What Caused the Civil War? | Politics

Summary

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American History Hit

Episode: What Caused the Civil War? | Politics

Host: Don Wildman
Guest: Brian Newman, Managing Director, John L. Now III Center for Civil War History, University of Virginia
Date: September 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the highly charged political landscape of the United States in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Don Wildman and guest historian Brian Newman explore how violent political culture, party dynamics, personal rivalries, and failed leadership laid the groundwork for secession and war. Famous incidents in Congress, the role of "frat house" politics, and the failure of presidents to address the slavery crisis are discussed in depth, illuminating the complex web of causes behind the nation's greatest conflict.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Symbolism and Reality of Washington, D.C. (02:31–07:32)

• The Aspirational Capital: Early Washington, D.C. was designed as a "city of magnificent intentions" (05:15), but remained unfinished, muddy, and chaotic, with livestock in the streets and rudimentary infrastructure.
• Symbol of Union: Despite its state, the Capitol carried immense symbolic value, especially for Northerners.
• Violence Embedded: The city, like the nation, was violent—riots (especially around elections), ethnic and racial strife, and mob attacks against abolitionists and minorities were common.

“All of that was going to take a really long time to build. And so for much of the antebellum era, the streets are dirt... Geese and cows and pigs wander the streets.”
— Brian Newman (05:15)

• Contradictions: The Capitol’s "higher purpose" as a center for reasoned debate clashed with the reality of continuous violence and disorder in the city and country.

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2. Early Party Politics and Violence in Congress (10:00–14:37)

• Parties as a Buffer: The first party system (Democratic-Republicans) gave way to Whigs vs. Democrats (the second party system), masking deeper North-South tensions for a while.
• Rivalry Turned Deadly: Notable incidents, such as the 1838 duel between Jonathan Cilley (Democrat, Maine) and William Graves (Whig, Kentucky), underscored how partisan identity, rather than sectionalism, initially drove conflict.

“Dueling was illegal in Washington, D.C., so they traveled right outside the city into Maryland... on the third attempt, Jonathan Cilley is hit and bleeds out on a dueling ground and dies.”
— Brian Newman (12:16)

• Shift Toward Sectionalism: Partisanship paradoxically kept the country together, but as slavery dominated politics, parties fractured along regional lines.
• Violence as Escalation: Repeated violent incidents in Congress and on the streets reflected (and fueled) deep social and political instability.

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3. Sectional Crisis and the Sumner-Brooks Caning (14:37–21:18)

• Bleeding Kansas and Congressional Mayhem: The expansion of slavery into new territories, especially after the Mexican-American War, made compromise impossible.
• The Caning of Charles Sumner (1856): Sumner’s anti-slavery speech provoked Congressman Preston Brooks to beat him unconscious with a cane on the Senate floor, a deliberate and widely publicized act.

“Brooks’s response was he was going to cane Sumner. And caning was what you would do to an inferior… Brooks goes into the Senate chamber... proceeds to beat him brutally over the head again and again.”
— Brian Newman (17:53)

• Aftermath: Brooks was lionized in the South (receiving new canes as gifts, including one with a "cracked skull" head from UVA students), while Northerners saw the attack as symbolic of Southern violence.
• Tipping Point: The caning is recognized as a turning point, signaling that political differences could no longer be resolved peaceably.

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4. Congressional Culture: "Frat House" Politics and Sectional Cliques (24:54–30:31)

• Close Quarters, Rising Tensions: Representatives lived in “messes” (boarding houses), socializing—often heavily drinking—in close proximity, even across party and sectional lines.
• Friendships Delayed Showdowns: Personal bonds sometimes softened or delayed political confrontation, but also increased emotional stakes and, at times, sharpened conflicts.

“So the amount of alcohol people drank back then is truly staggering… In many cases congressmen were drunk, and these debates that stretched on into the evenings would get rowdier and rowdier.”
— Brian Newman (26:12)

• The F Street Mess: A powerful, all-Southern boarding house cohort shaped the Kansas-Nebraska Act, pressuring Stephen Douglas to explicitly repeal the Missouri Compromise and allow slavery in western territories.
• Bleeding Kansas: The outcome of such legislative maneuvering was all-out violence in Kansas, serving as a precursor to civil war.

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5. Presidential Failures: Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan (33:09–37:33)

• Motivation to Preserve the Union: Each president sought to "remove slavery from politics" in hopes of saving the union, misunderstanding the issue’s moral urgency.
• Complicity and Weakness: Their compromises and inaction (especially Buchanan’s) failed to contain the crisis and in some cases encouraged secession.

