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This was when the United States took over a fort in Charleston and it lead to other states claiming all of their forts.

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Battle of Fort Sumter, (April 12-14, 1861), the opening engagement of the American Civil War, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. Although Fort Sumter held no strategic value to the North-it was unfinished and its guns faced the sea rather than Confederate shore batteries-it held enormous value as a symbol of the Union.

The United States Army began building Fort Sumter on an artificial island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor in 1829. The fort was named for Thomas Sumter, a general who had won key victories against the British in the Carolinas during the American Revolution. The fort was still under construction during the last months of Pres. James Buchanan's term, when a succession of events occurred that brought the contending regions of the United States to the verge of armed conflict. Soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, the state of South Carolina called a convention that passed an ordinance of secession (December 20, 1860), and Gov. Francis Pickens sent commissioners to Washington, D.C., to claim possession of the forts in Charleston Harbor and all other U.S. property in his state.

On December 26, 1860, Maj. Robert Anderson, commanding officer of the Federal garrison at Charleston, secretly transferred his two weak companies from Fort Moultrie-which was located on a peninsula on the east side of the harbour and was untenable against a land attack-to Fort Sumter in the mouth of the harbour. Pickens seized the arsenal and other forts around the harbour and began throwing up batteries against Sumter. Meanwhile, his commissioners in Washington requested the recall of the Federal troops from Charleston. Buchanan refused this request. In a message to Congress on December 3, Buchanan had already denied the right of secession, but he asserted that the Constitution gave him no right to attempt coercion. He hoped for compromise, and a committee of Congress considered various proposals for adjustment. A peace conference, called by Virginia, also met in Washington and suggested amendments to the Constitution that would satisfy Southern grievances. Lincoln and the leaders of the Republican Party refused to accept the adjustments that the Southerners demanded. In the meantime, Buchanan sent an unarmed commercial steamer, Star of the West, with supplies and reinforcements to Sumter, but it turned back when it was fired upon in the harbour on January 9, 1861.

Between January 9 and February 1 six other states ( Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) followed South Carolina's example. Without attempting negotiation, their governors seized all the forts and arsenals in their respective states except Fort Pickens in the harbour of Pensacola, Florida. Delegates from the seceding states met at Montgomery, Alabama, organized the Confederate States of America, and set up a provisional government with Jefferson Davis as president. Davis's inauguration took place on February 18. The Confederate government then assumed control of the negotiations about Sumter. Neither Buchanan nor Davis was eager to precipitate a crisis. Buchanan's fervent desire apparently was to leave the solution of the whole problem to his successor; Davis was chiefly concerned with getting his own administration in working order. He sent Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, an engineer officer of distinction, to Charleston to complete the defenses of the harbour. The day after Beauregard reached Charleston, Lincoln was inaugurated in Washington, D.C. (March 4).

A difficult problem confronted the new president. Seven slave states had seceded, but eight still remained in the Union. Any attempt at coercion would throw all these states, except Delaware (which practically counted as a Northern state), into the arms of the Confederacy. At this stage neither side wanted war. This was certainly true of the North, where a strong feeling was growing in favour of "letting the erring sisters depart in peace." The South had assumed a defensive role, that of a newborn country asking only to be left alone. Lincoln's inaugural speech was really addressed to the slave states still in the Union. To the Confederate states it sounded like a declaration of war, but they sought to avoid the responsibility of striking the first blow.

The South hoped to force Lincoln's hand over Sumter. Anderson's position there was daily growing more difficult. He would have gladly evacuated the fort to avert a civil war, but his duty as a soldier compelled him to sit with folded hands while the enemy was completing its preparations. His provisions would be exhausted by mid-April. The Confederate batteries had made such progress that he doubted whether it was still possible to relieve the fort unless possession of the whole harbour were secured, and for that purpose he estimated that 20,000 men would be required. The whole U.S. Army numbered only about 17,000 men, most of whom were scattered in small posts on the Western frontier, whence they could not be hastily withdrawn.

