Sectionalism
Party
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Description
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Election of 1860
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Democrats
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1830s – rise in the support for economic and political opportunities for
white males
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limited government that creates economic and political opportunities
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Jackson: “the planter, the farmer, the mechanic, the laborer all
know thir success depends on their own industry and economy”
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Opposed national banks and corporations
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Attracted
Small merchants/working class in Northeast
Southern planters
suspicious of industrial growth
Westerners (usually from the South) favoring
agrarian economy and opposing powerful economic institutions in their region
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Franklin Pierce , Stephen Douglas
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“Northern Dem” Candidate: Douglas
Southern Dem Candidate: Breckinridge
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Whigs
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Established in 1834; mostly gone by 1856
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Promoted expansion of the federal government, encouraging industrial and
commercial development; creating an interwoven and consolidated national economy
- Favored national banks and corporations
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Tended to be wealthier, more aristocratic, more
commercially ambitious
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Attracted
Northeastern merchants/ manufacturers
wealthy Southern planters supporting commercial development and strengthening ties with the North
(1830s)
ambitious Western farmers and commercial class (usually from
the Northeast) that supported internal improvement and rapid economic progress
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Henry Clay, Zachary Taylor
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Divided / destroyed by the KA-NE Act (1854)
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- “Constitutional Union Party” Candidate: Bell
– supports union
(unity), silent on slavery
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Republicans
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established in 1854 by Anti-NE Democrats and Whigs
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Anti-slavery and concerned about popular sovereignty
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Tried to attract Northern interest groups; claimed South was
blocking the North’s economic aspirations
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Took a traditionally Whig platform: high tariff, Pacific
railroad with federal financing
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Candidate: Lincoln
On Slavery:
- believed slavery was morally wrong, but was not an abolitionist, because he could not envision an easy alternative to
slavery where it existed
- did not believe that African Americans were prepared (and
maybe never would be) to live on equal terms with whites
- accepted the
prevailing view that blacks were inferior (politically and socially) to
whites, but believed they were entitled to natural human rights set forth by
the Constitution – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
- wanted to
stop the spread of slavery; believed that if they stopped the spread, it
would die out eventually
- won with majority of electoral college, but only 2/5 of the
popular vote
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Free-Soil (A Party and a Perspective in the North)
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became a party in 1848, when opponents of slavery were looking
for a candidate who would take a stance on slavery
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Not a moral stance on slavery, but became the prevalent Northern
perspective
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Believed in the right of all Americans to own property, control
their own labor, and have opportunities for economic advancement
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Saw slavery as a closed, aristocratically controlled labor
system
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Saw northern industry as an open, capitalistic, individualistic,
progressive system
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Pro-Slavery (Solidifying the Southern Way of Life)
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Calhoun: the South should stop apologizing for slavery as a necessary evil and
defend it as a positive good
- Slavery is the basis for the South’s way of life and economy; the South’s
economy was key to American economic success
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South protected the
welfare of its workers (unlike the North with its immigrant labor force)
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The
Underground Railroad
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An informal chain of “stations” (anti-slavery homes) through which
“passengers” (runaway slaves) were helped by “conductors” (usually white and
black abolitionists) from slave states to Canada (and the North in general)
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Harriet Tubman – famous conductor; runaway slave from Maryland –
19 trips bringing more than 300 slaves out of the South
o
Nicknamed “Moses” who led his people out of Eqypt
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Later the reach of the Underground Railroad was greatly
exaggerated, but its importance is huge, particularly as the South demanded
more stringent slave laws
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