The 1850’s and the Start of the Civil War

1850-1861: chronology of events

compromise → secession → civil war

1848: treaty of guadalupe hidalgo

• new "western" territories
  
  → not debating abolition of slavery, only spread into new territories
  

• california + mexican cession
  

issue: slavery in the territories

• political, economic and social "balance" between North and South
  

• 4 views / proposals:
  

• use missouri compromise

• extend 36'30 line to Pacific

• wilmot proviso

• david wilmot

• pennsylvania democrat

• no slavery in the new territories

• free-soil party

• john c. calhoun - south carolina

• congress has no right to prohibit slavery → constitution

• 5th amendment - protects the rights of slaveholders ("private property"

• popular sovereignty - gen. l. cass

• stephen douglas - illinois democrat

• people in the territory can decide whether to be free or slave (popular = people)

• **election of 1848
  **

• candidates

• democrat → general lewis cass

• "conspiracy of silence" on slavery

• needed votes of Southern democrats

• whig → zachary taylor

• northern bus - wealthy - federal government

• free soil party → martin van buren

• supported wilmot proviso

• zachary taylor wins

• dodged the issue of slavery (avoids divisive issue)

• 1849: "california gold" → blew the lid off of congress
  

• 1848 - sutter's mill → "forty-niners"

• california applies for statehood

• blew the lid off; senate: 15-15 balance

• discovery of gold → thousands of men move west to get rich → lawless time, california applies for statehood within the year

• 1850: issues debated -
  

• california

• sectional balance (15)

• texas - claims new lands in mexico

• south angry: abolition of slavery in DC

• runaway slaves - fugitive slave law

• underground railroad - harriet tubman

• abolitionists: "moral judgements"

• refused to obey laws

• dec 9 '49: Congress convenes → california?

1850: the great debate

• congress: "old" guard v "young" guard

• old - immortal trio

• webster, calhoun + clay

• young - young northern radicals (antislavery)

• no concessions, no compromise

• leader: seward → "God's moral law", believes there's a higher law than the Constitution (choose between)

• debate: northern union savers v southern fire eaters

• 1850 "great compromise"

• henry clay - 5 provisions

• president taylor promises to veto the compromise, dies suddenly

• vp millard filmore becomes president + signs compromise; wants to bury the issue of slavery

1850-1854: second era of good feelings

• period of peace + prosperity

• north - south - west

• underlying currents

• leading to tension and conflicts

• eg.

1. fugitive slave law

2. personal liberty laws (defying fugitive slave law)

• no, we won't help southerners find runaway slaves, etc. or abide by judges' rulings → they'll help the slaves

• During Jackson, when the south defied a federal law, they were threatened with military force. Now, when the north breaks such a law, the federal government does nothing → hypocrisy.

3. underground railroad

• Network of trails with "stations" or safe houses where runaway slaves could stay and receive food and shelter. People who aided the fugitives on their journey north to freedom were referred to as conductors. Conductors came from all occupations including farming, business and the ministry.

• highly secretive → stations only know the next house down

4. harriet tubman → "moses"

5. frederick douglass "the north star" was his newspaper

6. harriet beecher stowe

• considered one of the causes of the civil war

• uncle tom's cabin, 1852

• sold 300,000 copies in the first year, 2 million in a decade

• strips away positive imagery - shows true horrors and brutality of slavery that southerners were trying to hide

7. hinton helper

• controversial antislavery book; more of a documentary than uncle tom's cabin → ripping into southern economy, strong but debilitating; economy of south is so dependent on slave labor and cotton production that if anything happens (eg. drought), everyone will suffer. argues that south is being economically stifled by slavery, not growing

8. william lloyd garrison

• "the liberator" - office was often broken into, fierce abolitionist

9. sojourner truth

10. david walker

11. grimke sisters

• growing debate → abolitionist fanatics v pro-slavery forces

1. the south lashes back

• defense of slavery and southern economy / way of life

2. the abolitionist impact in the north

• initial reactions + opposition

• changing views

• northerners conflicted on abolition - it'd hurt northern factories, but more impactful on the south

1852 - presidential election

• candidates

• democrat - franklin pierce

• expansionist, pro-south

• whig - general winfield scott

• free soil - john parker hale

• results: pierce wins

• defeat + doom for the whig party

• deaths of the "old guard"

• compromise was dead

ostend manifesto - cuba

• no place for slavery to expand in South - desert, etc.; turn South (Cuba) instead

• Cuba, "pearl of the Antilles," was a pearl of great price for the United States

• The North would have her at almost any price - up to $130,000,000 - as a hedge against the Anglos-French imperialist threat.

