Events Leading to
The Civil War
Four Factors of Division
•
•
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Economic Interests
Westward Expansion
Slavery
Debates over the nature of the Union
Slavery and States’ Rights
• Trying to work out issues led to a
series of crises and compromises
– Admission of new states – crisis
– Would it be admitted as “free” or
“slave” state?
– Failure to settle these differences will
lead to Civil War
The Northern states became increasingly industrial based on manufacturing. They favored high protective
tariffs to protect Northern manufacturers from foreign
competition.
However, these
tariffs are so
high, that
Americans
cannot, for the
most part, afford
to buy foreign,
imported goods.
The Southern - agricultural economy based on farming and
slave labor on plantations in the lowlands along the Atlantic
and in the Deep South, and small subsistence farmers in the
foothills and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains.
The South strongly opposed high protective tariffs, which
raised the price of imported manufactured goods.
These divisions so great that by 1830, many began to identify
more with their region or state than the nation as a whole.
Slavery and States’ Rights
• The abolitionist (wanted to end slavery)
movement grew in the North, led by William
Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, an
antislavery newspaper, and many New England
religious leaders, who saw slavery as a violation
of Christian principles.
Garrison
declared, "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 Abolitionist Movement
Harriet Beecher Stowe, wife of a
New England clergyman, wrote
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which
showed the cruelties of slavery
Best-selling novel that caused many
Northerners to join the anti-slavery
cause.
Abolitionists received a positive
response in the North
Southerners were frightened by the
growing strength of the
abolitionist movement and
threat of slave rebellions
The Underground Railroad
• Network of roads and safe houses used to
bring fugitive slaves out of the South and
into the North.
• Harriet Tubman was famous for her work
with the Underground Railroad.
Gabriel’s Rebellion and Nat
Turner’s Rebellion (Virginia)
• 1800 - Gabriel Prosser
• Virginia Slave
• Planned Rebellion in
Richmond, Virginia
• Prosser and 34 other
slaves killed after their
plot was uncovered
Nat Turner’s Rebellion 1831
Turner, a slave in Southampton
County, Virginia, claiming divine
inspiration, armed recruits with
axes and clubs and traveled
through the county, killing 55
whites in his attempt to lead
Virginia slaves into freedom.
Slave owners in Virginia crushed
Nat Turner’s Rebellion, killing
Turner and more than 100 of his
slave-recruits. The largest and
bloodiest slave revolt in the
South
Effects of Rebellions
• Increased white southerner’s fears of
slave rebellions
• Southern state legislatures pass stricter
slave codes (the laws that governed lives
of African-American slaves)
• After rebellions, those
Southerners who did
harbor anti-slavery
feelings became silent
Missouri Compromise
North and South argued about whether new states would allow slavery
Admission of states could change the balance of power in Congress
Henry Clay proposed the
Missouri Compromise
(1820)
Missouri admitted as slave
state, Maine as free state Equal at 12 free, 12 slave
states – Senate Equal
Drew an east-west line
through the Louisiana
Territory at 36° 30’ with
states north of the line free
and south of the line, slave,
except that slavery was
allowed in Missouri, north of
the line.
So….
• After the Missouri Compromise, it was
important for Congress to keep number of
slave and free states even
• As long as this was true, US Senate
remained evenly divided between slave
South and free North.
But then, there’s California
• 1849, the Gold Rush occurs in
California when gold is
discovered
• Thousands move to California
• California asks to be admitted
to the union as a free state.
• Threatens balance between
free and slave states. Again.
Henry Clay – “The Great Compromiser”
Proposed
•Compromise of 1850
•Missouri Compromise
•1833 Tariff Compromise
• California to become a state. Congress almost rejected
California's constitution in 1850. Southerners argued that the
Missouri Compromise of 1820 should be extended to divide
California in half. They would have allowed slavery in the
southern region. But the southerners finally agreed to admit
California as a part of a deal worked out by Senators Henry Clay
and Daniel Webster.
Four Part Deal – Compromise of 1850
1) California entered as a free state
2) New Mexico and Utah territories created with *popular
sovereignty provision
3) Abolished the slave trade, but not slavery itself in
Washington, DC
4) Stricter *Fugitive Slave law
*Popular sovereignty – Under this provision,
each territory would decide if they would
allow slavery in their territory
*Tougher fugitive slave laws – easier for
owners and slave catchers to capture and
return fugitive slaves
Fugitive Slave Law
• Northerners HATED the new, tougher
Fugitive Slave Law
• It returned runaway slaves from the free
North to the slave South
• It pitted Southern slave owners against
outraged Northerners who held opposite
views of the fugitive slave law
Kansas-Nebraska Bill
• Bill Proposed by Senator Stephen Douglas
• Became a Law/Act when passed in 1854
• Did 3 Things
Created two territories – Kansas and
Nebraska
Said popular sovereignty would decide the
issue of slavery in these territories
Repealed (do away with) the Missouri
Compromise because both were NORTH
of the line
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas turmoil led to open
warfare after John Brown sought
revenge for the "sack of Lawrence"
by murdering five pro-slavery
settlers in cold blood at
Pottawatomie Creek in May, 1856.
In retaliation against Brown's raid,
the proslavery forces killed five
free-soilers.
• Northern abolitionists felt this
betrayed the Missouri
Compromise’s promise of no
slavery north of the line
• This law produced bloody
fighting broke out in Kansas
between pro-slavery and antislavery forces battled each
other.
• Referred to as Bleeding Kansas
• It also led to the birth of the
modern Republican Party to
oppose the spread of slavery
into the Western Territories.
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott, shown with Harriet Scott, his
wife, brought suit against Scott's former
owner who had taken him from Missouri
into the Wisconsin Territory where slavery
was prohibited. Taney's Supreme Court
held that slaves such as Dred Scott were
not citizens; despite the fact that such a
ruling meant he had no status to sue,
Taney then proceeded to argue that the
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
because it restricted the property rights of
slave owners.
• Supreme Court rules
Missouri
Compromise
unconstitutional
• Enraged Northerners
– overturns all
previous efforts to
limit slavery in
western territories
Southern Belief - States’ Rights
• Southerners argued that individual states
could nullify laws passed by the Congress.
John C. Calhoun had put
forth the idea of
“Nullification” in 1832 in
response to the Tariff of
Abominations
States’ Rights
• They also began to insist that states had entered
the Union freely and could leave (“secede”)
freely if they chose. (Secede means to
withdraw from or leave the Union)
Senator Daniel Webster
responded in the Senate that
Calhoun's theory of nullification
would destroy the Union,
saying "Liberty and Union, now
and forever, one and
inseparable“. Webster and
Clay worked out the
Compromise of 1850.
Election of 1860
• Northerners supported Lincoln
• Southern vote was split between two
candidates: Stephen Douglas and John
Breckenridge
• Lincoln won the election
• South Carolina seceded from the Union