Transcript The Coming of the Civil War

What we know…..
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Growing Sectionalism
– Sectional differences at Constitutional Convention!
 3/5 compromise
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VA & KY Resolutions – nullification (over Sedition Act)
Tariff of 1828 – SC threatens to secede
Economic differences – industrial v. agricultural
Southern resentment of northerner’s interference
(abolition, temperance, etc.)
– Growing tensions over states’ rights vs. federal rights
– Issue of slavery in new territories
The Coming of the Civil
War
Chapter 10
The Union in Crisis
http://www.history.com/shows/americathe-story-of-us/videos/civil-war
Effects of the Missouri Compromise
1820
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Missouri – slave, Maine - free
No slavery north of 36 north latitude
Did not settle whether slavery would be legal in the new
territories
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (after Mexican War)
– Northerners feared new states would be slave
– Tried to keep slavery out of the territories
– Wilmot Proviso - failed
Free Soil Party – wanted to limit slavery in territories
Popular sovereignty – let the people decide on the issue
of slavery
Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850
California admitted as a
free state
 Territories of New Mexico
and Utah will decide
whether slavery would be
legal (popular
sovereignty)
 End slave trade (but not
slavery) in Washington,
D.C.
 Strict Fugitive Slave Act
 Texas gives up claims to
New Mexico ($10 mil.)
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Debate over Compromise of 1850
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John C. Calhoun opposes
– Epitomizes Southern position
– State’s rights – right for states to
nullify acts or withdraw from the
union
– Government’s job is to protect right
to own property
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Daniel Webster supports
– Preserve the Union
– Felt slavery would not be necessary
in New Mexico & California
– Supports popular sovereignty
Compromise of 1850 passes
 Stephen
Douglas (Illinois) helps push it
through Congress
 Southerners not happy about California
 Northerners not happy about the Fugitive
Slave Act
 Again, only temporarily settles the issue
2. Protest and Violence
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Outcry against Fugitive Slave Act
– Slave hunters could go into the North to get
slaves
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North passed personal liberty laws
– Nullified FSA and allowed slave hunters to be
arrested
– Resisted slave hunters
Underground Railroad
Network of safe houses to assist slaves in
escaping
 Most famous “conductor”: Harriet Tubman (led
over 300 to freedom)
 After Fugitive Slave Law, went to Canada since
bounty hunters were looking for them
 http://www.history.com/shows/america-thestory-of-us/videos/harriet-tubman-and-theunderground-railroad
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin
By Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
– Depicts harshness of slavery
 Reaction to the fictional novel
– Shocks many
– Northerners see it as an accurate
portrayal, fear slavery will ruin
America
– Southerners feel it is untrue
 Plantations are happy families
 Slave owners care more for
their workers than factory
owners
 Cannibals All! by George
Fitzhugh
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854
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Stephen Douglas - IL
– Wanted to connect Chicago with
the west via railroad
– Wanted to run for President,
needed Southern Democratic
support
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Introduces the KansasNebraska Act in January 1854
– Popular-sovereignty – people will
decide
– Nullified Missouri Compromise
(how?)
Bleeding Kansas
Race for settlement of Kansas
– Pro and anti slavery forces
move in; violence
– “Sack of Lawrence” –
antislavery town
– “Pottawatomie Massacre”
– slavery town (John
Brown leads)
 Charles Sumner (anti-slavery
Senator) beaten by Preston
Brooks
 Brooks’ uncle was insulted by
Sumner’s attack on south and
slavery
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3. Changes in Political Parties
Whigs decline
 Nativist movement continues (antiImmigrant)
 Know Nothings
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– Secret nativist society
– “I know nothing”
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American party develops from them
– Popular in northern areas
– Dies out eventually
The Republican Party
1854 – beginning of Republican party
 Party develops against slavery
 Gained support from anti-slavery
Democrats, Whigs, and Free Soilers
 Direct ancestor of the modern Republican
Party
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Slavery and National Politics
Election of 1856 – James
Buchanan – Dem.
 The Dred Scott Decision 1857
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– Court rules against Scott
 Not a citizen, could not sue
 Slaves were property
 Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional (couldn’t ban
slavery!)
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Huge setback for North
Lincoln-Douglas Debates 1858
Illinois debates
between Stephen
Douglas and Abraham
Lincoln over the issue
of slavery in the
territories
 Douglas wins Senate
election in 1858
 Lincoln becomes wellknown
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John Brown’s Raid
October 16, 1859, raid on
the federal arsenal at
Harpers Ferry, Virginia
 Wanted to take weapons
and give them to slaves
 Colonel Robert E. Lee
helps capture
 Brown hanged
 http://www.history.com/s
hows/america-the-storyof-us/videos/john-brown
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4. Election of 1860
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Democrats split nomination
– Southern Democrats – John C. Breckinridge (states’
rights/slavery)
– Northern Democrats – Stephen Douglas (popular
sovereignty)
Constitutional Party chooses John Bell of
Tennessee (moderate)
 Republican Party chooses Abraham Lincoln
 The Election
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– South split between Bell and Breckinridge
 Lincoln not even on the ballot in the South
– Lincoln wins North and the election
– South is outraged; feel they were not even counted
South Carolina Secedes
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South angry that Lincoln
wins without an electoral
vote from the South
South Carolina secedes
on December 20, 1860
GA, AL, FL, MS, LA, TX
Alexander Stephens (GA)
believes in unity but still
secedes
Later VP of Conf.
The Confederate States of America
1861 - Montgomery, AL - create a new
government (later moved to Richmond)
 Jefferson Davis chosen as President
 Lincoln sworn in on March 3, 1861,
refused to honor the Confederacy
 http://www.history.com/shows/americathe-story-of-us/videos/abraham-lincoln
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The Civil War Begins
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Fort Sumter – 1st fighting
– Federal fort – SC
– Should Lincoln re-supply
the fort or let it fall to
the Confederacy?
– Duty to enforce law
– Maj. Anderson
surrenders fort to Gen.
Beauregard
http://www.history.com/vid
eos/us-inches-closer-to-war
War declared between the
two nations
– VA, NC, TN, AR join
Confederacy