Only on March 5 did Lincoln learn that Anderson might be starved into surrender. Gen. Winfield Scott, the president's chief military adviser, urged evacuation on military grounds. However, Lincoln had pledged himself "to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the Government." It would be fatal to the prestige of his administration to start by going back on his word, and evacuation might seem a virtual recognition of the Confederacy. Against the advice of a majority of his cabinet, he determined to send a relief expedition, carrying only food supplies, to Sumter. If the Federal flag should be fired upon, that would constitute a casus belli, and the responsibility for beginning the war would rest on the Confederates.

Although he did not inform Anderson, Lincoln gave Pickens precise information regarding his intention. He must have foreseen the actual event. Through war, the Union could be restored, and the North, which was not agreed on policy, could be united. Pickens promptly informed the Montgomery government, and Davis ordered Beauregard to reduce Sumter. Upon Anderson's refusal to evacuate, the batteries opened fire at 4:30 am on April 12. The next afternoon Anderson agreed to surrender and evacuated the fort at noon on April 14. When the U.S. troops marched out of the fort, they waved the U.S. flag and carried out a gun salute. On the 50th round of the 100-gun salute, an explosion occurred, causing the only death of the engagement. Pvt. Daniel Hough of the 1st U.S. Artillery regiment was the first of as many as 850,000 Americans who would perish before the cessation of hostilities.

The Confederate leaders' ready acceptance of Lincoln's challenge may have been due to a fear that without a collision the ardour of the Southern people, many of whom had opposed secession, might abate. Neither Lincoln nor Davis could have foreseen the dimensions the war would assume.

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Battle of Fort Sumter | Location, Significance, & Map

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The Battle of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War.

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Nat Turner started an uprising across many plantations in the south. This lasted two days before they were executed for their acts.

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Nathanial "Nat" Turner (1800-1831) was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people on August 21, 1831. His action set off a massacre of up to 200 Black people and a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of enslaved people. The rebellion also stiffened pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War (1861-65).

Early Life

Turner was born on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. Sold three times in his childhood and hired out to John Travis (1820s), he became a fiery preacher and leader of enslaved Africans on Benjamin Turner's plantation and in his Southampton County neighborhood, claiming that he was chosen by God to lead them from bondage.

Did you know? Fifty-six Black people accused of participating in Nat Turner's rebellion were executed, and more than 200 others were beaten by angry mobs or white militias.

Insurrection

Believing in signs and hearing divine voices, Turner was convinced by an eclipse of the sun (1831) that the time to rise up had come, and he enlisted the help of four other enslaved men in the area. An insurrection was planned, aborted, and rescheduled for August 21,1831, when he and six others killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and horses, and enlisted about 75 other enslaved people in a large but disorganized insurrection that resulted in the murder of an estimated 55 white people.

Afterwards, Turner hid nearby successfully for six weeks until his discovery, conviction, and hanging at Jerusalem, Virginia, along with 16 of his followers. The incident put fear in the heart of Southerners, ended the organized emancipation movement in that region, resulted in even harsher laws against enslaved people, and deepened the schism between slave-holders and free-soilers (an anti-slavery political party whose slogan was 'free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men') that would culminate in the Civil War.

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Nathanial "Nat" Turner (1800-1831) was a black American slave who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S. history.

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Georgia felt that the north was using the south and the north's manufacturing was too powerful.

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Georgia

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation.

Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution.

While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade.

Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.

The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.

But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections-- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.

The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves). All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves.

Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States. In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri. The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional. Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation.

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.

For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment, and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us. We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories. We offer the judgment of a large minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor. This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right. The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it.

The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.

A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States. Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency. The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility.

The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union. We have their convenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him. Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments. It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren.

The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations.

These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.

These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved.

Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.

Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861

Mississippi
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

South Carolina

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments-- Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: "ARTICLE 1-- His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were-- separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.

By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860

Texas
A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.
The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then *a free, sovereign and independent nation* [emphasis in the original], the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a 'higher law' than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.

And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons-- We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.

Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.

THE SECESSION ORDINANCE.
AN ORDINANCE TO REPEAL THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, AND TO RESUME ALL THE RIGHTS AND POWERS GRANTED UNDER SAID CONSTITUTION.

The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in Convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the Union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that the said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule to be hereafter enacted.

Done in Convention, in the city of Richmond, on the 17th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

JNO. L. EUBANK, Secretary of Convention

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The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

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The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

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The southerners made a lot of their money off of cotton. If their slaves were taken away, they would not be able to make as much money.

