PART TWO: PRE-WAR POLITICAL CAREER
1834--Abraham Lincoln wins election to the Mississippi State Legislature,
running as a National Republican. He will serve two consecutive terms in the
Mississippi State House of Representatives and one in the Mississippi State
Senate. Andrew Jackson is censured by Congress for defunding the Second Bank of
the United States.
1835--Andrew Jackson survives the first-ever assassination attempt made against
a President of the United States. After the assassin’s pistol misfires twice,
Jackson beats the man with his cane. The Texas Revolution begins as Texas
declares independence from Mexico. The Trail of Tears: The Cherokee tribe is
forced to cede its lands in Georgia and move west of the Mississippi River.
1836--The Texas Revolution continues. Battles of the Alamo, Goliad, and San
Jacinto. Birth of the Republic of Texas. The first convention of the American
Whig Party is held in New York. The Whigs are the former National Republicans,
united in their opposition to Andrew Jackson. Samuel Colt patents his first
revolver. The Specie Circular is issued as an executive order by President
Andrew Jackson. The order requires all payments for federal lands to be made in
gold or silver coin. He also refuses to renew the charter of the Second Bank of
the United States. These actions will contribute to a major financial crisis in
the following year. In the Presidential Election held this year. Democratic
candidate Martin Van Buren defeats Whig candidate William Henry Harrison.
1837--The Panic of 1837 begins. Hundreds of banks will close, and an economic
depression settles over the United States which will last until 1843. President
Van Buren is blamed for the catastrophe. Elijah Lovejoy, an Abolitionist
newspaper owner and editor, is killed by a mob in Illinois.
1838--Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrates the Telegraph, using Morse Code.
Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery in Maryland. Governor Lillburn Boggs
orders the expulsion of Mormons from the State of Missouri.
1839--Mississippi passes the first-ever State law allowing women to own
property. Charles Goodyear invents rubber vulcanization.
1840--Presidential election in the United States. Whig candidate William Henry
Harrison defeats Democrat Martin Van Buren. Abraham Lincoln, running as a Whig,
is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi, narrowly
defeating Democrat Jacob Thompson. He benefits from the landslide victory of
fellow Whig William Henry Harrison, riding Harrison’s coat-tails into
Congress.
1841--William Henry Harrison is inaugurated a President of the United States. He
dies one month later. He is succeeded by Vice President John Tyler. The AMISTAD
case is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which rules that the Africans who had
seized control of the ship had been bound into slavery illegally.
1842--Abraham Lincoln wins a second term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mexican troops under General Rafael Vasquez invade Texas and briefly seize San
Antonio. The Webster Ashburton Treaty establishes the border between the United
States and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, settling boundary disputes in
Maine and Minnesota.
1843--Abraham Lincoln, whose law practice has thrived and made him a somewhat
wealthy man, decides to branch out into plantation agriculture. He purchases a
farm, and ten slaves to work it. Over the years, he will expand his holdings
both in land and in slaves. Lincoln, like his father, is an ambivalent
slaveholder, and mentally wrestles with the morality of what he is doing. Like
Thomas Jefferson, however, he decides that his economic needs outweigh his moral
ambivalence about slavery as an institution. However, he does ensure that his
slaves are treated very well by the standards of the day. He believes that
slavery is a doomed institution, and that the slaves will be free in the near,
but undefined, future. He therefore educates the brightest of his slaves, and
allows his workers to govern their own affairs through democratic means. The
first large-scale wagon trains along the Oregon Trail begin.
1844--In congressional elections this year, Congressman Abraham Lincoln is
defeated by Democrat Jefferson Davis. A feud begins between the two men. Samuel
Morse sends the first telegraph message from Washington, D.C., to New York. In
the Presidential Election, Democrat James K. Polk defeats Whig candidate Henry
Clay. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, is murdered by a lynch mob in
Illinois.
1845--Abraham Lincoln writes a series of insulting letters to the local Whig
newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi harshly criticizing Democratic politician
Jefferson Davis, who recently defeated Lincoln to take his seat in Congress.
