February 18, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the 27th episode of our Story of America Series with Dr. Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, Dr. McClay tells the remarkable story of how a little-known trial lawyer from Illinois who had lost an election against the most famous politician in America became President of the United States.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts up. Next, another installment of our series about Us,
the Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
(00:33):
author of the terrific book Land of Hope, Bill McLay.
This episode the Rise of Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
If there was one issue more than any other that
led to the political rise of Abraham Lincoln, one issue
more than any other that led to America's seemingly inevitable
march towards Civil War, it was the issue of slavery.
Particularly was the Fugitive Slave Act. This law turned Northerners
(01:08):
into co conspirators with the South because it required Northerners
to cooperate and actively engage in supporting the practice of slavery,
requiring them to track, capture, and return escape slaves to
their owners, rather than allowing them to live as free
people with the rights of God gave them, and our
(01:30):
own declaration declared it was one thing to accept its
existence down there as long as they weren't expected to
abide by the same law as protecting the rights of
slaveholders to hold slaves as property human beings as property.
(01:51):
There's another thing to be complicit in that institution. The
Fugitive Slave Law was a law that turned toleration of
the peculiar institution into participation, and that was.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
A bridge too far for a Northern nurse.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
One state Supreme Court was a nonsense, seemed the law unconstitutional.
Vermont essentially nullified the Fugitive Slave Act through legislation of
its own, and just as importantly, very prominent critics, including
writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, spoke out. And I should
(02:32):
add here that Emerson was very slow to come to
the anti slavery cause. He was not congenitally political. He
was interested in ideas, but this act galvanized him to
speak out. The last year has forced us all into
(02:54):
politics and made it a paramount of duty to seek
what it is off of the duty to shun. We
do not breathe well. There is infamy in the air.
I have a new experience. I wake in the morning
with a painful sensation to carry about all day, and
which when traced home, is the odious remembrance of that
(03:17):
ignominy which has fallen on Massachusetts, which robs the landscape
of beauty and takes the sunshine out of every hour.
I have lived all my life in this state and
never had any experience of personal.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Inconvenience from the laws until now.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
What kind of legislation is this? What kind of constitution
which covers it? And yet the crime which the second
law ordains is greater than the crime which the first
law forbids. For it is a greater crime to re
enslave a man than to enslave him at first, when
it might be pretended to be a mitigation of his
(03:57):
lot as a captive in war. What shall we do,
first abrogate this law, then proceed to confine slavery to
slave states and help them effectually to make an end
of it. Or shall we, as we are all are
advised on all hands, lie by and wait the progress
(04:18):
of the census. But will slavery liebehe? I fear not.
She's very industrious, gives herself no holidays. No proclamation will
put her down. She got Texas and now will have Cuba,
and means.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
To keep her maturity.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
The experience of the past gives us.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
No encouragement to lie by.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Shall we call a new convention, or will any expert
statesman furnish us a plan for this summary or gradual winding.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Up of slavery? So far as the Republic is its patron, where.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Is the sound itself? Since it is agreed by all
saying men of all parties there was yesterday? The slave
is mischievous? Why does the sounth itself never offer the smallest.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Counsel of her own?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Let us hear any project with candorin respect? Is it
impossible to speak of it with reason and good nature?
It is really the project fit for this country to
entertain and accomplish. Everything invites emancipation. The grandeur of the design,
the vast stake that we hold, the national domain, the
(05:28):
manifest interest of the slave states, the religious effort of
the free States, the public opinion of the world, all
joined to demand it. Very powerful words from Emberson abolitionists
Pastor Luther Lee of Syracuse, and these simple words to describe.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
The Fugitive Slave Act.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It is a war upon God, upon his own law,
and upon the rights of humanity. To obey it or
aid in it. Its enforcement is treason against God and humanity.
It involves the guilt of violating every one of the
Ten Commandments. It was in this context and at this time,
(06:21):
that Uncle Tom's Cabin was published by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The novel, published in two volumes, had a profound impact
on attitudes towards slavery in the United States, depicting in
stark terms the cruelty of slavery and the perils that freedom.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Seeking slaves faced.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
At the same time, the effort was underway to connect
are two coasts with a transcontinental railroad. There were two
main proposals, one by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and another
by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, in short, a southern
and a northern proposal. Egret again got a deal done
(07:01):
Douglas fashion and agreement that would bring the Southerners on board.
