Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamtion

Antietam

Antietam was the bloodiest day of the Civil War with 22,000 casualties combined. This battle was very important because even though the battle was a draw, other countries in Europe did not join the war because the South did not prove to them that they could win the war. The Union should of won easily because they had a 2 to 1 advantage with troops. Then prior knowledge that General George B. McClellan was that Lee's forces were in front of the Potomac River so they could not retreat. But even though it was a military draw, this gave the the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln the "victory" he needed to state the Emancipation Proclamation.

This war was really the first war that took
pictures of what war really looked like.





Emancipation Proclamation

   

The Emancipation Proclamation said that slaves in the rebellious states were free. But slaves living in the border states were no freed. But the proclamation also allowed African Americans to join the army for the North which they so desperately needed to fight against the south. But this gave the war a new reason to fight for a new "moral force" for the Union to keep fighting.   

Add caption

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1549.html 

 http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/antietam.html

Succession in GA and Alexander Stephens

Georgia was the 5th state to succeed from the Union on January 19, 1861. But before Georgia succeeded people had to vote. People who wanted to leave the Union were called secessionists and the people who wanted to stay with the union were creationists. Alexander Stephens had said earlier in his life that slavery was  " that abominable human tragedy" but when it was obvious that Georgia was succeeding he signed the Ordinance of Succession, which basically the constitution for the Confederates. Eventually the former Unionists won the vice presidency for the south and became Vice President of the Confederacy. After the South lost the war Stephens was taken to prison for five months at Boston's Fort Warren. after her was released he was elected into the U.S Senate under the new President Andrew Jackson's "forgiving reconstruction theme" although much to many northerners disapproval.

Above Alexander Stephens

Stephens name is on
one of those heads.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2492
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/alexanderstephens.htm

Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, Elcetion of 1860

The Kansas- Nebraska Act was an act the allowed the people of that territory to vote on whether to have slavery or not. The person who suggested this was Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois. Who just so happened helped Henry Clay but the Compromise of 1850 into law only four years earlier was now on the brink of causing more tension with the North ans South. But since the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was still in effect it had to be repeal the compromise that had helped tension between the North and the South for 34 years. It also happens that Henry Clay worked on the Compromise of 1820 too. So after it was repealed, people had to vote on slavery or no slavery. The North was not happy at all!!

The Dred Scott Case

 

 

The Dred Scott case was about a man named Dred Scott who was a slave who had lived in the state of Illinois which was a free state and in the free territory of Wisconsin was now going to the Slave state of Missouri and he went to the Supreme Court in hopes that he would become a free man. But the supreme court ruled that no blacks could ever become citizens of the United States of America and they also labeled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional in the process. But Dred Scott got his freedom when his lawyers raised enough money to but his freedom.

 



 

The Election of 1860

 

 

The Republicans knew that they had a chance  to win the election with so much madness going on in the country over slavery and what not. The Republicans choose Abraham Lincoln who they believed could win the key states in the country. There were four candidates in the election of 1860 which split the electoral and popular vote. Although Lincoln only received 40% of the popular vote the other 60% were divided among the other three candidates. He also got 180 delegates and was now president of The United States of America.

 

 

 

How would the country react? South Carolina broke away from the Union few weeks after Abraham Lincoln became president.

 

Fast fact: This week marked Abraham Lincoln's 204th birthday and on the 22nd of February will mark the 281st birthday of our first U.S president George Washington.

 

 

 

 

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h92.html

http://www.ushistory.org/us/32d.asp

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933.html



http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/kansas.html
http://www.ushistory.org/us/31a.asp

Compromise of 1850 and Ga Platform

Since the gold rush of 1849, California's population had grown rapidly. So now California  (a territory at the time) petitioned to congress for them to be put as a free state. But since the Missouri Compromise had happened  thirty years before, there needed to be another slave state to join the Union to keep both the free and slave states happy. Now comes a man named Henry Clay who so happened also created the Missouri Compromise thirty years before now stepped in to propose a compromise. The Compromise of 1850. For months Clay stated his opinion while his compromise was opposed by John C. Calhoun a Senator from South Carolina. But with the help of Stephen Douglas, they helped finally put the Compromise into effect. With this the North was happy because, California became the 16th free state, Texas lost its boundaries and was significantly smaller, and the biggest market for the slaves trade Washington D.C was shut down. Now on the other hand the South liked the compromise because Texas got 10 million dollars to pay its debts with Mexico and probably the most controversial part of the compromise was the Fugitive Slave Act which was that Northerners had to return runaway slaves to their masters or they would face consequences.