Davis takes offense, and challenges Lincoln to a duel. The two men meet in a
forest near Jackson on Christmas Eve, 1845. Lincoln, as the challenged party,
had the privilege of choosing the weapon, and chooses swords, thinking that his
long arms will give him an advantage in such a contest. However, Jefferson Davis
has had military training, whereas Lincoln has not, and he skillfully slashes
Lincoln’s right cheek with the tip of his sword, drawing first blood. At this,
Lincoln immediately surrenders and formally apologizes to Davis. He will later
retract his harsh words in in a very contrite letter written to the local
Democratic newspaper, and over time, Lincoln and Davis will become good friends.
Also in this year, James K. Polk is inaugurated as President of the United
States. The United States annexes the Republic of Texas. Texas is admitted into
the Union as the 28th State. Mexico breaks relations with the United States.
1846--A dispute over the location of the border between Texas and Mexico leads
to war between the United States and Mexico. Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de
Palma. At the outbreak of war with Mexico, Abraham Lincoln accepts commission as
Major of the Second Mississippi Infantry Regiment. He is frustrated that his
regiment is not called immediately for active service, however. Fellow
Mississippian Jefferson Davis is appointed Colonel of the First Mississippi
Regiment, which is assigned to the U.S. army under General Zachary Taylor. The
Oregon Treaty is signed with Great Britain, fixing the boundary of the United
States and Canada at the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Straits
of Juan de Fuca. The Republic of California secedes from Mexico. The Mormons are
forced to leave Nauvoo, Illinois after clashes over polygamy and other issues.
1847-The Mexican War continues. Battles of Monterrey, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz,
Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Mexico City. While fellow-Mississippian Jefferson
Davis is finding glory at the Battles of Monterey and Buena Vista, Abraham
Lincoln sits in camp near New Orleans, awaiting orders with the rest of the 2nd
Mississippi Regiment. Brigham Young leads an expedition of Mormons which settles
in the region around the Great Salt Lake, founding Salt Lake City.
1848--The Second Mississippi Regiment is finally sent to Mexico. It sees little
combat, and serves mainly as a garrison unit in Mexico City. The Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo finally ends the war. Mexico cedes huge western territories to
the United States. In this year’s Presidential Election, Whig Zachary Taylor
defeats Democrat Lewis Cass. Gold is discovered in California.
1848-1850--Abraham Lincoln, upon returning to Mississippi, skillfully uses his
military service to promote his political career, exaggerating both his own
achievements and those of his regiment. As a result, he positions himself for a
gubernatorial candidacy in 1850.
1849 onward--California Gold Rush.
1850--Abraham Lincoln runs for Governor of Mississippi, and wins, defeating
Democrat John A. Quitman. Quitman, frustrated at his defeat, accepts the offer
of Cuban revolutionary Narcisco Lopez to lead a filibustering expedition to
Cuba. The expedition fails, and Quitman is captured and executed.
1852--Abraham Lincoln, seeing that the Whig Party is becoming increasingly weak
and ineffectual, switches parties. Running as a Democrat, he wins election to
the U.S. Congress, defeating John D. Freeman.
1854--Stephen A. Douglas, Democratic Senator from Illinois, proposes the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. The bill embodies Douglas’s view that the status of
slavery in the territories should be decided by the people of the territories
themselves, a concept which becomes known as “popular sovereignty.” Douglas
argues that that soil and climate would make the territory unsuitable for
plantations, which last reassured his northern supporters it would remain free.
He defends his doctrine of popular sovereignty as a means of promoting democracy
and removing the slavery issue from national politics, lest it threaten to rip
the nation apart.
However, it will actually have exactly the opposite effect. Slavery supporters
and Free-Soilers will soon be engaged in competition for political domination in
Kansas, and this competition will quickly turn violent. Kansas is about to begin
bleeding, and the wound will eventually split the nation.
Abraham Lincoln, sensing the conflict which is about to erupt, declines to run
for a second term as a U.S. Congressman. Instead, he runs for the U.S. Senate
seat recently vacated by Walker Brooke, and through the influence of his friend
and fellow Senator Jefferson Davis, the State Legislature selects him for the
post.
