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Issue of slavery in 1864
Torn between the economic benefits of slavery and the moral and constitutional issues it raised, white Southerners grew more and more defensive of the institution. They argued that black people, like children, were incapable of caring for themselves and that slavery was a benevolent institution that kept them fed, clothed, and occupied. Most Northerners did not doubt that black people were inferior to whites, but they did doubt the benevolence of slavery. -
Issue of tariffs/sectionalism
From the United States' foundation in 1776 through the 1850s, sectionalism gradually brought the country closer to Civil War. The issue of slavery dominated national politics, and both sides -- the North and the South -- rapidly hardened their opposition or support for the institution. Numerous compromises, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, attempted to calm tensions, but ultimately failed when sectionalism exploded into war in 1861. -
Dred Scott vs Sanford
Dred Scott was a Missouri slave. Sold to Army surgeon John Emerson in Saint Louis around 1833, Scott was taken to Illinois, a free State, and on to the free Wisconsin Territory before returning to Missouri. When Emerson died in 1843, Scott sued Emerson's widow for his freedom in the Missouri supreme court, claiming that his residence in the “free soil” of Illinois made him a free man. After defeat in State courts, Scott brought suit in a local federal court. -
Differences in economy/politics of north and south
The northern soil and climate favored smaller farmsteads rather than large plantations. Industry flourished, fueled by more abundant natural resources than in the South, and many large cities were established.In the southern the fertile soil and warm climate of the South made it ideal for large-scale farms and crops like tobacco and cotton. Because agriculture was so profitable few Southerners saw a need for industrial development. -
Bleeding Kansas
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Bleeding Kansas is the term used to described the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraksa Act overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the desc. -
Texas secedes/succesion convention
In late January and early February 1861 a convention of the people of Texas met in Austin and voted to secede from the Union. Pressure to call a convention to consider secession began in October 1860, when it became apparent that Abraham Lincoln would be elected to the presidency. The secession of South Carolina in mid-December intensified this pressure and led to the secession of five other states in the lower South. -
John Browns raid
Johns raid was an effort by white abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown's party of 22[1] was defeated by a company of U.S. Marines, led by First Lieutenant Israel Greene. Colonel Robert E. Lee was in overall command of the operation to retake the arsenal.ohn Brown had originally asked Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, to join him in his raid, but Tubman was prevented by illness. -
The election of 1864
It is hard for modern Americans to believe that Abraham Lincoln, one of history's most beloved Presidents, was nearly defeated in his reelection attempt in 1864. Yet by that summer, Lincoln himself feared he would lose. How could this happen? First, the country had not elected an incumbent President for a second term since Andrew Jackson in 1832 — nine Presidents in a row had served just one term. Also, his embrace of emancipation was still a problem for many Northern voters.
