Causes of the Civil War-The Crisis of the Union

1. Causes of the Civil War-The Crisis of the Union 1848-1860

2. Problems of Sectional Balance in 1850 • California statehood. • Southern “fire-eaters” threateningsecession. • Underground RR & fugitive slave issues: • Personal liberty laws • Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)

3. COMPROMISE OF 1850

4. Compromise of 1850 • Problems of sectional balance in 1849 • California – Gold Rush • Fugitive slaves • Attempts at compromise • Henry Clay • Zachary Taylor/Millard A. Fillmore • Stephen A. Douglas • Compromise of 1850 1) California 2) Remainder of Mexican Cession 3) Fugitive slaves 4) Slave trade in D.C. Henry Clay Presenting his compromise of 1850 in the Senate Stephen A. Douglas

5. RESPONSES TO THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 • Old national leadership: • (Clay, Webster, Calhoun) • Northern opposition to Fugitive Slave Act • Growth of Free-Soil Party (founded 1848) • Whig Party? • Personal Liberty Laws • Ableman v. Booth(1857) • “Young America” • Ostend Manifesto (1854) • Gadsden Purchase (1853)

6. HarrietBeecherStowe(1811 – 1896) So this is the lady who started the Civil War. -- Abraham Lincoln

7. Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852 • Sold 300,000 copies inthe first year. • 2 million in a decade!

8. KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT& the Emergence of the Republican Party

9. Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

10. “The Crime Against Kansas” Douglas(who was present in the chamber) was a "noise-some, squat, and nameless animal...not a proper model for an American senator." Butler was a pimp who took "a mistress who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean, the harlot, Slavery." Sen. Charles Sumner(R-MA) Congr. Preston Brooks(D-SC)

11. “Bleeding Kansas” • “Bleeding Kansas” (1854-58) • John Brown • Pottawatomie Massacre (1856) • Lecompton Constitution (1857) Border “Ruffians” (pro-slavery Missourians)

12. Political Parties

13. The “Know-Nothings” [The American Party] • Nativists. • Anti-Catholics. • Anti-immigrants. 1849  Secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner created in NYC.

14. Birth of the Republican Party, 1854 • Northern Whigs. • Northern Democrats. • Free-Soilers. • Know-Nothings. • Other miscellaneous opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

15. Republican Party Platform in 1860 • Non-extension of slavery [for the Free-Soilers. • Protective tariff [for the No. Industrialists]. • No abridgment of rights for immigrants [a disappointment for the “Know-Nothings”]. • Government aid to build a Pacific RR [for the Northwest]. • Internal improvements [for the West] at federal expense. • Free homesteads for the public domain [for farmers].

16. A. PRO- AND ANTISLAVERY ARGUMENTS AND CONFLICTS

17. PRO- AND ANTISLAVERY CONFLICTS Provided, territory from that, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted. Slavery & the Territories • “gag rule” • Wilmot Proviso(1846-47) Rep. David Wilmot(D-PA)

18. PRO- & ANTISLAVERY ARGUMENTS Sectional Controversy Hardened Attitudes: • South - “positive good” thesis • Good for slaves, southern society, the U.S. • North – Free Labor ideology • Slavery is bad for white Americans • American democracy=property, opportunity for advancement • “free soil” • “slave power conspiracy”

19. Free and slave states and territories, 1848

20. 1856Election Results

21. DRED SCOTT DECISION

22. Dred Scott Decision (1857) • Dred Scott v. Sandford • Slaves were property, not citizens, even if taken to free states • Result: U.S. govern-ment prohibited from limiting the spread of slavery in territories

23. John Brown’s Raidon Harper’s Ferry

24. John Brown’s Raidon Harper’s Ferry, 1859

25. John Brown’s Raidon Harper’s Ferry, 1859

26. John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, Oct. 16,1859 John Brown and 21 men attacked the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, VA to ob-tain guns for a slave rebellion

27. Reactions to John Brown’s Raid • Northern abolitionists made Brown into a martyr- but most didn’t like him, including Lincoln • Southerners were terrified that other abolitionists would incite slave rebellions

28. John Brown: Martyr or Madman? John Brown ca. 1850 “The Tragic Prelude (John Brown)”

29. Election of 1860

30. 1860PresidentialElection √Abraham LincolnRepublican John BellConstitutional Union Stephen A. DouglasNorthern Democrat John C. BreckinridgeSouthern Democrat

31. 1860 Election Results

32. Election of 1860

33. For the South Lincoln’s election was the final straw – they were convinced he intended to abolish slavery. That was not his intent, rather he saw slavery as a moral issue and that it should not be allowed to spread. ( Southern states would not have had to give up slavery.)

34. Secession

35. Secession!: SC Dec. 20, 1860

36. The Process of Secession, 1860-1861

37. Flyer from South Carolina announcing secession

38. Fort Sumter: April 12, 1861

39. Ft. Sumter Boston Evening Transcript, April 13, 1861

40. Sources • Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia - http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/index2f.html • Harriet Beecher Stowe Center - http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/life/ • PBS “Africans in America” - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html • Lincoln/Net, Northern Illinois University - http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/ • Brinkley 10th ed • Susan M. Pojer, Horace Greeley H.S., Chappaqua, NY • American Pageant, 13th ed. • Faragher, Out of Many, 3rd ed.