Transcript Causes of the Civil War

Causes of the Civil War
1820 - 1860
1. The Missouri Compromise - 1820
Background:
When the territory of Missouri applied to the
United States to become a slave state, it threatened
to upset the balance of 11 slave states vs. 11 free
states.
Henry Clay devised a compromise:
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Missouri came in as slave state.
Maine came in as free state.
All the Louisiana Territory north of the southern
border of Missouri would be free from slavery.
Southern slave owners could pursue escaped
slaves into free states and return them to slavery.
No one was happy.
Thomas Jefferson, letter of April 22, 1820
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“This momentous question, like a fire bell in the
night, awakened and filled me with terror. I
considered it all at once as the knell of the
Union… (we) have the wolf by the ears, and we
can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”
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What was the “momentous question”?
Jefferson expresses his worry through two
metaphors in his letter. What are they? What is
being compared? What is he worried about?
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2. Compromise of 1850
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Background:
By the terms of the peace treaty with Mexico after
the Mexican American War, the United States
gained a big chunk of new territory. Once again
Congress debated whether these lands should be
slave or free.
Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Stephen
Douglas worked a compromise:
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California would be admitted as a free state.
The District of Columbia would abolish it’s slave
trade.
Utah and New Mexico would be neutral territories.
The question of slave vs. free would be decided by
popular sovereignty, or the vote of the people there.
An updated Fugitive Slave Law was also passed.
The federal government pledged to assist owners
searching for runaway slaves.
In the North, resistance to the Fugitive Slave
Law was strong.
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“As soon as the kidnappers arrive in any town, … attempt
should be made to … refuse them entertainment, on the ground
of their being persons infamous by profession, like pick-pockets,
gamblers, or horse-stealers. [They] should not have a moment’s
relief from the feeling that [their] object is understood, …and
that [they] cannot act in secret, and that [they] are surrounded by
those who loathe [their] persons and detest [their] purpose.”
The Liberator, Jan. 31, 1851
What was the proposed plan written in this newspaper?
Who did the newspaper compare slave hunters to?
3. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a book written by Harriet
Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist minister’s
daughter.
Published in 1852
The main character, Uncle Tom, is an enslaved
man who is treated cruelly by the slave-master
Simon Legree. Uncle Tom eventually dies from
a beating by Legree.
Passages like the one below shocked Northerners
and created support for abolitionist movement.
“Tom opened his eyes, and looked upon his
master…’There ain’t no more ye can do! I
forgive ye with all my soul!’ and he fainted
entirely away.
‘I believe, my soul, he’s done for, finally,’
said Legree, stepping forward, to look at him.
‘Yes, he is! Well, his mouth’s shut up at last, that’s one comfort!’”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Chapter 38
4. Kansas Nebraska Act
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Passed in Congress in 1854
Authored and supported by Senator Stephen Douglas
Allowed the formation of the Nebraska and Kansas
Territories, a step necessary for a land to take before
becoming states.
Located north of the Missouri Compromise line, the South
objected to new territories.
To appease the South, both territories were allowed in with
the condition of popular sovereignty – the people of the
territories could decide on the slavery issue.
What do you think people in the North
thought of this?
Immediate Results of the Kansas
Nebrasksa Act:
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Creation of a new political party – Republicans,
an offshoot of the Free-Soil party, who opposed
slavery in the new territories
Kansas became a battle ground for opposing
sides, each vying to influence the popular vote.
Arguments often became violent, leading to
nickname “Bleeding Kansas”
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“Border Ruffians”, armed supporters of slavery, cast illegal votes
in elections deciding on the status of slavery and threatened
opponents with harm if they voted
After being shot when trying to arrest some antislavery settlers in
the town of Lawrence, Kansas, a proslavery sheriff returned with
800 men and burned the antislavery town to the ground.
John Brown, a strong antislavery settler from Connecticut, led
several men to a settlement near Pottawatomie Creek and
murdered five proslavery men and boys.
Abolitionist settlers who moved to Kansas carried rifles
nicknamed “Beecher’s Bibles” named after Reverend Henry
Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother.
5. Dred Scott vs. Sanford - 1857
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Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom.
He moved with his owner to Illinois and Wisconsin
Territory, where slavery was illegal.
Upon return to Missouri, where slavery was permitted,
Scott sued based on the argument that he had been a
living as a free man and should continue to be
considered a free man.
Antislavery attorneys helped take his cause to the
United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court found in favor of Dr. Sanford
– Dred Scott was not considered free
The Court found against Scott
for two reasons:
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Scott had no right to sue in
a Federal Court because
African Americans were not
citizens
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Slaves were property, and
property rights were
protected by the
Constitution no matter what
state you were in
The Court could have stopped there, but
added more commentary…
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Slaves could be taken into any free territory and
still be held as slaves based on the 5th Amendment,
which stated that Congress could not deprive
people of their property without due process of the
law.
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What are the implications of this decision for the
South? For the North?
6. John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry –
October 1859
How would you describe this man?
He became a martyr for the antislavery
cause
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Brown killed 7 people and hurt 10 in an attempt to
seize weapons and incite an armed slave rebellion.
The planned slave rebellion at Harper’s Ferry did
not happen.
He was wounded and captured by Lieutenant
Colonel Robert E. Lee.
Convicted of murder, he was hanged.
Why would this make him a martyr?
7. Election of 1860
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Considered by some
as the most fateful
election in our
history.
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The Republican
Party’s nominee was
Abraham Lincoln.
Election of 1860 – Nov. 6, 1860
Candidate
Popular vote
Percentage of Electoral vote
popular vote
Lincoln
1,865,593
39.79%
180
Douglas
1,382,713
29.40%
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Breckenridge
848,356
18.20%
72
Bell
592,906
12.61%
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Reaction to the election:
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The South was horrified that Lincoln had won.
They felt as if they no longer had any hope of having a
voice in government.
“A party founded on the single sentiment…of hatred of
African slavery, is now the controlling power. The
honor, safety, and independence of the Southern
people are to be found only in a Southern
Confederacy.”
From a Virginia newspaper, Dec. 1860
What party is the quote referring to? What action is being
called for?
8. Secession
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“The union now subsisting between South
Carolina and the other states, under the
name of the ‘United States of America’ is
hereby dissolved.”
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South Carolina, December 20, 1860
After South Carolina, six more states
followed…
 Representatives from South
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Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
and Texas met in
Montgomery, Alabama to
form a new nation they called
the Confederate States of
America.
By the time Lincoln took
office in March, they had
written a constitution and
named former Mississippi
Senator Jefferson Davis as
their president.
The Confederacy was eventually made up
of eleven states
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Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina
joined by May 1861.
Lincoln persuaded border slave states Maryland,
Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri to remain in the
Union by promising not to interfere with slave
owners.
Eventually a group of pro-Union citizens in Virginia
voted to secede from the Confederacy, and in 1863
West Virginia was admitted to the Union as a new
state.
Now what?
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The seceding states took over federal property within
their borders – post offices, buildings, forts.
Would the South and North find compromise, or
would there be a revolution, like in 1776?
In his inaugural address in March 1861, Lincoln assured
the seceded states that he meant them no harm:
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere
with the institution of slavery where it exists.”
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But he also warned them about continuing on the course they had
chosen:
”In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not
assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the
aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the
Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve,
protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone
all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
Lincoln’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
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