okay everybody welcome back to unit 13 the gathering storm the terrible 1850s uh just to review kind of in part one we covered uh uncle tom's cabin kansas nebraska and bleeding kansas what i want to cover in part two or three uh events known as the brook sumner affair the dred scott case and the lincoln and douglas debates uh and then in part three we'll finish up with some more of these events of the 1850s okay so we're going to cover the brook sumner fair of 1856 the dress got decision at 57 and lincoln douglas debates of 58. we're gonna start with the brook sumner fair this is one heck of a story the background to what is known as the brooks sumner affair really picks up with the events of bleeding kansas remember that popular sovereignty was clearly exposed as a failure out there in kansas because of the events of bleeding kansas and the intention of popular sovereignty was that it was supposed to have isolated the question of slavery's expansion in the territories but instead it had the opposite effect of bringing the issue right back to the national level of american politics and that's really where the affair is going to come from the sumner of the brook sonar affair is a man named charles sumner he was a u.s senator from massachusetts now here's the thing about charles sumner this guy was a borderline abolitionist he was very much against slavery believes it was morally wrong unchristian things like that so when it comes to the issue of slavery you know sumner does occupy the moral position uh and the moral high ground on slavery but the problem with charles sumner is that he was just such a jackass i mean even people in his own party hated this guy he was just such a jerk and in 1857 he attacked the authors of the kansas-nebraska act in a speech on the floor of the u.s senate entitled the crime against kansas and speaking of a south carolina senator andrew butler sumner spoke these words and you can kind of read them there you can pause it if you need to but i'll just kind of paraphrase what he's saying here butler had been a co-author of the kansas-nebraska act and sumner in his speech compared the kansas territory to kind of a virgin woman that the slave owner of the south was violating and actually named andrew butler as one of these rapists now if this is the time of southern chivalry this is the time that you know honor and things like that uh this is and so you can see some that really attacking andrew butler uh over very sexual and interesting arguments here this is what kind of made summer such an ass now now butler was not there that day to hear this speech but in the audience that day was the nephew of andrew butler a man by the name of preston brooks who happened to be a u.s representative from south carolina and brooks took offense to what sumner had said he was essentially besmirching his own family in butler and was comparing butler to a rapist [Music] so brooks picked up his cane there's a picture of it right there you can see that it's pretty pretty tough looking little weapon brux brooks strolled in onto the floor of the u.s senate the very next day and viciously attacked charles sumner uh beat him with this cane repeatedly over the head knocked him unconscious uh and damn near killed the guy uh sumner was uh pulled off of the floor of the senate unconscious he did recover from his wounds but the psychological scars were immense it took him about four years to finally retake his seat in the u.s senate and he eventually died of complications from the beating he took here at the hands of preston brooks was censored by congress forced to resign he went home to south carolina where he was hailed as a hero women were sending him canes telling him to go back to congress and beat somebody else up and south carolina re-elected him and sent him right back to the house of representatives so this was known as the brooks sumner affair and the reason it was significant is that it this this affair an event really cemented negative stereotypes that both north and south had of one another you know the south looked at what happened to sumner as uh that's what he deserved you know uh he's running his mouth uh they look down upon us they think we're all backwards uh and then he got what he deserved and so the south's negative stereotype of the north was really reinforced here uh through what sumner had done leading up to his beating the north however had their stereotypes of the south reinforced uh the negative stereotype that southerners uh are always quick to fly off the handle that they resort to uh violence rather than argument um and that you just can't say anything about slavery around southerners without this happening now these were stereotypes each side had of one another but the affair was significant just reinforced these negative stereotypes that both north and south had of one another and you know one more aspect of why the north was so angry about this you know sumner had done nothing wrong except for just use kind of some vulgar language in a speech he had not violated anyone's rights he had you know done nothing violent what he was actually doing was exercising his freedom of speech on the floor of the senate and northerners were really upset about this because for that he was beaten uh nearly to death uh so this was the brook sumner affair of 1856. again it was significant because it just reinforced these negative stereotypes that both north and south uh are beginning to form of one another and it just really just heightened the tensions even more between north and south okay so that was