Learning Targets
• Origins of the Civil War: political issues, states’ rights,
modernization, sectionalism, the nullification crisis,
economic differences between North and South
• Abolitionist debate: ideologies and arguments for and
against slavery and their impact
• Reasons for, and effects of, westward expansion and
the sectional debates; the crisis of the 1850s; the
Kansas–Nebraska problem; the Ostend Manifesto; the
Lincoln–Douglas debates; the impact of the election of
Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation;
Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy
Mexican American War Discussion
Prompts
• Was the Mexican-American War an exercise in
Imperialism?
• Was the Mexican-American War a “Just War?”
• Was the war part of a conspiracy by
Southerners to acquire more territory for the
“peculiar institution” of slavery?
Road to the Civil War
TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
• U.S. Defeats Mexico in the War
• Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
– U.S. acquires modern day TX, AZ,
NM, CO, UT, NV, & CA from
Mexico…completes goal of
Manifest Destiny
– Estbl. Rio Grande River as U.S.’
Southern border
• Polk acquires more land than any
other president in History
– TX, OR, and territory from Treaty of
G-H
• Why doesn’t the U.S. take over all
of Mexico?
• How did land gained from treaty
only spell future disaster for the
United States?
Rising Tensions over California
• Mass Population Growth in
California in 1849…why?
– Discover of Gold
• California Applies for statehood
– What’s the issue?
• South threatens secession…why?
– California as a free state would give
free states an advantage in the
House and Senate
– South fears would lead to
abolishment of slavery
– Compromise Needed…
Compromise of 1850
• Negotiations led by Henry Clay…
– What other compromises was he heavily involved in?
• Compromise of 1850 Provisions
– CA enters as a free state; no domestic slave trade in
Wash. D.C.
– Prohibits Congress from further interference w/
domestic slave trade where it exists
– Remaining territory from MX open to decide
slavery thru popular sovereignty (i.e. NM/UT)
• What does this mean?
– Congress will pass a law that assists with recovery
of runaway slaves
• Why are these last 3 provisions put in place?
– Get South to go along with the Compromise
• Opposed by Pres. Taylor, but he dies…in steps Fillmore
• Why did this compromise end up angering both the
South and the North?
Southern Views of the
Compromise
of
1850
Source: Congressman Robert Toombs of Georgia, speech on the House floor, December 13, 1849
I do not, then, hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God,
that if by your legislation you [Northerners] seek to drive us from the territories of California and New
Mexico, purchased by common blood and treasure of the whole people, and to abolish slavery in this
District [of Columbia], thereby attempting to fix a national degradation upon half the states of this
Confederacy, I am for disunion. And if my physical courage be equal to the maintenance of my
convictions of right and duty, I will devote all I am and all I have on earth to its consummation.
Southern Views of the
Compromise of 1850
Source: John C. Calhoun, last speech in the Senate, read on March 4, 1850
I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented
by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion….
To this question there can be but one answer,--that the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades
all the States composing the Southern section of the Union…. What has caused this widely diffused and almost universal
discontent?…
One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the
North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time…
There is another lying back of it—with which this is intimately connected—that may be regarded as the
great and primary cause. This is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections, in
the Government as it stood when the constitution was ratified and the Government put in action, has been
destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded a means of
each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of
controlling the Government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its
encroachment and oppression…
Fugitive Slave Act
• Daniel Webster: 7th of March Speech…
• Fugitive Slave Act Provisions
– Federal Official who does not arrest alleged
runaway slave: subject to $1000 fine
• Evidence: Slaveholder simply had to give a sworn
testimony that the individual was a slave of his
– The suspected African American could not ask for a
jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf
– Any person aiding a runaway slave subject to six
months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.
– Officers who captured a fugitive slave were
entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work
– Judges Receive $10 payment for ordering a return
of a “runaway slave” (only $5 for finding an A.A.
innocent
• What was the impact/significance of this law?:
– On the North?
– On the South?
– How did it contribute to the growing tensions
between North and South?
Growing Abolitionism
• Abolitionist Movement
– Fight to ban slavery in the U.S.
– Took Multiple forms/Motivations
• Garrisonians
• Religious Abolitionists
• Political Abolitionists
– Liberty Party
– Free Soil Party…what was their true
intent?
• Radical/Military Abolitionists
– John Brown
• Why did the Fugitive Slave Act lead
to a surge in Abolitionism in the
North?
– Yet, still was not a majority movement
Growing Abolitionism
• History of Slave Resistance
– Work slowdowns, sabotage tools,
steal foodstuffs, etc.
• Surge in activity on the
Underground Railroad
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin
– Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
– Many historians argue it was a direct
cause of the Civil War…
– Why did this novel anger both
northerners and southerners?
