DK - The American Civil War

attacked waiter Thomas Keating,

triggering a dining room melee that

ended with Herbert shooting the waiter

dead. The Republicans printed

handbills, speeches, and pamphlets

stressing slaveholders’ disdain for

“menials” and portraying the attack as

a blow against white workers and

farmers. Party editors quoted

inflammatory items from the

Southern press as proof of the

tyrannical nature of slaveholders.

Two weeks later, on May 22,

Senator Charles Sumner of

Massachusetts was brutally beaten

on the floor of the Senate by a

Southern congressman, Preston

Brooks. Republicans, joined by a

number of former Democrats,

organized “indignation meetings” that

drew thousands of Northern men and

women into public condemnation of

the assault.

A climate of fear

That same evening, reports arrived that

Lawrence, Kansas, the center of

free-state settlers, had been sacked and

burned by pro-slavery militia from

Missouri. Stories circulated of murder,

pillage, and rape, but in fact the only

casualty was a

Missouri raider,

killed by a brick

falling from a

burning hotel.

Confrontations

over slavery in

Kansas suddenly became part of a

larger pattern of violence. Previously

skeptical opponents of the Republicans

now accepted that “The Slave Power

is the same in Missouri as it is in

Washington.” These violent acts seemed

AN IMPERFECT UNION

I

n May 1856, three violent events—

two in Washington, D.C., and one in

Kansas—convinced many white

Northerners that the South really did

constitute a threat to their rights and

liberties. The unconnected events

inspired Northern enthusiasm for the

Republican Party—founded just two

years earlier by a coalition that included

abolitionists, former anti-slavery Whigs,

and former Free-Soilers—and led to a

sudden surge in support for the party.

On May 8, Alabama-born

Congressman Philemon Herbert,

furious when he was refused service at

the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.,

BEFORE

In the 1850s, anti-Catholicism and concerns

about both slavery and immigration drew

Americans to new political parties.

NEW POLITICAL PARTIES

As the Whig party faded, local nativist groups

organized into the anti-immigration “Know

Nothing” Party ❮❮ 30–31. At the same time,

many Northerners who advocated “Free Soil”

in the West joined anti-Southern and anti-slavery

coalitions that became the Republican Party.

SLAVE POWER

Many Northerners feared the expansion of

slavery into the West. Southern political power

was frequently characterized as a conspiracy or

“Slave Power.” These perceived threats to

white liberties in the North mobilized popular

support for the Republicans more than any moral

commitment to the abolition of slavery and

justice for African Americans ❮❮ 26–27.

to prove Republican assertions of

Southern “Slave Power” and its threat

to white men, whether they were

laborers, settlers, or senators.

The failure of the president, the

Congress, and the courts to render

justice as demanded by an enraged

Northern public added indignity to

a sense of imminent danger. The

Republican Party took advantage of

this and used an extensive network

of editors, ministers, and party workers

to print and

distribute a vast

amount of political

propaganda. The

Southern press

retaliated. In May

1856, the Enquirer

in Richmond, Virginia, urged that

“vulgar abolitionists ... must be lashed

into submission.” Later that year,

an Alabama editor fumed, “Free

society, we sicken at the name ... a

conglomeration of greasy mechanics,

filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers,

and moonstruck theorists ... hardly fit

for association with a Southern

gentleman’s body servant.” Such

provocative statements only served to

remind Northerners that Republicans

stood ready to defend their interests

against the South.

Rapidly growing support

Heated debates and political violence

erupted over what party was fit to rule.

The rapid spread of anger at Southern

attitudes about slavery enabled the

Republican Party to attract both

abolitionists and moderates willing

to vote against Southern institutions

and culture.

The aim of stopping the expansion

of slavery unified the Republican Party.

Slave holders cringed at this political

dogma, given the increase of

populations in the North and West.

Southerners feared losing the political

balance in Congress, which protected

their interests. They knew that slavery

ultimately would be subjected to the

will of the majority.

For a party that had been founded

as recently as 1854, the Republicans

achieved a remarkable result in their

first presidential election. Their

candidate John C. Frémont carried 11

states to Democratic candidate James

Buchanan’s 19. The 1856 election was

seen by them as a “victorious defeat.”

The Rise of the Republican Party

Founded to oppose the extension of slavery, the Republican Party in 1855 had organized members in fewer

than half the Northern states, most of which often ran third to the Democrats in elections. Less than a year later,

the Republicans had transformed themselves from a disorganized coalition into a powerful sectional party.

On May 19–20, 1856, Charles Sumner

delivered a two-day speech in the

Senate attacking slavery and its sexual

abuses. Two days later Congressman

Preston Brooks of South Carolina,

having read the text of the speech,

was so enraged that he marched into

the Senate and attacked Sumner at his

desk, beating him unconscious with his

cane, which shattered as a result of the

violent blows. Brooks believed that

Sumner’s speech had slandered his uncle,

Senator Andrew Butler.

This unprecedented attack on the Senate

floor shocked Northerners, who considered

it an assault on free speech. Republicans

used the attack to create effective campaign

rhetoric “proving” the threat to Northern

liberties posed by Southern slaveholders.

Forcing slavery down the throat of a Free-Soiler

The Free-Soil Party opposed the spread of slavery in the

West. This cartoon refers to the divisive Kansas-Nebraska

Act of 1854, after which many Free-Soilers chose to join

the emerging Republican Party.

THE SUMNER CANING, A

PROVOCATIVE EXAMPLE

OF SOUTHERN CHIVALRY

The number

of popular

votes for the Republican candidate John

C. Frémont in the presidential election of

1856 : 33.1 percent of the votes cast.

1,342,345

KEY MOMENT

THE CANING OF MASSACHUSETTS SENATOR CHARLES SUMNER