thus potentially upsetting this delicate balance: given that this would tilt the balance of free/slave states against them, the northern states opposed Missouri's admittance. This issue sparked a series of debates in Congress, with southern and northern congressmen lining up against each other. The extraordinarily bitter debate over Missouri’s application for admission ran from December 1819 to March 1820. Northerners, led by Senator Rufus King of New York, argued that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in a new state. Southerners like Senator William Pinkney of Maryland held that new states had the same freedom of action as the original thirteen and were thus free to choose slavery if they wished. However, in March 1820 Congress figured out a compromise in order to keep the peace:

• Missouri's request to join the Union as a slave state was accepted, but in order to keep the balance of free/slave states equal, a new free state - Maine - was also created in New England. 

• It was decided that henceforward, there would be no slave states in the Louisiana purchase territory, meaning all areas north of latitude 36º30' (known as the 36º30' line) except for Missouri itself, which was north of the line. South of this line, slavery could exist. 

The Missouri Compromise was criticized by many southerners because it established the principle that Congress could make laws regarding slavery. On the other hand, northerners condemned it for allowing the expansion of slavery (though only south of the compromise line). 

Nevertheless, the act kept the peace between the two sides, and helped hold the Union together for more than thirty years. However, it also created a physical division between the north and the south; arguably leading to further separation and distinction between the two sides. 

In 1854, the act was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which established popular sovereignty (local choice) regarding slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, two areas that were both north of the compromise line, arguably acting as a catalyst for secession in 1861. Three years later, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, on the ground that Congress was prohibited by the Fifth Amendment from depriving individuals of private property without due process of law. 

But between 1820 and 1854, the compromise acted as a successful settlement between the northern and southern states of the USA. 

Did Andrew Jackson democratise the US political system?

YES: Arguments that support the view that Jackson did democratise the political system

- He was elected democratically at a time where 10/13 states had removed the old-fashioned 'property voting laws'

- He epitomised contempt for the old Republican elitism with it's hierarchal deference and wariness of popular democracy.

- Ushered in the era of the much more democratic (than politics had previously been) Second Party System in the US, with Democrats and Whigs being the two main opposing political parties. Jackson was very much the catalyst who generated the development of this system; his supporters called themselves Democrats, and his opponents were eventually known as Whigs.

- He was a self-made man from Tennessee, who had grown up in poverty with an erratic education, but had made a name for himself as a successful lawyer, solider, and (slave holding) southern landowner. Thus, Jackson claimed to represent the common man, and was a supporter of individual liberty.

- He aimed to rid the US government of class biases and dismantle the top-down, credit-driven engines of the market revolution.

- The 'Bank War', in Jackson's opinion, was an effort to remove the hands of a few wealthy landowners from the levers of the nation's economy.

- He believed that Native American removal was in the Indians best interests, as they would no longer be cheated by dishonest traders and rapacious land dealers once they had migrated westwards.

NO: Arguments that counter the view that Jackson democratised the political system

- In light of the market revolution, the idea of excluding wage workers from voting seemed very outdated, thus, the defining characteristic of the Jacksonian era was that all white males, rich or poor, whether or not they owned land, could vote. Thus, prior to Jackson's presidency, the 'democratic' US had not really been a true democracy at all. 

However, women, slaves, and free blacks - thus, more than  50% of the population - all still could not vote, and would not win the right to for many years. Additionally, it is vital to note that Jackson probably benefitted from, rather than created, the democratic tide. This defining characteristic - the more 'universal' right to vote - of the Jacksonian era ironically had little to do with Jackson himself, because, by the time he was elected as president in 1929, 10/13 states had already removed their property voting requirements; in fact, that is probably the reason he was able to get elected in the first place. 


- He was well known for his frequent use of the presidential veto, and often tended to act within his own interests. The Whigs nicknamed him 'King Andrew' and criticised him for acting like a monarch.

- His involvement in the South Carolina Nullification Crisis has been criticised for being undemocratic: http://www.ushistory.org/us/24c.asp

- His involvement in forced native american removal: The notion of relocating Native Americans from the eastern part of the US into lands west of Mississippi had long been envisioned by white politicians. During his presidency, Jackson put a (forced) relocation policy into effect. His attitude to native americans was the typically western one: they were 'better off' out of the way. With Jackson's backing, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in May 1930, resulting in the forced removal and deaths of thousands of native americans: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/indian-treaties

- He was a southern slaveholder.

- His role in 'The Bank War' was arguably undemocratic, as Jackson acted in a dictatorial manner and pursued a policy that led a financial crisis: http://www.history.com/topics/bank-war

- His invention and frequent use of the corrupt 'spoils system' of patronage whereby he federal jobs to his supporters and benefactors, and fired those who he viewed as political opponents: http://history1800s.about.com/od/1800sglossary/g/Spoils-System.htm


I recommend watching this useful video (link below) for a summary of Jackson's presidency:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beN4qE-e5O8&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s&index=14

Welcome; first post

Hi, 

Basically I have decided to create a blog containing information and exam technique skills for the Edexcel A2 History exam; specifically, I am studying "America: Civil War and Westward Expansion, 1820-77". 

I am mostly doing this in order to help with my own revision, however, hopefully this will also be useful for other students who are revising for this exam. 

I will be posting my revision notes, evaluation points for key issues, and sample/past exam questions and how I would go about planning/writing essays. 

Good luck with revision & I will try to post on here as much as possible! 

x