Westward expansion proved to be a double-edge sword for the nation as the acquisition of new territory created a schism about the role of slavery in these new territories. Conflict began in 1819 when Missouri, the first territory of the Louisiana Purchase to gain enough people, petitioned to become a state in the Union. Missouri was populated with slaveholders who wanted it to be a slave state. There was a balance of power in the Senate between the two sides because there were eleven slave states and eleven free states in the nation. The Southern states would have an advantage if Missouri entered as a slave state. Maine, a former part of Massachusetts, asked to be admitted to the Union in 1820. Maine was a free territory. Its admission in tandem with Missouri would keep the balance of power in the Senate. A line was drawn within the Louisiana Purchase at the southern boundary of Missouri to avoid the problem in the future. All territory north of the line, except Missouri, would be free territory; land south of the line, plus Missouri, would be slave territory. Henry Clay devised the Missouri Compromise, which kept conflict down for the next decade.
The people immediately voted for annexation of Texas into the United States after its independence from Mexico in 1836. The Northern states denied Texas entry, because it had slavery. The North feared a large slave region that could divide into two or even three slave states. This would severely limit the North’s power in the Senate. Nine years later the United States agreed to annex Texas. Making Texas a state quickly led to war with Mexico, because Texas was never recognized as independent from Mexico. David Wilmot of Pennsylvania put forth the Wilmot Proviso proposal to the House of Representatives to not allow slavery in any territory gained in the war. This measure passed the House of Representatives, but failed in the Senate. Nevertheless, the Wilmot Proviso proposal became the Northern point of view.
The United States gained considerable Mexican territory at the end of the war. Gold was discovered in California. By the end of 1849 California applied for statehood. The conflict over slavery again appeared; congress was in a stalemate. A number of issues were at stake. Henry Clay once again stepped in to offer a compromise. John C. Calhoun, the spokesperson for the South since the Nullification Crisis in the 1830s, gave his last speech on the Senate floor pleading for a defeat of Clay’s Compromise. He said that further compromise without accepting the Southern position of Constitutional protection of slaveholders’ rights would lead to secession and war. Calhoun died without seeing Clay’s Compromise of 1850 pass.
The conflict over slavery in the western territories remained at the forefront for the next decade. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 allowed for popular sovereignty to decide the issue of slavery in the territories. This led to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the birth of the antislave Republican Party. Tensions and emotions grew with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Pottawattamie Massacre, Bleeding Kansas, and the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor by South Carolinian Preston Brooks. The divide deepened between to North and the South with the Dred Scott Decision, which ruled in favor of Calhoun’s and the Southern states’ position, and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. The Democratic Party split, Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats, forming the in the summer of 1860 after they were unable to agree on a platform at its convention in Charleston, SC. This national link was lost. Abraham Lincoln’s election to the Presidency in November 1860, without a single Southern electoral vote, led to South Carolina deciding that the Union was no longer hospitable. South Carolina unanimously voted to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860, at a convention in Charleston. Six other states joined within six weeks, and they formed the Confederate States of America.
South Carolina and the other Confederate States seized federal property within their state boundaries. Major Robert Anderson and a small unit of Union soldiers occupied Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor to prevent South Carolina from taking the fort. Charlestonians seethed as the Union flag continued to fly above the entrance of their harbor, because they were unable to control the fort and were unwilling to attack the Union. The South wanted to look the victim in the conflict in hope of support from a European nation. An attack on Fort Sumter would make them look like the aggressors; a stalemate lasted until April. President Lincoln decided to push the issue and sent a ship to resupply the troops located on Fort Sumter. As the supply ship neared the Charleston Harbor, the troops in Charleston were ordered to fire. Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter after thirty-six hours of bombardment. The only casualties occurred; two men were killed while the Union troops saluted their lowering flag and a cannon misfired.
Lincoln called for 75,000 troops with the news of Sumter’s fall. Four more states seceded and joined the CSA, rather than staying with the Union and fighting against fellow Southerners. The first true battle took place south of Washington, DC at Manassas Junction (Bull Run). The Union troops retreated back to the Capital. The Southerners had their first victory over the Army of the Potomac.
