Chapter 19 Quiz

Delegates of the fast-growing Republican party met in Philadelphia with bubbling enthusiasm. Who did they choose as their candidate?

"Higher Law" Seward was their most conspicuous leader, and he probably would have arranged to win the nomination had he been confident that this was a "Republican year." The final choice was Captain John C. Frémont.

What was the Constitutional Union party?

A group fearing for the Union organized the Constitutional Union party. It consisted mainly of former Whigs and Know-Nothings. Desperately anxious to elect a compromise candidate, they met in Baltimore and nominated for the presidency John Bell of Tennessee.

How did the North react to the events of Harpers Ferry?

Abolitionists and other ardent free-soilers were infuriated by Brown's execution. Many of them were ignorant of his bloody past and his even more bloody purposes, and they were outraged because the Virginians had hanged so earnest a reformer who was working for so righteous a cause. They considered him to be a martyr.

Who won the election of 1860?

Abraham Lincoln. He was a minority candidate, as he won less than 50% of the popular vote.

Douglas, in winning Illinois, hurt his own chances of winning the presidency, while further splitting his splintering party. Why?

After his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas and his further defiance of the Supreme Court at Freeport, southern Democrats were determined to break up the party (and the Union) rather than accept him. The Lincoln-Douglas debate platform thus proved to be one of the preliminary battlefields of the Civil War.

The gaunt, grim figure of John Brown of bleeding Kansas infamy now once again took the stage. How?

After studying the tactics of the black rebels Toussaint L'Ouverture and Nat Turner, he hatched a daring scheme to invade the South secretly with a handful of followers, call upon the slaves to rise, furnish them with arms, and establish a kind of black free state as a sanctuary.

Civil war in Kansas thus erupted in 1856 and continued intermittently until it merged with the large-scale Civil War of 1861-1865. What were the effects of this?

Altogether, the Kansas conflict destroyed millions of dollars' worth of property, paralyzed agriculture in certain areas, and cost scores of lives.

What else was injected into the campaign?

An ugly dose of antiforeignism was injected into the campaign, even though slavery extension loomed largest. The recent influx of immigrants from Ireland and Germany had alarmed "nativists," as many old-stock Protestants were called. They organized the American party, also known as the Know-Nothing party because of its secretiveness, and in 1856 nominated ex-president Millard Fillmore. This party was anti-foreign and anti-Catholic.

What was The Impending Crisis of the South?

Another trouble-brewing book appeared in 1857, five years after the debut of Uncle Tom. It was written by Hinton R. Helper, a nonaristocratic white from North Carolina. Hating both slavery and blacks, he attempted to prove by an array of statistics that indirectly the non-slaveholding whites were the ones who suffered most from the millstone of slavery. Unable to secure a publisher in the South, he finally managed to find one in the North.

Why did the verdict of the ballot box did not indicate a strong sentiment for secession?

Breckinridge, while favoring the extension of slavery, was no disunionist. Although the candidate of the "fire-eaters," he polled fewer votes in the slave states than the combined strength of his opponents, Douglas and Bell. He even failed to carry his own Kentucky.

What happened at the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia?

Brown secured several thousand dollars for firearms from northern abolitionists and finally arrived in hilly western Virginia with some twenty men, including several blacks. At scenic Harpers Ferry, he seized the federal arsenal in October 1859, incidentally killing seven innocent people, including a free black, and injuring ten or so more. But the slaves, largely ignorant of Brown's strike, failed to rise, and the wounded Brown and the remnants of his tiny band were quickly captured by U.S. Marines under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee.

What was the New England Emigrant Aid Company?

But a small part of the inflow was financed by groups of northern abolitionists or free-soilers. The most famous of these antislavery organizations was the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which sent about two thousand people to the troubled area to forestall the South—and also to make a profit.

What was the Lecompton Constitution?

By 1857, Kansas had enough people, chiefly free-soilers, to apply for statehood on a popular-sovereignty basis. The proslavery forces, then in the saddle, devised a tricky document known as the Lecompton Constitution. The people were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as a whole, but for the constitution either "with slavery" or "with no slavery." If they voted against slavery, one of the remaining provisions of the constitution would protect the owners of slaves already in Kansas. So what-ever the outcome, there would still be black bondage in Kansas.

How did the North react to this?

