Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American People.
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Speaker 1: podcasts up. Next, another installment of our series about Us,
Speaker 1: the Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
Speaker 1: author of the terrific book Land of Hope, Bill McLay.
Speaker 1: This episode the Rise of Lincoln.
Speaker 2: If there was one issue more than any other that
Speaker 2: led to the political rise of Abraham Lincoln, one issue
Speaker 2: more than any other that led to America's seemingly inevitable
Speaker 2: march towards Civil War, it was the issue of slavery.
Speaker 2: Particularly was the Fugitive Slave Act. This law turned Northerners
Speaker 2: into co conspirators with the South because it required Northerners
Speaker 2: to cooperate and actively engage in supporting the practice of slavery,
Speaker 2: requiring them to track, capture, and return escape slaves to
Speaker 2: their owners, rather than allowing them to live as free
Speaker 2: people with the rights of God gave them, and our
Speaker 2: own declaration declared.
Speaker 3: It was one thing to accept its existence down there
Speaker 3: as long as they weren't expected to abide by the
Speaker 3: same law as protecting the rights of slaveholders.
Speaker 2: To hold slaves as property human beings as property. There's
Speaker 2: another thing to be complicit in that institution. The Fugitive
Speaker 2: Slave Law was a law that turned toleration of the
Speaker 2: peculiar institution into participation, and that was a bridge too
Speaker 2: far for Northern Nurse. One state Supreme court was consen
Speaker 2: seemed the law unconstitutional. Vermont essentially nullified the Fugitive Slave
Speaker 2: Act through legislation of its own, and just as importantly,
Speaker 2: very prominent critics, including writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, spoke out.
Speaker 2: And I should add here that Emerson was very slow
Speaker 2: to come to the anti slavery cause. He was not
Speaker 2: congenitally political. He was interested in ideas, but this act
Speaker 2: galvanized him to speak out. The last year has forced
Speaker 2: us all into politics and made it a paramount of
Speaker 2: duty to seek what it is offered and a duty
Speaker 2: to shun. We do not breathe well. There is infamy
Speaker 2: in the air. I have a new experience. I wake
Speaker 2: in the morning with a painful sensation to carry about
Speaker 2: all day, and which when traced home, is the odious
Speaker 2: remembrance of that ignominy which has fallen on Massachusetts, which
Speaker 2: robs the landscape of beauty and takes the sunshine.
Speaker 4: Out of every hour.
Speaker 2: I have lived all my life in this state and
Speaker 2: never had any experience of personal inconvenience from the laws
Speaker 2: until now.
Speaker 4: What kind of legislation is this? What kind of constitution
Speaker 4: which covers it?
Speaker 2: And yet the crime which the second law ordains is
Speaker 2: greater than the crime which the first law forbids. For
Speaker 2: it is a greater crime to re enslave a man
Speaker 2: than to enslave him at first, when it might be
Speaker 2: pretended to be a mitigation of his lot as a
Speaker 2: captive in war. What shall we do, first abrogate this law,
Speaker 2: then proceed to confine slavery to slave states and help
Speaker 2: them effectually to make an end of it. Or shall we,
Speaker 2: as we are all are advised on all hands, lie
Speaker 2: by and wait the progress of the census.
Speaker 4: But will slavery libel?
Speaker 2: I fear not. She's very industrious, gives herself no holidays,
Speaker 2: No proclamation will put her down. She got Texas and
Speaker 2: now will have Cuba and means to keep her majority.
Speaker 2: The experience of the past gives us.
Speaker 4: No encouragement to lie by.
Speaker 2: Shall we call a new convention, or will any expert
Speaker 2: statesman furnish us a plan for this summary or gradual
Speaker 2: winding up of slavery? So far as the Republic is
Speaker 2: its patron, where.
Speaker 5: Does the sound itself? Since it is agreed by all
Speaker 5: saying men of all parties there was yesterday? The slave
Speaker 5: is mischievous? Why does the sounth itself never offer the
Speaker 5: smallest counsel of her own? Let us hear any project
Speaker 5: with candorin respect?
Speaker 2: Is it impossible to speak of it with reason and
Speaker 2: good nature? It is really the project fit for this
Speaker 2: country to entertain and accomplish. Everything invites emancipation. The grandeur
Speaker 2: of the design, the vast stake that we hold, the
Speaker 2: national domain, the manifest interest of the slave states, the
Speaker 2: religious effort of the free States, the public opinion of
Speaker 2: the world, all joined to demand it. Very powerful words
Speaker 2: from Emerson abolitionists Pastor Luther Lee of Syracuse, and these
Speaker 2: simple words to describe.
