Civil War Dbq

The Civil war began April 2nd 1861 and ended on May 13, 1865. The war began when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13th, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that called for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to combat the southern rebellion. Despite all this, conflict between the North and the South can be seen as early as in 1858 when the ongoing issue of slavery led southern leadership to begin contemplating separation from the union. Overall,

On the other hand, we have Gary W. Gallagher who uses the letters of white northerners during the Civil War to try and prove the idea that white northerners did not have any concern for the institution of slavery. They have been debating whether the American Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery. Many believe that the Civil War was fought over slavery because of abolitionists, politics, and the issue of the expansion of slavery. Firstly people believe the Civil war was fought over slavery because of abolitionists such as John Brown who stirred up both the north and south and catalyzed conflict. Secondly because of political reasons such as the election of Abraham Lincoln, which greatly angered the south. And lastly, because of the issue of the expansion of slavery into the the territories that were being gained such as in the Missouri Compromise which threw off the balance of power between the north and south and helped lead to the

The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. Admission of Missouri as a slave state would upset that balance; it would also set a precedent for congressional acquiescence in the expansion of slavery. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Three years later the Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the