Copies of Sumner's abusive speech, otherwise doomed to obscurity, were sold by the tens of thousands. Every blow that struck the senator doubtless made thousands of Republican votes. The South, although not unanimous in approving Brooks, was angered not only because Sumner had made such an intemperate speech but because it had been so extravagantly applauded in the North

What did James Buchanan's support of the Lecompton Constitution do for the Democratic party?

Douglas Democrats in the North, hopelessly divided the once-powerful Democratic party. Until then, it had been the only remaining national party, for the Whigs were dead and the Republicans were sectional. With the disruption of the Democrats came the snapping of one of the last important strands in the rope that was barely binding the Union together.

Deeply divided, the Democrats met in Charleston, South Carolina to choose their candidate for the election of 1860. What happened there?

Douglas was the leading candidate of the northern wing of the party. But the southern "fire-eaters" regarded him as a traitor, as a result of his unpopular stand on the Lecompton Constitution and the Freeport Doctrine. After a bitter wrangle over the platform, the delegates from most of the cotton states walked out. When the remainder could not scrape together the necessary two-thirds vote for Douglas, the entire body dissolved.

What was the Freeport Doctrine?

Douglas' reply to Lincoln became known as the Freeport Doctrine. No matter how the Supreme Court ruled, Douglas argued, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down. Laws to protect slavery would have to be passed by the territorial legislatures. These would not be forthcoming in the absence of popular approval, and black bondage would soon disappear. Douglas, in truth, had American history on his side. Where public opinion does not support the federal government, the law is almost impossible to enforce.

How did the Dred Scott v. Stanford decision, handed down by the Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, initially arise?

Dred Scott, a black slave, had lived with his master for five years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil.

Why did a scheme to make outright gifts of homesteads encounter two-pronged opposition?

Eastern industrialists had long been unfriendly to free land; some of them feared that their underpaid workers would be drained off to the West. The South was even more bitterly opposed, partly because gang-labor slavery could not flourish on a mere 160 acres. Free farms would merely fill up the territories more rapidly with free-soilers and further tip the political balance against the South.

South Carolina, which had threatened to go out if the "sectional" Lincoln came in, proved as good as its word. How?

Four days after the election, its legislature voted unanimously to call a special convention. Meeting at Charleston in December 1860, the delegates unanimously voted to leave the Union. The fuse had now been lit that would eventually ignite a chain reaction of secession.

Why did the rousing Republicans go down to defeat in the election of 1856?

Frémont lost much ground because of grave doubts as to his honesty, capacity, and sound judgment. Perhaps more damaging were the violent threats of the southern "fire-eaters" that the election of a sectional "Black Republican" would be a declaration of war on them, forcing them to secede. Many northerners, anxious to save both the Union and their profit-able business connections with the South, were thus intimidated into voting for Buchanan.

What was Uncle Tom's Cabin?

Harriet Beecher Stowe published this novel in 1852. Dismayed by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, she was determined to awaken the North to the wickedness of slavery by laying bare its terrible inhumanity, especially the cruel splitting of families. Her wildly popular book relied on powerful imagery and touching pathos. "God wrote it," she explained in later years - a reminder that the deeper sources of her antislavery sentiments lay in the evangelical religious crusades of the Second Great Awakening.

What happened to John Brown after this?

He was convicted of murder and treason after a hasty but legal trial.

Who was John Brown?

He was obsessively dedicated to the abolitionist cause and was a radical. He moved to Kansas and was angered by the recent attack on Lawrence. He led a band of his followers to Pottawatomie Creek in May 1856. There they literally hacked to pieces five surprised men, presumed to be proslaveryites. This terrorist butchery damaged the free-soil cause and brought vicious retaliation from the proslavery forces.

What was Abraham Lincoln referred to as "Honest Abe"?

He was widely referred to as "Honest Abe," partly because he would refuse cases that he had to suspend his conscience to defend.

What was the impact of The Impending Crisis of the South?

Helper's influence was insignificant among the poorer whites to whom he addressed his message. Yet the South's planter elite certainly took note of Helper's audacity, which fueled their fears that the non-slaveholding majority might abandon them. The Impending Crisis of the South was banned in the South and fed to the flames at book-burning parties. In the North untold thousands of copies, many in condensed form, were distributed as campaign literature by the Republicans. Southerners were further embittered when they learned that their northern brethren were spreading these wicked "lies." It made them increasingly unwilling to stay in the Union.

