Todd & Curti’s: The American Nation

With two rival governments in place, conflict was inevitable. Proslavery raiders from Missouri attacked antislavery Kansas settlers, and in May 1856 a proslavery mob of some 700 burned the town of Lawrence, Kansas. In revenge, a group led by abolitionist John Brown attacked a proslavery settlement along Pottawatomie Creek. They dragged five men from their beds and brutally murdered them. The Pottawatomie Massacre enraged southerners, shocked northerners, and sparked more violence in what newspapers began calling "Bleeding Kansas."

Clay's proposed compromise included several parts: (1) The admission of California as a free state. (2) The organization of land acquired from Mexico (except California) into territories on the basis of popular sovereignty." Thus the settlers might decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery in their territory. (3) A payment of $10 million to Texas by the United States, if Texas abandoned all claims to New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. (4) The abolition of the slave trade -- that is, of buying and selling of slaves, but not of slavery itself in the District of Columbia. (5) A more effective fugitive slave law, one that would compel state and local law enforcement officials to aid federal officials in the capture and return of runaway slaves.

Seeking statewide exposure, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of seven debates between August and October 1858. Douglas accepted the challenge but acknowledged that Lincoln was 'the best stump speaker in the West.' Throngs of people turned out in seven Illinois towns to hear the two men debate the issues of the day.

In the debate at Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln challenged Douglas to explain how popular sovereignty - the method the Kansas-Nebraska Act had used to settle the slavery issue in the new territories - was still workable in the wake of Dred Scott. Douglas replied that the people of a territory could still prohibit slavery simply by refusing to pass the local laws necessary to make a slave system work: 'It matters not what ways the Supreme Court may...decide...The people have the lawful means to introduce [slavery] or exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist...unless it is supported by local police negotiators.'

People who supported the Compromise of 1850 were shocked at the government's enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.  Several northern states defiantly passed "personal liberty" laws, which prevented state officials from enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and guaranteed captured runaways laves legal assistance.  Amos A. Lawrence, a northern Democrat, voiced a common sentiments:  "We have submitted to slavery long enough, and must not stand it any longer...I am done catching negroes for the South."

Some northerners took direct action. In New York and Massachusetts, angry mobs freed runaway slaves taken into custody and helped them on their way to freedom in Canada. One observer wrote, 'We went to bed one night old fashioned conservatives Compromise Union Whigs and woke up stark mad Abolitionists'.

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass urged 'forcible resistance.'  A former slave himself, Douglass protested that the Fugitive Slave Act made northerners 'the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina.'  People who had supported the Compromise of 1850 were shocked at the government's enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.  Several northern states defiantly passed 'personal liberty' laws, which prevented state officials from enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and guaranteed captured runaway slaves legal assistance.  Amos. A. Lawrence, a northern Democrat, voiced a common sentiment: 'We have submitted to slavery long enough, and must not stand it any longer... I am done catching negroes for the South.' Some Northerners took direct action.  In New York and Massachusetts, angry mobs freed runaway slaves taken into custody and helped them on their way to freedom in Canada.  One observer wrote, ' We went to bed one night old fashioned conservative Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.'