“Buchanan... influences the Dred Scott decision… He also totally bungles the Kansas issue... when the Southern states start to secede… [he] does very little.”
— Brian Newman (35:18)

• Doe Faces: Pierce exemplifies the “Northern men with Southern principles,” prioritizing union over justice and making key concessions (enforcing the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a "test of party loyalty").

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6. Attempts at Compromise and Inevitable War (37:33–40:16)

• Final Efforts: As secession loomed, desperate attempts (e.g., "the original 13th Amendment") sought to reassure the South by making the federal government powerless to abolish slavery in slave states.
• Denial and Defensiveness: Former presidents, especially Buchanan, never accepted blame for failure, insisting they had acted rightly.
• Inexorable Reckoning: A true solution would have required facing slavery as a profound moral evil—something the system and its leaders were unable or unwilling to do.

“From the very beginning of this country, slavery was the real issue dividing the states… Personally, I think that some kind of reckoning over slavery was probably inevitable.”
— Brian Newman (39:08)

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7. Modern Parallels and Final Takeaways (40:57–42:16)

• Sectionalism vs. Today’s Divides: The Civil War was possible because the main issue (slavery) was both a moral crisis and clearly sectional, unlike today’s party-based, non-geographical divides.
• Lessons for Today: While contemporary paralysis and gridlock are dangerous, the episode underscores that the Civil War was triggered by a “line in the sand”—an issue too urgent and abhorrent to compromise.

“When we were a much younger nation, it took that issue of slavery to bring on that Civil War, something so undeniably immoral and important… There was no way out of that dilemma.”
— Don Wildman (40:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the nature of political violence:
  “There were about 1200 riots or acts of group violence all over the country… directed at abolitionists, African Americans, Catholics, Mormons, immigrants. So it’s a really violent country.”
  — Brian Newman (08:04)

• On the Sumner caning’s symbolism:
  “For Northerners, this was symbolic of them being censored… they can no longer speak their minds on the halls of Congress because of Southern violence.”
  — Brian Newman (19:55)

• On the failure of presidential leadership:
  “Buchanan… says that secession is illegal, but he also says that he has no power to stop it.… doing nothing has to make him one of the very worst presidents we’ve ever had.”
  — Brian Newman (35:18)

• On modern implications:
  “It’s hard for me to imagine a civil war playing out anywhere close to… like it did then, because you don’t have those clear lines. You know, a state like Texas has tons of Democrats. A state like California has tons of Republicans.”
  — Brian Newman (41:34)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Washington, D.C. in the Antebellum Era — 02:31–07:32
• Rise and Role of Political Parties / Partisan Violence — 10:00–14:37
• Sectional Crisis & Sumner-Brooks Caning — 14:37–21:18
• Congressional Life & F Street Mess — 24:54–30:31
• Presidential Failures — 33:09–37:33
• Compromise, Accountability, and Inevitability of War — 37:33–40:16
• Civil War vs. Modern American Divisions — 40:57–42:16

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Conclusion

This episode vividly illustrates how the politics of the antebellum United States—rife with violence, personal animosity, sectional cliques, and moral myopia at the highest levels—set the stage for the Civil War. Through gripping stories and sharp analysis, Don Wildman and Brian Newman demonstrate that the conflict was neither sudden nor inexplicable but the result of systemic failure to confront the nation's original sin: slavery. The episode ends on a sober note, linking past divisions with current debates and reminding listeners of the unique convergence of factors that made civil war both possible and, perhaps, inevitable in the 1860s.

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Transcript

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[Don Wildman]

Charles Sumner from the state of Massachusetts sits at his desk in the Senate, his head bowed over papers. Sumner is no angel. His arrogance and condescension are well known to friends and foes alike. But no one deserves what's about to happen to him. With the chamber emptying, Representative Breaston Brooks from South Carolina strides in towards Sumner. In his hand, Brooks holds a heavy gold topped gutta percha cane. He brings it down on Sumner's head, drawing blood, stunning the man. Brooks strikes him again, over and over, dozens of blows, while Sumner tries to rise from his desk, blood streaming down his face. Brooks cane even breaks in his hand. But he keeps at it, beating the near senseless summer with the splintered ends. The year is 1856. Within what is supposed to be the greatest government on the face of the earth. What happened in Washington, D.C. for things to have spiraled so drastically out of control? How did the very politics of the federal government drive the nation apart, even as so many politicians struggled to hold it together? Good day all. Happy you're here. I'm Don Wildman. Thanks for punching us up. At a summer party a few nights ago, I landed in a troubled conversation about American politics. Both of us had much to say. Everyone does these days. For better or worse. This podcast series affords me the impulse to offer up perspective. Well, in so many ways. I said we've been here before. Now, that may not be entirely accurate. For one thing, digital technology has profoundly altered American life. But a politically divided America? Nothing new. And prime evidence of this can be found in the raucous and radical brand of Washington politics in the years leading up to Civil War. Some crazy events which we'll explore today with Brian Newman, managing director of the John L. Now III center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia, author of Bloody Flag of Unionism in South Carolina. Brian, hello. You've been with us before. Nice to see you again.

