the population and the national wealth. Southern cotton planters
and Northern merchants prospered from sales of cotton, from the
growth of Northern factories, and from financial institutions that
linked the interests of North and South.
Yet despite these links, by 1860, tensions ran high between North
and South. Most white Americans remained indifferent or hostile to
the aspirations of blacks, but many in the North feared that Southern
domination of the Federal government could lead to the spread of
slavery as new states entered the Union. Southerners saw critiques
of slavery as deeply threatening and a denial of the nation’s historic
acceptance of slaves as property.
Since the 1820 Missouri Compromise, a series of political deals
had kept disunion at bay, but the election in 1860 of a president
seen as hostile by many in the South brought matters to a head.
The voice of abolition
The Liberator newspaper, founded in Boston
in 1831 by William Lloyd Garrison, is published
weekly until the last issue on December 29, 1865.
It is uncompromising in its call for the complete
and immediate abolition of slavery.(^) M
iss
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Riv
er
(^) M
iss
iss
ip
pi
Ri
ve
r
Ohio^
Rive
r
Te
nn
ess
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Rive
r
Cumberla
nd^ R
iver
Rio
(^) G
ran
de
(^) Ark
ansa
s (^) River
(^) Red River
A
T
L
A
N
T
I
C
GULF OF^ ME
XIC
O
O
C
E
A
N
Chicago
New York City
Philadelphia
New Orleans
Boston
Charleston
Savannah
Atlanta
Mobile
Galveston
Buffalo
Richmond Norfolk
Concord
St. Louis
Memphis
Louisville
Cincinnati
Washington, D.C.
Montgomery
Meridian
Corinth
Austin
Des Moines
Vicksburg
Chattanooga
Nashville
Indianapolis
Kansas City
Jacksonville
VERMONT MAINE
NEW
HAMPSHIRE
MASSACHUSETTS
NEW
YORK
NEW JERSEY
RHODE ISLAND
CONNECTICUT
DELAWARE
PENNSYLVANIA
OHIO
MICHIGAN
INDIANA
ILLINOIS
MISSOURI
KENTUCKY
WISCONSIN
IOWA
MINNESOTA
KANSAS TERRITORY
VIRGINIA
NORTH CAROLINA
SOUTH
CAROLINA
TENNESSEE
GEORGIA
ALABAMA
FLORIDA
MISSISSIPPI
ARKANSAS
TEXAS LOUISIANA
MARYLAND
Indian
Territory
unorganized
territory
Inset map area
Bleeding Kansas
Violence between pro and anti-slavery
factions dominates Kansas in the
mid-1850s. This cartoon
ridicules President Pierce’s
pro-slavery stance.
A county election
In this 1852 painting of a
Missouri county election by
George Caleb Bingham, the
voters, all of them white and
male, cast their votes orally.
Bingham, himself a member
of the Missouri legislature,
illustrated many aspects of
American politics in his work.
1860