Chapter 21: Causes of the Civil War

Three main areas of reform

• Effort to make education available to more children.
• Women's Rights
• Treatment of the insane

Abolitionist

• An abolitionist was someone who wanted to end slavery, especially in the United States before the Civil War — when owning slaves was common practice.

Who was Frederick Douglas

• Frederick Douglas (1818-95) was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born a slave.
• Frederick Douglass was introduced to the abolitionist movement in 1841 when William Coffin invited him to share his story in a convention organized by the Massachusetts Antislavery Society (MAS). William Garrison, impressed by his oratory, hired him as an agent of the MAS. This was a turning point in Douglass’ life and the beginning of his abolitionist activities.

Underground Railroad

• The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century enslaved people of African descent in the United States in efforts to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.

William Lloyd Garrison

• William Lloyd Garrison was born December 10, 1805 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. In 1830 he started an abolitionist paper, The Liberator. In 1832 he helped form the New England Antislavery Society. When the Civil War broke out, he continued to blast the Constitution as a pro-slavery document. When the civil war ended, he at last saw the abolition of slavery. He died May 24, 1879 in New York City.

Most Famous Underground Railroad Conductor

• Harriet Tubman, who was born a slave near Cambridge, Maryland, was one of the most famous Underground Railroad conductors. After making her own successful escape, she came back to Maryland many times to lead family members, friends, and other slaves to freedom.

"Follow the drinking gourd"

• The Drinking Gourd is the Big Dipper. The old man is Peg Leg Joe. The verse tells slaves to leave in the winter and walk towards the Drinking Gourd.
• When the sun comes back and the first quail calls, Follow the Drinking Gourd. For the old man is waiting for to carry you to freedom, If you follow the Drinking Gourd. "When the sun comes back" means winter and spring when the altitude of the sun at noon is higher each day. Quail are migratory bird wintering in the South. Eventually they will meet a guide who will escort them for the remainder of the trip. Most escapees had to cross the Ohio River which is too wide and too swift to swim. The Railroad struggled with the problem of how to get escapees across, and with experience, came to believe the best crossing time was winter. Then the river was frozen, and escapees could walk across on the ice. Since it took most escapees a year to travel from the South to the Ohio, the Railroad urged slaves to start their trip in winter in order to be at the Ohio the next winter. The river bank makes a very good road, The dead trees show you the way, Left foot, peg foot, traveling on Follow the Drinking Gourd. This verse taught slaves to follow the bank of the Tombigbee River north looking for dead trees that were marked with drawings of a left foot and a peg foot. The markings distinguished the Tombigbee from other north-south rivers that flow into it. The river ends between two hills, Follow the Drinking Gourd. There's another river on the other side, Follow the Drinking Gourd. These words told the slaves that when they reached the headwaters of the Tombigbee, they were to continue north over the hills until they met another river. Then they were to travel north along the new river which is the Tennessee River. A number of the southern escape routes converged on the Tennessee. Where the great big river meets the little river, Follow the Drinking Gourd. For the old man is awaiting to carry you to freedom if you follow the Drinking Gourd. This verse told the slaves the Tennessee joined another river. They were to cross that river (which is the Ohio River), and on the north bank, meet a guide from the Underground Railroad.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

• Harriet Beecher Stowe's best known novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, the system that treated people as property.
• The strength of Uncle Tom's Cabin is its ability to illustrate slavery's effect on families, and to help readers empathize with enslaved characters. Stowe's characters freely debated the causes of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law, the future of freed people, what an individual could do, and racism. Writing in the 1950s, poet Langston Hughes called the book a "moral battle cry for freedom."

Social,Economic,& Political events leading to the Civil War

• Slavery – not on the minds of Northern soldiers when war started, but clearly an issue that pervaded all of the social, political and economic causes.
• Economic – two competing industries – industrial north vs. agrarian south – free labor vs. slave labor.
• Political a. Representation in Senate/Congress i. Every new state could ruin balance – both sides feared other side would try to mandate their society on the other federally.
• Social – North sees south as aristocratic medieval country, South sees North as corrupt immigrant urban a. Abolitionisism – slavery moral wrong – Second Great Awakening b. Anti-aristocratic ethos – common man better than gentry south

North's Economy

• North's Economy was based on Factories & manufacturing operations.

South's Economy

• South's Economy was based on Profits from cotton, did not depend upon industrials.