When Democrats could not agree on a single candidate from the 1860 election, the northern and southern wings selected their own – Stephen Douglas and John Breckinridge, respectively. This development alarmed President John Buchanan, as a letter from August 1860 reveals. If “a re-union between the” northern and southern Democrats did not occur, Buchanan told editor Gerard Hallock that “the Constitution & the union cannot be perpetuated.” Yet the split in the party was not a simple North/South divide. While Hallock’s New York Journal of Commerce had provided able & valuable support…to [Buchanan’s] administration,” other northern Democrats were not as loyal. Calvert Comstock’s Albany (NY) Atlas & Argus had, as Buchanan explained, failed to “sustain the principles of my administration” and “[held] political doctrines in violation of the Constitution of the United States as expounded by the Supreme Court.”

Most students are unfamiliar with the Filibuster of the 1850s. If anything, one associates it with attempts to prevent a vote on bills in the US Senate. T. J. Stiles’ essay in the Gilder Lehrman’s online journal History Now provides a nice overview of the subject and profiles the infamous “Filibuster King” William Walker. “Filibusters were independent adventurers who launched freelance invasions of foreign countries” and most planned “to annex them to the United States,” as Stiles explains. Walker’s actions violated the US Neutrality Act, but he always believed that he was “destined to create a central American empire.” One of Walker’s targets was Nicaragua, which he invaded in 1855 and was later forced out by May 1857. While Stiles discusses this invasion, another short essay provides images from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. House Divided also has material on this topic, including more primary sources related to Walker and other filibusters like John A. Quitman.

The University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab’s “Voting America” is great resource on US Presidential elections. The site provides a series of maps on each election between 1840 and 2004  that show a variety of different information. For example, the 1860 election map includes layers that breakdown the popular vote by county and counties with small margins of victories (when a second place candidate lost by less than 10 percent of the vote). The site also organizes the maps by topic, such as turnout and third party voting. In addition, this interactive map allows you to select the election data that appears. Also, be sure to check out all of the videos – including this one with Professor Edward Ayers who discusses the elections before the Civil War.

After his victory in the 1860 election, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln quickly started to work on filling the positions in the federal government that were political appointments. While selecting cabinet members was an important task, historian Harold Holzer explains that “Lincoln understood” how critical it was “to purge [the] Democrats” and “guarantee the loyalty of the federal bureaucracy.” Even as Lincoln considered the appropriate response to the secession crisis, he held countless meetings with office seekers who showed up at his temporary office in the Illinois Statehouse (see image to the right – it is #1 on this map). Those unable to travel to Springfield sent numerous letters to recommend either themselves or their friends. Other letters offered Lincoln advice on the appointment process. “Do not be led astray by corrupt Politicians,” as one anonymous author warned. The significant amount of incoming mail even caught the eye of at least one reporter. After a meeting in December, the reporter’s only comment about Lincoln’s office was to note that “[the secretary’s] desk [was] heaped up with letters and documents.” The political activity in Springfield did not escape the notice of Democratic papers like the New York Herald, which used the opportunity to portray their rivals as corrupt. The Herald predicted a “great republican feast” on all “the fat things” and identified the two “cooks” who would direct “the distribution of federal offices” in Pennsylvania.

The Harpers Ferry story does not end when John Brown was captured early in the morning on October 18, 1859. While five members of his group managed to escape (including Barclay Coppoc, who later served in the Union army), others were not as fortunate. Albert Hazlett and John Edwin Cook, who were traveling separately, were both arrested in Pennsylvania. Hazlett was captured on October 22 and sent to Carlisle. (House Divided has a 3D model of the courthouse where his extradition hearing took place). Cook was captured four days later in Franklin County. Both men were sent back to Virginia, where after short trials, they were sentenced to death. The story attracted national attention and reports were published in papers around the country, including from Illinois, Ohio, and Kansas. These reports, however, were not always accurate. The Cleveland Herald explained that someone who “[gave] his name as Wm. Harrison” was “arrested…on the suspicion that he was Capt. Cook.” William Harrison was actually the name that Hazlett used after his arrest. One can also follow the story in papers published in central Pennsylvania. The Valley of the Shadow has two papers from Franklin County – the Franklin Repository and the Valley Spirit. Pennsylvania Civil War Newspapers also has a number of options, including the Gettysburg Compiler and the Lancaster Intelligencer.

