2. Section 4-The Union Dissolves

3. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. Chapter Objectives Section 4: The Union Dissolves I can describe the various attempts to find a compromise between the demands of the North and the South.  I can explain how and why the Civil War began.

4. Click the Speaker button to listen to the audio again.

5. (pages 340–342) The Election of 1860 Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry was a turning point for the South.  Southerners feared an African American uprising and were angered that Northerners would arm them and encourage them to rebel.  Republicans renounced John Brown’s raid, but many Southerners blamed the Republicans since they opposed slavery.

6. In 1859 the Democratic Party was torn apart by the debate over slavery in the western territories.  Southern Democrats upheld the Dred Scott decision and supported slaveholders’ rights in the territories.  They wanted a federal slave code for the territories.  Northern Democrats supported popular sovereignty. The Election of 1860 (cont.) Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. (pages 340–342)

7. The Democratic Party could not agree on a candidate for the 1860 election.  Northern Democrats chose Stephen A. Douglas, who supported popular sovereignty.  Southern Democrats chose John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky.  He was the vice president at the time.  He supported the Dred Scott decision and a federal slave code for the western territories. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. The Election of 1860 (cont.) (pages 340–342)

8. The Constitutional Union Party was formed by people who wanted to uphold the Constitution and the Union.  Their candidate was former Tennessee senator John Bell.  The Republican candidate was Abraham Lincoln.  The Republicans campaigned against slavery in the western territories, against John Brown’s raid, and for the right of the Southern states to preserve slavery within their borders. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. The Election of 1860 (cont.) (pages 340–342)

9. The Republicans also wanted higher tariffs, a new homestead law for western settlers, and a transcontinental railroad.  Lincoln won the election.  The South saw his election as a victory for the abolitionists.  South Carolina was the first state to secede.  By February 1861, six more states in the Lower South voted to secede. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. The Election of 1860 (cont.) (pages 340–342)

10. (pages 342–343) Compromise Fails Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. Seceding Southern states seized federal property in their states.  Only a few places remained in the Union’s hands, including Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  Crittenden’s Compromise, by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, suggested several amendments to the Constitution.  The amendments would guarantee slavery where it already existed.

11. It would reinstate the Missouri Compromise line, extending it to California.  Slavery would be banned north of the line and protected south of the line.  The compromise did not pass.  A peace conference was held in Washington, D.C., but members failed to agree on a plan to save the Union.  No secessionist states attended the conference. Compromise Fails (cont.)

12. Seceding states met, and on February 8, 1861, declared themselves to be the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy.  The Confederate Constitution was similar to the U.S. Constitution except it stated that each state was independent and it guaranteed the existence of slavery in the Confederacy.  It also banned protective tariffs and limited the term of the presidency. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was chosen president of the Confederacy. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. Compromise Fails (cont.) (pages 342–343)

13. (pages 343–345) The Civil War Begins Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. In his inaugural speech, Lincoln told seceding states that he would not interfere with slavery where it existed, but he said, “the Union of these States is perpetual.”  He also said that the Union would hold on to the federal property in the seceding states.  Lincoln announced plans to resupply Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

14. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy ordered an attack on the fort.  After hours of fighting, the Union commander surrendered.  This was the beginning of the Civil War.  President Lincoln asked for 75,000 volunteers to serve in the Union army.  The Upper South seceded, beginning with Virginia. The Civil War Begins (cont.)

15. The capital of the Confederacy immediately was changed to Richmond, Virginia.  North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also seceded.  Lincoln did not want the border states to secede, especially Maryland.  Since Virginia had seceded, he did not want Washington, D.C., to be surrounded by Confederate territory.  Martial law was imposed in Baltimore to prevent Maryland’s secession. The Civil War Begins (cont.)

16. Under martial law, the military takes control of an area and suspends certain civil rights.  Kentucky was important to the Union because it controlled the Ohio River’s south bank.  Kentucky remained neutral until Confederate forces invaded it.  Then Kentucky’s legislature voted to stay in the Union.  Missouri voted to stay with the Union, but it needed the support of federal forces. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. The Civil War Begins (cont.) (pages 343–345)

18. “Born in a Log Cabin” The image of a “common man” president was appealing to campaign managers in the 1800s. As voting rights spread beyond landowners, the candidate with humble roots was a potent political image. Although many nineteenth-century candidates sought to appeal to the masses, only five presidents were actually born in a log home: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, and James Garfield. Of these five, Jackson, Lincoln, Buchanan, and Garfield actually experienced serious poverty in childhood. William Henry Harrison campaigned with images of a log cabin childhood, but he was actually born into an elite Virginia family that was acquainted with George Washington. Many candidates for political office try to make connections with ordinary people.

19. Although James K. Polk saw trouble ahead, he did not live to see the trouble. Polk was only 50 years old when he was elected–the youngest man to serve as president up to that time. After finishing his one term in March of 1849, President Polk retired to his home in Nashville where he died on June 15.

20. In response to criticism of her work, Harriet Beecher Stowe published A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1853. This volume contained documents and testimonies that supported the picture of slavery she had painted in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

21. Slaveholders offered $40,000 for Harriet Tubman’s capture. After the Civil War began, she worked as a cook, nurse, and even as a spy for the Union forces.

22. Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861.

23. In 1852 the Whigs nominated Winfield Scott rather than the incumbent Millard Fillmore, whose strident enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act had alienated many Northern members of the party. Fillmore sought the presidency again in 1856 as the candidate of the Know-Nothings. He finished third with about 22 percent of the popular vote.

24. The sons of Peter Blow, Dred Scott’s original slaveholder, helped pay Scott’s legal bills. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, these childhood friends bought Scott and his wife Harriet and freed them. Scott died within the year.

25. In April of 1860 delegates to the Democratic convention in Charleston cast 57 ballots without selecting a candidate before they decided to adjourn. They reconvened six weeks later in Baltimore.

26. States seceded in this order: South Carolina, December 20, 1860; Mississippi, January 9, 1861; Florida, January 10, 1861; Alabama, January 11, 1861; Georgia, January 19, 1861; Louisiana, January 26, 1861; Texas, February 1, 1861; Virginia, April 17, 1861; Arkansas, May 6, 1861; and North Carolina, May 20, 1861. The Tennessee legislature adopted a “Declaration of Independence” on May 7, 1861–effectively breaking with the Union. Convention delegates did not formally accept secession until a referendum was passed on June 8, 1861.

27. Click the Speaker button to listen to the audio again.

28. Predicting Civil War John C. Calhoun died on March 31, 1850. Earlier that year, he predicted the dissolution of the Union “within twelve years or three presidential terms.”