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university of southern mississippi professor susannah ural teaches a course on the history of the united states from its founding to 1877. professional ur lal focuses on e election of 1860 and subsequent secession by the southern states. this is 50 minutes. all right, gang. when we left off last time, we were talking about the crisis of the 150s and we had wrapped up with talking about the dread scott decision and the lincoln douglas debates and finally with john brown's raid, okay, and i promised you next we would get to that crazy election of 1860. as we've been talking about all semester, election years are fun to watch, to kind of take the pulse of the united states. as you can see from what's up there on the online, we're going to wind up with four presidential candidates, two from the same party. obviously, things are about to get really crazy.

now, set the stage for me. what happened with the dread scott decision that was so important? what are you going to need to remember to put in your essays? the significance. oh, wait, i'm not supposed to ask questions. i'll tell you. dread scott decision. number one. biggest thing you need to remember wrond the date. and remember ya'll are fine if you tell me late 1850s. i'm happy. you don't have to remember march of 1857. the significance i want you to remember is it changes how americans are going to be able to approach the idea of compromise, all right. remember, from that point forward, the supreme court has ruled under justice tony, any line saying from here on up is free and from here on down is slave. anything like that is fifth amendment property rights violation, okay. lincoln/douglas, remember, had those famous senate debates, senate campaign in 1858. that's when they're hashing out a lot of those ideas, okay,

hashing out what the country wit large is arguing. you can see it through the lens of illinois. we talked about the john brown's raid on harpers ferry, right. and southerners in particular worried about the fact that there are portions of the north, by all means, portions of the north very much mourning the execution of a man that was going to launch a slave rebellion that would have led to a lot of deaths of southern whites. okay. by the time we get to 160 what you're seeing is a country that is falling apart and running out of ways to come up with some sort of compromise. now, in that year, they're going to have to pick who they want for their presidential candidates. the different parties. all right. we talked about last time that in 1856 you've seen the birth of the republican party. you have the democratic party. which is fragmenting. in terms of region. you're getting kind of a northern wing and southern wing the democratic party. and what those two groups are

going to have to do is come together and find out who they want the presidential candidate to be. now, the democrats decide to meet for no apparent reason, certainly not a smart one, in south carolina. the hot bed of the success movement. that's where they go to try to talk about some sort of solution to a crisis. again, not smart. they go down to charleston. all right. southern democrats, okay, the southern wing of the party, very much wants protections about the idea that slavery is going to be able to continue to expand into the territories. okay. they want that option. that, you know, we don't want to put it up to a slovote. we want some sort of protections that slavery is going to be able to continue to expand into the territories. the northern wing of the democratic party is saying we're going to have to come up with some sort of compromise. we're not going to be able to hold a hard line on this issue anymore. the northern wing of the democratic party wants stephen

douglas to be their candidate. okay. but the southern wing is going to say no way. all right. they're going to say, look, stephen douglas, i mean, this is the guy who gave us popular sovereignty. who put fifth amendment property rights up for a vote. he's compromising on things we cannot compromise on. we can't afford to. so what's going to happen is the southern wing of the democratic party's going to storm out of that convention. the democrats are going to have to reconvene later. and in the end what they come up with are two separate candidates. southern democrats are going to nominate john breckenridge. slave holder. he's from the slave state of kentucky. okay. northern democrats are going to go with stephen douglas. okay. very experienced politician. moderate. on a lot of the key issues that the democratic party holds dear. looks like the guy who has the

experience and the broad support to win an election. problem is, you've already split your vote. if you remember -- do you remember in the '90s, when you would have ross perot, he'd be running, and the republicans would just absolutely freak out. ross perot is going to come in the election, siphon off votes. the democrats are like, hey, the more the merrier, come on in. around 2000 is when the democrats had to start to deal with ralph nader and siphon off some of the liberal votes. now what you're seeing is the split in the democratic party which is absolutely going to wrench any sort of bloc vote that's going to give them the majority. when you see a party splintering like this, it's your clear sign that something is seriously wrong. they know what they're doing. these are not idiots. all right. they know what's going on. but they cannot comb up with a compromise they can sleep with at night. and they know in many ways they're probably committing

