The Road to War

United States Civil War

Territories and States• By 1880 the USA territory stretched over forest,

plain and mountain. Within these boundaries lived 23 million people in a union comprising 31

states.

Labor and King Cotton

• The South’s economy centered on agriculture.

• Tobacco was important, but cotton eventually became the dominant crop.

• Slaves were used to cultivate all these

crops, though cotton most of all.

Slavery Defined• Slavery was inherently a system of brutality and

coercion in which beatings and the breakup of families through the sale of individuals were commonplace.

Slave States

Slave StatesFree States

Territories

One issue, however, divided the regional and economic differences between North and South: slavery.

Slaves and the Cotton Crop• Southerners felt the backwardness of their own

region was due to the large amount of money made by Northern businessmen from marketing

the cotton crop.

Southern Slavery• Northerners, on the other hand, declared that slavery,

which the South felt was essential to its economy, was

wholly responsible for the region's relative backwardness.

Plantation Slaves

• Only a minority of Southern whites owned slaves. More than half of all slaves worked on plantations. The "poor whites" lived on the lowest rung of Southern society and held no slaves.

Plantation Owners

• It is easy to understand the interest of the planters in slave holding, they owned most of the slaves. But most southerners and poor whites supported the institution of slavery as well.

Freedom for Slaves?

• The plantation owners feared that if freed, blacks would compete with them for land.

• Just as important, the freeing of slaves raised them to the same standing as the poor whites on the social scale. The poor whites did not want this to happen.

Labor: Slavery vs Wage System

• Southern politicians insisted, for example, that the relationship between capital and labor was more humane under the slavery system than under the wage system of the North.

Right to be Free

• The greatest problem of slavery was not the behavior of individual masters and overseers toward the slaves, but slavery's fundamental violation of every human being's inalienable right

to be free.

1820 Missouri Compromise

1819 – 11 free states and 11 slave states 1819 – Missouri requests to join the Union – Slave or Free??

Why does it matter?

Senator Henry Clay proposed a compromise: Missouri would be a slave state and Maine would join the Union as a free state.Slavery was banned north of the 36/30 N except for Missouri

Pro Slavery V Anti Slavery

• The South believed it needed new territory for additional slave states to offset the admission of new free

states.

•Many Northerners believed that if not allowed to spread, slavery would ultimately decline and die. •California, New Mexico and Utah did not have slavery, and when the United States prepared to take over these areas in 1846, there were conflicting suggestions on what to do with them.

No New Slave States

The Issue of States Rights

• Extremists in the South urged that all the lands acquired from Mexico be thrown open to slave holders.

• Antislavery Northerners, on the other hand, demanded that all the new regions be closed to slavery.

• Another group proposed that the government should permit settlers to enter the new territory with or without slaves as they pleased and let the people themselves determine the question.

The Issue of States Rights

• Southern opinion held that all the territories had the right to sanction slavery.

• The North asserted that no territories had the right.

Breaking the Nation Apart

• Some in the South wanted to have their own nation and be able to decide what laws to have. The North did not want the country to be broken

apart.

States Rights

Freedom in California• In January 1848

gold was discovered in California. California became a crucial question. Congress had to determine the status of this new region before an organized government could be established.

New Territory Quarrels

• Senator Henry Clay halted a dangerous sectional quarrel with a complicated and carefully balanced plan.

Compromise of 1850

His compromise, known in American history as the Compromise of 1850. It stated:

• California should be admitted as a state with a free-soil (slavery-prohibited) constitution.

• The remainder of land should be divided into the two territories of New Mexico and Utah and organized without mention of slavery.

Compromise of 1850

• Texas should be given a portion of New Mexico for $10 million.

• Effective machinery should be established for catching runaway slaves and returning them to their masters.

• The buying and selling of slaves (but not slavery) should be abolished in the District of Columbia.

These measures were passed, and the country breathed a sigh of relief.

Compromise of 1850

• For three years, the compromise seemed to settle nearly all differences.

• The new Fugitive Slave Law deeply offended many Northerners, who refused to have any part in catching slaves.

Compromise of 1850

• Many Northerners continued to help fugitives escape, and made the Underground Railroad more efficient and more daring than it had been before.

