In the Democratic Convention of 1852 in Baltimore, the Democrats chose Franklin Pierce as their candidate for presidency. He supported the finality of everything, including the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law. Meeting in Baltimore, the Whigs chose Winfield Scott as their candidate for presidency. He also praised the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law.
The votes for the Whig party were split between Northern Whigs, who hated the party's platform but accepted the candidate, and Southern Whigs, who supported the platform but not the candidate.
Franklin Pierce won the election of 1852. The election of 1852 marked the end of the Whig party. It died on the issue of the Fugitive-Slave Law. The Whig party had upheld the ideal of the Union through their electoral strength in the South.

Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Scheme
Stephen A. Douglas (D) - longed to break the North-South deadlock over westward expansion; proposed the Unorganized Territory of Nebraska be sliced into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. Their status on slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty. Kansas would be presumed to be a slave state, while Nebraska would be a free state.
This Kansas-Nebraska Act ran into the problem of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which forbade slavery in the proposed Nebraska Territory. Douglas was forced to propose the repealing of the Missouri Compromise. President Pierce fully supported the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

Congress Legislates a Civil War
The Kansas-Nebraska act wrecked two compromises: the Compromise of 1820, which the act repealed; and the Compromise of 1850, which northern opinion repealed indirectly.
The Democratic Party was shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
The Republican Party was formed in the Mid-West and it had moral protests against the gains of slavery. It included Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, and other foes of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Southerners hated the Republican Party. The Kansas Territory erupted in violence in 1855 between proslavery and antislavery arguments. In 1857, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision invalidated the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The North-South Contest for Kansas
Most of the people who came into Kansas were just westward-moving pioneers. A minority of the people moving to Kansas was financed by groups of northern abolitionists who wanted to see Kansas a free state. The New England Emigrant Aid Company was one of these groups.
In 1855, the day that the first territorial legislatures were to be elected, many pro-slavery people came in from slave- state Missouri to vote, enacting pro-slavery officials. The slavery supporters set up their own government at Shawnee Mission. The free-soilers then set up their own government in Topeka, giving the Kansas territory two governments. (Kansas and Nebraska territories were to have popular sovereignty in choosing slavery according to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Nebraska was so far north that its future as a free state was never in question.) In 1856, the Civil War in Kansas started when a group of pro-slavery riders burned down a part of the free-soil town of Lawrence.

Kansas in Convulsion
John Brown- fanatical abolitionist who, in May of 1856 in response to the pro-slavery events in Lawrence, hacked to death 5 presumed pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie Creek.
Civil War flared up in Kansas in 1856, and continued until in merged with the nation's Civil War of 1861-1865. In 1857, Kansas had enough people to apply for statehood. Its citizens were going to vote again on whether or not to have slavery in the state of Kansas. In order to keep the free-soilers from creating a free state, the pro-slavery politicians created the Lecompton Constitution. The document stated that the people were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as a whole, rather, they could vote on whether the constitution would be "with slavery" or "without slavery." If slavery was voted against, then one of the provisions in the constitution would protect those who already owned slaves in Kansas. Many free-soilers boycotted voting, so the pro-slaveryites voted, approving the constitution to include slavery.
James Buchanan, a democrat, succeeded Pierce as the President of the United States. He had a strong southern influence and approved of the Lecompton Constitution. Senator Stephen Douglas was strongly opposed to the document and he campaigned against it. Eventually, a compromise was reached that enabled the people of Kansas to vote on the Lecompton Constitution, itself. It was revoked by the free-soil voters, but Kansas remained a territory until 1861, when the southern states seceded from the Union.
President Buchanan divided the powerful Democratic Party by enraging the Douglas Democrats of the North. He divided the only remaining national party and with it, the Union.

"Bully" Brooks and His Bludgeon
In 1856, abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a provoking speech condemning pro-slavery men. During this speech, Sumner also personally insulted Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Two days later on May 22, 1856, Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, beat Sumner with a cane to unconsciousness.
The speech made by Sumner was applauded in the North, angering the South.
The clash between Sumner and Butler showed how violent and impassioned the Northerners and Southerners were for their cause.