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Historically, textbooks have taught that incompatibility between northern and southern economies caused the Civil War. The industrial revolution in the North, during the first few decades of the 19th century, brought about a machine age economy that relied on wage laborers, not slaves.

At the same time, the warmer Southern states continued to rely on slaves for their farming economy and cotton production. Southerners made huge profits from cotton and slaves and fought a war to maintain them. Northerners did not need slaves for their economy and fought a war to free them. Everything else, many textbooks claim, was tied to that economic difference and was anchored by cotton.

The agricultural economy was certainly one cause of the Civil War, but not the only one. Wars are never simple and neither are their causes. Many other factors that helped bring about the war are central to understanding America's past.

So what did start the Civil War-a war that divided the nation, destroyed crops, cities, and railroad lines, and claimed 630,000 lives? Many factors plunged the nation into chaos in 1861. Key political causes include the slow collapse of the Whig Party, the founding of the Republican Party, and, most important, the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president.

Religious opposition to slavery increased, supported by ministers and abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison. Geographical conflict over the spread of slavery into western territories and states-areas with neither an industrial nor a farm economy-grew. And political deals, such as the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and Compromise of 1850, and Supreme Court rulings, such as the Dred Scott decision in 1857, divided the country even more. These divisions went far beyond cotton and economics.

Urban vs. Rural, Factory vs. Farm

The central story told in textbooks is that the industrial revolution, beginning with the first textile mill in New England in the 1790s, created an economy that did not need slaves. Southerners, however, continued to use slave labor on their farms because agriculture was profitable. Closely related to this change, cities rose as population centers in the North created an urban society while the South remained primarily agrarian.

Census data on farms and cities, however, reveals that while cities grew rapidly in the North between 1800 and 1860, they did not become leading population centers until 1920, 60 years after the Civil War began. In 1860, there were more farms in the North than in the South, although Southern states, especially in the Cotton Belt, had the majority of large farms (1,000 acres or more).

Census data on farms and cities, however, reveals that while cities grew rapidly in the North between 1800 and 1860, they did not become leading population centers until 1920, 60 years after the Civil War began.

The notion that there were no southern cities was also a myth. The U.S. had eight cities with more than 150,000 residents in 1860 and three of them-St. Louis, Baltimore and New Orleans-were in slave states. Several other southern cities, such as Louisville, Mobile, and Charleston, had more than 20,000 residents each and were listed among the largest urban places in the U.S.

Similarly, data demonstrate the presence of manufacturing in the South. Richmond, VA, had mills and factories as early as 1800. The 1860 census shows the fairly even spread of manufacturing across the states, with only New York and Pennsylvania recording 17,000 or more manufacturing establishments (see Primary Source Farms Census Data [1860], List of Urban Areas [1860], and Manufacturing Census Date [1860]).

"Cotton is King!" bellowed James Hammond, a U.S. Senator from South Carolina, in 1859, reminding all of the importance of cotton in the South. A major error in the agricultural vs. industrial revolution theme, however, stated in book after book, is that slavery existed to produce cotton.

When I ask college students to talk about the causes of the war, many tell the story of Eli Whitney and the cotton gin. They remind me that there were no factories in the South prior to 1860 and are astonished when I tell them that factories flourished in the South as early as John Adams's Presidency. They gloat over the North's shipping yards and are surprised to learn of the busy shipping industry based in cities such as Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans. Their jaws drop when I talk about the thousands of slaves in the South who worked in busy cities, not on quiet plantations.

Slaves did not arrive in the U.S. in the early 1800s to work on cotton plantations. They began to arrive in the early 1600s to work on farms that grew a number of different crops. Sugar and tobacco became the most profitable to meet European demands for crops that did not grow in the colder European climate. Virginia planters made a fortune growing tobacco, making tobacco the first King. Cotton succeeded tobacco on the throne much later. By 1860, however, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana replaced Georgia and South Carolina as leading growers of cotton (see Primary Source Cotton and Slaves Data [1860]).

[Students'] jaws drop when I talk about the thousands of slaves in the South who worked in busy cities, not on quiet plantations.

