Slave Power - Threat To Republicanism

Threat To Republicanism

The problem posed by slavery, it was argued by opponents of the Slave Power, was not so much the mistreatment of slaves (a theme that abolitionists emphasized), but rather the political threat to American republicanism, and more generally to American standards of liberty. The Free Soil Party first raised this warning in 1848, arguing that the annexation of Texas as a slave state was a terrible mistake. Their strong rhetoric became a central theme in the new anti-slavery Republican Party, especially in the election of 1856.

The Republican argument was that slavery was economically inefficient, compared to free labor, and was a deterrent to the long-term progress of America. Worse, said the Republicans, the Slave Power was systematically seizing control of the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. Senator and governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was an articulate enemy of the Slave Power, as was Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Republican party leader Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The southerners replied that they were committed to democracy and republicanism, and that assaults on their "peculiar institution" (slavery) was an illegitimate effort to make them second class citizens.

From the point of view of many Northerners, the supposedly definitive Compromise of 1850 was followed by a series of maneuvers (such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott decision, etc.) in which the North gave up previously-agreed gains without receiving anything in return, accompanied by ever-escalating and more extreme Southern demands. Many northerners who had no particular concern for blacks concluded that slavery was not worth preserving if its protection required destroying or seriously compromising democracy among whites.