US History 8
Civil War Anchor Paper
Prompt: Write a cohesive four paragraph essay describing the main causes of the Civil War. Examine the
geographic, social, cultural, economic, and political causes of the Civil War. Then, choose two of those causes
for your essay. Use the topics in the list below to support your causes.
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Missouri Compromise
Mexican-American War
Compromise of 1850
Fugitive Slave Law
Tariff of Abominations
States’ Rights Doctrine
Abolition Movement
Industrial Revolution
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Dred Scott Decision
Election of 1860 (*difficult to write commentary)
Outline:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Introduction with a two prong thesis
Paragraph about main cause #1 with two pieces of evidence explaining how they led to the Civil War
Paragraph about main cause #2 with two pieces of evidence explaining how they led to the Civil War
Conclusion
Final draft is due on: ______________________________________
This essay is worth _________ points.
Missouri Compromise
Document 1
“The unavoidable confrontation finally came. By adding the massive real estate deal of the Louisiana
Purchase, the free state-slave state debate finally became a national issue in 1818 when the Missouri
Territory petitioned for statehood, jeopardizing the equilibrium between free and slave states at eleven each.
Once again, the nation strived to compromise.”
Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, 1996, p. 55.
Mexican-American War
Document 1
Although support for the Mexican American War of 1846 was strong in some areas of the United States,
voices against the war were also significant. Some argued that the invasion of another civilized country was
against the spirit of freedom on which the Constitution and the nation were founded. One of the issues
surrounding the war with Mexico was the annexation of territories such as Texas; some people, particularly
abolitionists, feared the increase in the number of states allowing slavery. As you read, pay attention to the
connections between slavery and war.
“A war of conquest is bad; but the present war has darker shadows. It is a war for the extension of slavery
over a territory which has already been purged [ridden] by Mexican authority from this stain and curse. Fresh
markets of human beings are to be established; further opportunities for this hateful traffic are to be opened;
the lash of the overseer is to be quickened in new regions; and the wretched slave is to be hurried to
unaccustomed fields of toil.”
-Charles Sumner from “Report on the War with Mexico,” 1847
“In our judgment, those who have all along been loudly in favor of…the war…and glorifying the atrocious
[horrible] deeds of barbarous heroism on the part of wicked men engaged in it, have no sincere love of…peace
but plunder [stealing]. They have succeeded in robbing Mexico of her territory, and are rejoicing over their
success under the hypocritical pretense [claim] of a regard for peace…That an end is put to the wholesale
murder in Mexico is truly just cause for rejoicing; but we are not the people to rejoice; we ought rather blush
and hang our heads for shame, and…crave pardon for our crimes at the hands of a God whose mercy endureth
[lasts] forever.”
-Frederick Douglass from The North Star, March 17, 1848
Compromise of 1850
Document 1
“Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky had helped to settle the Missouri crisis of 1819-1820 and the nullification
crisis of 1832-33 by proposing compromises. He now had another plan to help the nation maintain peace.
His ideas were designed to give both sides things that they wanted:
1. California would enter the Union as a free state.
2. The rest of the Mexican Cession would be federal land. In this territory, popular sovereignty would decide
on slavery.
3. Texas would give up land east of the upper Rio Grande. In return, the government would pay Texas’ debts
from when it was an independent republic.
4. The slave trade--but not slavery—would end in the nation’s capital.
5. A more effective fugitive slave law would be passed.”
Deverell and White, United States History Independence to 1914, page 440.
Document 2
On March 7, 1850, Daniel Webster spoke on the floor of the Senate in favor of the Compromise of 1850.
“I hear with distress and anguish the word ‘secession.’ Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, you eyes and
mine are never destined to see the miracle. The dismemberment [taking apart] of this vast country without
convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffing the surface! Who is so foolish,
I beg everybody’s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing?...There can be no such thing as peaceable
secession.”
Deverell and White, United States History Independence to 1914, page 440.
Document 3
John C. Calhoun from South Carolina wrote a speech saying that the proposed compromise did not go far
enough to satisfy the South
“I have, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by
some timely and effective measure, end in the disunion…The South asks for justice, simple justice, and less
she out not to take. She has no compromise to offer but the Constitution, and no concession or surrender to
make”
Deverell and White, United States History Independence to 1914, page 440.
