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Showing results 1 – 10 of 11
[Dividing the] National [Map]. [Cincinnati], 1860. (LC-DIG-ppmsca-33122)

Essay

The Road to War

‘A house divided against itself can not stand’ I believe this government can not 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 . . . Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and put it in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old, as well as new.

—Abraham...

Essay

Abolition and Religion

...

Abraham Lincoln, photographed by Mathew Brady, February 27, 1860. (GLC05136.01)

Essay

The Making of the President: Abraham Lincoln and the Election of 1860

Perhaps the most...

Glossary Term – Organization

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was a secret network of anti-slavery sympathizers, including free blacks and Northern abolitionists, who defied the Fugitive Slave Act to help escaped slaves on to freedom in the North and Canada. The best-known of the Underground Railroad “conductors” was Harriet Tubman, who led about 300 Maryland slaves to freedom in Canada.

Glossary Term – Organization

Dixiecrat Party

The Dixiecrat Party—or States’ Rights Democratic Party—was formed in 1948 by southern members of the Democratic Party who objected to the civil rights plank of the party platform. In the 1948 presidential election, the Dixiecrats nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, who carried four states and thirty-nine electoral votes.

Glossary Term – Place

Savannah

During the American Revolution, Savannah, Georgia, was a British stronghold in the South. The British captured Savannah in December 1778 and held it for the duration of the war despite a French and American attempt on the city in 1779. The British finally evacuated Savannah in July 1782.

Frederick Douglass to unknown, November 23, 1887 (Gilder Lehrman Collection)

Primary Source

Frederick Douglass on Jim Crow, 1887

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Abraham Lincoln, notes for the “House Divided” speech, December 1857 (Gilder

Primary Source

The “House Divided” Speech, ca. 1857–1858

By 1850, the extension of slavery into the new territories won...

Teaching Resource

Slavery in a Capitalist World

Why were the South's political leaders so worried about whether slavery would be permitted in the West when geography and climate made it unlikely that slavery would ever prosper in the area? The answer lies in the South's growing awareness of its minority status in the Union, of the elimination of slavery in many other areas of the Western Hemisphere, and of the decline of slavery in the upper South.During the first half of the nineteenth century, slave labor was becoming an exception in the world. During the early years of the...

Teaching Resource

The Confederacy Begins to Collapse

By early 1863, the Civil War had begun to cause severe hardship on the southern home front. Not only was most of the fighting taking place in the South, but also as the Union blockade grew more effective and the South's railroad system deteriorated, shortages grew increasingly common. In Richmond, food riots erupted in April 1863. A war department clerk wrote: "I have lost twenty pounds, and my wife and children are emaciated."The Confederacy also suffered rampant inflation. Fearful of undermining support for the war effort,...