1. Sectional Conflict Intensifies
1848 – 1861
Essential Question:
Was the Civil War inevitable?

2. Manifest Destiny Slavery The Union Dissolves
After the Louisiana Purchase expanded the frontier, thousands of people pushed west. Many believed in the idea of Manifest Destiny.
American settlement in the southwest led first to tension and then war with Mexico.
Slavery
As western territories became states the issue of slavery became increasingly important.
Attempts to keep the Union together included the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. However, tensions only increased.
The Union Dissolves
After events such as the Dred Scott decision and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry conflict became increasingly likely.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Just a few weeks after Lincoln’s inauguration the South seceded. The Civil War had begun.

3. This map, published by the US Coast Guard, shows the percentage of slaves in the population in each county of the slave-holding states in The highest percentages lie along the Mississippi River, in the “Black Belt” of Alabama, and coastal South Carolina, all of which were centers of agricultural production (cotton and rice) in the United States. E. Hergesheimer (cartographer), Th. Leonhardt (engraver), Map Showing the Distribution of the Slave Population of the Southern States of the United States Compiled from the Census of 1860, c

4. Slavery & Western Expansion
Disagreement over slavery boils over
Legality
Morality
Politics
Wilmot Proviso
“neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist…”
Passed in the House, failed in the Senate (why???)
Popular Sovereignty
Michigan Senator Lewis Cass
Citizens of each new territory should decide for themselves…
Northern support

5. The Caning of Charles Sumner, 1856
The Caning of Charles Sumner, Three days after his speech "The crimes against Kansas" in the Senate, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was attacked by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina and severely beaten with a heavy cane. Sumner was forced to withdraw for several years while Brooks, who resigned from his office, was immediately re-elected and continued to serve. J.L. Magee
Which side do you think the cartoonist favored? Why? How do you think this was viewed in the North and the South?

6. Free Soil Party emerges
Whigs divided!
Splinter groups joined together to form new party
Conscience Whigs
Anti-slavery Democrats
Abolitionist Liberty Party
Result: Democratic vote split, Zachary Taylor elected president
Gold!!
More than 80,000 “forty-niners” head to California
California applies for statehood
Free state or slave state?
Taylor pushes to allow state to decide to avoid fight in Congress
California becomes a free state!

7. Compromise of 1850
To prevent free-state majority Henry Clay (KY) proposes compromise
Cali could be free, but other territories could choose slavery
Slave trade outlawed in DC, but slavery legal
Congress can’t interfere with interstate slave trade
Stronger Fugitive Slave Act
John Calhoun (SC) gives ultimatum
Equal rights for South or secession
Zachary Taylor Dies
Taylor was opposed. His successor, Millard Fillmore supported
Compromise divided into several smaller bills
All passed

10. Fugitive Slave Act Underground Railroad Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Any African American could be accused, could not testify
Helping a slave illegal
Commissioners had incentive to rule for slaveholder
$10 if favor slaveholder
$5 if favor slave
Underground Railroad
Whites, free African Americans, Native Americans all helped
Harriet Tubman
Escaped slavery herself
Made 13 trips to the south to free slaves
Conductor, abolitionist, Army scout and spy
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Written in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Goal: Sway public opinion
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Attempt to create new slave states

11. The Underground Railroad
During the 1800s, over one hundred thousand slaves sought freedom by running away from their owners. Following secret routes known as the Underground Railroad, they traveled north toward free states and Canada or south to Mexico.
Slaves traveling on the Underground Railroad were called "passengers." "Conductors" helped guide slaves to freedom. "Agents" worked to free the slaves by making them new clothes, collecting money for food and medicine, teaching them to read and write or making speeches to convince people that slavery was wrong. Safe houses where runaway slaves could rest for a few days before moving on were known as "stations."

12. Uncle Tom’s Cabin intensified an already hot debate over slavery throughout the United States. The book revolves around Eliza (the woman holding the young boy) and Tom (standing with his wife Chloe), each of whom takes a very different path: Eliza escapes slavery using her own two feet, but Tom endures his chains only to die by the whip of a brutish master. The horrific violence that both endured melted the hearts of many northerners and pressed some to join in the fight against slavery. Full-page illustration by Hammatt Billings for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852.