He proposed that the land west of the Missouri be
organized into two distinct territories, the Kansas Territory and the
Nebraska Territory, and each would be allowed to settle by
popular vote a slavery issue for themselves. It was a
(07:22):
huge mistake.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
When we come back more of the rise of Lincoln
here on our American Stories. This is Lee Hbibe, and
this is our American stories, and all of our history
stories are brought to us by our generous sponsors, including
Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things
(07:45):
that are beautiful in life and all the things that
matter in life. If you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. And
(08:09):
we returned to our American stories and with our Story
of America series with Hillsdale College professor and author of
Land of Hope Bill McLay. When we last left off,
to get his way for constructing a transcontinental railroad up north,
Stephen A. Douglas fashioned a deal in which territories in
the West would vote on whether they would become free
(08:32):
or slave states. His concept was called popular sovereignty. It
was a decision that would haunt the nation. Let's return
to the story.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Now, this was a big deal because both new territories.
Both proposed territories were north of the line established by
the Missouri Compromise, thus opening up territory to slavery where
it had already been forbidden. Douglas's proposal led to furious
(09:08):
debate for months, but to get the railroad built, both
houses of Congress ended the debate with the passage of
the Kansas Nebraska Act.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Of eighteen fifty four, and.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
President Franklin Pierce signed it into law. It was a
huge mistake, some might even call it recliffe. Soon violent
conflicts erupted in competing communities, with pro slavery mobs attacking
the town of Lawrence. Those attacks were answered by anti
(09:40):
slavery attacks by the abolitionist John Brown and his son.
This is how Bleeding Kansas got its name, as this
state would be state state to be found itself, caught
between competing ideas about slavery and two competing governments and
to competing constitutions. It also revealed the sheer folly that
(10:05):
somehow popular sovereignty.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Would settle these differences.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
The bitter differences in violence over the issue of slavery
was not confined to Kansas. He managed to spill onto
the floor of the US Senate itself. Senator Charles Sumner
of Massachusetts delivered a bitter speech against the Kansas Nebraska Act,
and he needed to stop with the legislation, He personally
(10:33):
attacked Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, accusing him of
having embraced quote the harlot slavery as his mistress. These
insults were surely designed to prompt an equally outrageous rebubble,
and it came just days later when Congressman Preston Brooks,
who was a cousin of Butler, confronted Sumner at his desk,
(10:56):
denounced his speech as a libel on South Carolina and
mister Butler, and then went on to hit Sumner over
the head with a heavy cane, nearly killing him. The
reaction to this fight between these men revealed just how.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Profoundly polarized the nation was.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Northerners supporting Sumner, while Brooks received adulation of all kinds
from newspapers of the South and hundreds of new canes
from fans of his. Want't even inscribed a cane with
these words hit him again. By the time Sumner gave
his now famous speech, he'd become a member of a
(11:38):
new political party, the Republican Party, a product of and
direct response to the Kansas Nebraska. Its membership was constituted
of anti slavery advocates from the Democratic, Whig and Free
Soil parties and unified around opposing the extension of into
(12:01):
the new territories. In short time, it became the second
largest party.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
In the nation.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
At the same time, the largest party, the Democratic Party,
was struggling to maintain unity as its northern and southern
factions became more and more divided. The Republican Party from
its inception was a party of the North, almost exclusively
because the Democratic Party was the only national party and
(12:27):
expected a victory in the eighteen fifty six election. Their
candidate was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, who had experience as
a Congressman and a Secretary of State.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Under James K. Polk.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
The Republican Party campaign on what were classic Whig issues,
including what we today might call infrastructure and tariffs protectionism,
but it was also the first national party to declare
fully its opposition to slavery. Buchanan was a familiar face,
and he won with the I hope he could maintain
(13:01):
this delicate, fragile status quo in America, But just days
after his inauguration, the Supreme Court handed down its momentous
dred Scott decision that decision would only add to the
already deep divide on slavery. Ironically, Justice Tawny, who authored
(13:24):
the decision, was hoping it would settle the issue. Far
from that. Here's some details of the case. Dred Scott
was a man who had been born a slave. He
had been sold to a surgeon, who took him to Illinois,
a free state, and then to the Wisconsin Territory, which
(13:46):
was also free. Remember, the Northwest Ordinance proscribed slavery, and
the Wisconsin Territory as well as Illinois, were both part
of that covered by the Northwest Ordons. So in the
Wisconsin Territory, Scott married and had two daughters. After his
master's death in eighteen forty six, Scott sued in the
(14:07):
Missouri courts for his freedom on the simple grounds, or
so it seemed at the time, that his residence in
a free state and free territory as a freeman made
him a freeman. The case made its way through the
court system to the US Supreme Court, where it was
presided over by the aforementioned Justice Tawny, Roger B. Tawny,
(14:31):
a Democrat from Maryland. Well. The court ruled against Scott
and Tawny, who wrote, the majority of the opinion took
his chance to stake his claim and resolve the issue
of slavery in the territories once and for all. There
were three main components to the decision. First, the court
(14:53):
dismissed Scott's claims, arguing that he lacked standing to sue
because he not a citizen. Why was he not a citizen?
