CHAPTER 14
	THE GATHERING TEMPEST, 1853-1860
			STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS
			a.2 Douglas and Popular Sovereignty d.1 John C. Fremont, 1856 d.2-3 Original Constituency of the Republican Party, 1854 d.5 Lecompton Constitution, 1857 e.5 Was Slavery Dying?
	[a.2]		STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AND POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
	Why did Douglas do it?		Historians have debated why Douglas proposed the mechanism of "popular sovereignty" to determine the status of slavery in the new created territories of Kansas and Nebraska (1853). Four possibilities emerge:
			Douglas was a "true believer" in the principle. He was courting the southern vote for a run at the presidency in 1856. He believed that soil and climate conditions made slavery non-profitable north of the Missouri Compromise line. Therefore the people would never adopt a pro-slavery constitution. He sacrificed Kansas to popular sovereignty in order to get southern votes to chart the transcontinental rail road through Nebraska territory. If this happened, Chicago--not St. Louis--would be the terminus the Pacific rail road. Since Douglas was an Illinois congressman and Chicago was its biggest city, the laying of the railroad through Nebraska would benefit his state.
	[d.1]		JOHN C. FREMONT
	First candidate		The noncommittal stance of the Whigs regarding slavery and the Kansas-Nebraska Act resulted in the formation of the Republican Party at Ripon, Wisconsin. John C. Fremont was the first republican candidate. In the presidential election of 1856, Fremont carried 11 of the 16 northern states--a solid indication that the Republican Party had come of age.
	[d.2-3]		ORIGINAL CONSTITUENCY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 1854
	Disaffected elements of 2nd party system join GOP		"Conscious" Whigs 75% anti-slavery Democrats 20% Former Know-Nothings 5%
	No extension of slavery		By 1860, the Republican Party had co-opted the Know-Nothing Party. Abraham Lincoln campaigned on the principle of no slave extension into the west and refuted Stephen A. Douglas's principle of "popular sovereignty." To Lincoln, the Federal government alone should decide the fate of slavery in the western territories.
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	[d.5]		LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION, 1857
	attempt to ramrod Kansas into the Union as a slave state		Drafted October-November 1857 at Lecompton, capital of Kansas territory, the Lecompton Constitution was designed to bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) had allowed settlers to vote on whether or not slavery would be condoned in Kansas, a provision which clearly violated the Missouri Compromise (1820).
	Bleeding Kansas		Proslavery elements in Kansas dominated the Lecompton proceedings while free-soilers set up a counter government in Topeka. Guerrilla warfare erupted between the two sides, earning Kansas the epithet, "Bleeding Kansas."
	President Buchanan & Senate accept		Free soilers boycotted the election when the Lecompton Constitution was submitted to the people for a vote; US president James Buchanan, on the other hand, wanted to admit Kansas into the Union based on the Lecompton model. The US senate complied with Buchanan's wishes, but the House rejected the constitution.
	Free-Soilers win		Because more free-soilers entered Kansas as time passed, anti-slavery forces eventually voted down the Lecompton Constitution. Kansas entered the Union as a free state in June 1861, just one month before the First Battle of Bull Run
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	[e.5]		WAS SLAVERY DYING?
	Profitable or not?		Historians have debated whether or no slave owners were optimistic about the future of slaves and cotton. Compare the analysis below:
	Charles Ramsdell		"The Slave system was moribund and destined to disappear. Therefore the Civil War was unnecessary."
	Fogel and Engerman		Slavery was profitable and growing. Plantation owners optimistically viewed the future and the South's ability to compete with the North. Most Southerners viewed their treatment of slaves as superior to northern urban working class conditions.
	Slavery paid		Evidence seems to support the notion that slavery paid. Consider the following:
			Southern whites were 2x wealthier than their northern counterparts. Cotton accounted for 54% of US exports in 1860--a trend that had been rising since the 1840's. A male slave cost $2,000.
	Differing financial systems		The problem with the southern slave system was that it wasn't solvent. Virtually all southern capital was tied up in land and slaves, whereas northern wealth was more liquid. The North's sophisticated money, credit, and banking system provided the financial edge that preserved the Union. But before the war, Southerners were confident that COTTON WAS KING. Senator James H. Hammond said it best when he asserted that no European nation would wage war against the cotton kingdom because southern cotton was needed for Europe's cotton mills.
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			XWORD SOLUTION