Lincoln Re-enters Politics

I. Growing Sectional Divisions

A. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

1. Popular Sovereignty—Douglas, in order to gain sufficient southern support to build a transcontinental railroad (among other reasons), proposed to leave the determination of slavery to a popular vote in each territory.
2. Ends Compromise of 1850—Douglas fashioned this compromise only 4 years before, and then blew it up with the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
3. Ends Missouri Compromise (1820)—restricted slavery above the line of latitude above 36-30—the southern border of Missouri. Considered “settled law” by many northerners, this raised an alarm that increased sectional tensions once again.
4. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)—this Supreme Decision, handed down just weeks after the inauguration of James Buchanan, called into question whether the federal government had any authority to check the growth of slavery. Although Chief Justice Roger Taney famously famously declared that no black man had any rights that any white man was bound to respect, it was the undermining of the authority of the federal government to restrict slavery that was upsetting to many white northerners.

B. Growing Sectional Animosity—although to this point much of our attention has been focused upon the growing power of a handful of abolitionists to set the terms of the debate, the bellicose determination to retain and expand slavery on the part of southern slaveholders was just as important to fuel the conflict.

1. Slavery and morality—the success of abolitionists in framing this debate in moral terms put slavery apologists on the defensive


2. Defenders of slavery—also attempted to use morality arguments in defending slavery—arguing that slaves were “part of the family” (and some of the literally were, fathered by the white patriarch). Some slavery defenders argued that the system of slave labor compared favorably with the still-emerging labor system in the north known as waged labor—because slave owners were “obligated” to care for young, sick, and elderly slaves, while the northern capitalist felt no such obligations to their workers.


3. Every Means Necessary—Southern slavery apologists—with their northern associates—utilized all means, legal and illegal, to suppress anti-slavery advocacy, from the “gag rule” in Congress in the 1820s and 1830s, to interfering with the US Mail to stop the distribution of abolitionist literature and newspapers—even to the severe caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate by South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks.

II. Anti-Kansas-Nebraska Act Agitation

A. Sundering the Second Party System

1. Wilmot Proviso—division over this piece of legislation was by section (North and South) rather than by Party (Whig and Democratic)

2. Compromise of 1850—impossible to pass as an omnibus bill; Douglas was able to cobble together enough votes to pass the five different parts

3. Kansas-Nebraska Act—after its passage, northern opponents, angered at the underhanded dealing they felt Douglas had engaged in, worked to defeat him. At first, this anger was unfocused, and relatively ineffective


4. Demise of the Whigs—with the Whig Party quickly destroyed by the rising sectional conflict, other parties quickly emerged to take its place—namely, the Free Soil Party and the American Party, better known to us today as the Know-Nothing Party. The Know-Nothings were animated by their hostility to unregulated immigration—a position Lincoln abhorred, while at the same time fearing to anger this faction


B. Lincoln’s Peoria Speech—in Peoria he most famously lays out his argument for extending the rights claimed in the Declaration of Independence to all—black and white. In doing so, Lincoln ventured into relatively unknown territory, because this was an extreme position held be only a few abolitionist—and no politicians of any importance.

1. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—Lincoln called for the extension of these rights to all, and that this should provide the basis for ending slavery.

2. Colonization of former slaves—this, in Lincoln’s view in 1954—and for years afterward—was how the objective above would be achieved. Lincoln did not believe that most whites would ever accept blacks as their equals—not politically, and certainly not socially or culturally


C. The Dred Scott Case—Taney, writing the majority decision, undercut nearly 40 years of established law be declaring that the federal government had no authority to limit slavery. It was expected by anti-slavery forces that the Court, in sessions in the near future, would rule that states had no right to limit slavery either—and evidence suggests that that was Taney’s plan, particularly since he became incensed over the reaction to this decision