1. Rising National Tensions

2. Sources Teacher notes John Brown documents
Election of 1860 Political Cartoons
“Civil War; The Meteor” by Ken Burns
California v. Hall 1854 Racial Discrimination
“The Election of 1860 and Road to Disunion” Crash Course
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and a Matter of Influence

3. Sectionalism
Sectionalism caused rifts because both the North and the South placed the needs of their section of the country over the needs of the whole nation.

4. Southern States
Southern states wanted to protect their states’ rights.
States’ rights are all the powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution nor denied to the state governments.
Later, states’ rights involved the belief of some that states had the right to secede from the Union.

5. The primary cause of the Civil War was the issue of slavery.

6. Missouri Compromise
When Missouri wanted to join the Union as a slave state in 1818, a compromise was needed to end the controversy.
With the Missouri Compromise
Missouri entered the Union as a slave state, and Maine entered as a free state to keep an even balance.
Slavery would also be prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana Territory.
With the exception of Missouri, slavery would not be allowed in the territory north of the latitude of 36°30’.

7. Abolitionism Spread in North
Frederick Douglass: runaway slave who became abolitionist leader
William Lloyd Garrison: editor of abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator
Underground Railroad: elaborate network of white abolitionists, free blacks and slaves (not only Harriet Tubman)
Total number of fugitives assisted by the UGR was between 70,000 and 100,000

8. Compromise of 1850 California wanted to be a free state
The South had assumed it wouldn’t be and was upset it was
As a compromise,
California would enter the Union as a free state
Utah and New Mexico would vote on slavery – Popular Sovereignty
Fugitive Slave Law – meant to appease South, many Northerners felt it turned them into slave-catchers

10. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin intensified the slavery debate.
Described slavery in a very real and graphic way to many northerners.
More northerners support the abolition of slavery.

11. Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
Proposed by Stephen Douglas
People in Nebraska Territory would vote on whether to have slavery or not (popular sovereignty).
Sounded like a sound compromise, but it upset some anti-slavery forces
Free-soilers (poor farmers who couldn’t compete with slave-owners), and pro-slavery forces streamed in
Mini civil war: “Bleeding Kansas”

13. Political Cartoon, 1856

14. Dred Scott Decision
In 1857, the Supreme Court heard the Dred Scott Case.
Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom on the grounds that his master had taken him to free territories and that therefore, he was no longer a slave.
A majority of the justices ruled that Scott was not a U.S. citizen and did not have the right to file suit.
As a slave, he was considered property.
The justices also ruled that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories and that the Missouri Compromise and other laws limiting slavery were unconstitutional.

15. Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In 1858, Senator Douglas (IL) was running for re-election to the Senate.
His opponent was Abraham Lincoln, then the leader of the Republican Party in Illinois.
In the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the men argued over the extension of slavery into western territories.
Douglas believed in popular sovereignty - the people of the territories could choose whether or not to have slavery.
Lincoln stated that slavery was “a moral, a social, and a political wrong” and that the federal government should prohibit it in the territories.
The Illinois legislature re-elected Douglas, but Lincoln had gained a national reputation.

16. John Brown Abolitionist Involved in the Underground Railroad
Moved to Kansas to support the anti-slavery cause
Responded to violence by pro-slavery men by organizing the murder of 5 proslavery settlers:
Pottowatomie Creek Massacre

17. John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry
Brown planned a raid on a federal arsenal
He wanted to distribute weapons to slaves
Action failed. Brown and his men were mostly captured or killed within 36 hours
Brown was ultimately hanged

18. Abraham Lincoln called Brown a “misguided fanatic.”
John Brown

19. Election of 1860
The slavery question overshadowed all others in the presidential election of 1860.
The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln.
The Democrats split, with the Northerners selecting Douglas and the
Southerners choosing John Breckinridge of Kentucky.
The Constitutional Union Party, a group that condemned sectional differences, placed a fourth ticket.
Because of this division, Lincoln won easily, although he did not receive a majority of the popular vote.

23. The South Succeeds The South seceded after Lincoln’s election
Up until 1860, only a few extremists in the South, called “fire-eaters,” considered secession and the creation of a separate Southern country.
During the campaign, many southern states threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected because they believed that Lincoln threatened slavery.
A month after Lincoln’s victory, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union.
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed early the next year.
Lincoln then called for states to send their militias for national service to fight the rebellion.
The upper South refused to send their militias, and instead Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined the Confederacy.

24. The Confederacy
Delegates from the first six states to secede met to set up a government for the Confederate States of America.
They adopted a constitution modeled on the U.S. Constitution, except that it specifically allowed for slavery.
They elected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia as vice-president.
By the time that Lincoln was inaugurated, seven states had seceded.
Southern leaders believed that their actions were legal, but Lincoln and most northerners refused to accept the right of southern states to secede.