Section #1 - Causal Factors
Political Upheaval
The rise of the Free Soil and Republican parties are an existential threat to slavery in the west.
| Year | Event | Description | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1799 | Washington’s Farewell Address. | Warns that partisan parties are likely to become “potent engines” by which unprincipled men subvert the power of the people. | Chapter 18 |
| 1804 | Burr-Hamilton Duel. | The death of Hamilton greatly diminishes the Federalist Party policies and influence in American governance. | Chapter 26 |
| 1807 | Aaron Burr tried for treason. | The 1804 duel ends Burr’s political career, leading to his suspected plot to form a new empire in Mexico. | Chapter 28 |
| 1814 | Hartford Convention. | Federalist Governors assemble to discuss secession and state control over commerce, feeling abandoned by the President. | Chapter 34 |
| 1843 | Stephen Douglas and the Democrats. | “The Little Giant” begins a career focused on expansion that eventually causes a massive schism within the Democrat Party. | Chapter 115 |
| 1846 | Wilmot Proviso shocks South. | Passes the House along sectional lines, becoming a symbol of the North-South split that leads to war. | Chapter 122 |
| 1848 | Free Soil Party founded. | Salmon Chase initiates an awkward “political fusion” of racists and abolitionists under the banner of “Free Soil, Free Labor.” | Chapter 142 |
| 1854 | Kansas-Nebraska Act impacts. | The act convinces citizens in Ripon, WI and elsewhere to form the grassroots base of the Republican Party. | Chapter 179 |
| 1856 | 1856 Presidential election. | Buchanan defeats Fremont by winning the entire South, but remains compromised by his debt to Southern interests. | Chapter 204 |
| 1860 | Democrat split in Charleston. | Southern states walk out of the convention when platform demands for territorial slavery protection fail. | Chapter 250 |
| 1860 | Constitutional Union Party founded. | Moderates attempt to avoid the sectional divide by focusing solely on the Constitution and the Union. | Chapter 251 |