Causes of the Civil War Causes of the Civil War • Northwest Ordinance • Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 • Kentucky and Virginia • Compromise of 1850 Resolutions • Uncle Tom's Cabin • Missouri Compromise • Kansas–Nebraska Act • Tariff of 1828 • Bleeding Kansas • Nullification Crisis • Mexican American war • Nat Turner's slave rebellion • Sumner-Brooks affair • The Amistad • Dred Scott v. Sandford • Texas Annexation • Brown's raid on Harper's • Mexican–American War Ferry • Wilmot Proviso • 1860 presidential election • Ostend Manifesto • Secession of Southern States • Manifest Destiny • Star of the West • Underground Railroad • Corwin Amendment • Battle of Fort Sumter Attempted Solutions • Missouri Compromise • Wilmot Proviso • Ostend Manifesto • Compromise of 1850 • Kansas-Nebraska Act • popular sovereignty • Bleeding Kansas • Dred Scott Decision The Decision of Slavery Missouri Compromise Missouri Compromise 1820 • Regulation of slavery in the western territories • Prohibited slavery north of 36 ̊-30’ N parallel, except in Missouri • Sectional balance • Maine is a free state Part of the Texas Annexation Resolution of 1845 On the Compromise “… but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.” - Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Holmes Wilmot Proviso 1846 • Would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future • David Wilmot wrote this as part of the final negotiations as a result of the Mexican- American war • Tries several times to get it passed • House approves but fails in the Senate Ostend Manifesto 1854 • Proposal to take Cuba from Spain by force in necessary • Southern expansionists call for the acquisition of Cuba as a slave state • National security was used to justify the move • Free-soilers are outraged – Why? • Northerners later use it as a battle cry in Bleeding Kansas Compromise of 1850 Compromise of 1850 • Diffused conflict from debate over slavery in the territories gained from the Mexican-American War • Contains 5 bills in one 1. Texas gives up New Mexico (debt becomes Fed.) 2. California accepted as a free state 3. New Mexico and Utah territories have option to become slave states (avoiding Wilmot proviso) 4. South gets a stronger Fugitive Slave Act 5. Slave trade is banned in Washington D.C. Kansas-Nebraska Act • Creates new territories for settlement: Kansas and Nebraska (written by Stephen A. Douglas) • Allows new territories to decide on slavery through popular sovereignty • Result was a flood of pro- and anti-slavery proponents into those territories to vote • Republican party was created in opposition to the act (Lincoln – first president) – Mostly former Whigs and Free-Soil Democrats Popular Sovereignty "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.“ – Benjamin Franklin • Principle that the legitimacy of the state is created and sustained by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of all political power • Closely connected to republicanism and social contract theory Bleeding Kansas • Pro-slavery settlers from Missouri were in conflict with the anti-slavery settlers • Bloodshed was a sort of mini-Civil War between 1854 and 1858 Dred Scott Decision 1857 • Issue over slaves held in free states • Scott often traveled to and stayed in free states with his master • After his master died, he sought freedom from Emerson’s wife • Ruling defined freedom of slaves.