"Old Buck" Versus "The Pathfinder"
Meeting in Cincinnati, the Democrats chose James Buchanan as their presidential candidate to run in the election of 1856 because he wasn't influenced by the Kansas-Nebraska Act as Pierce and Douglas had been. The Democratic platform campaigned for popular sovereignty.
Meeting in Philadelphia, the Republicans chose Captain John C. Fremont because he was also not influenced by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Republican platform campaigned against the extension of slavery. The American Party, also called the Know-Nothing Party, was formed by Protestants who were alarmed by the increase of immigrants from Ireland and Germany. They chose former president Millard Fillmore as their candidate for the election of 1856.

The Electoral Fruits of 1856
James Buchanan won the election of 1856.
It was quite possibly a good thing that the Republican Party did not win the election, because some southerners said the election of a Republican president would mean war, forcing them to secede.
This election was a small victory for the Republican Party because the party was just 2 years old, yet putting up a fight for the Democrats.

The Dred Scott Bombshell
Dread Scott, a slave who had lived with his master (residence in Missouri) for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory, sued for his freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The Supreme Court ruled that because a slave was private property, he could be taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery. The Fifth Amendment forbade Congress from depriving people of their property without the due process of law. The Court went further and stated that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that Congress had no power to ban slavery from the territories, no matter what the territorial legislatures themselves wanted.
This victory delighted Southerners, while it infuriated Northerners and supporters of popular sovereignty.

The Financial Crash of 1857
The panic of 1857 broke out due to California gold inflating the currency and over-speculation in land and railroads. The North was the hardest hit, while the South, with its cotton, continued to flourish.
Northerners came up with the idea of the government giving 160-acre plots of farming land to pioneers for free. Two groups opposed the idea: Eastern industrialists feared that the free land would drain its supply of workers and the South feared that the West would fill up with free-soilers who would form anti-slavery states, unbalancing the Senate even more. Congress passed a homestead act in 1860, making public lands available at $0.25/acre, but it was vetoed by President Buchanan.
The Tariff of 1857 lowered duties to about 20%. The North blamed it for causing the panic, because they felt they needed higher duties for more protection. This gave the Republicans two economic issues for the election of 1860: protection for the unprotected and farms for the farmless.

An Illinois Rail-Splitter Emerges
In Illinois's senatorial election of 1858, the Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln to run against Democrat Stephen Douglas. Lincoln served in the Illinois legislature as a Whig politician and he served one term in Congress.

The Great Debate: Lincoln versus Douglas
Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of seven debates that were arranged from August to October 1858.
The most famous debate came at Freeport, Illinois. Lincoln asked Douglas, "What if the people of a territory should vote down slavery?" The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed that the people could not. Douglas's reply to him became known as the "Freeport Doctrine." Douglas argued that no matter how the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down. Laws to protect slavery would have to be voted on by the territorial legislatures.
Douglas won the senatorial election, but Lincoln won the popular vote.

John Brown: Murderer or Martyr?
Abolitionist John Brown's scheme was to invade the South secretly with a handful of followers, call upon the slaves to rise, give the slaves weapons, and establish a black free state as a sanctuary.
In October 1859, he seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Because many of his supporters failed to show up, he was caught and sent to death by hanging. When Brown died, he lived on as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.
The Disruption of the Democrats
For the election of 1860, the Democrats met in Charleston, South Carolina to choose their candidate. The northern wing of the party wanted to nominate Stephen Douglas, but the southern "fire-eaters" saw him as a traitor for his unpopular opposition to the Lecompton Constitution and unpopular Freeport Doctrine reply. After the delegates from most of the cotton states walked out, the Democrats met again in Baltimore to elect a candidate. This time, Douglas was elected, despite the fact that the southerners again walked out. The southern Democrats met in Baltimore to choose their own Democratic presidential candidate. They chose vice-president John C. Breckenridge. The platform favored the extension of slavery into the territories and the annexation of slave-populated Cuba.
The Constitutional Union Party was formed by former Whigs and Know-Nothings. They nominated John Bell as their presidential candidate.

A Rail-Splitter Splits the Union
The Republican Party met in Chicago and nominated Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate.
The Republican platform had an appeal to nearly every part of the nation. For the free-soilers, non-extension of slavery; for the northern manufacturers, a protective tariff; for the immigrants, no abridgment of rights; for the Northwest, a Pacific railroad; for the West, internal improvements at federal expense; and for the farmers, free homesteads (plots of land) from the public domain.
The Southerners said that if Abraham Lincoln were elected as President, the Union would split.

