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Frederick Douglass "What the Black Man Wants" (1865) highlights African American perspectives on freedom and citizenship

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In “What the Black Man Wants,” Frederick Douglass admonished sympathetic northern whites to refrain from paternalism towards former slaves.

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Ken Burns' The Civil War Episode 1: The Cause-- A powerful introduction with first-hand accounts and visuals

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The Civil War | 1861: “The Cause” | Episode 1

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Find out what caused the war, examining slavery and questions of union and states’ rights.

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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is a short, powerful cornerstone of the Civil War.

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Recite the Gettysburg Address | Timeless

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On Nov. 19, 1862 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the cemetery at the Civil War battlefield. One of the most famous speeches in American history, the speech is recognized as a literary masterpiece. In three short paragraphs—some 270 words—Lincoln proclaimed the principles upon which the nation was founded, honored …

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The Final Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Lincoln, Abraham. [Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, January 01, 1863 Final Emancipation Proclamation--Final Draft Lithograph Copy]. January 1, 1863. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mal2082000/. (Accessed December 11, 2017.)

APA citation style:

Lincoln, A. (1863) [Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, January 01, 1863 Final Emancipation Proclamation--Final Draft Lithograph Copy]. January 1. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mal2082000/.

MLA citation style:

Lincoln, Abraham. [Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, January 01, 1863 Final Emancipation Proclamation--Final Draft Lithograph Copy]. January 1, 1863. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/mal2082000/>.

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Image 1 of Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916: Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, January 01, 1863 (Final Emancipation Proclamation--Final Draft [Lithograph Copy])

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate. Lincoln, Abraham. [Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Abraham Lincoln, Thursday, January 01, 1863 Final Emancipation Proclamation--Final Draft Lithograph Copy]. January 1, 1863. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mal2082000/.

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A visual breakdown of the loss of life, battles, geographic impact, etc.

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Civil War Battles that students can click on to explore.

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Explains all that was endured during Reconstruction from the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to Black Codes

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Reconstruction of the South, 1857. Library of Congress.

1863
January 1: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that the majority of the nation's slave population "henceforth shall be free."

July: In New York City, opposition to the nation's first military draft triggers a riot, the largest in American history, as poor white Northerners protest being forced to fight to end slavery. Over four days, the insurrection develops into wholesale violence, with an uncounted number of victims.

December 8: President Lincoln announces the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. It offers pardon and restoration of property -- except slaves -- to Confederates who swear allegiance to the Union and agree to accept emancipation. Known as the 10 Percent Plan, it requires only 10% of a former Confederate state's voters to pledge the oath before the state can begin the process of readmission into the Union.

1864
Early 1864: President Lincoln begins Reconstruction in the Union-occupied former Confederate state of Louisiana. Lincoln's lenient 10 percent policy upsets Radical Republicans, who expect the South to do more to gain readmission, and believe Lincoln's approach does not provide enough protection to ex-slaves.

July: In response to Lincoln's plan, Congress passes its own, the Wade-Davis Bill. It ups the allegiance requirement from 10% to a majority of a state's voters, limits many former Confederates from political participation in state reconstruction, demands blacks receive not only their freedom but equality before the law, and imposes a series of other requirements on the states. Lincoln does not sign the Wade-Davis Bill; his pocket veto means the bill does not pass into law.

November 8: Lincoln is reelected.

1865
By 1865, some 180,000 blacks have served in the Union Army, over one-fifth of the adult male black population under 45.

January 16: Marching the Union Army through the South with an ever-growing number of freed slaves in its wake, General William Tecumseh Sherman issues Special Field Order 15, setting aside part of coastal South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida by settlement exclusively by black people. The settlers are to receive "possessory title" to forty-acre plots.

January 31: The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the Union, wins Congressional approval and is sent to the states for ratification. By the end of February, 18 states will ratify the amendment; after significant delay in the South, ratification will be completed by December.

February 18: General Sherman's troops enter Charleston, South Carolina.

March: The temporary Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands is established within the War Department. The Freedman's Bureau works to smooth the transition from slavery, providing former slaves with immediate shelter and medical services, help in negotiating labor contracts with landowners, and more. The bureau is initially authorized for just one year, but will remain in operation until 1868.