Speaker 4: The Fugitive Slave Act.
Speaker 2: It is a war upon God, upon his own law,
Speaker 2: and upon the rights of humanity. To obey it or
Speaker 2: aid in its enforcement is treason against God and humanity.
Speaker 2: It involves the guilt of violating every one of the
Speaker 2: Ten Commandments. It was in this context and at this time,
Speaker 2: that Uncle Tom's Cabin was published by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Speaker 2: The novel, published in two volumes, had a profound impact
Speaker 2: on attitudes towards slavery in the United States, depicting in
Speaker 2: stark terms the cruelty of slavery and the perils that freedom.
Speaker 4: Seeking slaves faced.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the effort was underway to connect
Speaker 2: are two coasts with a transcontinental railroad. There were two
Speaker 2: main proposals, one by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and another
Speaker 2: by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. In short, a Southern
Speaker 2: and a Northern proposal. Eager to get a deal done,
Speaker 2: Douglas fashion and agreement that would bring the Southerners on board.
Speaker 2: He proposed that the land west of the Missouri be
Speaker 2: organized into two distinct territories, the Kansas Territory and the
Speaker 2: Nebraska Territory, and each would be allowed to settle by
Speaker 2: popular vote a slavery issue for themselves. It was a
Speaker 2: huge mistake.
Speaker 1: When we come back more of the Rise of Lincoln
Speaker 1: here on our American stories, This is Lee Habib And
Speaker 1: this is our American stories, and all of our history
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Speaker 1: Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things
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Speaker 1: we returned to our American stories and with our Story
Speaker 1: of America series with Hillsdale College professor and author of
Speaker 1: Land of Hope Bill McLay. When we last left off,
Speaker 1: to get his way for constructing a transcontinental railroad up north,
Speaker 1: Stephen A. Douglas fashioned a deal in which territories in
Speaker 1: the West would vote on whether they would become free
Speaker 1: or slave states. His concept was called popular sovereignty. It
Speaker 1: was a decision that would haunt the nation. Let's return
Speaker 1: to the story.
Speaker 2: Now, this was a big deal because both new territories.
Speaker 2: Both proposed territories were north of the line established by
Speaker 2: the Missouri Compromise, thus opening up territory to slavery where
Speaker 2: it had already been forbidden. Douglas's proposal led to furious
Speaker 2: debate for months, but to get the railroad built, both
Speaker 2: houses of Congress ended the debate with the passage of
Speaker 2: the Kansas Nebraska Act of eighteen fifty four, and President
Speaker 2: Franklin Pierce signed it into law. It was a huge mistake,
Speaker 2: some might even.
Speaker 4: Call it Reckliffe.
Speaker 2: Soon violent conflicts erupted in competing communities, with pro slavery
Speaker 2: mobs attacking the town of Lawrence. Those attacks were answered
Speaker 2: by anti slavery attacks by the abolitionist John Brown and
Speaker 2: his son. This is how Bleeding Kansas got its name,
Speaker 2: as this state would be state state to be found
Speaker 2: itself caught between competing ideas about slavery and to competing
Speaker 2: governments and to competing constitutions. It also revealed the sheer
Speaker 2: folly that somehow popular sovereignty.
Speaker 6: Would settle these differences.
Speaker 2: The bitter differences in violence over the issue of slavery
Speaker 2: was not confined to Kansas. He'd managed to spill onto
Speaker 2: the floor of the US Senate itself. Senator Charles Sumner
Speaker 2: of Massachusetts delivered a bitter speech against the Kansas Nebraska Act,
Speaker 2: and he needed to stop with the legislation. He personally
Speaker 2: attacked Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, accusing him of
Speaker 2: having embraced quote the harlot slavery as his mistress. These
Speaker 2: insults were surely designed to prompt an equally outrageous rebubble,
Speaker 2: and it came just days later when Congressman Preston Brooks,
Speaker 2: who was a cousin of Butler, confronted Sumner at his desk,
Speaker 2: denounced his speech as a libel on South Carolina and
Speaker 2: mister Butler, and then went on to hit Sumner over
Speaker 2: the head with a heavy cane, nearly killing him. The
Speaker 2: reaction to this fight between these men revealed just how
Speaker 2: profoundly polarized the nation was. Northerners supporting Sumner, while Brooks
Speaker 2: received adulation of all kinds from newspapers of the South
Speaker 2: and hundreds of new canes from fans of his won't
Speaker 2: even inscribed a cane with these words hit him again.