The Electoral Upheaval of 1860
Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, but he did not win with the popular vote. 60% of the nation voted for another candidate. 10 southern states didn't even allow Lincoln to appear on the ballot.
South Carolina was happy at the outcome of the election because it now had a reason to secede.
Even though the Republicans won the presidential election, they did not control the House of Representatives, the Senate, or the Supreme Court.

The Secessionist Exodus
In December 1860, South Carolina's legislature met in Charleston and voted unanimously to secede. 6 other states joined South Carolina: Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
The 7 seceders met at Montgomery, Alabama in February 1861 and created a government known as the Confederate States of America. The states chose Jefferson Davis, a recent member of the U.S. Senate from Mississippi, as President.
During this time of secession, Buchanan was still President for Lincoln was not sworn in until 1861. President Buchanan did not hold the seceders in the Union by force because he was surrounded by southern advisors and he could find no authority in the Constitution to stop them with force. One important reason was that the tiny army of 15,000 men of the Union was needed to control the Indians of the West.

The Collapse of Compromise
The Crittenden amendments to the Constitution were designed to appease the South. They said that slavery in the territories was to be prohibited north of 360 30', but south of that line was to be given federal protection in all territories existing or herby acquired. Basically, states north of the line could come into the Union with or without slavery, depending on what they chose, but below that line, there would always be slavery. President Lincoln rejected the amendments.

Farewell to the Union
The southern states seceded fearing that the Republican Party would threaten their rights to own slaves.
Many southerners felt that their secession would be unopposed by the North. They assumed that the northern manufacturers and bankers, dependent upon southern cotton and markets, wouldn't dare cut off the South.

The Menace of Secession
President Abraham Lincoln declared that secession was impractical because the North and South were not geographically divided. He also stated that with secession, new controversies would arise, including the national debt, federal territories, and the fugitive-slave issue.

South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
When President Lincoln was elected, there were only two significant forts in the South that flew the Union's flag. Fort Sumter, in the Charleston harbor, needed supplies in order to support its men. Therefore, Lincoln adopted a middle-of-the-road solution. He told the South that the North was sending provisions to the fort, not supplies for reinforcement. Taking the move by Lincoln as an act of aggression, the South Carolinians fired upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee all seceded after the attack on Fort Sumter. The 11 seceded states were known as the "submissionists." Lincoln now had a reason for an armed response, and he called upon the Union states to supply militiamen.

The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 (10 Stat. 277) created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries. The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to create opportunities for a Mideastern Transcontinental Railroad. It became problematic when popular sovereignty was written into the proposal. The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.

The act established that settlers could vote to decide whether to allow slavery, in the name of popular sovereignty or rule of the people. Douglas hoped that would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. Instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the slave power of the South. The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the North.

The provision in the Kansas-Nebraska Act calling for "popular sovereignty," the idea that residents of the new territories would vote on the issue of slavery, soon caused major problems. Forces on both sides of the issue began arriving in Kansas, and outbreaks of violence resulted. The new territory was soon known as "Bleeding Kansas," a name bestowed upon it by Horace Greeley, the influential editor of the New York Tribune. Open violence in Kansas reached a peak in 1856, when pro-slavery forces burned the "free soil" settlement of Lawrence, Kansas. In response, the fanatical abolitionist John Brown and his followers murdered men who supported slavery. The bloodshed in Kansas even reached the halls of Congress, when a South Carolina Congressman, Preston Brooks, attacked abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, beating him with a cane on the floor of the US Senate.

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was a revolutionary abolitionist from the United States, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery for good. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in which he killed 5 men dragging them out of their house in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. He was tried and executed for treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and conspiracy later that year. Brown has been called "the most controversial of all 19th-century Americans."

Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the state of Virginia, the murder of five pro-slavery Southerners, and inciting a slave insurrection and was subsequently hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War.

Brown first gained attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis. Unlike most other Northerners, who advocated peaceful resistance to the pro-slavery faction, Brown demanded violent action in response to Southern aggression. Dissatisfied with the pacifism encouraged by the organized abolitionist movement, he reportedly said, "These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!" During the Kansas campaign he and his supporters killed five pro-slavery southerners in what became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre in May 1856 in response to the raid of the "free soil" city of Lawrence.