the brook sumner fair the the next event of the 1850s is perhaps oh i rank it pretty high but it's perhaps the most important event of the 1850s in terms of explaining how the civil war is going to ultimately come about and it is known as the dred scott decision and that's where we're going to turn to next okay the dred scott decision this is uh in terms of understanding the coming of the civil war is by far one of the most important events um it's also one of the most important supreme court decisions uh in our nation's history uh so let me kind of give you the the background to this uh supreme court case in this ultimate dred scott decision uh it is a complicated story is a long story so i hope i don't bore you and i hope you kind of learn something out of this but the picture you see there on the right that is dred scott and dred scott was a slave that lived with his master who was an army physician an army doctor and he and his master lived in the state of missouri now throughout the 1840s and the early 1850s dred scott accompanied his master this army physician to the minnesota territory uh routinely scott and his master traveled to the minnesota territory in order for his master who was the army doctor kind of check up on the soldiers uh the u.s military soldiers that occupied occupied forts in the minnesota territory now the thing here about the minnesota territory was that it was part of the louisiana purchase and technically was a free territory meaning slavery was not allowed here and that's kind of an important aspect of this case but routinely throughout the 1840s scott would travel with his master into the minnesota territory and whenever he arrived in the minnesota territory in which they would live sometimes for months on end maybe even a year at a time that's not really the the problem that was created here the problem was created here was when he came back to missouri now by the 1850s uh abolitionists just across the river from st louis in illinois abolitionists uh find out uh about dred scott's travels and through back channels were able to convince dred scott to sue for his freedom on the grounds that scott had traveled and resided from time to time any territory that louisiana purchased that was technically a free territory made so by the missouri compromise and the arguments they used in favor of his uh being able to sue for his freedom was that his residency in that free territory should have made him a free man and the way he then had the ability to sue for his freedom is that whenever he would return to missouri he had never consented to become a slave again so that actually when he came back to missouri after living in a free territory that's where the legal uh issue comes from and it's on these grounds the abolitionists believe dred scott uh had a good case uh to earn his freedom now why would abolitionists just target out dred scott were they not looking for other slaves uh to do this for well dred scott's case represented a like a perfect storm for abolitionists they'd always been looking for a case like dred scott to be able to challenge in the court system and try to get the supreme court to rule kind of in their favor on their side of the argument here so these are the arguments that dred scott is going to ultimately use when he does in fact sue for his freedom in early in the early 1850s now the case was called dred scott versus sanford sanford being his master and the case actually began in the federal district court of saint louis and here's a picture of that court i took this picture last time i was in st louis if you go today to st louis and you're up in the arch along the riverbank if you look back towards the city right below you will be that courthouse and it's right in that courthouse where the dred scott case was first heard and the case you know he at first lost his case but they appealed it and he lost again and they appealed it again and again and again so the case began in st louis in the federal district courts uh it was repeatedly appealed and finally in 1857 the case was picked up by the supreme court of the united states now real quick let me talk to you about the supreme court of the united states the chief justice of the supreme court in 1857 was no longer that that uh that guy john marshall he you know he had died long ago the chief justice of the supreme court in 1857 was a man named roger b tony and the picture you see on the right there is a picture of the original uh supreme court chamber which you can still go into today the original supreme court chamber is right in the middle of the u.s capitol building and this is the room in which this dred scott decision was handed down now a little bit more about the court the supreme court in 1857 was made up of nine justices one of them was a wig i know the whigs are kind of on their way out but he was a whig appointed by a wig president there were seven democrats and there was one republican on the supreme court of the united states five of the nine justices were slave holders including the chief justice roger bitani so you would think then that being a slave holder would likely influence the court's decision and in a way it did but ultimately the supreme court when it handed down its decision the decision came down seven to two against dred scott and in this court case you know as we've seen with other supreme court cases the the court asked itself some questions and then addressed these questions so let's go through the questions that were addressed in the dred scott decision number one the first question the court