[Brian Newman]

It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me back on.

[Don Wildman]

Now, we're going to be talking about congressional and presidential politics, but let's first describe the seat of power. First half of the 19th century. What's it like to be living and working in Washington, D.C. as we move into, say, the 1830s? Are we in Pierre L' Enfant's dream of a. Of an American capital?

[Brian Newman]

Yeah, great question. Well, someone in the antebellum era called Washington, D.C. the city of magnificent intentions. You know, that the plan for the city is this beautiful grid pattern, you know, broad avenues, public parks, monuments. But all of that was going to take a really long time to build. And so for much of the antebellum era, the streets are dirt and Depending on the season, they either choke you with dust or turn into mud quagmires that make it hard to walk. There are broad open spaces. Geese and cows and pigs wander the streets. So in some ways the day to day experience is unpleasant. But the thing that's really striking is the government buildings, especially the Capitol building, the sort of anchor. It was this immense domed structure that was open to the public, full of statues and patriotic artwork. And people went there and they viewed the Capitol and D.C. itself as a symbol of the American union.

[Don Wildman]

It's a phenomenon, isn't it? These people, America had a view of the Capitol that wasn't really reflected in the actuality of the Capitol. I mean, this is supposed to be l', enfants, you know, picture of democracy, that legislators are going to walk around this mall and discuss the great issues before them. We are entering into time when it's going to be anything but civil to discuss anything in Washington D.C. much less with pigs running around between your legs. It is a brutal swamp, isn't it? I mean, that's what, that's the swamp we refer to today.

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely, yeah. And when visitors from Europe would come to see the capital of the United States, they wrote back, what is this place? This is the capital of this grand new nation. So it definitely is, you know, magnificent intentions. Really sums it up nicely.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly. It's a very symbolic place for Americans, especially Northerners, who choose to see their government as more perfect than any other on earth. I mean, this is the promised land, isn't it?

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. So during the antebellum era, north and south, people really saw DC as the place that belonged to all Americans. People from all over the country gathered together to debate and, you know, jumping ahead a little bit, one of the things that really strikes me when you read letters from Civil War soldiers, Union soldiers coming to the Capitol, they were in awe of being able to see the White House, the Capitol Building, Washington Monument. You can really reading the letters, you can really see how much the city meant to them.

[Don Wildman]

Yes, it's interesting. We don't really talk about. We've never done a show on Washington D.C. itself, but that's the idea of it was that this nation creates its own special capital that's apart from all the states and therefore can be managed, basically. But that's what happens in Brazil later on. A lot of. A lot of countries follow suit based on the Washington D.C. ideal. It was George Washington who stated in his farewell address, September 1796, that political parties would lead to division and factionalism in 1830. That's where we are, aren't we?

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. D.C. and the country as a whole is a really violent place. So, first of all, to set the stage, we've got to remember just how violent this country was between 1830 and 1860. One historian estimated that there were about 1200 riots or acts of group violence all over the country. Violence directed at abolitionists or African Americans, against Catholics, against Mormons, against immigrants. So it's a really violent country. And that violence is really reflected in Washington, D.C. throughout the antebellum era. There are dozens of incidents of violence in the halls of Congress or immediately outside of Congress.

[Don Wildman]

And rioting, of course, in the cities.

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. Yeah. Especially around election Day and cities like Baltimore, Election day riots were a common occurrence as people from both parties attacked their political opponents to keep them from voting.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, it's kind of hard for people to understand this these days, because there's not a large population in this country. It's. And it's limited in its geography even for a period there. And yet so much is happening that is really gnarly. You know, out west, you have the Mormons who are getting all kinds of pushback from wherever they are, and downright massacres happening and the government opposed to them. A big factor these days is the establishment of urban America, you know, these factories and so forth that are becoming lands of immigration, you know, and all these places are happening, and. And there's tremendous racism and prejudice that's fueling these riots and these pushbacks. This is what the political culture is reflecting in Washington, D.C. right?

