Sectional Conflict

Two Americas

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his book Democracy in America one of the most
insightful analysis of American social and political practices. His verdict about early
democracy in this country was positive.

Other visitors of the United States found growth and vitality in this nation; proofs of
prosperity and rapid progress.

Charles Dickens, nevertheless, found out that such republic was not up to his
expectations, excepting its education and the care for poor people.

Lands of promise

By 1850 the nation showed a rapid progress in industry (In the east) and agriculture
(Midwest and south).

Most important agriculture products were:

Tobacco (Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina)

Rice (South Carolina)
Sugar (Louisiana)

Eventually, Cotton production would become the dominant commodity in the South.

The introduction of the McCormick reaper made possible an unparalleled increase in

grain production.

Here also we can see expansion in trade due to the discovery of gold mines of
California in the 1849.

Other important aspects of this growth were: commerce, manufacturing and finance
(In New England and Middle Atlantic States).

Slavery and Sectionalism

Regional and Economic differences between North and South because of

Slavery.

Southerners were having a bad moment in economy and they attributed their own
backwardness to Northern aggrandizement. In the other hand, Northerners declared
that Slavery (the peculiar institution of the south) was responsible for the regions
backwardness.

In the North, sentiment for absolute abolition of slavery grew increasingly

powerful.
Southerners in general felt little guilty about slavery so they defended it
vehemently. They had employed a visceral dedication in demonstrating the
white supremacy.

This was the basis for a future bigger conflict

The Abolitionists

At any given time, Southerners sought territorial expansion because the wastefulness
of cultivating only cotton had exhausted the soil and they required new fertile lands.

Antislavery Northerners saw this as a conspiracy for proslavery expansion.

In the 1830s the abolitionist movement emerged with fierce. This movement
found a leader in William Lloyd Garrison, who sought to show the most
repulsive aspects of slavery and to castigate slave holders and torturers.

Garrison was joined by many other abolitionists; some of them were Frederick
Douglass and Theodore Dwight Weld among others.

One important activity of this movement was to help slaves to escape to safe
refugees in the North.

The number of local antislavery increased at such a rate that by 1838 they were
approximately 250.000 members.

Texas and War with Mexico

Throughout the 1820s, Americans settled Texas (often with lands granted by
the Mexican government).
Further immigration into this territory was prohibited by the authorities in 1830.
In 1834 General Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna established a dictatorship in
Mexico. The following year, Texans revolted.
Santa Anna defeated the American rebels in early 1836.

Texans, under Sam Houston destroyed the Mexican Army and captured Santa Anna
at the Battle of San Jacinto, ensuring Texan Independence.
For almost 10 years, Texas remained as an independent republic.

In 1845, President James K. Polk brought the Republic of Texas into the Union.

U.S. attempts to purchase from Mexico the New Mexico and California territories
failed. In 1846 after a clash of Mexican and U.S. troops, the United States declared
war.

The United States dictated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico
ceded various territories: New Mexico, Nevada, California, Utah, most of
Arizona and portions of Colorado and Wyoming.

The Compromise of 1850

Until 1845, it had seemed that slavery would be confined to the areas where it
already existed (According to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had
established limits for its expansion).

Texas, which already permitted slavery, entered the Union as a slave state while
California, New Mexico and Utah entered as a free state.

Southerners urged that all the lands acquired from Mexico should be open to
slavery.
On the opposite, Northerners demanded that these areas were closed to
slavery.
The government should permit settlers enter the new territories with or without
slaves as they pleased.

Slavery was causing increasing division among citizens

In 1848, with the discovery of gold in California the Congress had to determine the
status of this new region quickly in order to establish an organized government.

The Compromise of 1850 consisted of a set of five bills:

1) California was admitted to the Union as a free state.

2) The remainder of the Mexican cession was divided into New Mexico and Utah.
3) The claim of Texas to a portion of New Mexico was satisfied by a payment of $10
million.
4) New legislation (the Fugitive Slave Act) was passed to apprehend runaway slaves
and return them to their masters.
5) The buying and selling of slaves was abolished (not slavery).
 A Divided Nation

During the 1850s slavery divided the political bonds of the nation. It destroyed slowly
the two main political parties: The Whigs and The Democrats (what produced weak
presidents and eventually discredited even the Supreme Court).
In 1854 the issue of slavery in the territories was renewed and the quarrel became
bitterer.
Kansas and Nebraska were being rapidly settled with no organization.
According to the Missouri compromise, these lands were closed to slavery.
Thats why southerners blocked all efforts to organize the region.
Stephen A. Douglas was in favor of entering the new territories as slave
states.
Douglas opponents accused him of currying favor with the south in order to
gain the presidency of 1856.
Douglas Image fell down when he visited Chicago to speak in his own defense
and a crowd of approximately 10.000 people hooted so loudly that he could
not even make himself heard.
The Whig Party sank to its death and a powerful new organization arose: The
Republican Party. In this party we find the important figure of Abraham
Lincoln.

Lincoln, Douglas and Brown

Abraham Lincoln had long regarded slavery as an evil and declared that all nations
should be framed on the principle that slavery was to be restricted and eventually
abolished.

In 1858 Lincoln opposed Stephen A. Douglas for the election to the U.S. Senate
from Illinois.
Douglas won the election by a small margin but Lincoln had achieved stature as
a national figure.
Things got worse when one night of 1859 an antislavery fanatic called John
Brown captured and killed five proslavery settlers in Kansas, confirming the
worst fears of many Southerners.
Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.
Finally, everything went better for the Republican Party when, in 1860 Lincoln
won the presidential elections.