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How does this have to do with historical parallels?

In 1776, thirteen American colonies, led by the rebel George Washington, had seceded from the British Empire by throwing off the yoke of King George III. In 1860-1861, eleven American states, led by the rebel Jefferson Davis, were seceding from the Union by throwing off the yoke of "King" Abraham Lincoln. With that burden gone, the South was confident that it could work out its own peculiar destiny more quietly, happily, and prosperously

What was the Homestead Act?

In 1860, after years of debate, Congress finally passed a homestead act—one that made public lands available at a nominal sum of twenty-five cents an acre. But the homestead act was stabbed to death by the veto pen of President Buchanan.

How did the South react to the events of Harpers Ferry?

In the eyes of the South, Brown was a wholesale murderer and an apostle of treason. Many southerners asked how they could possibly remain in the Union while a "murderous gang of abolitionists" was financing armed bands to "Brown" them. Moderate northerners, including Republican leaders, openly deplored this mad exploit. But the South naturally concluded that the violent abolitionist view was shared by the entire North, dominated by "Brown-loving" Republicans.

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How did this have to do with casting aside their generations of "vassalage" to the North?

It could develop its own banking and shipping and trade directly with Europe.

Yet the South, despite its electoral defeat, was not all that badly off in terms of political power. Why?

It retained a five-to-four majority on the Supreme Court. And although the Republicans had elected Lincoln to the presidency, they controlled neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives. The federal government could not touch slavery in those states where it existed except by a constitutional amendment, and such an amendment could be defeated by one-fourth of the states.

What caused the panic of 1857?

It was not so bad economically as the panic of 1837, but psychologically it was probably the worst of the nineteenth century. Inpouring California gold played its part by helping to inflate the currency. The demands of the Crimean War in Russia had overstimulated the growing of grain, while frenzied speculation in land and railroads had further ripped the economic fabric.

The scene next shifted to Washington. How did they react to the Lecompton Constitution?

James Buchanan was also strongly under southern influence. Blind to sharp divisions within his own Democratic party, Buchanan threw the weight of his administration behind the notorious Lecompton Constitution. But Senator Douglas, who had championed true popular sovereignty, would have none of this semi-popular fraudulency. Deliberately tossing away his strong support in the South for the presidency, he fought courageously for fair play and democratic principles. The outcome was a compromise that, in effect, submitted the entire Lecompton Constitution to a popular vote. The free-soil voters thereupon thronged to the polls and snowed it under. Kansas remained a territory until 1861, when the southern secessionists left Congress.

Who won the election of 1856?

James Buchanan.

With bullets whining in Kansas, the Democrats met in Cincinnati to nominate their presidential standard-bearer of 1856. Who did they choose?

James Buchanan.

Why did the most famous debate come at Freeport, Illinois?

Lincoln nearly impaled his opponent on the horns of a dilemma. Suppose, he queried, the people of a territory should vote slavery down. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed that they could not. Who would prevail, the Court or the people?

How was the crisis, already critical enough, deepened by the "lame duck" period?

Lincoln, although elected president in November 1860, could not take office until four months later, on March 4, 1861. During this period of protracted uncertainty, when he was still a private citizen in Illinois, the secessionist movement gathered further momentum.

What were the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

Lincoln, as Republican nominee for the Senate seat, boldly challenged Douglas to a series of joint debates. This was a rash act because the stumpy senator was probably the nation's most devastating debater. Douglas promptly accepted Lincoln's challenge, and seven meetings—the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates—were arranged from August to October 1858.

How did free-soilers react to this?

Many free-soilers were infuriated and boycotted the polls. Left to themselves, the proslaveryites approved the constitution with slavery late in 1857.

Why did President James Buchanan not doing anything to stop secession?

Never a vigorous man and habitually conservative, he and although devoted to the Union, he was surrounded by prosouthern advisers. As an able lawyer wedded to the Constitution, he did not believe that the southern states could legally secede. Yet he could find no authority in the Constitution for stopping them with guns. And even if he had used force on South Carolina in December 1860, the fighting almost certainly would have erupted three months sooner than it did and under less favorable circumstances for the Union. The North would have appeared as the heavy-handed aggressor.

Was the Crittenden Compromise passed?

