PW - Prelude to War Module Overview

Prelude to War

Introduction

Mural named Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, which is also commonly known as Westward Ho, depicting Manifest Destiny.The United States continued to grow in size and population. The promotion of Manifest Destiny led to a victorious war over Mexico and other measures that added territory to the United States, thus stretching the nation from "sea to shining sea." Could anything slow down this speeding American train? The issue that divided the nation more than any other was slavery.

Reformers were increasingly calling for restrictions on slavery's expansion, and some began to call for its abolishment. Most Southerners were strongly opposed to any restrictions on slavery and staked their claims on states' rights and beliefs of racial superiority. Flashpoints in the debate occurred over several decades and reached a raging fire of controversy in the 1850s. A series of controversies eventually led to many of the Southern states leaving the Union and forming the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln took office in 1861 facing a divided nation and the challenge of bringing Americans together once again.

Essential Questions

  • What was Manifest Destiny and how did it affect the growth of the nation?
  • Which attempts were made to diffuse the conflict over slavery and its expansion?
  • Why did many of the Southern states view it as necessary to secede from the Union?

 

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Textbook Assignment

 Read the chapter in your textbook that relates to this module. Your instructor will provide you with a specific reading schedule. 

 

Key Terms

Look over your key terms for this module. Then review them with the activity below.

  • Manifest Destiny - the concept that it was God’s will for the United States to expand across the continent “from sea to shining sea.”
  • Commodore Matthew Perry - an American naval commander who was instrumental in opening Japan to the West in the 1850s.
  • Mexican-American War - 1846-1848, this war resulted in an American victory and a gain of a huge amount of territory in what is now the American southwest.
  • William Lloyd Garrison - a writer and educator who was a prominent white abolitionist who published a newspaper and founded a national abolitionist society.
  • Frederick Douglass - an escaped slave who gave eloquent speeches in favor of equality and also published an anti-slavery newspaper.
  • Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina, two southern women who traveled and lectured against slavery.
  • Missouri Compromise - preserved the Senate balance between slave and free states by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state.
  • Nat Turner’s Rebellion - an African American preacher and slave who led a bloody slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831. The rebellion failed and Turner was executed.
  • Nullification Crisis - South Carolina cancelled a tariff law that they felt was unjust (nullification) and refused to pay it. President Jackson responded strongly to this and South Carolina eventually would compromise.
  • John C. Calhoun - South Carolinian who ended up resigning as Jackson’s VP, in part because he supported nullification and states’ rights.
  • States’ Rights - the idea that states have certain rights and political powers separate from those held by the federal government that the federal government may not violate.
  • Wilmot Proviso - unsuccessful bill that would have banned slavery in all the land gained from Mexico.
  • Compromise of 1850 - preserved the Union for a time, it settled a border dispute between Texas and New Mexico, allowed popular sovereignty is some western territories, allowed California to enter as a free state, required that runaway slaves be returned to their owners, and abolished the slave trade in Washington, D.C.
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act - this 1854 law repealed the Missouri Compromise by allowing these territories to vote if they wanted to allow slavery or not.
  • Popular Sovereignty - rule by the people, used in this time to specifically refer to the people of a territory voting whether or not they want to allow slavery.
  • Free Soil - was the belief that slavery should not be expanded into the territories and that free men and free labor was superior to slavery. This belief manifested itself in a short-lived political party of the same name.
  • Dred Scott Decision - Supreme Court ruling that African Americans were not citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.
  • Republican Party - a political party that formed in 1854 based on the principle of free soil and other reforms. The Republican Party quickly became the rival party to the already established Democratic Party.
  • John Brown - radical abolitionist who was executed after a failed attempt to raid a federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, to arm slaves for a rebellion.
  • Abraham Lincoln - was elected the first Republican president in 1860. Several southern states seceded to form the Confederacy after his election.

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