If farming was so important, why did southerners rush to enslave the colder Kansas and Nebraska territories that remained snow covered in winter months? In these areas, representing only one third of the United States, only 130 slaves lived. Why were southerners eager to bring territories such as New Mexico, Texas, and California-where very little cotton was grown-into the Union as slave states? There were many reasons completely unrelated to cotton. Pro-slavery advocates in California, for example, wanted slaves to prospect for gold and build gold and silver mines.

And if slavery was so central to the southern economy of farming, why did only one fourth of southerners own slaves? Why were so many prominent southerners, such as George Washington, George Wythe, and Thomas Jefferson, opposed, at least in theory, to the institution? Slavery, too, was seen as a moral evil by the hundreds of thousands of northern abolitionists who published newspapers and marched in the streets of small towns and large cities carrying their colorful banners.

Abraham Lincoln did not target farming and cotton in his arguments against slavery; he used morality. He told one audience in Chicago in 1859 that, "I think slavery is wrong, morally and politically." Lincoln told another audience that America could not be seen "fostering human slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of human freedom." And, of course, in his fabled "House Divided" speech he predicted that the United States would be either all slave or all free.

Turbulent politics also led to the war. Following the compromise of 1850, legal, political, and physical battles raged over whether or not to admit Kansas as a slave state, a state with no cotton. Many students believe that the Republican Party, created in 1855, focused on slavery in the 1860 campaign, but their key issues centered on political corruption of the Buchanan Administration. The Republican platform called for containment, not the end of slavery.

Lincoln's election, however, proved to be the icing on the southern secession cake. Only a minority of southern newspapers favored leaving the union prior to Lincoln's election; most supported secession after.

The notion that slave labor for cotton fields caused the Civil War has been reinforced by textbooks and fictional narratives for more than a century. Historians, however, argue for a more nuanced, complex understanding.

Other factors leading to war include John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859, raucous battles over the Fugitive Slave Act, and President Buchanan's refusal to arbitrate between North and South, all connected to the increasingly bitter debate over slavery. In addition, northern newspapers campaigned against states' rights, southerners resented new taxes, and the Fort Sumter crisis turned into a pivotal moment (see Primary Source Editorials [1860-1861]).

The notion that slave labor for cotton fields caused the Civil War has been reinforced by textbooks and fictional narratives for more than a century. Historians, however, argue for a more nuanced, complex understanding. The Civil War was fought for many reasons, not solely or even primarily because of the growing importance of cotton on southern farms. Moving away from economic differences and cotton as simplistic causes leads to a more complex and far more interesting story.

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Historically, textbooks have taught that incompatibility between northern and southern economies caused the Civil War. The industrial revolution in the North, during the first few decades of the 19th century, brought about a machine age economy that relied on wage laborers, not slaves.

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The Underground Railroad made the south mad because slavery was still in their states and the north was stealing their slaves.

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Slaves passed information about methods of escape by word-of-mouth, in stories, and through songs. No actual trains existed on the Underground Railroad, but guides were called conductors and the hiding places that they used, depots or stations. Runaways escaped to the North along a loosely connected series of routes that stretched through the southern border states. Guided north by the stars and sometimes singing traditional songs like "Fiery Beginning in the early nineteenth century, a movement called the Underground Railroad helped enslaved people flee the South. Operating without formal organization, participants in the Underground Railroad included both white and black abolitionists, enslaved African Americans, American Indians, and members of such religious groups as the Quakers, Methodists, and Baptists.

