There were by this time many plain mani festations of the growing estrangement between the sections. There was indulgence in charges and countercharges. The South complained of the escape of slaves, the North of the Southern effort to extend slavery and of the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia. Re ligious denominations began to divide along sectional lines, and there were still other evi dences that in many respects the Union was legal, political and formal, that harmony was passing away. And yet, though perhaps the Southern people were in large measure united in defense of slavery, the great body of men at the North were not ready to act in unison in opposition to slavery or its extension. Not yet could the Free-soil party come near con trolling either house of Congress. In the South the radical element had begun to talk of seces sion. Soon after the election of 1848 several matters demanded immediate attention. Cali fornia, where gold had been discovered, was being rapidly peopled; the inhabitants formed a constitution excluding slavery and asked admission, to the. Union. Some form of Ter ritorial government was needed for portions of the West, and some answer must be made to the demand for abolition of slavery in the Dis trict and to the complaints of the South. Henry Clay introduced into Congress a series of propo sitions which furnished the foundation for the compromise of 1850. California came in as a free State; the slave-trade was abolished in the District of Columbia; a rigorous fugitive-slave law was passed ; New Mexico and Utah were organized as Territories without restriction as to slavery. In this compromise many hoped to see an end to sectional bitterness, but in vain. Before the compromise was passed, Taylor died and was succeeded by Fillmore. For a time, indeed, there seemed to come a lull in the storm, and men breathed more freely. Both of the leading parties in the election of 1852 an nounced their adherence — one may say devo tion— to the compromise as a settlement of the slavery question. The Free-soilers did not yield their but they cast fewer votes than four years before. Franklin Pierce, the Demo cratic candidate, was chosen; General Scott, his opponent, received only 42 electoral votes out of the total 296.
But the cause of free soil was nearer con summation than ever, for the direful subject of slavery could not be compromised away. Ef forts to enforce the Fugitive-Slave Law met with resistance in some parts of the North, and the smuggling of the blacks by the Under ground Railroad went on more briskly and cheerily than ever. And then came the Kansas Nebraska bill (q.v.), introduced by Senator Stephen A. Douglas (q.v.) of Illinois, and de fended with all the vigor and vehemence of which he was master. It was passed in 1854, and the notion that compromise had cast a per manent benign influence over the nation was shattered. The bill provided for the organiza tion of two Territories in land covered by the provisions of the Missouri Act of a generation before, and both of them north of 36° 30'. The Missouri Compromise was repealed and — in accordance with the principles of popu lar sovereignty — slavery was to exist in the Territories or be excluded as the people of the Territories might determine. For many North ern people, willing to acquiesce in the com promises, which they hoped had settled all dis pute, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was a rude awakening. The Republican party was formed, absorbing the Free-soilers, winning new adher ents to the anti-slavery cause and protesting against the extension of slavery into the Terri tories. In the autumn elections of 1854 this party made a showing of remarkable strength, but in 1856 the Democrats were once more suc cessful. placing James Buchanan in the Presi dential chair. Only one national party re mained; the support of Fremont, the Republi can candidate, was practically altogether from the Northern States.