He was not a citizen because the Constitution did not intend,
the Court said, to extend the rights of citizenship to blacks.
It's aid openly racial argument. Number two, he also argued
(15:16):
the court argued that Congress lacked the power to deprive
any person of his property without due process, and because
slaves were property. Slaves were property, slavery could not be
excluded from any federal territory or state, so argued with
the court. Finally, number three, the court ruled that the
(15:38):
Missouri Compromise itself was not just moved due to the
passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act, but unconstitutional from the start.
It had been all along because it invalidly excluded slavery
from Wisconsin and other northern territories. So with the Missouri Compromise,
(16:05):
tossed the side and thrown on the ash heap of history.
Everything was now up for grabs, and the radical Southerners
wasted no time calling for a federal slave code to
protect their property.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
As they thought of it.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
They were emboldened by the dread Scott case and thought
things were turning their way.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
At last.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
They even sensed, and with good reason, that President Buchanan
was on their side. Northerners, too, believe Buchanan was a
tool of the pro slavery South at worst, and a
man not willing to spend any political capital on the
issue of slavery at best. Leadership on the issue of
slavery would have.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
To come from some other source.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So at last we come to one of the great
luminaries on the great figures of American political a rising
star of the Republican Party, a very successful trial lawyer,
a one term Whig congressman. Who was This man is
Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And you've been listening to Hillsdale College professor and author
of Land of Vote, Bill McLay telling one heck of
a story, all of the elements political, cultural, leading straight
to a collision, and that would be the Civil War.
Up through this context rises a lawyer and a fairly
unknown man up till now named Abraham Lincoln. When we
(17:39):
continue more of the remarkable story of the rise of
Lincoln here on our American Stories, and we returned to
(18:09):
our American Stories and our final portion of our story
on the Rise of Abraham Lincoln is a part of
our Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
author of Land of Hope Bill McLay. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Who was this man, this Abraham Lincoln? Well, his life
story became the stuff of legend.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
He was the uncommon, common man born into a humble
frontier life, who wrotese to prominence through sheer, grit, determination
and talent and hard work. He was born in Kentucky,
literally in a log cabin. We know almost nothing of
his early life except that he was poor. He moved
(18:58):
around from Kentucky to Indiana from Indiana, Illinois as his
father moved around, which was not unusual in those days.
We know he hated the chores of farm life, endless work, plowing, harvesting, chopping, wood,
hauling water. And although he had almost no formal schooling,
(19:19):
he was a voracious reader and had a great love
of words. Of rhetoric, of oratory, and he knew that books,
in his great capacity for the use of the English language,
would be the ticket to his rising in the world.
(19:41):
He arrived as a very young man in New Salem, Illinois,
unknown to anyone. He got a job as a clerk,
and through his exertions became a very popular member of
the community. He was appointed postmaster, and then on his
second and try, was elected to the Illinois General Assembly,
(20:03):
the state legislature. For Lincoln, this success was the embodiment
of the Declaration of Independence, a document he revered and
would repeatedly return to because it so beautifully affirmed equal
worth of all people, ordinary people, and their equal right
to life, liberty.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That love of equality was not some passing affection. It
was deep and profound. For Lincoln. The words equality meant
the rights of all people to the fruits of their
own labor, a principle grounded not in the will of
government or any human source, but in nature itself, in God.
