Causes of the Civil War
Event
Bleeding Kansas
Caning of Sumner
The Dred Scott
decision in 1857
Lincoln-Douglas
Debates
John Brown’s raid on
Harper’s Ferry in 1859
Brief Description
When it was announced that popular sovereignty would decide the
issue of slavery in the Kansas Territory, people on both sides of the
issue flooded the territory in order to influence the vote. When the proslavery forces won, the abolitionist forces did not accept the outcome.
Eventually fighting between the two forces broke out. Many historians
call it the war before the war.
In 1856 Congressman Preston Brooks savagely attacked Senator
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Sumner had given a blunt and fiery
speech against slavery two days before in which he had insulted one of
Brook’s kinsmen, Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. This event
further intensified sectional conflict and dramatically illustrated the
growing violence within the United States.
Dred Scott was a slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom. He
sued because he and his wife had lived in Illinois for a time, where
slavery was illegal. The Supreme Court ruled against him, essentially
stating that a slave was property and did not have the right to sue in
U.S. courts. This angered northerners because they saw the decision
as a way to expand slavery in the territories and in free states. As a
result of this decision, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took part in a series of debates
when running for the vacant Senate seat in Illinois in 1858. These
debates put Lincoln on the national stage. Douglas called for popular
sovereignty to determine slavery in the west. Lincoln called for a
freeze on slavery to limit the institution to where it already existed.
Although Lincoln lost the election, the debates propelled him into the
national spotlight.
John Brown was a northern abolitionist who attempted to convince
slaves to rise up and fight for their freedom. His first move was an
attempted raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. Brown’s raid
failed and he was tried, convicted, and executed for leading the
rebellion. This angered northerners, but more importantly it sent a
message to southerners that abolitionists would violate the law in an
effort to end slavery.
The Election of
Abraham Lincoln in
1860
Secession
Fort Sumter
When the Democratic vote was split between the Northern
Democrats and the Southern Democrats, each with its own
presidential candidate, it ensured victory for the Republican
candidate, Abraham Lincoln. This angered southerners because
they viewed Lincoln as a sectional candidate who opposed slavery
and whose party represented abolitionists. Southerners saw this
election as an attack on their way of life and evidence that they had
no political power. Southern states seceded from the Union
following the election, leading to the Civil War.
Southern states, starting with South Carolina, began to feel that they
no longer had a voice in the federal government. This feeling was
heightened following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
Southern states believed that the only way to have liberty on their
own terms was to leave the Union. They argued that they had joined
the Union voluntarily and that because they had been wronged, they
could leave the Union voluntarily. They eventually formed the
Confederate States of America. Many people in the North insisted
that the United States must remain intact.
The U.S. troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina were desperate for
supplies following the secession of South Carolina. Abraham Lincoln
agreed to send food to the troops, but no men or military supplies.
Southerners, eager to reclaim federal buildings and forts in the
south, would not accept this. The Confederate army attacked Fort
Sumter to prevent the resupply, and this battle started the Civil War.
Source: Causes of the Civil War Timeline. NationMaster.com. Encyclopedia. 7 Feb. 2012 <http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Timeline-ofevents-leading-to-the-American-Civil-War>.
Gettysburg Address
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new
nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men,
living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to
add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it
can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of
freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
perish from the earth."
--- President Abraham Lincoln, 1863
Source: The Gettysburg Address. The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 7 Feb. 2012 <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/gettyb.asp>.
About/Point Chart
Title : Gettysburg Address, 1863
Author: Abraham Lincoln, United States President
The text is ABOUT:
The Author’s POINTS are:
Describe the context of the
writing, including what was
going on in the United States
and to whom the speech was
delivered.
Reconstruction Amendments
XIII - Slavery Abolished, Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The 13th Amendment in my own words:
XIV - Citizen rights not to be abridged, Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.
2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers,
counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at
any election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in
Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to
any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or
in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall
be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male
citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or
hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an
oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature,
or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But
Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of
pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither
the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or
rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts,
obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
5. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
The 14th Amendment in my own words:
XV - Race no bar to voting rights, Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February
3, 1870.
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The 15th Amendment in my own words:
Source: Constitution of the United States: Amendments XI – XXVII. The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 7 Feb. 2012
<http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/amend1.asp>.