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. Yeah. So you've got all these people gathering together in cities, which even then it's like very anonymous places where you might not know a lot of your neighbors. You mix all these people from all over the country and all of the world together, and it's sort of ripe for tension.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, I guess we're just trying to establish here the contradiction that is so important to understand as we're leading up to the Civil War, that this antebellum pyramid is nothing easy going like this isn't, you know, green fields and everybody doing their little agricultural things. No, there's tremendous social change happening in the country, tremendous cultural havoc as new people are coming from other countries. Never mind slavery, never mind all the controversies be around that. We're heading towards Kansas and all the rest of it. But I want to really understand what I've already raised, which is this notion of the political parties, and it deserves a little backup. Here we had what was called the era of Good feelings, which was basically the dominance of one party, the Democratic Republicans, that were started by Jefferson. This was called the first party system. Then the Democratic Republicans evolve into what's called the Democrats under Andrew Jackson, the Jacksonian Democrats, and they are opposed by the Whig party, which is John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster. This all gives rise to my point in bringing this up to the second party system, Democrats versus Whigs, which lasts into the 1850s. So in the 1830s, this beginning of this antebellum period, or at least the middle of it, this is when we're talking about these political parties really figuring themselves out basically to the point that we're at now, which is there's two dominant parties. All of this was happening against this backdrop of violence and cultural, you know, confusion, you know, that's going on, and real problems in the city and so forth. It's an amazing time to understand what we're about, to talk about these partisan lines that we've created here, which is becomes Democrat and Republican. But we're at this point, Whig versus Democrats are expressed in the 1838 duel between Jonathan Cilley, who was a Democrat from Maine, and William Graves, a Whig from Kentucky. Can you take me through this event?

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. So it's a fascinating incident. So, first of all, the sort of major political issues of the day were largely economic. So federal funding for infrastructure, banking policies, tariffs, and that's what this duel sort of had at its heart. They were debating the bank of the United States in 1838, and Jonathan Cilley, a Democrat from Maine, in the process of debate, insulted a prominent Whig editor and accused him of corruption. In response, Congressman William Graves, a Whig of Kentucky, sort of rose to the editor's defense, and tensions escalated, things got personal, and Graves challenged Cilley to a duel. And dueling was illegal in Washington, D.C. so they traveled right outside the city into Maryland. The weapon of choice was rifles, and it's absolutely crazy. So they, you know, they walk their paces, they face each other, they fire the first shot, they misses. And so they decide they're going to take a couple of steps closer, fire again. Both shots miss. Finally, on the third attempt, Jonathan Cilley is hit and bleeds out on a dueling ground and dies. And the response, Graves defends himself. He was saying, well, he had to fight this duel to defend his honor as a man in this sort of violent political culture. And there was an attempt. And, you know, Congress launched an investigation into the incident, but ultimately Graves faced no punishment. Congress did the following year, however, pass a law that would make it illegal to issue or accept a challenge in D.C. so some progress came out of this. But this incident just really shows you one, how violent all of this was. But it also shows you that the fault lines early on in the 1830s, 1840s, were along partisan lines, along the lines of Whigs versus Democrats, rather than along north south sort of sectional lines.

[Don Wildman]

Exactly. That's the continuum we're on at this point is when does it shift into a North versus south thing? And it's kind of fascinating to follow that line and figure it out. But as you say early on, earlier on, it's really about issues such as federal versus state issues, which is what so much of the Jacksonian period was about. Still is.

[Brian Newman]

It's important to note that for a while, partisanship actually serves to hold the country together in a kind of paradoxical way. So that the Democrats and the Whigs both have supporters in the north and the South. And so as long as the country is sort of divided along those lines, along the lines of banks and tariffs and infrastructure, then it's not divided along north south lines. So in a weird way, the really passionate tensions between the Whigs and the Democrats serve as a, as a buffer against some of those tensions over slavery. Because if you're a, if you're the Whig Party, you can't adopt a national platform condemning slavery because you've got a lot of supporters in the south that are going to leave the party en masse.

[Don Wildman]

Yes, right. By the mid-1850s, the second party system. And to remind you, it's the Whigs versus Democrats. We're not at the Republicans yet. It is collapsing because of the issue of slavery. Essentially. 1850s is when really things get focused on slavery as the divisive issue. Of course, it's been going on, you know, as an abolitionist cause for a long time, but this is when it really hits Washington. It's quite complicated. As we approach the election of 1856, this is when James Buchanan is elected. And part of it is the new American reality that lands acquired after the Mexican American War are now opening up this westward expansion. And tremendous opportunity is there for everyone. Never mind the cotton farmers who would like new soil. So Kansas is bleeding. Slavery at state politics start getting brutal. And again, there is a famous violent episode in Congress when violence comes to the floor of the. Of the Congress itself. Caning of Charles Sumner. It's kind of unbelievable that this has ever happened and hasn't happened since in some way. Amazing. Let's take the listeners through this whole chronology.

