Poor Leadership is the Cause of the Civil War.

1. Poor Leadership is the Cause of the Civil War. By: Brittany, Josh, Alex and Bhavish

3. Is Poor Leadership the cause of the Civil War? Factors: • The Lincoln Douglas debates • The Election of 1860 • The Freeport Doctrine Important People: Abraham Lincoln Stephen Douglas James Buchanan

4. States vs. Federal Rights • Since Revolution, two camps (groups) emerged: those arguing for greater states’ rights and those arguing that the federal government needed to have more control. • The first organized government in the US after theAmerican Revolution was under theArticles of Confederation. The thirteen states formed a loose confederation with a very weak federal government. However, when problems arose, theweaknesses of the Articles caused the leaders of the time to come together at theConstitutional Convention and create, in secret, theUS Constitution. • Many felt that the new constitution ignored the rights of states to continue to act independently. They felt that the states should still have the right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts. This resulted in the idea ofnullification, whereby the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied states this right. However, proponents such as John C. Calhoun fought vehemently for nullification. When nullification would not work and states felt that they were no longer respected, they moved towardssecession.

5. 3/5 Compromise ● The three-fifths ratio, or "Federal ratio", had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slaveholding states relative to voters. ● It was assumed by voting for this compromise they had resolved the problem of slavery, however it then led to unfair representation.

6. The Freeport Doctrine • Douglas responded that slavery could not exist in a community if the local citizens did not pass and enforce laws (slave codes) for maintaining it • This doctrine angered southern Democrats because, from their point of view, Douglas did not go far enough in supporting the implication of the Dred Scott decision

7. Election Results of 1860

8. Election Results of 1860 • This map shows that the country was had extreme sectionalism which affected the election of their future president. • (Election results were predictable) Lincoln carried every one of the free states of the North; Breckinridge, southern Democrat representative, carried the Deep South, leaving Douglas and Bell with just a few electoral votes in the border states • Fillmore : Appeasement describes the presidents time in office. All this man did along with Senator Douglas was appease the southern slave interest time and time again with the Compromise of 1850 to the Fugitive slave act.

9. Abraham Lincoln • When the Republicans met in Chicago, they enjoyed the prospect of an easy win over the divided Democrats. • Election of Abraham Lincoln (defeated Stephen Douglas) caused South Carolina and six other southern states to leave the union. • Southern states knew Lincoln would want to abolish slavery

10. Stephen Douglas Before the election: Lincoln was a Republican candidate who had served only one two-year term in Congress in the 1840s as a Whig. Nationally, he was an unknown compared to Douglas (the Little Giant), the champion of popular sovereignty and possibly the last hope for holding the North and South together if elected president in 1860

11. James Buchanan • Conservative who did nothing to prevent the secession of the seven states (lame-duck president)

12. Crittenden Compromise • Congress was more active. In a last ditch effort to appease the South, Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky proposed a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to hold slaves in all territories south of 36o30’. Lincoln, however, said that he could not accept this compromise because it violated the Republican position against extension of slavery into the territories.