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Sectionalism

The central role of the expansion of slavery in causing sectionalism

Slavery--slavery in the United States first began in
Virginia during the colonial era. Throughout the first half
of the 19th century, southern politicians sought to
defend slavery by retaining control of the federal
government. The issue of slavery continued to plague
the Union as more territory was added, resulting in a
division between free states and slave states. Efforts to
resolve the conflict over the expansion of slavery into
newly organized territories were addressed in the
Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and
the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. It was the 1860
election of Abraham Lincoln that led many political leaders in the South to believe that the federal government was contemplating abolishing slavery
Sectionalism—prior to the Civil War, the United States
was divided by the sectional differences between the
North, South, and West. The most pronounced
difference was over the issue of enslaving people with
the South staunchly defending the need for slave labor
for its agrarian based economy to function
States’ rights—the political position advocating strict
interpretation of the Constitution with regard to the
limitation of federal powers and the extension of the
autonomy of the individual state to the greatest
possible degree. Southern political leaders argued that
slavery was a states’ rights issue in an effort to protect
their common interests
Civil War—resulted when the Southern states in an
effort to protect their interests, most notably the
institution of slavery, seceded from the Union

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Review

Land Acquisitions

Significant Dates in U.S. History

Key Dates, People, & Ideas of the Civil War

Key Dates

1850 - The Compromise of 1850 is passed. California enters the Union as a free state and the Fugitive Slave Law is strengthened.

1854 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act introduced the idea of “popular sovereignty” as the method for territories to determine whether to be free or slave.

1854 - The Republican Party is formed to oppose the extension of slavery.

1857 - The Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sanford ruled that Congress cannot limit slaves, that slaves are property and not citizens, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

1860 - Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was elected as the 16th President of the United States. His First Inaugural Address reassured the South, but stated he would act to preserve the Union, by force if needed.

1860 - Angered over the election of Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina seceded from the United States and, along with five other states, formed the Confederate States of America.

1861 - Jefferson Davis became the President of the Confederate States of America.

1861 - The Civil War began at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1861 - Confederate general Stonewall Jackson defeated the Union army at the Battle of Bull Run in July. Jackson was regarded as one of the best Confederate commanders.

1862 - The Battle of Antietam took place late in the year. It became the bloodiest single day of the war.

1863 - The Emancipation Proclamation is announced by Abraham Lincoln. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in rebelling states (those in the Confederacy).

1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg took place in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. After 3 days of heavy fighting, Lee retreated.. The battle was the turning point of the war and Lee’s army was never again able to go on the offensive in the North again.

1863 - Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address to dedicate a cemetery to Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg.

1863 - The Battle of Vicksburg became another turning point in the war when Grant defeated the Confederate army and gained control of the Mississippi River, cutting the South into two parts.

1864 - Lincoln is re-elected to a second term as President of the United States. Gave his Second Inaugural Address which focused on the end of slavery and trying to bind the wounds that were caused by the Civil War.

1865 - General Lee and the Confederate Army surrendered to General Grant and the Union Army at Appomattox Court House and ended the Civil War.

1865 - Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while he attended a play at Ford’s Theatre.

Key People

Abraham Lincoln - President of the United States of America during the Civil War

Jefferson Davis - President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War

Ulysses S. Grant - Commander of the Union forces during the Civil War

Robert E. Lee - Commander of the Confederate forces during the Civil War

William T. Sherman - Union General; tore up railroads, cut telegraph lines, and burned down farms, businesses and villages on his “March to the Sea”

“Stonewall” Jackson - Confederate General; defeated Union forces at the Battle of Bull Run; regarded as one of the greatest Confederate commanders

William Carney - Took part in attack on Fort Wagner. First African-American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Philip Bazaar- Hispanic (Chile) seaman who aided the Union victory at Fort Fisher. First Hispanic-American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Key Ideas

By the mid-nineteenth century, the nation consisted of three different regions or “sections.” Many Americans felt greater loyalty to their section than to the country as a whole. This strong loyalty was known as sectionalism.

The North was the most industrialized. Factory workers produced manufactured goods. Farmers raised livestock to supply food to towns and cities. Railroads connected natural resources with factories and consumers.

