The American Civil War

The North and the South fault the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. What began is a bitter dispute over states' rights ended as a struggle over what it meant to be American- and free.

(top left)
Why were they fighting?
From the very crafting of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution there were different ideas about the new country's government.

• Should the federal government be stronger than the states, or should the states function independently?


• What did "all men are created equal" mean?


• Was slavery moral, legal, or necessary?


• Should new states and territories be free or permit slavery?


• Were industrial regions and their ways of life more important than agricultural ones?

Political tensions and passions intensified as America expanded west, leading to conflict and riots. All fought for their ideas of liberty.

For four years, the Civil War tested the existence of United Republic government by and for its citizens.


(top right)
Nearby, there are playing fields with young student athletes. But in the summer of 1864, there were only soldiers keeping watch in the trenches that we see the remains of today.


(top center)
The "Missouri question filled me with alarm. I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much."
Thomas Jefferson, 1820

"I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved- I do not expect the house to fall- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."
Abraham Lincoln, 1858


"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the states are sovereign. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the states, will prevent anyone from denying that each state is a sovereign…"
Jefferson Davis, 1861


(at the bottom of the marker)
Moving Toward Conflict

1789
Northwest ordinance.
Allowed westward expansion in creation of new states and made the Ohio River a boundary between free and slaveholding states.

1820
Missouri Compromise
Missouri designated a slave state in Maine a free state. Prohibited slavery north of 36° 30' latitude except in Missouri.

1850
Fugitive Slave Act.
Required citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves and denied fugitives the right to a jury trial.

1854
Kansas Nebraska act.
Allowed states to vote become free or slave.

1857
Dred Scott decision.
In spite of living in a free state, the US Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott and all other African-Americans could not be US citizens.

1857
Violent anti—vs. pro-slavery demonstrations in Kansas gained the name "Bleeding Kansas".


1859
John Brown led an armed raid against the Harper's Ferry, W. Va., arsenal to arms slaves for an uprising against slavery. [Correction Harper's Ferry Virginia, W. Virginia did not become a state until 1861 when they secede from Virginia.]

1860
Abraham Lincoln elected president. His Republican Party was anti-slavery.

1860- 1861
Eleven slave states succeed from the union.

1860- 1861
Firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, by Confederate states divorce and early surrender and in conflict. War was declared

1865
The Civil War ends.
More than 600,000 Americans are killed- greater than all other American wars before or since.