(20:49):
That's why Lincoln so despised slavery from his earliest days,
because he believed, deep in his core that slavery was
a form of theft Aft then allowed one class of
men to steal from another class of men. Well, some
say that men make the times, and others say the
(21:10):
times make the men. It was in the fervor of
the eighteen fifties, with slavery heavily weighing on the nation,
that Lincoln emerged.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Stephen Douglas, the little giant from Illinois.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
He was out for reelection to the Senate in eighteen
fifty eight in what was just going to be a
warm up for.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
A presidential bid in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Lencoln opposed Douglas from the very beginning of this campaign,
and he was a natural choice to compete for the
Illinois Senate seat. So he had his moment, and the
Senate candency gave him a platform, a moral platform to
attack Douglas's ideas, his political skills expose his lack of
(21:56):
principle when it came to the weightiest moral.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Issue of the day.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
In eighteen fifty eighty challenged Douglas to a series of debates,
seven in.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
All, and Douglas accepted.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
These debates were real classics of American oratory. Of all oratory,
Lincoln tried at every turn to make Douglas apear to
be a radical, pro slavery, progens God sympathizer, which Douglas
actually was not. Douglas, for his part, tried to make
Lincoln look like a dangerous abolitionist radical, which Lincoln was not.
(22:30):
Lincoln was anti slavery, but he was not in favor
of abolition, but the debates were substantive and worthy of
the state of Illinois, the Senate, and the nation. Lincoln
would go on to lose the election to Douglas, but
he was a competitive race, and Lincoln emerged as a
national figure, a possible and plausible Republican candidate for president
(22:55):
in eighteen sixty. So the Republican Party came just a
few seats short four to be exec of an absolute
majority in Congress. A growing and ascendate Republican Party and
a fracturing of the National Democratic Party foreshadowed trouble ahead
for the nation. The last dire warning of things to
(23:19):
come with the news of abolitionist John Brown's raid at
Harper's Ferry on the night of October sixteenth, eighteen fifty nine,
at the Federal Arsenal. Brown's hatred of slavery had grown.
He was convinced that God had called him to do
what he did that night, which was to strike at
(23:41):
the institution of slavery itself. His plan was simple. He
and his men would seize guns from the Federal Arsenal
and use them to arm slaves in the region and
begin an uprising which would lead to the creation of
a slave run state. This effort was doomed from the start,
and fourteen lines were lost the process to being his
(24:02):
own sons. Brown was hanged instead December of that year,
and these were some of his final words before being
put to death. In the first place, I deny everything
but what I have all along admitted design on my
part to free slaves. I intended certainly to have made
(24:23):
a clean thing of that matter, as I did last
winter when I went into Missouri and took slaves without
the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them
through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I
designed to do the same thing again on a larger scale.
The court acknowledges, as I suppose the validity of the
law of God, I see a book kissed here, which
(24:45):
I supposed to be the Bible, or at least the
New Testament. That book teaches me that all things whatsoever
I would that men should do to me, I should
do even so to them. It teaches me further to
quote remember them that are in bonds as bound wisdom.
I endeavored to act upon that instruction. I say, I
(25:07):
am too young to understand that God is any respector
of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I
have done, as I have always freely admitted that I
have done in behalf of his despised poor was not wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
But right now, if.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It is deemed necessary, that I should forfeit my life
for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle
my blood further with the blood of my children, and
with the blood of millions in this slave of country,
whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments,
I submit so that it be done. Southerners were horrified
(25:47):
by Brown's actions and took his violent rampage to be
an indication of what the North had in store. Northerners
saw Brown as a martyr of sorts, even a saint.
There was little room for moderates left on the issue
of slavery. By the election of eighteen sixty, the Democratic
Party had all become apart, not acceptable to Southerners and
(26:07):
Buchanan supporters. They dominated their own candidate, Vice President John
Breckenridge of Kentucky. Other Democratic dissenters would form a new party,
the Constitutional Union Party. In short, it was a mess.
It would make the likelihood of Republican victory a probability.
(26:28):
Lincoln won one hundred and eighty electoral votes from all
eighteen Free states, and only from those states he didn't
get a single vote a single electoral vote from the South.
Douglas got an anemic twelve electoral votes and finished a
distant fourth. Lincoln's win was a turning point in American
life and a momentous victory for many reasons.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
In many ways, it.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Was the first time a president had been elected on
an entirely regional basis, and some Southerners warned that such
an impressive that such an outcome in this election would
leave the South with no choice but to secede from
the Union. Immediately after the election, the state of South
Carolina did precisely that war, it.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Seems, was almost inevitable.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
The story of the rise of Lincoln here on our
American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts up. Next, another installment of our series about Us,
the Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
(00:33):
author of the terrific book Land of Hope, Bill McLay.
