James Lincoln Collier - Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War: 1831 - 1861

T HE D RAMA OF A MERICAN H ISTORY

SLAVERY and the COMING of the CIVIL WAR

18311861

Christopher Collier

James Lincoln Collier

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors wish to thank Stanley L. Engerman, Professor of Economics and History, University of Rochester, for his careful reading of the text of this volume of The Drama of American History and his thoughtful and useful comments. The work has been much improved by his notes. The authors are deeply in his debt, but of course, assume full responsibility for the substance of the work, including any errors.

Photo research by James Lincoln Collier.

COVER PHOTO: Joslyn Art Museum

PICTURE CREDITS: The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of:

Chapter I: Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation : typical Southern farm. Joslyn Art Museum : Philadelphia's harbor. Corbis-Bettmann : slave market, slave pen, advertisement for a slave auction, Arab slave ship. Library of Congress : lower deck of a slave ship.

Chapter II: Corbis-Bettmann : field slaves on a plantation, slave cabin, lashing scars, George Mason, Henry Clay, tent camp, religious fervor, Frederick Douglass, "Caution" poster. Library of Congress : Paul Cuffee, slave auction.

Chapter III: Corbis-Bettmann : President James K. Polk, American troops at Vera Cruz, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Forcing slavery" cartoon, Kansas gun battle, rally poster, Joky Doy, Dred Scott.

Chapter IV: Corbis-Bettmann : Abraham Lincoln with beard, Currier & Ives portrait of Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, John Brown, Harpers Ferry, black "Samson," dancing abolitionists, "States' Rights" flag, James Buchanan. Library of Congress : Fort Sumter.

2000 Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holders.

First ebook edition 2012 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-511-6

Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9563-6

SLAVERY and the COMING of the CIVIL WAR

18311861

C ONTENTS

P REFACE

OVER MANY YEARS of both teaching and writing for students at all levels, from grammar school to graduate school, it has been borne in on us that many, if not most, American history textbooks suffer from trying to include everything of any moment in the history of the nation. Students become lost in a swamp of factual information, and as a consequence lose track of how those facts fit together and why they are significant and relevant to the world today.

In this series, our effort has been to strip the vast amount of available detail down to a central core. Our aim is to draw in bold strokes, providing enough information, but no more than is necessary, to bring out the basic themes of the American story, and what they mean to us now. We believe that it is surely more important for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history, than to memorize an array of facts and figures.

The difference between this series and many standard texts lies in what has been left out. We are convinced that students will better remember the important themes if they are not buried under a heap of names, dates, and places.

In this sense, our primary goal is what might be called citizenship education. We think it is critically important for America as a nation and Americans as individuals to understand the origins and workings of the public institutions that are central to American society. We have asked ourselves again and again what is most important for citizens of our democracy to know so they can most effectively make the system work for them and the nation. For this reason, we have focused on political and institutional history, leaving social and cultural history less well developed.

This series is divided into volumes that move chronologically through the American story. Each is built around a single topic, such as the Pilgrims, the Constitutional Convention, or immigration. Each volume has been written so that it can stand alone, for students who wish to research a given topic. As a consequence, in many cases material from previous volumes is repeated, usually in abbreviated form, to set the topic in its historical context. That is to say, students of the Constitutional Convention must be given some idea of relations with England, and why the Revolution was fought, even though the material was covered in detail in a previous volume. Readers should find that each volume tells an entire story that can be read with or without reference to other volumes.

Despite our belief that it is of the first importance to outline sharply basic concepts and generalizations, we have not neglected the great dramas of American history. The stories that will hold the attention of students are here, and we believe they will help the concepts they illustrate to stick in their minds. We think, for example, that knowing of Abraham Baldwin's brave and dramatic decision to vote with the small states at the Constitutional Convention will bring alive the Connecticut Compromise, out of which grew the American Senate.

Each of these volumes has been read by esteemed specialists in its particular topic; we have benefited from their comments.

C HAPTER I: T HE S LAVE T RADE

THE CIVIL WAR has continued to fascinate Americans generations after the people who fought it are long dead. No event in American history has been so thoroughly studied, not merely by historians, but by tens of thousands of other Americans who have made the war their hobby. Perhaps a hundred thousand books have been published about the Civil War: you could spend a lifetime just reading about the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg alone. Every year millions of Americans visit Civil War battlefieldsAppomatox, Manassas, Gettysburg, and others. Scores of movies and television shows have recreated the battles, the personalities of the politicians and warriors who fought it. It was at once a great drama and a fearful tragedy, which cost the lives of 620,000 Americans, mostly young men and even boys of fourteen and fifteen. What was the reason for this frightful carnage?

Historians started arguing over the causes of the Civil War almost from the moment it started and have gone on arguing ever since. Many different interpretations have been offered. Some historians have argued that the war was mainly about money matters and economic powerthe South was jealous of Northern wealth and was afraid of being buried by its richer neighbor. Others have pointed to slavery: one important historian has said that slavery was "the sole cause of the war," and added, "If the Negro had never been brought to America, our Civil War could not have occurred." Though there are a number of other important interpretations, that slavery was the central cause of the war is the one that is emphasized in this volume. Despite our emphasis on slavery, we will remind readers from time to time of the political, economic, and cultural differences that divided the North and South. In order to understand both how and why the United States was torn apart in this terrible, bloody struggle, we need to stand back a little, and see how passions on both sides of the line rose step by step until the war became inevitable.