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Crash Course 18 - Election of 1860

Added May 06, 2017 •

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hi I'm John Green this is Crash Course u.s. history and today we discussed one of the most confusing questions in American history what caused the Civil War confusing question at all slavery caused the Civil War government by mr. Fleming a white Southerner who will seem to you to be about a hundred eighty-two years old and you will say something to him in class about stay right to what sir and for the first time in your snotty little life you will be well and truly speechless the road of the Civil War means to discussions of states rights to slavery and differing anomic system specifically whether those economic system should involve slavery and the election of Abraham Lincoln specifically how his election impacted slavery but none of those things what have been issues without slavery the Fugitive Slave Law a fugitive slave law written into the United States Constitution so what made this one so controversial under this new any citizen was required to turn in anyone here you know to be a slave to authorities and not made like every person in New England into a sheriff and it also required them to enforce a law they found them Horan so they had to be sure of something turn Capital gold badges awesome thank you also terrifying to people of color in if you would say since the courts could send you into slavery if even one person swore before a judge that you were a specific slave and many people of color responded to the Fugitive Slave Love by went to Canada which at the time was still technically an English colony thereby further problematizing the whole idea that England was all about tyranny and the United States was all about freedom but anyway most important result of the Fugitive Slave Law was that it convinced some Northerners that the government was in the hands of a Sinister slave powerslave power was not a heavy metal band or any Spears's new single or even a secret cabal of powerful slaves but rather a conspiracy theory about a secret cabal of pro-slavery congressman growing importance but before we get to that let us discuss Railroad in Monopoly and the Civil War some people to move around the country quickly and they had a huge backer also with tiny backer in the form of Illinois Congressman Stephen Douglas who wanted a Transcontinental Railroad because one did Woodbine the union together at a time when it could use some binding and to he figured it would go through Illinois which would be good for his home state but there was a problem to build a railroad search for Wii through which it ran needed to be organized ideally as States and if the railroad was going to run through it would annoy than the Kansas and Nebraska territories would need to become state so Douglas pushed for with the Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act formalize the idea of popular sovereignty which basically meant White is it in some states could decide for themselves whether the state should allow slavery Douglas felt this was a nice way of avoiding saying whether he favored slavery instead he could just be in favor of other people be in favor of it or Nebraska could have slavery if people there decided they wanted it under the Kansas-Nebraska Act despite being north of that their wine this in practice repealed the Missouri Compromise as a result there was quite a lot of violence in Kansas so much so that some people say the Civil War really started there in 1857 also the Kansas-Nebraska Act led to the creation of a new who were the compartir the Republicans yes those Republican Party play for with made of former free soilers Northern anti-slavery Whigs and some know-nothing it completely sectional party meeting that Andrew supporters from the free states in the north and west which you'll remember from like 2 minutes ago we're tied together by common economic interests and the railroad and telling you don't underestimate who wrote by the way we are getting to Dred Scott turn it last two slave power where's was controlled by a Sinister slave Power Group doing the bidding of Rich plantation owners which is conspiracy theories go wasn't the most farfetch who are the North or more populous than the South it had almost doubled the South congressional representation but in spite of this Advantage Congress and just passed a law extending the power of State and potentially because two new statement for new Senators making the federal government even more pro-slavery into abolitionist that didn't really seem like democracy what reason did many Northerners cared enough about Kansas and Nebraska to abandon their old party loyalties with it having them become slave states was seen as a threat to Northerners economic cell remember the West Was seen as a place where individuals specifically white individuals could become self-sufficient Farmers as Lincoln Road to the whole nation is interested that the best be made of these territories we want them to be the homes of free white people they cannot be to any considerable extent if slavery is planted within them new states are places for poor people to go to and better their condition so the real question was Wendy's western territories have big slave-based plantations like happened in Mississippi small Family Farms full of frolicking free white people like happened in Thomas Jefferson's imagination so the new Republican presidential candidate in 1856 and did remark play well John C Fremont from California picked up 39% of the vote all of it from the north and west and wasps to the Democrat James Buchanan who had the virtue of having spent most of the previous deck can your appendix not having a position on slavery nickname was the old public functionary holding elections in 1854 and 1855 doesn't get really funny again until Charlie Chaplin Charlie thank you for being in the public domain and giving us a much-needed break from a nation divided against itself discovering the cannot stand coming in from free states and setting up their own rival government fighting eventually broke out in more than 200 people were killed in fact in 1856 pro-slavery forces laying Siege to play slavery warrants Kansas with cannons one particularly violent incident involved the murder of an entire family by an anti-slavery Zealot from New York named John Brown he got away