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History Engine: Tools for Collaborative Education and Research | Episodes

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The Dred Scott decision was a landmark case in that it drew a clear line of how the government stood on the issue of slavery, and further inflamed passions surrounding an already divisive topic within American politics.While southerners were ecstatic at the outcome, the massive abolitionist campaign to aid Scott

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Uncle Tom's cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852

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Uncle Tom's cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852

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Gave insight into the life of a slave. And presented stereotypes against white slave owners depicting them as cruel and unjust.

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Said that slavery was good for blacks by offering them a paternalistic lifestyle other than becoming "wage slaves" in the North

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Impending Crisis in the South by Hinton R. Helper 1857

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Impending Crisis in the South by Hinton R. Helper 1857

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Native of North Carolina used Statistics to demonstrate to the southern population the economic deficits of slavery. Southern states attempted to ban the book but it was widely distributed in the North by antislavery and Free-Soil leaders. In his book Helper compared the revenue of Free and Slave states where Free states had a pattern of producing more money.

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Popular pieces of literature spoke on the advantages and disadvantages of slavery vastly influencing the public.

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The Dred Scott decision stated -

Slaves, according to the constitution are property

Scott is not allowed to sue due to being property

Government cannot take property

Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional

Implied that there were no free states, and slavery could exist anywhere.
The decision gave a powerful political standing for southern pro-slavery people. The north had an extremely negative response to the decision as it rendered an important compromise null and void, leading to increased tensions and conflict.

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Northerners disregard him as a radical

Southerners fear that Brown's actions reflects the North's true intentions

Abolitionists hold him as a martyr

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There's an escalation in the debates over the division of territory and amplified feelings of secularism. This escalation of violence becomes very prominent in events such as Bleeding Kansas.

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What is often overlooked is that the debates were part of a larger campaign, that they were designed to achieve certain immediate political objectives, and that they reflected the characteristics of mid-nineteenth-century political rhetoric. Douglas, a member of Congress since 1843 and a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democratic party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S. Senate, and Lincoln was running for Douglas's Senate seat as a Republican. Because of Douglas's political stature, the campaign attracted national attention. Its outcome, it was thought, would determine the ability of the Democratic party to maintain unity in the face of the divisive sectional and slavery issues, and some were convinced it would determine the viability of the Union itself. "The battle of the Union is to be fought in Illinois," a Washington paper declared.

Did You Know?

Lincoln and Douglas participated in seven debates throughout Illinois, one in each of the state's Congressional districts.

Although senators were elected by the state legislatures until 1913, Douglas and Lincoln took their arguments directly to the people. The timing of the campaign, the context of sectional animosity within which it was fought, the volatility of the slavery issue, and the instability of the party system combined to give the debates a special importance. Not long before, Douglas had defied President James Buchanan and the southern Democratic leadership when he opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave state under the controversial Lecompton constitution, a stand for which he received support from Republicans in Congress as well as their interest in his reelection. At the same time, Buchanan and the southern slave interests gave tacit (and in some instances explicit) support to Lincoln's candidacy because of their hostility to Douglas. As a result of this strange alignment, Lincoln's principal task was to keep Illinois Republicans from supporting Douglas by exposing the moral gulf that separated them from the senator and to win the support of radical abolitionists and former conservative Whigs. A relative newcomer to the antislavery cause (before 1854, he said, slavery had been a "minor question" with him), Lincoln used the debates to develop and strengthen the moral quality of his position.

The groundwork for the campaign was laid in Lincoln's famous House Divided speech in Springfield on June 16, 1858. Douglas opened his campaign on July 9 in Chicago. By mid-August, the two candidates had agreed to a series of debates in seven of the state's nine congressional districts.

