The Road to the Civil War

Slavery Issues in pre-war America

• Colonial period

• Declaration of Independence

• Northwest Ordinance

• Constitution

Slavery – racial and personal dimensions

• 10 - 15 million Africans shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

• Of these, approx 645,000 brought to what is now the United States.

• The slave population in the United States had grown to four million by the 1860 Census

Slavery – personal dimension• African slave

markets• Second Middle

Passage• on-board slave

insurrections– Amistad (1839)

• slave pens• plantation life• religion• family

Slavery – social and economic dimensions

• The significance of the cotton gin• Total number of slaves in 1860 –

approx 4 million• Total number of slaves in the

Lower South: 2,312,352 (47% of total population).

• Total number of slaves in the Upper South: 1,208758 (29% of total population).

• Total number of slaves in the Border States: 432,586 (13% of total population).

• Almost one-third of all Southern families owned slaves. In Mississippi and South Carolina it approached one half.

Slavery – social and economic dimensions

• The total number of slave owners was 385,00088% of slave owners held fewer than twenty, and nearly 50% held fewer than five.

• On a typical plantation (more than 20 slaves) the capital value of the slaves was greater than the capital value of the land and implements.

• Slavery was profitable, although a large part of the profit was in the increased value of the slaves themselves. With only 30% of the nation's (free) population, the South had 60% of the "wealthiest men." The 1860 per capita income in the South was $3,978; in the North it was $2,040.

Slavery – a political issue

• economic and political differences between North and South

• balance of political power in Congress• Sectional conflict and the Civil War – not about

'slavery', but about the 'spreading of slavery'• the ethical dimension of the conflict neglected by

political powers prior to the war, although raised by abolitionist movements

Keeping a fragile balance of power

Territorial expansion and slavery issues

• Louisiana Purchase• Florida Cession• Missouri Compromise• Maxican-American War and the Annexation of

Texas• Wilmot Proviso• California• Territory of Oregon• California Compromise (The Compromise of

1850)

Lousiana Purchase (1803)

• Thomas Jefferson and his presidency

• Jeffersonian democracy

• Lousiana Purchase (1803)

• Lewis and Clark Expedtion (1804 - 1806)

Missouri Compromise (1820)

• regulation of slavery in westward territories• Missouri applies for statehood• Missouri Compromise

– Missouri admitted as a slave state– Maine created as a free state– slavery prohibited in the territories of the

Louisiana Purchase north to parallel 36°30' north (except for the territories already within the bounderies of Missouri)

Texas Annexation, Mexican – American War

• American Settlers in Texas• Republic of Texas (hence – The

Lone Star State) (1836)• Texas Annexation (1845)• Mexican – American War (1846 –

1848)• California campaign• Republic of California (1846) and

annexation of California• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)• Mexican Cession

Mexican Cession

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

• proposed slavery be benned in territories of the Mexican Cession and any other territories to be aqcuired from Mexico in the future

• failed in Congress• fired up the sectional

conflict between free states and slave states

• led to the Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850 (California Compromise)

• Texas divided (New Mexico, Utah), but receives federal help

• New Mexico Teriitory and Utah can decide slave issues according to popular sovereignty rules

• California admitted as a free state

• new fugitive slave law– Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

• Slave trade banned in Washington D.C (Alexandria County returned to Virginia)

Kansas – Nebraska Act (1854)

• The principle of popular sovereignty• Sponsor: Sen. Stephen Douglas• Main provision

– organization of Kansas and Nebraska into territories

• Results:– It nullified the Missouri Compromise– Nebraska: a free state– Kansas was north of the Missouri Compromise line, which

means it also should be free– Kansas became the focus of anti-slavery and pro-slavery

activists– chaos in Kansas – two legislatures, several constitutions

(Topeka Constitution , Lecompton Constitution, Wyandotte Constitution)

– Emergence of the Republican Party– Eventually, Kansas admited as a free state in 1861, months

before the beginning of the Civil War

Growing regional tension

• Bleeding Kansas (1855 – 1856)– John Brown, Pottawatomie

Massacre

• Preston Brooks attacks Charles Sumner (1856)

The Dred Scott Decision (1857)• Dred Scott

– born a slave in Virginia, sold to an army major John Emerson

– travelled often with his owner, often to free states, including Illinois, and teriitories of Wisconsin, steyed for long periods of time in free states, eg. Wisconsin

– after Emerson's death attemted to buy his freedom from Emerson's widow, and sued for hsi freedom after she refused

– a series of trials followed, some he won, some he lost• Dred Scott v. Sanford - majority decision of the court

– people of African descent, slaves or free, cannot be citizens of the U.S.A. and hence are not protected by the constitution, and cannot sue in courts

– Dredd Scott remains a property– property protected by the Fifth Amendment– slavery cannot be banned by territorial gevernments and by

the federal government– hence the Missouri Compromise – unconstitutional

• Dissenting opinion by Justice McLean – "more a matter of taste than the law"

• Reactions to the decision– panic of 1857– shock in the North– further divison of sentiments

• divisions within the Democratic Party• emergence of the Republican Party

Abolitionist movements

• Immediate abolition vs. gradual abolition

• William Lloyd Garrison• Harriet Beecher Stowe,

Uncle Tom's Cabin• Underground Railroad• John Brown

– Pottawatomie Massacre, 1856

– Raid on Harper's Ferry, 1859

The rise of the Republican Party

• Democratic Party

• Republican Party

• Stephen Douglas vs. Abraham Lincoln

Election of 1860 and secession

• Abraham Lincoln• rose to national prominence after the debates

against Stephen Douglas in his homestate of Illinois

• considered a radical anti-slaver in the South• Southerners declare secession should Lincoln

become the President• Lincoln wins the election• Secession, 1861

Confedarate States of America– 1. South Carolina– 2. Mississippi– 3. Florida– 4. Alabama– 5. Georgia– 6. Louisiana– 7. Texas

• four more states declared their secession after the atttack on Fort Sumter (April 1861)

– 8. Virginia– 9. Arkansas– 10. Tennessee – 11. North Carolina

• Slave states that did not leave the Union (border states)– Delaware– Kentucky– Maryland– Missouri– West Virginia,

Confederate states and border states

Civil War begins, 1861