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. So first of all, Charles Sumner was a Republican, and he was very, very strongly anti slavery. He was known as one of the radical Republicans, kind of the most progressive end of the party. And as Republicans start to get elected to Congress, tensions ratchet up because many Southerners see the Republican Party as an existential threat. Even though many Republicans emphasize that their goals were to stop the spread of slavery, Southerners feared outright abolition and racial warfare. And so tensions were already really high around Republicans being in Congress. And the sort of inspiring incident for the caning of Charles Sumner was tensions out in Kansas. So settlers are streaming into Kansas debating whether the territory would become a free state or a slave state. It seemed pretty clear that most of the legitimate residents of Kansas supported a sort of free soil constitution. But there was a lot of voter fraud where pro slavery residents would stream in to try to shape the destiny of the territory. And Charles Sumner delivers a speech called the Crime against Kansas in 1856, calling out Southerners for their violence, for their voter fraud. And this is already sort of incendiary enough for Southerners. But in the course of the speech, Sumner mocks a South Carolina senator who had suffered a stroke recently and therefore had a bit of a speech impediment. And one of this senator's cousins, Congressman Preston Brooks, heard the speech and was enraged. He sort of viewed this as insult to not only the south, but to his own family honor. And what I find really interesting is how deliberate what happens next is Preston Brooks reads the speech. He waits two days. He goes into the Senate chamber, he waits for the galleries to clear, and he in particular waits for all the women to leave the galleries. So this is not a heat of the moment thing. This is a very deliberate action. Now, Preston Brooks, had he been deciding how he was going to retaliate, he considered a duel. But the thing about duels is you duel someone who has honor and someone who is your social equal. In Preston Brooks eyes, Sumner was not his equal and had no honor. And so Brooks's response was he was going to cane Sumner. And caning was this what you would do to an inferior? It was a sort of assertion of your dominance and the other person's humiliation. And so Brooks goes into the Senate chamber, goes up to Sumner, who is writing at his desk, and gets Sumner's attention and proceeds to beat him brutally over the head again and again. While this is going on, another South Carolina congressman pulled out pistol to sort of hold the rest of the senators at bay to make sure that nobody else intervened. Sumner finally manages to stagger away and ends up spending the next three years recovering from this assault.

[Don Wildman]

Brooks decides not to kill him. He says out loud, right?

[Brian Newman]

Yes. So he sort of decides that while he's punished him enough, Brooks's cane is literally shattered in this attack. And the aftermath is fascinating as well. So Congress launches an investigation, debates expelling him, but ultimately the vote to expel him fails. Brooks, as a sort of matter of principle, resigns his seat and his constituents overwhelmingly reelect him. Sort of statement of how much they support his actions. And this really shows you how the fault lines are now breaking down along north south lines. Northerners overwhelmingly condemn the assault. This is what Southern, quote, unquote, honor looks like. They insist this sort of mockery of honor. Whereas Southerners, a lot of Southerners cheer Preston Brooks. And in fact, meetings across the south raise money to buy him new canes. At the University of Virginia, where I am now, the UVA students buy him a new cane. And the head of the cane was shaped like a cracked skull.

[Don Wildman]

Wow. So, Brian, we've covered these two, I mean, very notorious events between Cillian Graves and Sumner and Brooks, do they mark a progression towards war? I mean, are they stepping things up here, or is violence sort of happening as it always has?

[Brian Newman]

I really think they do. So in 1838, this duel between Graves and Scilly, a lot of the outcry around it is focused on the method, so the dueling itself. In Northern states in particular, there are meetings about the barbaric practice of dueling and how we've got to ban it. And that's part of why Congress votes to make it illegal to issue or accept a challenge. In D.C. the debate really is not about north south sectional tensions in 1838, whereas in 1856 it absolutely is. So some of the outcry in the north is about the brutality of what Preston Brooks has done, but it's much more sort of focused on, well, this is what the south is like, that Preston Brooks did this because all Southerners are violent, that they view Charles Sumner as someone who was engaged in. In a rational debate on the floor of Congress, and the Southern response is to brutally attack him. And for Northerners, this was symbolic of them being censored. You know, they can no longer speak their minds on the halls of Congress because of sort of Southern violence. And so I really do think that show the different responses to those two incidents show how this sort of reorientation of violence and show how the country has marched so much closer to Civil war by the mid-1850s that caning really.

[Don Wildman]

Does trigger everything, doesn't it? I mean, or at least in the media, I suppose. And then it joins up with all of the momentum of abolition and so forth. It's an extraordinarily important event.

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely.

[Don Wildman]

All right, Brian, let's cool down for a short break. When we return, we'll be looking at how the frat house backroom socializing in Washington was in part responsible for the Civil War.

[Brian Newman]

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[Don Wildman]

We'Re back with Brian Newman. Now, Brian, if violence was one problem, it goes hand in hand with a chumminess and overly close friendships which were not always in the best interest of the country at large. Give us a sense of how members of Congress were living, I mean, literally physically living, and the social aspect of Washington politics which affected events.

