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By: Grace, Jessica, and Diya

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Even though the Civil War was mostly caused by a dispute over slave ownership, there is many other reasons that helped build up to the war. There is also important battles fought, and how the country rebuilt after the war. There are many important events that impacted how America is today.

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Manifest destiny was when Americans believed it was their right to expand their territory. However, to achieve this goal they had to push many out of their homes, especially the Native Americans. They were forced to walk thousands of miles on “The Trail of Tears” to reach new land for them to live.

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Mexico had allowed Americans to settle in Texas with only 2 rules. No slaves allowed, and they must become Catholic. However, the settlers didn’t follow the rules, which angered Mexico. This caused Texas to rebel against Mexico, and they won. Texas joined the Union, giving America more land.

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Henry Clay created the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent the U.S. from breaking apart and to settle controversy between the free and slave states. To please the North, the compromise would allow California to join the Union as a free state, and to please the South, a better fugitive slave law would be proposed. There were other provisions that pleased both the North and the South as an attempt to keep the nation together, as Clay saw the only alternative as the breaking up of the nation and war.

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Stephen Douglas wanted to construct a railroad from Illinois to the west, as well as to organize the territory in the west. He also wanted to use popular sovereignty as the method of deciding which states would be free and which would have slaves. To do this, he introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which created two territories, Nebraska and Kansas. The act would repeal the Missouri Compromise because the territories were north of the 36°30’ line, and establish popular sovereignty in both states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in May 1854.

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Dred Scott was a slave from a southern state that was taken above the Missouri Compromise line and claimed because he was in a free territory, he should be free after his owner died. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney said that slaves were property and that Scott would not be free because he started his work as a slave in a slave state. Taney also mentioned that the Missouri Compromise line was unconstitutional because it would interfere with slaveholders’ right to hold property as stated by the Fifth Amendment. Southerners supported this ruling because it promotes the expansion of slavery. Northerners and people out West did not approve this decision because they wanted to compact slavery and not have it move out of the states it was already in.

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The election this year had four candidates running: one Republican, two Democrats, and one from the Constitutional Union. The Republican Party was against the expansion of slavery while the Constitutional Union never mentioned slavery in their campaign. The reason for the two candidates of the Democratic Party is because they were split about the issue with slavery. In the end, Abraham Lincoln was the winner of the election receiving the most electoral votes and popular vote. He won most of the North along with California and Oregon which showcases one of the many times the country would be politically and morally split. The Southern states did not like the Republicans winning because they felt that they lost their voice in the national government. Eventually, Southern states start seceding from the Union since they opposed Lincoln’s ideas.

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Fort Sumter was one of the two southern forts that remained in Union Control, and it was located on an island off of South Carolina. The fort was in danger, so Lincoln had supply ships to bring food without bringing weapons as a political play. Davis chose to attack, marking the first shots of war and showing that it was the Confederacy that attacked first. States started seceding from the Union, leaving only 4 slave states in the Union. Though it required political and military intervention, Lincoln kept those 4 border states from leaving the Union.

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The battle in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was the most decisive and bloody battle of the war. The Confederacy would not recover from the loss at Gettysburg. After this, Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history. The speech was considered to have “remade America”.

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https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilWarAmendments.htm

Both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were put in place to try and include the African American and immigrant population to vote. The government finally realized how vital and influential these votes would be for a fair democracy.

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Civil Rights Setbacks in the Supreme Courts

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Civil Rights Setbacks in the Supreme Courts

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After Congress had passed Amendments to protect the lives of newly freed African Americans, the Supreme Court started to take away those rights from them. One example case was U.S. vs Reese which ruled in favor of officials who prohibited an African American from voting. The Fifteenth Amendment was put under review and was concluded that it didn’t say that anyone could vote, it just stated the reasons why people couldn’t get denied to vote. So, after this case it no longer became a race issue but instead a literacy and residency requirement. This was a negative impact for the African American community because it seemed that all their work and efforts had been for nothing. It felt like if they were not discriminated for one thing, then they were being told no for another.

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One long term effect from the Civil War was the inferior treatment to the African Americans. They had to fight for their lives again during the Civil Rights Movement just to be treated the same as their white counterparts. To this day we still see discrimination towards the African Americans with police brutality. That hatred stems from the Civil War and slavery.
One short term effect is how the government struggled with agreeing on new laws as well as how the states that succeeded shall be dealt with. Eventually, they managed to rebuild, but differing views caused a lot of issues within the government.

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Something I found interesting about this research project is that the Civil War was caused due to disagreement over owning slaves, but had contributing factors like Texas Independence and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Also, though there were preventative measures taken such as the Compromise of 1850, the nation still broke apart and the people went to war with each other.