MORE EVENTS LEADING TO CIVIL WAR

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN:  Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, its portrayal of southern treatment of slaves angered southerners.

"THE LIBERATOR":  Militant abolitionist paper whose editor was William Lloyd Garrison

LEADERS OF SLAVE REVOLTS:  Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey

ABOLITIONISTS:  James G. Birney,  Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison

"BLEEDING KANSAS":

JOHN BROWN'S RAID:

DRED SCOTT DECISION, 1857:  Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a southerner, wrote this decision, hoping to end the debate over slavery; instead, he only inflamed it more.  By a 7 to 2 decsion, the Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens, therefore, Dred Scott could not sue in a federal court. It also ruled that slaves are property and because of that, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional because it prevented slave owners from taking their slaves above 36 degrees, 30 minutes latitude. 


CIVIL WAR

South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union (United States) if Abraham Lincoln was elected President.  As you know, he was elected in 1860.  By April, 1861, eleven southern states had seceded.  They had created the CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA or the Confederacy as the new nation. The first capital of the Confederacy was MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA.  JEFFERSON DAVIS was elected at the President of the Confederacy and Alexander Stephens as Vice-President.    Later, the capital is moved to Richmond, Virginia.

FIRING ON FORT SUMTER, April,1861:  This starts the Civil War, also called the War Between the States.  Ft. Sumter is located in Charleston, South Carolina and was a federal fort. 

LINCOLN'S REASON FOR FIGHTING IN 1861:  To preserve the Union; With the issuing of the EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION  in 1863, the purpose for fighting became to END SLAVERY.

ROBERT E. LEE:  Is appointed as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and is recognized as the foremost Confederate general of the Civil War. 

ULYSSES S. GRANT:  Eventually becomes commander of the Union forces.  He will accept Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, 1863:  Lincoln's proclamation that all slaves in states now under the control of Union forces were free.  This now changes the Union's reason for fighting to being to preserve the Union and to end slavery.

APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE, April, 1865:  Where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, ENDING THE CIVIL WAR

LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION:  April, 14, 1865:  John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. as Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were attending a play, "Our American Cousin."   Lincoln died early the next morning.  This will be the worst thing that could have happened to the South. 

RECONSTRUCTION:  The name given to the period when defeated southern states were being reconstructed politically, socially, and economically.  This period started while the war was being fought, but the official dates for it are 1865-1877.  There were two periods of Reconstruction:  PRESIDENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION and CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.