[Brian Newman]

Sure. So these guys all lived in very close proximity. One important thing to note is many congressmen and senators, wives and children stayed home. And so elite, you know, political DC Was overwhelmingly male. And a lot of these men lived together in hotels or boarding houses called messes. And so they're all living in close proximity. And interestingly, in many cases, they're living in boarding houses with members from the other part of the country. So northerners are living with Southerners. They're also interacting a lot on sort of day to day. They're attending church together. They are part of the same clubs and organizations, you know, the board of the Smithsonian Institute, the Bible Society, the Agricultural Society. So these are all guys who are living together and attending all these social functions together and drinking a lot.

[Don Wildman]

Yes, on top of it. I mean, everybody was drinking a lot in those days because the water was bad. But this was for different reasons. It was really like a frat house, wasn't it?

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. So the amount of alcohol people drank back then is truly staggering. And there were restaurants inside of the Capitol Building that sold alcohol to congressmen. And so we sometimes imagine these austere, serious debates. And there were some of those, but in many cases congressmen were drunk and these debates that stretched on into the evenings would get rowdier and rowdier as time went on.

[Don Wildman]

It's a little counterintuitive because you'd think that if people were hanging out so much and living with each other, sometimes from the other side, they would work things out. But in some strange way, that did not happen at all. I mean, William Seward is a pillar of the Republican Party. He has a lot of friends in the Southern bloc, doesn't he?

[Brian Newman]

He really does. And even Jefferson Davis, who becomes the president of the Confederacy, considers Seward a close friend. Seward has this reputation for radicalism, but on the ground, he was a very social guy who liked a lot of Southerners, and a lot of Southerners liked him. And I think he's really indicative of these relationships. And, you know, so it does seem a bit paradoxical. So, first of all, not every Congressman is violent. You know, there were certain members that were sort of doing the majority of the violent acts. But also, in some ways, the proximity breeds tension. Anyone who has siblings knows you sort of argue endlessly with your siblings, and you can imagine that added to the tensions of political crisis.

[Don Wildman]

And I suppose it works out that those friendships kind of delay taking firm positions on things because you don't want to offend your friend. You're having drinks with them tomorrow night or whatever, or you live with them, or you sleep in the same room with a guy. In this case, they were alliances that were not necessarily conducive to political process, necessarily, I suppose, and ultimately hardening. Very. On an emotional level. When we finally get sectional about this, it's an antebellum version of siloing, isn't it? It's kind of like everybody moving to their little camps, but in this case, it's their little frat houses, and they're hanging out places, working things out in not the best way. There's something called the F Street mess was a total surprise to me. I'd never read about it, never heard about it before. Researching for this. This conversation, it is a perfect example of how D.C. political culture drove divisive political decision making. The F Street mess, define that for me.

[Brian Newman]

Sure. So the F Street mess. Mess, sort of meaning boarding house. So a boarding house on F Street. And several prominent congressmen lived here. And what made the F Street Mess sort of unique was that all the members were from the south, and they were all really prominent guys. You've got the President pro Tem of the Senate, you've got the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Finance Committee. So the people in this boarding house have a lot of power in Congress. And where this sort of intersects with sort of Road to civil war is with the creation of the Kansas Nebraska Act. So to set the stage a little bit there, the country is, you know, sort of starting to move west. And Senator Stephen Douglas in particular wants to organize the territory west of Missouri. This was territory that had been set aside to be free soil by the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. But this is a problem because Southerners have a vested interest in not organizing the territory because if you organize it, you're going to lead to the creation of more free states. And so you can imagine this powerful block of congressmen at F Street. They don't want to organize this territory unless they get considerable concessions. And so at first, Stephen Douglas tries to finesse the issue. He sort of introduces a bill that would let the settlers on the ground decide the future of slavery when the territory applies for statehood. His idea of popular sovereignty let the settlers decide. But a lot of Southern politicians, especially these guys at the F Street mess, think that this does not go far enough. They want an explicit repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in other words. So Southerners have the explicit right to bring their enslaved people into the territory. They meet with Douglass. They pressure him. Douglas ultimately recognizes that this is the price to pay to get this done. And so he agrees to it. And they convince President Franklin Pierce to go along with it as well. So here we can see how these boarding houses and these living arrangements shaped the course of legislation.