13. The Crisis Deepens Birth of the Republican Party
Antislavery Whigs, Democrats, Free Soilers unite
Nominated an unknown as presidential candidate
Democrat James Buchanan elected president in 1856
Campaigned on platform that only he could save the Union
Had support of South
Missouri Compromise found unconstitutional
President Buchanan suggests letting court decide issue of slavery in the territories
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Supreme Court has Southern majority

14. A general parody on the 1860 presidential contest, highlighting the impact of the Dred Scott decision on the race. That controversial decision, handed down in 1857 by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, ruled that neither the federal government nor territorial governments could prohibit slavery in the territories. The burning question of the future of slavery in the United States was addressed by several of the contenders during the 1860 race. Here the four presidential candidates dance with members of their supposed respective constituencies. The music is fiddled by Dred Scott, the former slave whose suit precipitated the court's decision. Scott sits on a chair at center. In the upper left is Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge. He is paired with Democratic incumbent and ally James Buchanan, depicted as a goat or (as he was nicknamed) "Buck." At the upper right Republican Abraham Lincoln prances arm-in-arm with a black woman, a pejorative reference to his party's alignment with the abolitionists. At lower right Constitutional Union party candidate John Bell dances with an Indian brave. This pairing is puzzling but may allude to Bell's brief flirtation with Native American interests. At lower left Stephen A. Douglas dances with a ragged Irishman. Associated with Douglas in several cartoons the Irishman, here wearing a cross, may be intended as a reference to Douglas's backing among Irish immigrants and allegations of the candidate's Catholicism.
So what does this cartoon tell us about the 1860 election?  While the cartoonist is unknown, the meaning is not.  “The Political Quadrille: Music by Dred Scott” comically told the story of the election in 1860.  Dred Scott, sitting center and playing a fiddle, was used in this political cartoon to show the impact of the Dred Scott decision on the 1860 election.  The Dred Scott decision of 1857 ruled that slavery could not be prohibited by the federal government or the territorial governments.  This played a major role in the election, which is the reason why the cartoonists placed Dred Scott in the middle of all the candidates.  By drawing the four major candidates of the 1860 election dancing and placing them around Dred Scott, the cartoonists implied that whoever was going to win the election was going to win it with how they viewed slavery and African Americans.  Harper’s Weekly explained the cartoon by saying, “A general parody on the 1860 presidential contest, highlighting the impact of the Dred Scott decision on the race… The burning question of the future of slavery in the United States was addressed by several of the contenders during the 1860 race. Here the four presidential candidates dance with members of their supposed respective constituencies.”  This political cartoon, along with many others, shows the main differences between the four major candidates and what the main issues of the time were. In the end, Abraham Lincoln proved to be victorious.  The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association says that Lincoln was able to win by "fusing anti-slavery nationalism to the interest of free society."  Thus, his views on slavery helped win him the election.

15. Dred Scott Enslaved man taken by slaveholder to live in free territory
Upon returning to Missouri, claimed he was a free man
With help of abolitionists, case went all the way to Supreme Court
"[I]t is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning [enslaved persons] in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution and is therefore void."
Dred Scott was a slave of an army surgeon, John Emerson. Scott had been taken from Missouri to posts in Illinois and what is now Minnesota for several years in the 1830s, before returning to Missouri. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had declared the area including Minnesota free. In 1846, Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived in a free state and a free territory for a prolonged period of time. Finally, after eleven years, his case reached the Supreme Court. At stake were answers to critical questions, including slavery in the territories and citizenship of African-Americans. The verdict was a bombshell.
The Issue of Slavery
Who should have decided whether slavery was legal in the United States?
The President
The Congress
The Supreme Court
The Court ruled that Scott's "sojourn" of two years to Illinois and the Northwest Territory did not make him free once he returned to Missouri.
The Court further ruled that as a black man Scott was excluded from United States citizenship and could not, therefore, bring suit. According to the opinion of the Court, African-Americans had not been part of the "sovereign people" who made the Constitution.
The Court also ruled that Congress never had the right to prohibit slavery in any territory. Any ban on slavery was a violation of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibited denying property rights without due process of law.
The Missouri Compromise was therefore unconstitutional.
Dred Scott's battle for his freedom began at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Chief Justice of the United States was Roger B. Taney, a former slave owner, as were four other southern justices on the Court. The two dissenting justices of the nine-member Court were the only Republicans. The north refused to accept a decision by a Court they felt was dominated by "Southern fire-eaters." Many Northerners, including Abraham Lincoln, felt that the next step would be for the Supreme Court to decide that no state could exclude slavery under the Constitution, regardless of their wishes or their laws.
Two of the three branches of government, the Congress and the President, had failed to resolve the issue. Now the Supreme Court rendered a decision that was only accepted in the southern half of the country. Was the American experiment collapsing? The only remaining national political institution with both northern and southern strength was the Democratic Party, and it was now splitting at the seams. The fate of the Union looked hopeless.