April: In Lincoln's last speech, he mentions black suffrage for soldiers and some others. The Civil War ends when Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union general Ulysses S. Grant. Six days later, President Lincoln is assassinated, and his vice president, Southern Democrat Andrew Johnson, becomes president.

May: President Johnson announces his plan of Presidential Reconstruction. It calls for general amnesty and restoration of property -- except for slaves -- to all Southerners who will swear loyalty to the Union. No friend to the South's large landowners, Johnson declares that they and the Confederate leadership will be required to petition him individually for pardons. This Reconstruction strategy also requires states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery. The president's plan is implemented during the summer.

August/September: President Johnson shows growing leniency toward the white South: he orders the restoration of land to its former owners, including the land provided to freed slaves by General Sherman's January field order. Freedmen are especially reluctant to leave the land they have started farming in South Carolina and Georgia. The president starts aligning himself with the Southern elite, declaring, "white men alone must manage the South."

Fall: Southern states elect former Confederates to public office at the state and national levels, drag their feet in ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, and refuse to extend the vote to black men. Southern legislatures begin drafting "Black Codes" to re-establish white supremacy. The laws impose restrictions on black citizens, especially in attempts to conrol labor: freedmen are prohibited from work except as field hands, blacks refusing to sign labor contracts can be punished, unemployed black men can be seized and auctioned to planters as laborers, black children can be taken from their families and made to work. The new laws amount to slavery without the chain.

November-December: At the request of President Johnson, victorious Union general Ulysses S. Grant tours the South, and is greeted with surprising friendliness. His report recommends a lenient Reconstruction policy.

December: President Johnson declares the reconstruction process complete. Outraged, Radical Republicans in Congress refuse to recognize new governments in Southern states. More than sixty former Confederates arrive to take their seats in Congress, including four generals, four colonels and six Confederate cabinet officers -- even Alexander H. Stephens, the former vice president of the Confederacy. The Clerk of the House refuses to include the Southern representatives in his roll call, and they are denied their elected seats.

The Union Army is quickly demobilized. From a troop strength of one million on May 1, only 152,000 Union soldiers remain in the South by the end of 1865.

Southern towns and cities start to experience a large influx of freedmen. Over the next five years, the black populations of the South's ten largest cities will double.

1866
February: President Johnson vetoes a supplemental Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which Republican moderates have designed to extend protection to Southern blacks.

April: Another piece of moderate Republican legislation, the Civil Rights Bill, grants citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." It passes both houses of Congress by overwhelming majorities, and when President Johnson vetoes it, Congress overrides the veto, making the bill the first major piece of legislation enacted over a presidential veto. The rift between Congress and the president is complete.

May 1: Racial violence rages in Memphis, Tennessee for three days as whites assault blacks on the streets. In the aftermath, 48 people, nearly all black, are dead, and hundreds of black homes, churches, and schools have been pillaged or burned.

June 13: Congress sends the Fourteenth Amendment to the states. It writes the Republican vision of how post-Civil War American society should be structured into the U.S. Constitution, out of the reach of partisan politics. The amendment defines citizenship to include all people born or naturalized in the U.S. and increases the federal government's power over the states to protect all Americans' rights. It stops short of guaranteeing blacks the right to vote. The controversial amendment will take over two years to be ratified.

July: Congress re-passes its supplemental Freedmen's Bureau Bill. President Johnson vetoes it again, and Congress again overrides the veto, making the bill a law.

July 24: Tennessee is the first former Confederate state readmitted to the Union.

July 30: Riots break out in New Orleans, Louisiana: a white mob attacks blacks and Radical Republicans attending a black suffrage convention, killing 40 people.

August 28: "The swing around the circle." With Congress demanding that Southern states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment in order to gain re-admittance to the legislature, President Johnson begins a disastrous speaking tour of the North to bolster support for his policies in the mid-term elections. He asks popular Union general Ulysses S. Grant to come along. When crowds heckle the president, Johnson's angry and undignified responses cause Grant -- and many Northerners -- to lose sympathy with the president and his lenient Reconstruction policies.