dealt with was did dred scott even have the right to sue for his freedom uh this was kind of the first question the court wanted to address and in a sense that did he even have the right should they even be hearing this case uh so did he even have the right to sue for his freedom kind of what i mean by that is that did a person of african descent have any rights in a federal court this was kind of the first question that the supreme court addressed in this decision the second one was did dred scott's residence in a free territory make him a free man and the third question the supreme court addressed here was what what role does congress have uh in restricting slavery into the territories uh what i mean by this are laws like the northwest ordinance of a 1787 and the missouri compromise are these laws in fact constitutional so let's see how the supreme court answered these questions to the first question of did he have the right to sue tawny's court argued that there was absolutely no precedent in a by 1857 of quote persons of african descent having any legal rights in a federal court now i do have to be honest there were some precedents there were some federal cases before 1857 of people of african descent um suing in federal court so there were some precedents whether roger b taney's court knew of these precedents or whether they ignored them we simply do not know but to answer that first question of did dred scott even have the right to sue for his freedom tawny's court said no he didn't and the reason for that is that there was no precedent of the way they worded it persons of african descent have any having any legal rights in a federal court i remember the second question uh that the court asked itself was did dred scott's residency in a free territory make him a free man and in the decision the supreme court argued that dred scott was not a free man in spite of living in a free territory and their argument was because the fifth amendment protects a slave holder's property slaves were property so it's protected under the fifth amendment what the court really argued here then was that property follows the owner and that if a slaveholder moves to a territory that territory cannot deprive him of his property because the do so would violate the fifth amendment so then remember then third question was what role does congress play in restricting slavery well the court essentially addressed that question by saying it plays no role that laws and measures such as the northwest ordinance of 1787 and things like the missouri compromise line are unconstitutional this was the dred scott decision and this thing had an enormous impact so what was significant then about this dred scott decision what's the moral of this story what should you take away from this well there are a lot of things going on here some very very important aspects first thing that you should understand in terms of significance of this decision it concerns the first question of did people of african descent have any rights in federal courts well the court said no and so this court case actually resulted in life for free blacks that lived in the united states their lives were now very shaky and very uncertain meaning that they did not know if they had any rights or if they were protected by federal law it made life for free blacks in the united states very uneasy and would remain so until the passage of the 14th amendment of the u.s constitution the other reason this dred scott decision is significant is that this decision was seen and viewed by southerners as a 100 vindication of their side of the argument concerning slavery's expansion into the territories you saw the court's decision that the fifth amendment protects the slave holders property and the property follows the owner that was the argument of john c calhoun in his 1847 senate resolutions that was the argument of principle made by southerners beginning at that time period and here was the supreme court 100 vindicating that side of the argument so really what the court was saying here then is that all the territories must be open to slavery things like the missouri compromise line things like the northwest ordinance of 1787 any law or any measure made by congress to restrict slavery according to the supreme court is unconstitutional it cannot be done because it would violate the fifth amendment rights of a slave holder so then the other reason this dred scott decision is significant is that the north and the population of the free states were livid over this decision they were incensed over this decision and they began to flock in large numbers to the ranks of the republican party who had as we'd already seen come about in 1854 in opposition to slavery's expansion well the dred scott decision is of course allowing slavery to expand into any of the territories so the republican party after the dred scott decision began to let it be known that if you vote for them they will work to overturn the dred scott decision and northerners as a result of this decision began flying flocking to the ranks of the republican party and the party went from a very small grassroots movement to a very legitimate third party now there's one more reason it's all significant and it stems from that last part there you know southerners sat here and watched all this happen they believed that they had won the side of the argument that the case was closed but they begin to see northerners flock to the ranks of a party that is telling them that they would like to overturn the dred scott decision so what southerners are