The Steps toward War

Dr. Bruce ClaryThursday, January 3, 2013

John Winthrop17th-Century Governor

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Puritan Heritage in North

Henry Laurens18th-Century Vice Gov.South Carolina Colony

Cavalier Heritage in South

Northwest Ordinance

1787

•Established territory west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River as free territory

“There was never a moment during the earliest years of our national history when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. The issue lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was, owing to the cotton gin, more than half awake at the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.... Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind, though not always on his tongue.”

——John Jay Chapman

“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

Article I, Section 1U.S. Constitution

“No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

Article IV, Section 4U.S. Constitution

“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”

Article I, Section 9U.S. Constitution

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

PreambleU.S. Constitution

“There was never a moment during the earliest years of our national history when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. The issue lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was, owing to the cotton gin, more than half awake at the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.… Thereafter, slavery was on everyone’s mind, though not always on his tongue

—John Jay Chapman

Missouri Compromise of 1820

Rise of Abolitionism

•1820-30s: American Colonization Society

•1831: First issue of The Liberator

•1833: American Anti-Slavery Society founded

•1842: Frederick Douglass gives his first lecture

•1845: Douglass publishes his Narrative

“I will be  as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as

justice.  On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to

speak, or write, with moderation.…  Urge me not

to use moderation in a cause like the present.  I am

in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not

excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL

BE HEARD.”

—William Lloyd Garrison

The Nullification Crisis

• In 1828 and 1832, Congress passes tariffs that exacerbate economic difficulties plaguing South Carolina.

• South Carolina passes an Ordinance of Nullification, claiming that the tariffs shall not apply in the state.

• President Jackson pushes through the Force Bill, which empowers the federal government to enforce the tariff.

“Please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.”

—Andrew Jackson

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny

Three Key Themes• the virtue of the American people and

their institutions;• the mission to spread these institutions,

thereby redeeming and remaking the world in the image of the U.S.; and

• the destiny under God to accomplish this work.

Mexican-American War 1846-48

Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850

• Enacts the Fugitive Slave Act

• Admits California as a free state

• Opens New Mexico and Utah territories under popular sovereignty

• Published in 1852, it sold 300,000 copies in the U.S. alone in its first year.

• The book’s impact was so great that when Lincoln met Stowe, he allegedly said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.”

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

• Creates territories of Kansas and Nebraska

• Repeals the Missouri Compromise

• Establishes popular sovereignty, empowering territorial settlers to determine if they will allow slavery within their boundaries

Bleeding Kansas 1854-58

Bleeding Kansas 1854-58

Dred Scott Decision1857

U.S. Supreme Court rules that

•No people of African descent could be citizens

•Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories and, thus, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional

•Slaves cannot be taken from owners without due process

The authors of the Constitution, said Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in his decision, viewed all blacks as “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

John Brown’s Raid

on Harper’s Ferry

October 1859

Election ofAbraham LincolnNovember 6, 1860

“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.”

Abraham Lincoln

Crittenden Compromise

The Crittenden Compromise was a last-ditch effort by a Kentucky senator to head off the secession crisis. It would have

•Guaranteed the existence of slavery in the slave states

•Permanently re-established the Missouri Compromise line: slavery would be prohibited north of the 36°30´ parallel and guaranteed south of it

The compromise included a clause that it could not be repealed or amended.

Order of Secession

•December 20, 1860 South Carolina

•January 9, 1861 Mississippi

•January 10, 1861 Florida

•January 11, 1861 Alabama

•January 19, 1861 Georgia

•January 26, 1861 Louisiana

•February 1, 1861 Texas

Lincoln Inaugural

“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.… 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 hearth-stone, 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.”

April 12, 1861

Order of Secession

•April 17, 1861 Virginia

•May 6, 1861 Tennessee

•May 6, 1861 Arkansas

•May 20, 1861 North Carolina

•Oct. 31, 1861 Missouri

•Nov. 20, 1861 Kentucky