This episode the Rise of Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
If there was one issue more than any other that
led to the political rise of Abraham Lincoln, one issue
more than any other that led to America's seemingly inevitable
march towards Civil War, it was the issue of slavery.
Particularly was the Fugitive Slave Act. This law turned Northerners
(01:08):
into co conspirators with the South because it required Northerners
to cooperate and actively engage in supporting the practice of slavery,
requiring them to track, capture, and return escape slaves to
their owners, rather than allowing them to live as free
people with the rights of God gave them, and our
(01:30):
own declaration declared it was one thing to accept its
existence down there as long as they weren't expected to
abide by the same law as protecting the rights of
slaveholders to hold slaves as property human beings as property.
(01:51):
There's another thing to be complicit in that institution. The
Fugitive Slave Law was a law that turned toleration of
the peculiar institution into participation, and that was.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
A bridge too far for a Northern nurse.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
One state Supreme Court was a nonsense, seemed the law unconstitutional.
Vermont essentially nullified the Fugitive Slave Act through legislation of
its own, and just as importantly, very prominent critics, including
writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, spoke out. And I should
(02:32):
add here that Emerson was very slow to come to
the anti slavery cause. He was not congenitally political. He
was interested in ideas, but this act galvanized him to
speak out. The last year has forced us all into
(02:54):
politics and made it a paramount of duty to seek
what it is off of the duty to shun. We
do not breathe well. There is infamy in the air.
I have a new experience. I wake in the morning
with a painful sensation to carry about all day, and
which when traced home, is the odious remembrance of that
(03:17):
ignominy which has fallen on Massachusetts, which robs the landscape
of beauty and takes the sunshine out of every hour.
I have lived all my life in this state and
never had any experience of personal.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Inconvenience from the laws until now.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
What kind of legislation is this? What kind of constitution
which covers it? And yet the crime which the second
law ordains is greater than the crime which the first
law forbids. For it is a greater crime to re
enslave a man than to enslave him at first, when
it might be pretended to be a mitigation of his
(03:57):
lot as a captive in war. What shall we do,
first abrogate this law, then proceed to confine slavery to
slave states and help them effectually to make an end
of it. Or shall we, as we are all are
advised on all hands, lie by and wait the progress
(04:18):
of the census. But will slavery liebehe? I fear not.
She's very industrious, gives herself no holidays. No proclamation will
put her down. She got Texas and now will have Cuba,
and means.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
To keep her maturity.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
The experience of the past gives us.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
No encouragement to lie by.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Shall we call a new convention, or will any expert
statesman furnish us a plan for this summary or gradual winding.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Up of slavery? So far as the Republic is its patron, where.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Is the sound itself? Since it is agreed by all
saying men of all parties there was yesterday? The slave
is mischievous? Why does the sounth itself never offer the smallest.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Counsel of her own?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Let us hear any project with candorin respect? Is it
impossible to speak of it with reason and good nature?
It is really the project fit for this country to
entertain and accomplish. Everything invites emancipation. The grandeur of the design,
the vast stake that we hold, the national domain, the
(05:28):
manifest interest of the slave states, the religious effort of
the free States, the public opinion of the world, all
joined to demand it. Very powerful words from Emberson abolitionists
Pastor Luther Lee of Syracuse, and these simple words to describe.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
The Fugitive Slave Act.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It is a war upon God, upon his own law,
and upon the rights of humanity. To obey it or
aid in it. Its enforcement is treason against God and humanity.
It involves the guilt of violating every one of the
Ten Commandments. It was in this context and at this time,
(06:21):
that Uncle Tom's Cabin was published by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The novel, published in two volumes, had a profound impact
on attitudes towards slavery in the United States, depicting in
stark terms the cruelty of slavery and the perils that freedom.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Seeking slaves faced.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
At the same time, the effort was underway to connect
are two coasts with a transcontinental railroad. There were two
main proposals, one by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and another
by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, in short, a southern
and a northern proposal. Egret again got a deal done
(07:01):
Douglas fashion and agreement that would bring the Southerners on board.
