Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

Tensions came to a head after the Supreme Court’s infamous 1857 Dred
Scott decision that slaves were not citizens and therefore lacked standing
to sue for their freedom. Five of the nine Supreme Court justices came
from slave-holding families. Pro-slavery presidents from southern states
had appointed seven. The decision declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise
unconstitutional, holding that the federal government had no
authority to restrict slavery in the new territories. Southerners hailed an
apparent vindication of their views.
Outraged northern abolitionists embraced the upstart Republican Party
and after much politicking nominated long-shot candidate Abraham Lincoln
for president on a platform that held slavery should spread no farther.
The Democrats fragmented when Northerners endorsed Stephen Douglas
and Southerners broke ranks to nominate Vice President John Breckinridge
of Kentucky. The Constitutional Union Party composed of diehard
Whigs from the border states nominated John Bell of Tennessee.
Fragmented opposition was just what Lincoln needed. In an election
split along geographical lines, the southern states went for Breckinridge.
The border states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee voted for Bell.
Douglas carried Missouri and New Jersey. Lincoln won just 40 percent of
the popular vote, but carried a majority of electoral votes—all the northern
states plus the new states of California and Oregon.
With Lincoln in the White House, war became increasingly likely.
Northern perspectives leading up to the war are easy to grasp. Abolitionists
considered slavery immoral. Many Northerners regarded legalized slavery
as inconceivable in a nation based on the precept that all men are created
equal. Still, even though Northerners overwhelmingly desired immediate
abolition, most were pragmatically content to prevent slavery’s expansion
into the new territories.
Southern perspectives as war loomed were more complicated, equally
pragmatic, and less flexible. Most Southerners believed that Lincoln’s election
spelled the end of slavery—or at least the end of its expansion to the
West. Many were angry over northern interference in their way of life and
intrusion into what they considered affairs of their property. Some were
incensed about perceived insults to southern honor. But given that Lincoln’s
election only meant limitation—outright abolition stayed off the
table until the war—and that less than a quarter of Southerners actually
owned slaves, why did this issue generate enough political friction to blow
the country apart?
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