The Fugitive Slave Act

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 permitted the recapture and extradition of escaped slaves with the assistance of federal marshals. To combat the perceived success of the Underground Railroad, one of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850 levied fines and prison sentences on individuals who helped runaways. The spectacle of African Americans reenslaved on the slightest pretext brought the reality of slavery forcibly into northern life. Unscrupulous traders also kidnapped free African Americans during this period and sold them south into slavery. The Fugitive Slave Law forced runaways to flee to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and even Europe.
Methods of Escape Follow the Drinking Gourd," most runaways travelled at night on foot and took advantage of the natural protections offered by swamps, bayous, forests, and waterways. Others who escaped from the South travelled into the western territories, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Some runaways took refuge in cities such as Baltimore and New Orleans and blended into the free black population.
Adjusting to FreedomOnce free, former slaves remade their lives. Many worked hard to raise money to purchase family members still in slavery or to help further their escape. While savoring new experiences, they discovered the extent to which bigotry prevailed in northern society. Obstacles existed for them to find work and to secure satisfactory housing. Few, however, longed for their old lives. "Through the mercy of God," one former slave relished, "he can hold up his hands and pronounce the sentence, 'I am a Freeman!'" During the Civil War many African Americans joined the Federal forces to fight for slavery's destruction.
Free BlacksFree African Americans totalled six percent of the South's population in 1860. Free blacks often lived in cities such as Charleston, South Carolina; Natchez, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Washington, D.C.; or Baltimore, Maryland, where they found better opportunities for employment and autonomy from whites. Despite the limitations imposed by the racist society that surrounded them, these free African Americans established their own churches, schools, and charitable organizations. In a landmark legal case that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Dred Scott sued for his freedom in 1846. Taken into free territory by his owner but returned to Missouri, a slave state, Scott argued that his earlier residency made him a free man. Finally in 1857, the Supreme Court found that Scott, as a bondsperson, was not recognized as a U.S. citizen under the Constitution, and therefore, not eligible to sue in the courts. The decision widened the gulf between North and South.
John Brown
Underground Railroad: A Chronology

1817 Andrew Jackson takes command of federal troops engaging in a ruthless war against Seminoles and runaways in Florida.

1820-21 Missouri Compromise admits Missouri and Maine into the Union to maintain the balance of the slave and free states; also establishes line between free and slave territory.

1831 William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of the abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. 1838 Black abolitionist Robert Purvis becomes chairman of the General Vigilance Committee, whose task is to assist runaways, in New York City.

1847 Frederick Douglass begins publication of his abolitionist newspaper The North Star.

1848 First Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York; abolitionists Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass attend.

1854 Black abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper hired by Maine Anti-Slavery Society to lecture in New England and Lower Canada.

1863 The Emancipation Proclamation becomes effective January 1, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln's action thereby made abolition of slavery as important a goal in the prosecution of the Civil War as preserving the Federal Union.

1865 Civil War ends. The thirteenth amendment, which abolishes slavery, is ratified by the required three-fourths of the states, December 18.

abolitionist John Brown dedicated his life to slavery's destruction. Frederick Douglass wrote of Brown, whom he admired, "His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him." In 1859, hoping to act as a catalyst for a widespread slave rebellion, Brown and 18 men unsuccessfully attacked the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). One member of Brown's group, African American abolitionist Osborne Anderson, escaped from Harpers Ferry via the Underground Railroad to Canada.

I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad
The Blackburn case was the first serious legal dispute between Canada and the United States regarding the Underground Railroad. The impassioned defense of the Blackburns by Canada's lieutenant governor set precedents for all future fugitive-slave cases

Kindle Available

Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life: A Biography
Travel with Tubman along the treacherous route of the Underground Railroad. Hear of her friendships with Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and other abolitionists.

Kindle Available

Escape from Slavery
This shortened version brings the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to middle-grade readers.

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underground railroad civil war  map virginia civil war  american surrender confederate union lee  harriet tubman african americans maryland mississippi dred scott john brown abolitionist slavery robert purvis new orleans mississippi

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Underground Railroad American Civil War History

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Slaves passed information about methods of escape by word-of-mouth, in stories, and through songs. No actual trains existed on the Underground Railroad, but guides were called conductors and the hiding places that they used, depots or stations. Runaways escaped to the North along a loosely connected series of routes that stretched through the southern border states.

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This allowed Kansas to vote on whether to be a slave free state or a slave state. This caused many fights.

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Abolitionists had many anti-slavery riots or attacks that caused southerners to be angry.

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Abolitionists were a key part of the Civil War era, though it is hard to say that they caused the war itself. Radical abolitionists certainly intensified sectional feelings in the antebellum era. Arguing that American society had become incapable of dealing with the "slave power," which dominated politics in the economy, post-1830 abolitionists called for more confrontational tactics and strategies to curb bondage in American culture. The speeches of abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld, the husband of influential female abolitionist Angelina Grimké, are one notable example of the use of this language.