Fugitive Slave Law• In 1852, for example,

Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel provoked by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. So many copies were sold the first year, and presses ran day and night to keep up with the demand.

Quarreling in Kansas and Nebraska

• In 1854 as the region that now comprises Kansas and Nebraska was being settled, the old issue of slavery in the territories was renewed and the

quarrel became more bitter.

Missouri Objects• Slave-holders in Missouri, objected to letting

Kansas become a free territory, for their state would then have three free-soil neighbors (Illinois, Iowa and Kansas). They feared their state would

be forced to become a free state as well.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Stephen A. Douglas, a Democratic senator from Illinois, proposed a bill, the Kansas-Nebraska Act. His plan called for Kansas and Nebraska, to permit settlers to carry slaves into them. The settlers were to then determine whether they should enter the Union as free or slave states.

Kansas-Nebraska Act Passes

• In May 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed the Senate amid the boom of cannon fired by Southern enthusiast

s.

Bleeding Kansas• The flow of both Southern slave holders and

antislavery families into Kansas resulted in armed conflict, and soon the territory was being called "bleeding Kansas."

Dred Scott Decision• Other events brought the

nation still closer to war. In 1957 the Supreme Court's decision concerning Dred

Scott was one such event.

Scott was a Missouri slave who had been taken by his master to live in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery had been banned. Returning to Missouri, Scott sued for freedom on the ground that his residence was on free soil.

Dred Scott Decision

• The Supreme Court decided that Scott be declined freedom because he was not a citizen; that he was the resident of a slave state (Missouri); and that slave holders had the right to take their "property" anywhere and that Congress could not restrict the expansion of slavery.

Court Invalidates Congress• The Court's decision invalidated the whole set of

compromise setup by Congress in trying to settle the slavery issue.

Dred Scott Decision Angers North

• The Dred Scott decision stirred anger throughout the North. For Southern Democrats, the decision was a great victory, since it gave judicial voice to their justification of slavery throughout the

territories.

Lincoln: Restrict and Abolish Slavery

• Abraham Lincoln had long regarded slavery as an evil. In a speech in Peoria, Illinois, in 1854, he declared that all national legislation should be framed on the principle that slavery was to be

restricted and abolished.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates• Senator Douglas, known as the "Little Giant," ran

against Lincoln for the Illinois senate seat. Lincoln and Douglas engaged in a series of seven debates. In the end, Douglas won the election by a small margin, but Lincoln was recognized as a national figure.

John Brown: Antislavery Fanatic• John Brown, an

antislavery fanatic captured and killed five proslavery settlers in Kansas. Later he led a band of followers in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Brown's goal was to use the weapons seized to lead a slave uprising.

Sing along, “John Brown’s Body”

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

•“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free.”

1860 Presidential Election• In the presidential election of 1860

the Republican, Abraham Lincoln, ran against Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat, and the Whigs party nominee, John C. Bell of Tennessee.

Lincoln Wins• Lincoln won only 39 percent of the

popular vote, but had a clear majority of 180 electoral votes, carrying all 18 free states. Despite his poor electoral showing, Douglas trailed only Lincoln in the popular vote.

Lincoln Wins

South Carolina secedes: The Union Dissolves

• The southern states said that if Lincoln won the Presidential election, they would secede (leave) the union. South Carolina was the first southern state to seceded from the union.

Six More States Secede

• By February 1, 1861, six more Southern states had joined South Carolina in succession. On February 7, the seven states adopted the constitution for the Confederate States of America. The other southern states as yet remained in the Union.

Succession!

Confederate White House

The Union Dissolves• The South

formed their own nation, The Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis served as the President.

Secession: Legally Void• Abraham Lincoln

was sworn in as president of the United States. In his inaugural address, he refused to recognize the secession, considering it "legally void."

WAR!

•The battle began in April of 1861 when the Confederate Army took over Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.  

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Civil War, Death and Destruction

•A war had begun in which more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.

Writing Situation: Pretend you are a news reporter during the years prior to the Civil War.

Directions for Writing: Write an news article explaining the causes leading to the Civil War.

Additional Resources

• A Day in the Life of A Slave

• An Interview with a Slave (listen to a first-hand experience)

• Civil War Quiz

• American Civil War Homepage

• Civil War Photographs