Fugitive Slave Law
Document 1
“For the better security of the peace and friendship now entered into by the contracting parties, against all
infractions of the same, by the citizens of either party, to the prejudice of the other, neither party shall
proceed to the infliction of punishments on the citizens of the other, otherwise than by securing the offender,
or offenders, by imprisonment, or any other competent means, till a fair and impartial trial can be had by
judges or juries of both parties, as near as can be, to the laws, customs, and usage's of the contracting parties,
and natural justice: the mode of such trials to be hereafter fixed by the wise men of the United States, in
congress assembled, with the assistance of such deputies of the Delaware nation, as may be appointed to act
in concert with them in adjusting this matter to their mutual liking. And it is further agreed between the
parties aforesaid, that neither shall entertain, or give countenance to, the enemies of the other, or protect, in
their respective
states, criminal fugitives, servants, or slaves, but the same to apprehend and secure, and deliver to the state
or states, to which such enemies, criminals, servants, or slaves, respectively below.”
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Article 4
Document 2
The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act dismayed abolitionists throughout the United States. Government
support of the arrest and return of escaped slaves caused many abolitionists to re-evaluate their opinion of the
nation’s political principles. In 1850, William P. Newman, a Baptist clergyman and former slave, wrote to
Frederick Douglass at the abolitionist newspaper the North Star. In the excerpt below, Newman criticizes the
federal government and abandons his belief in pacifism, the refusal to accept violence as a solution to
problems.
“CLEVELAND, O[hio]
Oct[ober] 1, 1850
FREDERICK DOUGLASS:
“It seems to me that the world has misunderstood, till the sitting of the last United States Congress, what the
real and true mission of that government is. Is it not a mission of bonds and death? Our race has been taught
to think that it was to the example of all coming human governments, it being itself the model of heaven…But
all must confess, that were all legislative governments to follow the example it has set of late, that earth
would be anything else than human.
It may properly be asked, would not the Devil do well to rent out hell and move to the United States,
and rival if possible, President Fillmore and his political followers?...Would not fallen angels make wise and
humane Senators, compared with Cass, Clay and Webster?...The world must be convinced that damned
spirits would do better and honor more the representative hall…
Fillmore’s heartless position, indecision of character, and the want of a virtuous soul, have rendered
him despicable [monstrous] in the eyes of good, and contemptible in the just opinion of bad. (Continued)
Document 2
The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act dismayed abolitionists throughout the United States. Government
support of the arrest and return of escaped slaves caused many abolitionists to re-evaluate their opinion of the
nation’s political principles. In 1850, William P. Newman, a Baptist clergyman and former slave, wrote to
Frederick Douglass at the abolitionist newspaper the North Star. In the excerpt below, Newman criticizes the
federal government and abandons his belief in pacifism, the refusal to accept violence as a solution to
Fugitive Slave Law
Document 2, CONTINUED
“In seeking to please tyrants, he has lost the favor of all. And alas, the true church of Christ can no longer
pray for the success of his truckling [yielding] administration. It has given their souls to the oppressor, and
their bodies to the prison, if they dare do their duty in obedience to Christ. In view of such facts, it is my
candid conviction that the record of the infernal regions can exhibit no blacker deeds than the American
archives, and accursed Fugitive Slave Bill. Upright humanity cannot uphold the hand that signed the bill of
abominations [hateful things], unless it first does violence to its own nature…
I am proud to say that Patrick Henry’s motto is mine—‘Give me Liberty or give me Death.’ I am frank to
declare that it is my fixed and changeless purpose to kill any so-called man who attempts to enslave me or
mine, if possible thought it be Millard Fillmore himself. To do this, in defence of personal liberty, to my mind,
would be an act of highest virtue, and white Americans must be real hypocrites if they say not to it-amen!”
Tariff of Abominations
Document 1
Jackson’s approach to governing was tested by an issue that threatened to break up the United States. In
1828, Congress passed a law raising tariffs, or taxes, on imported goods such as cloth and glass. The idea was
to encourage the growth of manufacturing. Higher tariffs meant higher prices for imported factory goods.
