Election of 1860 to Bull Run

This political cartoon appeared in 1861 criticizing the Presidency of James Buchanan.  The cartoon shows the symbol of the U.S. , an eagle looking proud and distinguished in 1857, the year Buchanan would take office.  By 1861, the year he was to leave the eagle is in tatters, a shadow of its former self.    

     Buchanan, Democrat from Pennsylvania, is considered by most historians as being the worst President of the United States.  His critics point out that he made many compromises to Southern States while in office and looked the other way during the Dred Scott Case and Bleeding Kansas.  His own party would be in shambles over the issue of slavery and choose not to nominate him for re-election when his term expired.  

  The election of 1860, is one of the most crucial turning points in U.S. history.  The outcome would lead to the dissolution of the Union and change the course of history.  

The Democratic Party was in shambles in 1860.  During the National Convention in Charleston South Carolina the Democrats failed to nominate a candidate to run for office.  Fights broke out in the meeting hall and many Southern leaders call on a protest of the Convention.  The Democratic leaders decided to halt the nomination process and to meet again in two weeks in Baltimore.  Several delegates refused to attend the second convention and nominated John C. Breckinridge to be the Democratic Nominee for President.    When the Convention ended in Baltimore, Stepehn F. Douglas from Illinois was chosen to run for President.  The Democrats had two candidates running for President, Douglas from the North and Breckinridge from the South.  

    The Republican Convention took place in Chicago and was much more unified then the Democrats.  William Seward the Senator from New York seemed to be the front runner to earn the nomination for President.  However, many Republicans felt that he was too strongly opposed to slavery and that might lose him some votes in the border states.  On the third ballot, Abraham Lincoln from Illinois was chosen to be the Republican nominee for President because of his moderate stance on slavery.

   A third party ran on the ballot for President.  John Bell from Tennessee ran on the Constitutional Union Party ticket.  Bell was for slavery and hoped to keep the Union together.

Douglas became the first Presidential Candidate to campaign across the nation.  He spoke in both the North and South, trying to appeal to Americans to keep the nation together.  Although he knew that he would not gain many votes in the South, he hoped to reach out to those who lived in Southern cities and to immigrant groups.  

The Democrats hoped to block Lincoln from gaining enough votes in the Electoral College so the vote would be decided by the House of Representatives which was controlled by the Democrats.  

   Despite the fact that Lincoln did not appear on the ballot on some states he won both the popular vote and the electoral college.  Douglas was second in the popular vote but only won the state of Missouri.  Both Breckinridge and Bell did well in the South, but neither gained enough votes in the electoral college to challenge Lincoln.  If Lincoln ran against only one other candidate then the Democrats would have had a stronger chance of defeating him.  

 

The cartoon shows Lincoln stooping Breckinridge and Douglas from getting into the White House.  The old guy in the window is Buchanan being pulled out by John Bell.  

On December 20, 1860, the legislature of South Carolina voted to dissolve the union between South Carolina and other states.  By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana had also voted to leave the Union.   Buchanan said that the states did not have the right to leave but the Federal Government did not have the power to make states return.   Federal arsenals, forts, post offices, and mints were being seized throughout the South by the newly formed Confederate States of America.  

   

In Charleston Harbor Fort Sumter stood as a Union presence in the deep South.  Major John Anderson the commander of the fort grew concerned that he would not have enough food and supplies to withstand an attack.  He encouraged President Lincoln to send relief as soon as possible.  Before relief could arrive, the South struck first, attacking Fort Sumter with a 30 hour around the clock bombardment.  Anderson surrenders suffering only one casualty, a horse.  Charleston Harbor was now open to allow ships to export cotton, the most valuable crop of the South.

Lincoln hoped for a quick end to the war.  He ordered General Irvin McDowell to lead an attack on the Confederate capital of Richmond, located less than 100 miles from Washington D.C.  McDowell complains that his army is neither disciplined nor prepared for the assault.  The Union army is embarrassed by 35,000 Confederate troops who are able to withstand the Union attacks at Bull Run.  For many this was a sign that the war between the North and the South would be a long and bloody ordeal.  

Dred Scott Decision

Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1799.  In 1830, Scott and his master moved to Missouri, which was a slave state.  Four years later, a surgeon in the U.S. army named Dr. John Emerson bough Scott and moved him to the free state of Illinois.  In 1836, Scott and Emerson moved to the Wisconsin Terriory.  In 1838, Emerson moved back to Missouri where he would die in 1843.  In his will, Emerson left all his possessions including Scott to his widow.  In 1846, Scott asked Mrs. Emerson if he could work for his freedom. According to Scott she refused.

     Scott sued Mrs. Emerson and argued that he was being held illegally because he had become a free man as soon as he had lived in a free state.  He claimed that he was taken to a slave state against his will.  Many slaves had sued their owners in this way and won their freedom in the past.  In 1847, Emerson won in the Missouri Circuit Court because Scott's lawyers failed to prove that she was holding Scott as a slave.  Scott's lawyers successfully argued for a new trial.

   Dred Scott became the most famous slave in the United States and his case would make it all the way to the Supreme Court.   The issue of Scott's freedom became overshadowed by the question of whether the national government could pass a law regarding slavery.  Scott's lawyers based their argument on the fact that since Scott had been living in territory that the federal government had declared slave free, he was no longer a slave.  

      Many people in the South felt that the U.S. government had no right to declare a law about slavery in a territory but the people of that territory had the right to do that.  Since Scott was legally property, the U.S. government had no right to take him from his owners.   Some lawyers felt that Scott had no legal right to a trial since he was not a citizen of the United States. 

