Transcript Pre-Civil war - historyisgood4you.com

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Pre Civil War
Economic divisions during the first half of the nineteenth
century:
 The Northern states developed an industrial
economy based on manufacturing. They favored
high protective tariffs to protect Northern
manufacturers from foreign competition.

The Southern states developed an agricultural
economy consisting of a slavery-based system of
plantations in the lowlands along the Atlantic and in
the Deep South, and small-scale subsistence
farmers in the foothills and valleys of the
Appalachian Mountains. The South strongly opposed
high tariffs, which made the price of imported
manufactured goods much more expensive.
Pre Civil War
Crises took place over the admission of
new states into the Union during the
decades before the Civil War. The issue
was always whether the number of “free
states” and “slave states” would be
balanced, thus affecting power in the
Congress.
Pre Civil War
The growing division over slavery and states’
rights:
 As the United States expanded westward, the
conflict over slavery grew more bitter and
threatened to tear the country apart.

The abolitionist movement grew in the North,
led by William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The
Liberator, an antislavery newspaper, and many
New England religious leaders, who saw
slavery as a violation of Christian principles.
Pre Civil War

Harriet Beecher Stowe, wife of a New England
clergyman, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a bestselling novel that inflamed Northern abolitionist
sentiment. Southerners were frightened by the
growing strength of Northern abolitionism.

Slave revolts in Virginia, led by Nat Turner and
Gabriel Prosser, fed white Southern fears
about slave rebellions and led to harsh laws in
the South against fugitive slaves. Southerners
who favored abolition were intimidated into
silence.
Pre Civil War
The admission of new states continually
led to conflicts over whether the new states
would allow slavery (“slave states”) or
prohibit slavery (“free states”). Numerous
compromises were struck to maintain the
balance of power in Congress
 The Missouri Compromise (1820) drew an
east-west line through the Louisiana
Purchase, with slavery prohibited above
the line and allowed below, except that
slavery was allowed in Missouri, north of
the line.

Pre Civil War


In the Compromise of 1850, California entered
as a free state, while the new Southwestern
territories acquired from Mexico would decide
on their own.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed
the Missouri Compromise line by giving people
in Kansas and Nebraska the choice whether to
allow slavery in their states (“popular
sovereignty”). This law produced bloody
fighting in Kansas as pro- and anti-slavery
forces battled each other. It also led to the
birth of the Republican Party that same year to
oppose the spread of slavery.
Pre Civil War


Southerners argued that individual states
could nullify laws passed by the Congress.
They also began to insist that states had
entered the Union freely and could leave
(“secede”) freely if they chose.
Abraham Lincoln, who had joined the new
Republican Party, and Stephen Douglas, a
Northern Democrat, conducted numerous
debates when running for the United States
Senate in Illinois in 1858. Lincoln opposed the
spread of slavery into new states; Douglas
stood for “popular sovereignty.”
Pre Civil War

The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court
overturned efforts to limit the spread of slavery
and outraged Northerners, as did enforcement
of the Fugitive Slave Act, which required
slaves who escaped to free states to be
forcibly returned to their owners in the South.

Lincoln warned, “A house divided against itself
cannot stand.” The nation could not continue
half-free, half-slave. The issue must be
resolved.

Pre Civil War
The women’s suffrage movement grew
during the same time as the abolitionist
movement.
 Seneca Falls Declaration
 Roles of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Susan B. Anthony, who became
involved in women’s suffrage before the
Civil War and continued with the
movement after the war
Pre Civil War

Between 1776 and 1850, the United
States expanded from 13 colonies
hugging the eastern seaboard to a
continental nation extending from
“sea to shining sea.” Why, in your
opinion, was America so eager to
expand during this time period?
Pre Civil War
Who owned Louisiana in the 1790s?
(Spain)
 How did France gain possession of
Louisiana? (treaty with Spain)
 Why did Napoleon want to sell Louisiana?
(France needed money as war in Europe
resumed. After the slave revolt in Haiti in
1798, France no longer needed the land in
Louisiana to grow food to feed the people
in Haiti.)
 Who negotiated the treaty with France?
(James Monroe and Robert Livingston)

Pre Civil War




What did Jefferson initially want to buy? (the port of
New Orleans)
How much did the United States pay for Louisiana?
($15 million — about twice the annual federal budget
at that time)
What concerns, if any, did Jefferson have about the
purchase? (He was concerned about the
constitutionality of the purchase.)
What was the long-term significance of the
purchase? (secured the Mississippi River, avoided
conflicts with France, furthered possible alliance with
Great Britain, strengthened the federal government,
established a precedent for land purchases)
Pre Civil War
Have you ever heard of the amusement parks “Six
Flags over Texas” (or “Six Flags over Georgia”)? Did
you know that the amusement parks have the “Six
Flags” name because historically Texas has had six
nations rule the territory? How many of these flags
can you name?
(Spain, France, Mexico, Texas Republic, United States of
America, Confederate States of America)
Your chronology should include:
 1821 – Mexico becomes independent from Spain
 1836 – Texas Revolution: Texas becomes an independent
nation
 1844 – Texas is annexed by the United States and
becomes a state
 1845 – Mexican War starts

Compromise
Problem
Solution
Did it work?
Missouri
Compromise
Missouri wanted to
enter the Union as a
slave state. This would
have upset the balance
of free and slave states
in the Senate. What
was to be done?
All Missouri was to
enter as a slave state,
and Maine was to enter
as a free state. A line
was to be drawn from
the southern border of
Missouri, and the
extension of slavery
into territories north of
this line was to be
forbidden.
It provided an uneasy
yet essentially workable
approach until the
1850s. In the Dred Scott
case of 1857, Chief
Justice Roger Taney
declared the Missouri
Compromise
unconstitutional.
Compromise of
1850
How was the issue of
slavery going to be
handled in the new
territories gained as a
result of the Mexican
War?
California would enter
as a free state.
The stricter fugitive
slave law inflamed
abolitionist opinion and
exacerbated sectional
differences.
NOTE: The Wilmot
Proviso and the rise of
the free soil debate
politicized the slavery
issue.
The issue of slavery
would be decided by
popular sovereignty in
Utah and New Mexico
territories.
The slave trade (but
not slavery) would be
abolished in the
District of Columbia.
A stricter fugitive slave
law would be put into
effect.
California was admitted
as a free state to take
advantage of the gold
found there.
Events moved too
rapidly during the 1850s
to assess the
effectiveness of other
elements of the
compromise.
Compromise
Problem
Solution
Did it work?
Kansas-Nebraska
Act
How was the issue of
slavery going to be
handled in the newly
organized territories of
Kansas and Nebraska?
The issue of slavery
would be decided by
popular sovereignty in
Kansas and Nebraska.
“Bleeding Kansas” was
the result. This was a
kind of mini-Civil War
fought out by pro- and
anti-slavery people who
moved to Kansas to
participate in the vote
about slavery.