American manufacturers could then out sell their foreign competitors.
Northern states, humming with new factories, favored the new tariff law. But southerners opposed tariffs for
several reasons. Tariffs raised the prices they paid for factory goods. High tariffs also discouraged trade
among nations, and planters in the South worried that tariffs would hurt cotton sales to other countries. In
addition, many southerners believed that a law favoring one region-in this case, the North-was
unconstitutional.
Hart, History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism, 2005, p.190.
States’ Rights Doctrine
Document 1
“The purpose of the authors of the Constitution was not to strengthen the government but to strengthen the
Union. It was not to draw power from the States in order to transfer it to a national government, but in the
language of the Constitution itself, ‘to form a more perfect Union.’
Who, then, are the true friends of the Union? Those who would limit the federal government strictly within
the limits outlined in the Constitution; who would preserve for the States the powers not specifically given to
the federal government; who are constantly stealing power from the States, and adding to the strength of the
federal government.
The idea that the federal government is able to judge the extent and limits of its own power seems to go
completely against the independence of the States. If the federal government alone can determine the limits
of its own authority, and the States are forced to go along with these decisions, without being allowed to
decide for themselves when the Constitution has been overstepped, then this is practically a government with
unlimited powers.”
Hayne, Robert Young, “Speech Before the United States Senate on Mr. Foote’s Resolution” January 21, 1830.
Reprinted in Lindsay Swift, ed., The Great Debate Between Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina and Daniel
Webster of Massachusetts. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1898), 89, 100.
Document 2
“During a heated debate over tariffs and sale of western lands, Senator Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina
had attacked the New England states, questioning the patriotism of its citizens, whom he derided as selfish as
he asserted the superiority of the states over the federal government. For two days before a packed gallery,
Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts replied in one of the most memorable speeches in Senate history
(January 1830).
‘I have not allowed myself, Sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hiding in the dark
recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite
us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of
disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below…’”
Need source information Civil War Voices, p. 56.
Document 3
“On November 24, 1832, a South Carolina state convention issued an Ordinance of Nullification, which
declared ‘null, void, and no law’ the high protective tariff. President Jackson was not amused. He wrote to
one of his generals
‘Can any one of the common sense believe the absurdity that a faction of any state, or a state, has a
right to secede and destroy this union and the liberty of our country with it; or nullify laws of the union;
then indeed is our constitution a rope of sand; under such I would not live…’”
Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, 1996, p. 60
Abolition Movement
Document 1
A Speech by Frederick Douglass (1850)
“A master is a person who claims and exercises a right of property in the person of his fellow man. He
does this with the force of law and the blessing of the Southern religion. The law gives the master absolute
power over the slave. He may work him, hire him out, sell him, and in certain circumstances, kill him…The
slave is a person without any rights…his name is disrespectfully inserted in the master’s account book, with
horses, sheep and pigs. In law, the slave has no wife, no children, and no home. He can own nothing, possess
nothing, acquire nothing, but what must belong to another. To eat the fruit of his own labor is considered
stealing…
To ensure good behavior, the slaveholder relies on the whip; to make the slave humble, he relies on the
whip; to take the place of wages as motivation to work, he relies on the whip; to destroy his manhood relies
on the whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the pillory, the knife, the pistol, and the bloodhound. These
are the necessary parts of the system…”
Douglass, Frederick, “Lecture on Slavery No. 1” December 1, 1850. Reprinted in Morton J. Frisch and Richard
G. Stevens, eds., Political Thought of American Statesmen (Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock Publishers Inc., 1973), 223
Document 2
“But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I
like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach
me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give
her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr.
Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister,
and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do, in Kentucky, and none can say
to him nay! Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, anymore than I have any
father. But I'm going to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone,--to go
peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my
country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight
for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for
me!”
Excerpt from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Abolition Movement
Document 3
During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people by a series of discourses on the
subject of slavery, every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact, that a greater revolution in public
sentiment was to be effected in the free states -- and particularly in New-England -- than at the south. I found
contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and
apathy more frozen, than among slave owners themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptions to the
contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the
standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill and in the birth place of liberty.