Fall: Following the president's ruinous campaign, the mid-term elections become a battleground over the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights. Johnson's opponents are victorious, and the Republicans occupy enough seats to guarantee they will be able to override any presidential vetoes in the coming legislative session.

Union troops are further demobilized; only 38,000 remain in the South by the fall.

1867
March 1: The North Carolina legislature holds a whiskey party when it adjourns before the state's first election with black candidates. "We have lost all hope of escaping the vengeance of the Northern people," one state senator writes, "and are preparing for the worst."

March 2: The new session of Congress begins to pass additional reconstruction laws, overriding President Johnson's vetoes and beginning a more hard-line attitude toward the South. Known as Radical Reconstruction, the new policies divide the South into military districts and require the states to adopt new constitutions, introduce black suffrage, and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

July 31: President Andrew Johnson tells Ulysses S. Grant that he intends to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who has been a consistent opponent of the president and is close to the Radical Republicans who dominate Congress. Stanton has refused to resign and Congress has supported him through the Tenure of Office Act, which requires the consent of Congress to removals. At the same time, Congress has weakened the president's control of the army through the Command of the Army Act, which requires that all military orders of the President have the approval of the general of the army (Grant). Johnson believes the Tenure of Office Act is unconstitutional, and hopes to defeat the effort to force Stanton upon him by employing the popular Grant.

August 11: Johnson orders Grant to take over the War Department temporarily.

1868
January 14: Grant resigns his position as interim Secretary of War after Congress insists upon Stanton's reinstatement. President Johnson believes that Grant has betrayed him; Grant now openly breaks with Johnson.

Winter: Black and white lawmakers begin to work side by side in the Southern states' constitutional conventions, the first political meetings in American history to include substantial numbers of black men.

May 16: Having infuriated the Republicans, Andrew Johnson becomes the first president to be impeached by a house of Congress, but he avoids conviction and retains his office by a single vote. He will not get the Democratic nomination in the upcoming presidential election.

May 21: The Republican National Convention at Chicago nominates Grant for president and Schuyler Colfax of Indiana for vice president; Grant adopts the conciliatory slogan, "Let us have peace."

June 22: Arkansas is readmitted to the Union.

June 25: Louisiana, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina are readmitted to the Union.

July 14: Alabama is readmitted to the Union.

July 9: The Democrats nominate Horatio Seymour, former Governor of New York, for president, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., formerly one of Grant's commanders, for vice president.

July 28: The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, defining citizenship to include all people born or naturalized in the U.S., is finally ratified.

September: Black elected officials are ousted from the Georgia state legislature; "The Negro is unfit to rule the State," the Atlanta Constitution declares. The black legislators appeal to President Grant to intervene to get them readmitted, which takes a year.

November 3: Grant is elected president, winning an electoral college majority of 214-80 over his Democratic opponent. But the popular majority is only 306,000 in a total vote of 5,715,000. Newly enfranchised black men in the South cast 700,000 votes for the Republican ticket.

1869
The Freedmen's Bureau tallies nearly 3,000 schools, serving over 150,000 students, in the South.

February 26: Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment, which attempts to address Southern poll violence by stating that the right to vote can not be denied on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It is sent to the states for ratification.

April: In its 5-3 Texas v. White decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares Radical Reconstruction constitutional, stating that secession from the Union is illegal.

September 24: Black Friday on the New York gold exchange. Financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk attempt to corner the available gold supply, and try unsuccessfully to involve President Grant in the illegal plan.

Fall: Violence against blacks continues throughout the South; in October, Georgia legislator Abram Colby is kidnapped and whipped.

1870
January 10: Grant proposes a treaty of annexation with Santo Domingo in an attempt to find land for freed slaves to settle. Under Grant's plan, freed slaves will be able to relocate to the Caribbean island (the Dominican Republic today). The treaty is opposed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Charles Sumner, and will never be confirmed.

January 26: Virginia is readmitted to the Union.

February 3: The 15th Amendment is ratified.

February 23: Mississippi is readmitted to the Union.

March 30: Texas is readmitted to the Union.