Above was the effects of the Compromise of 1850

The Georgia Platform
 

The Georgia Platform was by no means an endorsement of the Compromise of 1850 and was resolution regarding the Compromise of 1850. Charles Jones Jenkins wrote a draft that was a "conditional acceptance" to the Compromise of 1850. It said that if they North was willing to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and the North allow the expansion if slavery in territories and states that Georgia would stay with the Union. The Georgia Platform was credited for "saving the Union" but as we all know it only delayed the inevitable.

Charles Jones Jenkins

 

  

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3448

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-798
http://www.ushistory.org/us/30d.asp
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html

Nullification Crisis, State's Rights and Missouri Compromise

During the Civil War era, there was a big debate on state's rights about how much power anyone state could hold. What many people don't know is that slavery was outlawed in the original constitution, but because many southern states like Georgia and Virginia needed slaves for the plantation owners to make a profit so the founders of this  nation ratified it so everyone in the country would like it and keep the country united. Also in 1828 the U.S. government enforced a tariff on imported goods. This made Southerners pay a increased cost of goods from other countries. John C. Calhoun said that the states had a right to not follow the law. Eventually a law was passed to lower the tariffs, bu there still were high tensions between the north and the south.

                                                                             Pictured Below is John C Calhoun

 

Also, in the year 1820 there was a compromise called the Missouri Compromise, which basically meant that from now on for every free state to enter the union and slave state must also enter the union. This is also called the Mason Dixon Line or  36º30' Parallel for anything above it was free soil and anything below it was a slave state. But back to the Missouri, since they needed one more state to join America. This is where Maine comes in. So Maine would become an free state and Missouri would become a slave state. But this only provided temporary relief for the tension between north and south.

 

http://www.madashecc.comhttp://www.biography.com/people/groups/historic-hair-band-members/photos/should-have-been-in-an-80s-hair-band/discuss/post-an-article/happy-constitution-day/
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/statesrights.html http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/385744/Missouri-Compromise
 http://www.maps.com/ref_map.aspx?pid=11758

Run Away Slaves and Harriet Tubman

Around the 1800's, The United States put a pan that prohibited the importation  of slaves. Which was really not enforced due to the demand on slaves on plantations in the south. But around this time the northern United States didn't really need slaves because the soil in the north was not very good. So really there no need of slaves and quit a few  African Americans were free in the north. In fact most northern states outlawed slavery. So when an escaped slave left you knew where he/she were headed. But in the 1850's a women named Harriet Tubman ( an escaped slaver herself) began to help slaves escape and head north. This was called the underground railroad. In its peak around the 1850's she helped transport run away slaves to the north. The masters of the run away slaves would post sighs

 that offered rewards like this one below...

They would offer from ranges of just 50 dollars cash to 500 dollars depending on the amount of slaves. Now Harriet Tubman never lost one person in the underground railroad. Even when congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which made Unionists in the north aid southerners in the south to help catch their run away slave. Even with the act Tubman contained to help run away slaves, but this time farther up north in Canada where slavery was illegal. Her code name was " Moses" which fit well because in the Bible Moses led the Jews to the promised land as did Harriet Tubman who led slaves to their own promised land whether it was in the northern states or in Canada.



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/IH023838/wanted-poster-for-runaway-slave This is the link of the photo

Slave Codes of the South

Slave codes of the south added even more brutality to the slaves. It set even stricter codes for slaves to obey. These slave laws made so that no slave were allowed to read and write and also slaves were not allowed to be a witness against a white man is court. To the typical slave owning plantation owner  an uneducated slave meant he/she were easier to control than an educated slave. Here below is a picture of a slave who disobeyed the laws and was punished greatly for it.




http://www.ushistory.org/us/27b.asp
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASwhipping.htm