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1830s: Abolitionists (Harriet Beecher Stowe) 

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1830s: Abolitionists (Harriet Beecher Stowe) 

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The purpose of the Abolitionist Movement was to attempt to abolish slavery. Abolitionists, like Harriet Beecher Stowe,  worked to convince Americans that slavery was immoral. After Harriet Beecher Stowe published her famous novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin,  many Northerns were inspired to take action. In addition, this book was so influential that when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, “so you’re the woman who wrote the little book that made this great war".

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The Kansas & Nebraska Act was enacted after Nebraska applied for admittance to the Union. The Act divided the new Nebraska territory into two new territories: Kansas and Nebraska. In addition to  repealing the Missouri Compromise, the act implemented the idea of popular sovereignty (which allowed each state to decided for itself whether to be a free or slave state). In Kansas, the Free spoilers and slave owners poured into the state, resulting in so much violence, ultimately nicknaming  the territory, “Bleeding Kansas”.

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Dred Scott was a slave whose master had taken him to a free state; he appealed to the Supreme Court for freedom, stating that living in a free state had made him a free man. The Supreme Court ruled that the fifth amendment protected property, and that the government did not have the right to take property away from slaveholders, so, slaves were not considered people.

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Abraham Lincoln's first emerged as a politician in 1858 when he ran for the Illinois Senate seat against Stephen Douglas. Lincoln was a member of the newly formed Republican Party and he stood out because he attacked slavery, calling it a “vast moral evil”. This made Lincoln quite a controversial candidate, since the South was very much pro-slavery at the time. However, Lincoln won with less than half the popular vote and no electoral votes from the South. When Lincoln was elected, the South was convinced that they had lost their voice in the Union.

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After Lincoln's election, South Carolina seceded, followed by ten more states. These eleven states formed the Confederacy, led by Jefferson Davis. Lincoln, however, was committed to preserving the Union.

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The Civil War officially started when Southerners fired on a Union ship that was delivering “food for hungry men” in the Union Fort Sumter, which was an isolated fort within Southern territory.  After this Battle, thousands of Northerners joined the Union’s army, far exceeding the number of troops Lincoln had initially asked for.

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The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point of the war. The victory of the Union (led by General George Meade) over the Confederacy (led by General Robert E. Lee) marked the beginning of the end for the South. The Union had a territorial advantage over the South in this battle which led to their victory.

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After 5 consecutive losses, General Lee’s soldiers were tired, hungry and outnumbered six to one. General Robert E. Lee ordered his troops to surrender and General Ulysses S. Grant allowed the Confederate soldiers to return home with their own horses and without being tried for treason.

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Because the Dredd Scott Decision reaffirmed the constitutionality of slavery, no law could abolish slavery. Although the Abolitionist Movement did help, it ultimately could not end slavery either. Only a constitutional amendment could do this.  So, during this period of Reconstruction, the Radical Republicans pushed through the necessary

changes and the 13th amendment was passed, abolishing slavery.

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Radical Republicans felt that the Southern whites had committed treason, and made sure that most of them were disenfranchised (denied the right to vote). Since Southern whites couldn’t vote or hold public office, they formed secret societies, like the Ku Klux Klan. They terrorized blacks and used violence to intimidate them.

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The Compromise of 1877 removed the last troops from the South. As a result, blacks lost many of the rights they had won during the Civil War.

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Jim Crow Laws guaranteed strictly enforced segregation. As seen in the picture above, drinking fountains were separated by skin color, and the public swimming pool was open for whites only.

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Southern legislatures passed laws which denied blacks their rights, by allowing more whites to vote.  The clause stated that even if  a white man had failed his literacy test and could not afford to pay the poll tax, he was still entitled to vote if his father or grandfather had been eligible to  vote before January 1, 1867.