Kenneth Stampp's America in 1857

Oxford University Press, 1990

By Joan W. Musbach

As I selected a book with which to begin the new year, I was aware of the coming 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision.  This seemed like a good time to read Kenneth Stampp’s America in 1857.  I was intrigued that someone would write 340 pages about one year, a year that would not quickly come to mind as monumental.

As a native Kansan, transplanted to Missouri, I was instantly taken by Stampp's thesis.  Stampp maintains that it was President James Buchanan's actions regarding events in the Midwest that put the United States, in 1857, on the path of no return to disunion and civil war. Buchanan conspired with justices of the Supreme Court in issuing the high court's decision in Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford (March 6, 1857). The resulting decision and his bungling of the Lecompton Constitution, that would have admitted Kansas as a slave state, broke apart the only national political party, guaranteeing that the President elected in 1860 would be a sectional one.

1857 began with a judicial opinion that makes "judicial activism" in our own time seem "bush league."  Chief Justice Taney's fifty-five page opinion was a partisan ruling with little support in the Constitution.  Engendered by his uncompromising defiance of abolitionists, freesoilers and Republicans, Taney moved the court to protect the right of slave owners to take their property into all U. S. territories. Correspondence between president-elect James Buchanan and two of the Supreme Court justices prior to the handing down of the Dred Scott opinion reveals that Buchanan desired a broad opinion that would invalidate the Missouri Compromise.  Buchanan successfully influenced Justice Grier, a fellow Pennsylvanian, to side with the southern justices.  Adding Justice Grier to the majority avoided the appearance that the Supreme Court was divided at a line of latitude. Stampp's narrative on the decision and its political implications is excellent.

But other serious issues were attracting more attention by the summer of 1857. Nativist sentiment was strong.  Read about the election-day violence incited by the Plug Uglies. Equally interesting are the attempts of William Walker, a doctor, lawyer and journalist, to recruit a private army to make Nicaragua U. S. slave territory.  Stampp also details the defiance of Brigham Young, the need for an army to protect territorial appointees in Utah, and the Mormon massacre of 120 gentiles at Mountain Meadows. Meanwhile, in the streets of New York City at least six people were dead and scores wounded in rioting that resulted from attempts by the state government to take control of the gang-connected city police department and the efforts to enforce the state law that banned the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Then in late August, a major banking institution suspended payments, triggering the Panic of 1857. Brought on by a variety of economic conditions including overproduction in agriculture and wild railroad speculation, the Panic of 1857 weakened the fledgling Republican Party. Economic issues took precedence over the spread of slavery in the minds of most voters, foreshadowing a campaign mantra of our own time, "It’s the economy, stupid."

In addition, relative peace in Kansas resulted in a weak performance by Republican candidates in the fall elections.  Kansas Territorial Governor, Robert J. Walker, had managed to restore peace after the horrors of "Bleeding Kansas."  Through most of 1857, Walker felt supported by President Buchanan. He believed they were in agreement that the constitution produced by the fraudulently elected Lecompton Constitutional Convention would be submitted to the voters of Kansas for ratification before being sent to Congress.  A majority of Kansans was against slavery.  It appeared a foregone conclusion, even accepted by most southerners, that Kansas would eventually be admitted as a free state.  As 1857 neared its end, the Republican Party was fading from view; the Democratic Party was united. The Lecompton Constitution appeared trivial in the grander list of issues facing America in that year.

President Buchanan's speech to Congress on December 8 signaled a change. He had decided all that was necessary under the concept of popular sovereignty was that voters in Kansas be given an opportunity to express their opinion on slavery.  It was not necessary that they ratify the new state constitution before it was submitted to Congress. He also maintained that the Dred Scott case protected slaveholders who had brought their slaves with them to Kansas, and they could not be legally deprived of their property even if Kansas entered the Union as a free state.
           
Why did Buchanan change his mind?  The most likely explanation is that his feelings were closely aligned with those of the Southerners in his Cabinet. Admitting Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution would be the quickest way to resolve the conflict. Kansans could resolve problems on their own after statehood. He disregarded the fact that the Lecompton Constitution did not allow for amendments until after 1864 and enshrined the fraudulent procedures and results of previous elections. In a monumental miscalculation, he believed that by the 1860 Presidential election, the fissures thus created between the Northern and Southern Democrats would heal sufficiently to again win the Presidency.

President Buchanan handed the slavery issue back to the Republicans by agreeing with the action of the Lecompton Convention. And, given his now limited definition of "popular sovereignty," Buchanan ran afoul of Senator Stephan A. Douglas, chief spokesman and leader of the President's own party. The next day, in a rare political event, the leader of a major national party repudiated the President he had helped to elect. Douglas took the floor of the Senate for a three-hour denunciation of Buchanan's policy.   He argued that popular sovereignty implied that the citizens should have the right to ratify the entire Constitution and attacked the undemocratic behavior of the Lecompton Convention.  The Democratic Party was fractured.  Republicans were not appeased.  Republicans, opposing the spread of slavery made possible by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, regarded the fraudulent Lecompton Constitution as the logical result of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  In their eyes, Douglas was just as guilty of creating the crisis as was President Buchanan. As leader of the party, James Buchanan should be expected to hold the party together. Instead he managed to break it in two and bring the Republican Party back to life.

Kenneth Stampp makes a compelling case for the importance of the events of 1857.  Reading the details of events one hundred and fifty years ago belies the old adage "the more things change the more they stay the same."  In reading America in 1857, you can become aware of how much has changed, and how much better America is as a result.

Joan W. Musbach is a retired history teacher and heads the Missouri Council for History Education.