He proposed that the land west of the Missouri be
organized into two distinct territories, the Kansas Territory and the
Nebraska Territory, and each would be allowed to settle by
popular vote a slavery issue for themselves. It was a
(07:22):
huge mistake.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
When we come back more of the rise of Lincoln
here on our American Stories. This is Lee Hbibe, and
this is our American stories, and all of our history
stories are brought to us by our generous sponsors, including
Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things
(07:45):
that are beautiful in life and all the things that
matter in life. If you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale
will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to Hillsdale dot edu. That's Hillsdale dot edu. And
(08:09):
we returned to our American stories and with our Story
of America series with Hillsdale College professor and author of
Land of Hope Bill McLay. When we last left off,
to get his way for constructing a transcontinental railroad up north,
Stephen A. Douglas fashioned a deal in which territories in
the West would vote on whether they would become free
(08:32):
or slave states. His concept was called popular sovereignty. It
was a decision that would haunt the nation. Let's return
to the story.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Now, this was a big deal because both new territories.
Both proposed territories were north of the line established by
the Missouri Compromise, thus opening up territory to slavery where
it had already been forbidden. Douglas's proposal led to furious
(09:08):
debate for months, but to get the railroad built, both
houses of Congress ended the debate with the passage of
the Kansas Nebraska Act.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Of eighteen fifty four, and.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
President Franklin Pierce signed it into law. It was a
huge mistake, some might even call it recliffe. Soon violent
conflicts erupted in competing communities, with pro slavery mobs attacking
the town of Lawrence. Those attacks were answered by anti
(09:40):
slavery attacks by the abolitionist John Brown and his son.
This is how Bleeding Kansas got its name, as this
state would be state state to be found itself, caught
between competing ideas about slavery and two competing governments and
to competing constitutions. It also revealed the sheer folly that
(10:05):
somehow popular sovereignty.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Would settle these differences.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
The bitter differences in violence over the issue of slavery
was not confined to Kansas. He managed to spill onto
the floor of the US Senate itself. Senator Charles Sumner
of Massachusetts delivered a bitter speech against the Kansas Nebraska Act,
and he needed to stop with the legislation, He personally
(10:33):
attacked Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, accusing him of
having embraced quote the harlot slavery as his mistress. These
insults were surely designed to prompt an equally outrageous rebubble,
and it came just days later when Congressman Preston Brooks,
who was a cousin of Butler, confronted Sumner at his desk,
(10:56):
denounced his speech as a libel on South Carolina and
mister Butler, and then went on to hit Sumner over
the head with a heavy cane, nearly killing him. The
reaction to this fight between these men revealed just how.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Profoundly polarized the nation was.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Northerners supporting Sumner, while Brooks received adulation of all kinds
from newspapers of the South and hundreds of new canes
from fans of his. Want't even inscribed a cane with
these words hit him again. By the time Sumner gave
his now famous speech, he'd become a member of a
(11:38):
new political party, the Republican Party, a product of and
direct response to the Kansas Nebraska. Its membership was constituted
of anti slavery advocates from the Democratic, Whig and Free
Soil parties and unified around opposing the extension of into
(12:01):
the new territories. In short time, it became the second
largest party.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
In the nation.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
At the same time, the largest party, the Democratic Party,
was struggling to maintain unity as its northern and southern
factions became more and more divided. The Republican Party from
its inception was a party of the North, almost exclusively
because the Democratic Party was the only national party and
(12:27):
expected a victory in the eighteen fifty six election. Their
candidate was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, who had experience as
a Congressman and a Secretary of State.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Under James K. Polk.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
The Republican Party campaign on what were classic Whig issues,
including what we today might call infrastructure and tariffs protectionism,
but it was also the first national party to declare
fully its opposition to slavery. Buchanan was a familiar face,
and he won with the I hope he could maintain
(13:01):
this delicate, fragile status quo in America, But just days
after his inauguration, the Supreme Court handed down its momentous
dred Scott decision that decision would only add to the
already deep divide on slavery. Ironically, Justice Tawny, who authored
(13:24):
the decision, was hoping it would settle the issue. Far
from that. Here's some details of the case. Dred Scott
was a man who had been born a slave. He
had been sold to a surgeon, who took him to Illinois,
a free state, and then to the Wisconsin Territory, which
(13:46):
was also free. Remember, the Northwest Ordinance proscribed slavery, and
the Wisconsin Territory as well as Illinois, were both part
of that covered by the Northwest Ordons. So in the
Wisconsin Territory, Scott married and had two daughters. After his
master's death in eighteen forty six, Scott sued in the
(14:07):
Missouri courts for his freedom on the simple grounds, or
so it seemed at the time, that his residence in
a free state and free territory as a freeman made
him a freeman. The case made its way through the
court system to the US Supreme Court, where it was
presided over by the aforementioned Justice Tawny, Roger B. Tawny,
(14:31):
a Democrat from Maryland. Well. The court ruled against Scott
and Tawny, who wrote, the majority of the opinion took
his chance to stake his claim and resolve the issue
of slavery in the territories once and for all. There
were three main components to the decision. First, the court
(14:53):
dismissed Scott's claims, arguing that he lacked standing to sue
because he not a citizen. Why was he not a citizen?
