American Pageant 11th

1. 
   Reasons the Constitution favored the South… (1) the Supreme Court just said so with the Dred Scott decision and it is the Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution, (2) the 5^th Amendment said Congress could not take away property, in this case, slaves (3) it could be argued that slavery is in the Constitution by way of the Three-Fifths Compromise, and (4) it could be argued slavery is not in the Constitution since the word “slavery” is not present, but using this argument, the 10^th Amendment said anything not in the Constitution is left up to the states, and the Southern states would vote for slavery.
   

1. 
   Psychologically, the Panic of 1857 was the worst of the 19^th century, though it really wasn’t as bad as the Panic of 1837. It’s causes were (1) California gold causing inflation, (2) over-growth of grain, and (3) over-speculation, as always, this time in land and railroads.
   
2. 
   The North was especially hard hit, but the South rode it out with flying colors, seemingly proving that cotton was indeed king and raising Southern egos.
   
3. 
   Also, in 1860, Congress passed a Homestead Act that would provide 160 acres of land at a cheap price for those who were less-fortunate, but it was vetoed by Buchanan.
   
   1. 
      This plan, though, was opposed by the northeast, which had long been unfriendly to extension of land and had feared that it would drain its population even more, and the south, which knew that it would provide an easy way for more free-soilers to fill the territories.
      
4. 
   The panic also brought calls for a higher tariff rate, which had been lowered to about 20% only months before.
   

1. 
   In 1858, Senator Stephen Douglas’ term was about to expire, and against him was Republican Abraham Lincoln, an ugly fellow who had risen up the political ladder slowly but was a good lawyer and a pretty decent debater.
   

1. 
   Lincoln rashly challenged Douglas, the nation’s most devastating debater, to a series of seven debates, which the Senator accepted, and despite expectations of failure, Lincoln held his own.
   
2. 
   The most famous debate came at Freeport, Illinois, where Lincoln essentially asked, “Mr. Douglas, if the people of a territory voted slavery down, despite the Supreme Court saying that they could not do so (point #2 of the Dred Scott decision), which side would you support, the people or the Supreme Court?”
   
   1. 
      “Mr. Popular Sovereignty,” Douglas replied with his “Freeport Doctrine,” which said that no matter how the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down; tsince power was held by the people.
      
3. 
   Douglas won the Illinois race for senate, but more people voted for Abe, so he won the moral victory. Plus, Douglas “won the battle but lost the war” because his answer in the Freeport Doctrine caused the South to dislike him even more (they’d loved him prior to this due to his popular sovereignty position, then came the Kansas pro-slavery vote which he’d shot down and then the Freeport Doctrine where he turned his back on the Supreme Court’s pro-South decision). This ruined the 1860 election for presidency for him, which was what he really wanted all along.
   

1. 
   John Brown now had a plan to invade the South, seize its arms, call upon the slaves to rise up and revolt, and take over the South and free it of slaves. But, in his raid of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the slaves didn’t revolt, and he was captured and convicted of treason, sentenced to death, and hanged.
   
2. 
   Brown, though insane, was not stupid, and he portrayed himself as a martyr against slavery, and when he was hanged, he instantly became a martyr for abolitionists; northerners rallied around his memory. Abolitionists were infuriated by his execution (as they’d conveniently forgotten his violent past).
   
3. 
   The South was happy and saw justice. They also felt his actions were typical of the radical North.
   

1. 
   After failing to nominate a candidate in Charleston, South Carolina, the Democrats split into Northern and Southern factions, and at Baltimore, the Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas for president while the Southern Democrats chose John C. Breckinridge.
   
2. 
   Meanwhile, the “Know-Nothings” chose John Bell of Tennessee and called themselves the Constitutional Union party. They tried to mend fences and offered as their platform, simply, the Constitution.
   

1. 
   The Republicans, sensing victory against their split opponents, nominated Abraham Lincoln, not William “Higher Law” Seward.
   
2. 
   Their platform had an appeal to every important non-southern group: for free-soilers it proposed the non-expansion of slavery; for northern manufacturers, a protective tariff; for the immigrants, no abridgement of rights; for the West, internal improvements at federal expense; and for the farmers, free homesteads.
   