No, president-elect Lincoln flatly rejected the Crittenden scheme, which offered some slight prospect of success, and all hope of compromise evaporated. He had been elected on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery, and he felt that as a matter of principle, he could not afford to yield, even though gains for slavery in the territories might be only temporary. He feared it would bring slavery to Latin America.

How did the South react to the North believing the Dred Scott decision was merely an opinion?

Republican defiance of the exalted tribunal was intensified by an awareness that a majority of its members were southerners. Southerners in turn were inflamed by all this defiance. They began to wonder anew how much longer they could remain joined to a section that refused to honor the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the constitutional compact that had established it.

How did Bleeding Kansas also spatter blood on the floor of the Senate in 1856?

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, a tall and imposing figure, was a leading abolitionist. Brooding over the turbulent miscarriage of popular sovereignty, Charles Sumner delivered a blistering speech titled "The Crime Against Kansas." He condemned the proslavery men and also referred insultingly to South Carolina and to its senator Andrew Butler, one of the best-liked members of the Senate. This angered Preston Brooks, who was Butler's distant cousin. Then, on May 22, 1856, Brooks approached Sumner, then sitting at his Senate desk, and pounded the orator with an eleven-ounce cane until it broke. The victim fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor, while several nearby senators refrained from interfering.

How did the Illinois senatorial election of 1858 now claimed the national spotlight?

Senator Stephen A. Douglas's term was about to expire, and the Republicans decided to run against him a rustic Springfield lawyer, one Abraham Lincoln.

Why had Abraham Lincoln won a curious race?

Sixty percent of the voters preferred some other candidate. He was also a sectional president, for in ten southern states, where he was not allowed on the ballot, he polled no popular votes. The election of 1860 was virtually two elections: one in the North, the other in the South. South Carolinians rejoiced over Lincoln's victory; they now had their excuse to secede. In winning the North, the "rail-splitter" had split off the South.

Why was planting blacks on Kansas soil a losing game?

Slaves were valuable and volatile property, and foolish indeed were owners who would take them where bullets were flying and where the soil might be voted free under popular sovereignty. The census of 1860 found only 2 slaves among 107,000 souls in all Kansas Territory and only 15 in Nebraska

What did southern secessionists do after Lincoln was nominated as the Republican candidate?

Southern secessionists promptly served notice that the election of Lincoln would split the Union.

How did each of the sections react to the Dred Scott decision?

Southerners were delighted with this unexpected victory. Champions of popular sovereignty were aghast, including Senator Douglas and a host of northern Democrats. Another lethal wedge was thus driven between the northern and southern wings of the once-united Democratic party. Foes of slavery extension, especially the Republicans, were infuriated by the Dred Scott setback. Their chief rallying cry had been the banishing of bondage from the territories. They now insisted that the ruling of the Court was merely an opinion, not a decision.

Who won the Senate race?

Stephen A. Douglas. His loyalty to popular sovereignty, which still had a powerful appeal in Illinois, probably was decisive. Senators were then chosen by state legislatures; and in the general election that fol-lowed the debates, more pro-Douglas members were elected than pro-Lincoln members.

What were the effects of Brooks' actions?

Sumner had been provocatively insulting, but this counter outrage put Brooks in the wrong. The House of Representatives could not muster enough votes to expel the South Carolinian, but he resigned and was triumphantly reelected. The injuries to Sumner's head and nervous system were serious. He was forced to leave his seat for three and a half years and go to Europe for treatment that was both painful and costly. Mean-while, Massachusetts defiantly reelected him, leaving his seat eloquently empty.

What was the sack of Lawrence?

Tension mounted as settlers also feuded over conflicting land claims. The breaking point came in 1856 when a gang of proslavery raiders, alleging provocation, shot up and burned part of the free-soil town of Lawrence. This outrage was but the prelude to a bloodier tragedy.

How did the Supreme Court continue to go further in the Dred Scott decision?

The Missouri Compromise, banning slavery north of 36° 30', had been repealed three years earlier by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. But its spirit was still venerated in the North. Now the Court ruled that the Compromise of 1820 had been unconstitutional all along: Congress had no power to ban slavery from the territories, regardless even of what the territorial legislatures themselves might want.

Who was hardest hit by the panic of 1857?