• Why did it hurt prospects of
compromise?
– What impact did this have on foreign
policy with Britain and France?
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
"My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister. She was
a pious, good girl, – a member of the Baptist church, – and as handsome as
my poor mother had been. She was well brought up, and had good manners.
At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near me. I was soon
sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door and heard her whipped, when it
seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart, and I couldn't do anything
to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian
life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her
chained with a trader's gang, to be sent to market in Orleans, – sent there for
nothing else but that, – and that's the last I know of her. Well, I grew up, –
long years and years, – no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul that
cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding, starving. Why,
sir, I've been so hungry that I have been glad to take the bones they threw to
their dogs; and yet, when I was a little fellow, and laid awake whole nights
and cried, it wasn't the hunger, it wasn't the whipping, I cried for. No, sir, it
was for my mother and my sisters, – it was because I hadn't a friend to love
me on earth.” (11.72)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Tom spoke in a mild voice, but with a decision that could not be mistaken. Legree shook with anger; his
greenish eyes glared fiercely, and his very whiskers seemed to curl with passion. But like some ferocious
beast, that plays with its victim before he devours it, he kept back his strong impulse to proceed to
immediate violence, and broke out into bitter raillery.
“Well, here’s a pious dog, at least, let down among us sinners!—a saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to
us sinners about our sins! Powerful holy crittur, he must be! Here, you rascal, you make believe to be so
pious—didn’t you never hear, out of yer Bible, ‘Servants, obey your masters’? An’t I yer master? Didn’t I
pay down twelve hundred dollars, cash, for all there is inside yer old cussed black shell? An’t yer mine,
now, body and soul?” he said, giving Tom a violent kick with his heavy boot; “tell me!”
In the very depth of physical suffering, bowed by brutal oppression, this question shot a gleam of joy and
triumph through Tom’s soul. He suddenly stretched himself up, and, looking earnestly to heaven, while the
tears and blood that flowed down his face mingled, he exclaimed,
“No! no! no! my soul an’t yours, Mas’r! You haven’t bought it—ye can’t buy it! It’s been bought and
paid for by One that is able to keep it. No matter, no matter, you can’t harm me!”
“I can’t!” said Legree, with a sneer; “we’ll see—we’ll see! Here, Sambo, Quimbo, give this dog such a
breakin’ in as he won’t get over this month!”
The two gigantic Negroes that now laid hold of Tom, with fiendish exultation in their faces, might have
formed no unapt personification of powers and darkness. The poor woman screamed with apprehension,
and all rose, as by a general impulse, while they dragged him unresisting from the place.
Reaction to Abolitionists
Source: Daniel Webster, speech in the Senate, March 7, 1850
Then, Sir, there are the Abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have
very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years
have produced nothing good or valuable…. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of
these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot but see what mischiefs
their interference with the South has produced…. These Abolition societies commenced their course of
action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be, that they sent incendiary publications into the
slave States; at any rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling; in other words,
they created great agitation in the North against Southern slavery….
Frederick Douglass Speech OPVL
Election of 1852:
Changing of the Tides
• Candidates:
– Democrats: Franklin Pierce
– Whigs: Winfield Scott
– Free Soilers: John Hale
• Impact
– Pierce: Pro-Slavery, Expansionist
– Collapse of the Whig Party…
• Death of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster…symbolic
• Why was the death of these two individuals so important?
– Led to Rise of the Republican Party…and sectional parties
Ostend Manifesto (1854)
• Pierce Administration:
– American ministers in Europe:
• Pierre Soulé for Spain
• James Buchanan for Great Britain
• John Y. Mason for France
– Plan for the United States to purchase Cuba from
Spain
• implied U.S. should declare war if Spain refused
• What motivations would the U.S. have for
acquiring Cuba? Who would oppose?
• Impact…
Who Knew A Railroad Could Bring
So Much Destruction?
• What does California have
to do Nebraska?
– Transcontinental Railroad
– Why did this cause
sectional conflict b/n North
and South?
• Stephen Douglas (D-IL)
– Motivations?
– 1854: Designs KansasNebraska Act
• Provisions:
Kansas-Nebraska Act
– Divides Unorganized (Nebraska) Territory into 2
territories …Nebraska and Kansas
• Why? What was the assumption?
– How would issue of slavery be decided in
Kansas and Nebraska?
• Popular Sovereignty
– Impact:
• Effectively Repeals the Missouri Compromise… How?
• Fuels mass opposition in North?
– Why?
• Will plant seeds for Bleeding Kansas and ends chance
of future compromise.
• Further divides Democrats…fuels formation of
Republican Party…
• Hurts pro-slave South…why?