actually hearing here coming out of the republican party is that by overturning the dred scott decision and restricting slavery's expansion they're hearing the republican party basically say they want to violate the constitutional rights of slaveholders and for southerners that was simply too much because southerners began to argue if the republican party is willing to overturn the dred scott decision and violate our fifth amendment rights inside the territories my god what else will they do so you can see here that the republican party is beginning to take on aspects of this sectional rift that is causing southerners to view this republican party as a possible threat as something that's possibly dangerous if it was ever to take control of the government so this was the dred scott decision of 1857 it's often described as the supreme court case that caused the civil war and i would agree with that to a certain extent it was an extremely important event in understanding uh the coming of this war so we've covered brook sumner affair now we've discovered dred scott decision i want to finish now by talking about an event in 1858 known as the lincoln douglas debates all right guys the lincoln douglas debates are a series of debates that took place between abraham lincoln and a guy we've already seen in this course the author of the kansas nebraska act stephen a douglas and these debates are often misunderstood i think a lot of people think these debates were for the presidency of the united states and that's not true these debates occurred in 1858 and in 1858 the nation was having midterm elections for congress and stephen a douglas was a u.s senator from illinois same home state as abraham lincoln and in 1858 his seat in the u.s senate douglas's seat in the u.s senate was up for re-election so in 1858 douglas is running for re-election and in 1858 lincoln who's a republican is going to try to challenge douglas for his senatorial seat so these were not debates uh for the presidency of the united states they were debates for one of the two senate seats from the state of illinois and they're going to occur in 1858 and the way they came about were actually rather interesting you know douglas is by far the most famous politician of the day and he during 1858 was traveling around the country giving speeches uh you know running for re-election now a guy like abraham lincoln was relatively unknown even in illinois was relatively unknown to say nothing of not many people in the country knew who this guy was but lincoln decided to challenge douglas and to a series of debates and at first douglas said no way i don't need to debate you because douglas was really in no danger of losing his seat so why debate lincoln nothing good could come of this so what lincoln actually did was he followed douglas around the state of illinois and whenever douglas was done giving a speech lincoln would run up onto the stage and deliver his counter speech to everything douglas had said this really started to anger douglas and uh and that was asked lincoln to stop and like said i'm not gonna do it unless you agree through a series of debates and that's how the debates came about there's gonna be a series of seven debates they go down in history as probably the most famous debates in american history so what were these debates all about what would you have found if you would have been listening to these debates across the state of illinois well these debates centered largely upon the dred scott decision versus the idea made famous by stephen a douglas of popular sovereignty you remember that we have the dred scott decision now which the supreme court is essentially saying that all the territories must be open to slavery well if that's true then popular sovereignty no longer works that the people can't decide themselves whether or not slavery slavery's allowed there or not because they can't restrict it if they restrict it it's violating a fifth amendment right and popular sovereignty was you know that was douglas's big thing it was what he was making an argument for in these uh in his re-election campaign he believed that popular sovereignty was the best way to handle slavery's expansion that if this was used it would be a non-issue it would be less emotional it would be less debatable he's still clinging to this idea and what's going to happen then in these debates you know lincoln wants to win so what he wants to try to do is make his opponent look you know ridiculous the best way to do that is to get douglas to pronounce popular sovereignty and accept the dred scott decision and lincoln's hoping that if he can make douglas do this get off of popular sovereignty except dred scott decision this will make him unpopular in illinois now guys it's during these debates that we saw probably one of the most famous speeches ever associated with abraham lincoln it's known of course as the house divided speech now the house divided speech he's usually talking about that people think he's talking about the nation as a whole but he's actually talking more about the state of illinois and in this house divided speech he was warning illinois of the repercussions of the dred scott decision and you can see a portion of his feature that a house divided against itself cannot stand and i believe government this government cannot endure permanently have slave half free and he admitted that he did not expect the union to be dissolved and he did not expect the house to fall what he expected to happen was that it would cease to be divided it would be all one thing or all the