the southern people existed as far back as 1854. In 1854, the topic of admission of slave/free states arose again with the Kansas-Nebraska Act; however, this debate would lead to greater conflict than the previous two. The South wished to gain Kansas as a slave state but it resided above the previously establish 36-30 line which divided future free/slave states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which called for the
Even on the highest level, the tension and angry spread between Senators from the North and the South. The craziest example was the “Bully” Brooks incident of 1857. During a session of Congress the senator from Massachusetts, Senator Charles Sumner delivered a very provoking speech. His speech “The Crime Against Kansas” was an attack against the Missourian Border Ruffians and the two senators Atchison, and Andrew Butler of South Carolina for the “crimes” that the South had committed to gain another
escapades at Harper’s Ferry and Pottawotomie. In 1855, Kansas elected its first territorial governing body. This body would run a voting poll to decide on the subject of slavery and whether it would be allowed in Kansas or not. Hundreds of pro-slavery believers crossed the border from Missouri into Kansas to cast their vote for slavery to try and balance out the ratio of free and slave states. It is likely that Kansas would have been voted as a slave state even if the
Many events in the United States helped form the country today. One of the more prominent events was the Civil War and the antebellum years from 1845-1861. Due to expansion in the West, discussions began about how the state was going to join the Union and later the issue of slavery was introduced. Many Northern states sought to halt the spread of slavery into the new territories while Southern states wanted to expand slavery. These disputes lead to bloodshed as the South began to feel that their
became known as the Confederate States of America. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, the South rebelled and sought to attack the Union. The war broke out on April 12, 1861 in South Carolina when the Confederate attacked the Union soldiers at Fort Sumter. The war was fought from 1861-1865 and extended as far north as Maryland and Pennsylvania, west to Mississippi, east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico. There were approximately 620,000 causalities and it ended with a union victory
preserve and some that wanted to eradicate the primary cause of the war, slavery. There were the political giants, such as Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen Douglas. There were seditious abolitionists such as John Brown, escaped slaves such as Dred Scott, and abolitionist writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe. These were the people who, ultimately, brought a beginning to the end of what Lincoln called “a moral, a social, and a political wrong”(Oates 66). Southern states, including the 11 states
President James K. Polk sent the army under the leadership of General (and later President) Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande to establish a fort. After seeing the Americans construct the fort in what they considered to be their land, the Mexicans sent 2,000 troops to attack a U.S. scout force, consisted of only 70 American troops. When Polk heard of this attack, he plead Congress to declare war on Mexico for invading
Before we discuss the Civil War, we need to discuss how and what lead to this major turning point in American History. Both sides, the Union and the Confederate had its reasons to attack each other. Whether it be the lack of contribution towards the government by the South, or the constant disturbance to free slaves from the North, tempers flared years before the first shots were ever fired. The disagreements between the North and the South were too much for the South to endure, they felt forced
Without this much-needed drive and ambition, it is unlikely that Lincoln would have accomplished what he during his life. What truly sparked Lincoln’s ambition was the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This act created the states of Kansas and Nebraska and essentially repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 is what almost single handedly got Lincoln back into politics and pushed him to become a much bigger activist in the abolitionist movement. “But then there
The Missouri Compromise and events leading up to the Civil War were based mainly on slavery and the two conflicting viewpoints of the American people. The compromises involving slavery were only short-term solutions for a very long-term problem. The Civil War changed the foundation of America forever. The war was inevitable, and thus, the contrasting views between the North and the South were bound to break out into warfare at some point. In February of 1819, Missouri applied for statehood in the