Page 359 - American Stories, A History of the United States

affirmed his commitment to white supremacy. He would grant blacks the right to the
14.1 fruits of their own labor while denying them the “privileges” of full citizenship. Douglas
made the most of this inherently contradictory position.
Although Republican candidates for the state legislature won a majority of the
14.2 popular vote, the Democrats carried more counties and thus were able to reelect Doug-
las. Lincoln lost an office, but he won respect in Republican circles throughout the
country. By stressing the moral dimension of the slavery question and undercutting

14.3 any possibility of fusion between Republicans and Douglas Democrats, he had sharp-
ened his party’s ideological focus and stiffened its resolve not to compromise its Free-
Soil position.
Slavery remained an emotional and symbolic issue. Events in late 1859 and early
1860 turned southern anxiety about northern attitudes and policies into a “crisis of
fear.” The most significant event was John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in
October 1859. Brown led 18 men, including five free blacks, in seizing the federal arse-
nal and armory in Harpers Ferry, hoping to start an uprising against slavery. While he
Quick Check
failed at that, and was hanged for treason, the sympathy and admiration he aroused in
What was the basis of Lincoln’s the North stunned Southerners. Within the South, the raid and its aftermath touched
opposition to slavery?
off a frenzy of fear, repression, and mobilization.

The election of 1860
The Republicans, sniffing victory and insensitive to the depth of southern feeling
against them, met in Chicago on May 16 to nominate a presidential candidate. The
initial front-runner, Senator William H. Seward of New York, had two strikes against
him: He had a reputation for radicalism and a record of opposition to nativism. Most
of the delegates wanted a less controversial nominee who could win two or three of the
northern states that the Democrats had carried in 1856. Lincoln met their specifica-
tions: He was from Illinois, a state the Republicans needed to win; he seemed more
moderate than Seward; and he had kept his distaste for Know-Nothingism to himself.
He was also a self-made man, whose rise from frontier poverty to legal and political
prominence embodied the Republican ideal of equal opportunity for all.
The Republican platform, like the nominee, was meant to broaden the party’s
appeal in the North. Although the platform retained a commitment to halt the expan-
sion of slavery, it gave economic matters more attention than in 1856. It called for a
high protective tariff, endorsed free homesteads, and supported federal aid for inter-
nal improvements, especially a transcontinental railroad. The platform was designed
to attract enough ex-Whigs and renegade Democrats to give the Republicans a solid
majority in the North.
The Democrats failed to present a united front against this formidable challenge.
When the party first met in the sweltering heat of Charleston in late April, Douglas com-
manded a majority of the delegates but not the two-thirds required for nomination because
of southern opposition. The convention did endorse popular sovereignty, but the price
was a walkout by Deep South delegates who favored a federal slave code for the territories.
Unable to agree on a nominee, the convention reconvened in Baltimore in June.
There, the pro-Douglas forces won a fight over whether to seat newly selected pro-
Douglas delegations from some Deep South states in place of the bolters from the first
convention. But that led to another and more massive southern walkout. The Demo-
cratic party fractured. The delegates who remained nominated Douglas and reaffirmed
the party’s commitment to popular sovereignty. The bolters nominated John Breck-
inridge of Kentucky on a platform of federal protection for slavery in the territories.
By the time the campaign was under way, four parties were running presidential
candidates. In addition to the Republicans, the Douglas Democrats, and the “Southern
Rights” Democrats, John Bell of Tennessee ran under the banner of the Constitutional
Union party, a remnant of conservative Whigs and Know-Nothings. Taking no explicit
stand on slavery in the territories, the Constitutional Unionists tried to represent the
spirit of sectional accommodation that had led to compromise in 1820 and 1850. In
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