Causes of the Civil War
SOL 7a
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION: CAUSES OF THE CIVIL
WAR, INCLUDING THE ROLE OF THE INSTITUTION OF
SLAVERY AS A PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF THE CONFLICT
• Mounting sectional tensions and a
failure of political will led to the Civil
War.
• The nation struggled to resolve
sectional issues, producing a series
of crises and compromises. The
territory gained from the Treaty of
Guadalupe-Hildalgo at the end of the
Mexican-American War in 1848 caused
the Missouri Compromise to fail.
• These crises took place over the
admission of new states to the
Union during the decades before the
Civil War. The issue was whether the
number of “free states” and “slave
states” would remain balanced, thus
affecting the distribution of power in
the Congress. California would have
been cut in half by the Missouri
Compromise line, requiring a new
compromise to be made.
Compromise of 1850
• In the Compromise of 1850,
California entered as a free state,
while the new Southwestern
territories acquired from Mexico
would decide on their own- popular
sovereignty. To placate the South, a
new Fugitive Slave Act was
passed.
Bleeding Kansas
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
repealed the Missouri
Compromise line, giving people in
Kansas and Nebraska the choice
whether to allow slavery in their
states or not (“popular
sovereignty”).
• This law produced bloody fighting
in Kansas as pro- and anti-slavery
forces battled each other. It also led
to the birth of the Republican
Party that same year to oppose the
spread of slavery.
Causes of the Civil War in the 1850s
• Sectional disagreements and debates
over tariffs, extension of slavery into
the territories, and the nature of the
Union (states’ rights)
• • Northern abolitionists versus
Southern defenders of slavery
• • United States Supreme Court
decision in the Dred Scott case
Causes of the Civil War
• • Publication of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin by Harriet Beecher
Stowe
• • Ineffective presidential
leadership in the 1850s
• • A series of failed
compromises over the
expansion of slavery in the
territories
Secession of the South
• • Election of Lincoln (1860),
followed by the secession of several
Southern states that feared Lincoln
would try to abolish slavery
• • President Lincoln’s call for federal
troops in 1861
• The secession of Southern states
triggered a long and costly war that
concluded with Northern victory and
resulted in the restoration of the
Union and emancipation of the
slaves.