GEORGIA’S ROLE IN THE CIVIL WARUnit 9

GEORGIA PERFORMANCE STANDARDSSS8H6 The student will analyze the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Georgia.

a. Explain the importance of key issues and events that led to the Civil War; include slavery, states’ rights, nullification, Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850 and the Georgia Platform, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott case, election of 1860, the debate over secession in Georgia, and the role of Alexander Stephens.

b. State the importance of key events of the Civil War; include Antietam, the Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Union blockade of Georgia’s coast, Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Sherman’s March to the Sea, and Andersonville.

c. Analyze the impact of Reconstruction on Georgia and other southern states, emphasizing Freedmen’s Bureau; sharecropping and tenant farming; Reconstruction plans; 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the constitution; Henry McNeal Turner and black legislators; and the Ku Klux Klan.

What is the American Civil War?

• A war fought from 1861 to 1865 when some of the southern states wanted to leave or seceed from the United States of America.

HOW DID SLAVERY, STATES’ RIGHTS, AND NULLIFICATION CONTRIBUTE TO

DEEPENING UNREST AND HOSTILITY IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA?

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

GEORGIA’S TAKE ON SECESSION

•Though Georgia was an ardent slave holding state, it was relatively slow in demanding secession. •During the Compromise of 1850, the state’s most important politicians developed the Georgia Platform which accepted the compromise and remained loyal to the union.

•One of the most well known opponents of secession was Alexander Stephens. Interestingly, Stephens became vice-president of the Confederate States after Georgia decided to leave the union with the rest of the Deep South

•During the war, Georgia produced much of the manufactured equipment for the CSA. •once Grant and Sherman set their sights on the state, it suffered trremendously during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea. After the war, Georgia’s economy was devastated and there was much suffering throughout the state.

SLAVERY

• Due to the rules of the Trustees, slavery was not allowed in Georgia until the early 1750’s.

• Once it was legalized, slavery grew quickly due to Georgia’s agriculture based economy and especially with the invention of the cotton gin.

SLAVERY• While many of the nation’s founding fathers disliked slavery and hoped that later generations would find a way to end it, their sons and grandson’s began to defend slavery as a necessary good and began infringing on the rights of those who spoke out against it in the South.

• Slavery was the economic foundation of Southern prosperity

• Southern states were willing to go to war to protect their interests

Cotton Production and Slave Population, 1790-1860

0

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

4,000,000

1790 1820 1840 1860

SlavesBales of Cotton

The dream of slaves

http://www.gpb.org/georgiastories/story/growth_of_slavery

many in the North began to despise slavery and call for its end.

While others simply became uncomfortable with its existence in the nation’s borders and disagreed with its expansion

Slaves dreamed of freedom

•Leading abolitionists in the North were led by the writings of abolitionists such as Fredrick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. •The gap between the north and south widened every time the U.S. gained more territory. The South hoped for slavery to expand into the new territories in order to secure it for themselves, while many in the North wanted it, at the very least, to be contained to where it already existed.

STATES’ RIGHTS• the amount of power a state government has in relation

to the amount of power held by the federal government in making decisions (Articles of Confederation gave the individual states too much power )

• states wanted to follow their own laws, and they did not want the federal government (United States) to overrule state laws

• the main issue over states’ rights involved the institution of slavery

• The South believed that the national government was trying to limit their rights to govern themselves and were willing to fight a war over it.

NULLIFICATION

• Another states’ rights issue, the nullification crisis in the early 1830s

• It was a dispute over tariffs

• tariff of 1828 in order to increase the price of foreign goods so that the same goods manufactured in the north would be cheaper

• North supported high tariffs to subsidize their fledgling manufacturing industry against the cheaper products that could be sent to the United States by Great Britain.

• The South was opposed to this tariff because it took away profits from cotton farmers based on Great Britain’s retaliatory tariff on cotton.

helped northern businesses, but people in the south were having to pay more for a product that was their second choice since their first choice (foreign product) is now more expensive because of the tariff (tax)

Southerners thought this was unconstitutional

Southern states believed they should be able to nullify laws the Federal government made if they felt the law wasn’t in their best interest.

