Frustration

Sectionalism: Causes of the Civil War

Enslaved
person

Democratic
“platform” -
official
policies of
Democratic
Party

Compromise of 1850
●Senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas created a
compromise between the north and south

●Prevented further territorial expansion of slavery

●Strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, a law which
forced Northerners to seize and return escaped
slaves to the South

●The new Fugitive Slave Act forced non-slaveholders
to participate in supporting the institution of slavery
and led to increased division among people who had
not felt strongly about the issue

●Succeeded in postponing war between the North and
South

●Did not deal with the sectional division in the United
States

1850

The Compromise of 1850

How could the two sides have avoided war

at this point?

The two sides could’ve avoided war at this

point by ….

1858

Lincoln's House
Divided Speech

The best-known passage of the speech is:

“ A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this
government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and
half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do
not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease
to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or
its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful
in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as
South.”

What is the
speech saying?

1859

John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown
●Abolitionist

●anti-slavery “Jayhawker”
during Bleeding Kansas

●October of 1859 he organized a
small band of white allies and
free blacks and raided a
government arsenal in Harpers
Ferry, Virginia

● He hoped to seize weapons and
distribute them to Southern
slaves in order to spark a
series of slave uprisings

South Carolina has threatened to secede
before. Why do you think it is the first state
to secede this time?

South Carolina was
the first state to
secede because ….

●With secession, several federal forts, including
Fort Sumter in South Carolina, became outposts
in a hostile, foreign land

●Abraham Lincoln made the decision to send
fresh supplies to the forts

●On April 12, 1861, Confederate warships opened a
34-hour bombardment on the stronghold

●The garrison surrendered on April 14

●The Civil War was now underway.

●On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers
to join the Northern army.

●Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and
Tennessee dissolved their ties to the federal
government

1861 - The Battle of Fort Sumter

What did Lincoln
do?

What happened at
Ft. Sumter?

What did other
southern states
start doing?

How should we remember the

events of the Civil War?

Results
●

Fifty-five enslaved people,
including Turner, were tried
and executed

●

Nearly 200 more people
were lynched by mobs

●

Virginia lawmakers reacted
to the crisis by taking away
the few civil rights slaves
and free black people had
at the time
○

Education was prohibited

○

The right to assemble
was severely limited

1831

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

What laws were passed after
Nat Turner?

The Fugitive

Slave Act

Uncle Tom’s

Cabin

Tell me what
you see in the
History Scene
Investigation

You sometimes hear people in the

media talk about a new civil war. How
likely is that? What would it be like?

Map of United States

military installations in

Texas

Unlike in the 1860s, there is not a strong

unifying issue that divides us

geographically. People with different views

live side-by-side.

Also, a civil war (for instance in Texas)
would mean that secessionists would be
fighting our own military, including friends

and family members.

Every state that
seceded cited
being able to
keep slavery as
their #1 reason
for leaving the
union.

Some people argue that the Civil War

was NOT fought over the issue of

slavery.

The Myth

of the
Lost
Cause