Bleeding Kansas
• Kansas: Territorial Election of 1855
– Issue of “Border Ruffians”…who were they?
– What was the outcome/significance of the
election?
• Lawrence, Kansas
– Anti-Slavery town sacked in 1856
– Enter John Brown…Pottawatomie Creek
Massacre
– Significance
• Symbolic: Territorial Civil War Erupts
• Lecompton Constitution
– 1857: Kansas applies for statehood
– Anti-slave forces boycott election over
Lecompton Constitution…pro-slavery forces
come out on top…
– Solves nothing…KS remains divided on the
issue
Election of 1856 & Lecompton
Constitution
• Election of 1856
– James Buchanan (Democrat) v. John Fremont (Republican) v. Millard Fillmore (KnowNothing)
• Outcome
– President James Buchanan wins, takes over for Pierce
– Strong showing for the emerging Republican party who took a strong position against
the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
• Election of 1856 and Bleeding Kansas
– Pro-southerner, Buchanan supported the Lecompton Constitution
– Action splits Democratic party along sectional lines
• Stephen Douglas intervenes
– Champion of pop. Sovereignty, he blocks Lecompton Constitution (signifies
further division Democratic Party
– Kansas remains a territory, denied statehood until 1861 (outbreak of C.W.)
Bleeding Kansas: Reaches the Halls
of the Congress
• Charles Sumner: Anti-Slavery Senator from Massachusetts…
Source: Charles Sumner, “The Crime Against Kansas,” May 19, 1856.
With regret, I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate,
overflowed with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission as a state; and with
incoherent phrases, discharged the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then
upon her people….
But the Senator touches nothing that he does not disfigure—with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes
of fact…
Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to the day
of the last election of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civilization might lose—I do not say how
little; but surely less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in its valiant struggle against
oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration. Already in Lawrence alone there are
newspapers and schools, including a high school, and throughout this infant territory there is more mature
scholarship far, in proportion to its inhabitants, than in all South Carolina. Ah, sir, I tell the Senator that
Kansas, welcomed as a free state, will be a “ministering angel” to the Republic when South Carolina, in the
cloak of darkness which she hugs, “lies howling.”
Brooks Sumner Affair
• Violence reaches the halls of Congress
– May 22, 1856
• Rep. Preston Brooks (SC) attacks Charles Sumner
• Response to “The Crime Against Kansas” speech which
attacked S.C. and Sen. Andrew Butler
– Significance?
Dred Scott v. Sandford
• March 6, 1857: Supreme Court Drops a Bomb Shell!
• Court Ruling (Chief Justice: Roger Taney)
– African Americans were not citizens, thus Dred Scott could
not sue in federal court
– Slaves=Property; thus not free even if in free territory
– Missouri Compromise (36/30 line) ruled unconstitutional
• Declared Congress did not have jurisdiction to ban slavery in the
territories; nor did popular sovereignty matter
• Impact:
– Further splits N./S. elements of Democratic Party
– Fuels further division between North and South…
why?
John Brown’s Raid: Harper’s Ferry
• The Point of No Return…
– October 1859: Brown seizes Federal Arsenal at
Harper’s Ferry
– What were his motivations?
• Abolitionist Response
– Anger over his execution
• Southern Response
– Viewed as Northern abolitionist conspiracy
– Fuels calls for secession
Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
• What were the Lincoln-Douglas Debates?
• Who was Stephen Douglas? What major piece of
legislation did he help push through the Congress?
• What was the Freeport Question during the debates?
• What was the Freeport Doctrine? Why did this cause
further sectional division in the Democratic Party?
– Concept of Nullification and Road to Civil War:
•
•
•
•
VA/KY Resolutions
Nullification Crisis
Compromise of 1850/Fugitive Slave Act
Freeport Doctrine
Election of 1860
• Democratic Party Officially Splits
– Northern Democrats: Stephen Douglas
• Popular Sovereignty
– Southern Democrats: John C. Breckinridge
• Expand Slavery; Manifest Destiny into Latin America
• Republican Platform—Broad Appeal to North
– Economic protectionism
– Free Homesteads
– Internal Improvements thru Fed. Financing
• Transcontinental Railroad
– Oppose Expansion of Slavery
• Republican Candidate: Abe Lincoln
Election of 1860
• Lincoln Wins
– Lincoln won the 1860 Presidential election despite
not receiving one electoral vote from 10 states—
he was the most sectionally elected President,
ever.
– “I know it’s an awful thing for me to say, but I
already wish someone else was here in my place.”
• Confederate States of America Established
(Feb. 1861)
– SC, AL, MS, FL, GA, LA, TX (eventually VA, NC, TN,
& AK, as well)