WORCHESTER V. GEORGIA

The last states’ rights issue was in GeorgiaGeorgia lost the Worcester v. Georgia (see Teacher Note: H5) case but refused to release the missionaries or stop pushing for Cherokee removal. This test of states’ rights proved that a state could do as it pleased if there was not a unified attempt to by the federal government or other states to stop them.

HOW DID THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE, THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 AND THE GEORGIA PLATFORM, AND THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA

ACT CONTRIBUTED TO DEEPENING UNREST AND HOSTILITY IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA?

Essential Question

MISSOURI COMPROMISE• http://

app.discoveryeducation.com/player/view/assetGuid/EF88FEDD-76C3-4903-BA7C-6491078EDB01

• Compromise to allow Missouri into Union• Missouri was allowed to enter the Union as a slave state. In return, Maine was allowed to enter as a free state. In addition, Congress forbade slavery north of the 36˚ 30’ parallel (the southern border of Missouri).

• Important bc it would balance the number of free and slave states in the Union

COMPROMISE OF 1850• 1850 California, due to the Gold Rush, had a population large enough to apply for statehood.

• No slave state to balance the numbers• Compromise

• California was admitted as a free state resulting in a power imbalance in both the House and Senate.

• Northern congressmen agreed to pass the Fugitive Slave Act, which guaranteed the return of any runaway slave to their owners if they were caught in the North

• provided a temporary solution for the problem of slavery

THE GEORGIA PLATFORM• Georgia politicians were deciding if the state should accept the terms of the Compromise of 1850

• If passed, it would give the free states more representation in the U.S. Senate and end the balance of power that had been established for 30 years.

• Led by Alexander Stephens, Robert Toombs, and the promise of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Georgia approved the Compromise of 1850.

• With Georgia leading the way, other southern states also accepted the Compromise preventing a civil war for 11 years.

• provided a temporary solution for the problem of slavery

http://www.youtube.com/v/8S4GAjWkWwo

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT• “mini” civil war and it took place in Kansas. The violence

began when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854. • Kansas-Nebraska Act was important because it repealed the

Missouri Compromise and that states could decide for themselves whether they would be free or slave states.

• The territory of Kansas, which was being considered for statehood, was flooded by both pro and anti-slavery supporters who came to the state to vote for or against the institution in Kansas.

• Soon after their arrival, the violence between the two sides escalated. For instance, John Brown and his sons killed five proslavery farmers in retaliation for atrocities committed by proslavery forces.

• With all of the bloodshed, Kansas became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

HOW DID THE DRED SCOTT CASE AND THE ELECTION OF 1860 CONTRIBUTE TO DEEPENING UNREST AND HOSTILITY IN

ANTEBELLUM AMERICA?Essential Question

DRED SCOTT

http://www.youtube.com/v/9j3lKSs2ZoA

DRED SCOTT CASE• Dred Scott was a slave who was

taken by his master to the free states of Illinois and Wisconsin.

• Upon his return to Missouri, Scott sued the state based on the belief that his time in the free states made him a free man.

• Case declared that slaves and free blacks were not citizens of the US

• Gave the North another reason to go to war against the South

ELECTION OF 1860• The final event that led to the Civil War was the election

of 1860. Four presidential candidates ran for office in 1860. These men were Abraham Lincoln, John Breckenridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas.

• Due to the issue of slavery, Northern and Southern Democrats split into two parties.

• Resulted in:• The beginning of the Civil War• SC seceding from the Union• Abraham Lincoln becoming president

• After the election, the southern states, believing that Lincoln’s ultimate goal was to end slavery, voted one by one to secede from the Union. Georgia, after a three day debate voted to leave the Union on January 19, 1861

DEBATE OVER SECESSION IN GEORGIA• Georgians did not feel that the Federal government respected the rights of the state of Georgia.

* debate in the Georgia General Assembly about if the state should join its southern brethren in breaking away from the Union* Georgia eventually seceded from the Union after several other southern states• the General Assembly voted 208 to 89 in favor of seceding from the union

WHAT WAS ALEXANDER STEPHENS’ ROLE IN GEORGIA PARTICIPATING IN THE CIVIL

WAR?

ROLE OF ALEXANDER STEPHENS• opposed secession at first, but later supporting the

Confederate cause

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMBoe4eJtg8