The Coming of the Civil War

1
The Coming of the Civil War
2
The Slave South in the 19th Century

• Similarities between N. and S.
• ancestry, religion, language,
• rural, both participate in natl econ. and pol.
• Old South Social Structure
• 75 white households owned no slaves
• those who did most 1-4 slaves
• planters those with more than 20 slaves (3)
• most slaves on plantations

3
Slave Resistance

• Nat Turners Rebellion (1831)
• Historical Interpretations of Slave Rebellions
• slavery mild
• slavery brutal and dehumanizing
• structural issues like b/w ratio, small size of
  slaveholdings community and family

4
Rise of Antislavery Movement

• American Colonization Society (1817)
• address fear of Af-Amer. being free
• expensive and few free blacks willing
• Free Black Abolitionism
• racial assumptions of ACS
• attack northern racism also
• newspapers and organizations

James Forten
5
Abolitionism and American Historians

• Northern v. Southern Historians
• Northern abolitionists courageous for attacking
  immoral system
• Southern school blamed abolitionists for war
• Fanatics hypocritical since many didnt believe
  in b/w equality
• Civil Rights Era
• Inc sympathy with abolitionists / racial
  egalitarians
• Yet still stuck in good/bad dichotomy
• Last few decades expanded focus on other factors
  including religion, capitalism and free labor
  ideology, black abolitionists, and gender

6
Garrison and the Liberator

• Earlier arguments against abolition
• prop. rts. threatened nations stability
• impact of large landless black pop.
• Garrison and Immediatism
• ignore extraneous issues
• impact of free black abolition
• 2nd Great Awakening and sin of slavery
• moral suasion

7
Abolitionist Movement

• American Antislavery Society (1833)
• racial, gender, and class ideas
• Free Soil Party
• moral suasion was anti-political/anti-violence
• aimed to keep fed. Territories for free whites
• stop expansion of slavery and it will die
• Slave Power conspiracy

8
Proslavery Thought

• Jefferson and Necessary Evil
• a troubled slaveowner
• Why was it a Necessary Evil?
• Concerned about Haiti revol.
• Life as a Virginian
• liberty and property linked
• property rights of slaveowners

9
A Positive Good

• Origins
• response to abolitionists
• Slavery and Religion
• condoned by bible
• social system and sin
• Slaves incapable of freedom
• plantation a school
• civilized slaves

10
Positive Good on the Attack

• Slavery permitted expansion of American culture
• All men not created equal
• Slavery v. free labor working-class in North
• Scientific Racism
• polygenesis and Samuel Morton
• challenged religions authority
• Slavery and poor white democracy

craniometer
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Civil War and Historians

• Nationalist school reflected growing American
  nationalism by 1900
• Consequences of end of slavery contributed to
  growing American power
• Slavery basic cause, it was immoral yet some saw
  some good things in southern culture
• Its destruction set conditions for
  industrialization
• Progressives condemned results of the war in that
  it installed ruthless, ambitious capitalists and
  debate over slavery just masked this
• Southern school likewise pictured 19th century
  industrialists as evil and blamed them for war
  yet celebrated southern culture and society
• Revisionists of 30s and 40s tended to argue that
  war was avoidable but political failure
• Civil Rights era encouraged historians to take
  slavery seriously and war largely unavoidable
• Included emphasis on free labor ideas and focus
  on west as cause
• Last decades has enhanced understanding by
  exploring comparative studies, gender, and
  important efforts and role of African Americans,
  free and slave

12
Emerging Sectionalism

• Constitution and Slavery
• Missouri Compromise (1820)
• Missouri petitions to be slave state
• battle over Congress control over statehood
• MO as slave, Maine as free
• 36-30 line defines future status of slavery in
  federal territories

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Slavery in the Age of Abolitionism

• Nullification Crisis (1832)
• Tariffs of Abomination
• Calhouns SC Exposition and Protest (1828)
• nation a compact of states
• states could nullify fed. Laws/ states rights
• Jackson and Force Bill

John C. Calhoun
14
Slavery in the Age of Abolitionism

• Gag Rule (1836)
• Congress tables all antislavery petitions
• another example of Slave Power conspiracy

15
Slavery and Western Expansion

• Souths Ideology of Expansion
• helps southern econ.
• Reduces b/w ratio
• safety valve for nonslaveholders
• maintains balance of free/slave states

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Mexican-American War

• Wilmot Proviso--ban slavery in new lands
• Compromise of 1850
• CA as free state the rest popular sovereignty
• abolish slave trade in DC Fugitive Slave Act

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Lincoln and Slavery

• From Whig Party to Republican Party
• free labor self-improvement
• economic progress oppose slavery
• Lincoln and Slavery
• b and w not socially equal
• supported colonization
• believed govt could stop expansion of slavery
• cannot be half slave or half free

Lincoln in 1840s
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Popular Sovereignty

• Pop. Sov. let people in territory decide
• supported by Northern Democrats
• seemed democratic
• kept N. and S. Democrats together
• Bleeding Kansas
• reopened slavery debate and ignored MO. Comp.
• Pop. Sov. led to bloodbath over future of states

Ruins of Lawrence, KS
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Dred Scott Decision (1857)

• Supreme Court case to decide slavery
• Did moving to free state make slave free?
• Court ruled against Scott
• Scott couldnt sue because a slave
• blacks, free or slave, not citizens and no rights
• MO. Comp. unconstitutional because violates right
  to property
• Spurred abolitionists

20
Lincoln and 1860 Election

• Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
• shaped by Scott decision
• Freeport Doctrine deny legal framework to
  protect slaveowners and slavery wont last

21
Lincoln and 1860 Election

• 1860 Election
• Democrats split into N. and S. wings
• Lincoln wins with 39 of vote
• Secession and Fort Sumter (4/12/61)

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• http//balrog.sdsu.edu/putman/110A/syllS04.htm
• http//www.ushistory.com/railr.htm
• http//blackhistory.harpweek.com/
• http//valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
• http//members.aol.com/jfepperson/causes.html