At the eve of the war, the North had 80% of the industry, 67% of the railroads, and 67% of the population. They had an established government, financial system, a navy, and the ability to produce materials for the war effort. The South had Robert E. Lee and a large number of experienced and skilled officers. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation; the Proclamation stated slaves were free in the areas that were in a state of rebellion, but did not free a single slave at the time of issue. Slaves would leave their owners and follow the armies as the Union armies moved into the South. Lincoln also ordered the formation of African American regiments. The African American troops and their white officers faced enslavement or death if caught by the CSA. African-Americans made up over 10% of the Union troops by the end of the war, and contributed significantly to the victory.
Robert E. Lee and his army of Northern Virginia continued to win many victories over the Army of the Potomac despite being outnumbered every time. At the same time Ulysses S Grant had success for the Union in the West. Lincoln brought Grant to the East and put him in charge. Grant placed himself over the Army of the Potomac to go up against Lee, and he sent William T. Sherman on a devastating march through the South. The total destruction wreaked by Sherman and his men was a new style of warfare designed to break the Confederacy. The war ended with Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, VA, on April 9, 1865, almost four years to the day after it started.
Grant, under orders from Lincoln, offered extremely generous terms of surrender. Lincoln knew that the physical rebuilding of the South, as well as the reconstruction of the Union, would be difficult, and he wanted to end the conflict as easily as possible. To make the Emancipation Proclamation permanent, the thirteenth amendment was adopted in December 1865. This officially ended slavery in the United States. Lincoln was assassinated five days after Lee’s surrender, and was unable to follow through on his plans to rebuild the nation. His vice-President, Andrew Johnson, never gained the confidence of the Congress. Congress was heavily weighted with “radical” Republicans who were not looking to making things easy for the South, but wanted to punish the South for the four years of war. Congress wrested power from the President and sent troops back into the South to occupy it, and to protect the political and social rights of the Freedmen. White Southerners chafed under the yoke of Military Reconstruction. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan sprung up with the goal of removing the troops and returning the South, as much as possible, to the lifestyle before the war. A number of African-Americans were elected to state and national office during this period of time. Many extremely democratic ideas were passed, which included mandatory public education. Congress passed the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to guarantee African American’s voting rights, and to undo the Dred Scott court decision, which had stated that African Americans, free or slave, were not citizens.
The push for Reconstruction faded in the North as industrialization grew. Southern “redeemers” gained strength, and groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized the Freedmen who dared to exercise their newly granted rights. In the election of 1876, with the voting fraud that accompanied it, neither candidate gained enough votes to win. The election went to Congress. The presidency was given to the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. This was called the “Compromise of 1877.” Some Southern Democrats had to vote for Hayes in order for him to win. One of Hayes’ first actions as president was to order the withdrawal of the remaining troops in the South; many determined the reason for the Southern Democrats change of heart. Legal segregation (de jure segregation) took hold under Jim Crow laws once the troops were gone. There was no one to help protect the rights of the Freedmen. Supreme Court decisions, such as Plessy v. Ferguson, upheld these laws. Sharecropping became the standard for most of the former slaves, which once again tied them to the soil in a system not much different than slavery.
Primary Sources for Era 5
- Slave passes from the Charleston area – notes granting permission for slaves to be off from their masters’ home
http://lowcountrydigital.library.cofc.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/CSP - A number of editorials from newspapers throughout the United States commenting on the attack by Rep. Preston Brooks on Senator Charles Sumner. This is a good way to look at the sectional strife within the nation. Most of the northern editorials condemn Brooks for his actions, although many say that Sumner’s speech, which prompted the attack, was malicious. The Southern papers praise Brooks for his restoration of his kinsman’s honor.
http://history.furman.edu/benson/docs/sumenu.htm - Telegram from Maj. Robert Anderson announcing the surrender of Fort Sumter to the Confederate forces.
http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=30 - Emancipation Proclamation and the authorization for African American troops in the Union Army.
http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=34
http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=35 - Casualty list for the 54th Massachusetts as a result of the attack on Fort Wagner, on Morris Island, SC. This page also has an image of one of the soldiers of the 54th Mass
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/54thmass.html