U.S. History / Unit 4: Sectionalism, Civil War and Reconstruction
4.3 The Road to Civil War
Notes
In the 1850s, a series of events broke down compromise.
- ***Uncle Tom's Cabin* (1852)** by Harriet Beecher Stowe turned many Northern readers against slavery.
- ***Dred Scott v. Sandford* (1857)**: the Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans were not citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.
- Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858): Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery's expansion; Stephen Douglas defended popular sovereignty.
- John Brown's raid (1859) on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, tried to start an uprising of enslaved people. Many Southerners saw it as proof of Northern hostility.
- Election of 1860: Lincoln, a Republican, won without carrying any Southern state.
- South Carolina seceded in December 1860; other states followed and formed the Confederate States of America.
- The war began when Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861.
Practice
The Dred Scott decision ruled that:
The Court said enslaved people were property and Black Americans could not be citizens.
Why did Lincoln's election in 1860 lead Southern states to secede?
Lincoln pledged to stop slavery's spread, and Southern leaders saw his election as a threat to slavery's future.
Which event was the first battle of the Civil War?
Confederate forces attacked the federal fort in Charleston Harbor in April 1861.
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