Sectionalism

Events leading to Civil War

Review

• Division into North and South– Economic– Political– Cultural?

• End of slave trade (1808)• Missouri Compromise (1820)• Nullification crisis (1828-33)• Rise of abolitionism (1830s)• Mexican-American War (1846-48)

Issues in war

• Northern opposition– War of conquest– Spread of slavery

• Southern support– Manifest destiny– Counter Northern growth

Officers

• Winfield Scott

• Robert E. Lee

• „Stonewall” Jackson

• Ulysses S. Grant

• George Meade

Free Soil Party

• 1848-1852

• Opposed expansion of slavery, not abolition

• Slavery viewed as inefficient

Compromise of 1850

• Admission of California

• New territiories organized

• Slave trade in DC abolished

• Fugitive Slave Act

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

• International bestseller

• "So this is the little lady who made this big war."

Bleeding Kansas (1854)

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Local determination on slavery

• 200 people killed

• Appearance of John Brown

Civil War

1856-1860

• Dred Scott• Lincoln vs. Douglas debates• John Brown’s raid• Causes of the war• Lincoln’s election

Dred Scott

• Missouri Compromise

• Fugitive Slave Law

• 1830: moves to Illinois• 1842: returns to St. L.• 1846: sues for freedom• 1857: Supreme Court

Scott v. Sandford

• Lived in free state

• Precedent in 1836

• Property

• States could not overrule other states

Ruling

• Not a citizen (states don’t give citizenship)

• 5th Amendment (right to property)

• Missouri Compromise unconstitutional (2nd time court overruled Congress)

Scott v. Sandford"regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights that the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his own benefit."

Lincoln - Douglas

Lincoln - Douglas

• Election for Senate (1858)

• Illinois• 7 debates• Topic: slavery

• Forerunner of modern debates

Lincoln – Douglas (1858)

• Republican• Opposed K-N Act• Opposed Dred Scott

• Claimed Douglas creating fear of amalgamation

• Democrat• Kansas-Nebraska Act• Supported Dred Scott

• Claimed Lincoln an abolitionist

Douglas

I ask you, are you in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privileges of citizenship? ("No, no.") Do you desire to strike out of our State Constitution that clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State, and allow the free negroes to flow in, ("never,") and cover your prairies with black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a free negro colony, ("no, no,") in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? ("Never," "no.")

Douglas

Now, I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right to continue and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much right to abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue it, and that each and every State of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases upon this question of slavery, and upon all its domestic institutions. ... And why can we not adhere to the great principle of self-government, upon which our institutions were originally based.

Lincoln

I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people ... I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.

Lincoln

Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man-this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

Lincoln

Founding Fathers... "intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal — equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ... "

Lincoln

"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. "

Lincoln on Douglas’s policy

"as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”

19th century soundbite

1858 debate

Lincoln• Slavery a moral question

• Believed question must be solved

Douglass• Supported "Popular

Sovereignty"

• Claimed Lincoln would dissolve Union

Issues

• States’ rights

• Equality with whites

• Economic fears of poor whites

• Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

• Proclaims ”all men created equal”

• Claims right to govern by consent of governed

How to resolve contradictions?

• Douglas wins Senate seat (1858)

• 1860 Presidential election

John Brown

• Deeply religious• Active in Underground

Railway• Took part in Bleeding

Kansas• Organized revolt in

Harpers Ferry, Virginia

Raid on Harpers Ferry

• National armory • Intended to spark revolt• October 1859• Put down after 3 days• Brown executed

Result

• Deep suspicion by South

• Celebrated as martyr by some in North

Douglass on Brown

• "Did John Brown fail? John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him."

Interpretations

• Terrorist

• Dsyfuctional

• Fanatic murderer

• Idealist

Causes of war?

Causes

• Economic

• Political

• Moral (slavery)