1861-1865


The North and the South held competing visions of what American society should become.
 Led to a larger rift between North and
South….and eventually war.




What was the main topic of debate in the
1800s?
Has the United States completely formed yet?
What problem erupted when new territories were added to the US?


Missouri Compromise 1820: Henry Clay
(Speaker of the House)

Missouri - slave state

Maine - free state

Entry of states into the Union have to be balanced - one free/one slave

No slavery allowed in remaining Louisiana
Territory above 36’30’’


Missouri Compromise 1820: Henry Clay (Whig Party)

Missouri - slave state



Maine - free state
Entry of states into the Union have to be balanced - one free/one slave
No slavery allowed in remaining Louisiana Territory above 36’30’’

Answer map questions!

• Gag rule was passed in
Congress by pro-slavery
Senator John C Calhoun in
1836.
• It said: nothing concerning slavery could be discussed.
• Anti-slavery petitions could not be read to Congress
• **Dec 4 th , 1844 Henry
Clay was able to get the
Gag Rule repealed


1830s and 1840s, many Americans favored expanding US territory.
 Believed in the idea of manifest destiny,
“obvious or undeniable fate;” It was their divine mission to spread liberty across the continent

Coined by John L. O’Sullivan

 1836 Texas won their independence from
Mexico
 Wanted to be annexed , or joined, to the United
States.
 South(democrats): approved b/c since Texas is in the South hoped it would be a slave state
 Northerners(Whigs) disapproved b/c it would shift the balance of power to the South.
Both sides also worried that annexation would lead to war
with Mexico.

 In 1845 it became the twenty-eighth state in the Union later that year.
 Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with US
 The US-Mexico War began

Dispute of southern border of Texas
- President Polk wanted more then just Texas terr., he wanted Mexican land that stretched to the Pacific
- US claimed that the Rio
Grande was the official
Amer-Mex border
- Mexico claimed that the
Nueces River (located a few miles farther north) was the border


Sends an ambassador to Mexico city in nov
1845 with an offer to buy New Mexico and
Cali for 30mill.

Mexican gov refused

How does Polk manage to avoid US declaring war?
 Polk sent 3000men under gen Zachary
Taylor into disputed area of southern
Texas
 Provokes Mexico: Taylor crosses the
Nueces in March 1846 and sets up camp near the Rio Grande.
 Mexico considered this an invasion of
Mexico territory and attacked…killing many American troops
 This is the excuse Polk had waited for,
“ American blood on American soil”
 War was declared on May 13 th 1846

Before news of the war had reached
California, settlers there declared an independent Republic of California. The uprising became known as the Bear Flag
Revolt after the bear pictured on the new republic’s flag.



January 1847: US took control of New
Mexico and California.
Fighting ended September 14, 1847, when US captured Mexico City, the capital of Mexico.



U.S. wins and gets more land!
The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo 1848
Rio Grande became the southern border
Mexico gave up its claims to Texas,
California, and New Mexico in return
 for $15 mill ion
.
The Gadsden
Purchase
Five years later, Mexico sold present-day southern New Mexico and Arizona to the U.S. for 10million


What issues are going to arise due to the expansion of the United States westward?

 The treaty of G-H and the Gadsen
Purchase established the borders of present US
 Now have to confront issue of slavery directly once acquiring these new territories/states.
 Increase of western migration due to new territory

Part II: Leading up to the Civil War
Should a newly acquired state be free or slave?


Illinois Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas had two goals:
1) To make Chicago benefit from trade with the West
He would do this by…Making Kansas and Nebraska states to build a railroad that linking Chicago with the
West
2) To run for President .
He would do this by…
Getting as many votes as he can from northerners and southerners !
*

Based on the map below who would have a problem with the Kansas and Nebraska
Statehood???? WHY?????

The Decision: The Kansas-Nebraska Act

To appease North and South Douglas creates the Kansas-Nebraska Act that supports….


 popular sovereignty : Letting the people of each state determine if it should be a free or slave state
This meant going against the Missouri
Compromise .
The act was passed in 1854


Douglas believed…
 South happy bc it gave them a chance to make northern states slave states
 North happy bc they would be free states due to south’s cotton would not survive harsh weather conditions

 South Happy
 Would have slave owners from neighboring states cross border of Kansas to vote for it to be a slave state
 North angry
 bc they should be free states based on Missouri
Comp

 http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/n eh/interactives/sectionalism/lesson3/





Response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Thousands of people flooded into Kansas.


Northerners went to stop slavery = free soilers,
Southerners went in support of it = border-ruffians
Each created their own government leading to
Violence
1856 Pro-slavery supporters attacked the antislavery town Lawrence, Kansas
In retribution, an abolitionist named John Brown led some men in a series of vicious murders near a river called Pottawatomie Creek.


May 24, 1856 John Brown led several New Englanders to a proslavery settlement near Pottawatomie Creek where they woke 5 men from their beds, dragged them out of their homes and killed them in front of their families

Became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre which ignited a full-blown war in Kansas

The violence continued to escalate until about 200 people were dead.

