Civil War era (1849–1865)
I
n the middle of the 19th century,
white Americans
of the
North
and
South
were
unable to reconcile fundamental differences in their approach to government,
economics, society and
African American
slavery. The issue of slavery in the new
territories was settled by the
Compromise of 1850
brokered by Whig
Henry Clay
and
Democrat
Stephen Douglas
; the Compromise included admission of
California
as a
free
state
and the passage of the
Fugitive Slave Act
to make it easier for masters to reclaim
runaway slaves.
[48]
In 1854, the proposed
Kansas-Nebraska Act
abrogated the
Missouri
Compromise
by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its stance on
slavery.
[52]
After
Abraham Lincoln
won the
1860 Election
, eleven Southern states
seceded from the union between late 1860 and 1861, establishing a rebel government,
the
Confederate States of America
, on February 8, 1861.
[53]
By 1860, there were nearly four million slaves residing in the United States,
nearly eight times as many from 1790; within the same time period,
cotton
production in
the U.S. boomed from less than a thousand tons to nearly one million tons per year.

This preview has intentionally blurred sections.
Sign up to view the full version.

This is the end of the preview.
Sign up
to
access the rest of the document.
- Spring '09
- wyman
- Uncle Tom's Cabin
-
Click to edit the document details