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The Politics of Slavery, 1848-1860
Overview
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The politics of slavery erupted at a time of tremendous economic growth in the United States. Internal improvements, such as the railroad, canal, steamboats, and the telegraph, helped integrate the U.S. into a single market. But, in truth, the U.S. market was really two different political economies based on two different labor systems. By the 1850s, the differences between North and South were profound. Westward expansion kept the issue of slavery in the political mainstream. Despite previous solutions, such as the Missouri Compromise, an old question arose: should Congress restrict the movement of slavery into the western territories? The Whig party, which was fractured by sectionalism and the Compromise of 1850, was destroyed by nativistic politics. For a time, hostility to immigrants was enough to strengthen the American Party, but northerners were still worried about the expansion of slavery into the west and the growing strength of the Democrat Party. A new party, the Republican Party, replaced the Whig Party. The Election of 1856 was different from previous elections. The distinctions between the parties and their candidates were made based on their positions on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This election placed the political economy of slavery against the political economy of free labor. The issue was forced into the nation’s political dialog by the presence of a new political party, the Republican Party. The Democrat James Buchanan was the last pro-slavery president. His efforts to silence the slave question resulted in disaster and when he left office in 1861 his party was in chaos and the Union collapsed. Between 1858 and 1860 both the North and the South rejected the sanctity of the Union. Northerners saw John Brown’s execution with horror while southerners saw northerners’ reactions as a sign that the Union was no longer viable. When Abraham Lincoln ran for the presidency in 1860 his name was not on the ballot in the South. His election suggests that the North had abandoned a longstanding pattern of compromise.
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