Causes of the Civil War Flashcards
Missouri Compromise
1820 - After Alabama became a slave state, making the number of states in the north and the south equal, the north was worried about Missouri becoming a slave state since it was technically a northern state. Main had just become a free state, so the south wanted Missouri to become a slave state so that it would be even. It was decided that Missouri would become neither, but that its citizens would decided for themselves. there would be no more states above a line dividing the U.S. and vice versa. (line was called Mason Dixon Line)
Nullification Crisis
1832 - federal tax that helps northern manufacturing but doesn’t help south and the south refuses to pay it.
Wilmot Proviso
1846 - land won from mexico will be freed from slavery. congress passes over bill 90 times and it dies. raises tension between northern and southern politicians.
Compromise of 1850
1850 -
Publishing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1852 - bestseller of all time (2,000,000) copies sold) written to show the horrors of slavery. the south bans the book, but now the south’s reputation is damaged.
Bleeding Kansas Begins
1854 - After Kansas/Nebraska Act is passed, allowing them to vote on whether they would be a free or slave state, ruffians from pro-slavery Kansas and abolitionists from the north clash in order to intimidate voters. John Brown is accused of hacking to pieces 5 pro-slavery men. Kansas decides to be an abolitionist state.
Sumner Caning
1856 - senator Charles Sumner attacks Andrew Butler verbally and blames bleeding Kansas on the issue of slavery. two days later, Preston Brooks (cousin of butler) brutally beats Sumner with his cane so much that he almost dies. right after this Brooks is sent tons of canes from all over the south implying that he should do it again. Northerners saw this as crazy and sign that they could not compromise with the southerners.
Dread Scott Decision
1857 - Chief Justice Robert Tawney and the supreme court take on the case of a slave who has lived in the north with his southern family and sues his master because he thinks that since he has been living in the north that he is free, and he wants freedom. the court decides that slaves are property and that Dread Scott must be returned to his family. Court also rules the Missouri compromise unconstitutional. Northerners are outraged and southerners are justified.
John Brown’s Uprising at Harper’s Ferry
1859 - John Brown attempts to raid a federal armory at Harper’s Ferry. He thought that if he obtained the weapons he could lead a slave army in VA, and then he would free all slaves. No slaves come to him, and he is trapped, shot, and captured by US soldiers. He is then hung in VA. North sees him as a saint when south sees him as a symbol of evil and aggression.
Election of Lincoln in November
1860 - Lincoln 180 electoral votes and wins election despite a rough start. South decides that he and the north are set out to destroy slavery. South Carolina secedes from states by Dec. and attacks federal fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in April of !861, starting the civil war.
Cotton Gin
1809 - machine that separates cotton faster in the south so the demand for slaves is higher
