Causes of the Civil War

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Causes of the Civil War by Mind Map: Causes of the Civil War

1. John Beown Attacks Harper's Ferry

1.1. erry

2. Free-Soil Party

2.1. 1848

2.2. Free-Soil Party

2.3. In the election of 1848, both the Whigs party and the Democratic Party hoped to win by not taking a stand on the issue of slavery. Antislavery Whigs and democrats joined forces to create a new political party. It called for the territory gained in the Mexican-American war to be free soil, a place where slavery was banned.

3. Election of Zachary Taylor

3.1. 1848

3.2. Election of Zachary Taylor

3.3. In the election of 1848, the controversy over the Wilmot proviso led to the development of the free-soil party. Democrats nominated senator Lewis of Michigan, the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor. And the free-soil party nominated former democratic president Martin van Buren. Senator class suggested that the people in each new territory should decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. Zachary Taylor, a hero of the Mexican-American war won the election.

4. The Compromise of 1850

4.1. 1850

4.2. The compromise of 1850

4.3. Gold was found in California and thousands moved to the area. Soon the territory had enough people to be admitted as a state. Since it was above the Missouri compromise line, people felt it would be a free state. This angered the south and they threatened to secede or withdraw. The compromise was proposed by senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in January, 1850. He hoped this compromise would end the debate over the divided northern and southerners forever. This proposal produced one of the greatest debates in American political history. President Taylor opposed the compromise but died and the new president Millard Fillmore supported it. Congress passes five series of bills in September, 1850 that become known as the compromise of 1850. 1. California was admitted to the union as a free state. 2. Slave trade was banned in the nations capital. 3. Congress declared that it could not regulate the slave trade between slave states. 4. Popular Sovereignty would be used to determine the issue of slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession. 5. The south received a new fugitive slave law.

5. The Fugitive Slave Act

5.1. 1850

5.2. The fugitive slave act

5.3. Allowed special government officials to arrest any person accused of being a runaway slave. Suspects had no right to trial to prove that they had been falsely accused. All it took was a slaveholder or any white witness to swear that the suspect was a accused runaways if authorities requested assistance.

6. Uncle Tom's Cabin

6.1. 1852

6.2. Uncle Tom's Cabin

6.3. Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852, it was a novel about Uncle Tom, an enslaved man who is abused by the cruel Simon Legree. The book became a best seller in the north. It shocked thousands of people who had been unconcerned with slavery before reading the book. The book caused people to view slavery as a human, moral problem and not just a political issue. White southern ears were outraged.

7. The Kansas-Nebraska Act

7.1. 1854

7.2. The Kansas-Nebraska Act

7.3. Senator Stephen Douglas pushed through the act of 1854 which led the nation closer to war. He wanted to see a railroad built form Illinois through the Nebraska territory to the pacific coast. He suggested creating two new territories the Kansas territory and Nebraska territory. Both were above the Missouri compromise line and would become free states which upset the territory. To win support, he suggested that the issue of slavery be resolved by popular sovereignty. This would undo e Missouri compromise.

8. Bleeding Kansas

8.1. 1855

8.2. Bleeding Kansas

8.3. Both pros slavery and anti slavery settlrs flooded to kansas to try and win the majority. Thousands of people from Missouri entered Kansas in March of 1855 to vote illegally in the election of a territorial legislature. Kansas had 3000 voters but almost 8000 people voted. Of the 39 people (legislators) elected, all but 3 supported slavery. Antislavery settlers refused to accept the results and held another election. Kansas now had two governments. Violence broke out. In April, a proslavery sheriff was shot when he tried to arrest some antislavery settlers in the town of Lawrence. He returned the next month with 800 men and attacked the town. Three days larter John Brown, an antislavery ssettler from Connecticut let seven men to a proslavery settlement near pottawatomie creek and murded five proslavery men and boys. This started widespread fighting in Kansas.

9. Bloodshed in the Senate

9.1. 1856

9.2. Bloodshed in the Senate

9.3. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was the leading abolitionist senator and made fiery speeches denouncing the proslavery legislature in Kansas. In one of his speeches he singled out Andrew Butler who was an elderly senator from South Carolina who was not present when he gave his speech. Afew days later his nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, marched into the senate chamber and beat Sumner with a heavy cane until he fell to the floor bloody and uncoonscious. Sumner never really recovered from his injuries.

10. Republican Party

10.1. 1854

10.2. Republican Party

10.3. The whignparty split in 1854 and many northern whigs formed a new political party called the Republican Party. Their main goal was to stop the spread of slavery into the western territories. Their antislavery stand many northern Democrats and Free-Soil members. The party quickly became very powerful. In the first congressional elections held just a few months after the party was created, 105 of 245 candidates were elected to the House of Representatives. Democrats also lost control of two northern state legislatures. Two years later the party ran its first candidate for president, John C. Fremont.

11. The Election of 1856

11.1. 1856

11.2. The Election of 1856

11.3. First Repiblican candidate John C. Fremont waged a strong antislavery campaogn and won 11 of the 16 free states. Democrat James Buchanan won the election.

