denotes subject is under construction
Was the Civil War fought over slavery? Yes and no. It was because slavery existed that the war was fought, but it was actually fought over who had the right to decide the issue. The abolitionists (those who spoke out vehemently against slavery) were vociferous, but were only a small minority in the North.
While most northerners opposed slavery, they had no real wish to welcome blacks as American Citizens. In fact, many were quite indifferent to the plight of the black race. Most of the inhabitants of the northwestern states at the time (Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa) had closer ties to the agrarian south than they did to their industrial neighbors in New England. They were tied economically to the south because their goods had to be transported down the Mississippi to be shipped from the port of New Orleans.
Lincoln himself did not think that the white and black race could live together. While always against slavery on moral grounds, he advocated that freed slaves should be resettled. Initially he felt they could be returned to Africa to settle in Liberia. Later he felt they could resettle in a South American country. "If slavery did not exist among us," he said, "they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly let it go." If freeing the slaves had been used to encourage northerners to go to war, its possible the Civil War might never have started.
What did motivate the northerners, though, was the defense of the Union. Roughly one-quarter of the poulation in the North at the time of the civil war had come to the United States after the American Revolution. They had come from places with strong central governments, and expected the United States to be the same. To a great extend, they felt that if the majority of states didn�t wish the country to have slavery, then it should be outlawed everywhere. This was easy for northerners to say, because they were rapidly gaining the upper hand in how many states disproved of slavery.
The South, on the other hand, felt they had a right to decide what would happen in their own states -- called States Rights. They believed they were allowed to leave the Union if it failed to afford them their rights. They felt they were within their constitutional rights to do so, and were willing to fight for that belief. Northerners believed the Union must be preserved at all cost, and that they were within their constitution rights to decide the course of the country. They were willing to fight for their beliefs as well. It�s not hard to understand why these two very different ideologies eventually clashed.
The Constitutionality of Secession
Was it constitutional for a state to seceed from the Union? By most historical accounts it appears so. The crisis that led to the Civil War was not the first time that states had wanted to seceed from the Union. Some of the very states that were so set on preserving the union in 1860 were the same states who had threatened to seceed prior to the War 0f 1812.
Bleeding Kansas
Kansas is a microcosim of the strained relations between the differing ideologies that infected the entire United States before the Civil War.
Chronology of Events leading to the Civil War
The temporal roots of the issues that led to the Civil War run deep in the fabric of United States. The heated discussions of whether slavery should be permitted, and who should determine it, struck a cord even during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence by the founding fathers. Slaves were considered property, and as such, the liberties and due process of law so eloquently stated did not apply to them. By the time of the American Revolution, slavery was practiced in all but one of the colonies.
| 1619 | First slaves in the American Colonies |
| A Dutch trader sold the first African slaves, and from thence slavery grew as the continent was settled. It would exist for almost 250 more years before it was finally abolished in 1865. | |
| 1638 | First American slave ports established |
| The first American slave ports were in Massachusetts. These were followed by Rhode Island, whose slave port rivaled the largest in England � Liverpool. Trading rum for slaves became the basis for most of New England�s economy. Southern colonies were not part of this trade. | |
| 1688 | First recorded protest over slavery |
| Quakers in Germantown, PA � a small sect in the colonies � protested the institution of slavery on moral and economic grounds. Considered quacks, their protests were ignored. | |
| 1700 | Slavery replaces indentured servitude |
| While slaves cost more than indentured servants, slavery became more economical in Virginia and Maryland tobacco fields. Slave owners received a lifetime of servitude (rather than seven years), and they could also receive additional slaves since the children of slaves inherited slave status. | |
| 1750 | Abolition Movement begins |
| A religious revival that swept through the colonies introduced new ideas, and abolition was introduced in the North. Slave owners in the South, concerned about the souls of their slaves, introduced Christian teaching. | |
| 1777 | Vermont prohibits slavery |
| The first state to prohibit slavery, it did so outright without conditions. | |
| 1780 | The Pennsylvania Mandate |
| It instructed that all slaves born in the future would be free on their 28th birthday. | |
| 1781 | Massachusetts frees slaves |
| An interpretation of the state�s constitution, handed down by the chief justice of Massachusetts, freed all slaves in the state. It was brought about by a series of law suites filed by slaves. | |
| 1783 | Compensated Emancipation |
| Proposed by Thomas Pownall, a former Governor of Massachusetts, the plan called for selling part of the western lands to purchase slaves from their owners, and the remainder of the land to be set aside as a home in which these freed slave could be resettled away from white populations. | |