That standard is now unfurled; and long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the missiles of a
desperate foe -- yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free! Let southern oppressors tremble
-- let their secret abettors tremble -- let their northern apologists tremble -- let all the enemies of the
persecuted blacks tremble.
I deem the publication of my original Prospectus unnecessary, as it has obtained a wide circulation. The
principles therein inculcated will be steadily pursued in this paper, excepting that I shall not array myself as
the political partisan of any man. In defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the assistance
of all religions and of all parties.
Assenting to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men
are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights -- among which are life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our
slave population. In Park-street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly
assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full
and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren
the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice and absurdity. A similar
recantation, from my pen, was published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September,
1829. My conscience in now satisfied.
I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as
harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write,
with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately
rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire
into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I
will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of
the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.
Excerpt from The Liberator by William Lloyd Garrison
Industrial Revolution
Document 1
“The leading product of the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century, cotton exports
exceeded the valued of all other American exports combined. Cotton was king!...To keep the king on top of
the hill, plantation owners needed two things: more workers and more land. The slave system had been
dying out because the Protestant work ethic was alive in America and favored free---more accurately, cheap –
labor…But the cotton gin and the demands of the northern factories changed everything. The boom in cotton
created a demand for labor.”
Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, 1996, p. 43.
Document 2
See Appendix A for charts and maps on:
Industry in the North, 1860
Growth in Urban Population, 1800-1860
Distribution of U.S. Manufacturing Establishments, 1860
Agriculture and Slavery in the South, 1860
U.S. Cotton Production, 1790-1860
Share of Total Cotton Production by State in 1860
U.S. Cotton and Tobacco Exports, 1760-1860
Salvucci and Stuckey, Call to Freedom Beginnings to 1914, 2000, p. 446-451.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Document 1
According to this act, the citizens of the newly created Kansas and Nebraska territory were to determine if
they would allow slavery within their boundaries. The act established that settlers could vote to decide
whether to allow slavery, in the name of popular sovereignty, or rule of the people. It was hoped this act
would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new
territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in their states. Instead, opponents denounced
the law. Mr. Lincoln, as an opponent of these laws, what is your major argument against it?
Lincoln: “This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The preceding history may not be precisely accurate
in every particular; but I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and…..to
correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong. I think, and shall try to
show, that it is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska-and wrong in its
prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found
inclined to take it.”
Douglas: “The Kansas and Nebraska bill declared, in so many words….not to legislate slavery into any State or
Territory, nor to exclude it there, but to leave the people there perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.”
Host: So do you believe that the Kansas-Nebraska Act is in the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, the highest
authority of the country?
Douglas: “For the last four years I have devoted all my energies, in private and public, to commend that
principle to the American people.….I held then, and hold now, that if the people of Kansas want a slave State,
it is their right to make one and be received into the Union under it; if, on the contrary, they want a free
State, it is their right to have it, and no man should ever oppose their admission because they ask it under the
one or the other. I hold to that great principle of self-government which asserts the right of every people to
decide for themselves the nature and character of the domestic institutions and fundamental law under
which they are to live.”
1. Excerpt from 1st Debate at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858
2. Excerpt from 5th Debate at Galesburg, Illinois, October 7, 1858
Dred Scott Decision
Document 1
The following excerpt is from the majority decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Written by Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney, it addresses the question of African American citizenship and slavery in the territories.
“Now . . . the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the citizens of the United
States, in every state that might desire it, for twenty years. And the government in express terms is pledged to
protect it in all future time, if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words—too plain to be
misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave
property . . . than property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the
duty of guarding and protecting the owner of his rights.
Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the Act of Congress [Missouri Compromise] which
prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of
the line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred
Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been
carried here by the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.
Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this Court that it appears by the record before us that the
plaintiff in error [Dred Scott] is not a citizen of Missouri in the sense in which that word is used in the
Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States for that reason had no jurisdiction in the case, and
could give not judgment in it.”
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, The Dred Scott Decision, 1857.
Election of 1860
Document 1
Election of 1860 map of electoral votes
-see page 457 in United States History Independence to 1914