american civil war

• Legacy of the past

  • The Missouri Compromise
  • The Nullification Crisis
  • Southern fears of modernisation
  • The moving frontier
• The American Republic

  • The federal government and its relationships with the states
  • The role of the president
  • The US constitution and the Supreme Court
• Outbreak of Civil War, 1854–1861

  1. ‘Bleeding Kansas’

  2. The de-stabilisation of the balance between North and South

  3. The emergence of the Republican Party

  4. Hardening of positions

  5. The drive for secession of the South
• Attempts at political compromise

  1. The Wilmot Proviso

  2. The role of personalities such as Zachary Taylor, Stephen Douglas and Henry Clay

  3. The Compromise of 1850

  4. Texas and California

  5. The Fugitive Slave Law
• Growth of abolitionist sentiment in the North

  • Political leaders such as William Seward
  • Activists such as John Brown
  • Popular literature and the press
  • Cultural and economic influence of European immigrants arriving in the northern states
• Attempts to maintain the Union, c1845–1854

  1. Westward expansion and its impact on North and South

  2. Attempts at political compromise

  3. The growth of abolitionist sentiment in the North

  4. Reactions against abolitionism in the South

  5. The outbreak of Civil War, 1854–1861

  6. ‘Bleeding Kansas’

  7. The emergence of the Republican Party

  8. Hardening of positions

  9. The drive for secession of the South
• Emergence of the Republican Party

  1. The political impact of the controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act

  2. The spread of Republican parties across northern states

  3. The elections of 1856

  4. Key personalities including Lincoln, Seward and Chase
• Northern states characteristics

  • Social
  • Economic
  • Political
• Southern states characteristics

  • Social
  • Economic
  • Political
• Westward expansion impact on North and South

  • The ideas of Manifest Destiny
  • Controversy over the new territories acquired by victory over Mexico
• Reactions against abolitionism in the South

  • Political leaders such as Jefferson Davis
  • Popular literature and the press
• Hardening of positions

  1. The Dred Scott decision

  2. The Lincoln-Douglas debates

  3. Harper’s Ferry

  4. Local conflicts

  5. The split in the Democratic Party
• Faster travel to the West

  • By railroad
• The American frontier

  Westward movement of European settlers from their original settlements on the Atlantic coast (17th century) to the Far West (19th century)
• Chinese railroad workers


  • Further added to the diversity of the region's population
• African-American settlers

  • Came West from the Deep South, convinced by promoters of all-black Western towns that prosperity could be found there
• The American frontier began with the thirteen original colonies
• The opportunity to work in the cattle industry

  • To be a “cowboy”
• White settlers


  • Poured across the Mississippi to mine, farm, and ranch
• Availability of supplies

  • Due to the railroad
• Gold rush and mining opportunities

  • Silver in Nevada
• The opportunity to own land cheaply

  • Under the Homestead Act