with that but hold on a minute will get them anyway in the end Kansas past two constitutions because you know that's a good way to get started you said it was supported by Stephen Douglas as an example of popular sovereignty at work except the man who oversaw the voting in Kansas called it a vial fraud is entry into the Union because Congress is primary businesses delay until another more fair referendum took place and after that vote Kansas eventually did join the u.s. as a free state in 1861 by which time it was frankly too late history taking him to live in Illinois and Wisconsin who is illegal in Illinois then living in Illinois made him definitionally not a slave because turkey years to find its way to the Supreme Court and eventually in 1857 chief justice Rodger b Taney from Maryland handed down his decision but it went even further attempting to settle the slavery issue once and for all quote pad for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in Social or political relations and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect and that the Negro must justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit so that is an actual quote from an actual decision by the Supreme Court of the United States of America wow I mean taney's ruling basically said that all black people anywhere in the United States could be considered property and that the court was in the business of protecting that property this meant that a slave owner could take his slaves from Mississippi to Massachusetts and they would still be slave which meant the technically there was no such thing as a free state at that's how people in the north especially Republicans saw the Dred Scott Decision help convince even more people that the entire government Congress President Buchanan and now the cream Court we're in the hands of the dreaded slave power now and I'm going to put it in this envelope and then when I'm right I want a prize  all I ever get is punishment I want fries it's okay rules here are simple I guess the author of the mystery document I already did that and then I get rewarded for being right side total confidence turn this thing and then I get my reward I look forward to the days when there shall be a servile Insurrection in the South when the black man shot lacerte his freedom and wage of War the extermination against his master when the torch of the incendiary show light-up the towns and cities of the South and blot out the Last Vestige of Savory and though I may not mock at their Calamity nor laugh when their fear cometh yet I will hail it as the dawn of a political millennium I was right I hear guest in advance John Brown what Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings seriously stand whatever I'm going to talk about John Brown anywhere John Brown raid on the federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry capture guns and then give them to Slaves who would rise up and use those guns against their masters was an awful military commander and not a terribly clear in general and the was an abject failure many of the party were killed and he was captured he stood trial and was sentenced to death does he became a martyr to the Abolitionist cause which is probably what he want anyway on the morning of his hanging he wrote I John Brown and now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood who is right about that but in general any statement that begins I, my name and so the stage was set for one of the most important presidential elections and American to read on turn it on turn to Republican party as its candidate Abraham Lincoln whose hair and upper forehead you can see here is eloquence if not his electability in a series of debates with Stephen Douglas win the two running for the senate in 1858 Lincoln lost that election but the debates made him famous and he could appeal to voters because he wasn't associated with the know-nothings Democrats on the other hand word to use a historian term a hot mess is that acceptable to voters in the Deep South so Southern Democrats nominated John C Breckinridge of Kentucky making the Democrats the last remaining truly National Party no longer truly a National Party Party dedicated to preserving the Constitution slavery John Bell of Tennessee Abraham Lincoln votes in nine American states but he won 40% of the overall popular vote including Journeys in many of the most populous states there by winning the electoral college did not appear on your ballot to be a problem indeed Lincoln's election went to a number of southern states seceding from the Union Lincoln himself hated slavery but he repeatedly said that he would leave it alone in the states where it exists put the demographics of Lincoln's election showed Southerners and Northerners like that slave power to whatever extent it existed was over by the time he took office on March first 1861 seven states that seceded informed the Confederate States of America and the stage was set for the fighting to begin which it did when Southern troops fired upon Indian Garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12th 1861 50 or maybe in 1776 or maybe in 1619 when the first African slaves arrived in Virginia because here's the thing in the Dred Scott Decision chief justice send it black Americans had quote no rights which the white man was bound to respect with this was demonstrable e false black man had voted in elections and held property including even slaves they'd appeared in court on their own behalf they had rights they express those rights when given the opportunity and the failure of the United States to under when did the rights of black Americans were as inalienable as those of white Americans is ultimately what made the Civil War inevitable so next week it's off to war we go thanks for watching by Stan Miller our script supervisor is written by my high school history teacher Metallica Johnson in our Graphics team is thought Cafe usually every week There's a caption but there wasn't one this week because I'm stupid chief justice Rodger Taney however change in common also asked questions about today's video that will be answered by our team of historians thanks for watching crash course u.s. history and as we say in my hometown of nerd fight area don't forget to be awesome

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Crash Course 18 - Election of 1860

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