Notes for 12/3

Sectional Tension
-Panic of 1857 (Fall)
1. Grain sales to Europe slumped
2. High interest rates spread from Europe to U.S. and sucked up credit
3. B/C times had been good:
-Land prices had soared; railroads were overbuilt; banks had made too many risky loans
-Panic started as banks suspended species payments, businesses failed, railroads went bankrupt, construction stopped, factories shut downand hundreds of workers lost jobs
-Panic increased sectional hostility rather than uniting country
1. South largely escaped depression
-It's export driven economy avoided domestic downturn
2. South thought it had helped economy by selling $65 mill. worth of cotton
3. North though that southern votes for Law Tariff of 1857 caused depression
-After this, Dred Scott decision split country over repeal of Missouri Compromise and slavery and Lecompton Constitution further split U.S. and it's political parties- North and South
-Situation didn't improve when Southerner, Hinton Rowan Helper (non-slave holding white from upcountry NC), wrote anti-slavery book The Impending Crisis of the South
1. Book banned in South
2. North saw South as not being able to handle free speech

Freeport Doctrine
-During off year elections of 1858, Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were running for same senate seat
1. 2 enganged in series of debates around IL
2. One of debates took place in Freeport
-There were 7 debates. In 1st, Lincoln said "A house divded against itself cannot stand...I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave half free...it will become all one thing or all the other."
-Douglas won re-election, but Abe won recognition/respect
-In Freeport, Lincoln tried to corner Douglas
1. Lincoln asked Douglas how he could reconcile Dred Scott decision which legalized slavery everywhere with Douglas' idea of popular sovereigntywhich would allow people of territory power to say no to slavery
2. Douglas said even though Supreme Court had legalized slavery, people of territory would reject it by not passing territorial laws necessary to support slavery
3. Douglas' answer = popular in North as way around Dred Scott decision but made southerners angry, especially after losing Kansas
-Although there was strong hostility to planter dominance of society and politics among people of mountains and upcountry, elsewhere non-slaver holders still supported slavery because kinship, economic interests, and race
-In Piedmont and low country, 1/2 of whites = non-slaveholders
1. Many of these had slave holding relatives
2. Some rented slaves
3. Because of slaves, non-slaveholding whites monopolized skilled, higher paying jobs
4. White supremacy = rule of day
-Southern legal code, politics, and society based on white supremacy
-Freeing slaves would change this so poor whites supported slavery because they didn't want this to change

John Brown
-John Brown, aka dude who slaughtered pro-slavery whites in Kansas, reappears in Harpers Ferry, VA
1. Brown tries to seize Federal Arsenal
2. He thinks that if he arms slaves, they will join him in growing force that will cause slavery to collapse
3. Brown moves on arsenal at Harpers Ferry, but few slaves join him
4. U.S. Marines commanded by Robert E. Lee capture Brown and few others
5. Brown and 6 followerers tried, convicted, and hanged
-Northerners consider Brown a martyr and they ring bells and fire gun salutes for him, and ministers preach about him
-Southerners = shocked and outrage; think Brown is a lunatic/monster
-U.S. = even more divided