Not only did abolitionists produce more militant attacks on slavery in the years leading to the Civil War, but they often vilified slaveholders themselves as the embodiment of evil. Abolitionists did not form these opinions in a vacuum. Rather, black and white reformers used tales of oppression and violence from enslaved people themselves to argue that bondage violated both scripture and the American creed of equality and justice for all. Abolitionists also cited examples of international emancipation when criticizing American slaveholders. After Great Britain and France issued emancipation edicts in the 1830s and 1840s ending bondage in their colonial possessions, American abolitionists howled that the United States was now the world's largest slaveholding power. It was true: by 1860, there were nearly 4 million slaves in the United States - more than the next two slaveholding powers (Spanish Cuba and Brazil) combined. "What to the slave is the fourth of July?" asked former slave and noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass in a famous speech in Rochester on July 5, 1852. "A mockery," he said.

As abolitionists called for more radical attacks on bondage, and began forming political parties that would limit slavery's expansion in the West, slaveholders and their northern allies vehemently responded. In Congress between 1836 and 1844, a gag rule prevented the discussion of abolitionist petitions. In many northern cities during the 1830s and 40s, anti-abolitionists, fearful that southern emancipation would lead to black migration above the Mason-Dixon line and more fierce competition for free-market jobs, spawned riots that targeted free blacks and abolitionists alike. In 1837 in Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Owen Lovejoy was killed by one such mob; the next year in Philadelphia, hundreds of anti-abolitionists gathered outside of Pennsylvania Hall, a gleaming new building dedicated to the abolitionist struggle, to ridicule antislavery men and women. After only four days of operation, the building was torched and never rebuilt.

By the 1850s, sectional violence centered around fugitive slave recoveries. The passage of a stronger fugitive slave law in 1850, which southern masters deemed vital to the security of bondage, prompted a wave of anger throughout the North. With many white citizens radicalized by the law, abolitionists found new friends. Indeed, one might say that the rise of the Republican Party had much to do with residual northern anger over southern political power in the 1850s. When some southerners threatened to leave the Union in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, more than a few northerners expressed exasperation. Ironically, abolitionists tried to keep a low profile during the secessionist winter of 1860-61. Realizing that southern secessionists appeared to be the new radicals who would destroy the American union, even William Lloyd Garrison argued that abolitionists should let American political events proceed without much further commentary from antislavery figures. This 1862 article from the New York Times illustrates the precarious position of abolitionism in the early years of the war. When 11 states left the Union to form the Confederate States of America, abolitionists asserted that the old union had died at the hands of the slave power. The only remedy for American society was emancipation. As Frederick Douglass put it in May of 1861, the best way to end Civil War was by killing slavery once and for all.

If abolitionists did not cause the Civil War, they shaped its meaning.

Life in the North and South, 1847-1861: Before Brother Fought Brother - A complex series of events led to the Civil War. The lessons in this unit are designed to help students develop a foundation on which to understand the basic disagreements between North and South through the investigation of primary source documents.

The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America: A House Dividing - What characterized the debates over American slavery and the power of the federal government for the first half of the 19th century? How did regional economies and political events produce a widening split between free and slaveholding states in antebellum America? In this unit, students will trace the development of sectionalism in the United States as it was driven by the growing dependence upon, and defense of, black slavery in the southern states.

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The Abolition Seminar. An educational tool for teachers, students, and all who fight for freedom. Menu. Skip to content. About; Learning Modules. The Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World · African Americans and Abolitionism · The Transformation of American Abolitionism · Civil War and Emancipation · Modern Slavery and ...

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This article states that people in the south thought secession would be peaceful if Lincoln was elected. Then, this wasa not the case.

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This novel made many Americans think deeply about slavery and if it really should be allowed.

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When the author of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, visited Abraham Lincoln at the White House in December 1862, Lincoln reportedly greeted her by saying, "Is this the little woman who made this great war?"

It's possible Lincoln never actually uttered that line. Yet it has often been quoted to demonstrate the importance of Stowe's enormously popular novel as a cause of the Civil War.

Was a novel with political and moral overtones actually responsible for the outbreak of war?