12. Dred Scott v. Sanford Case

12.1. 1857

12.2. Dred Scott v. Sanford Case

12.3. Dred Scott was an enslaved person who had once been owned by a U.S Army doctor. They had lived in Illinois and Winconsin Territory for a short time where slavert was Illegal. Yhet settled in Missouri. With the help of and antislavery lawyer, Scott sued for his freedom because he argued that he was free because he had lived where slavery was Illegal. The case reached the Suprene Court. The Supreme Court delivered its verdict in the case in March of 1857., three days after President Buchanan took office. Cheif Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the decision for the Court. Scott was not a free man for two reason: 1. Scott had no right to sue in federal Court because African Americans were not citizens; 2. merely living in free territory does not make an enslaved person free. Slaves were property and property rights were protected by the Unites States Constitution .The ruling also said that congress did not have the power to peohibit because slavery was legal in all territories. Northerners were upset because now slavery could spread to the West.

13. The Lincoln and Douglass Debates

13.1. 1858

13.2. The Lincoln and Douglass Debates

13.3. Lincon was chosen as the whig candidate for senate againt Douglas in 1858. Lincon and Douglas were politicsl and personal rivals. Lincon challenged Douglas to a series of Public Debates. Thousands gathered to hear them speak. Newspapers reported what each man said throughout in the nation. Douglas defended popular soverenity and said each state had the right to declared for or against slavery. He painted Lincon as a dangerius abolitionist who wanted equility for Afrian Americans. Lincon took a stand against the spread of slavery. He predicted that slavery would die out on its own but in the meantime Americans had an oblagation to keep it out of the western territories. Douglas won the election but lincoln was now known thrroughout the nation

14. John Brown Attacks Harper's Ferry

14.1. 1859

14.2. John Brown was driven out of Kansas after the pot Creek Massacre and returned to New England. He began a plot to free people in the south that were enslaved. In 1859, Brown and a small group of upporters attacked the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His goalwas to take control of the guns that the U.S Army had stored there. He thought that enslaved African Americans would support him. He would give them weapons and led a revolt. He gained control of the guns but troops commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee surrounded Brown's force before they could escape. Ten of Browns followed were killed. Brown was wounded and captured. At his trial, he sat quietly as the court found him quilty of murder and treason. He was hanged in southerners were shocked that Northerners thought this about a person who tried to led a slave revolt against them.

14.3. John Brown Attacks Harper's Ferry

15. Political Parties Divide

15.1. 1860

15.2. Political Parties Divide

15.3. The republican party split into two parties during the election of 1860 because Northern Democrats refused to support slavery in the territories. Some Southerners wanted to fix the problem between the North and The South and formed the constitution union party. They wanted to protect slavery and keep the nation together.

16. The Election of 1860

16.1. 1860

16.2. The Election of 1860

16.3. Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln to run for president in 1860. Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas as their candidate. Southern Democrats chose vice president John Breckenridge of Kentucky. The Constitutional union nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The election showed just had fragmented the nation had become. Lincoln won every tree state and Breckenridge won all slave holder states except four. Bell won Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Douglas won Missouri. Lincoln received 40% of the popular vote but received enough electoral votes to win the election and become president.

17. Southern States Secede

17.1. 1860

17.2. Southern States Secede

17.3. Lincoln's election made the South feel that they no longer had a voice in the National Government. They believed that the President and Congress were against their interest, especially slavery. South Carolina seceded first when news of Lincoln's election reached the state. They called for a special convention. On December 20, 1860 the convention passed a declaration that the union now subsisting between south Carolina and the other states, under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved. 6 more states followed South Carolina out of the Union.

18. The Confederate State of America

18.1. 1861

18.2. The Confederate States of America

18.3. In February of 1861, the leaders of the seven states that left the union met in Montgomery, Alabama to form a new nation that they called the Confederate states of America. By the time Lincoln took office in March, they had written a constitution and named former Senator Jefferson Davis as president.

19. Crittenden Plan

19.1. 1861

19.2. Crittenden Plans

19.3. A plan developed by senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky to compromise with the South one last time. It was presented to congress in late February, 1861 while the South was forming its new government but it did not pass.

20. The Economy of the North and South

20.1. 1800s

20.2. The economy of the North and South

20.3. The north was industrial with factories and paid workers. The south was agricultural with large farm and small farms. Slave labor was used in the south.

21. The Missouri Compromise

21.1. 1820

21.2. The Missouri Compromise

21.3. As America begins moving the issue of whether or not slaves should be allowed in the new states forming out west became an issue. The first state in which this became an issue was Missouri. Its addition to the United States threatened to upset the balance between free states and slave states. In 1820, senator Henry Clay persuaded Congress to approve the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise stated: 1. Maine was admitted as a free state. 2. Missouri was admitted as a slave state. 3. Louisiana Territory north of Missouri's southern border was free. 4. Southern slave owners gained the right to pursue escaped fugitives into free religions.

22. The Wilmot Proviso

22.1. 1848

22.2. Since the Missouri Compromise did not apply to the large territory gained from Mexico in 1848, Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed that congress ban slavery in all territory that might become part of the United States as a result of the Mexican-Mexican American War. The proposal passed in the house but failed in the senate

22.3. Wilmot Proviso