Transcript Causes of the civil war

Introduction
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history/videos/us-inches-closer-to-war
All fought bravely for what they believed was the legacy of the American Revolution.
Their tragedy was that each understood that legacy differently. Three passionate and
conflicting views... Views that led a nation to war and that continue to shape who we
are today.
A. Disagreement over Federal vs. States powers: Was it fought over who had the
most power, the states or the Federal government?
B. Competing Economies and Cultures (Industrial vs. Farming): Was it simply a
fight over money and different cultures?
C. Westward Expansion: Was it a conflict over how the new American west would be
settled?
D. Slavery: Or was it... slavery?
The causes of the war go all the way back to the founding of America.
 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
 The delegates had different views and interests.
 They wrote a Constitution to balance their different interests.
 Southern delegates believed the states were more committed to protecting their property rights
than a federal government with centralized powers would be.
 To them, slaves were property.
 In the end, they did accept a strengthened federal government -- in exchange for some
protections of slavery in the Constitution.
 One form of protection was the "Three-Fifths Compromise," which gave slaveholding regions
extra voting power in Congress and enabled them to control national politics for decades.
 As the 19th century progressed
 Immigrants swelled the population of the North,
 Slave states saw their power and economy threatened.
While people argued over Federal vs. State Powers leading up to the war... underneath, it was really
an argument over slavery.
 The North and the South were linked by economics as much as they were divided by
philosophy and culture.
 The South's economy was based on agribusiness.
 The development of the Cotton Gin made large-scale plantation farming so profitable that it fueled
the expansion of slavery.
 The mills of the populous northeast needed the raw cotton grown in the South and
harvested by slave labor.
 The South bought the North's manufactured goods, which were made using the cheap labor
of a large immigrant workforce, and even child labor.
 'Free labor' was a fine slogan for Northerners to use, but how free was it really?
 So it's impossible to say one side had a complete monopoly on virtue.
 The culture of the North was heavily influenced by reform movements such as Temperance
and Abolitionism that were rooted in religion.
 In the South, religion was used to defend slavery and the plantation society. People on both
sides looked down on each other as culturally and morally inferior — depending upon how
they viewed slavery.
In the first years of the 19th Century, our nation doubled in size, first in 1803...
New territory drew a flood of people seeking new opportunity, more wealth,
and more prosperity.
 Growth created problems.
 As the nation grew neither North nor South wanted to be excluded from the
economic opportunities available in these new territories and would-be States.
 Would they be slave or free states?
 And the interplay among Free States and Slave States further and further
polarized the country. The advent of the telegraph and the nation's growing
appetite for newspapers, magazines and books insured that every dispute
over slavery became a national event.
 The future of slavery was the central issue of the Presidential election of
1860.
 The election of Lincoln — who wasn't even on the ballot in most Southern
states — was the final straw for the cotton states of the Deep South.
 South Carolina acted first, with a special convention voting to leave the Union.
 Six other states followed soon after.
 Within a few months war had begun and four more states had left the Union.
 Even though most Northerners didn't fight primarily to end slavery and most
Southerners didn't fight primarily to preserve it, take slavery out of the mix
and it’s hard to believe there would have been a war.
A war that almost no one really wanted.
 The gradual shift in the balance of political power
 toward the more populous North,
 the growth of the new anti-slavery Republican Party
 slaveholders and Southern politicians fear
 for their place within the Union
 the future of slavery
 Positions hardened
 Republicans asserted the sanctity of majority rule
 slaveholders perceived a growing threat to their way of life
 abolitionists—both black and white—sought to end slavery.
 Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency in 1860
 on a platform of preventing the extension of slavery to the territories
 the states of the Deep South to secede from the Union and to form a new confederacy for the
defense of slavery.
 The Confederate shelling of Fort Sumpter, South Carolina, on April 12,
1861
 prompted Lincoln to call for 75,000 volunteers from the states to put down the
"rebellion" and preserve the Union by force
 Slave states that had refused to secede over slavery
 realized that they could not avoid entering the war
 Compelled to choose sides, they joined the Confederacy.
