The Mexican-American Civil War

The Mexican-American war ending in 1848, started a conflict that would last over a decade. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concluded the war, granting the United States Texas, California, New Mexico and Utah territories. With these new additions to the union, the debate over slavery arose for the first time since the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Should slavery spread westward? A question many Americans asked throughout the 1850’s, a question that would divide the country in half. During the early 1850’s there were many attempts to resolve the dispute over slavery in these new territories. There first attempt was with the Compromise of 1850, within it was the Fugitive Slave Act and the birth of popular sovereignty. In the map detailing the

The Fugitive Slave Act, friction within friction, authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their escape or obstructed their search, with fines up to $1000 and six months in jail. Due to these stricter laws, Harriet Beecher Stowe became enraged at the fact that she was being forced to heed to a law and practice she deemed immoral and unjust. Stowe reciprocated with her novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Her novel elicited feelings for human empathy, it showed northerners how slaves were really treated. Also, it solidified for Northerners, who may have been on the fence about slavery, that they were strictly against this inhumane treatment of fellow humans. Stowe’s radical novel spread like wildfire throughout the country. In the advertisement for Uncle Tom’s Cabin in writes “The Greatest Book of the Age” “270,000 Volumes sold” these descriptions would later turn into “The Book That Made This Great War”. However, this impassioned novel was not the only straw that broke the great union. Two years later, in 1854, an act would be

As Americans heard the news about the Kansas-Nebraska Act they rushed into these territories so they could change the political standing for or against slavery. As you can imagine, when these adverse beliefs clashed in an area emotions run high and chaos ensues. With a topic that was so emotional for some, a topic that was a lifestyle for others, violence inevitably broke out and became what is known to be “Bleeding Kansas”. Concurrently in Illinois Abraham Lincoln and the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas debated for two United State Senate seats. They agreed to debate in seven Illinois Congressional Districts. . These debates established a firm ground for the rest of his political career. Abraham held his own against a very important politician, this exposure would be the reason Abraham Lincoln wins the presidential election of 1860. In the political cartoon titled “Douglas Hatches a Slavery Problem” the author illustrates key points in the rising tension of slavery. Such as, “popular sovereignty”, “free kansas”, “equal justice” and “Dred Scott”. During a debate in August that took place in Springfield, Illinois Lincoln expressed his fears about the ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford. In this particular case a slave, Dred Scott sued his master for freedom on the ground that he had once lived in a free state. In other cases the Missouri courts had honored “once free, always free”, Scott thought it would be in his best