The North, including its grain growers, was hard-est hit. The South, enjoying favorable cotton prices abroad, rode out the storm with flying colors. Panic conditions seemed further proof that cotton was king and that its economic kingdom was stronger than that of the North. This fatal delusion helped drive the over-confident southerners closer to a shooting showdown.

What were the platforms of these parties like in the election of 1856?

The Republican platform came out vigorously against the extension of slavery into the territories, while the Democrats declared no less emphatically for popular sovereignty.

How did southerners react to Uncle Tom's Cabin?

The South condemned the novel when it learned that hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans were reading and believing her "unfair" indictment. Harriet Beecher Stowe had never witnessed slavery first hand in the Deep South, but she had seen it briefly during a visit to Kentucky, and she had lived for many years in Ohio, a center of Underground Railroad activity.

What did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott decision?

The Supreme Court proceeded to twist a simple legal case into a complex political issue. It ruled, not surprisingly, that Dred Scott was a black slave and not a citizen, and hence could not sue in federal courts. A majority decided to go further, under the leadership of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney from the slave state of Maryland. A sweeping judgment on the larger issue of slavery in the territories seemed desirable, particularly to fore-stall arguments by two free-soil justices who were pre-paring dissenting opinions. The pro-southern majority evidently hoped in this way to lay the odious question to rest. A majority of the Court decreed that because a slave was private property, he or she could be taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery. The reasoning was that the Fifth Amendment clearly forbade Congress to deprive people of their property without due process of law.

Impending bloodshed spurred frantic last-ditch attempts at compromise. How was this so?

The most promising of these efforts was sponsored by Senator John Jordan Crittenden of Kentucky.

How did the North react to Uncle Tom's Cabin?

The novel left a profound impression on the North. Uncounted thousands of readers swore that henceforth they would have nothing to do with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. The tale was devoured by millions of impressionable youths in the 1850s—some of whom later volunteered to fight the Civil War through to its grim finale. It helped sustain them in their determination to wipe out the plague of slavery.

What was the Tariff of 1857?

The panic of 1857 also created a clamor for higher tariff rates. Several months before the crash, Congress, embarrassed by a large Treasury surplus, had enacted the Tariff of 1857. The new law, responding to pressures from the South, reduced duties to about 20 percent on dutiable goods—the lowest point since the War of 1812. Northern manufacturers, many of them Republicans, noisily blamed their misfortunes on the low tariff. As the surplus melted away in the Treasury, industrialists in the North pointed to the need for higher duties. But what really concerned them was their desire for increased protection.

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How did this have to do with the principles of self-determination?

The principles of self-determination—of the Declaration of Independence—seemed to many southerners to apply perfectly to them. Few, if any, of the seceders felt that they were doing anything wrong or immoral. The thirteen original states had voluntarily entered the Union, and now seven—ultimately eleven—southern states were voluntarily withdrawing from it.

What was the Crittenden Compromise?

The proposed Crittenden amendments to the Constitution, proposed within days of South Carolina's secession vote, were designed to appease the South. 1.) slavery prohibited in territories north of 36° 30' 2.) slavery permitted in in all existing or "hereafter to be acquired" territories south of 36° 30' 3.) future states would decide on slavery by popular sovereignty

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How did this have to do with northern manufacturers and bankers?

They believed that northern manufacturers and bankers, so heavily dependent on southern cotton and markets, would not dare to cut their own economic throats with their own unionist swords.

Why did southern spokesmen, now more than ordinarily touchy, raised furious cries of betrayal?

They had sup-ported the Kansas-Nebraska scheme of Senator Douglas with the unspoken understanding that Kansas would become slave and Nebraska free. The northern "Nebrascals," allegedly by foul means, were now apparently out to "abolitionize" both Kansas and Nebraska.

What was the Republican Platform like?

They wanted: 1.) nonextension of slavery 2.) protective tariff 3.) equal rights for immigrants 4.) transcontinental railroad 5.) homesteads

What happened when the Democrats tried again in Baltimore?

This time the Douglas Democrats, chiefly from the North, were firmly in the saddle. Many of the cotton-state delegates again took a walk, and the rest of the convention enthusiastically nominated their hero. The platform came out squarely for popular sovereignty and, as a sop to the South, against obstruction of the Fugitive Slave Law by the states. Angered southern Democrats promptly organized a rival convention in Baltimore, in which many of the northern states were unrepresented. They selected John C. Breckinridge as their leader. The platform favored the extension of slavery into the territories and the annexation of slave-populated Cuba.