The West became the “breadbasket” of the country, growing wheat and other crops. Cities developed on the banks of the Great Lakes and along major rivers.

The South was transformed by the invention of the cotton gin and the growing demand for cotton in by English and Northern factories. Plantation owners grew, harvested, and shipped cotton with large forces of slaves.

Immigrants contributed to both economic and demographic growth in this period. Irish immigrants came to escape the famine in Ireland. German immigrants came to escape political repression. Many Irish settled in the cities in the Northeast, while Germans often settled in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Northern states abolished slavery. Some Southern slaves were freed by their owners and became free blacks. Most moved to the North.

The struggle over slavery focused on the issue of its extension into new territories. Southerners feared the North would take control of Congress and abolish slavery. Under the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state, and the Fugitive Slave Law was greatly strengthened.

The system of compromise started to breakdown when the Kansas-Nebraska Act let settlers decide if they wanted slavery, adding violence to the issue.

The Republican Party was founded against the further spread of slavery.

The Dred Scott decision, holding that African Americans had no right to citizenship, and that Congress could not limit slaver owners’ control of their property, ended the possibility of further compromise on the issue.

The Democrats divided and nominated two candidates to the Presidency in 1860. As a result of this split, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won the election.

Because of Lincoln’s reputation as an opponent of slavery, South Carolina seceded. Five other states seceded before Lincoln’s inauguration.

Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederacy.

In his Inaugural Address, Davis claimed Southern states had the right to secede. In his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln pledged not to attack slavery in the South, but warned that he would act to preserve the Union, by force if needed.

When Lincoln tried to reinforce Fort Sumter in April 1861, South Carolina fired on the fort. The Civil War began. Lincoln called on all states to contribute militia and put down the rebellion. Virginia and three more southern states seceded and joined the Confederacy. Many historians believe, sectionalism, states’ rights, and slavery were the three main causes of the Civil War.

Both sides thought the war would end quickly. The North failed in its early attempts to take Richmond. The North had a large population, more industry, more money, and a larger navy than the South. Lincoln adopted the “Anaconda Plan,” attempting to strangle the South with a naval blockade. Southerners had gifted military leaders like Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson.

The Confederate states felt they were fighting to preserve their own way of life, just as the American colonists had once resisted Britain.

Lincoln took all the needed steps for pursuing the war, including a naval blockade of the South, conscription, use of paper money, and limited censorship.

General Lee led Southern forces into the North in 1862, but they were stopped at the Battle of Antietam. Soon after, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves in states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be free. This did not extend to border states still in the Union.

Lincoln hoped the Emancipation Proclamation would give the war a moral purpose and would prevent Britain and France from allying with the South.

In the summer of 1863, Lee’s march northward was stopped at the Battle of Gettysburg. In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln argued the war had become a struggle to see if the system of democracy could survive.

The same week, Grant took Vicksburg, giving the North control of the Mississippi River. General William Sherman marched from the West across Georgia to the sea, destroying crops, town and farms everywhere he went.

Lincoln was re-elected in 1864. In his Second Inaugural Address, he focused on slavery and the need to take a conciliatory approach at the war’s end.

In April 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House. This brought the Civil War to an end.

A few days later, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Missouri Compromise (1820)—Missouri entered the Union as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state. This compromise also stated that north of the 36°30’ line, all states that entered the Union would be free states.
In 1820, the population of Missouri had reached the necessary 60,000 citizens required to be able to apply to Congress for statehood. However, since it asked to be admitted as a “slave state” heated opposition arose especially from many Northern Congressmen, who had no desire to see future Western states adopted in and further spread the “peculiar institution” of slavery. In the North, slavery had been dying for some time and most hoped it would simply fade away from existence. But with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney and the increased demand for slaves across the South, many Southerners were determined to keep their slaves and even invest in more. Another important concern over Missouri’s admission was how to keep the balance of power in the US Senate. Southerners were determined to keep as many slave states as free states in order to block any future attempts to restrict slavery or even abolish it altogether. For this reason, Southern politicians demanded Missouri enter with slavery, but Northern congressmen were strongly opposed to this.
Henry Clay was a Kentuckian who had great political skills, and as congressional leader, stepped in to help resolve the dispute. Knowing for some time that Maine (which up to that time had been a part of Massachusetts) wanted to become its own state, gave an opportunity to keep the balance in the Senate by admitting it as a free state along with Missouri (slave state) simultaneously. But what about the future? Undoubtedly, more western lands would quickly grow in population and also apply for statehood. Henry Clay, understanding this, then proposed that the 36-30 latitude, which stretched across the nation, would become the boundary that separated free and slave states. To the North of that line only free states would be allowed and below that land slave states.
Most congressmen were satisfied with these terms of the Missouri Compromise, but some argued that the issue over slavery in America needed to be resolved one way or the other. An aging Thomas Jefferson warned that the Missouri Compromise was a “fire-bell sounding in the night”, meaning that danger was looming and perhaps America would suffer greatly down the road for compromising on an issue that needed to be dealt with immediately!
Another consequence of the Missouri Compromise was that Southern politicians afterwards would keep a watchful eye on Northern leaders who might try to restrict or abolish slavery one day. Momentum would begin building as North and South would squabble over the issue of slavery spreading west, which will ultimately lead to the Civil War.