other that either opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it forward till it should become all so until it shall become uh alike lawful in all the states old as well as new north as well as south and here's what he's really saying here he's warning people in illinois that if the dred scott decision stands that slavery won't be just limited to being allowed to expand to the territories he's telling people in illinois that if the dred scott decision stands there will be nothing to prevent a slave owner from bringing slaves to a free state because if the fifth amendment applies then a slave owner can go anywhere not just the territories it could go to a free state and the fifth amendment would protect him under the dred scott decision this is very scary stuff and this is the stuff he's using against douglas and so what he's going to try to do here after warning people in illinois this is what will happen if the dred scott decision stands then what he wants to try to do now is convince people in illinois that that's what douglas stands for then he tries all the political tricks you can imagine to try to trick douglas into accepting the dred scott decision in the hopes this will make him unpopular and he'll lose the election but douglas was better than that douglas was a pretty smart politician himself and douglas in these debates was able to maneuver around lincoln's trap by coming up with what is known as the freeport doctrine okay and what the freeport doctrine was is this was kind of douglas's way to keep the idea of popular sovereignty alive and his response then to lincoln stated that despite the dred scott decision slavery could be prevented from any territory if the people of that territory living in it refused to pass any laws favorable to slavery likewise if the people of a territory supported slavery legislation would provide for its continued existence so what he was essentially saying here is that people that go to a territory they can still decide for themselves but if they don't want slavery he's essentially saying don't make any laws that restrict it don't say anything about the restriction of slavery because if you do that that'll anger the south that'll bring up the dred scott decision but but if you pass no laws concerning slavery he's saying that slave owners will see it as too dangerous too risky to move here because they don't know if their slaves will be protected under the law so this was the free poor doctrine this is just kind of a convoluted way around lincoln's trap and it really made douglas stick firm to this idea of popular sovereignty this was the way he kept that idea alive in spite of the dred scott decision okay so these debates this is what you would have found it was all debates over the dred scott decision versus popular sovereignty and lincoln's trying to trap douglas make him unpopular put him on an unpopular position of dred scott into accepting the dred scott decision and put him on that would make him unpopular and unelectable to many people in illinois in the end douglas maneuvered around this and the people of illinois agreed more with this freeport doctrine than accepting the dred scott decision so in the end lincoln lost these 1858 senate race for the seat from illinois he lost douglas was re-elected but the debates were significant though that even though lincoln lost there was some significance here here's what it was because douglas was still supporting the idea of popular sovereignty and found a way to keep that idea alive through the freeport doctrine he is now seen by the south as no longer a viable candidate for president and what i mean by that is the south has they're armed now with the dred scott decision they have that on their side they don't need something like popular sovereignty if they're going to vote for somebody for president it needs to be somebody that accepts this dred scott decision because to them that was the end-all be-all that was their 100 victory and here you have douglas in these debates kind of alienating himself from the south because he will not endorse dred scott decision and he's still sticking to this idea of popular sovereignty the other reason the debates were significant concerns abraham lincoln lincoln's involvement in these debates and the fact that he is taking on the most famous politician of the day and these debates while just for the senate seat in illinois they're discussing national issues it's almost like a national debate going on here in the 1858 illinois senate race and what happens here is since lincoln took on douglas and held his own pretty well well lincoln has now gained national attention and he begins to climb the ranks of the republican party northerners are now looking at him as a possible leader of the republican party down the road he has national attention now but that's a double-edged sword because southerners now know who he is and they understand that he is against the spread of slavery and that above all he seeks to overturn the dred scott decision now nobody in 1858 thought abraham lincoln was going to be president but southerners are now very aware of him they know who he is and what he stands for that nobody thinks he's going to win a presidential election but if he does southerners know who this guy is and more importantly what he stands for all right guys so this concludes part two of unit 12. in part three we're going to discuss how the growing sectional riff finally erupts things are going to really pick up steam in part three because we will see things are about to get pretty violent