July 15: Georgia is the last former Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union.

1871
October: Congress hears testimony from victims of Klan violence. Grant cracks down on anti-black violence in South Carolina.

1872
May 1: Meeting of the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati. Leaders of the group include many prominent Republicans unhappy about vindictive Reconstruction policies and corruption in government, which they call Grantism. New York newspaperman Horace Greeley receives their nomination. Greeley's earlier radicalism, high tariff views, and well-known eccentricity repel many who oppose Grant. The Democrats, on July 9, also nominate Greeley.

May 22: Grant signs an amnesty bill he had advocated. Although the final legislation is less generous than Grant had wanted, now only a few hundred former Confederates are excluded from political privileges.

June 5: The Republican Convention meets at Philadelphia. It will renominate Grant on the first ballot.

September 5: The New York Sun charges that Vice President Colfax, Vice-Presidential nominee Henry Wilson, James Garfield, and other prominent politicians are involved in the operations of the Credit Mobilier, a corporation established by the promoters of the Union Pacific railroad to siphon off the profits of transcontinental railroad construction. Ultimately, two congressmen will be censured for their part in the swindle and many other politicians will be damaged in reputation.

November 5: Grant is reelected with an electoral college majority of 286-66, and a popular majority of 763,000.

1873
Winter: Articles begin to appear in the New York Tribune, accusing black lawmakers in South Carolina of corruption.

April 13: The Colfax Massacre. The White League, a paramilitary group intent on securing white rule in Louisiana, clashes with Louisiana's almost all-black state militia. The resulting death toll is staggering: only three members of the White League die, but some one hundred black men are killed. Of those, nearly half are murdered in cold blood after they surrender.

September 18: The panic of 1873 begins with the failure of a Wall Street banking firm, spreads to the stock exchange, and eventually leads to widespread unemployment.

1874
Fall: The political tide has finally turned in the Democrats' favor; they win control of Congress as stories of black political corruption, continued Southern violence, and a terrible economic depression occupy public attention.

1875
March 1: As one of its last acts, the Republican-led Congress passes the Civil Rights Bill of 1875, prohibiting segregation in public facilities. The law will stand only until 1883, when the U.S. Supreme Court will strike it down.

1877
March 4: Following a bitterly disputed presidential contest between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, in which both candidates claim victory, Hayes is declared president. In a back-room political deal, the Republicans agree to abandon Reconstruction policies in exchange for the presidency.

Reconstruction policies officially end. The South codifies and enforces segregation. Violations of black civil rights will not command national attention again until after World War II.

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Reconstruction Timeline | American Experience | PBS

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1863 January 1: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that the majority of the nation's slave population "henceforth shall be free." July: In New York City, opposition to the nation's first military draft triggers a riot, the largest in American history, as poor white Northerners protest being forced to fight to end slavery.

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Civil War Songs and Music showing the different instruments, culture, and morale.

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Exploring the conflict’s varied soundtrack, from patriotic marches to haunting ballads, offers a window to the spirit, story, and emotion of a traumatic time in American history.

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Covers slavery, states' rights, and sectional tension

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Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery's extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America -and thus the backbone of their economy-was in danger.

Did you know?

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in " Bleeding Kansas," while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery's extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the "peculiar institution" that sustained them. Abraham Lincoln 's election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states-South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas-had seceded from the United States.

Outbreak of the Civil War (1861)

Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter's commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states-Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee-joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides' initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict.

The Civil War in Virginia (1862)

George B. McClellan-who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war-was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan's army in the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac.

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Civil War - Causes, Dates & Battles | HISTORY

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The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern s...

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Ken Burns' Classroom Lessons from the Civil War

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Lessons from the Civil War | The Civil War | PBS LearningMedia

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Four million slaves were emancipated from slavery, yet it would take another century for African Americans to win their freedom.

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Support your choice in the comments

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Which battle of the Civil War do YOU think was MORE significant?