Lincoln opened the campaign on an ominous note, warning that the agitation over slavery would not cease until a crisis had been passed that resulted either in the extension of slavery to all the territories and states or in its ultimate extinction. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he declared. Lincoln's forecast was a statement of what would be known as the irrepressible conflict doctrine. The threat of slavery expansion, he believed, came not from the slaveholding South but from Douglas's popular sovereignty position-allowing the territories to decide for themselves whether they wished to have slavery. Furthermore, Lincoln charged Douglas with conspiring to extend slavery to the free states as well as the territories, a false accusation that Douglas tried vainly to ignore. Fundamental to Lincoln's argument was his conviction that slavery must be dealt with as a moral wrong. It violated the statement in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal, and it ran counter to the intentions of the Founding Fathers. The "real issue" in his contest with Douglas, Lincoln insisted, was the issue of right and wrong, and he charged that his opponent was trying to uphold a wrong. Only the power of the federal government, as exercised by Congress, could ultimately extinguish slavery. At the same time, Lincoln assured southerners that he had no intention of interfering with slavery in the states where it existed and assured northerners that he was opposed to the political and social equality of the races, points on which he and Douglas agreed.

Douglas rejected Lincoln's notion of an irrepressible conflict and disagreed with his analysis of the intentions of the Founding Fathers, pointing out that many of them were slaveholders who believed that each community should decide the question for itself. A devoted Jacksonian, he insisted that power should reside at the local level and should reflect the wishes of the people. He was convinced, however, that slavery would be effectively restricted for economic, geographic, and demographic reasons and that the territories, if allowed to decide, would choose to be free. In an important statement at Freeport, he held that the people could keep slavery out of their territories, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, simply by withholding the protection of the local law. Douglas was disturbed by Lincoln's effort to resolve a controversial moral question by political means, warning that it could lead to civil war. Finally, Douglas placed his disagreement with Lincoln on the level of republican ideology, arguing that the contest was between consolidation and confederation, or as he put it, "one consolidated empire" as proposed by Lincoln versus a "confederacy of sovereign and equal states" as he proposed.

On election day, the voters of Illinois chose members of the state legislature who in turn reelected Douglas to the Senate in January 1859. Although Lincoln lost, the Republicans received more popular votes than the Democrats, signaling an important shift in the political character of the state. Moreover, Lincoln had gained a reputation throughout the North. He was invited to campaign for Republican candidates in other states and was now mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. In winning, Douglas further alienated the Buchanan administration and the South, was soon to be stripped of his power in the Senate, and contributed to the division of the Democratic party.

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The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Lincoln-Douglas Debates - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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What is often overlooked is that the debates were part of a larger campaign, that they were designed to achieve certain immediate political objectives, and that they reflected the characteristics of mid-nineteenth-century political rhetoric. Douglas, a member of Congress since 1843 and a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democratic party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S.

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Henry Clay's Document of the Compromise of 1850

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Our Documents - Transcript of Missouri Compromise (1820)

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OurDocuments.gov. Featuring 100 milestone documents of American history from the National Archives. Includes images of original primary source documents, lesson plans, teacher and student competitions, and educational resources.

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North favored due to prohibition of slavery above 36, 30 parallel

· South favored the admittance of another slave state

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Southern Advantage and Northern Reaction

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Southern Advantage and Northern Reaction

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Southerners now had an opportunity to spread slavery.
Specifically Northern Democrats condemned the bill as a surrender to the "slave power".

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Connection to Missouri Compromise of 1820 

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Connection to Missouri Compromise of 1820 

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Slavery was now allowed above the previously established "36 30" line

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Led by John Brown, an aggressor in Bleeding Kansas.

Raided a federal arsenal to arm slaves to start a revolt

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The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848).

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The election of 1860, exemplified the failure of the electoral college to effectively represent the values and opinions of everyone in the war. In the election, 60 percent of the population voted for someone besides Lincoln, further attributing to the anger in the south, leading to secession.

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Senator Stephen Douglas wanted to win Southern approval to build a transcontinental railroad through the central United States. In this Act,  Nebraska Territory was divided into two parts, Nebraska Territory and Kansas Territory. These territories the ability decide whether or they they wanted to implement slavery (popular sovereignty).

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This compromise was proposed by Henry Clay

· Preserved the sectional balance in the Senate

· MO admitted as slave state

· Maine admitted as a free state

· Slavery prohibited above 36, 30 parallel