Last week I discussed a southern newspaper that argued that only legal means should be used against abolitionists who threatened southern communities. Immediately after the Harpers Ferry Raid, however, this newspaper had a different perspective. The editor was not concerned about abolitionists invading the South, but rather argued in late October 1859 that Harpers Ferry would actually reduce sectional tensions. “We think that a great deal of good will result from the Harper’s Ferry affair – much more than could have been anticipated,” as the Fayetteville Observer explained. Only “fanatics” in the North supported Brown’s raid. The Observer also argued that Harpers Ferry would split the Republican party. An editorial in an Indiana newspaper was one of “many…signs of conservative Republicans [who were] cutting loose from the ultra fragments of their party.” While the Observer later admitted that Brown’s raid had not “heal[ed] the sectional breach,” it is still important to consider this newspaper’s initial reaction.

Though previously mentioned in another post, the The Valley of the Shadow Project has a wide range of primary sources from newspapers, maps, letters, and statistics all available for use in the 7-12 classroom. Broken up chronologically into three periods, the Project archives two communities (Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania) between the years of 1859 and 1870. A particularly good lesson plan by Alice Carter compares the impact and the development of the railroads in both counties using various articles from historical newspapers. The lesson provides a teacher with preselected articles, however, one may choose to either find newspaper accounts that reflect individual class interests or allow students to search for their own, using the newspaper indexes. One special note: teachers could extend the lesson and explore the impact of railroads during reconstruction.

The South’s reaction to John Brown’s attack is often characterized as a violent one. “The shock and fear John Brown had instigated fueled widespread panic…[that] fed into paranoia vented in aggressive acts,” as historian David Reynolds explains. Yet not all southerners accepted violent actions. Protecting their communities remained a high priority, but these southerners argued that extralegal means should not be employed. Not only were existing laws more than sufficient, but violent actions impugned southern honor. Someone who “was tarred and feathered” “for sympathsing [sic] with old Brown” may have “richly deserved his punishment,” but the Greensboro Patriot argued that the best solution was “to let the law take its course.” Other editors in North Carolina reached similar conclusions. “The laws are ample to protect the South,” as the Fayetteville Observer explained in November 1859. The Observer later implied that southern honor was at stake: “in some places the prejudice against Northern men has been carried to an extent at once injurious to the interests and disgraceful to the character of the South.” Brown attacked Harpers Ferry 150 years ago, but as historian William Freehling observers, we still have much to learn about the “subtleties of the southern  response.”

“Slavery & Abolition in the US: Select Publications of the 1800s,” a digital collection from Dickinson College and Millersville University, has several important resources on the Harpers Ferry raid. James Redpath, a reporter who strongly supported abolitionists, published The Public Life of Capt. John Brown in April 1860. Redpath, who first met Brown in Kansas, “[became] an avid promoter of the John Brown legend” as historian David Reynolds explains. (He also published Echoes of Harpers Ferry in 1860, which you can find on Google Books). Franklin B. Sanborn was one of the “secret six,” who provided Brown with financial assistance during the 1850s, and he published The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas, and Martyr of Virginia in 1885. Also available is abolitionist Richard J. Hinton’s John Brown and His Men; With Some Account of the Roads Traveled to Reach Harper’s Ferry (1894). Hinton met Brown in Kansas when he became involved in the fight against slavery.

The Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection at Cornell University also has material on Brown’s raid, including Osborne P. Anderson’s account – Voice from Harper’s Ferry (1861). Anderson, who was born to a free black family in Pennsylvania and attended Oberlin College, was the only African American who was not captured during the attack. The site also includes other biographies and several sermons (George Cheever – Nov. 6, 1859; James Clarke – Nov. 6, 1859; John Gregory – Dec. 4, 1859; Nathaniel Colver – Dec. 11, 1859).

You can also learn more about some of these authors on the People tab of the Harpers Ferry major topic in House Divided.

The Smithsonian recently published “John Brown’s Day of Reckoning,” an interesting article by Fergus Bordewich that discusses Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry. While the raid took place 150 years ago, Bordewich observes that Brown “remains one of the most emotive touchstones of our racial history.” In addition, both the attack and Brown’s execution in early December 1859 greatly increased sectional tensions and pushed the country closer to war.  “After [Harpers Ferry] the chasm [between the North and the South] appeared unbridgeable,” as Bordewich explains. While Brown did not free any slaves, Bordewich argues that his actions created the political conditions that gave Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to win the 1860 election.