From this time on there was little peace. In 1857 the Supreme Court, in the case of Dred Scot v. Sanford, declared that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the public domain. In 1858 Abraham Lincoln, in a series of debates with Douglas, while both were candi dates for election to the Senate, disclosed, with pitiless logic and with plain, unembellished phrase, the incongruity between popular sov ereignty and slavery. If the Supreme Court wasright, the slavery issue could no longer be avoided by adhering to the notion that the peo ple of the Territories could exclude slavery if they chose; they could not lawfully exclude an institution that had the lawful right to exist within their limits. Lincoln thus inserted the wedge that split the Democratic party. In 1859 John Brown (q.v.), with some ill-defined hopes of doing service to the slaves, further embit tered the South by invading Virginia. The Southern people, inspired by fear of a servile revolt, were aroused to great indignation, and the Northern abolitionists, with whom were classed all Republicans, were accused of plot ting against Southern safety. The time was
near at hand when only blows, not words, could settle the great question at issue between the sections, daily growing more hostile. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was chosen President; the Republicans were successful, and South Caro lina began preparations for. setting herself up as a separate nation. State after State at the South adopted ordinances of secession. Through the winter of 1860-61 there was little opposition to the movement. Even many Northern men, strongly anti-slavery in sentiment, doubted the wisdom of °pinning') one section to the other by bayonets. Attempts at compromise — the Peace Convention, the Crittenden resolutions were failures. Lincoln, a man almost unknown to the great body of the nation, paid close at tention to the events of the winter, and when be took the oath of office in March 1861, spoke firmly. He asserted the illegality of secession, and declared that the Union was unbroken and the laws must be executed.
War began when the Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers, and there was immediate response at the North. Events now moved rapidly. Following the lead of South Carolina, 11 Southern States formed the Confederacy. Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri, border States with slavery, did not join the Confederacy. On 19 April Lincoln declared the blockade of the Southern Coast. On 13 May England proclaimed her neutrality. Richmond, Va., had become the capital of the Confederacy, and at the North rose the cry, °On to Richmond P The complete defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run 21 July 1861 re vealed to the North the magnitude of the task undertaken. The South had in some ways the advantage at the outset, for the North was thy invader, and the South defending its own soil. The task of conquering a country as large as the Confederacy was enormous. Moreover, during the early years of the war, the Southern armies were more ably led and there was less confusion of counsels. Robert E. Lee was one of the most skilful generals of history, and not till the war was more than half finished did the North find Grant, Sherman, McPherson, Sheridan as the equals of Lee and his efficient lieutenants. But, in the long run, the North was destined to succeed because it was stronger, because in the contest for supremacy between free and slave labor the South had been hope lessly beaten; and thus the contest on the battle field but made plain with arms what the eco nomic forces had already accomplished. The North had more men, more wealth, more vigor to put into the conflict. The South, raising cotton, 'which was indispensable to the industrial interests of Europe hoped and expected Euro pean intervention, but did not secure it. The belligerent rights of the Confederacy were recognized, but its separate independent exist ence was not. The coast of the Southern States was declared in a state of blockade, and the Federal government began the enormous task not only of fighting on the battlefield, but of surrounding and strangling the uprising against its authority. In the West the Northern armies, though not always successful, pushed the South ern forces slowly before them. In July 1863, Vicksburg surrendered to .Grant. Shortly after the Confederates inflicted decisive defeat on the Union forces under Rosecrans at Chickamauga. In the autumn the victory at Chattanooga, where Grant, ably supported by Hooker, Thomas and Sherman, overwhelmed the Con federate forces, was a crushing blow for the Southern cause west of the Appalachians. The next year Sherman entered upon an aggressive campaign, taking Atlanta and then marching through Georgia to the sea. But in the East difficulties seemed to multiply in the early years. Robert E. Lee of Virginia, aided by staff commanders like Jackson and Longstreet, seemed for a time absolutely invincible. Suc cessful in defeating McClellan in the Penin sular campaign of 1S62, Lee soundly whipped Pope near Bull Run the same year. Driven back from Maryland by McClellan, who at tacked him at Antietam, he defeated Burnside at Fredericksburg, and Hooker the next spring (May 1863) at Chancellorsville, and with a victorious army marched boldly into Pennsyl vania, where he was repulsed by Meade at Gettysburg. The next year Grant, the victorious Western leader, taking command in person of the Eastern army, began his fearful "hammer ing)) and led- his men to ultimate victory. Lee surrendered at Appomattox 9 April, and the Confederacy collapsed in the spring of 1865. The energy of the free North seemed unabated; the South had been unable to supply Lee, its great commander, with men and supplies suffi cient to meet the enormous weight of Northern arms, when wielded by a general of the first order.