   The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1857 was Roger Taney.  Taney was a slave holder from Maryland that had been serving as Chief Justice since 1837.  Taney felt that this was an opportunity to put to rest the issue of slavery.  He was faced with three main questions to answer: 1.) Is Dred Scott free?  2.) Can a former slave or any African-American become a U.S. citizen?

  and finally, 3.) Does the Federal Government have the authority to declare laws about slavery. 

     Taney delivered the decision himself to the lawyers for both sides.  The Supreme Court declared that Dred Scott had no legitimate claim to his freedom and that he was to be returned to his owners.  According to the Supreme Court the U.S. government had no authority to declare any laws on slavey (it was not mentioned in the Constitution). On the issue of whether a descendent of a slave could ever become a citizen or not, the court said "the language used in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution shows that neither the class of persons imported as slaves nor their descendants free or not...were acknowledged as part of the people, nor intended to be included in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."

      With a few simple words, Roger Taney was able to deny citizenship to hundreds of thousands of free African Americans and further divide the nation on the issue of slavery.  Since only states were allowed to pass laws on the issue of slavery, the Missouri Compromise was now considered UnConstitutional.  Slavery could technically be able to spread in parts of the nation where it had once been forbidden.  Many Northern politicians saw this as another example of the South being given special privileges. 

   

   Dred Scott would eventually be granted freedom by a different owner.  He died in St. Louis after working as a hotel porter.  Roger Taney would become one of the most reviled Justices ever to serve in the Supreme Court.  He would remain in office until his death in 1864.  Congress refused to have a statue of him paced in the Supreme Court building because of his role in the Dred Scott case.

 

Bleeding Kansas

    Following the election of the Pro-slavery government, Kansas was in a state of virtual civil war.  Lecompton became the home of the elected government, while a group of anti-slavery officials set up their own government in Lawrence, a town established by the New England Emigrant Society, 8 miles from Lecompton.  The government of Lecompton had passed a series of laws making it illegal to speak out against slavery and viewed the people of Lawrence as traitors.

   On May 21, 1856, a group of 750 men traveled from Lecompton to Lawrence hoping to arrest the "free soliers" who wanted Kansas to be a free state.  The men preceded to destroy the Liberty Hotel which was the headquarters of the Free Soilers.  The town was completely destroyed but the  Free Soilers were able to escape before the attack began.

    Throughout the following months guerilla tactics would be committed by both groups.  John Brown, a New Englander who arrived in Kansas  hoping to have it become a free state, led a group of seven men who murdered five people who were pro-slavery.  Brown felt that slavery was an evil institution that needed to be eliminated from the United States.  Brown and his men would be engaged in various other armed conflicts, at one point they captured 22 pro-slavery soldiers following a battle.

   Back East, the media published various accounts of the fighting in Kansas.  The headline of the New York Tribune referred to the events as "Bleeding Kansas."  President Pierce did little to restore order in Kansas feeling as it was the responsibility of the Territorial Governor to bring stability to Kansas.  

  On July 31, 1856, Franklin Pierce appointed John W. Geary to be the new Territorial Governor of Kansas.  Geary quickly set out to restore order to Kansas, promising his only allegiances were for Kansas and the United States, not the North or the South.    The new governor disbanded the militia of Kansas which was responsible for much of the fighting, and brokered a peace between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces.  Geary would be able to bring Kansas under control.

  By the time the fighting had ceased, there would be 56 people killed and perhaps 200 people wounded from the violence.  To some Americans the violence in Kansas was living proof that the country was being split from the issue of slavery and headed down a road of violence.  The ineffective president, President Pierce helped create a violent situation by not intervening. 

Kansas Divided

      Beginning in the late 1840s, there was talk of creating a railroad that would run from the East coast to the West coast.  This would make it possible to ship people and goods to California faster and less expensive.  There were two routes that were being considered, one had the railroad starting in Chicago then heading West to California, the other route began at New Orleans and would travel through Texas before heading south through New Mexico and Arizona. The railroad would bring millions of dollars to what ever city became the home to it and would guarantee business for local factories.  Southern Senators agreed to abandon the proposition of a southern route for the railroad if the remaining territory from the Louisiana Purchase would be open to slavery.  

    In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois proposed a Bill to Congress.  The Bill would divided the remaining land of the Louisiana Purchase into two territories: Kansas and Nebraska.  The Bill also mentioned that the citizens of those territories would get to decide if they were to become slave states or free states.  Douglas was hoping that if the Bill was passed then the railroad would go through Chicago.

     Douglas was one of the leading Democrats in the Senate.  He used his influence in Washington to get the Bill to pass the House and the Senate with ease.  Many people in the North were outraged over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  The Kansas and Nebraska Territories were both north of the 36 30 line from the Missouri Compromise.  This land had been declared off limits to slave owners in 1820, now the National Government was over turning the Missouri Compromise.

    Across the nation Pro-Slavery and Anti-Slavery groups attempted to get the settlers into Kansas.  Since the residents of Kansas were going to decide if the territory would be a slave state or a free state, thousands of emigrants traveled to Kansas. The New England Emigrant Society sent "Free Soilers" to Kansas hoping that the land would become slave free.  "Border Ruffians" from the South traveled to Kansas to ensure that Kansas would become a slave state.   Both groups were passionate about their beliefs prepared to fight for their cause.

        In March of 1855, there was elections held to form the legislative branch of the Territory of Kansas.  In Missouri (slave state) groups were formed that took thousands of men from Missouri into Kansas to vote for pro-slavery members of the government.  Since there was no clear way of deciding if the people voting were actual residents of Kansas, the people from Missouri were able to decide the fate of Kansas.  Voter fraud was rampant in Kansas for that election, with both pro-slavery and anti-slavery residents and non-residents voting more than once.  

   A Pro-Slavery government was elected and those that opposed slavery established their own government in Lawrence Kansas.