ROAD TO THE CIVIL WAR

I.            Sectional Differences:

A.  The Breadbasket West:

St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Chicago

Chicago:       1833: 150 houses

                                                         1847: 17,000 people

                                                         1860: 109,000 people

B.  The Urbanizing North

1820: 6.1%

1860: 20%

1860:  110,274 industrial

establishments

(128,300 in entire country)

1860 Northern City Population

1.         New York City - 813,669

2.        Philadelphia - 565,529

3.        Brooklyn - 266,661

4.        Baltimore - 212,418

5.        Boston - 177,840

6.        Cincinnati - 161,044

7.        St. Louis - 160,773

8.        Chicago - 112,172

9.        Buffalo - 81,129

10.     Newark - 71,941

(The only Southern city to compare was New Orleans with 168,675 citizens)          Source: 1860 U.S. Census

C.  The Oligarchic South

--1860: 5.6 million whites         

--1700 own around 100 slaves

--46,274 own around 20 slaves

--slave population was 3.84 million

--26,000 free blacks in the South

--36% of families in South own

slaves in 1830

--25% of families in South own

slaves in 1860

--Traveling the 1,460 miles from Baltimore to

New Orleans in 1850 meant riding five different railroads, two stage coaches, and two steamboats.

--By 1850, 20 percent of adult white southerners

could not read or write, compared to a national figure of 8 percent.

DO THESE DIFFERENCES MATTER?

                             Wilmot Proviso (1846)

II.  COMPROMISE OF 1850

          1845: 15-13   (Texas and Florida)

          1846: 15-14 (Iowa)

          1848: 15-15 (Wisconsin)

1. Fugitive Slave Act
2. Abolish slave trade in D.C.
3. Cali in as Free State
4. Popular Sovereignty in new territories
5. Resolved boundary dispute btw. Texas

and New Mexico

III. The Trouble Escalates:

A. Transcontinental Railroad

--Stephen Douglas

          B. Kansas-Nebraska Act

          C. “Bleeding Kansas” (1854-1858)

                             --New England Emigrant Aid Company

                             --“Beecher’s Bibles”

                             --John Brown

                             --Pottawatomie Creek (May 24, 1856)

          D. The Caning of Sumner (1856)

SOUTHERN RESPONSE:

Louisville, Kentucky, Journal (28 May 1856)

The assault of Brooks upon Sumner in the Senate Chamber has created a prodigious excitement throughout the North. The assault is deeply to be regretted, because in the first place it was a very great outrage in itself, and because in the second place it will, especially if not promptly and properly punished at Washington, greatly strengthen the anti-slavery and anti- Southern feeling in the Northern States and thus help the Black Republican party.

Columbia, South Carolina, South Carolinian (27 May 1856)

We were not mistaken in asserting, on Saturday last, that the Hon. Preston S. Brooks had not only the approval, but the hearty congratulations of the people of South Carolina for his summary chastisement of the abolitionist Sumner.

Immediately upon the reception of the news on Saturday last, a most enthusiastic meeting was convened in the town of Newberry…The meeting voted him a handsome gold-headed cane, which we saw yesterday, on its way to Washington, entrusted to the care of Hon. B. Simpson.

Here in Columbia, a handsome sum, headed by the Governor of the State, has been subscribed, for the purpose of presenting Mr. Brooks with a splendid silver pitcher, goblet and stick, which will be conveyed to him in a few days by the hands of gentlemen delegated for that purpose. In Charleston similar testimonials have been ordered by the friends of Mr. Brooks.

And, to add the crowning glory to the good work, the slaves of Columbia have already a handsome subscription, and will present an appropriate token of their regard to him who has made the first practical issue for their preservation and protection in their rights and enjoyments as the happiest laborers on the face of the globe.

IV. Party Politics

          A. Decline of the Whigs

          B. Rise and Fall of the "Know-Nothings"

          C. Rise of the Republicans

                   --The Election of 1856--

          Buchanan(Dem.) vs. Fremont(Rep.) in North

Buchanan vs. Fillmore in South

                                                          (American/Know-Nothing/Whig)

V. On the Verge of War:

          A. Dred Scott

An Excerpt from Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery.

Washington recounts a conversation with an elderly black man who said he had been born in Virginia and sold into Alabama in 1845. I asked him how many were sold at the same time. He said, “There were five of us: myself and brother and three mules.”

B. Panic of 1857

          C. Lincoln-Douglas Debate for Senate

                   (Rep.)                    (Dem.)

         

August 21, 1858 (first debate)

I would never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship upon a negro.

 I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds. They are trying to array all the Northern States in one body against the South, to excite a sectional war between the Free States and the Slave States, in order that the one or the other may be driven to the wall. (Douglas)

I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races.

There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A house divided against itself cannot stand…I believe that this country cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. (Lincoln)

          D. John Brown's Raid

          E. The Election of Lincoln

                   Lincoln (Rep.)

                   Douglas (Dem.)   {border and North}

                   Breckinridge (Dem.)  {South}

         

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: March 4, 1861

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Fort Sumter, the first official “battle” of the Civil War, would occur a month later  (April 12, 1861)

The Crucial Year:  1863

Emancipation Proclamation (1/1/63)

Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863)

The Gettysburg Address (11/19/63)

The Emancipation Proclamation     January 1, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.