1. Week 14: Causes of the Civil War
SOL 6g & 7a

2. Sectional disagreements and debates over:
The events of the 1850s, combined with the lack of strong presidential leadership, led to the secession of Southern states.   Sectional tensions, originating with the formation of the nation, ultimately resulted in war between the Northern and Southern states
Causes of the Civil War
Sectional disagreements and debates over:
Tariffs
extension of slavery into the territories
the nature of the Union (states’ rights)
Nullification Crisis

3. Abolition
Northern abolitionists vs. Southern defenders of slavery (Apologists)
Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
United States Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case

4. Failed Compromises
A series of failed compromises over the expansion of slavery in the territories and the Fugitive Slave Act
Missouri Compromise
Compromise of 1850
Kansas-Nebraska Act

5. Key leaders and their roles
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln’s vision of the United States as a nation and democratic society was evident in his speeches and political decrees.
Believed secession was an illegal act and that the United States was a “nation,” not a collection of sovereign states; Southerners believed the states had freely joined the Union and could freely leave
First Inaugural Address: “In your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war…”
Initial goal: Preserve the Union
Later goal: End slavery and expand citizenship

6. Southern Leaders Robert E. Lee]
Confederate general of the Army of Northern Virginia
Opposed secession, but did not believe the Union should be held together by force
Jefferson Davis
United States senator who became president of the Confederate States of America

7. Northern Generals George McClellan
First Union commander who was overly cautious and always thought he was outnumbered.
Ulysses S. Grant
Union military commander who won victories over the South after several other Union commanders had failed

8. Abolitionists Frederick Douglass Former enslaved African American
Became a prominent abolitionist
Urged Lincoln to recruit former enslaved African Americans to fight in the Union army

9. Major events
Election of Lincoln as president of the United States (1860), followed by the secession of several Southern states that feared Lincoln would try to abolish slavery
Fort Sumter: Opening confrontation of the Civil War