A nation divided
By the 1850s, the United States was deeply divided between North and South. The biggest issue was slavery.
| North | South | |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | factories, small farms, trade, cities | large plantations growing cotton and tobacco |
| Labour | free workers, including immigrants | about four million enslaved people by 1860 |
| View of slavery | growing opposition; slavery mostly abolished | defended slavery as essential |
Causes of the war
- Slavery and its expansion: as the U.S. expanded west, North and South fought over whether new states would allow slavery. Compromises, such as the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Compromise of 1850, failed to settle the issue.
- The Fugitive Slave Act (1850): required Northerners to help return people who escaped slavery, angering many.
- Abolitionists: people like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852) worked to end slavery.
- Violence: "Bleeding Kansas" (1854–59) and John Brown’s raid (1859).
- The Dred Scott decision (1857): the Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans were not citizens and Congress couldn’t ban slavery in territories.
- Abraham Lincoln’s election (1860): Lincoln opposed spreading slavery into new territories.
Southern leaders often spoke of "states’ rights," but the right they most wanted to protect was the right to enslave people.
Secession and war
After Lincoln’s election, eleven Southern states began secession, leaving the United States to form the Confederate States of America, known as the Confederacy, led by Jefferson Davis. The states that remained were the Union.
The war began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Key events
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1861 | Fort Sumter; First Battle of Bull Run |
| 1862 | Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American history |
| 1863 | Emancipation Proclamation (January 1); Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg (July) |
| 1863 | Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address |
| 1864 | Sherman’s March to the Sea |
| 1865 | Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox (April 9); Lincoln assassinated (April 14) |
About 180,000 Black soldiers served in the Union Army, including the famous 54th Massachusetts Regiment.
The war was the deadliest in U.S. history. Historians estimate about 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers died.
The Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people in Confederate-held areas free. It did not immediately free everyone, but it made ending slavery a goal of the war and allowed Black men to join the Union Army. The 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery throughout the United States.
Canada and the Civil War
- The Underground Railroad helped many enslaved people escape to British North America, where slavery had been abolished in 1834. Communities formed in places like St. Catharines, Chatham and Amherstburg, Ontario. Harriet Tubman lived in St. Catharines for several years.
- Thousands of British North Americans fought in the war, mostly for the Union.
- Fear of the powerful U.S. army after the war helped push the colonies toward Confederation in 1867.
Reconstruction (1865–1877)
Reconstruction was the period of rebuilding the South and deciding the rights of nearly four million freed people.
Achievements
- 13th Amendment (1865): abolished slavery
- 14th Amendment (1868): citizenship and equal protection of the laws
- 15th Amendment (1870): voting rights could not be denied because of race
- The Freedmen’s Bureau helped formerly enslaved people with food, schools and work
- Black Americans voted and were elected to office, including Congress
Setbacks
- Southern states passed Black Codes to restrict freed people.
- Violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black communities.
- Many freed people became sharecroppers, trapped in debt.
- In 1877, federal troops left the South, ending Reconstruction.
After Reconstruction
Southern states passed Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation and used poll taxes, literacy tests and violence to stop Black citizens from voting. These injustices lasted until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Try it yourself
- Make a cause-and-effect chart of the Civil War.
- Compare the North and South in 1860 using economy, population and resources.
- Explain the importance of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
- Research a person who escaped to Canada on the Underground Railroad.
Quick recap
- Slavery and its expansion were the central cause of the Civil War.
- Eleven Southern states seceded after Lincoln’s election; war began in 1861.
- The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment ended slavery.
- The Union won in 1865, at a terrible cost of life.
- Reconstruction brought new rights, but Jim Crow laws later took many away.