368 Chapter 13 The Coming of the Civil War
Key Terms
Crittenden Compromise Legislation proposed by
Kentucky Senator John Crittenden during the
Secession Crisis in 1860–1861. It called for a consti-
tutional amendment recognizing slavery in all terri-
tory south of 36°30' (the “Missouri Compromise
line”) and an ironclad amendment guaranteeing
slavery in slave states. President-elect Lincoln and
the Republicans rejected the proposals, 367
Dred Scott decision The 1857 Supreme Court
ruling that held that blacks were not citizens and
could not sue in a federal court, and, most impor-
tant, that Congress had exceeded its constitutional
authority in banning slavery from the territories.
By declaring the Missouri Compromiseuncon-
stitutional, and making future compromises even
more difficult, the decision pushed the nation
closer to civil war, 358
Kansas-Nebraska Act A compromise law in 1854
that superseded the Missouri Compromiseand left
it to voters in Kansas and Nebraska to determine
whether they would be slave or free states. The law
exacerbated sectional tensions when voters came to
blows over the question of slavery in Kansas, 353
Know-Nothing party A nativist, anti-immigrant and
anti-Catholic party that emerged in response to the
flood of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and
Germany in the 1840s. The party achieved mostly
local successes in the Northeast port cities; but in
1856 former President Millard Fillmore, whose
Whig party had dissolved, accepted the nomination
of southern Know-Nothings but carried only
Maryland, a failure that contributed to the move-
ment’s decline, 353
Lecompton constitution A proslavery constitution,
drafted in 1857 by delegates for Kansas territory,
elected under questionable circumstances, seeking
admission to the United States. It was rejected by
two territorial governors, supported by President
Buchanan, and decisively defeated by Congress, 359
Ostend Manifesto A confidential 1854 dispatch to
the U.S. State Department from American diplo-
mats meeting in Ostend, Belgium, suggesting that
the United States would be justified in seizing
Cuba if Spain refused to sell it to the United
States. When word of the document was leaked,
Northerners seethed at this “slaveholders’ plot” to
extend slavery, 348
Republican party One of the original two politi-
cal parties, sometimes called “Democratic
Republican,” it was organized by James Madison
and Thomas Jefferson and generally stood for
states’ rights, an agrarian economy and the inter-
ests of farmers and planters over those of finan-
cial and commercial groups, who generally
supported the Federalistparty; both of the orig-
inal parties faded in the 1820s. A new
Republican party emerged in the 1850s in oppo-
sition to the extension of slavery in the territo-
ries. It also adopted most of the old Whig
party’s economic program. The party nominated
John C. Fremont for president in 1856 and
Abraham Lincoln in 1860, 355
Underground Railroad A support system estab-
lished by antislavery groups in the upper South
and the North to help fugitive slaves who had
escaped from the South to make their way to
Canada, 350
Young America movement The confident enthusi-
asm, infused with a belief in the nation’s “manifest
destiny,” that spread rapidly during the 1850s, 348Review Questions
1.The introduction to this chapter claims that
Americans in the 1850s paid close attention to the
issues that culminated in the election of Lincoln
and the secession of the South. If political agita-
tion can precipitate such anger and even war, is it
always a good thing? Can there be such a thing as
too much democracy—too much “popular sover-
eignty”? Should leaders refrain from raising ques-
tions that will elicit passionate responses?
2.What events during the 1850s reduced the
prospects of finding a political compromise
between North and South?
3.Were the economic divisions—free vs. slave labor—
more consequential than the moral ones—freedom
vs. slavery?
4.The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate largely turned
on Lincoln’s assertion that the United States could
not endure half-slave and half-free. But for over
seventy years, Douglas replied, the United States
under the Constitution had done just that; com-
promise remained a possibility. Who was right?