1854-1860--As the Kansas crisis begins to tear the nation apart, Abraham Lincoln
becomes known as an eloquent defender of State’s Rights in the United States
Senate, nearly as well-known as his fellow-Mississippian, Jefferson Davis.
1856--Pro-slavery forces under Sheriff Samuel J. Jones burn the Free-State Hotel
and destroy two anti-slavery newspapers and other businesses in Lawrence,
Kansas. Three days later, the Pottowatomie Massacre occurs in Franklin County,
Kansas when followers of abolitionist John Brown kill five homesteaders,
ostensibly because of their pro-slavery views (in actuality, several of those
killed were slated to be witnesses in an upcoming trial of one of John Brown’s
sons, and the killings may have been motivated more by a desire to remove these
witnesses than by the pro-slavery views of the victims). South Carolina
Congressman Preston Brooks attacks Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the
hall of the U.S. Senate after Sumner gave a speech attacking Southern
sympathizers for the pro-slavery violence in Kansas. Sumner would take three
years to recover while Brooks was lionized throughout Southern states. In the
federal elections held this year, John C. Fremont, the first candidate for
president under the banner of the Republican Party, loses his bid for the
presidency to James C. Buchanan. Millard Fillmore, running on the American
Know-Nothing and Whig tickets was also defeated.
1857 - The United States Supreme Court rules in the Dred Scott decision, 6-3,
that a slave did not become free when transported into a free state. It also
ruled that slavery could not be banned by the U.S. Congress in a Territory held
by the Federal Government, and that blacks were not citizens of the United
States. James Buchanan is sworn into office as the 15th President of the United
States.
1858--With strife between pro-slavery and anti-slavery partisans escalating to
dramatic chaos, the 2nd Infantry and 3rd Artillery regiments under the command
of Captain Nathanial Lyon attempt to restore order during the "Bleeding
Kansas" campaign. Democrat Stephen Douglas runs for re-election as Senator
from Illinois. He is opposed by Republican Congressman Owen Lovejoy. A series of
debates between the two candidates is held. Lovejoy is not nearly as eloquent as
Abraham Lincoln was in OTL, and the debates do not catapult him into national
prominence. However, Lovejoy, a staunch abolitionist, does force Douglas to make
various anti-slavery statements which will come back to haunt him later on.
Also in this year, during a Senate debate on the crisis in Kansas, Senator
Abraham Lincoln of Mississippi gives his famous “House Divided” speech, the
most memorable portion of which is as follows…
“We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the
avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but
has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall
have been reached, and passed.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I hope the Union will not be dissolved. I hope the house will not fall. But
if the agitation by some elements at the North against the South and it’s
institutions will not cease, and if the South will not be given it’s just
rights within this Union, she will be forced to leave the house, and the Union
will be dissolved.
It is my hope, and my prayer, that this will not happen. I love this Union as
I do my own life. But if our Northern brethren will not allow us to live with
them in the same house, should they wonder when one day, we leave and build
another?”
1859--The United States Armory at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac
Rivers at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) is seized by twenty-one
men under the leadership of abolitionist John Brown. This act to cause an
uprising of slaves in the surrounding territories fails when federal troops on
October 18, under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, kill several of the
raiders and capture John Brown. Brown is hanged for treason by the state of
Virginia later that year.
1860--The Election of 1860: At the Republican National Convention, William H.
Seward of New York wins the Republican nomination for President, defeating
challengers Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, and Edward
Bate of Missouri. At the Democratic National Convention, Stephen Douglas of
Illinois is nominated for President. However upon his nomination, the Southern
delegations walk out of the convention. They reconvene in Charleston, South
Carolina, and nominate Senator Abraham Lincoln of Mississippi as their
candidate. Meanwhile, a coalition of former Southern Whigs forms the
Constitutional Union Party, nominating John Bell of Tennessee. The Republican
candidate, Seward, narrowly wins the election, and does so without winning a
single Southern electoral vote. South Carolina secedes from the Union on
December 22, 1860.
January 1861--Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana secede from
the Union. Federal troops fire on Southern civilians gathered outside Fort
Barrancas, Florida.
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