WAR OF SECESSION 



6144 



WAR OF SECESSION 



the above discussion and will also furnish added 



information : 



Brock, Sir Isaac 



Champlain (lake) 



Constitution, The 



Continental System 



Contraband ' 



Embargo, subhead 



Embargo Art 

 Erie, Lake, subhead 



Hat tic of Lai' 



Ghent, subhead Treaty 



of Ghent 



Harrison. William H.. 

 subhead Governor of 

 Indiana Tcrritorii 

 Hartford Convention 

 Hull, William 



n. Amhvw. suh- 

 i As 



Lawrence, Jann-s Raisin River. Massacre 



Lundy's Lane, Battle of of 



Madison. James, sub- Search, Right of 



head The War of 1812. Star-Spangled Banner 

 Milan Decree Tecumseh 



Non-Intercourse Act Thames River, Battle of 

 Pakenham, Sir Edward the 



M. Tippecanoe, Battle of 



Terry, Oliver H. Tnited States, subhead 



Queenston Heights, Bat- The War of 1812 



tie of 



D STORY OF THE WAR OF SECESSION D 



The Largest Gun Mounted in the War 



TAR OF SECESSION, a conflict be- 

 tween a divided people in the American repub- 

 lic, growing out of the institution of slavery. 

 Its causes can be traced back through much of 

 the preceding history of the United States, but 

 the clash of arms was averted until 1861. 

 Through four years the struggle continued; in 

 1865 it was terminated by the defeat of the side 

 which had risen in defense of slavery. 



The sections involved had been popularly 

 and appropriately referred to since colonial days 

 as the North and the South. They had been 

 equally zealous in the cause of American inde- 

 pendence; history records greater Revolution- 

 ary activity on the part of the North, but this 

 was due solely to geographical conditions and 

 to the strategy of war. Several decisive battles 

 were fought in the South, and in a Southern 

 state the final surrender of the British occurred. 

 The underlying causes which forced the sections 

 apart were differing economic conditions. 



Slavery had existed in America since 1619, 

 in which year a Dutch trader sold a boatload of 

 black people as slaves to Virginia planters. The 

 traffic continued for a hundred and fifty years 

 without attracting political notice, and during 

 that time it spread in the North as well as in 

 the South. In 1790 two years after the adop- 

 tion of the Constitution of the United States- 

 there were over 40,000 in slavery north of the 

 Mason and Dixon's Line; Massachusetts alone 

 had no slaves. Economic conditions in the 

 North did not favor the retention of slaves, but 

 in the cotton-growing South slave labor was an 



important factor in the industry. Thus while 

 the North was emerging from slave holding tin 

 number of slaves in the South increased from 

 700,000 to over 2,000,000 between 1790 and 1830, 

 and to more than 4,000,000 by the year 1860 

 about one-eighth of the entire population. 



The slavery question could not be kept out 

 of the Constitutional Convention of 1788; the 

 factions compromised their differences by a 

 clause in the document which prohibited the 

 importation of slaves forever after twenty years 

 (1808). This led to an increased value being 

 set upon each slave from an average price of 

 $500 in 1830 to $1,200 to $1,500 in 1860. 



Direct Causes of the War. The South cannot 

 be held responsible for the institution of slav- 

 ery, for from the beginning its legality was rec- 

 ognized by each of the thirteen colonies. Slav- 

 ery was profitable in the South, and it was 

 unprofitable in the North. In 1820 the power 

 of the slave states and of the free states was 

 about equal in Congress, and a struggle beg.-m 

 to maintain that equality, at least ; each faction 

 was alert to prevent the other from securing 

 strong political advantage. Neither the North 

 nor the South can be censured for this attitudr. 

 The South was blamed by the North for at- 

 tempting to push slavery into a part of the 

 vast, unoccupied national domain, but tin 

 South had a like grievance against the North, 

 which sought to extend antislavery views into 

 the same sections. 



The endeavor to maintain a balance of power 

 is shown in the admission of states. In 1803 