16. Lincoln Douglas Debates
Illinois Republicans choose Abraham Lincoln to run for Senate seat against Stephen Douglas 1858
Goal: position Lincoln to compete for presidency in 1860
Strategy: Debate Douglas, popular incumbent
Lost election, but established Republican principles
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of formal political debates between the challenger, Abraham Lincoln, and the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas, in a campaign for one of Illinois' two United States Senate seats. Although Lincoln lost the election, these debates launched him into national prominence which eventually led to his election as President of the United States.
"‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

17. John Brown’s Raid Abolitionist
Planned slave insurrection against slaveholders
With 18 followers seized the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry
U.S. Marines soon took arsenal back, captured Brown
Sentenced to death
“I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done, in behalf of [God’s] despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments—I submit: so let it be done.”

18. The execution of John Brown made him a martyr in abolitionist circles and a confirmed traitor in southern crowds. Both of these images continued to pervade public memory after the Civil War, but in the North especially (where so many soldiers had died to help end slavery) his name was admired. Over two decades after Brown’s death, Thomas Hovenden portrayed Brown as a saint. As he is lead to his execution for attempting to destroy slavery, Brown poignantly leans over a rail to kiss a black baby. Thomas Hovenden, The Last Moments of John Brown, c

19. This mural, created over eighty years after Brown’s death, captures the violence and religious fervor of the man and his era. John Steuart Curry, Tragic Prelude, , Kansas State Capitol.

20. “Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done!”
from The Life and Letters of Captain John Brown
“We regard every man who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing as an enemy to the institutions of the South.”
excerpt from a newspaper in Atlanta, Ga

21. The Union Dissolves Debate over slavery splits Democrats
Democrats in an uproar over slavery
Northern delegates want to support popular sovereignty
Southern delegates want to uphold Dred Scott decision
End up with three candidates running!
Abraham Lincoln elected President
Republicans needed votes in the South
More than just an “anti-slavery party”
Reaffirmed right of Southern states to preserve slavery
Homestead Law
Supported the transcontinental railroad
In April 1860, with the South in an uproar, Democrats held their convention in Charleston, South Carolina, to choose their nominee for president. The debate over slavery in the territories finally tore apart the Democratic Party. Northern delegates wanted to support popular sovereignty, while Southern delegates wanted the party to uphold the Dred Scott decision. They also wanted to endorse a federal slave code for the territories. Stephen A. Douglas was not able to get the votes needed to be nominated for president, but neither was anyone else.
In June 1860, the Democrats met again. Douglas’s supporters in the South had organized delegations to ensure his nomination. The original Southern delegations objected to this and walked out. The remaining Democrats then chose Douglas to run for president. The Southern Democrats who had walked out organized their own convention. They nominated the current vice president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Breckinridge supported the Dred Scott decision and agreed to endorse a federal slave code for the territories. This split improved the Republicans’ chances to win the election. Some Southerners may have intended this, hoping that a Republican win would convince Southern states to secede. Others, including many former Whigs, feared for the Union. They created the Constitutional Union Party, and campaigned on a position of upholding both the Constitution and the Union.