What happened at Brown's execution?

Though perhaps of unsound mind, he was clever enough to see that he was worth much more to the abolitionist cause dangling from a rope than in any other way. His demeanor during the trial was dignified and courageous.

What were the effects of the panic of 1857?

When the collapse came, over five thousand businesses failed within a year. Unemployment, accompanied by hunger meetings in urban areas, was widespread.

Why did crisis conditions in Kansas rapidly worsen?

When the day came in 1855 to elect members of the first territorial legislature, proslavery "border ruffians" poured in from Missouri to vote early and often. The slavery supporters triumphed and then set up their own puppet government at Shawnee Mission. The free-soilers, unable to stomach this fraudulent conspiracy, established an extralegal regime of their own in Topeka. The confused Kansans thus had their choice between two governments—one based on fraud, the other on illegality.

How did Uncle Tom's Cabin also have effects abroad?

When the guns in America finally began to boom, the common people of England sensed that the triumph of the North would spell the end of the slave system. The governments in London and Paris seriously considered intervening on behalf of the South, but they were sobered by the realization that many of their own people might not support them.

Elated Republicans, scenting victory in the breeze as their opponents split hopelessly, gathered in Chicago. Who did they choose as their candidate?

William H. Seward was by far the best known of the contenders. But his radical utterances, including his speech at Rochester in 1858, had ruined his prospects. They chose Abraham - he was a stronger candidate because he had made fewer enemies.

What was the Confederate States of America?

With the eyes of destiny upon them, the first seven seceders, formally meeting at Montgomery, Alabama, in February 1861, created a government known as the Confederate States of America. As their president they chose Jefferson Davis, a dignified and austere recent member of the U.S. Senate from Mississippi.

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How did this have to do with worldwide impulses of nationalism?

Worldwide impulses of nationalism—then stirring in Italy, Germany, Poland, and elsewhere—were fermenting in the South. This huge area, with its distinctive culture, was not so much a section as a subnation. It could not view with complacency the possibility of being lorded over, then or later, by what it regarded as a hostile nation of northerners.

What did the Sumner-Brooks clash and the ensuing reactions reveal?

how dangerously inflamed passions were becoming, North and South. Emotion was displacing thought.

What effects did Uncle Tom's Cabin have on the country?

it sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the United States and abroad. It helped start the Civil War and win it.

Although defeated in the Senate race, Abraham Lincoln...?

made his way into the national limelight in company with the most prominent northern politicians. Newspapers in the East published detailed accounts of the debates, and Lincoln began to emerge as a potential Republican nominee for president.

Thus the panic of 1857 gave the Republicans two surefire economic issues for the election of 1860. What were they?

protection for the unprotected and farms for the farmless.

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How did this have to do with the triumph of the new sectional Republican party?

seemed to threaten their rights as a slaveholding minority. They were weary of free-soil criticism, abolitionist nagging, and northern interference, ranging from the Underground Railroad to John Brown's raid.

As the new year dawned and the Crittenden Com-promise spiraled toward failure...?

six other states of the lower South, though somewhat less united, followed the leader over the precipice: Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Four more were to join them in the spring, bringing the total to eleven.

Overall, why was the election of 1860 a landmark election?

the Democratic party split the ballot between two candidates.

Financial distress in the North, especially in agriculture, gave a new vigor to...?

the demand for free farms of 160 acres from the public domain. For several decades interested groups had been urging the federal government to abandon its ancient policy of selling the land for revenue. Instead, the argument ran, acreage should be given outright to the sturdy pioneers as a reward for risking health and life to develop it.

What was one important reason why Buchanan did not resort to force?

the tiny standing army of some fifteen thousand men, then widely scattered, was urgently needed to suppress the Indians in the West. Public opinion in the North, at that time, was far from willing to unsheathe the sword. Fighting would merely shatter all prospects of adjustment, and until the guns began to boom, there was still a flickering hope of reconciliation rather than a contested divorce. The weakness lay not so much in Buchanan as in the Constitution and in the Union itself.

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of avowed reasons. How did they mostly relate in some way to slavery?

they were alarmed by the tipping of the political balance against them.