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Compromises, Events, and People involved in the inevitable Civil War

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The Civil War was the culmination of a series of confrontations concerning the institution of slavery. The following is a timeline of the events that led to the Civil War.​
1619-1865 | The Peculiar Institution

Slavery arrived in North America along side the Spanish and English colonists of the 17th and 18th centuries, with an estimated 645,000 Africans imported during the more than 250 years the institution was legal. But slavery never existed without controversy. The British colony of Georgia actually banned slavery from 1735 to 1750, although it remained legal in the other 12 colonies. After the American Revolution, northern states one by one passed emancipation laws, and the sectional divide began to open as the South became increasingly committed to slavery. Once called a "necessary evil" by Thomas Jefferson, proponents of slavery increasingly switched their rhetoric to one that described slavery as a benevolent Christian institution that benefited all parties involved: slaves, slave owners, and non-slave holding whites. The number of slaves compared to number of free blacks varied greatly from state to state in the southern states. In 1860, for example, both Virginia and Mississippi had in excess of 400,000 slaves, but the Virginia population also included more than 58,000 free blacks, as opposed to only 773 in Mississippi. In 1860, South Carolina was the only state to have a majority slave population, yet in all southern states slavery served as the foundation for their socioeconomic and political order.

1820 | The Missouri Compromise

In the growth years following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Congress was compelled to establish a policy to guide the expansion of slavery into the new western territory. Missouri's application for statehood as a slave state sparked a bitter national debate. In addition to the deeper moral issue posed by the growth of slavery, the addition of pro-slavery Missouri legislators would give the pro-slavery faction a Congressional majority.

Ultimately, Congress reached a series of agreements that became known as the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state, preserving the Congressional balance. A line was also drawn through the unincorporated western territories along the 36°30' parallel, dividing north and south as free and slave.

Thomas Jefferson, upon hearing of this deal, "considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper."

1831 | Nat Turner's Rebellion

In August of 1831, a slave named Nat Turner incited an uprising that spread through several plantations in southern Virginia. Turner and approximately seventy cohorts killed around sixty white people. The deployment of militia infantry and artillery suppressed the rebellion after two days of terror.

Fifty-five slaves, including Turner, were tried and executed for their role in the insurrection. Nearly two hundred more were lynched by frenzied mobs. Although small-scale slave uprisings were fairly common in the American South, Nat Turner's rebellion was the bloodiest.

Virginia lawmakers reacted to the crisis by rolling back what few civil rights slaves and free black people possessed at the time. Education was prohibited and the right to assemble was severely limited.

1846 - 1850 | The Wilmot Proviso

The Wilmot Proviso was a piece of legislation proposed by David Wilmot (D-FS-R PA) at the close of the Mexican-American War. If passed, the Proviso would have outlawed slavery in territory acquired by the United States as a result of the war, which included most of the Southwest and extended all the way to California.

Wilmot spent two years fighting for his plan. He offered it as a rider on existing bills, introduced it to Congress on its own, and even tried to attach it to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. All attempts failed. Nevertheless, the intensity of the debate surrounding the Proviso prompted the first serious discussions of secession.

1850 | The Compromise of 1850

With national relations soured by the debate over the Wilmot Proviso, senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas managed to broker a shaky accord with the Compromise of 1850. The compromise admitted California as a free state and did not regulate slavery in the remainder of the Mexican cession all while strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act, a law which compelled Northerners to seize and return escaped slaves to the South.

While the agreement succeeded in postponing outright hostilities between the North and South, it did little to address, and in some ways even reinforced, the structural disparity that divided the United States. The new Fugitive Slave Act, by forcing non-slaveholders to participate in the institution, also led to increased polarization among centrist citizens.

1852 | Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional exploration of slave life was a cultural sensation. Northerners felt as if their eyes had been opened to the horrors of slavery, while Southerners protested that Stowe's work was slanderous.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was the second-best-selling book in America in the 19th century, second only to the Bible. Its popularity brought the issue of slavery to life for those few who remained unmoved after decades of legislative conflict and widened the division between North and South.

