The Story of America

A month after the battle of Chancellorsville, Lee again invaded the North.  He still hoped that a decisive victory on northern soil would cause the United States to give up the struggle…For two days the battle raged.  As the sun set on the second day, Union troops still held a steep knoll called Little Round Top.  From there they cut the Rebel rank to ribbons.  That night Lee made the fateful decision to charge the center of Meade's line.  The same night a few miles away, Meade planned for an attack on his center.  He moved his strength there.  The afternoon of July 3 proved him right.  Between one and two o'clock, while Confederate artillery pounded Cemetery Ridge, General George E. Pickett led a charge at the Union position.  Howling the eerie "rebel yell," 15,000 infantrymen started to trot across the open ground.  For a brief moment some of these confederates reached the Union trenches on Cemetery Ridge.  But Union reserves counterattacked quickly.  Pickett's surviving men were driven off...The battle was over.  Lee retreated back into Virginia.

The first oil well was drilled by E. L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it "Drake's Folly." But when he had drilled won about 70 feet, Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day. News of Drake's success brought oil prospectors to the scene. By the early 1860s these wildcatters were drilling for "black gold" all over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.

The first oil well was drilled by E. L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor.  In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania.  The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it "Drake's Folly."  But when he had drilled won about 70 feet, Drake struck oil.  His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day.  News of Drake's success brought oil prospectors to the scene.  By the early 1860s these wildcatters were drilling for "black gold" all over western Pennsylvania.  The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere.  And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.

The cost of war in blood and money was changing the way ordinary people in the North felt about slavery.  Anger at southerners more than sympathy for slaves caused this change…Gradually Lincoln came to the conclusion that the United States should try to free all slaves.  He would have preferred to have the states buy the slaves from their owners and then emancipate or free them.  This idea was known as compensated emancipation. But Lincoln was a clever politician.  He knew that many citizens would oppose paying anything to rebels and slave owners.  Others still objected to the freeing the slaves for the sake of doing away with an evil institution.  Lincoln therefore decided to act under his war powers.  He would free slaves not because slavery was wrong but as a means of weakening the rebel government.  This proclamation stated that after January 1, 1863, "all persons held as slaves with any States...in rebellion against the United States, shall be...forever free."  Notice that Proclamation did not liberate a single slave that the government could control.

Calhoun, old and ill, his once-powerful voice broken by the throat cancer that would soon kill him, sat grim and silent as another senator read his words: "How can the Union be saved? There is but one way by which it can with any certainty; and that is, by a full and final settlement, on the principle of justice, of all the questions at issue between the two sections [North and South]. The South asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to take. She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution; and no concession or surrender to make. She has already surrendered so much she has little left to surrender. Such a settlement would go to the root of evil, and remove all cause of discontent, by satisfying the South she could remain honorably and safely in the Union and restore the harmony and fraternal feelings between the sections which existed anterior to [before] the Missouri agitation [compromise in 1820]. Nothing else can with any certainty, finally and forever settle the question, terminate the agitation, and save the Union. But can this be done? Yes easily; not by the weaker party [the South] for it can of itself do nothing not even protect itself but by the stronger"… Unless Congress allowed owners to bring their slaves into the territories, the Southern states would secede, or leave the Union. There was nothing evil or immoral about slavery, Calhoun argued. Northerners must accept the fact that it exists. If they want to live at peace with the South, they must stop criticizing slavery.

Conditions in Kansas Territory grew still worse. Meeting at the town of Lecompton, the proslavery convention in Kansas had drawn up a proposed state constitution authorizing slavery. The delegates represented only a minority of the people of the territory. But since they were Democrats, President Buchanan supported them. He urged Congress to accept this Lecompton Constitution and admit Kansas as a state. Of course, antislavery forces in Kansas and throughout the nation objected strongly...When a vote was finally taken on the Lecompton Constitution, the people of Kansas rejected it by a huge majority, 11,300 to 1,788. Southern Democrats and President Buchanan were furious. They blamed Douglas for this defeat.

These developments put Senator Stephen A. Douglas in a difficult position. He was a Democrat. (But he was clearly no friend of the president's. Indeed he often used his skills as an orator to express his open contempt for Buchanan.) The president had made the matter a party issue. On the other hand, Douglas sincerely believed in popular sovereignty. And it was obvious that a majority of the people in Kansas were opposed to the Lecompton constitution and to the opening of the territory to slavery.

Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced the Wilmot Proviso in the House of Representatives. The proviso called for prohibiting slavery "in any territory [taken] from the Republic of Mexico."