The Civil War
Document Based Question for the Civil War
Questions: Discuss the causes of the Civil War.
This question is designed to test your ability to work with historical documents, in particular
political cartoons contemporary to the late 1800s, and is based on the accompanying
documents 1-14. None of the documents have been edited from the original publication, but
some have been cut into excerpts. As you analyze each document, take into account the point of
view that is being represented by the document—particularly whether or not s/he is pro-slavery
or abolitionist.
Directions: This document-based question consists of two parts. In Part A, you are to analyze
each document and summarize its significance. In part B, you are to write an essay based on the
information in the documents and your knowledge of United States history.
Task for your Essay
Using the information from the documents provided and your knowledge of United States
history, write a well-organized essay in which you:
 Analyze the ways in which prevailing attitudes, socioeconomic factors, and government
actions in the North and South led to the Civil War.
 Use primary sources to support claims about the past and make decisions about the
present.
 Discuss how cultural artifacts of varying types can be used to make academic inquiries.
 Differentiate between various theses as to the major causes, moods, and motivations
that surrounded contentious events in American history.
 Discuss how the Civil War was a manifestation of the struggles between state and
national powers in a federal system.
Document 1 Excerpted from the Kansas Nebraska Act 1854
“Regarding the Territory Nebraska; and when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory or any
portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may
prescribe at the time of the admission: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to
inhibit the government of the United States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in
such manner and at such tin as Congress shall deem convenient and proper, or from attaching a portion of
said Territory to any other State or Territory of the United States: Provided further, That nothing in this
act contained shall construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining the Indians in said
Territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and
such Indians, or include any territory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without the consent of
said tribe, to be included within the territorial line or jurisdiction of any State or Territory; but all such
territory shall excepted out of the boundaries, and constitute no part of the Territory of Nebraska, until
said tribe shall signify their assent to the President of the United States to be included within the said
Territory of Nebraska.
Regarding the Kansas, created into a temporary government by the name of the Territory of Kansas; and
when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into
the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission:
Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to inhibit the government of the United
States from dividing said Territory into two or more Territories, in such manner and at such times as
Congress shall deem convenient and proper, or from attaching any portion of said Territory to any other
State or Territory of the United States: Provided further, That nothing in this act contained shall be
construed to impair the rights of person or property now pertaining to the Indians in said Territory, so
long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty between the United States and such Indians, or
to include any territory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without the consent of said tribe, to
be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any State or Territory; but all such territory shall
be excepted out of the boundaries, and constitute no part of the Territory of Kansas, until said tribe shall
signify their assent to the President of the United States to be included within the said Territory of Kansas.
Document 2 Stephen Douglas, “Nebraska Territory,” January 30, 1854
Upon the other point--that pertaining to the question of slavery in the Territories--it was the intention of
the committee to be equally explicit. We took the principles established by the compromise act of 1850 as
our guide, and intended to make each and every provision of the bill accord with those principles. Those
measures established and rest upon the great principle of self-government--that the people should be
allowed to decide the questions of their domestic institutions for themselves, subject only to such
limitations and restrictions as are imposed by the Constitution of the United States, instead of having
them determined by an arbitrary or geographical line.
The leading feature of the compromise of 1850 was congressional non-intervention as to slavery in the
Territories; that the people of the Territories, and of all the States, were to be allowed to do as they
pleased upon the subject of slavery, subject only to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States.
Document 3 Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at Peoria in Reply to Senator Douglas,” October 16,
1854:
This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in
every particular, but I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the use I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we
have before us the chief material enabling us to judge correctly 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.
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but
hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our
republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with
plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and
especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very
fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there
is no right principle of action but self-interest.
Document 4 Abraham Lincolon, “Speech in Response to Judge Douglas regarding the Dred Scott
Case” 1858
We believe, as much as Judge Douglas, (perhaps more) in obedience to, and respect for the judicial
department of government. We think its decisions on Constitutional questions, when fully settled, should
control, not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be
disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this
would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it,
has often over-ruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to over-rule this. We offer
no resistance to it . . .
I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was, in part, based on assumed historical facts
which were not really true; and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying
this; I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering
the opinion of the majority of the Court, insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people
who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United
States. We disagree with this faulty assumption made by the Supreme Court.
Document 5 Frederick Douglass, “Hypocrisy of American Slavery” July 4th 1852
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included
within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable
distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you,
not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This
Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand
illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and
sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a
parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation
(Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying
that nation in irrecoverable ruin.
Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains,
heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach
them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand
forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!"