• The South wanted Cuba to stabilize the House + senate + to create a “slavocracy” - south to Brazil and west to the Pacific.

• But Cuba was to be the dream on which the slavocracy wrecked its hopes in the years leading up to the Civil War. "The Ostend Manifesto" discredited a pro-South administration and helped mobilize public opinion in the 1854 and '56 elections that eventually paved the way for Abraham Lincoln's 1860 victory.

• Cuba was to be the South's first lost cause, though not its last.

1854: kansas-nebraska act

• stephen douglas' "scheme"

• reactions etc.

• republican party is formed

1854: birth of the republican party

• northern whigs

• northern democrats

• free soilers

• know nothings

• misc. opponents

• policy: no slavery in the territories

• impact on democratic party

• shattered

• northern v southern democrats

• kansas territory

• slave or free?

• majority won in state legislature or elect own legislators and governor

• bleeding kansas - mini civil war

• border "ruffians" (pro-slavery missourians)

• william clarke quantrill v john brown

1856 presidential election

• democrat: james buchanan

• whig: millard fillmore

• free soil: john c. frémont

• neither candidate tarred by bleeding kansas

• buchanan → provided little leadership; mediocre + confused, hoped supreme court would decide issue of slavery in territories

• result - "victorious defeat" of republican party

• southern threat: election of a "black" president would be a declaration of war

1857: the dred scott bombshell

• supreme court decision

• decision: slaves are private property

• protected by constitution

• 3 major implications:

1. as private property, slaves could be brought into any territory without being freed

2. effectively ends missouri compromise

3. congress has no power to end slavery

panic of 1857

• stock panic

• gives southerners a false sense of security (they can't actually operate independently just because they don't face the same set of economic issues as their northern counterparts)

• effects

• north: businesses + banks close, poverty and homelessness rise

• south: small blip; cash crop economy, don't have to worry about industry fall

abraham lincoln

• illinois: state legislature - whig

• republican party candidate: 1858

• campaign for senate v stephen douglas

1858: the lincoln-douglas debates

• "a house divided against itself cannot stand"

• stephen douglas and the "freeport doctrine"

1859: john brown's raid on harpers ferry

• "god's angry man"

• goal: establish a black free state + rise up in revolution

• John Brown - madman, hero or martyr?

• realized he could do more for abolition as a martyr than alive

1860 presidential election

• lincoln (R)

• john bell (constitutional union)

• stephen douglas (N. democrat)

• john c. breckenridge (S. democrat)

secession

• dec 20, 1860

• 6 states voted to secede from the union

• feb 4 1861 - south forms a new nation

• confederacy

• president: jefferson davis

• capital: montgomery, al (richmond, va)

crittenden compromise

• last ditch appeal to sanity

• senator john c. crittenden

• wants supreme court to decide whether it's constitutional to allow states to secede from the union - nothing says they can't / can

causes of the civil war

• freedom

• independence

• way of life

• government (1850 laws)

• balance of power - house / senate

• power over laws, people, trade

• supreme court decision - dred scott blows every compromise out of the water (missouri, comp of 1850, popular sovereignty - gone)

• land

• new western territories

• statehood?

• slave or free

• expansion of slavery westward

• radicals

• abolitionists

• harriet beecher stowe, sojourner truth, etc.

• john brown; "god's angry man"

• sectionalism

• such distinct regions

• industrial v cash crop

• slavery

• primary/absolute cause of the civil war — the South wanted to continue enslaving people, the North rejected this.

• states' rights

president abraham lincoln

• march 4, 1861 - oath of office

• realize that november → march is a long time to have a lame duck president

• inaugural address

• secession was illegal (impractical)

• never recognized Confederacy - "states in rebellion"

• this isn't another nation to defeat; other Americans that are rebelling that will be beaten but brought back into the country

• goal: preservation of union

• settle crisis without war

• keep remaining 9 states in the union

• "border states"

• reasons for secession

• Fears of black people and slave rebellion non-slaveholding whites-

• “way of life” threatened

• Anti-northern/urban/industrial

• Something in common with slaveholders

• Social connections between the classes of whites

• Economic connections: renting slaves, foremen on plantations, debt

• Fears of black people and slave rebellion

• The vote & political participation

• Ideas of white supremacy

• States rights

european reactions

1. european nations delighted

• "american experiment" failed

• democracy / republic not possible

2. divide + conquer

• play north + south against each other

• incite conflicts, esp out west with Indigenous peoples

3. european colonies safe from "rapacious yankees"

• no interference

4. european "imperialists" could defy the monroe doctrine

• seize land in americas

"a new kind of war"

• first modern war

1. new technology + inventions

2. new war tactic: "total war"