He was not a citizen because the Constitution did not intend,
the Court said, to extend the rights of citizenship to blacks.
It's aid openly racial argument. Number two, he also argued
(15:16):
the court argued that Congress lacked the power to deprive
any person of his property without due process, and because
slaves were property. Slaves were property, slavery could not be
excluded from any federal territory or state, so argued with
the court. Finally, number three, the court ruled that the
(15:38):
Missouri Compromise itself was not just moved due to the
passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act, but unconstitutional from the start.
It had been all along because it invalidly excluded slavery
from Wisconsin and other northern territories. So with the Missouri Compromise,
(16:05):
tossed the side and thrown on the ash heap of history.
Everything was now up for grabs, and the radical Southerners
wasted no time calling for a federal slave code to
protect their property.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
As they thought of it.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
They were emboldened by the dread Scott case and thought
things were turning their way.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
At last.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
They even sensed, and with good reason, that President Buchanan
was on their side. Northerners, too, believe Buchanan was a
tool of the pro slavery South at worst, and a
man not willing to spend any political capital on the
issue of slavery at best. Leadership on the issue of
slavery would have.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
To come from some other source.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So at last we come to one of the great
luminaries on the great figures of American political a rising
star of the Republican Party, a very successful trial lawyer,
a one term Whig congressman. Who was This man is
Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
And you've been listening to Hillsdale College professor and author
of Land of Vote, Bill McLay telling one heck of
a story, all of the elements political, cultural, leading straight
to a collision, and that would be the Civil War.
Up through this context rises a lawyer and a fairly
unknown man up till now named Abraham Lincoln. When we
(17:39):
continue more of the remarkable story of the rise of
Lincoln here on our American Stories, and we returned to
(18:09):
our American Stories and our final portion of our story
on the Rise of Abraham Lincoln is a part of
our Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
author of Land of Hope Bill McLay. Let's pick up
where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Who was this man, this Abraham Lincoln? Well, his life
story became the stuff of legend.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
He was the uncommon, common man born into a humble
frontier life, who wrotese to prominence through sheer, grit, determination
and talent and hard work. He was born in Kentucky,
literally in a log cabin. We know almost nothing of
his early life except that he was poor. He moved
(18:58):
around from Kentucky to Indiana from Indiana, Illinois as his
father moved around, which was not unusual in those days.
We know he hated the chores of farm life, endless work, plowing, harvesting, chopping, wood,
hauling water. And although he had almost no formal schooling,
(19:19):
he was a voracious reader and had a great love
of words. Of rhetoric, of oratory, and he knew that books,
in his great capacity for the use of the English language,
would be the ticket to his rising in the world.
(19:41):
He arrived as a very young man in New Salem, Illinois,
unknown to anyone. He got a job as a clerk,
and through his exertions became a very popular member of
the community. He was appointed postmaster, and then on his
second and try, was elected to the Illinois General Assembly,
(20:03):
the state legislature. For Lincoln, this success was the embodiment
of the Declaration of Independence, a document he revered and
would repeatedly return to because it so beautifully affirmed equal
worth of all people, ordinary people, and their equal right
to life, liberty.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
That love of equality was not some passing affection. It
was deep and profound. For Lincoln. The words equality meant
the rights of all people to the fruits of their
own labor, a principle grounded not in the will of
government or any human source, but in nature itself, in God.