[Don Wildman]

It leads directly to bleeding Kansas, doesn't it? I mean, this is a preview of the Civil War. Bleeding Kansas. For anyone who doesn't know, 1854-1859 is this long series of struggles that basically set the stage for the Civil War. Within the borders of Kansas, there's two governments. The whole thing happens. They sort of secede from each other and then the violence occurs. Even John Brown comes out and is part of a massacre there. I mean, real blood is spilled. It would be the indirect consequence of exactly what you're saying. This frat house mentality, this culture. It sounds like it's a lack of accountability because they're just taking care of this problem themselves and aren't answering to any kind of media, I suppose is there. But it's such a closed system, I suppose is what we're talking about. So let's take another break. When we come back, we'll look at how much the Civil War is the fateful consequence of a series of worst ever presidents. They're unbelievable.

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[Don Wildman]

And we're back. You can't pave the road to the Civil War without addressing presidents in power and how poor leadership at the top helped drag the nation straight to the bottom. We're mainly talking about Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan. They are all driven by a noble desire, which is to keep this union together. But they do it in ways that are not effective. In what way, Brian?

[Brian Newman]

So I'm so glad you started there, because that is crucial to remember is that all of these guys are trying to save the union. That really is their highest priority. We can't lose s of that. So what they're all trying to do in their own ways is to remove this issue of slavery. Everyone recognizes how divisive the issue of slavery is. If anything is going to tear the country apart, it is slavery. And so for Fillmore, for Pierce, for Buchanan, if they can just get this issue of slavery out of politics, you can really create harmony. And a great example to sort of think about is other political issues. So imagine the issue of infrastructure. This was again, a major issue that had divided the Whig Party and the Democratic party in the 1830s and 1840s. By the 1850s, the issue has pretty much disappeared from really tense debates. I mean, Democrats like Stephen Douglas support infrastructure. And so I think Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan are trying to do the same thing with the slavery issue, is to find some common ground that everyone can agree to and then just sort of agree to disagree about the sort of messy edges. The problem is that only works if you don't see slavery as a moral issue and if you don't care about the fate of African Americans.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. The problem is it's slavery.

[Brian Newman]

Yeah.

[Don Wildman]

I mean, it's different than infrastructure.

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely.

[Don Wildman]

Who's the worst of these three, in your opinion?

[Brian Newman]

Well, they. They're all bad. And I'm certainly not here to defend their reputations. But for me, I would say James Buchanan. And the reason for that. So what? One thing that Fillmore has going for him is he helps get The Compromise of 1850 passed, which sort of buys the country an extra 10 years, which is a major accomplishment. And Franklin Pierce also has some important political wins. The Gadsden Purchase, a piece of territory in the Southwest, comes in under his administration. He gets trade deals with Japan and England done. So there are some really positive accomplishments you can point to. But, boy, with Buchanan, it's really hard to find some positive accomplishments. I mean, Buchanan, it seems pretty clear that he influences the Dred Scott decision and sort of pushes Supreme Court justices to make a sort of broader decision that will say that African Americans do not have citizenship in this country. He also totally bungles the Kansas issue. He supports Kansas coming in as a slave state, even though it's clear that the majority of actual settlers oppose it. And then, most importantly of all, when the Southern states start to secede after Abraham Lincoln's election, Buchanan sort of sits back and does very little. I mean, he says that secession is illegal, but he also says that he has no power to stop it. And on the one hand, it's hard to know for sure what would have happened if he had taken a more decisive stand. But certainly doing nothing has to make him one of the very worst presidents we've ever had.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah, well, I agree with you, and so does C Span. There's frequent polls that put Buchanan at the bottom. But Pierce is bad, too. I mean, Pierce comes in with this extraordinarily tragic beginning to his presidency, this train accident where he loses his son. Oh, my God. But what's so interesting to me about Pierce is he's so Northern. Like, he's a. He's a New Hampshire guy, you know, he's got no skin in this game as far as being a border kind of state. I mean, Buchanan, in his defense, perhaps. I don't know. Pennsylvania is down there. It's sort of down closer to the south. So maybe he had more of a vested interest, but Pierce is way up there. It's really weird.

[Brian Newman]

No, absolutely. I mean, Pierce is a classic example of what people have called doe faces. So that's Northern politicians with Southern principles. And again, a small piece of this, again, you've got to remember he's trying to save the Union. And so he sort of sees making concessions to the south as the price to pay to save the Union. But it also just shows you that, yeah, he's willing to compromise on these really important moral issues like slavery in order to get this done. The Kansas Nebraska act, which happens, you know, he supports the Kansas Nebraska act, and he makes it a test of party loyalty. You know, in other words, if you are a Democrat, you have to support the Kansas Nebraska Act. That's a major step in the road to civil war.

[Don Wildman]

So, Brian, as Civil war breaks out, how do the politicians account for themselves? I mean, do they take that responsibility?

