Steps to the Civil War

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Steps to the Civil War

• 1820-1860

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Missouri Compromise

• 1820
• 11 slave states and 11 free states
• Missouri territory became eligible for statehood
• Northern congressman would not support statehood
  for
• Missouri since it would be admitted as a slave
  state
• Henry Clay proposed compromise-Missouri enter as
  slave
• slave state and Maine enter as a free state.
  Proposed no
• slavery north of 36, 30 extending into
  Louisiana Purchase.
• Compromise accepted.

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• Thomas Jefferson expressed his opinion on the
  Missouri Compromise in a letter to John Holms
  dated April 22, 1820. Jefferson writes that the
  Missouri question, "like a fire bell in the
  night, awakened and filled me with terror. I
  considered it at once as the knell of the Union."
  -- Library of Congress

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Map of the United States in 1820
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War with Mexico

• 1830- 20,000 Americans living in Texas 2,000
  slaves.
• American settlers did not obey Mexican laws
• - abolish slavery, learn Spanish and convert to
  
• Catholicism.
• 1836- Texans begin seeking independence from
  Mexico. Santa Anna crushed rebels at the Alamo
• Texans declare themselves a republic-want
  annexation to the U.S. President Tyler supports
  idea. Enlists Calhoun to help. Alienates
  northerners.
• 1844- annexation rejected
• 1845-President Polk pushed through admittance of
  Texas as a state.

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• Border question emerges in 1845. U.S. wants Rio
  Grande
• River. Mexico wants Nueces River-150 miles
  north of Rio
• Grande.
• Polk sends Zachary Taylor with troops to the Rio
  Grande River
• and Slidell as negotiator to Mexico.
• Slidell refused. Polk orders Taylor to advance,
  Mexicans
• attack.
• No formal declaration of war by Polk
• Easy victory for Americans.
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 U.S. acquires
  more territory
• from Mexico- New Mexico, Utah, California and
  Arizona
• Wilmot Proviso

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Campaign Banner for James K. Polk
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Hand Colored Lithograph of General Taylors
Encampment By Daniel Whiting 1847
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Composed and arranged at the request of General
Taylor
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Ornamental Map of the United States 1848
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Untitled Cartoon- 1847
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Propaganda Pamphlet 1848
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(No Transcript)
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Expansion of Slavery?

• Two compromises to resolve issue of slavery in
  territories
• Extend Missouri Compromise to Pacific. South
  supports and North rejects.
• Popular Sovereignty-Lewis Cass. Allow states to
  choose themselves whether they are free or slave.

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Henry Clay, The Great Compromiser, introducing
the Compromise of 1850 in the Senate Chambers
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Compromise of 1850

• 1849 80,000 Americans moved to California
  territory-mostly men in search of gold.
• President Taylor suggests California be admitted
  as state using popular sovereignty.
• California chose to be free-protect chances for
  gold.
• Union was a stake

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• Henry Clay proposed a compromise
• California be admitted as a free state
• The southwest (Utah and N. Mexico territories) be
• organized into states. Southerners would be
  free to
• bring slaves.
• Lands around Texas would go to the New Mexico
• territory
• Slave trade abolished in Washington D.C. (not
  slavery itself)
• A more effective Fugitive Slave Law- to be
  enforced in the North.
• Stephen Douglas(D-Ill) pushed it through by
  calling for provisions to be voted on separately.
  

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Map of Territorial Expansion in 1850
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(No Transcript)
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Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854

• January 1854- Stephen Douglas proposed bill to
  organize land west of Missouri into Nebraska
  territory.
• To win over southerners Douglas proposed
  dividing region into Kansas and Nebraska and
  allow for popular sovereignty to be used to
  determine slavery in these territories
• Bill passed creating a split in the Democratic
  party- Know Nothings and Republicans emerge.

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Bleeding Kansas

• North and South both want control of Kansas
• Both regions sent outsiders to Kansas to
  influence the vote on slave state status.
• November 1854-Missourians cross over state line
  and vote to sway vote toward pro-slavery.
• 1855- Pro-slavery legislature is elected in
  Kansas.
• Anti-slavery settlers refuse to accept this
  legislature-hold own elections.
• 1856-two governments in Kansas
• May 1856-pro-slavery group attacks an
  anti-slavery town.
• John Brown responds with attack on pro-slavery
  settlement-murders 5 men.
• By end of 1856- 200 men had been killed in Kansas

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Portrait of John Brown
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Excerpt of speech by Charles SumnerSir,
speaking in an age of light, and in a land of
constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of
elections are justly placed among the highest
triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly assert
that the wrongs of much-abused Sicily, thus
memorable in history, were small by the side of
the wrongs of Kansas, where the very shrines of
popular institutions, more sacred than any
heathen altar, have been desecrated where the
ballot box, more precious than any work, in ivory
or marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been
plundered and where the cry "I am an American
citizen" has been interposed in vain against
outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are
you against sacrilege? I present it for your
execration. Are you against robbery? I hold it up
to your scorn. Are you for the protection of
American citizens? I show you how their dearest
rights have been cloven down, while a tyrannical
usurpation has sought to install itself on their
very necks.
Attack of Charles Sumner (MA) by Preston Brooks
on floor of Congress.
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Removal of Senator Charles Sumner
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Dred Scott vs. Sanford 1857

• Dred Scott was a slave of a man who lived in
  Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri
• Sued for freedom when owner died. Based case on
  having lived in free soil states

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Dred Scott Decision Supreme Court declared that
blacks are not citizens therefore they cannot sue
in federal court. Declared the Missouri
Compromise unconstitutional Dred Scott not
eligible to due process of law because he was
living in territories Decision threatened
popular sovereignty and convinced many
Northerners that the Supreme Court was pro-slavery
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Map of the Election of 1860
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Election of 1860

• 4 candidates for President
• 1. Douglas-Northern Democrat
• 2. Breckinridge-Southern Democrat
• 3. Bell- Constitutional Union
• 4. Lincoln-Republican
• Lincoln won the electoral college in the North
  and the West.
• Lincoln was viewed by the south as an
  abolitionist.
• Response of southern states to election was
  secession
• - South Carolina secedes from the Union in
  December 1860. Six other states follow in
  February of 1861.

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Portrait of Abraham Lincoln