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Invention of the Cotton Gin
The invention of the cotton gin made slavery explode in the south. The cotton gin could clean out fifty times more pounds of cotton than a slave could in a day. Slave owners wanted more slaves to grow and harvest more cotton. Cotton became the dominate crop, and cotton growers wanted to move South, and take slaves with them. -
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Causes of the Civil War
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Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Comprimise declared a set line to determine free states from slave states. It banned Slavery North of this border. The line was place at 6° 30' and was called the Mason Dixon line, -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner and about 70 other slaves killed almost 60 plantation owners and their families. This rebellion took place in Virginia, in 1831. Thomas Grey, a lawyer, interviewed Turner before he was hung. He wrote a book saying that Turner thought his master was nice and there was no reason for killing him other than "...to carry terror and devastation..." No one knows if this is actually true though. After this event took place, the plantation owners became scared of what the slaves would do. -
War of Mexico
The northerners were upset with the War of Mexico because they accused it of southerners seeking more land to spread slavery into. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Fugitive Slave Act denied accused runaway slaves trial by jury. Sometimes even freed slaves would be taken south because special commisioners were paid five dollars to say they were free and ten dollars to say they were not. Therefore, northerners were very upset because southerners could claim slaves in the north back down to the south. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin upset northerners and southerners because it was a story of about slavery in the south. Southerners thought that it was a very exagerated story and depicted a slave's life worse than it really was. Northerners became more aware of the life of a slave and pushed more for abolition. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas Nebraska Act allowed for slavery in all areas because of popular sovereignty. This split northern democrats and whigs into two parties each because many believed slavery could not be spread at all, even if the people wanted it. -
Republican VS Democratic Party
The breakdown of the two-party system signaled the end to the North and the South working together. Candidates from the northern Republican party stressed ending slavery more and candidates from the southern Democratic party stressed spreading slavery more. They drifted even further apart. -
Dred Scott Case
When the southern-dominated Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott case that Congress could not restrict slavery in any territory, it nullified both the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas Nebraska Act. This really upset the northerners because their growing fear that southerners would legalize slavery everywhere if they could was confirmed. -
Lincoln VS Douglas
During the 1858 election for Illinois, Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas debated the issue of slavery. Abraham Lincoln believed slavery should exist where it is and not spread, but believed more that "A house divided against itself annot stand." Douglas believed it was the people's choice/decision. The southerners fealt threatned by Lincoln's beliefs because they thought that Lincoln's belief that the country couldn't be split would threaten the institution of slavery. -
Lincoln Wins Presidential Election
The southerners felt they had to leave the union or face the destruction of their institusions and values after Lincoln, an anti-slavery Republican, won the 1860 presidential election. The decision for the southerners to leave the union occured at the southern convention. -
South Secedes the Union
7 states of the Lower South seceded from the Union by February of 1861. And then, on April 12, 1861, Southern forces attacked Fort Sumter to prevent it from being re-supplied which opened hostilities between the North and South. Lincoln responded by calling for volunteers to fight to make it clear to try to preserve the Union, but this caused 4 more states of the Upper South to secede as well. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
After Lincoln was inaugerated, he announced that he will bring supplies into Fort Sumter but not troops. He said that he doesn't want to declare war, but if the south tries to stop the supplying of Fort Sumter or if the south attacks Fort Sumter, it will become war. Southerners decided to not be cowards and attack Fort Sumter. This is the final event leading to the civil war.
