Topic #2: A House Divided

Essential Question: Was the Civil War inevitable?

Popular Sovereignty

• Compromise of 1850

The Abolition Movement

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• 1852

• Novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

• 1.5 million copies are sold.

• This leads to the abolitionist movement.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• 1854

• Establishes popular sovereignty in Kansas/Nebraska territories.

• Leads to three things:

  1. Republican Party is formed (no more Whigs) and they are against the expansion of slavery.

  2. Bleeding Kansas: Slave owners from Missouri moved into Kansas to try to get Kansas to become a slave state.

  3. Sumner-Brooks Affair: Charles Sumner was beat with a can by Preston Brooks.

     • Shows how violent people were being about the Act.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

• 1857

• Chief Justice Taney ruled that:

  1. Scott has no right in court → Black people don’t have any rights and aren’t U.S. citizens.

  2. Slaves are property and Congress can’t take away property.

  3. Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• 1858

• Between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

• Seven senatorial campaign debates around Illinois.

  • Focused on the issue of slavery in territories.

• Lincoln says “A House Divided…”

John Brown’s raid

• 1859

• John Brown was a religious man who had a strong hatred towards slavery and thought that violence was the only way to get rid of it.

• He leads a raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in hopes to start a rebellion that overthrows the institution of slavery.

• Brown and his men are trapped and eventually captured.

• Brown is executed later and becomes a martyr to people in the North.

Abraham Lincoln

• Born into a farm family in Kentucky

• He served four terms as a Whig is state legislature and one in Congress.

• He eventually joins the Republican Party after it emerges.

• He was against slavery and its expansion.

• He believed even black men had inalienable rights.

• He sided with abolitionists and conservative northerners.

Stephen A. Douglas

• U.S. Senator from Illinois

• He served two terms before the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

• Apart of the Democratic Party

• Douglas didn’t care if slavery was legal or not.

• He believed only white men could have citizenship or political rights.

• He supported popular sovereignty.

Election of 1860

• 1860

• Lincoln receives 40% popular vote and 59% electoral vote.

• He becomes the 16th president.

• Leads to the Secession Movement.

The Secession Movement

• After Lincoln’s election, South Carolina secedes from the Union.

• The Seven lower souther states (SC - TX) follow South Carolina

• Confederate States of America: Formed in 1861 with Jefferson Davis as its president. They had a constitution similar to the U,S. but allowed slavery. It looked forward to annexing new areas like the Caribbean.

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address-

(not talked about yet)

Fort Sumter

• 1861

• First battle of the Civil War.

• The federal fort in Charleston Harbor was captured by the Confederates after two days of shelling.

  • The Confederates viewed it as a foreign military installation and wanted to stop Lincoln from resupplying the Union.

• This starts the Civil War and within weeks, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas join the Confederacy.