Download Causes of the Civil War

Bell Ringer –Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Describe a time you compromised on
something with a friend. Did you ultimately
get what you wanted? Explain.
Agenda:
1. Bell Ringer / Attendance
2. Causes of the Civil War
3. Homework: Lotus Diagrams: Compromises
Have out:
Concept Sheet
& lined paper
Roots of the Antislavery Movement
• By 1804, every northern state had ended
or pledged to end slavery.
• By the mid-1800s, a small but growing
number of people were abolitionists,
reformers who wanted to abolish, or end,
slavery.
• Frederick Douglas was African-American
social reformer. Escaped from slavery and
became a leader of the abolitionist
movement, gaining note for speeches and
antislavery writing.
– Born into slavery. Broke the law by
learning to read.
– Spoke at anti-slavery rallies and published
his own anti-slavery newspaper, the North
Star.
The Underground Railroad
• Neither underground nor a
railroad.
• It was a network of peopleblack and white, northerners
and southerners-who secretly
helped slaves reach freedom.
• Supporters donated food,
clothes, and money to pay for
passage on trains and boats.
• Many risked their lives to help
runaway slaves reach safety.
The Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman
• African-American abolitionist and
women's rights activist.
• Born into slavery in New York,
she escaped with her infant
daughter to freedom in 1826.
• Powerful voice of both enslaved
African Americans and women.
• Tubman helped up to 300 of the
50,000 slaves that gained their
freedom via the Underground
Railroad.
Opposing Abolition
• Many northerners profited
from slavery.
– Northern textile mill owners
and merchants bought cotton
produced by southern slave
labor.
• Northern workers feared that
freed slaves might take their
jobs.
Manifest Destiny
• Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana
Purchase doubled the size of
the US.
• Missionaries spurred
settlement of the West.
• Farmers wanted free, fertile
land and a mild climate to
grow their crops. Solution?
Oregon!
• The Oregon Trail – stretched
2,000 miles from Missouri to
Oregon
The Mexican American War
• Both the U.S. and Mexico
claimed the land as their own.
• U.S. President Polk attempted to
buy the land. Mexico wasn’t
impressed.
• Polk sent troops to the disputed
land.
• Mexico protected what they saw
as their land.
• Polk asked congress to declare
war on Mexico.
• America won the disputed land.
The Lingering Issue
• Between 1820 and 1848,
an equal number (4 each)
of slave and free states
were admitted to the
Union.
• What about that land
gained from the MexicanAmerican war?
The Wilmot Proviso
• Proposed that Congress ban slavery in all of the
territory that might become part of the United
States as a result of the Mexican American war.
• Never made a law, but supporters of slavery
(South) saw it as an attack on slavery by the
North.
• Democratic candidate for President in 1848,
Lewis Cass, had a solution:
– Popular sovereignty – the people in the territory
or state would vote directly on issues instead of
letting their elected representatives decide.
Problem Solved? No.
• What to do with
California?
– Northerners argued that
it should be free because
most of the land was
north of Missouri
Compromise line.
– Southerners were worried
that northerners would
have unfair
representation in senate.
• Began to threaten to
secede, or withdraw from
the nation if California was
admitted as a free state.
The Compromise of 1850
• Designed to end the crisis over
slavery by giving both sides
part of what they wanted.
– The North: California was
admitted as a free state &
banned slavery in the nation’s
capital.
– The South: Popular
sovereignty would be used to
determine the issue of slavery
in the rest of the Mexican
Cession. Southerners got a
tough new fugitive slave law.
The Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
• Declared that all runaway
slaves were, upon capture, to
be returned to their masters.
• Abolitionists nicknamed it the
"Bloodhound Law" for the
dogs that were used to track
down runaway slaves.
• Brought the issue home to
anti-slavery citizens in the
North as it made them
responsible for enforcing
slavery.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
• Anti-slavery novel by
American author Harriet
Beecher Stowe.
