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1860 presidential election political differences
Simple eassy about american politics parties
Lincoln Douglas debate on slavery
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The Fragmentation of the Political Party System in 1860s
A majority of Americans thought that the election of 1860 would determine the future of the Union. A compromise could not be reached on the slavery issue between the North and the South. Northerners wanted to abolish slavery altogether and Southerners wanted the expansion of slavery into the territories. There were four presidential candidates for the election, and only one of them was pro-slavery. John Breckinridge was the Southern Democratic candidate who supported slavery. All the other candidates, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John Bell, did not support slavery. Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860 by a clear majority in the Electoral College; however, he had only received about 40% of the popular vote. The election of 1860 was viewed by many Southerners as the tipping point and resulted in the secession of 11 states.
The election started off with the split of the Democratic Party between the North and the South. When Stephen Douglas' platform for the vision of the Democratic Party was chosen, the Southern delegates rejected Douglas and decided to elect their own candidate with views more similar to that of the South. The South nominated John Breckinridge who had pro-slavery views.
Breckinridge had several points in his National Democratic Platform that were pro-slavery. His very first point was "that the Government of a Territory organized by an act of Congress, is provisional and temporary; and during its existence, all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights
being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation" (Breckinridge 31-32). Breckinridge's other pro-slavery points in his Platform included the following: "that it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to protect
the rights of persons and property in the Territories" (Breckinridge 31-32), "that when the settlers in a Territory having an adequate population, form a State Constitution
the State
ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its Constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of Slavery" (Breckinridge 31-32), and "that the enactments of State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in character
and revolutionary in their effect" (Breckinridge 31-32). Douglas only agreed with Breckinridge's Fugitive Slave Law point.
Lincoln was the Republican nominee and was supported by the North. Lincoln was anti-slavery and had several points against it in his Republican National Platform.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were part of a larger campaign to achieve political adjectives from the two. Lincoln was running for Douglas’ seat in the senate as a republican. Douglas had been a member of congress since 1843, a national figure for the Democratic Party, who was running for re-election. The debates attracted national attentions, mostly due to Douglas’ persona. Lincoln took advantage and made a name for himself as a prominent contender in national politics. At the time, the Democratic Party was going through a sectional riff, at the time of the debates. Douglas had recently gone against president Buchanan and the southern democrats when he apposed the admission of Kansas as a slave state. Douglass was against the Lecompton constitution; the stand was popular among republicans. The outcome, would have maintained the unity between the Nor and south sections of the Democratic Party. Buchanan, along with the southern democrats, were in favor of Lincolns candidacy, they feared Douglas’ going interest, and for his lack of support to the Democratic leaders. With Douglas receiving support from republicans, Lincoln would have to keep Illinois republicans from supporting Douglas. Lincoln would use the morality of slavery to wedge support away from Douglas’ famous popular sovereignty, while winning support of abolitionist. The house divided quote Lincoln used in his speech was taken from Mark 3:25.
against slavery , it refused to attempt to stamp it out of the regions it was
Everything in history seems to lead to something else. The Civil War was no exception. It started with the creation of parties. Thomas Jefferson started the Anti-Federalist Party that would eventually evolve into Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party. Policies were issued and the two party system started to collapse and sectionalism started to rise. Instead of Democrat versus Whig, it was North Versus South. Neither side could agree on any issues even when compromises were issued neither side really liked the terms. Every act lead to an argument and every argument led to a compromise which would only last for a few years. Eventually the South was tired of not getting their way and seceded from the Union. The underlying cause to the Civil War was sectionalism but many other causes were based on it.
At the time, the South depended on slavery to support their way of life. In fact, “to protect slavery the Confederate States of America would challenge the peaceful, lawful, orderly means of changing governments in the United States, even by resorting to war.” (635) Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong and realized that slavery was bitterly dividing the country. Not only was slavery dividing the nation, but slavery was also endangering the Union, hurting both black and white people and threatening the processes of government. At first, Lincoln’s goal was to save the Union in which “he would free none, some, or all the slaves to save that Union.” (634) However, Lincoln realized that “freeing the slaves and saving the Union were linked as one goal, not two optional goals.” (634) Therefore, Lincoln’s primary goal was to save the Union and in order to save the Union, Lincoln had to free the slaves. However, Paludan states that, “slave states understood this; that is why the seceded and why the Union needed saving.” (634) Lincoln’s presidential victory was the final sign to many Southerners that their position in the Union was
...eadership of the democrats, believed in popular sovereignty ie the population of a state choosing for itself on the matter of slavery. The other member also aiming to rule the democrats was Breckinbridge, who believed in slavery being permitted in all states. The democrat party split into the northern and southern democrats. Because of the split Lincoln was able to win the election, upon which the southern states succeeded from the union.
Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery was the belief that the expansion of it to Free states and new territories should be ceased and that it eventually be abolished completely throughout the country. He believed simply that slavery was morally wrong, along with socially and politically wrong in the eyes of a Republican. Lincoln felt that this was a very important issue during the time period because there was starting to be much controversy between the Republicans and the Democrats regarding this issue. There was also a separation between the north and the south in the union, the north harboring the Free states and the south harboring the slave states. Lincoln refers many times to the Constitution and its relations to slavery. He was convinced that when our founding fathers wrote the Constitution their intentions were to be quite vague surrounding the topic of slavery and African-Americans, for the reason that he believes was because the fathers intended for slavery to come to an end in the distant future, in which Lincoln refers to the "ultimate extinction" of slavery. He also states that the men who wrote the constitution were wiser men, but obviously did not have the experience or technological advances that the men of his day did, hence the reasons of the measures taken by our founding fathers.
In the 1790s, soon after the ratification of the Constitution, political parties were nonexistent in the USA because President Washington feared they would drive the country apart. However, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, with their rivalling mental models, could not help but spark the division of the United States into the Democratic-Republican and Federalist parties. These parties, the Democratic-Republican wanting a small, local government system and the Federalist wanting a strong, powerful government system, turned citizens against one another and eventually led to the inimical Democratic and Republican parties of today. Hence, the formation of the original political parties in the United States is very significant. Political
...ry as inhumane and against universal suffrage. Both abolitionists agreed that compromise was not probable and slave labor was morally wrong. Thus, its expansion must be halted. Similarly the Southern Democrats, although their ideology was the opposite, were not willing to compromise on the issue of the expansion of slavery. Southern Democrat, James Henry Hammond, believed that slavery was necessary for the economic growth of the nation and without it, the North would also perish. Furthermore, the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina agreed secession was unavoidable when Abraham Lincoln was appointed into office. Therefore, initiated the beginning of an inevitable confrontation between the North and the South. These two exceptionally strict and uncompromising ideologies regarding slavery led to one of the most controversial and bloody wars in American history.
I am a Senator. He strongly endorsed the idea of popular sovereignty, which allowed the settlers in a territory to decide for themselves whether or not to have slavery. Douglas was also a fervent advocate of Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States had the God-given right and obligation to take over as much land as possible and to spread its "civilizing" influence. And he was not alone. A Philadelphia newspaper expounded Manifest Destiny when it proclaimed the United States to be a nation rightfully bound on the "East by sunrise, West by sunset, North by the Arctic Expedition, and South as far as we darn please.
The 1860 presidential election was one of the nation’s most memorable. The north and the south sections of the country had a completely different vision of how they envisioned their home land. What made this worse was that their views were completely opposite of each other. The north, mostly republican supporters, want America to be free; free of slaves and free from bondages. While on the other hand, the southern supporters, mostly democratic states, wanted slavery in the country, because this is what they earned their daily living and profit from.
...nows that slavery would have ripped our great country into two sides, one for slavery and one against slavery. He knew that our county would not have survived it we had slavery in it and through his speech he shows it.
The collapse of the second party system signified a removal of a whole structure that resembled the past. The arrival of the Republican Party as an opponent to the Democratic Party supposed slavery the next major matter for political debate. In 1858, the Republicans controlled almost all the Northern states, which meant that the possibility of “no more slave states” (226) was plausible. The Southerners did not think it was possible for the Republicans to end slavery because of the Dred Scott decision. Dred Scott ineffectively sued for his and his family’s freedom. The rejection of Scott’s case in the Missouri Supreme court led to the Dred Scott decision, which prohibited blacks whose ancestors imported to the United States to become American Citizens. The decision, also, brought about the Missouri Compromise of 1820; the compromise prohibited slavery in certain areas. Politicians failed to convey their viewpoint on the subject of slavery, which eventually led to Lincoln’s success in the presidential election of 1860. After Lincoln took power, nearly all slave states were no longer slave states, and it all resulted in the outbreak of a civil
In the 1860 presidential election, Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, opposed the expansion of slavery into United States' territories. Lincoln won, but before his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to secede had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, a total of 48.8% for the six. Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln's inaugural address declared his administration would not initiate civil war. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy. A peace conference failed to find a compromise, and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King Cotton" that they would intervene; none did and none recognized the new Conf...
...ding the Jacksonian Democrats. Even government authorized establishments lent a hand in the continuation of slavery, such as the Post Office. It honored a request from the South Carolina legislature in 1835 to prevent the transmission of anti-slavery propaganda into the state. The Jacksonian Democrats, in attempts to guard the Constitution, had missed some points, such as "all men are created equal."
...0s and 1840s Democrats and Whigs built the most completely national twoparty system that Americans have ever hadboth parties relied on support from all sections of the country, and both were evenly matched in most states. Within that system, politicians knew that arguments between the North and South must be avoided. Such arguments would, first of all, split the Whig and Democratic parties in which politicians were making their careers. Second, and more dangerous, the breakdown of the national twoparty system could realign the parties along NorthSouth lines and focus national politics on the differences between the North and South. Political leaders feared that such a breakdown could lead ultimately to disunion and perhaps civil war. Most historians agree that the national party system's eventual breakdown was a crucial cause of the American Civil War (1861-1865).