political suicide here. but they don't know what else to do. now, the republicans need to come up with a candidate who can win. okay. 1856. we saw them give us john freemont. and the country kind of looked at john freemont and looked at the republicans and they're awfully new and i don't know they're pretty radical. yeah, they're not all abolitionists. that's just a little too radical for me. we're going with union. okay. now, the republicans look at one of their main contenders, all right. his name is william seward. william seward is one of the main candidates the republicans are going to think about for the election of 1860. put him forward. okay. seward's from new york. very talented politician. eloquent speaker. i'll give you an excerpt of lincoln's inaugural dreaddress a little bit. lincoln's got writing skills i mean you just can't teach somebody to write like that. just beautiful. there are lines in lincoln's

address that actually william seward gave him, okay. so seward's a very talented politician in his own right. problem for the republicans with seward is, number one, he's from the northeast. he's from new york. all right. and they need to get some western votes. remember, douglas is from the west. they'll need to be able to siphon off some western votes. number two, he is a very outspoken opponent of slavery. there is no way to tell southern democrats that william seward is a moderate on the slavery issue. that they're going to be able to work together on the slavery issue. william seward flatout is opposed to slavery. needs to end. needs to end now. what the republicans end up doing is going with this fairly new unknown guy by the name of abraham lincoln, okay. he's not well known. if you remember from your reading, some of ya'll read that primary source essay where lincoln's -- where you're reading about lincoln's position on the mexican war. one term in congress. that's pretty much it. he'd lost a senate race in 11858

in illinois, okay. but he's this kind of rising star who's clearly a very talented speaker. clever debater. he's that kind of guy who -- he's kind of got tt classic southern thing about him. you ever talk to somebody where they kind of talk a little slow and they look a little disheveled and you're like, all right, he's this country guy. he's this old guy. probably doesn't have that much education. ya'll probably don't. i do. i'm from the north. i fall for that trick. you're listening. next thing you know, he's lapped you three times. that was lincoln. he tell these barnyard jokes. kind of got this aw shucks kind of style. then bam, just kind of backhands you in the middle of a debate. what he's able to do is convince enough people that you know what he's got the brains for it, he's moderate enough to get enough votes, and he might just be able to pull this thing off. the slavery issue, it's going to be something that the republicans have to deal with.

remember what we talked about earlier this week. the republican party officially on the position of slavery is for containing it. not abolishing it. what lenk incoln's going to say everybody just chill out. i will protect slavery where it is. if i get elected. there's nothing to worry about. what happened during those lincoln/douglas debates in 1858, ya'll ever heard experts from the house divided speech? a house divided against itself cannot stand? in that speech, he said a country divided as we are, half free and half slave, cannot stand. we're going to have to choose, all free or all slave. all right. we cannot keep going like this. well, southern democrats look at him and they're just, like, you can say compromise all you want, all right, but you said in 1858 we're going to have to choose one or the other. we just don't trust you. what lincoln does is he just kind of stays quiet. once he gets the nomination, he just keeps saying, look at my record, look at what i've said

earlier. i'll stay quiet on this issue. i will protect slavery where it currently exists. lincoln has a famous story where he talks about seeing a slave family sold apart, literally a family sold apart, in an auction. and how that absolutely shaped him. if you ever go to the lincoln presidential library museum in illinois and springfield, there's a big display on that. and he would talk about that. morally he was opposed to it. as a lawyer and as a constitutionalist, he fundamentally believed it was protected under the u.s. constitution. all right. so he says, look, i'll protect it where it exists. i'm not going to support it extending any further. okay. and that was his official position. so that leave us with abraham lincoln representing the republicans. stephen douglas representing northern democrats. breckenridge representing southern democrats. they organize themselves into a political party for this election and they're the constitutional unionists.

