Page 355 - American Stories, A History of the United States

TABLe 14.3 THe eLeCTiON OF 1856
14.1
Candidate Party Popular vote electoral vote
Buchanan Democratic 1,832,955 174
14.2 Frémont Republican 1,339,932 114

Fillmore American (Know-Nothing) 871,731 8

14.3
Whigs who refused to become Republicans and hoped to revive the tradition of
sectional compromise.
The election was really two separate races—one in the North, where the main con-
test was between Frémont and Buchanan; the other in the South, between Fillmore and
Buchanan. Buchanan won, outpolling Fillmore in every slave state except Maryland
and edging out Frémont in five northern states—Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana,
Illinois, and California. But Frémont won 11 of the 16 free states, sweeping the upper
North with substantial majorities and winning more northern popular votes than either
of his opponents. (See Table 14.3). Since the free states had a majority in the electoral
college, a future Republican candidate could win the presidency by overcoming a slim
Democratic edge in the lower North.
In the South, where the possibility of a Frémont victory had revived talk of seces-
sion, the results of the election brought relief tinged with anxiety. The very existence
of a sectional party committed to restricting the expansion of slavery constituted an
insult to the Southerners’ way of life. That such a party was popular in the North raised
Quick Check doubts about the security of slavery within the Union. The continued success of a uni-
How was the election of 1860 really fied Democratic party under southern control was widely viewed as the last hope for
“two separate races”?
maintaining sectional balance and “southern rights.”

The House Divided, 1857–1860

14.3 How did the institution of slavery go beyond political and economic debates?

T he sectional quarrel became virtually irreconcilable between Buchanan’s elec-
tion in 1856 and Lincoln’s victory in 1860. A series of incidents provoked one
side or the other, heightened the tension, and ultimately brought the crisis to
a head. Behind the panicky reaction to public events lay a growing sense that
North and South were so different in culture and so opposed in basic interests that they
could no longer coexist in the same nation.

Cultural Sectionalism
Signs of cultural and intellectual cleavage had appeared well before the triumph of sec-
tional politics. In the mid-1840s, the Methodist and Baptist churches split into north-
ern and southern denominations because of differing attitudes toward slaveholding.
Presbyterians and Episcopalians remained formally united but had informal northern
and southern factions that went their separate ways on the slavery issue. Instead of
unifying Americans around a common Protestant faith, the churches became nurseries
of sectional discord. Northern preachers and congregations denounced slaveholding
as a sin, while most southern churchmen rallied to a biblical defense of the peculiar
institution and became apologists for the southern way of life. Prominent religious
leaders—such as Henry Ward Beecher, George B. Cheever, and Theodore Parker in the
North, and James H. Thornwell and Bishops Leonidas Polk and Stephen Elliott in the
South—were in the forefront of sectional mobilization. As men of God, they helped to
turn political questions into moral issues and reduced the prospects for a compromise.
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