This whole affair is known as Bleeding Kansas

John Brown


John Brown a CT born and Ohio raised abolitionist who believed that he was chosen by God to end slavery
Angered about the previous incidences in Kansas,
Brown would lead Kansas into an uproar!


Target: An Arsenal(where they store weapons, at
Harpers Ferry, Virginia

Plan: Believed that slaves would join and he would be able to arm them


Brown rented a farm outside Harper’s Ferry where he would set-up base for 3 months.

Recruited 21 fugitive slave, college students, free blacks + Dangerfield Nuby who had a personal reason

His wife was held in that area and about to be sold south-was afraid he would never see his wife or children again


On October 16, 1859, John Brown and followers attacked the federal arsenal
 Plan Failed: Nobody came to help Brown and his men.
 United States troops, under Colonel Robert E. Lee had heard of the raid surrounded the arsenal
 killed half of Brown ’ s men (Nuby, being the first), and forced the rest to surrender. Brown was convicted of treason and sentenced to death.
Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
Harper’s Ferry Arsenal
John Brown before he was hung




Northerners hailed Brown as a martyr (somebody who chooses to die for a belief )
Southerners saw him as a criminal.
The reactions caused by Brown’s raid deepened the anger between the North and the South.

Watch John Brown Raid’s Video
13min

Is John Brown a hero or Villain?
Is John Brown a Martyr or
Terrorist?

Blood spread to Congress

Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of
Mass gave speech, “A crime against
Kansas”
*

Called author of K-N act, Andrew Butler horrible names and insulted him




Preston Brooks, Senator of NC was Butler’s uncle
Followed Sumner to office
Caned him
Barely any punishment
*

 Whigs and Free-Soilers formed the
Republican Party in 1854
 Both opposed slavery, the Kansas-
Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave Act
 Fought to repeal Acts




All three major parties were eager to choose candidates with no ties to “ Bleeding Kansas.”



Democrat: supported both the compromise of 1850 and the Kan-
Neb Act
Republicans: Believed Federal gov’t had the right to restrict slavery in terr.
Know-Nothings: Against immigration
Democratic nominee James Buchanan won the election, promising to stop “ the agitation of the slavery issue.
”
President Buchanan hoped that the Supreme Court would resolve the slavery issue.


The Supreme Court ’ s March 1857 Dred
Scott v.
Sanford decision angered anti-
 slavery forces.
Lawsuit:
He was a Missouri slave who was sold to John Emerson in 1833. He was taken to
Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory before returning back to Missouri.

1843, Scott filed for his freedom, claiming that his residence was in Illinois, on free soil
John Sanford, Emerson’s
Dred Scott brother who took ownership after Emerson died

The Dred Scott vs. Sanford Decision
 Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled the following:
 slaves were the property and the Constitution protects the right to own property.
 slaves were not citizens so had no right to sue, and could not be considered free even in a free state or territory.


By saying slaves could not be considered free anywhere is also saying the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional…
 it deprived those who owned slaves of “life, liberty and property” under the 5th
Amendment.

What does this mean for Kansas and
Nebraska?


Slave states






In the Illinois Senate campaign of 1858, Democratic
Senator Stephen Douglas ran for re-election against
Republican Abraham Lincoln.
The campaign drew nationwide attention for the Lincoln-
Douglas debates, a series of seven debates on the issue of slavery in the territories.
Neither Lincoln nor Douglas believed in racial equality.
Lincoln thought slavery was morally wrong and wanted to confine it to the states where it already existed.
Douglas, however, tolerated slavery, believing that white
Americans should choose the kind of society that they wanted.

 In a now-famous speech, Lincoln stated that, “ A house divided against itself cannot stand, ”
 The “house” was the Union.
 The issue dividing the “house” was slavery.
 Douglas won the election, but Lincoln earned a reputation for eloquence and moral commitment.

 The presidential election of 1860 further demonstrated the division between the North and the South.
 Voters in the North chose between:
 Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas: for popular sovereignty
 Republican Abraham Lincoln: against the spread of slavery
 Southerners voted for
 Southern Democrat J.C. Breckinridge: for the gov’t protecting slavery in territories
 John Bell of the newly formed Constitutional Union Party who was a moderate slaveholder.

 Votes in the Border States (Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri) were mixed
 Lower South (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina) supported Breckinridge.

 Secessionists, or those who wanted the South to secede,
 Why? Southerners were outraged that a President had been elected without any southern electoral votes.
 Their Rationale: argued that since the states had voluntarily joined the Union, they could also voluntarily leave it.
 On December 20, 1860, South Carolina officially seceded. Six other states of the Lower South followed.

 In early February 1861, these states met and proclaimed themselves a new nation, the Confederate States of America, or
Confederacy.
 Jefferson Davis, a former senator from
Mississippi, became president of the
Confederacy.

 Some Americans felt that the South should be allowed to secede peacefully.
 Others objected, citing the loss of business with the South as well as a desire to keep the Union together.
 President Lincoln believed that secession was wrong, but told the South that he would not attack them unless they struck first.

 http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/
11/24/opinion/20101125_LincolnBeard-
8.html