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1619-1819                                                             American Slavery - "A Peculiar Institution"

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1619-1819                                                             American Slavery - "A Peculiar Institution"

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The beginning of slavery, when approximately 645,000 Africans boarded ships to America. Early Americans knew it was morally wrong but some convinced themselves that it  benefited all parties involved: slaves, slave owners, and non-slaveholding whites. This was the first step taken on the path to the civil war. The subject of the war itself: slavery.

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The Missouri Compromise increased tensions upon the topic of slavery. Americans in the North knew that slavery was morally wrong but in the South, their workers were all they depended on. By keeping a balance between slave and free states, the senate could be balanced so nothing happened until Missouri wanted to join the union as a slave state. Now we have controversy. The Missouri compromise included that missouri would be admitted as a slave state while Main would be admitted as a free state in order to keep balance in congress. This increased tensions and created a new problem: the expansion of slavery. And this new problem contributed to the sectional tensions that lead to the civil war.

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The Mexican-American War was caused by the Americans wanting to expand due to Manifest Destiny. During this war, the Mexicans and Americans were fighting for land. The outcome of this war was the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which ended the war, new border lines, and the Mexico got 15 million in return.

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Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas made the Compromise of 1850 which would admit California as a free state and strengthen the Fugitive Slave Act. The Fugitive Slave Act allowed Southerns to retake back their slaves that went to the North. The Fugitive Slave act caused tension between the North and the South which was left unaddressed. This led to an increase of division among centrist citizens which was a factor that caused the American Civil War.

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act canceled out the Missouri Compromise and  established some territories that counted as popular sovereignty which were Kansas and Nebraska. “Bleeding Kansas” was a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Bleeding Kansas was a violent uprising where Northern and Southern settlers flooded Kansas. Their goal was to bring more people to their sides of the fight. As a result, over 50 settlers died. The Kansas Nebraska Act led to Bleeding Kansas. As a result of Bleeding Kansas, the Republican party was born. The birth of the Republican party divided the nation and made it less likely for the North and the South to agree. This division between the people was a factor that caused the civil war.

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The 7 debates against Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas regarding the controversial topic of slavery contributed to the build up of the civil war.  Douglas won the senate but the debates made Lincoln popular and aided him in his election for president in 1860. These debates brought up the obvious: either defend what is morally right (Lincoln), or avoid a civil war (Douglas). This decision would be the spoken about until the civil war finally starts in 1861.

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With the popularity boost from the Lincoln Douglas debates, Lincoln had immense popularity in the North but absolutely none in the South. The odds of Lincoln winning were slim to none until the South appointed more than one candidate for their party, splitting their votes. After Lincoln won, the South was infuriated and contributed immensely to the decision of succession from the union.

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The Battle of Fort Sumter occurred when the South Carolina militia bombarded Fort Sumter and the U.S Army fired back but eventually surrendered on April 14th. This was the beginning of the American Civil War because Lincoln called 75,000 to join the Northern army. When this happened, the federal government lost Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee because they were unwilling to contribute troops.