Speaker 2: By the time Sumner gave his now famous speech, he'd
Speaker 2: become a member of a new political party, the Republican Party,
Speaker 2: a product of and direct response to the Kansas Nebraska.
Speaker 2: Its membership was constituted of anti slavery advocates from the Democratic,
Speaker 2: Whig and Free Soil parties and unified around opposing the
Speaker 2: extension of slavery into the new territories. In short time,
Speaker 2: it became the second largest party in the nation. At
Speaker 2: the same time, the largest party, the Democratic Party, was
Speaker 2: struggling to maintain unity as its northern and southern factions
Speaker 2: became more and more divided. The Republican Party from its
Speaker 2: inception was a party of the North, almost exclusively. Because
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party was the only national party, it expected
Speaker 2: a victory in the eighteen fifty six election. Their candidate
Speaker 2: was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, who had experience as a
Speaker 2: Congressman and a Secretary of State under James K.
Speaker 4: Polk. The Republican Party.
Speaker 2: Campaign on what were classic Whig issues, including what we
Speaker 2: today might call infrastructure and tariffs protectionism, but it was
Speaker 2: also the first national party to declare fully its opposition
Speaker 2: to slavery. Buchanan was a familiar face, and he won
Speaker 2: with I hope he could maintain this delicate, fragile status.
Speaker 6: Quo in America.
Speaker 2: But just days after his inauguration, the Supreme Court handed
Speaker 2: down its momentous dred Scott decision, that decision would only
Speaker 2: add to the already deep divide on slavery. Ironically, Justice Tawny,
Speaker 2: who authored the decision, was hoping it would settle the issue.
Speaker 2: Far from that. Here's some details of the case. Dred
Speaker 2: Scott was a man who had been born a slave.
Speaker 2: He had been sold to a surgeon, who took him
Speaker 2: to Illinois, a free state, and then to the Wisconsin Territory,
Speaker 2: which was also free. Remember, the Northwest Ordinance proscribed slavery,
Speaker 2: and the Wisconsin Territory, as well as Illinois, were both
Speaker 2: part of that covered by the Northwest Organs. So in
Speaker 2: the Wisconsin terry, Scott married and had two daughters. After
Speaker 2: his master's death in eighteen forty six, Scott sued in
Speaker 2: the Missouri courts for his freedom on the simple grounds,
Speaker 2: or so it seemed at the time, that his residence
Speaker 2: in a free state and free territory as a freeman
Speaker 2: made him a freeman. The case made its way through
Speaker 2: the court system to the US Supreme Court, where it
Speaker 2: was presided over by the aforementioned Justice Tawny, Roger B. Tawny,
Speaker 2: a Democrat from Maryland. Well. The court ruled against Scott
Speaker 2: and Tawny, who wrote, the majority of the opinion took
Speaker 2: his chance to stake his claim and resolve the issue
Speaker 2: of slavery the territories once and for all. There were
Speaker 2: three main components to the decision. First, the Court dismissed
Speaker 2: Scott's claims, arguing that he lacked standing to sue because
Speaker 2: he he was not a citizen. Why was he not
Speaker 2: a citizen? He was not a citizen because the Constitution
Speaker 2: did not intend, the Court said, to extend the rights
Speaker 2: of citizenship to blacks, said openly racial argument Number two,
Speaker 2: he also argued the court argued that Congress lacked the
Speaker 2: power to deprive any person of his property without due process,
Speaker 2: and because slaves were property, slaves were property, slavery.
Speaker 4: Could not be excluded from any.
Speaker 6: Federal territory or state, so argued with the court.
Speaker 2: Finally, number three, the Court ruled that the Missouri Compromise
Speaker 2: itself was not just moved due to the passage of
Speaker 2: the Kansas Nebraska hacked, but unconstitutional from the start. It
Speaker 2: had been all along because it invalidly excluded slavery from
Speaker 2: Wisconsin and other northern territories. So with the Missouri Compromise
Speaker 2: tossed the side and thrown on the ash heap of history.
Speaker 2: Everything was now up for grabs, and the radical Southerners
Speaker 2: wasted no time calling for a federal slave code to
Speaker 2: protect their property.
Speaker 4: As they thought of it.
Speaker 2: They were emboldened by the dread Scott case and thought
Speaker 2: things were turning their way.
Speaker 4: At last.
Speaker 2: They even sensed, and with good reason, that President Buchanan
Speaker 2: was on their side. Northerners, too, believe Buchanan was a
Speaker 2: tool of the pro slavery South at worst, and a
Speaker 2: man not willing to spend any political capital on the
Speaker 2: issue of slavery at best. Leadership on the issue of
Speaker 2: slavery would have.
