A House Divided: The Road to Civil War

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A House DividedThe Road to Civil War
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The North

• Advances in technology, such as the telegraph and
  the steamboat shaped the economy of the North.
• New transportation and communication increased
  growth and industrialization in the North.
• Working conditions in industries changed with the
  development of labor unions.
• Slavery had disappeared from the North by the
  1830s but prejudice and discrimination was
  prevalent.
• Immigrants also faced prejudice, but eventually
  this group had tremendous impact on the character
  of our country.

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The South

• The economy of the South relied on agriculture.
• Cotton was king in the South.
• Plantation owners, yeomen, and tenant farmers all
  made their living off the land
• Enslaved African Americans faced brutality and
  hardships, including the slave codes (ex it was
  illegal to teach enslaved people how to read or
  write).

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Slavery and the West

• Compromise of 1850
• 1. California admitted as a free state
• 2. New Mexico territory would have no
  restrictions on slavery.
• 3. Slave trade (not slavery) abolished in
  the District of Columbia.
• 4. Stronger fugitive slave law.

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Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

• Required all citizens to help catch runaway
  slaves.
• Anyone who helped a runaway could be fined or
  imprisoned.
• Northerners refused to cooperate with the law.
• Antislavery groups were formed to help slaves
  escape.
• The Underground Railroad (a network of whites and
  free African Americans) helped runaways get to
  freedom.

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Kansas Nebraska Act (1854)

• Illinois senator Stephen Douglas, hoping to
  encourage westward settlement, proposed
  organizing the region west of Missouri and Iowa.
• This caused controversy because both Kansas and
  Nebraska were both north of the line established
  by the Missouri Compromise.
• Douglas proposed abandoning the Missouri
  Compromise and letting the settlers in each
  territory decide the slavery issue for their
  location.
• Southerners supported the Act
• Despite strong protest by the North, the
  Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in May, 1854.

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Conflict in Kansas

• After passage of the act, both proslavery and
  antislavery groups rushed people into the
  territory.
• A proslavery legislature was elected and soon
  passed laws supporting slavery.
• Antislavery groups did not accept this and armed
  themselves, held their own elections and adopted
  their own constitution that banned slavery.
• By January 1856 two rival governments existed in
  Kansas.
• Violence erupted in Kansas and was unchecked
  until October of 1856.

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Dred Scott Decision

• Scott was a slave who was purchased in Missouri
  (a slave state). His owner moved to a free state
  and then later back to Missouri.
• In 1846, Scott sued for his freedom stating that
  he had lived on free soil.
• 11 years later, the case reached the Supreme
  Court.
• The Court decided that Scott was still a slave.
• In addition, the Court stated that Congress had
  NO power to prohibit slavery in any territory.
  (In other words, the Court implied that the
  Constitution protected slavery.)

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Harpers Ferry

• In October, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a
  raid on Harpers Ferry, VA.
• The target was an arsenal with which he intended
  to arm enslaved African Americans.
• Brown and his men were quickly defeated,
  convicted of treason and sentenced to hang.
• His execution caused a huge uproar in the North
  and Brown was seen as a martyr.
• The time for compromise had ended!

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Secession

• Lincoln won the election of 1860, but was elected
  solely based on votes from the North (larger
  population).
• Lincoln and the Republicans had promised not to
  interfere with slavery where it already existed.
• The South did not trust the government.
• In 1860, South Carolina voted to secede (break
  away from) from the Union

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• By February, 1861, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi,
  Alabama, Florida and Georgia also seceded.
• The met to form a new nation called the
  Confederate States of America and selected
  Jefferson Davis as their president.
• Southern States justified secession with the
  theory of states rights.
• Some slave states (North Carolina, Kentucky,
  Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas) remained in
  the Union (for now)

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Reactions

• Many Southerners welcomed secession.
• Some Northerners preferred to allow the Southern
  states to leave the union.
• Most Northerners, including Lincoln, believed
  that the Union should be preserved.
• In Lincolns inaugural address, he stated that
  secession would NOT be permitted.

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Fort Sumter

• Confederate forces seized some forts within their
  states.
• The Confederates demanded the surrender of Fort
  Sumter (S.C)
• Jefferson Davis ordered the Confederate troops to
  attack the fort.
• No one was killed during the attack and the South
  won control of the fort.
• The North began to organize for war with Lincoln
  calling out 75,000 troops.
• The rest of the slave states voted to join the
  Confederacy..the Civil War had begun.