• Uncle Tom, was an enslaved
man who was brutally abused
by his owner.
• The book was a bestseller in
the North!
– The book, seen by many
southerners as propaganda,
made the issue of slavery real
for so many Americans.
Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)
• Proposed that slavery in
the new territories
(Kansas and Nebraska)
be decided by popular
sovereignty.
• Undid the Missouri
Compromise.
• Mostly supported by
southerners because it
was believed they
would move into Kansas
and Kansas would enter
the Union as a slave
state.
Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861)
• Series of violent political confrontations involving antislavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian"
elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the
neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854
and 1861.
• The issue: whether Kansas would allow or outlaw slavery,
and thus enter the Union as a slave state or a free state.
• Proslavery forces said every settler had the right to bring
his own property, including slaves, into the territory.
• Antislavery "free soil" forces said the rich slave owners
would buy up all the good farmland and work them with
black slaves, leaving little or no opportunity for white men.
• Issue settled?
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
• A surgeon with the U.S. Army, purchased
Dred Scott, a slave, and eventually moved
Scott to a base in the Wisconsin Territory
(where slavery was banned).
• Scott lived there for the next four years,
hiring himself out for work during the long
stretches when Dr. Emerson was away.
• Dr. Emerson died in 1843, leaving the Scott
family to his wife.
• In 1846, after laboring and saving for years,
the Scotts sought to buy their freedom from
Sanford, but she refused.
• Dred Scott then sued Sanford in a state
court, arguing that he was legally free
because he and his family had lived in a
territory where slavery was banned.
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
• The Supreme Court ruled that
Americans of African descent,
whether free or slave, were
not American citizens and
could not sue in federal court.
• The Court also ruled that
Congress lacked power to ban
slavery in the U.S. territories.
• The Court declared that slaves
were property and had no
rights.
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry (1859)
• An unsuccessful attempt by the white
abolitionist John Brown to start an
armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a
United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry,
Virginia.
• Brown's raid, accompanied by 20 men
in his party, was defeated by a
detachment of U.S. Marines.
• Brown was taken to the court house,
was found guilty of treason against the
commonwealth of Virginiam, and was
hanged.
• Some southern whites lived in fear of a
slave insurrection. After the raid
southerners initially lived in fear of
slave uprisings and invasion by armed
abolitionists.
Election of 1860
• Republicans: Abraham
Lincoln
– Senator from Illinois, born in KY
– Strongly criticized slavery
during debates
• Southern Democratic Party:
John C. Breckinridge
– Democratic party was divided
b/w North and South.
Election of 1860
• With four candidates in the field, Lincoln received only
40% of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes —
enough to narrowly win the crowded election.
– 60% of the voters selected someone other than Lincoln.
– Would the South accept the outcome?
Southern Secession
• Reaction to the election of 1860. South
Carolina was the first southern state to do
so (secede from the Union).
• State by state, conventions were held, and
the Confederacy was formed.
• Within three months of Lincoln's election,
seven states had seceded from the Union.
• As Illinois celebrated the election of
Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency on
November 7, so did Charleston, South
Carolina, which did not cast a single vote
for him.
– It knew that the election meant the
formation of a new nation. The Charleston
Mercury said, "The tea has been thrown
overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been
initiated.”
Essential Question & Your Homework
• What were the South’s reasons for seceding?
• Three paragraph response
– Introduction:
• Sentence 1 – restate prompt
• Sentence 2-5 – explain significance
• Sentence 6 – Thesis statement
– The South seceded from the Union as a result of…
– Body:
• Sentence 1 – topic sentence
• Sentence 2-5 – supporting details
• Sentence 6 – clincher
– Conclusion:
• Sentence 1 – restate thesis (using different wording)
• Sentence 2-5 – bring all the pieces of evidence together (summarize)
• Sentence 6 – As a result of ______, the South seceded to the Union and paved
the way for________.