The publication of the novel was, of course, one of many events in the decade of the 1850s that put the country on the road to Civil War. And the publication of the novel in 1852 could not have been a direct cause of the war. Yet, the famous work of fiction certainly changed attitudes in society about the institution of slavery, and there's little doubt that opinions across the American public were shaped to some degree by the novel.

Those changes in popular opinion which began to spread in the early 1850s helped bring abolitionist ideas into the mainstream of American life. The new Republican Party was formed in the mid-1850s to oppose the spread of slavery to new states and territories. And it soon gained many supporters.

After the election of Lincoln in 1860 on the Republican ticket, a number of slave states seceded from the Union, and the deepening secession crisis triggered the Civil War. The growing attitudes against slavery in the North, which had been reinforced by the content of Uncle Tom's Cabin, no doubt helped to secure the victory of Lincoln.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Harriet Beecher Stowe's enormously popular novel directly caused the Civil War. Yet there's little doubt that Uncle Tom's Cabin, by greatly influencing public opinion in the 1850s, was indeed a factor leading to the war.

In writing Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriett Beecher Stowe had a deliberate goal: she wanted to portray the evils of slavery in a way that would make a large part of the American public relate to the issue. There had been an abolitionist press operating in the United States for decades, publishing passionate works advocating the elimination of slavery. But abolitionists were often stigmatized as extremists operating on the fringe of society.

For example, the abolitionist pamphlet campaign of 1835 tried to influence attitudes about slavery by mailing anti-slavery literature to people in the South. The campaign, which was funded by the Tappan Brothers, prominent New York businessmen and abolitionists, was met with ferocious resistance. The pamphlets were seized and burned in bonfires in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina.

One of the most prominent abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison, had publicly burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Garrison believed that the Constitution itself was tainted as is allowed for the institution of slavery to survive in the new United States.

To committed abolitionists, strident acts by people like Garrison made sense. But to the general public such demonstrations were seen as dangerous acts by fringe players. The vast majority of Americans were not going to be recruited into the ranks of the abolitionists by extreme demonstrations.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was involved in the abolitionist movement, began to see that a dramatic portrayal of how slavery corrupted society could deliver a moral message without alienating potential allies.

And by crafting a work of fiction that general readers could relate to, and populating it with characters both sympathetic and villainous, Harriet Beecher Stowe was able to deliver an extremely powerful message. Better yet, by creating a story containing suspense and drama, Stowe was able to keep readers engaged.

Her characters, white and black, in the North and in the South, all grapple with the institution of slavery. There are portrayals of how slaves are treated by their masters, some of whom are kindly and some of whom are sadistic.

And the plot of Stowe's novel portrays how slavery operated as a business. The buying and selling of humans provide major turns in the plot, and there is a particular focus on how the traffic in slaves separated families.

The action in the book begins with a plantation owner mired in debt making arrangements to sell some of his slaves. As the story unfolds, some escaped slaves risk their lives trying to get to Canada. And the slave Uncle Tom, a noble character in the novel, is sold repeatedly, eventually falling into the hands of Simon Legree, a notorious drunkard and sadist.

While the plot of the book kept readers in the 1850s turning pages, Stowe was delivering some very forthright political ideas. For instance, Stowe was appalled by the Fugitive Slave Act which had been passed as part of the Compromise of 1850. And in the novel it is made clear that all Americans, not just those in the South, are thereby responsible for the evil institution of slavery.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was first published in installments in a magazine. When it appeared as a book in 1852, it sold 300,000 copies in the first year of publication. It continued to sell throughout the 1850s, and its fame spread to other countries. Editions in Britain and in Europe spread the story.

In America in the 1850s it was common for a family to gather at night in the parlor and read Uncle Tom's Cabin aloud. For many people, the reading of the novel became a communal act, and the twists and turns and emotional impacts of the story would have led to discussions within families.

Yet in some quarters the book was considered highly controversial.

In the South, as might be expected, it was bitterly denounced, and in some states it was actually illegal to possess a copy of the book. In southern newspapers Harriet Beecher Stowe was regularly portrayed as a liar and a villain, and feelings about her book no doubt helped to harden feelings against the North.