Speaker 4: To come from some other source.
Speaker 2: So at last we come to one of the great
Speaker 2: luminaries on the great figures of American political history, a
Speaker 2: rising star of the Republican Party, a very successful trial lawyer,
Speaker 2: a one term Whig congressman.
Speaker 6: Who was This man is Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to Hillsdale College professor and author
Speaker 1: of Land of Vote, Bill McLay telling one heck of
Speaker 1: a story, all of the elements political, cultural, leading straight
Speaker 1: to a collision, and that would be the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Up through this context rises a lawyer and a fairly
Speaker 1: unknown man up till now named Abraham Lincoln. When we
Speaker 1: continue more of the remarkable story of the rise of
Speaker 1: Lincoln here on our American Stories, and we returned to
Speaker 1: our American Stories and our final portion of our story
Speaker 1: on the Rise of Abraham Lincoln is a part of
Speaker 1: our Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
Speaker 1: author of Land of Hope Bill McLay. Let's pick up
Speaker 1: where we last left off.
Speaker 6: Who was this man, this Abraham Lincoln?
Speaker 4: Well, his life story became the stuff of legend.
Speaker 2: He was the uncommon common man born into a humble
Speaker 2: frontier life, who wrotese to prominence through sheer, grit, determination
Speaker 2: and talent and hard work. He was born in Kentucky,
Speaker 2: literally in a log cabin. We know almost nothing of
Speaker 2: his early life except.
Speaker 4: That he was poor.
Speaker 2: He moved around from Kentucky to Indiana from Indiana, Illinois
Speaker 2: as his father moved around, which was not unusual.
Speaker 4: In those days.
Speaker 2: We know he hated the chores of farm life, endless work, plowing, harvesting, chopping, wood,
Speaker 2: hauling water. And although he had almost no formal schooling,
Speaker 2: he was a voracious reader and had a great love
Speaker 2: of words of rhetoric, of oratory, and he knew that books,
Speaker 2: in his great capacity for the use of the English language,
Speaker 2: would be a ticket to his rising in the world.
Speaker 2: He arrived as a very young man in New Salem, Illinois,
Speaker 2: unknown to anyone. He got a job as a clerk,
Speaker 2: and through his exertions became a very popular member of
Speaker 2: the community. He was appointed postmaster and then a secon
Speaker 2: and try was elected to the Illinois General Assembly, the
Speaker 2: state legislature. For Lincoln, this success was the embodiment of
Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence, a document he revered and would
Speaker 2: repeatedly return to because it so beautifully affirmed equal worth
Speaker 2: of all people, ordinary people, and their equal right to life.
Speaker 4: Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2: That love of equality was not some passing affection. It
Speaker 2: was deep and profound.
Speaker 4: For Lincoln.
Speaker 2: The words equality meant the rights of all people to
Speaker 2: the fruits of their own labor, a principal grounded not
Speaker 2: in the will of government or any human source, but
Speaker 2: in nature itself, in God. And that's why Lincoln so
Speaker 2: despised slavery from his earliest days, because he believed, deep
Speaker 2: in his core that slavery was a form of theft
Speaker 2: aft and allowed one class of men to steal from
Speaker 2: another class of men. Well, some say that men make
Speaker 2: the times, and others say the times make the men.
Speaker 4: It was in the.
Speaker 2: Fervor of the eighteen fifties, with slavery heavily weighing on
Speaker 2: the nation, that Lincoln emerged.
Speaker 4: Stephen Douglas, the little.
Speaker 6: Giant from Illinois.
Speaker 2: He was out for reelection to the Senate in eighteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight in what was just going to be a
Speaker 2: warm up for.
Speaker 6: A presidential bid in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Lecold opposed Douglas from the very beginning of this campaign,
Speaker 2: and he was a natural choice to compete for the
Speaker 2: Illinois Senate seat. So he had his moment, and the
Speaker 2: Senate candency gave him a platform, a moral platform to
Speaker 2: attack Douglas's ideas, his political skills expose his lack of
Speaker 2: principle when it came to the weightiest moral.
Speaker 4: Issue of the day.
Speaker 2: In eighteen fifty eight, he challenged Douglas to a series
Speaker 2: of debates, seven in all, and Douglas accepted. These debates
Speaker 2: were real classics of American oratory. Of all oratory, Lincoln
Speaker 2: tried at every turn to make Douglas appear to be
Speaker 2: a radical and pro slavery Progens Good sympathizer, which Douglas
Speaker 2: actually was not. Douglas, for his part, tried to make
Speaker 2: Lincoln look like a dangerous abolitionist radical, which Lincoln was not.
