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“Free Soil” and the Republican Party
As slavery became more entrenched in the South, the Free Soil Party ideology spread throughout the North. This ideology emphasized that free labor was a necessary component of a free society, and that slavery should not be allowed to spread into the territories. Free Soil adherents didn’t necessarily view slavery as morally wrong. Rather, they feared that slave labor would be unfair competition for white laborers already working in the territories. In the 1850s, the Free Soilers and former Whigs formed a coalition that became the Republican Party. This new party adopted a platform of preventing the spread of slavery, while championing the internal improvements that were facilitating the growth of business in the North.
The Problem of Kansas
In the 1850s, Nebraska fulfilled the qualifications to become a territory. Northern settlers were excited about this prospect, but until Nebraska achieved official territorial status, no one could legally claim any land there. Southerners were not motivated to help Nebraska, as it was north of the Missouri Compromise line and would thus be admitted as a free state. To help things move along, Senator Stephen Douglas, who embraced the idea of popular sovereignty, proposed a new compromise.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 proposed to split a single territory into two, Kansas and Nebraska, allowing each territory to craft its own constitution using popular sovereignty to decide on the issue of slavery. Once the states had passed their constitutions, they could apply for statehood. The Kansas-Nebraska Act reversed the Missouri Compromise by allowing the possibility of slavery in two potential states north of the compromise line. Once the vote on slavery in the territory began, citizens of neighboring Missouri traveled across the Kansas border to illegally vote in favor of slavery. At the same time, Free Soil advocates voted to pass their own state constitution banning slavery.
At one point there were two constitutions and two governments operating in Kansas. Bloodshed between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery Kansas factions ensued, resulting in the deaths of approximately 55—leading to the nickname “Bleeding Kansas.” Many historians see this time as a “mini-Civil War,” because the conflicts foreshadowed the larger Civil War about to take place. Even once it was clear that the majority of actual Kansas citizens wanted the state to be a “free state,” its admission to the United States was prevented by Southerners in Congress. Kansas was eventually admitted as a free state—but not until many of the Southern states had seceded and their senators had left Congress.
The Dred Scott Decision
In 1857, a Supreme Court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, put another obstacle on the path to compromise. Scott was an enslaved person whose owner had taken him to live in the free states of Illinois and Wisconsin, before returning to Missouri. After his owner died, Scott sued his owner’s widow for freedom, arguing that having lived in free states had made him a free man. The Court ruled that Scott’s claim was invalid and that, since African Americans could not be citizens, the court had no jurisdiction over them. Additionally, the Court stated that Congress had no authority to limit slavery in the states and had overstepped its power when it passed the Missouri Compromise. This case was shocking to people in the North, because it effectively legalized slavery anywhere in the country and prevented Congress from ever being able to outlaw it.
Abraham Lincoln’s Election
By 1860, the split between North and South seemed irreconcilable. What is often termed the Second Party System – the Whigs and the Democrats – ended as slavery and anti-immigrant feelings caused people to realign into new parties that were more reflective of the geographical regions of the country. The Republican Party, centered in the North, was focused on stopping the spread of slavery. It nominated a former Congressman and lawyer from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, who embraced the Free Soil idea of preventing the spread of slavery into new territories.
The Democrats, conversely, were divided. Southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge, a strong pro-slavery candidate who would support the broadest possible expansion of slavery. Northern Democrats and Western Democrats, who supported popular sovereignty, nominated moderate Stephen Douglas. A fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell and focused mainly on compromise and keeping the country together, not really taking a stand on any issue. As a result of the split in the Democratic Party, and the fact that the Republicans drew in people from a variety of different backgrounds, Abraham Lincoln won the Election of 1860 without a single Southern electoral vote.
Secession
State leaders in the South mistakenly believed that Lincoln’s plan was to abolish slavery throughout the country when he took office. By December 1860, seven states had already decided to secede from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. Three more states eventually joined them, though the slaveholding border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland all remained in the Union. Sitting President James Buchanan, a Democrat, did nothing about the secession movement before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861. The Civil War began within weeks.
