Key Concept 5.2 — Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.

 

Map shows Free and slave states & territories by repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Portraits are of John C. Fremont & W.L. Dayton.

 

 

  United States History Cross-Links 

• The Transcendentalist Movement

 

• Transcendentalists believed that God is inherent in nature and in human beings and that each individual has to rely on his or her own conscience and intuition for spiritual truths.

 

• An individual is the spiritual center of the universe-and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.

 

• Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs-nature is symbolic. 

  

• The Abolitionist Movement

 

• The abolitionist movement came out of the Second Great Awakening's social teachings. This Protestant revivalist movement based on the belief that God's gives everyone the free will to choose between good and evil.

 

• The Second Great Awakening arrived early in the 19th century and became a spur for social movements and growing evangelism.

 

• See United States History I.32 for more on the Second Great Awakening

 

• Many Abolitionists, including Theodore Weld and Angelina Grimké, were motivated by their religious convictions.

 

• Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists split over the slavery issue in the late 1830s and early 1840s. 

 

• Women of the Abolitionist Movement

 

• Click here for a biography on Sojourner Truth, who was a former slave who devoted her life to the abolitionist movement 

 

• Click here for an article discussing various white female abolitionists, detailing their biographies and contributions to the abolitionist movement

 

• Different economies and cultures of the North and South
• In the North, the people wished to preserve the Union at all costs while in the South, the concept of a new Southern republic was backed by many people.

 

• Yet the economic systems of the North and the South were actually quite complimentary. The agricultural production of the South was needed to support the rise of industrialization in the North and each system was dependent upon the other. Still the large majority of the free citizens of the United States lived in the North while slave labor dominated the South.

 

• Years of political patchwork and compromise only delayed the coming of the Civil War in 1861. 

• Policies and Events Leading to the Civil War, including 

 

• Missouri Compromise (1820)

 

• South Carolina Nullification Crisis (1832-1833)

 

• Wilmot Proviso (1846)

 

• Compromise of 1850

 

• Publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851-1852)

 

• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

 

• Dred Scott Supreme Court case (1857)

 

• Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858)

 

• John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry (1859)

 

• Election of Abraham Lincoln (1860)

 

• Policies and Consequences of Reconstruction

 

  

Focus Question: 

Analyze critical policies and events leading to the Civil War and connections among them.

 

The dichotomy between the specific policies that led to the Civil War can be characterized as a fundamental disagreement between the North and the South over the issue of slavery and its expansion into new territories.

 

On one hand, the North advocated for policies that sought to limit or abolish slavery. This included policies such as the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired as a result of the Mexican-American War, and the Free Soil Party's platform, which called for the exclusion of slavery from any new territory. The North also supported the abolitionist movement, which sought to end slavery altogether.

 

On the other hand, the South advocated for policies that sought to protect and expand slavery. This included policies such as the Fugitive Slave Act, which required citizens to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves, and the Dred Scott decision, which declared that slaves were not citizens and therefore could not sue for their freedom. The South also supported the concept of popular sovereignty, which allowed settlers in new territories to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery.

 

These policies were deeply dichotomous and reflected the growing divide between the North and the South. The North saw slavery as a moral evil that needed to be eradicated, while the South saw it as a vital part of its economy and way of life. This fundamental disagreement over the issue of slavery and its expansion into new territories ultimately led to the outbreak of the Civil War.

 

Other policies, such as economic policies and state sovereignty, also contributed to the divide between the North and the South. However, these policies were often connected to the issue of slavery and its expansion. For example, the North's support for protective tariffs and internal improvements was often driven by a desire to promote industrialization and free labor, while the South's opposition to these policies was often driven by a desire to protect its agricultural economy and the institution of slavery.

Overall, the dichotomy between the specific policies that led to the Civil War can be traced back to the fundamental disagreement over the issue of slavery and its expansion into new territories.

 United States History Cross-Links

• Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

 

• American Presidential Debates

 

• Click here for a page listing all of the Lincoln - Douglas debates, where you can click on a particular debate and see the full transcript, as well as some background info on it

 

 

  Click here for a quick YouTube video from History.com that details the Lincoln - Douglas debates, giving the background as well as describing the importance of them and influence they had

 

 

  Cooper Union Address, Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1860

• Lincoln's Gettysburg address as a critical thinking exercise. how does it apply today?