3. 
   Southerners threatened that Lincoln’s election would result in Southern secession.
   
4. 
   Lincoln wasn’t an outright abolitionist, since as late as February 1865, he had still favored cash compensation for free slaves.
   
5. 
   Abe Lincoln won the election despite not even being on the ballot in the South.
   

1. 
   Lincoln won with only 40% of the popular vote, and had the Democratic Party been more organized and energetic, they might have won.
   
2. 
   It was a very sectional race: the North went to Lincoln, the South to Breckinridge, the “middle-ground” to the middle-of-the-road candidate in Bell, and popular-sovereignty-land went to Douglas.
   
3. 
   The Republicans did not control the House or the Senate, and the South still had a five-to-four majority in the Supreme Court, but the South still decided to secede.
   

1. 
   South Carolina had threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected president, and now it went good on its word, seceding in December of 1860.
   
   1. 
      Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas (the Deep South) followed in the next six weeks, before Abe was inaugurated.
      
2. 
   The seven secession states met in Montgomery, Alabama in February of 1861 and created the Confederate States of America, and they chose Jefferson Davis as president.
   
3. 
   President Buchanan did nothing to force the confederacy back into the Union, partly because the Union troops were needed in the West and because the North was still apathetic toward secession; he simply left the issue for Lincoln to handle when he got sworn in.
   

1. 
   In a last-minute attempt at compromise (again), James Henry Crittenden of Kentucky proposed the Crittenden Compromise, which would ban slavery north of the 36°30’ line extended to the Pacific and would leave the issue in territories south of the line up to the people; also, existing slavery south of the line would be protected.
   
2. 
   Lincoln opposed the compromise, which might have worked, because his party had preached against the extension of slavery, and he had to stick to principle.
   
3. 
   It also seems that Buchanan couldn’t have saved the Union no matter what he would have done.
   

1. 
   The seceding states did so because they feared that their rights as a slaveholding minority were being threatened, and were alarmed at the growing power of the Republicans, plus, they believed that they would be unopposed despite what the Northerners claimed.
   
2. 
   The South also hoped to develop its own banking and shipping, and to prosper.
   
3. 
   Besides, in 1776, the 13 colonies had seceded from Britain and had won; now the South could do the same thing.
   

Chapter 20 Vocabulary

“Bleeding Kansas” -- Kansas was being disputed as free or slave soil during 1854-1857 period, by popular sovereignty. In 1857, there were enough free-soilers to overrule the slave-soilers. So many people were feuding, that disagreements eventually led to killing in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces.

Chapter 21

1. 
   President of the Disunited States of America
   
   1. 
      On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president, having slipped into Washington D.C. to thwart assassins, and in his inaugural address, he stated that there would be no conflict unless the South provoked it.
      
   2. 
      He marked restoration of the union as his top goal, and offered doubts about it splitting.
      
      1. 
         He stated that geographically, the United States could not be split (which was true).
         
      2. 
         A split U.S. brought up questions about the sharing of the national debt and the allocation of federal territories.
         
      3. 
         A split U.S. also pleased the European countries, since the U.S. was the only major display of democracy in the Western Hemisphere, and with a split U.S., the Monroe Doctrine could be undermined as well if the new C.S.A. allowed Europe to gain a foothold with it.
         
2. 
   South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
   
   1. 
      Most of the forts in the South had relinquished their power to the Confederacy, but Fort Sumter was among the two that didn’t. And since its supplies were running out against a besieging South Carolinian army, Lincoln had a problem of how to deal with the situation.
      
   2. 
      Lincoln intelligently chose to send supplies to the fort, and he told the South Carolinian governor that the ship to the fort only held provisions, not reinforcements.
      
   3. 
      However, to the South, provisions were reinforcements, and on April 12, 1861, cannons were fired onto the fort; after 34 hours of non-lethal firing, the fort surrendered.
      
   4. 
      Northerners were inflamed by the South’s actions, and Lincoln now called on 75,000 volunteers; so many came that they had to be turned away.
      