 Virginia
 North Carolina
 Tennessee
 Arkansas
The line was now firmly drawn between those who would save the Union
and those who would leave it.
 At the beginning of the war, Northern goals were to suppress the insurrection and reclaim
Southern loyalty to the Union, not to conquer the South militarily.
 "Anaconda Plan“
 Gen. Winfield Scott's
 a war of strangulation to suffocate the Southern economy and bring its leaders to terms.
 blockade the Southern ports
 secure the Mississippi River
 Scott's military strategy conflicted with the politically motivated strategy created by loud public
demands for a quick military victory that would end the war.
 Union defeat at First Manassas




showed that the Confederates could not be speedily crushed
it would be costly to defeat them.
The Manassas debacle demoralized the Union army
roused suspicion that it could not win in Virginia,
 which was an attitude that would affect its confidence for the rest of the war.
 For the Confederates,
 gave real resolve to the fight for a Confederate nation
 raised hope for European recognition,
 proved that Union invasion could be repelled.
 The first major battle of the Civil War took place near Manassas Junction (Bull Run
Creek), Virginia
 Confederate forces routed Union attackers after a desperate battle
 Confederate troops were just as disorganized as their Union foes
 unable to follow up on their victory
 Union troops prepare after the First Battle of Bull Run
 Gen. George B. McClellan trained the green federal troops
 The process took the rest of 1861, to the disappointment of the federal government and Union civilians
who had expected a swift victory.
 In the Western Theater of the war
 Union troops scored numerous successes in the winter of 1861-1862.
 Forts Henry and Donelson in February, 1862
 General Ulysses Grant led a combined land and naval force to important victories
 Opening up waterways into Tennessee and allowing further Union advances.
 The Battle of Shiloh in April,
 Grant’s forces were routed after an initial surprise attack by Confederate forces
 The tide turned on the second day - Grant struck back with reinforced troops to claim
victory.
 resulted in 23,000 combined casualties
 underscored that the war would be long and hard.
 Though briefly stalled, Grant and the Union commanders in the West had begun the
process of opening the Western river system to Union control.
 New Orleans fell to Union naval forces in May.
 General McClellan launched an offensive against the Confederate capital of
Richmond - spring of 1862.
 McClellan hoped to flank Confederate defenses in northern Virginia and march on
Richmond from the east.
 In the Shenandoah Valley, a small Confederate army under General Thomas J.
“Stonewall” Jackson was keeping numerous federal commands in check.
 McClellan, demanded that these federal troops be sent to him as reinforcements
 refused to order an all-out attack on Richmond
 Inside the city, Robert E. Lee was in command of the Confederate defenses
 Lee went on the offensive
 Confederates sustained heavy casualties
 Lee managed to pushed McClellan’s superior force away from Richmond
 bottling the Union forces up at Harrison’s Landing on the James River.
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history/videos/confederate-vs-unionsoldiers?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false
 Lee general led his Army of Northern Virginia
 The Second Battle of Bull Run - August,
 Lee routed a Union army under General John Pope
 then marched into Maryland
 attempt to gain supplies and volunteers,
 influence European nations to enter the war on the side of the Confederates.
 At the Battle of Antietam - September
 McClellan and Lee met again in a savage battle
 12,500 Union and 10,000 Confederate casualties
 a tactical stalemate,
 Lee’s retreat into Virginia allowed Union troops to claim a victory.
 Success at Antietam gave President Lincoln the reason to issue the
preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
 The casualties were draining Union manpower resources.
 Union planners had come to realize that slavery allowed Confederates to
mobilize a greater proportion of their able-bodied male population.
 Lincoln argued that emancipating enslaved populations behind Confederate
lines
 would punish the seceded states
 encourage blacks to further support the Union cause,
 turn the war into one of liberation.
 Using his powers as commander in chief of United States forces and justifying
his actions in purely military terms
 Lincoln declared that on January 1, 1863, all slaves being held within areas in
rebellion to the federal government would be “forever free.”
http://www.history.com/topi
cs/american-civilwar/emancipationproclamation/videos/lincolns
-legacy-ofemancipation?m=528e394da
93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free
=false