(20:49):
That's why Lincoln so despised slavery from his earliest days,
because he believed, deep in his core that slavery was
a form of theft Aft then allowed one class of
men to steal from another class of men. Well, some
say that men make the times, and others say the
(21:10):
times make the men. It was in the fervor of
the eighteen fifties, with slavery heavily weighing on the nation,
that Lincoln emerged.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Stephen Douglas, the little giant from Illinois.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
He was out for reelection to the Senate in eighteen
fifty eight in what was just going to be a
warm up for.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
A presidential bid in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Lencoln opposed Douglas from the very beginning of this campaign,
and he was a natural choice to compete for the
Illinois Senate seat. So he had his moment, and the
Senate candency gave him a platform, a moral platform to
attack Douglas's ideas, his political skills expose his lack of
(21:56):
principle when it came to the weightiest moral.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Issue of the day.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
In eighteen fifty eighty challenged Douglas to a series of debates,
seven in.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
All, and Douglas accepted.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
These debates were real classics of American oratory. Of all oratory,
Lincoln tried at every turn to make Douglas apear to
be a radical, pro slavery, progens God sympathizer, which Douglas
actually was not. Douglas, for his part, tried to make
Lincoln look like a dangerous abolitionist radical, which Lincoln was not.
(22:30):
Lincoln was anti slavery, but he was not in favor
of abolition, but the debates were substantive and worthy of
the state of Illinois, the Senate, and the nation. Lincoln
would go on to lose the election to Douglas, but
he was a competitive race, and Lincoln emerged as a
national figure, a possible and plausible Republican candidate for president
(22:55):
in eighteen sixty. So the Republican Party came just a
few seats short four to be exec of an absolute
majority in Congress. A growing and ascendate Republican Party and
a fracturing of the National Democratic Party foreshadowed trouble ahead
for the nation. The last dire warning of things to
(23:19):
come with the news of abolitionist John Brown's raid at
Harper's Ferry on the night of October sixteenth, eighteen fifty nine,
at the Federal Arsenal. Brown's hatred of slavery had grown.
He was convinced that God had called him to do
what he did that night, which was to strike at
(23:41):
the institution of slavery itself. His plan was simple. He
and his men would seize guns from the Federal Arsenal
and use them to arm slaves in the region and
begin an uprising which would lead to the creation of
a slave run state. This effort was doomed from the start,
and fourteen lines were lost the process to being his
(24:02):
own sons. Brown was hanged instead December of that year,
and these were some of his final words before being
put to death. In the first place, I deny everything
but what I have all along admitted design on my
part to free slaves. I intended certainly to have made
(24:23):
a clean thing of that matter, as I did last
winter when I went into Missouri and took slaves without
the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them
through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I
designed to do the same thing again on a larger scale.
The court acknowledges, as I suppose the validity of the
law of God, I see a book kissed here, which
(24:45):
I supposed to be the Bible, or at least the
New Testament. That book teaches me that all things whatsoever
I would that men should do to me, I should
do even so to them. It teaches me further to
quote remember them that are in bonds as bound wisdom.
I endeavored to act upon that instruction. I say, I
(25:07):
am too young to understand that God is any respector
of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I
have done, as I have always freely admitted that I
have done in behalf of his despised poor was not wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
But right now, if.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It is deemed necessary, that I should forfeit my life
for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle
my blood further with the blood of my children, and
with the blood of millions in this slave of country,
whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments,
I submit so that it be done. Southerners were horrified
(25:47):
by Brown's actions and took his violent rampage to be
an indication of what the North had in store. Northerners
saw Brown as a martyr of sorts, even a saint.
There was little room for moderates left on the issue
of slavery. By the election of eighteen sixty, the Democratic
Party had all become apart, not acceptable to Southerners and
(26:07):
Buchanan supporters. They dominated their own candidate, Vice President John
Breckenridge of Kentucky. Other Democratic dissenters would form a new party,
the Constitutional Union Party. In short, it was a mess.
It would make the likelihood of Republican victory a probability.
(26:28):
Lincoln won one hundred and eighty electoral votes from all
eighteen Free states, and only from those states he didn't
get a single vote a single electoral vote from the South.
Douglas got an anemic twelve electoral votes and finished a
distant fourth. Lincoln's win was a turning point in American
life and a momentous victory for many reasons.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
In many ways, it.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Was the first time a president had been elected on
an entirely regional basis, and some Southerners warned that such
an impressive that such an outcome in this election would
leave the South with no choice but to secede from
the Union. Immediately after the election, the state of South
Carolina did precisely that war, it.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Seems, was almost inevitable.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
The story of the rise of Lincoln here on our
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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