okay. their slogan is the constitution as it is, the union as it is. first time i ever read about the constitutional unionists, i was kind of sitting where you are now. the head in the hand party. i thought, there's a solution for you. the constitution as it is. the union as it is. we got that, all right. it's not working. what's interesting about the constitutional unionists is the more you read about them, the more you'll notice what they're hoping to do in some ways is fragment this vote to the point where it gets thrown into the house and now we can debate it in the house. let's see if we can't debate this among the experts. what they also are a buh of wealthy guys who have a heck of a lot to lose if war comes from this. if everything falls apart. all right. these are a lot of your wealthy planters who have investments with northern banks. they've invested in railroads. these are the guys who are invested across the entire nation. these are the guys who are going to lose a lot if it comes to war. all right. these are not your radicals.

what they're going to have to come up with is some sort of a compromise. but they say at heart we aays have to go to the constitution. we always have to go to the union. that is who we are. that is how you end up in the fall of 1860 with four presidential candidates. and these are viable candidates. these aernt the crazy guy who managed to get on the evening local news, okay. four strong potential candidates. constitutional unionists put forward john bell. they looked at a few options. sam houston, if you've heard of him. all right. from texas. he'd been the president of the republic of texas. knew what it was like to literally lead a country. sam houston probably would have been a pretty good choice. the problem with sam houston for 19th century america is he was de, vo divorced from his first wife. and his second wife was a cherokee woman. they weren't going to be able to wrap their head around either one of those things. john bell came in as the much

more pal atable option. 1860. americans go to the polls. at least adult white male american citizens go to the polls. this is how it winds up. everything in green there goes for lincoln. douglas got missouri and part of new jersey. breckenridge overwhelmingly gets the slave-owning south except for some border states where you see in the dark brown there, tennessee, kentucky, virginia, go to john bell. okay. what's interesting about this is how the vote breaks down. overwhelmingly, lincoln wins the electoral college. gets a clear majority of the electoral votes. which is all you need to become president. in terms of the popular vote, lincoln gets about 39%. but because it was so split, and the way the electoral college

works, he's going to win the presidency. the south is going to feel like the guy they didn't vote for, who didn't even appear on a lot of deep south ballots. lincoln wasn't even on southern ballots in the state of texas. he's not. he's from the north. you know, illinois to boot. all right. there was no way they were going to do it. okay. so a huge portion of the country feels like forget it. we didn't even vote for this guy. there are other factors going on too. when you lock at, again, kind of looking at here the union is dissolved. kind of reactions. if you look at the situation. if ya'll have ever voted for a candidate who's lost, okay, and we've talked about this before. you always console yourself, right. that all right in four more years we'll come back and we'll

win next time. okay. problem for huge portions of the south is that they're convinced with a republican in the white house laws are going to change to the point where they'll never be able to reclaim the white house again. or they'll always be outvoted. territories are going to come into the union states. democrats are going to lose more and more power. 50 -- where is that stat i wrote down? southern states, slave holders to boot, excuse me, slave holders that control the presidency for 50 of the last 72 years. okay. american presidents have been slave holders. controlling the presidency for 50 of the last 72 years. no party had directly -- that's cool -- no party, stop. technology's possessioned. all right. had serious challenged slavery till 1856. one election later, in 1860, suddenly republicans are controlling the white house. and what's going to happen is portions of the deep south are

going to decide forget it, okay, we cannot continue to exist as one nation. now, the way it's going to happen, south carolina's going to be the first one out. south carolina secedes a little over a month before the election. lincoln gets elected early november. first week of november, 1860, south carolina suis being secedes from the union. remember in your essay, it's su secede, not succeed. it's all right. you're paying big bucks for an education. make it sound right. stop, i'm not ready to go on. all right. south carolina's going to secede from the union in december. all right. next state out is going to be mississippi. following mississippi in january of 1861. florida.

alabama. georgia. and louisiana. and ya'll, if you ever get confused and you're trying to remember all this, just go to the mapping section on your text, find south carolina, work your way down the coastline till you get to texas. those are your first seven. find south carolina and weave your way down. i will never ask you, all right, did texas go in january or february. all right. i'm far more interested in why texas goes than exact month that texas goes. you know this. all right. so south carolina's the first out in december of 1860. then you're going to get mississippi is going to be next. and kind of that hard moving down from carolina, the deep south. georgia, florida, alabama, louisiana. in february, you're going to get texas. so what you'll have -- let me jump to this map. maybe, maybe not. what you end up seeing with the deep south -- now it's going.