Document 6 George Fitzhugh “Cannibals All!”1857
The profits of slave labor are that portion of the products of such labor which the power of the master
enables him to appropriate. These profits are less, because the master allows the slave to retain a larger
share of the results of his own labor, than do the employers of free labor. But we not
only boast that the White Slave Trade is more exacting and fraudulent (in fact, though not in intention,)
than Black Slavery; but we also boast, that it is more cruel, in leaving the laborer to take care of himself
and family out of the pittance which skill or capital have allowed him to retain. When the day's labor is
ended, he is free, but is overburdened with the cares of family and household, which make his freedom an
empty and delusive mockery. But his employer is really free, and may enjoy the profits made by others'
labor, without a care, or a trouble, as to their well-being. The negro slave is free, too, when the labors of
the day are over, and free in mind as well as body; for the master provides food, raiment, house, fuel,
and everything else necessary to the physical well-being of himself and family. The master's labors
commence just when the slave's end. No wonder men should prefer white slavery to capital, to negro
slavery, since it is more profitable, and is free from all the cares and labors of black slave-holding.
Document 7 Alexander Stephens, “Cornerstone Address” March 21, 1861
So, taking the whole new Constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as my judgment, that it is decidedly
better than the old. [Applause.] Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements. The question of
building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another, under the
exercise of the revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old Constitution, is put at rest
forever under the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of
persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same
broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever
pursuit they may be engaged in ....
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one
other-though last, not least: the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions
relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in
our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was
right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great
truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him
and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the
enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially,
morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the
men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be
evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea
at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should
last, and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees thus secured,
because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They
rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the
idea of a Government built upon it-when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone
rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the
superior race, is his natural and moral condition.
Document 8 Lincoln,“House Divided Speech” Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and
how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and
confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation
has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall
have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not
expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the
other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it
forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.
Document 9 Lincoln First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During
that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens, have, in succession, administered the
executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils; and, generally, with
great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief
constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union
heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and
of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the
fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a
provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our
national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever -- it being impossible to destroy it, except by
some action not provided for in the instrument itself. Again, if the United States be not a government
proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably
unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it -- break it, so to
speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is
perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself.
Document 10 Excerpt from a speech by Albert Gallatin Brown, a Mississippi politician
September 26, 1860
(The Northerners) hate us now, and they teach their children in their schools and churches to hate our
children...the John Brown raid...the abolitionists among us, tell the tale...The North is accumulating
power, and it means to use that power to emancipate (free) your slaves...Disunion is a fearful thing, but
emancipation is worse. Better leave the union in the open face of day, than be lighted from it at midnight
by the arsonist's torch."
Document 11
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
Harriet Beecher Stowe published the best-selling antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, in
1852. She wrote this book to show that slavery was evil and that the Fugitive Slave Law was
unjust. Many Northerners viewed slavery as wrong. Abolitionists wanted to end slavery and
some helped slaves escape to the North and Canada. The Southerner's believed that they
were stealing their property.
Simon Legree beating Tom
from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852
In March 1862, Harriet Beecher Stowe visited the White House and upon meeting President
Abraham Lincoln, said, "So this is the little lady who made this big war?"
Document 12
Cotton Exports as Percentage of All U.S. Exports, 1800-1860
Document 13
South
Carolina
Dec. 20, 1860
Mississippi
Jan. 9, 1861
Florida
Jan. 10, 1861
Alabama
Jan. 11, 1961
Georgia
Jan. 19, 1861
Lousiana
Jan. 26, 1861
Texas
States and Dates of Secession
Dates of Secession and Percentages of Slaveholders
Feb. 1, 1861
48.7
48
36
35.1
38
32.2
28.5
0
10
20
30
40
Percentages of Slaveholders
50
60
Document 14
Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
Abraham Lincoln's supporters are portrayed as radicals and eccentrics of various stripes. The satire is
loosely based on an anti-Fremont cartoon from the previous presidential race, "The Great Republican
Reform Party" (no. 1856-22), also issued by Nathaniel Currier.
Here Lincoln, sitting astride a wooden rail borne by Horace Greeley, leads his followers toward a lunatic
asylum. Greeley instructs him, "Hold on to me Abe, and we'll go in here by the unanimous consent of the
people." Lincoln exhorts his followers, "Now my friends I'm almost in, and the millennium is going to begin,
so ask what you will and it shall be granted."
At the head of the group is a bearded man, arm-in-arm with a woman and a Mormon. He claims to
"represent the free love element, and expect to have free license to carry out its principles." The woman
looks at Lincoln, saying "Oh! what a beautiful man he is, I feel a {grave}passionate attraction' every time I
see his lovely face." The Mormon adds, "I want religion abolished and the book of Mormon made the
standard of morality."
They are followed by a dandified free black, who announces, "{grave}De white man hab no rights dat cullud
pussons am bound to spect' I want dat understood." Behind him an aging suffragette says, "I want womans
rights enforced, and man reduced in subjection to her authority." Next a ragged socialist or Fourierist,
holding a liquor bottle, asserts, "I want everybody to have a share of everybody elses property."
At the end of the group are three hooligans, one demanding "a hotel established by government, where
people that aint inclined to work, can board free of expense, and be found in rum and tobacco." The second,
a thief, wants "the right to examine every other citizen's pockets without interruption by Policemen." The last,
an Irish street tough, says, "I want all the stations houses burned up, and the M.P.s killed, so that the bohoys
can run with the machine and have a muss when they please."