Leading to a Civil War

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Leading to a Civil War

• Instructor Carol Jean Cox

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LEADING TO A CIVIL WAR

• Events Leading to the Secession of the South
• The Confederate States of America
• Causes Leading to the Civil War

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Sucession
• "to withdraw formally from a union or
  alliance
• Southern individual states nullified their
  ratification of the U.S. constitution

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The Process of Secession
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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Political Sectionalism
• Missouri Compromise 1820
• Missouri - slave state
• Maine - free state
• Entry of states into the Union have to be
  balanced - one free/one slave
• Gag Rule of 1836
• Compromise of 1850
• California a free state
• Slavery allowed in the other territories
  acquired from Mexico

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Slave and Free Territories Under the Compromise
of 1850
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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Political Sectionalism
• Despite territorial gains emerged from
  the Mexican American War, Americans were
  more divided than ever
• North denounced war as a southern project for
  expanding slavery
• David Wilmot - Wilmot Proviso
• no slavery in Mexican Territory
• Many hoping the Compromise of 1850 had
  finally settled slavery

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854
• organized 2 new federal territories
• repealed section of Missouri Compromise
• prohibiting slavery in states/territories
  north of 36º 30 latitude
• people decide (popular sovereignty)
• Bleeding Kansas

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Change in 2 party system
• Democrats Whigs
• Democrats (dough faces)
• needed northern candidate to win because of
  the number of southerners
• F. Pierce 1852, J. Buchanan 1856, Douglas ?
• Whigs
• Kansas Nebraska Act killed party divided
  sectionally
• North South too far apart on slavery issue
  to hold party together

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Change in 2 party system
• Democrats Whigs
• Whigs Free Soilers Republicans
• only a northern party
• tolerate slavery in south
• unwilling to accept it's expansion
• demand that the Kansas Nebraska Act be
  repealed
• central railroad (rather than northern as
  Douglas proposed)
• Homestead Act - western lands to families to
  settle 160 acres

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• Dred Scott Decision 1857
• Southern dominated court
• Slaves were property
• "congress could not ban slavery from
  territories
• Chief Justice Roger Taney

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• The Election of 1860
• Aggressive movements of pro slave movement
• frightened north
• Hardened resistance in North
• intensified southern insecurity
• South demands - congressional slave codes

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Leading to a Civil War

• Events leading to the Secession of the South
• The Election of 1860
• Freeport Doctrine
• legislation to protect slave property in north
• Lead to a division of the Democratic Party
• Northern Democrats - Stephen Douglas
• appealed to North South but ambiguous
• Southern Democrats - John Breckenridge
• Appealed to south - popular sovereignty
• Republicans - Abraham Lincoln
• Constitutional Union Party - John Bell

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The Election of 1860
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LEADING TO A CIVIL WAR

• Events Leading to the Secession of the South
• Political Sectionalism
• Missouri Compromise
• Gag Rule
• Compromise of 1850
• Wilmot Proviso
• Kansas Nebraska Act 1854
• Dred Scot Decision 1857
• Election of 1860

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LEADING TO A CIVIL WAR

• Events Leading to the Secession of the South
• The Confederate States of America
• Causes Leading to the Civil War

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The Confederate States of America
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Leading to a Civil War

• The Confederate States of America
• Constitution 1787 (1789 9 states ratified - 4
  didn't)
• established government
• Constitution states that states can't coin money
  and cant maintain an army but can they secede?
• Southern Position held that the Constitution did
  not automatically bind states
• Individual States first . . . then United
• STATES UNITED

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Leading to a Civil War

• The Confederate States of America
• Individual States first . . . then United
• STATES UNITED
• 11 southern states seceded and formed their
  own country
• North says no you can't leave 4 long years
  of fighting
• CIVIL (internal) War - settle question about
  whether a state can succeed
• Pre Civil War The United States are
• Post Civil War The United States is

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Leading to a Civil War

• The Confederate States of America
• Radicals - fire eaters
• South Carolinians since Nullification Controversy
• South Carolina state convention Dec 20, 1860
• repeal ratification of federal constitution
• 6 weeks later MI, Fl, GA, Al, LA, TX succeed
• Delegates to Montgomery Alabama
• organized themselves as the C.S. of A.
• Jefferson Davis - President ( Mississippi)

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LEADING TO A CIVIL WAR

• Events Leading to the Secession of the South
• The Confederate States of America
• Causes Leading to the Civil War

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 1. Conspiracy
• President
  Country
• North Lincoln 1860 USA
• South J. Davis 1861 CSA
• Each side felt the other was conspiring against
  the other
• Laws measures that inhibited the south - DAVIS
• Congress controlled by north
• North doesn't want to control south - south wants
• to expand into the west LINCOLN
• Each side didn't trust in an economic or
  political sense

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 2. Constitutional
• UNITED STATES VS. STATES UNITED
• South - separate individual states form the union
• since states formed the union they can opt out
• North - the union created the states by the
  constitution
• If the union is dissolved there is nothing
• LINCOLN WAS FIGHTING TO SAVE THE UNION NOT TO
  FREE THE SLAVES (a political move)
• Lincoln was a federalist constitutionalist

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 3. Growth of Slavery
• South had 4 million slaves
• Slave owners 25
• 17 1-9 slaves
• 7 10-99 slaves
• .1 100
• very few had large plantations
• small minority of controlling whites
  controlled southern society
• Labor intensive agricultural society
• slaves imported because can't get enough
  whites to do the labor

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 3. Slavery
• Davis - the Blacks have a better condition under
  the superior White race
• docile savages to bodily comforts and
  religious instruction
• Lincoln - not in favor of bringing about the
  social or economic equality of Negroes
  There must be the position of
  inferior/superior
• Lincoln 1858
• Lincoln was a product of his own culture
• Freeing of slaves not a matter of equality!!!
• Yet he was against the concept of slavery
• SAVE THE UNION

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 4. Economic
• Labor
• South - free labor North - paid labor
• Tariffs
• North wanted to protect their products
  artificial inflation of imports
• South faced reciprocal tariffs when they
  exported their agricultural products
• South Against High Tariffs
• North Against Free Labor

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 4. Economic
• North passes laws in congress because of an
  imbalance in voting power
• 19 Free States
• 15 Slave States

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to A Civil War
• 5. Nature of a Republic
• What is a Republic?
• Representative Democracy
• Freedom to choose
• South choose to leave under this freedom
• Under another system this would not have
  happened!

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Leading to a Civil War

• ". . . it presents the question whether
  discontented individuals too few in numbers to
  control administration according to organic law
  in any case, can always upon the pretenses made
  in this case, or on any other pretense, break up
  their government, and thus practically put an end
  to free government upon the earth. It forces us
  to ask Is there, in all republics, this inherent
  and fatal weakness? Must a government, of
  necessity be too strong for the liberties of its
  own people or too weak to maintain its own
  existence?"
• Lincoln - July 4, 1861
• following Ft. Sumter

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Leading to a Civil War

• our heritage depends on inherent weakness of
  a republic to strong to maintain liberties yet
  too weak to maintain its existence.
• Abraham Lincoln

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Leading to a Civil War

• Causes Leading to the Civil War
• Conspiracy
• Constitutional
• Slavery
• Economic
• Nature of a Republic
• 1600 ---------------1787--------------1865--------
  -------2000
• Colonial Am. Nation Civil War
• Civil War 265 years since beginnings of our
  country

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LEADING TO A CIVIL WAR

• Events Leading to the Secession of the South
• The Confederate States of America
• Causes Leading to the Civil War

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Leading to a Civil War

• Instructor Carol Jean Cox