just picture the map. all right. south carolina on down to texas. those are going to be the first seven states of the confederacy. now, remember, because those states, when they go, they go in direct response to lincoln's election. okay. they see lincoln and what they argue is that the country's falling apart. and the only way to preserve the principles of the founders is cut away the decaying part of the country. all right. cut away that gangrenous limb to save the life of the country. they'll organize into the confederate states of america. the first capital is going to be in montgomery, alabama. look at it there. look at this one. this will help you remember it. the dark blue, though are the

sourp sta southern states that are first to secede. south carolina on down to texas. they go in response to lincoln's election. it's going to be different motivations for the upper south. okay. you know, some days, the magic works, and some days, it just doesn't. now, what's going to end up happening, that's me talking today, i'm glad we got that title in. what's going to end up happening is they're going to organize and meet in montgomery, alabama. they're going to come up with their own basically state constitutions. they're going to revise all of them. okay. and they're going to come up with a new confederate constitution. they're going to pick for their president that guy, the top right-hand corner, jefferson davis. okay. ya'll hopefully know him, being from mississippi, okay. he's familiar to most of ya'll. davis is an interesting character. i mean, yes, he's a west opponent graduate. yes, he commanded the mississippi rifles in the

mexican war. he'seen secretary of war in the 1850s. he has a lot of that background that's going to make him a very good choice in the ways at least on paper. okay. there's a famous quote that i put up there that talks about how davis himself was never entirely sold on being president. that in many ways he hoped to command troops in the field. but it's going to be that classic virtual citizen argument. that he is called upon to serve as president of the confederacy arizos he was called he will do. in some ways he was hesitant to do it. okay. he wasn't entirely sure this is what he wanted to do. when davis -- davis is sitting as a senator. representing the state of mississippi. in the senate. in the state of mississippi. when all this is happening. when those states, when those deep south states start to secede, he as very much one of the leading senators stands up

to deliver the departure speech. kind of this good-bye, farewell address of the south. okay. one of his classic lines from this is that the south has a high and solemn motive to defend and protect the rights which we inherited. which is it is our sacred duty to transmit unshorn to our children. davis' inaugural address. he cites the revolution. the legacy of the founding fathers. i think not even once does he mention the word "slavery." his vice president, guy by the name of alexander stevens, flat out says, all right, with need to protect slavery. some of days of' other writings he flatout says, look, you cannot have the federal government infringing on these rights. all right. this is it. end of story. we need to talk about it. you need to get this in your notes. i'm going to want you to be able to debate this ush issue of kin how people are reacting and pointing to the constitution, these inaugural addresses, to look at this issue of slavery

and its influence -- how should we phrase it? how it ties into the causes of the civil war. okay. 'cause ya'll know -- if you haven't heard, there's sometimes a big fight over was slavery the central issue of the civil war, was it not the central issue of the civil war. this is classic material for an essay question for the last exam, okay, hint, hint, hitting you over the head with a hammer here. all right. you got it. what i want you to be able to do -- remember, i don't want to know about your feelings. i don't care if you had an ancestor that served in the 6th wisconsin and therefore the union is right and it's all about that. i care. remember, i want to know what you think. okay, i want you to be able to point to historical evidence and give me proof. if you look at the confederate constitution, if you look at confederate state constitution, look at mississippi state's constitution, okay, before the secession crisis and after. every single one of those c confederate constitutions increase protections for slave holders. clearly, worried about they