1854 - 1859 | Bleeding Kansas

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established Kansas and Nebraska as territories and set the stage for "Bleeding Kansas" by its adoption of popular sovereignty. Under popular sovereignty, it is the residents of the territories who decide by popular referendum if the state is to be a free or enslaved. Settlers from the North and the South poured into Kansas, hoping to swell the numbers on their side of the debate. Passions were enflamed and violence raged. In the fall of 1855, abolitionist John Brown came to Kansas to fight the forces of slavery. In response to the sacking of Lawrence by border ruffians from Missouri whose sole victim was an abolitionist printing press, Brown and his supporters killed five pro-slavery settlers in the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre in Kansas in May, 1856. Violence existed in the territory as early as 1855 but the Sack of Lawrence and the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre launched a guerilla war between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces. Although the violence was often sporadic and unorganized, mass feelings of terror existed in the territory. Although President Buchanan tried to calm the violence by supporting the Lecompton Constition, his relentless support for this consitution created a political crisis among the Democratic Party and only further aggravated sectional tensions. The violence subsided in 1859, the warring parties forged a fragile peace, but not before more than 50 settlers had been killed.

1857 | Dred Scott v. Sanford

Dred Scott was a Virginia slave who tried to sue for his freedom in court. The case eventually rose to the level of the Supreme Court, where the justices found that, as a slave, Dred Scott was a piece of property that had none of the legal rights or recognitions afforded to a human being.

The Dred Scott Decision threatened to entirely recast the political landscape that had thus far managed to prevent civil war. The classification of slaves as mere property made the federal government's authority to regulate the institution much more ambiguous.

Southerners renewed their challenges to the agreed-upon territorial limitations on slavery and polarization intensified.

1858 | Lincoln-Douglas Debates

In 1858, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas faced a challenge for his seat from a relatively unknown one term former congressmen and "prairie lawyer" Abraham Lincoln. In the campaign that followed Lincoln and Douglas engaged in seven public debates across the state of Illinois where they debated the most controversial issue of the antebellum era: slavery. Although Douglas won the senate race, these debates propelled Lincoln to the national spotlight and enabled his nomination for president in 1860. In contrast, these debates further alienated Douglas from the southern wing of the Democratic Party and the arguments Douglas made in these debates come back to haunt him in 1860 destroying his presidential chances.

1859 | John Brown's Raid

Abolitionist John Brown supported violent action against the South to end slavery and played a major role in starting the Civil War. After the Pottawatomie Massacre during Bleeding Kansas, Brown returned to the North and plotted a far more threatening act. In October 1859, he and 19 supporters, armed with "Beecher's Bibles," led a raid on the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an effort to capture and confiscate the arms located there, distribute them among local slaves and begin armed insurrection. A small force of U.S. Marines, led by Col. Robert E. Lee, put down the uprising. There were casualties on both sides; seven people were killed and at least 10 more were injured before Brown and seven of his remaining men were captured. On October 27, Brown was tried for treason against the state of Virginia, convicted and hanged in Charles Town on December 2.

1860 | Abraham Lincoln's Election

Abraham Lincoln was elected by a considerable margin in 1860 despite not being included on many Southern ballots. As a Republican, his party's anti-slavery outlook struck fear into many Southerners.

On December 20, 1860, a little over a month after the polls closed, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more states followed by the spring of 1861.

1861 | The Battle of Fort Sumter

With secession, several federal forts, including Fort Sumter in South Carolina, suddenly became outposts in a foreign land. Abraham Lincoln made the decision to send fresh supplies to the beleaguered garrisons.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate warships turned back the supply convoy to Fort Sumter and opened a 34-hour bombardment on the stronghold. The garrison surrendered on April 14.

The Civil War was now underway. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to join the Northern army. Unwilling to contribute troops, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee dissolved their ties to the federal government.

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What caused the Civil War? It was the culmination of a series of confrontations concerning the institution of slavery and includes the Missouri Compromise, Nat Turner's Rebellion, the Wlimot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bleeding Kansas, case of Dred Scott, Lincoln Douglas debates, John Brown's Raid, Lincoln's election, and the Battle of Fort Sumter.

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Discusses Sharecropping and how it kept Black Southerners impoverished

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Sharecropping: Slavery Rerouted | American Experience | PBS

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Though slavery was abolished in 1865, sharecropping would keep most Black Southerners impoverished and immobile for decades to come.