Week 14: Causes of the Civil War

1. Week 14: Causes of the Civil War SOL 6g & 7a

2. The events of the 1850s, combined with the lack of strong presidential leadership, led to the secession of Southern states.Sectional tensions, originating with the formation of the nation, ultimately resulted in war between the Northern and Southern states Causes of the Civil War • Sectional disagreements and debates over: • Tariffs • extension of slavery into the territories • the nature of the Union (states’ rights) • Nullification Crisis

3. Abolition • Northern abolitionists vs. Southern defenders of slavery (Apologists) • Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe • United States Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case

4. Failed Compromises • A series of failed compromises over the expansion of slavery in the territories and the Fugitive Slave Act • Missouri Compromise • Compromise of 1850 • Kansas-Nebraska Act

5. Key leaders and their roles • Abraham Lincoln • Abraham Lincoln’s vision of the United States as a nation and democratic society was evident in his speeches and political decrees. • Believed secession was an illegal act and that the United States was a “nation,” not a collection of sovereign states; Southerners believed the states had freely joined the Union and could freely leave • First Inaugural Address: “In your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war…” • Initial goal: Preserve the Union • Later goal: End slavery and expand citizenship

6. Southern Leaders • Jefferson Davis • United States senator who became president of the Confederate States of America • Robert E. Lee] • Confederate general of the Army of Northern Virginia • Opposed secession, but did not believe the Union should be held together by force

7. Northern Generals • George McClellan • First Union commander who was overly cautious and always thought he was outnumbered. • Ulysses S. Grant • Union military commander who won victories over the South after several other Union commanders had failed

8. Abolitionists • Frederick Douglass • Former enslaved African American • Became a prominent abolitionist • Urged Lincoln to recruit former enslaved African Americans to fight in the Union army

9. Major events • Election of Lincoln as president of the United States (1860), followed by the secession of several Southern states that feared Lincoln would try to abolish slavery • Fort Sumter: Opening confrontation of the Civil War