rights. this was a clear motivation. okay. if you want to make an argument, though, that slavery was not the only issue, okay, you can look at davis' speech. but your stronger evidence is going to come from union soldiers and it's going to come from lincoln's actions in the first year of this war. we're going to get more into that when you get back on monday and when you get back from thanksgiving break. lincoln flatout will say, he will put together -- he'll put the union together with slavery. he'll put the union together without slavery. it's all about the union till late 1862. if you want to look at the beginning of the war and argue about multiple motivations, there's your evidence. that's what i want you looking at. okay. but remember, i don't care -- it's up to you to come to your own conclusions. i just want to make sure you're going to be able to defend it. if you want to argue that it was fundamentally slavery, look at those constitutions. but you're also going to have to tie in the fact that lincoln is willing to compromise on that issue of slavery. union soldiers will go off to

war in 1861 flatout saying there's no way they're abolitionists. they're fighting to preserve the union. you've got to make sure you can get clear in your head the complexity of it all. when i was a kid, some of the first historian yas i ever read, a guy named bruce catten. once argued that in 1860 slavery wasn't the only issue that caused the war, but was the one issue that americans not only couldn't compromise on, it was that they didn't want to anymore. they were so angry with each other, they just wouldn't compromise on that one anymore. they just didn't care to compromise anymore. to me, that's the best way to characterize it. no war is ever about one thing. but slavery became that one issue on which people got so mad, they didn't even want to try to get along anymore. that was it. they were done. it's one of best characterizations of that that i've ever heard. now, davis is going to rise to the presidency of the confederacy.

okay. lincoln is going to have to try and keep what he can of the country together. all right. can you imagine being abraham lincoln? i always think about this. you got elected to the presidency of the united states. it doesn't get much bigger than that. this is huge. seven states leave the union specifically because of you. okay. i mean, seriously, ouch. all right. and so lincoln's got to find a way to keep the country together. now, as far as lincoln's concerned, all right, the confederacy does not exist. he never -- there's one mishap where actually kind of de facto he recognizes the existence of the confederacy. but in principle, in his speeches, all right, he never recognizes the existence of the confedera confederacy. all right. it's always the rebellious states. southerners. the rebel army. he never actually recognizes the existence of those southern states forming into an independent country. what he tries to do in the spring of 1861 des pperately is keep everything together.

okay. so what he's going to do at his inaugural address. remember, they're in march in those days. is basically convince the south to come back into the fold. and he says, in your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentum issue of civil war. don't try to get this down. you'll miss it if you try and get it down. the government will not assail you. you can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. you have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government. while i have the most solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend it. okay. what he's saying is, look, i'm not going to start this thing, but i have just taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the union. okay. so ball's in your court. what the confederacy's arguing is this is not a civil war. they don't want to overthrow the government in washington. they want to go home. they just want to break away. and form themselveses into an independent country. that's what they're arguing they've done. okay. and so what happens, by manufacture 1861, march of 1861, you kind of have yourself in this kind of no-man's-land, this

kind of deadlock. we're not necessarily sure what we're going to be able to do. okay. and everybody just kind of staring at each other, wondering who's going to make the next move. and the next big critical move is going to come, shockingly in charleston, south carolina, okay. now, in charleston bay, there are a couple of forts. and the u.s. army commander in charge of those forts was a guy by the name of robert anderson. major robert anderson. he couldn't hold on to everything. he's consolidated all of his forces. to one of these islands where you have fort sumter. okay. so you had charleston. you had the harbor there. in the harbor is fort sumter. major anderson has consolidated his forces there. now, anderson has orders to hold on to that fort.

yes, south carolina has been saying since december that they're not part of the united states anymore. yes, since february. you now have the organization of the confederate states of america. yes, they're saying they're an independent nation. and that you are illegally in their country as an enemy army. okay. but as far as the u.s. government's concerned, we don't recognize the existence of the confederacy, you stay right where you are. okay. anderson's problem, okay, he's literally sitting in the hotbed of the secession movement in charleston. he's on an island. he's going to run out of food and supplies at some point. okay. now, in january, in january, the federal government, the u.s. federal government, tried to send a relief expedition down. confederate forces fired on that ship and it turned around. so ever since january anderson's been trying to hold out. and what he's saying is, guys, i don't know how much longer i can do this, all right, we've got a serious problem. finally in early april, lincoln

de