In a strange turn, novelists in the South began turning out novels that were essentially answers to Uncle Tom's Cabin. They followed a pattern of portraying slave owners as benevolent figures whose slaves could not fend for themselves in society. The attitudes in the "anti-Tom" novels tended to be standard pro-slavery arguments, and the plots, as might be expected, portrayed abolitionists as malicious characters intent on destroying peaceful southern society.

One reason why Uncle Tom's Cabin resonated so deeply with Americans is because characters and incidents in the book seemed real. There was a reason for that.

Harriet Beecher Stowe had lived in southern Ohio in the 1830s and 1840s, and had come into contact with abolitionists and former slaves. She heard a number of stories about life in slavery as well as some harrowing escape stories.

Stowe always claimed that the main characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin were not based on specific people, yet she did document that many incidents in the book were based in fact. While it's not widely remembered today, Stowe published a closely related book, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in 1853, a year after the novel's publication, to showcase some of the factual background behind her fictional narrative. The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin is itself a fascinating book, as Stowe compiled the testimony of enslaved people who had managed to escape.

The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin provided copious excerpts from published slave narratives as well as stories that Stowe had personally heard of life under slavery. While she was obviously careful not to reveal everything she might have known about people who were still actively helping slaves to escape, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin did amount to a 500-page indictment of American slavery.

As Uncle Tom's Cabin became the most discussed work of fiction in the United States, there's no doubt that the novel influenced feelings about slavery. With readers relating very deeply to the characters, the issue of slavery was transformed from an abstract concern to something very personal and emotional.

There is little doubt that Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel helped to move anti-slavery feeling in the North beyond the relatively small circle of abolitionists to a more general audience. And that helped to create the political climate for the election of 1860, and the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln, whose anti-slavery views had been publicized in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and also in his address at Cooper Union in New York City.

So while it would be simplification to say that Harriet Beecher Stowe and her novel caused the Civil War, her writing definitely delivered the political impact she intended.

Incidentally, on January 1, 1863, Stowe attended a concert in Boston held to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Lincoln would sign that night. The crowd, which contained notable abolitionists, chanted her name, and she waved to them from the balcony. The crowd that night in Boston firmly believed that Harriet Beecher Stowe had played a major role in the battle to end slavery in America.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin Made Slavery a Personal Issue for Millions

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When the author of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, visited Abraham Lincoln at the White House in December 1862, Lincoln reportedly greeted her by saying, "Is this the little woman who made this great war?" It's possible Lincoln never actually uttered that line.

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This banned slavery in new territory the United States had gotten from Mexico. This made people in the south angry.

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The primary source documents on this page highlight pivotal moments in the course of American history or government. They are some of the most-viewed and sought-out documents in the holdings of the National Archives.

Revolution and the New Nation

Expansion and Reform

Civil War and Reconstruction

The Development of the Industrial United States

The Emergence of Modern America

The Great Depression and World War II

Postwar United States

A note about the documents included on this page: These documents were originally selected for the project Our Documents: 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives, a national initiative on American history, civics, and service. They were identified to "help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy...These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to 'form a more perfect union.'" The original list included only documents created prior to 1965. In the future, this page will be updated with additional documents created after 1965. The original list also included several documents from the Library of Congress (Federalist Paper No. 10, Federalist Paper No. 51, Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address) and the New York Public Library (George Washington's Farewell Address)."

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The primary source documents on this page highlight pivotal moments in the course of American history or government. They are some of the most-viewed and sought-out documents in the holdings of the National Archives.

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This is when John Brown attempted to raid Harper's Ferry and get slaves to help him. It did not succeed , but it make the southerners alarmed.

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This is when a slave was not given rights in a supreme court case.

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Video: S25 Ep12: What Was the Dred Scott Decision? | Watch American Experience Online | PBS Video

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Watch online: S25 Ep12: What Was the Dred Scott Decision? from American Experience. On demand, streaming video from PBS

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This video states that the southern states wanted the right to say that slavery was legal if the area allowed it.

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Was the Civil War about Slavery? When did States Rights Become A Popular Explanation for Secession?

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This site states that the states that made the Declaration of Causes said their main reasons for leaving were Slavery and State Rights.

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The Civil War Trust's history article analyzing the reasons for secession as set forth in the Articles of Secession and Declarations of Causes issued by the Southern states.