From 1820 until 1850, America continued to fulfill its Manifest Destiny as it expanded west to the Pacific Ocean. However, controversy over the extension of slavery continued to divide Americans in the North and the South. After the Gold Rush in 1849, California was ready to apply for statehood, but because its geographic location was partly below the 36-30 parallel, southerners complained about it becoming another free state in the Union. An elderly Henry Clay once again came to the forefront to resolve the dispute. Since he understood that many southerners were becoming more concerned about their slaves running and escaping to freedom in the north, there was an opportunity to pacify the South by initiating a new fugitive slave law (requiring that runaway slaves be returned to their masters in the South) while allowing California to enter as a free state. Along with this compromise, the Utah and New Mexico territories would be opened to popular sovereignty, which would allow the people of those eventual states to decide for themselves on the issue of slavery. Also, slave trading in the nation’s capital (Washington D.C.) would be outlawed. While both northern and southern politicians would applaud the political compromise of 1850, both sides in the course of time would eventually see it as a calamity.
After the “Bloodhound Bill” (fugitive slave law) went into effect, southerners especially became resentful as runaway slaves were not returned and northerners were increasingly ignoring the law. Northerners had never been forced to look and deal with slavery directly. It had always been something peculiar to the South. But now northerners were being asked to participate in not only acknowledging slavery, but to actually have runaway slaves rounded up by authorities and forcibly sent back to the south. This appalled many in the North who had been neutral on the issue. Northerners and Southerners became even more antagonistic towards each other.
It was becoming more difficult to compromise on the issue of slavery as more and more northerners had their eyes opened towards this bad habit of slavery that America was not growing out of. Southerners too were becoming more stubborn and unwilling to continue to be a part of a nation where their interests were being threatened.

Just for Fun

The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slaveholding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. This was one of the most controversial acts of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a 'slave power conspiracy'.
The Missouri Supreme Court routinely held that transportation of slaves into free states automatically made them free. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), that states did not have to proffer aid in the hunting or recapture of slaves, greatly weakening the law of 1793.
In the response to the weakening of the original fugitive slave act, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made any Federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000. Law-enforcement officials everywhere now had a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway slave on no more evidence than a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, any person aiding a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Officers who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a bonus for their work. Slaveowners only needed to supply an affidavit to a Federal marshall to capture an escaped slave. Since any suspected slave was not eligible for a trial this led to many free blacks being conscripted into slavery as they had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)—Senator Stephen Douglas proposed a bill to set up a government in Nebraska Territory. Knowing that southern legislators would not support the creation of a free state he proposed that the territory be divided into Kansas and Nebraska and that the territories be allowed to decide if they would be free or slave states by popular sovereignty as had been done in New Mexico and Utah territories. The proposal upset the North where they felt that the Missouri Compromise had already banned slavery in the region. Southerners supported the act, as they were confident that Kansas would became a slave state. When the act passed, northerners responded in anger and protested against the Fugitive Slave Law. Northerners and Southerners streamed into Kansas wanting control of the territory. Two governments emerged and violence erupted. Violence spread to the Senate floor also, when Congressman Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner, and abolitionist, until he was unconscious