Why did northern fear of the “Slave Power” intensify in the 1850s?

> CHRONOLOGY

1856

  • “Bleeding Kansas” pits anti- versus proslavery advocates.

  • “Sack of Lawrence” orchestrated.

  • Pottawatomie massacre kills five in Kansas.
1857

  • Dred Scott decision announced.

  • Congress rejects Lecompton constitution.

  • Panic of 1857 ripples throughout economy.
1858

  • Lincoln and Douglas debate; Douglas wins Senate seat.

Events in Kansas Territory in the mid-1850s underscored the Republicans’ contention that the slaveholding South presented a profound threat to “free soil, free labor, and free men.” Kansas reeled with violence that Republicans argued was southern in origin. Republicans also pointed to the brutal beating by a Southerner of a respected northern senator on the floor of Congress. Even the Supreme Court, in the Republicans’ view, reflected the South’s drive toward minority rule and tyranny. Then, in 1858, the issues dividing North and South received an extraordinary hearing in a senatorial contest in Illinois, when the nation’s foremost Democrat debated a resourceful Republican (Figure 14.1). [[LP Figure: P14.01 Changing Political Landscape, 1848–1860/ROA_04224_14_F01.JPG]] [[LP Photo: P14.05 John and Jessie Frémont Poster/ROA_04224_14_P05.JPG]]

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Figure 14.5: FIGURE 14.1 Changing Political Landscape, 1848–1860 The polarization of American politics between free states and slave states occurred in little more than a decade.
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John and Jessie Frémont Poster The election of 1856 marked the first time a candidate’s wife appeared on campaign items. Jessie Benton Frémont helped plan her husband’s campaign, coauthored his election biography, and drew northern women into political activity as never before. “What a shame that women can’t vote!” declared abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. “We’d carry ‘our Jessie’ into the White House on our shoulders, wouldn’t we.”

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