In 1859 he led a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (in modern-day West Virginia). During the raid, he seized the armory; seven people were killed, and ten or more were injured. He intended to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but the attack failed. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had fled or been killed or captured by local farmers, militiamen, and U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee.

Brown's subsequent capture by federal forces seized the nation's attention, as Southerners feared it was just the first of many Northern plots to cause a slave rebellion that would kill millions, while Republicans ridiculed the notion and said they would not interfere with slavery in the South.

The background of the Dred Scott decision, one of the Supreme Court’s most controversial pronouncements, is complex. Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri, had been purchased by army surgeon John Emerson. Scott and his master had spent time in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory (Minnesota), where slavery was prohibited. When discharged from the army he took Dred Scott and his family back to Missouri after some time.

After Emerson’s death in 1846, Scott sued for his freedom, claiming that his journey to free soil had made him free. He lost this case in the state courts. Scott then ended up in the possession of John Sanford, a New York abolitionist, who assisted in taking his case to the federal courts since the matter now involved a dispute between the residents of different states. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court where a decision was reached in 1857 (Dred Scott vs. Sanford).

The Supreme Court, like the country itself, was split along sectional lines. One justice maintained that the matter belonged back in the state courts. Liberal justices argued that Scott should be freed under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. Conservative justices wanted to deny freedom to Scott and rule the Compromise unconstitutional. In the end the Court was unable to reach a single decision, but the positions taken by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a former slave owner, prevailed. He found that:

· Dred Scott had no standing in the court system because blacks, regardless of whether they were free or slave, were not and could not be citizens.
· A slave was the property of the slave owner and that temporary residence north of the Missouri Compromise’s 36˚30’ line did not bestow freedom.
· Congress, under the Fifth Amendment, lacked the authority to deprive citizens of their property, a ruling that served to wipe out the slavery provisions of the Missouri Compromise.

News of the Court’s decision swept the country and provoked generally predictable responses. The Republicans were outraged and saw the decision as a threat to their party, but in the end they actually profited because many moderates came to the support of the new party. The Democrats were irreparably split into Northern and Southern factions. Stephen A. Douglas opposed the decision because it voided his solution of popular sovereignty. On the other hand, President James Buchanan greeted the decision favorably in hopes that that the slavery issue could be put to rest. Critics of the president charged that he had actually conspired to shape the Court’s response. After the court case was finished Sanford returned Dred Scott to Emerson’s sons; who would free him.

The Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858 were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for Senate in Illinois, and the incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. At the time, U.S. senators were elected by state legislatures; thus Lincoln and Douglas were trying for their respective parties to win control of the Illinois legislature. The debates previewed the issues that Lincoln would face in the aftermath of his victory in the 1860 presidential election. The main issue discussed in all seven debates was slavery.

In agreeing to the debates, Lincoln and Douglas decided to hold one debate in each of the nine congressional districts in Illinois. Because both had already spoken in two – Springfield and Chicago — within a day of each other, they decided that their "joint appearances" would be held only in the remaining seven districts. The debates were held in seven towns in the state of Illinois: Ottawa on August 21, Freeport on August 27, Jonesboro on September 15, Charleston on September 18, Galesburg on October 7, Quincy on October 13, and Alton on October 15.

The debates in Freeport, Quincy, and Alton drew especially large numbers of people from neighboring states, as the issue of slavery, or the peculiar institution, was of monumental importance to citizens across the nation. Newspaper coverage of the debates was intense. Major papers from Chicago sent stenographers to create complete texts of each debate, which newspapers across the United States reprinted in full, with some partisan edits. Newspapers that supported Douglas edited his speeches to remove any errors made by the stenographers and to correct grammatical errors, while they left Lincoln's speeches in the rough form in which they had been transcribed.

In the same way, Republican papers edited Lincoln's speeches, but left the Douglas texts as reported. After losing the election for Senator in Illinois, Lincoln edited the texts of all the debates and had them published in a book. The widespread coverage of the original debates and the subsequent popularity of the book led eventually to Lincoln's nomination for President of the United States by the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

The format for each debate was: one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute "rejoinder." The candidates alternated speaking first. As the incumbent, Douglas spoke first in four of the debates.