3. involvement of the home fronts

4. role of women

5. numbers of deaths + casualties

• fort sumter
  

• april 12, 1861

• began Civil War

• attacked by Brig Gen Beauregard (Anderson's student at West point)

• continued until Anderson surrendered on april 14 (outnumbered, outgunned)

• no casualties during battle, one Union soldier killed during 100-gun salute

• Anderson's actions at Fort Sumter made him an immediate national hero
  

• virginia, north carolina, tennessee and arkansas join confederacy
  

border states

• Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware & West Virginia

• importance

• more than half of confederacy's white population

• increase half its supply of horses and mules

• ohio, cumberland + tennessee rivers

• could double southern manufacturing capacity

• access to where grain, gunpowder + iron produced

• lincoln: "hoped for God on his side, had to have kentucky"

• actions

• lincoln declares marshall law in maryland

• deployed union troops in west virginia + missouri

war strategies

• north: anaconda plan

1. capture richmond

2. blockade coastline

3. control mississippi river

4. split confederacy

5. split RR + rivers

• south: defensive war

1. defend land + homes

2. familiar geography

3. war down north

4. force surrender

5. guerrilla warfare - hit + run

6. disrupt transport + communication lines

7. steal weapons + supplies

8. invade north

9. capture dc

threats of the civil war

• east → targets: richmond, dc
  

• south: lee, stonewall jackson

• north: McDowell-McClellan-Pope-Meade-Hooker

• west → targets: river valleys → mississippi + RRs, split confederacy (texas)
  
  South: Jeb Stuart - Bedford Forest
  

• North: Ulysses S. Grant – Wm T. Sherman

civil war battles

• first battle of bull run

• july 21, 1861

• gen mcdowell (u) v gen beauregard (c)

• assumption: union would win easily

• confederates rallied - gen thomas "stonewall" jackson

• union army retreated, north stunned → long war

10 deadliest battles of the civil war:

• gettysburg (23,053 U, 28,063 C)

• the seven days

• chickamauga

• chancellorsville

• the wilderness

• antietam

• second manassas

• shiloh

• fredericksburg

• spotsylvania

points:

either - baseless conspiracy theories, irish were running around naked and potatoless in their fields, ravaged by bugs and famine - now they get to self-determine and make money, we saved them

OR

stifling your own economy, shooting yourselves in the foot - in your own self-inflicted economic adolescence that we fought so hard to free ourselves from

battles

FORT SUMTER: april 12-14, 1861

• Charleston Harbor SC - Robert Anderson: Commander at Fort Sumter

• last Union stronghold in South → Lincoln did not want to start this war, only wants supplies to Anderson (no attack) → Southerners see as an act of aggression, attack

• surrender on apr 14

• virginia, no. carolina, tennessee, arkansas join confederacy

BORDER STATES:

• states:

• missouri, kentucky, maryland, delaware + west virginia

• importance:

• more than 1/2 the white population of Confederacy

• increase half Confederacy's supply of horses + mules

• [access to] ohio, cumberland + tennessee rivers → lead to deep south

• could double manufacturing capacity of South

• access to where grain, gunpowder + iron are produced

• lincoln hoped to have God on his side but had to have Kentucky

• actions:

• declares marshall law in maryland

• deployed union troops in west virginia + missouri

the "blue" and the "gray"

• divided nation/friends/family/military

• brother's blood + border blood

war strategies

• north: anaconda plan

1. wrap up, squeeze into surrender

2. capture richmond

3. blockade coastline

4. control mississippi

5. split confederacy

6. seize rr + rivers

7. slow ass plan

• south: defensive war

1. defend land + homes

2. familiar geography

3. "wear down" the north

4. force surrender

5. guerrilla warfare - hit + run

6. Confederates already know how to shoot guns

7. disrupt transportation + communication lines

8. steal weapons + supplies

9. invade north

10. capture Washington DC (last resort)

theaters of the civil war

• east

• targets → richmond + washington DC

• south: robert e lee, thomas "stonewall" jackson

• north: mcdowell-mcclellan-pope-meade-hooker

• replaced because they allowed lee to retreat, never followed

• west

• targets → river valleys (mississippi - split confederacy)

• south: jeb stuart - bedford forrest

• north: ulysses s grant - wm. t sherman

• blockade: "running the blockade" v "blockade busters"

• naval: admiral david farragut (new orleans)

FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN - july 21, 1861

• equivalent of bunker hill

• union army (gen mcdowell) v confederate army (gen beauregard)

• many had gone to west point + fought together before

• assumption: union would win easily

• until reinforcements were brought in; Confederates rallied - stonewall jackson saved the day

• Union army retreated - North stunned (long war)