01:512:205 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lecompton Constitution, Border Ruffian
18 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Chapter 19: Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854-1861
1. Stowe and Helper: Literary Incendiaries
1. Sectional tensions were further strained in 1852, and later, by an inky
phenomenon
1. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a wisp of a woman and the mother of a half-
dozen children, published her heartrending novel Uncle Tom’s
Cabin in 1852
2. 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 of slaves for selling
3. Her wildly popular book (success of the novel at home and abroad
was sensational) relied on powerful imagery and touching pathos; the
deeper sources of her antislavery sentiments lay in the evangelical
religious crusades of the Second Great Awakening
4. Totals soon ran into the millions as the tale was translated into many
languages and no other novel in American history can be compared
with it as a political force
2. To millions of people, Uncle Tom’s Cabin made slavery appear almost as
evil as it really was and the truth is that it did help start the Civil War—and
win the Civil War too
3. Southerners criticized her unfair indictment as Mrs. Stowe had never
witnessed slavery at 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
4. Uncle Tom left a profound impression on the North; readers swore to have
nothing to do with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law and the tale
was devoured by millions of impressionable youths in the 1850s—some
who fought in the Civil War (Boys in Blue)
5. The novel was immensely popular abroad, especially in Britain and
France; when the Civil War started, the people of England sensed that the
triumph of the North would spell the end of the black curse; government in
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
London and Paris considered intervening for the South, but they realized
that many of their own people would not support them
6. Another trouble-brewing book appeared in 1857, five years after the debut
of Uncle Tom
1. The Impending Crisis of the South, written by Hinton R. Helper, a non-
aristocratic white from North Carolina, attempted to prove by statistics
that indirectly the non-slaveholding whites were the ones who suffered
most from the millstone of slavery
2. Helper’s influence was negligible among the poorer whites to whom
he addressed his message; his book was banned in the South, where
book-burning parties were held
3.
4. But in the North, thousands of copies, many in condensed form were
distributed as campaign literature by the Republicans—Southerners
were further embittered
2. The North-South Contest for Kansas
1. The rolling plains of Kansas had provided an example of the worse
possible workings of popular sovereignty; newcomers who ventured into
Kansas were a motley lot
1. Most of the northerners were just ordinary westward-moving pioneers
in search of richer lands beyond the sunset; but a small part of the
inflow was financed by groups of northern abolitionists or free-
soilers—New England Emigration Aid Company
2. People were sent to the troubled area to forestall the South and to
make a profit
3. Southern spokesmen raised furious cries of betrayal; they had
supported the Kansas-Nebraska scheme of Douglas with the
unspoken understanding that Kansas would become slave and
Nebraska free—Nebraskans were trying to abolitionize Kansas
4. A few southern hotheads, quick to respond, attempted to assist
small groups of well-armed slaveowners to Kansas; but planting
blacks on Kansas was a losing game
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
5. Slaves were valuable and volatile property, and foolish indeed were
owners who would take them were bullets were flying and where the
soil might be free
2. Crisis conditions in Kansas rapidly worsened; 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; slavery
supporters triumphed and set up their puppet government at Shawnee
Mission and the free-soilers established a regime in Topeka
3. The confused Kansans thus had their choice between two governments—
one based fraud, the other illegality; tensions mounted as settlers feuded
over conflicting land claims
4. The breaking point came in 1856 when a gang of proslavery raiders,
alleging provocation, shot up and burned a part of the free-soil town of
Lawrence
5. This outrage was but the prelude to a bloodier tragedy
3. Kansas in Convulsion
1. The fanatical figure of John Brown now stalked upon the Kansas
battlefield
1. He was obsessively dedicated to the abolitionist cause and becoming
involved in dubious dealings, he moved to Kansas from Ohio with a
part of his large family
2. Brooding over the recent attack on Lawrence, Old Brown of
Osawatomie 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 and this butchery tainted the free-soil
cause and brought vicious retaliation from the proslavery forces
3. Civil war in Kansas, which thus flared forth in 1856, continued
intermittently until it merged with the large-scale Civil War of 1861-
1865 (paralyzed agriculture)
2. By 1857 Kansas had enough people, chiefly free-soilers, to apply for
statehood on a popular-sovereignty basis; the proslavery forces devised
the Lecompton Constitution
1. The people were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as
a whole, but for the constitution with slavery or with no slavery; if
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
France; when the civil war started, the people of england sensed that the triumph of the north would spell the end of the black curse; government in. Osawatomie led a band of his followers to pottawatomie creek in may. Constitution: but senator douglas, who had championed true popular sovereignty, would have none of semi-popular fraudulency; he fought for fair play and democratic principles, the outcome was a compromise that submitted the entire lecompton. Nebraska act: the delegates finally chose james buchanan, a well-to-do. Democratic machine: the election of 1856 cast a shadow forward and north and south, peered toward 1860, the dred scott bombshell, the dred scott decision, handed down by the supreme court on march 6, Douglas and a host of northern and southern wings of the once-united. The great debate: lincoln versus douglas: lincoln, as republican nominee for the senate seat, boldly challenged.
