Causes of the Civil War

1. Causes of the Civil War Taken from: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/trigger-events-civil-war

2. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 • After the Louisiana Purchase, Congress had to address the issue of slavery for all lands joining the nation as well as all lands labelled as “territories” west of the Mississippi. • In 1820, Missouri asks to join the USA. They have met all requirements and intend to enter as a slave holding state. This would give the pro-slavery faction a Congressional majority when it came to voting on laws. • To prevent the nation from separating, Congress reached a series of agreements that became known as the Missouri Compromise. • Missouri will be allowed to enter as a slave state as long as Maine can enter as a free state. This would preserve the balance in both houses of Congress. • To prevent future fighting over the issue of slavery, a line was also drawn through the unincorporated western territories along the 36°30' parallel, dividing north and south as free and slave. • While it did prevent the nation from separating over the issue of states rights and slavery, many famous Americans were against the compromise as it still never addressed a way to end slavery, Thomas Jefferson once said it was the death blow to America within a few years

3. Nat Turner’s Rebellion • In August of 1831, a slave named Nat Turner incited an uprising that spread through several plantations in southern Virginia. • Turner and approximately seventy cohorts killed around sixty slave holders. The rebellion was only ended after the state of Virginia sent their army to capture/kill Nat and his group. • Fifty-five slaves, including Turner, were tried and executed for their role in the insurrection. • Almost 200 more slavers were killed by lynching from panicked farmers in the area. • Although small-scale slave uprisings were fairly common in the American South, Nat Turner’s rebellion was the bloodiest. • Virginia lawmakers reacted to the crisis by rolling back what few civil rights slaves and free black people possessed at the time. Education was prohibited and the right to assemble was severely limited.

4. The Compromise of 1850 • Senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas begin to argue that states have the right to Popular Sovereignty when they become a part of the USA. Therefore states who join the Union should be allowed to pick their slave status by what the people vote for • In 1850, California asks to become a part Of America, the problem is that they want to be a non-slave holding states. Do to the line established in the Missouri Compromise, parts of California would have to allow for slavery. • Clay and Douglas argue that the Utah, New Mexico and Oklahoma territories should also be able to vote for themselves. Southerners believe these territories will vote for slavery which would give the pro-slavery movement a majority in congress. Northerners believe that they will vote against slavery since their land is not suited for agriculture. • The final outcome is that the Missouri Compromise is now null and void, states & territories are should be able to vote for their own slave/free status. • Still not entirely satisfied with the outcome, many the North and South agree to the Fugitive Slave Act as an alternative to the nation dividing into two separate countries.

5. The Fugitive Slave Act • With both sides fighting the Compromise of 1850, it appears as though negotiations will fail and America will split into 2 separate nations. • Southerners will agree to give up all claims to slavery in California and allowing the new territories to vote for themselves if the northern states will return all run away slaves currently living above the Mason Dixon Line. • The North agrees to the terms but then many governors make state laws that forbid the return of run away slaves. In response the South begins to use “bounty hunters” to capture and return slaves. • As of this moment, run away slaves will need to reach Canada to be truly free.

6. Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Written by Harriet Beecher to introduce the horrors of slavery to those where not yet abolitionists. • Many in the North claimed that it opened their eyes to the evils of slavery, while many in the South protested that book stating that it was slanderous and intended to cause rebellions.   • Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the second-best-selling book in America in the 19th century, second only to the Bible.  • Its popularity brought the issue of slavery to life for those few who remained unmoved after decades of legislative conflict and widened the division between North and South.

7. The Kansas Nebraska Act • In January 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that divided the land west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. He argued for popular sovereignty, which would allow the settlers of the new territories to decide if slavery would be legal there. • Antislavery supporters were outraged because, under the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery would have been outlawed in both territories. • After months of debate, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed on May 30, 1854. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers rushed to Kansas, each side hoping to determine the results of the first election held after the law went into effect. The conflict turned violent, aggravating the split between North and South until reconciliation was virtually impossible. • Opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act helped found the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery into the territories. As a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the United States moved closer to Civil War.

8. Bleeding Kansas • A series of battles fought in the Kansas Territory over the issue of allowing people to vote for or against slavery. • After several rigged elections, “Border Ruffians” from Missouri attack residents of Lawrence Kansas in a bloody war. • Because Kansas was not yet officially a US State, troops could not be sent to protect the “Jayhawkers”. The bloody attacks continued between residents of Kansas and Missouri and abolitionist armies from the NE USA begin to arrive to protect the Jayhawkers. • Tensions keep building in American, Congressman Preston Brooks attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor, beating him with a cane over their divergent political views. • John Brown’s army arrives and begins to execute those who support Missouri. He has a policy of kill all who oppose abolition. • After a few years of the bloodbath, the Border Ruffians eventually capture and kill one of Brown’s sons. Brown leaves Kansas with his army as he is now wanted by the US Government (Kansas was now a US State and his actions were not authorized).

9. The Dred Scott Decision • Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court. The case eventually rose to the level of the Supreme Court, where the justices found that, as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had none of the legal rights or recognitions afforded to a human being. • The Dred Scott Decision had the ability to completely tip the delicate balance between abolitionists who wanted peace and those who abdicated for violence. • By referring to slaves as property and not humans, Congress was now able to regulate and tax goods produced by slaves and the slaves themselves at a higher level. • Southerners used the case to back their claims on slavery as a state’s right issue, while Northerners used the case to rally the abolitionist movement towards more aggressive methods.

10. John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry • In mid-October of 1859, John Brown and his sons grow tired of inaction on slavery and decide to start a rebellion throughout the south where freed slaves could be armed, trained and then sent farm by farm to kill all slave masters and their families. • The trick is where to get enough guns to arm a whole army. Brown knows that the US Army keeps their arsenal in Harper’s Ferry VA. He organizes a small band of whites and free blacks and raided the arsenal. • At first Brown captures the arsenal, but Virginia responses by sending an army led by Colonel Robert E. Lee. Lee easily captures Brown, his sons and most of those involved. They are tried in court for treason – found guilty and immediately executed. • Because of how the attack, capture, trial and execution were handled, Brown will became a martyr for the abolitionist cause in the North. Slave holding Southerners on the other hand, use the attack as reasons to raise a “protective” army away from the federal US Army.

11. The Lincoln Douglas Debates • Held in 1858, across Illinois • For the first time people got to hear the new Republican party candidate debate the established Democratic party candidate on many key issues of the day – most importantly slavery • Douglas believes in the state’s right to Popular Sovereignty, Lincoln believe in the Union doing all the same or all the other • He gives a famous “House Divided Amongst Itself” speech – the speech has mixed emotions depending on if you were an abolitionist or pro slavery. • As a result, many Southern states refuse to even let Lincoln’s name appear on the election ballot

12. The Election of Abraham Lincoln • The election of 1860 saw 4 candidates on the final ballot. In many Southern States, Abraham Lincoln did not even appear as a voting option. In the end, Lincoln was elected by a large margin. • Lincoln belonged to the new Republican Party, which ran on the policy of ending slavery in America and freeing all slaves currently held in the Southern States. • On December 20, 1860, a little over a month after the polls closed, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more states followed by the spring of 1861.

13. The Attack on Fort Sumter • On April 12, 1861, Confederate warships turned back the supply convoy to Fort Sumter and opened a 34-hour bombardment on the stronghold. The garrison surrendered on April 14. • The Civil War was now underway. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to join the Northern army. Unwilling to contribute troops, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee dissolved their ties to the federal government.