22. South Carolina secedes
Six states follow
Secessionists seize federal property in their states
Federal buildings, forts, arsenals
Final holdouts
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor
Fort Pickens in Pensacola
Florida Islands
Compromises Fail
Constitutional Amendments
Guarantee slavery where existed
Reinstate Missouri Compromise line
Virginia Peace Plan
The dissolution of the Union began with South Carolina. By February 1, 1861, six more states in the Lower South—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had voted to secede. Meanwhile, Congress tried to find a compromise to save the Union. Ignoring those efforts, the secessionists seized all federal property in their states, including arsenals and forts. Only Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, Fort Pickens in Pensacola Harbor, and a few islands off the coast of Florida remained out of their control.
In an attempt to reach a compromise, Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky proposed several constitutional amendments. One would guarantee slavery where it already existed. Another would reinstate the Missouri Compromise line, extending it to the border of California. This would prohibit slavery north of the line and would protect slavery south of it. Lincoln asked congressional Republicans to stand firm, and Crittenden’s Compromise did not pass. Virginia then held a peace conference. None of the secessionist states attended. The plan they developed was defeated in Congress.

23. A map showing the secession of the Confederate States from the Union, from the secession of South Carolina (December 20, 1860) to the secession of Tennessee (June 8, 1861). The map is color–coded to show the Federal States and territory (including the Union slave–holding States of Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware), and the Confederate States and territories. The map indicated those States and Indian Territory that seceded before April 15, 1861, and those that seceded after the outbreak of the war (Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina).

24. Creation of the Confederate States of America
February, 1861 seceding states declare a new nation
Confederate States of America
Guaranteed each state’s independence
Guaranteed slavery
Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy
Confederates attack Fort Sumter
Jefferson did not want Union to resupply troops
Asked for surrender
After shelling for 33 hours, fort falls
Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to build army
Four more states secede
In February 1861, the seceding states met in Montgomery, Alabama. They declared themselves to be a new nation—the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy, as it became known. They drafted a constitution based largely on the U.S. Constitution, but with some important changes. It declared that each state was independent and guaranteed slavery in Confederate territory. It banned protective tariffs and the international importation of slaves. It also limited the presidency to a single six-year term. The delegates chose Jefferson Davis, a former senator from Mississippi, as president.
In April, Lincoln announced that he would send a ship to resupply Fort Sumter. Confederate president Jefferson Davis faced a difficult decision. Leaving the federal troops in Charleston Harbor was unacceptable, but firing on the supply ship would surely lead to war. He decided to capture the fort before the ship’s arrival. Confederate leaders sent a note to Major Robert Anderson, Fort Sumter’s commander, demanding the surrender of the fort. When they were refused, the Confederates bombarded the fort for 33 hours until Anderson and his men finally surrendered. The Civil War had begun.
After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve in the military for 90 days. The call for troops created a crisis in the Upper South. Here, many people did not want to secede, but faced with the prospect of civil war, believed they had no choice. Virginia acted first, passing an Ordinance of Secession on April 17, The Confederate Congress responded by moving the capital of the Confederacy to Richmond, Virginia. By early June 1861, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee had also seceded.
With the Upper South states having seceded, Lincoln was determined to keep the slaveholding border states in the Union. Delaware seemed safe, but Lincoln worried about Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland. Virginia’s secession had placed a Confederate state across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital. If Maryland seceded, Washington, D.C., would be surrounded by Confederate territory. To prevent Maryland from seceding, Lincoln imposed martial law in Baltimore, where angry mobs had already attacked federal troops. Under martial law, the military takes control of an area and replaces civilian authorities, and it suspends certain civil rights.
Kentucky stayed neutral until September 1861, when Confederate forces occupied part of the state. The invasion angered many Kentucky legislators, who now voted to fight the Confederacy. This decision led other Kentuckians who supported the Confederacy to create a rival government and secede.
Missouri worried Lincoln, too. Although many Missourians sympathized strongly with the Confederacy, its convention voted overwhelmingly against secession. A struggle then broke out between pro-Unionist forces and a pro-Confederate militia led by Governor Claiborne F. Jackson. In the end, Missouri stayed with the Union with the support of federal forces.
From the beginning of the Civil War, Lincoln had been willing to take political, even constitutional, risks to preserve the Union. Now the issue of its preservation shifted to the battlefield.