Political and Economic Conditions of NC in 1860

Slavery had become an accepted way of life for most southern states by the 1850s. In North Carolina particularly, cotton and tobacco farmers used slave labor during planting and harvest. Managers of commerce, mining and other businesses also utilized slaves for heavy and dangerous work. All of these slave owners became nervous after the election of President James Polk in 1845. During conversations involving the annexation of Texas, Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed the Wilmot Proviso, which required states annexed to the country after 1845 to be territories without slavery. Many of the southern slave states demanded a compromise.

In 1850, President Filmore gave the South its compromise by maintaining slavery in the District of Columbia and making punishment of fugitive slaves more severe. Although the compromise conceded to slave owners, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi began conspiring to leave the Union. North Carolinians did not join this conspiracy, because the Union provided them a certain amount of security they could not get on their own.

The birth of the Republican Party in 1856 made all North Carolinians nervous, as the party promised that states added to the Union would be free states. Democrat James Buchanan's victory in the first Democrat-Whig-Republican contest quelled some of their fears until Kansas was admitted as a free state.

The slave revolt of October 16, 1859 at Harpers Ferry ignited a new controversy. John Brown, the leader of the revolt, and his followers were quickly overcome by Colonel Robert E. Lee's army, and Brown was eventually executed. Antislavery proponents in the North used this incident to grow support for the Republican Party.

The Road to Secession >>

Sources:
Harris, William C. North Carolina and the Coming of the Civil War. Raleigh: NC Dept of Cultural Resources, 1988.>

Bradley, Mark L. This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place. Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 2000.