Speaker 2: Lincoln was anti slavery, but he was not in favor
Speaker 2: of abolition, but the debates were substantive and worthy of
Speaker 2: the state of Illinois, the Senate, and the nation. Lincoln
Speaker 2: would go on to lose the election to Douglas, but
Speaker 2: it was a competitive race, and Lincoln emerged as a
Speaker 2: national figure, a possible and plausible Republican candidate for president
Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty. So the Republican Party came just a
Speaker 2: few seats short four to be exec of an absolute
Speaker 2: majority in Congress. A growing and a Senate Republican Party,
Speaker 2: and a fracturing in the National Democratic Party foreshadowed.
Speaker 6: Trouble ahead for the nation.
Speaker 2: The last dire warning of things to come with the
Speaker 2: news of abolitionist John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry on
Speaker 2: the night of October sixteenth, eighteen fifty nine, at the
Speaker 2: Federal Arsenal. Brown's hatred of slavery had grown. He was
Speaker 2: convinced that God had called him to do what he
Speaker 2: did that night, which was to strike at the institution
Speaker 2: of slavery itself. His plan was simple. He and his
Speaker 2: men would seize guns from the Federal Arsenal and use
Speaker 2: them to arm slaves in the region and begin an
Speaker 2: uprising which would lead to the creation of a slave
Speaker 2: run state. This effort was doomed from the start, and
Speaker 2: fourteen lines were long in the process to being his
Speaker 2: own sons. Brown was hanged in December of that year,
Speaker 2: and these were some of his final words before being
Speaker 2: put to death. In the first place, I deny everything
Speaker 2: but what I have all along admitted design on my
Speaker 2: part to free slaves. I intended certainly to have made
Speaker 2: a clean thing of that matter, as I did last
Speaker 2: winter when I went into Missouri and took slaves without
Speaker 2: the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them
Speaker 2: through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I
Speaker 2: designed to do the same thing again on a larger scale.
Speaker 2: The court acknowledges, as I suppose the validity of the
Speaker 2: law of God, I see a book kissed here, which
Speaker 2: I supposed to be the Bible, or at least.
Speaker 4: The new Testament.
Speaker 2: That book teaches me that all things whatsoever I would
Speaker 2: that men should do to me, I should do even
Speaker 2: so to them. It teaches me further to quote remember
Speaker 2: them that are in bonds as bound wisdom. I endeavored
Speaker 2: to act upon that instruction.
Speaker 4: I say, I am too young.
Speaker 2: To understand that God is any respector of persons. I
Speaker 2: believe that you have interfered as I have done, as
Speaker 2: I have always freely admitted that I have done in
Speaker 2: behalf of his despised poor was not wrong. But right now,
Speaker 2: if it is deemed necessary, that I should forfeit my
Speaker 2: life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and
Speaker 2: mingle my blood further with the blood of my children,
Speaker 2: and with the blood of millions in this slave of country,
Speaker 2: whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I.
Speaker 4: Submit so that it be done.
Speaker 2: Southerners were horrified by Brown's actions and took his violent
Speaker 2: rampage to be an indication of what the North had
Speaker 2: in store. Northerners saw Brown as a martyr of sorts,
Speaker 2: even the saint. There was little room for moderates left
Speaker 2: on the issue of slavery. By the election of eighteen sixty,
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party had all become apart, not acceptable to
Speaker 2: Southerners and Buchanan supporters. They dominated their own candidate and
Speaker 2: Vice President, John Breckenridge of Kentucky. Other Democratic dissenters would
Speaker 2: form a new party, the Constitutional Union Party. In short,
Speaker 2: it was a mess. It would make the likelihood of
Speaker 2: a Republican victory a probability. Lincoln won one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty electoral votes from all eighteen Free states, and only
Speaker 2: from those states he didn't get a single vote a
Speaker 2: single electoral vote from the South. Douglass got an anemic
Speaker 2: twelve electoral votes and finished a distant fourth. Lincoln's win
Speaker 2: was a turning point in American life and a momentous
Speaker 2: victory for many reasons. In many ways, it was the
Speaker 2: first time a president had been elected on an entirely
Speaker 2: regional basis, and some Southerners warned that such an impressed
Speaker 2: that such an outcome in this election would leave the
Speaker 2: South with no choice but to secede from the Union.
Speaker 2: Immediately after the election, the state of South Carolina did
Speaker 2: precisely that war.
Speaker 6: It seems, was almost inevitable.
Speaker 1: The story of the rise of Lincoln here on our
Speaker 1: American stories,