1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin which showed the cruelty of slavery (Helped start the war and win it.)
1857 - Hinton R. Helper's The Impending Crisis of the South which argued that those who suffered most from the use of slave labor were the non slave-owning Whites.
Meanwhile, popular sovereignty was not working in Kansas:
- New England Emigrant Aid Company sent 2,000 Free-Soilers into Kansas.
- Pro-slavery "Border Ruffians" crossed the border from Kansas
- Result was a civil war in "Bleeding Kansas"
1857 - Proposed Lecompton Constitution for statehood was boycotted by the Free-Soilers and rejected by Congress (statehood not until 1861)
Election of 1856: Buchanan (D) Popular sovereignty
v.
Fremont (R) Free-Soiler
v.
Filmore (KN) Nativism
1857 - Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court: A slave was private property and could be taken into any territory and held there ! (Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional!)
^ Applauded by pro-slavery southerners
- Economic panic which hit the grain growers of the northwest the hardest (proof that cotton was king!)
1858 - Senatorial election in Illinois between Senator Douglas and Abraham Lincoln > series of great debates.
> Douglas's Freeport Doctrine (Territorial Legislatures could keep slavery out despite Supreme Court decision.)
1859 - John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia was a failure (he had hoped to foment a slave rebellion) and he was hanged for murder and treason ^ Inflamed the passions of both the North and South
Election of 1860:
Stephan Douglas (ND) - favored Popular Sovereignty
v.
John Breckinridge (SD) - favored extension of slavery into the territories
v.
John Bell (CU) - compromise candidate to prevent breakup of the union
v.
Abraham Lincoln (R) - favored non-extension of slavery
Lincoln's victory was the result of the split in the Democratic Party and the formation of a third party which divided the southern vote and gave him only 40% of the vote (all in the north)
* Not a vote for secession! South still had political advantages: 5-4 Supreme Court majority, Democratic control of Congress, the 15 slave states could block any constitutional amendment to abolish slavery (requires ¾ vote)
But...
December 1860: South Carolina seceded from the union, followed by 10 other southern states over the next six months
^ Created the Confederate States of America with its first capital at Montgomery, Ala. and Jefferson Davis as President
Crisis was depended by the "Lame Duck" interlude between the election of Lincoln and his inauguration on March 4, 1861
President Buchanan did not believe that the southern states could legally secede but he could find no authority in the Constitution for stopping them with guns
Why did the South secede? List of causes on pages 411-412