[Brian Newman]

So, first of all, during the secession crisis, Congressmen and other prominent politicians are scrambling to try to come up with another compromise. And there's. There's a lot of hope that they will. There are several efforts, both within Congress and without. There's a sort of peace conference that forms in D.C. they're really trying to figure this out. And in fact, they propose what would have been the original 13th Amendment, which said that Congress had no power to ban slavery in the states where it already existed. So they're trying to work this out. Ultimately, compromise fails. And I think what's interesting is a lot of those 1850s presidents, like James Buchanan, for the rest of his life, he fiercely defends his reputation. He said, I was in the right. I was trying to steer this country in a way that would save the Union. And if it weren't for these Republicans raising the issue of slavery, none of this would have happened. So I think for people like Buchanan, like Pierce, they sort of don't take accountability. And I think for a lot of Southern politicians, sort of after the fact, again, they too, they see themselves as acting in the right. Some of them are, of course, remorseful for what it's done to their homes and to the institution of slavery. But again, they sort of see it as, well, we were fighting for the right in their minds.

[Don Wildman]

Maybe these guys just weren't up to the task? Could it be that. That we didn't have politicians that really could figure this stuff out until, you know, until the rubber really meets the road under the circumstances of the war, I mean, or was it the system that just didn't allow them to act more decisively?

[Brian Newman]

You know, I think it's a little of both, which I know is not the best answer, but. So, first of all, from the very beginning of this country, slavery was sort of the divisive issue, you know, as the delegates at the Constitutional Convention made the comment that the real issue dividing the states was slavery. And so it's there from the very beginning. And all these compromises, the Missouri Compromise, the nullification crisis, even the Compromise of 1850, all of these major crises sort of have slavery at their root. So this was this major source of tension that the country had to grapple with. And personally, I think that some kind of reckoning over slavery was probably inevitable. Did it have to happen in 1860? Perhaps not. But to use Lincoln's phrase, I don't think the country could have lived forever half slave and half free. And so, to a certain extent, these politicians were dealt a losing hand. They're coming to power in a time when tensions are already ratcheting up, and then they make a series of decisions that go really poorly. So I. I don't know that there's anything they could have done to permanently solve this issue, but I will say that their actions made it more likely that Civil War would come.

[Don Wildman]

When it did, I never knew. I never understood why they couldn't sit back, these guys. I'm glad they didn't, because this needed to be dealt with. But the Missouri Compromise gave them a kind of model for how they could have continued this. The difference, as we've said over and over again, and why all these deniers of why. Why does the Civil War happen? Because it's because of slavery. You know, if it hadn't been because of slavery, they would have found some way to compromise. They would have avoided war. It was the fact that this was a morally abhorrent situation in this country, and nobody could deny that. So that's really what triggers the whole thing in the end and leads to the split of the Whigs and, you know, the whole creation of the Republican Party comes out of that fact.

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely.

[Don Wildman]

You know, Brian, there's so much talk these days, my party chat at the top of the show about whether we're divided, you know, as a country and we may go to war. People even say in passing these days, it's really important to underscore that when we were a much younger nation, it took that issue of slavery to bring on that Civil war, something so undeniably immoral and important. As we said, that was ultimately no way. There was no way out of that dilemma. People had to make the choice in the end. And of course, it led to war. Today we have a different kind of thing. We have paralysis. We have constitutional crisis, but we don't have such an absolute line in the sand. Or do we? What do you think?

[Brian Newman]

Well, that's a really complicated issue. I will say one thing, that the fact that the major issue of the day in 1860 was so clearly sectional, there is a north south divide, and there's some nuance there. There are Southern unionists, for example. But the fact there's such a clear divide, I think makes it different from today, where you've got Democrats and Republicans in. In every state. And so it's. It's sort of hard for me to imagine a civil war playing out anywhere close to, you know, like it did then, because you don't have those. Those clear lines. You know, a state like Texas has tons of Democrats. A state like California has tons of Republicans. So it's, you know, I think it's a very different system. And like you said, too, I think the. The political climate is. Is very different as well.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. I mean, in the end, the wives showed up. That's what happened. They realized, oh, my God, I'm going with you this time to be in Washington D.C. for good goodness sakes. And then they go and get the vote and everything changes. Anyway. Brian Newman is the managing director of the John L. Now III center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia and author of Bloody Flag of Unionism in South Carolina. I really want to do an episode about that issue because South Carolina is so amazing. I mean, we obviously, with sumter and everything else is important, but the culture of South Carolina drives the thing in so many ways, doesn't it?

[Brian Newman]

Absolutely. No, I think you definitely should. I'll make a plug for myself. I mean, I would love to come on and chat about it, but it's a fascinating state.

[Don Wildman]

Yeah. Thanks, Brian. Talk to you again.

[Brian Newman]

Great to see you.

[Don Wildman]

Hey, thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History hit with me. Don Wildman so grateful for your support.

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[Brian Newman]

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