This document provides a summary of key events from 1787 to 1861 that led to the outbreak of the American Civil War, including the adoption of the 3/5 compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act in the Constitution, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Dred Scott decision of 1857, John Brown's raid in 1859, secession by Southern states after Lincoln's election in 1860, and the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 that marked the beginning of the war. These events show the increasing tensions around the issue of slavery and states' rights that could not be resolved through political compromises.

1. The Steps toward War
Dr. Bruce Clary
Monday, January 3, 2011

2. “There was never a moment during the earliest
years of our national history when the slavery issue
was not a sleeping serpent. The issue lay coiled up
under the table during the deliberations of the
Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was, owing
to the cotton gin, more than half awake at the time
of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.... Thereafter,
slavery was on everyone's mind, though not always
on his tongue.”
——John Jay Chapman

3. Northwest Ordinance
1787
• Most important act of
the Congress of
Confederation
• Established territory
west of the
Appalachians and
north of the Ohio
River as free territory

4. “Representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several states which may be
included within this union, according to their
respective numbers, which shall be determined by
adding to the whole number of free persons,
including those bound to service for a term of
years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of
all other Persons.”
U.S. Constitution
Article I, Section 1

5. “No person held to service or labor in one state,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be
discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due.”
U.S. Constitution
Article IV, Section 4

6. “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as
any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress
prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and
eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such
Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each
Person.”
U.S. Constitution
Article I, Section 9

7. Slave Trade Act of 1807
Abolished the
international slave
trade
This replica of a slave trade ship moored by Tower Bridge in 2007 to commemorate
the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act.

8. “We the People of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.”
U.S. Constitution
Preamble

9. Missouri Compromise of 1820

10. The Nullification Crisis
• In 1828 and 1832, Congress passes tariffs
that exacerbate economic difficulties
plaguing South Carolina. “Please give my
• South Carolina passes an Ordinance of compliments to my friends
in your State and say to
Nullification, claiming that the tariffs shall them, that if a single drop
not apply in the state. of blood shall be shed
there in opposition to the
• President Jackson pushes through the laws of the United States, I
Force Bill, which empowers the federal will hang the first man I can
government to enforce the tariff, resulting lay my hand on engaged in
such treasonable conduct,
in the Compromise Tariff of 1833. upon the first tree I can
reach.”
—Andrew Jackson

11. Manifest Destiny

12. Manifest Destiny
Three Key Themes
• the virtue of the American people and
their institutions;
• the mission to spread these institutions,
thereby redeeming and remaking the
world in the image of the U.S.; and
• the destiny under God to accomplish
this work.

13. Mexican-American War 1846-48

14. Compromise of 1850

15. Compromise of 1850
• Enacts the Fugitive Slave Act
• Admits California as a free state
• Opens New Mexico and Utah territories
under popular sovereignty

16. • Published in 1852, it
sold 300,000 copies in
the U.S. alone in its
first year.
• The book’s impact was
so great that when
Lincoln met Stowe, he
allegedly said, “So this
is the little lady who
made this big war.”

17. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

18. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
• Creates territories of Kansas and
Nebraska
• Repeals the Missouri Compromise
• Establishes popular sovereignty,
empowering territorial settlers to
determine if they will allow slavery
within their boundaries

19. Bleeding Kansas 1854-58

20. Dred Scott Decision
1857
U.S. Supreme Court rules that
• No people of African descent could be
The authors of the
Constitution, said Chief citizens
Justice Roger B. Taney in
his decision, viewed all • Congress had no authority to prohibit
blacks as “beings of an
inferior order, and
slavery in federal territories and, thus, the
altogether unfit to associate Missouri Compromise was
with the white race, either
in social or political
unconstitutional
relations, and so far inferior
that they had no rights • Slaves cannot be taken from owners
which the white man was without due process
bound to respect.”

21. John Brown’s Raid
on Harper’s Ferry
October 1859

22. Election of
Abraham Lincoln
November 6, 1860
“I have no purpose, directly
or indirectly, to interfere
with the institution of
slavery in the States where it
exists. I believe I have no
lawful right to do so, and I
have no inclination to do
so.”
Abraham Lincoln

23. Crittenden Compromise
The Crittenden Compromise was a last-ditch effort by a Kentucky
senator to head off the secession crisis. It would have
• Guaranteed the existence of slavery in the slave states
• Permanently re-established the Missouri Compromise line:
slavery would be prohibited north of the 36°30´ parallel and
guaranteed south of it
The compromise included a clause that it could not be repealed
or amended.

24. Order of Secession
• December 20, 1860 South Carolina
• January 9, 1861 Mississippi
• January 10, 1861 Florida
• January 11, 1861 Alabama
• January 19, 1861 Georgia
• January 26, 1861 Louisiana
• February 1, 1861 Texas

25. Lincoln Inaugural
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government
will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being
yourselves the aggressors.… We are not enemies, but friends.
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords
of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot
grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.”

26. April 12, 1861

27. Order of Secession
• April 17, 1861 Virginia
• May 6, 1861 Tennessee
• May 6, 1861 Arkansas
• May 20, 1861 North Carolina
• Oct. 31, 1861 Missouri
• Nov. 20, 1861 Kentucky