Crisis of the 1850s Museum by William Johnson

Room #1: Abolitionism

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Room #2: Slavery

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Room #3: Economic Reason

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Room #4: Manifest Destiny

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Room 5: Politics

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Abolitionism Spreading in the North

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Throughout the 1800s, more an more northerners started to believe that the freeing of slaves was morally correct. This belief in abolitionism led to free states and slaves states. Also, This led to cultural differences between the people of the North and the South in America.

Frederick Douglas

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Frederick Douglas was an escaped slave that became a leader for the abolitionist movement. He swayed thousands into siding with the abolitionists and his speeches led to the passing of the emancipation proclamation and to the ultimate start of the Civil war.

Museum Guide

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To navigate the museum, as you scroll down you will enter all 5 rooms. Within each room there are 5 exhibits

Anti-Abolitionism

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This is the belief that the slaves should remain how they were at the time. This belief was commonly held by plantation owners and people of the south. This difference of beliefs regarding abolitionism is part of the reason the civil war began in the first place

Abolitionist movements in other countries

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Before the civil war and the widespread abolitionist movement in the North. Many abolitionist movements began in other countries. These countries included places such as The United Kingdom. These other abolitionist movements encouraged the Northern States even more in the efforts to free the slaves.

Religious Support of Abolitionism

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Throughout the 1800s, many religions decided to support the abolitionist movement leading to more cultural discrepancies. These religions were typically traditional Christians, small branches of the Christian church and the Quakers. There support led to the ending of slavery sooner. Another well known group to support the Abolitionists is the Methodist church. Pictured below is the founding of an integrated church that supported abolitionist movements.

Revival of the Slave trade

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In the late 1700s and early 1800s as cash crops became more prominent the Slave trade started booming again. This lead to plantations and plantation owners to strongly oppose the freedom of slaves. This opposition of the freeing of slaves led to America becoming cultural divided. If the slave trade has not boomed again, the Civil war might not have been as supported as it was.

Eli Whitney

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Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. The cotton gin allowed cotton to be widely industrialized and allowed for the massive growth of plantations in America. This lead slaves to be a crucial part of the economy meaning that the banning of slaves would devastate the economy.

Slave Codes

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Slave codes were laws that greatly restricted the lives of the enslaved people. It took away the few rights the slaves had. These codes also split up slave families. This fueled the abolitionist movement because of the slaves unfair treatment.

Escaped Slaves

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As slavery grew, many slaves attempted to and did escape. These escaped slaves fought verbally and eventually physically against the south and their ideals of keeping slavery. These freed slaves helped establish the abolitionist movement and led to the cultural separation that caused the war.

Free Vs. Slave States

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Due to new laws a regulations such as the Missouri compromise, many states were classified as either Free or Slave States. Once these states were assigned a certain role they had to follow it. This meant that slave owners in free states were extremely enraged which led to the hatred for the abolitionist movement.

Cotton Trade

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One cause of the civil war was the economic issues that would be caused by it. By ending slavery, the cotton trade would be ruined which would ruin the economic success of many states in the south. This led them to succeed from the United States.

Slow Down of industrialization

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During the time of the civil war, the United States started to industrialize more. This led to the need for raw materials which were typically supplied by slave labor. Therefore by freeing the slaves some of the new factories would need more support and supplies. This lead to different ideas about slavery among people

Tariffs

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Before the civil war, many tariffs were imposed among the southern states. These tariffs seemed to only benefit the Northern factories. This caused the south to threaten the idea of succession. This alone weakened the relationship between the North and South.

Reforming of Agriculture

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One reason the southerners opposed the war was that if slavery was ended, they would have to completely restructure their farms in order to be profitable. So, the southern agricultural farmers needed the slaves in order to give themselves economic success at the time. This is why they opposed the slave trade.

Ending of Profit on the Slave Trade

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By banning slaves in America, any body at the time who worked for the slave trade in America would be against abolitionist ideas. This led slave traders to depend on slaves economically and this became a popular industry in the south. So the threat of banning slavery caused the south to worry about the economic threats.

Determining slave states

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Due to America keeping a balance of slave and free states, as colonist kept moving west and attempting to establish new states, there were disputes about whether a state should be free or slave. This led the south to disagree with the North constantly about which state should be free which eventually was a cause of the war. The picture below depicts colonist constantly moving west creating these new states.

Manifest destiny beliefs

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One ideal of Manifest destiny was that the white man was always superior. The northern people typically did not believe this while the southerners did. This cultural discrepancy led to the civil war in the future. The map below shows where ideals about slaves were typically different

Abolitionists against manifest destiny

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Due to one of the ideals of manifest destiny pertaining to the expansion of the United States, that worried abolitionists. They thought more territories would lead to the growth of slavery throughout the United States which would weaken their movement. This lead the abolitionists to fully disagree with the Southerners. The picture below shows the idea of manifest destiny

Removal of Indians

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With manifest destiny came the relocation of the Native Americans which was extremely unpopular among some groups in the North. While on the other hand the south felt as if they deserved the Natives land so they removed them from their land and sent them on the trail of tears.

Polk’s territorial expansion

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President Polk followed the ideas of manifest destiny and decided to expand. By doing this he led to many smaller conflicts such as the ones in Texas. All of these smaller conflicts between territories, helped spark the beginning of the Civil war

Civil War Era Republicans

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This political party directly supported abolitionists and fully supported the northern states during the war. Due to the republicans constant pushing for the ending of slavery, the war eventually started between the north and south. The republicans had a major role before and during the war.

Types of democrats

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The northern democrats also supported the abolitionists like the republicans. The southern democrats were the exact opposite. They wanted slavery. Even though they were in the same party they had extremely different ideals. This partially led to the start of the war and splitting of the two cultural groups during the war.

Popular Sovereignty

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This idea was mainly supported by Northern Democrats. They believed that the territories should vote on whether or not a territory is free or slave, not the national government. The Southern democrats in the government disagreed with this fully because they wanted more slave states.

Lincoln Vs Douglas

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These were a series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Senator Douglas. They discussed the morality and economic reasons of slavery and why or why it shouldn’t be abolished. These debates led to two clear sides on the war and within the debate. This ultimately led to the splitting among government and the country.