| 1787 | U.S. Constitution adopted |
| Several southern states refused to sign the Constitution unless slavery was allowed. So, despite objections and warnings, the continuance of slavery was clearly sanctioned by the Constitution. It also allowed the slave trade (slave imports) to continue until 1808. However, the words "slave" and "slavery" were not found in the document. Instead, distinction was made between "free people" and "all other persons." It also directed that runaway slaves be returned to their owners. | |
| Northwest Ordinances | |
| It outlawed slavery in the unsettled territories that would eventually become the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. | |
| 1790 | Compensated Emancipation Revisited |
| While not a new idea, this was the first official proposal brought before Congress for gradually eliminating slavery in the United States. Submitted by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, it called for the federal government to purchase slaves from their owners and free them. It never came to a vote. | |
| 1793 | Cotton Gin invented |
| Eli Whitney�s invention quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from cotton seeds. It made cotton production profitable, and brought wealth and prosperity to the Deep South where cotton grew best. The rapid growth of the cotton economy helped to entrench slavery as an institution in the South, as slavery became an integral part of the economy and a way of life. | |
| 1799 | New York Mandate |
| The state initiated a similar plan that Pennsylvania had adopted 19 years earlier. Mew Jersey would follow suit five years later. | |
| 1817 | American Colonization Society established |
| Supported by many Southerners, it focused on transporting and aiding free blacks (some of whom the society purchased) establish a colony in Africa. In 1821, the area of Cape Mesurado was purchased for this purpose, and by 1830 the society had returned 1,400 blacks to the African colony that would eventually become Liberia. | |
| 1820 | Missouri Compromise |
| Enacted on 3 March, it established a demarcation line between free and slave territories. | |
| 1821 | Compensated Emancipation Proposal before Congress again |
| Submitted by Henry Meigs of New York, the plan was based on the ideas expressed by Thomas Pownall in 1783. It called for setting aside 500,000 acres of land in the West. Half of the land would be traded to slave owners for the value of their slaves, and the other half sold to finance the colonization of free slaves in Africa. It was defeated on constitutional grounds � that being Congress had no power to use public funds to aid emancipation. | |
| 1831 | Nat Turner Rebellion |
| Jerusalem, VA. | |
| 1832 | South Carolina rejects federal tariff acts |
| 1833 | American Anti-Slavery Society founded |
| This moderate organization was founded in Philadelphia, but soon moved to New York. Its founder, Theodore Weld, was an evangelical Christian who had spent two years in the South studying slavery. The Society was the voice of abolition, publishing numerous books and pamphlets, and promoting lectures. It made the subject of slavery a household word, and it enraged Southerners. Its publications often portrayed Southerners as violent and backward, who tortured their slaves and shot each other in drunken brawls. | |
| 1846 | Wilmot Proviso |
| 8 August. | |
| 1844 | Presidential Campaign |
| Joseph Smith, the presidential candidate for the Latter-Day Saints, ran on a platform that called for compensated emancipation using federal funds. He was soundly defeated. | |
| 1848 | Close of the War with Mexico |
| Before the war ever ended in Februrary, there was considerable talk about maintaining the balance of power in the territories annexed from Mexico. | |
| 1850 | Nashville Convention |
| Called by southern states, whose delegates met in Nashville, Tennessee, on 3 June. The reason for the convention was to draw up plans for Southern secession if Congress continued to question slavery in the new territory gained during the Mexican War. It brought mixed reaction, even from the south, and only nine Southern states sent delegates. Of those delegates, only those from South Carolina and Mississippi knew they had strong support in their respective states. The radicals were voted down by moderates in the convention, and the only major resolution was that slavery be allowed in the new territories below the 36�30' line, and not above it. | |
| 1851 | Christiana Riot |
| 11 September in Christiana, PA. | |
| 1854 | Kansas-Nebraska Act passed |
| 30 May. | |
| 1856 | Brooks attacks Sumner |
| 22 May, Washington DC. | |
| 1857 | The Impending Crisis of the South published |
| The book, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to meet it, was published in New York. | |
| 1857 | Dred Scott decision |
| 1858 | Fugitive Slave Law repealed |
| 24 May in Cleveland, OH. | |
| Lincoln-Douglas Debates conclude | |
| October, Freeport, IL | |
| 1859 | John Brown's Raid |
| October, Harpers Ferry, VA. | |
| 1860 | Democratic Convention |
| A divided convention meets April through June in Charleston, SC. | |
| Republican Convention | |
| May, Chicago, IL, | |
| Lincoln wins presidency | |
| 6 November | |
| 1857 | South Carolina votes to seceed |
| 20 December, Columbia, SC. | |
| 1861 | Criddenden Compromise defeated |
| 3 January, Washington, DC. The final effort to prevent hostilities. | |
| Montgomery Convention begins | |
| 4 February, Montgomery, AL. | |
| 1857 | Southern states vote to seceed |
| 18 February, Montgomery AL. | |
Sources: "The Historical Time Illustrated Encylopedia of the Civil War," 1986; "Civil War Fact File," Atlas Editions, 1994.
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