   5. 
      On April 19 and 27, Lincoln also called a blockade that was leaky at first but soon clamped down tight.
      
   6. 
      The Deep South (which had already seceded), felt that Lincoln was now waging an aggressive war, and was joined by four more Southern states: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
      
   7. 
      The capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery, AL to Richmond, VA.
      
3. 
   Brother’s Blood and Border Blood
   
   1. 
      The remaining Border States (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland) were crucial for both sides, as they would have almost doubled the manufacturing capacity of the South and increased its supply of horses and mules by half.
      
      1. 
         They’re called “border states” because they are on the North-South border and because they have slaves but had not seceded, though at any time they may.
         
   2. 
      Thus, to retain them, Lincoln used moral persuasion…and methods of dubious legality:
      
      1. 
         In Maryland, he declared martial law in order to retain a state that would isolate Washington D.C. within Confederate territory if it went to the South, and he also sent troops to western Virginia and Missouri.
         
   3. 
      At the beginning, in order to hold the remaining Border States, Lincoln repeatedly said that the war was to save the Union, not free the slaves, since a war for the slaves’ freedom would have lost the Border States.
      
   4. 
      Most of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole) sided with the South, although parts of the Cherokee and most of the Plains Indians were pro-North.
      
   5. 
      The war was one of brother vs. brother, with the mountain men of what’s now West Virginia sending some 50,000 men to the Union. The nation’s split was very visible here, as Virginia literally split.
      
4. 
   The Balance of Forces
   
   1. 
      The South, at the beginning of the war, did have many advantages:
      
      1. 
         It only had to fight to a draw to win, since all it had to do was keep the North from invading and taking over all of its territory.
         
      2. 
         It had the most talented officers, including Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and most of the Southerners had been trained in a military-style upbringing and education since they were children, as opposed to the tame Northerners. Many top Southern young men attended military schools like West Point, The Citadel, or VMI.
         
   2. 
      However, the South was handicapped by a shortage of factories and manufacturing plants, but during the war, those developed in the South.
      
   3. 
      Still, as the war dragged on, the South found itself with a shortage of shoes, uniforms, blankets, clothing, and food, which didn’t reach soldiers due to supply problems.
      
   4. 
      However, the North had a huge economy, many more men available to fight, and it controlled the sea, though its officers weren’t as well-trained as some in the South.
      
   5. 
      As the war dragged on, Northern strengths beat Southern advantages.
      
5. 
   Dethroning King Cotton
   
   1. 
      The South was depending on foreign intervention to win the war, but didn’t get it.
      
   2. 
      While the European countries wanted the Union to be split (which would strengthen their nation, relatively speaking), their people were pro-North and anti-slavery, and sensing that this was could eliminate slavery once and for all, they would not allow any intervention by their nations on behalf of the South. The reason for the pro-North, anti-slavery stance by the people, was the effect of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—being lowly wage earners, the common people felt Uncle Tom’s pain.
      
   3. 
      Still, the Southern ideas was that the war would produce a shortage of cotton, which would draw England and others into the war, right? Wrong.
      
      1. 
         In the pre-war years, cotton production had been immense, and thus, England and France had huge surpluses of cotton.
         
      2. 
         As the North won Southern territory, it sent cotton and food over to Europe.
         
      3. 
         India and Egypt upped their cotton production to offset the hike in the price of cotton.
         
   4. 
      So, King Wheat and King Corn (of the North) beat King Cotton, since Europe needed the food much more than it needed the cotton.
      
6. 
   The Decisiveness of Diplomacy
   
   1. 
      The South still hoped for foreign intervention, and it almost got it on a few occasions.
      
   2. 
      Late in 1861, a Union warship stopped the British mail steamer the Trent and forcibly removed two Confederate diplomats bound for Europe.
      
      1. 
         Britain was outraged at the upstart Americans and threatened war, but luckily, Lincoln released the prisoners and tensions cooled. “One war at a time,” he said.
         
      2. 
         British-built sea vessels that went to the Confederacy were also a problem.
         
         1. 
            In 1862, the C.S.S. Alabama escaped to the Portuguese Azores, took on weapons and crew from Britain, but never sailed into a Confederate base, thus using a loophole to help the South.
            
   3. 
      
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