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23:46
How did the American Civil War Actually Happen? (Part 1) - From 1819 to 1861
Knowledgia
·
May 10, 2026
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Transcript
0:02
1819. The newly-born United States of America
sat in a state of delicate balance. 11:11.
0:13
11 free states, 11 slave states. From the
outside looking in, it appeared to be perfect
0:23
harmony. Equal states, equal representation,
equal influence in federal affairs. But this
0:32
was only from the outside looking in. In reality,
there was no focus on balance for the Americans.
0:41
Instead, all that mattered now, was expansion…
0:47
Manifest Destiny - that was the reason why
the United States government was hellbent
0:53
on snagging more and more territory. Although
the phrase wouldn’t be coined until the
0:58
mid-1800s, the belief held by many Americans
that it was the nation’s destiny to expand
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1:04
westward as far as can be, drove the U.S.
to do just that.
1:10
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South
1:18
Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York,
North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Kentucky,
1:27
Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi,
Illinois, and Alabama. That was the whole
1:35
of the United States thus far as of 1819,
but only a year later, this would change.
1:43
In 1818, the Missouri Territory, previously
obtained as part of the Louisiana Purchase,
1:50
began its push for statehood. The following
year, the district of Maine would be allowed
1:56
to break off from Massachusetts and do the
same. It didn’t take long for this to cause
2:01
a conundrum for the contemporary U.S., however,
because the addition of two more states had
2:06
the potential to upset the numerical balance
between slave states and free states. On the
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2:13
one hand, Northerners and pro-abolitionists
in Congress argued that the addition of Missouri
2:19
- which seemed to quickly lean toward wanting
to become a slave state - would expand slavery
2:26
and thus bring them further away from their
goals.
2:30
The Southerners, though, were obviously in
favor of adding another slave state and thus
2:36
argued that any new candidate for statehood
should have the right to decide for themselves,
2:41
just as the first 13 colonies, which side
of the fence they want to fall on. The debate
2:48
in both the House of Representatives and the
Senate would continue into 1819, at which
2:54
point Maine was now brought into the mix as
Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House at the
3:00
time, suggested that Missouri should be added
to the union as a slave state, but that Maine
3:07
should also be added, contrarily as a free
state.
3:12
This proposal was subsequently debated into
yet another year, when in 1820, the Senate
3:18
added to the bill, requiring that any other
territories north of the 36º 30’ latitude
3:24
line that had been agreed upon below Missouri’s
lower border could only enter the union as
3:32
free states. With everyone finally in some
level of agreement, the Missouri Compromise
3:38
was signed into law.
3:40
This triggered a tit-for-tat war of adding
one new slave state for every new free state
3:47
and vice versa, starting with Arkansas in
1836, Michigan the next year, and Florida
3:54
in 1845. And since Florida was a slave state,
it was assumed that the next territory to
4:01
enter the union and statehood would be another
free state - but things became complicated
4:08
when Texas had a demanding request for the
United States: annex us, now.
4:15
The history of Texas had been a rollercoaster
thus far, and yet it was only now preparing
4:21
for its biggest climb yet. Texas, up until
recently a part of Mexico after being freed
4:27
from the grip of the Spaniards, wanted to
join a different nation - the U.S.A. The Texans’
4:34
pleas were initially ignored by the U.S. government,
which wasn’t in much favor of annexing the
4:39
nearby territory.
4:41
With growing pressure from Britain for Texas
to be an independent nation and America’s
4:46
undeniable thirst for expansion, opinions
would soon change nevertheless and Texas would,
4:53
in fact, join the union on December 29, 1845.
Here was the issue though: Texas wanted to
5:02
be a slave state, which would offset the balance
the Northerners had tried so hard to keep.
5:10
Furthermore, Texas had made claims to territories
that put it in direct conflict with its former
5:16
host of Mexico.
5:18
And with Texas newly a part of the United
States, those presumptuous claims were now
5:23
the responsibility of the U.S. - something
that Mexico didn’t take lightly.
5:31
Recently elected President James K. Polk,
however, didn’t care one bit what the Mexicans
5:37
thought. Instead, he was an aggressive supporter
of Manifest Destiny and quickly upon his inauguration
5:44
hoped to seize the contested territories.
Thus, Polk at first attempted to purchase
5:50
his desired lands.
5:52
He sent American diplomat John Slidell to
offer the administration in Mexico City $30
5:58
million in exchange for California, New Mexico,
and disputed territories along the Texas border.
6:07
The Mexicans, aghast and unshakeably against
such an idea, declined to even meet with Slidell,
6:13
which angered Polk. The Manifest Destiny supporter
would not be swayed by this rejection and
6:20
instead decided that, if diplomacy wouldn’t
work, he would reel his neighbors into a war
6:26
he knew the United States would win. As a
result, in the early weeks of 1846, the president
6:33
sent American troops to the Texas border to
egg the Mexicans on - and it worked. It only
6:40
took a few months for Mexican soldiers to
fire on the Americans and give Polk the excuse
6:46
to declare war…
6:48
With the Mexican-American War underway, debates
continued within the United States pertaining
6:54
to the slave state vs. free state debacle.
With the free states now outnumbered, the
7:00
Northerners felt that Polk, being a Southerner
himself, was actually committing his land
7:06
grab in order to further bolster the slave
state advantage, which boosted North-to-South
7:11
tensions. Still, the war raged on with now-famed
generals like Ulysses S. Grant and Robert
7:19
E. Lee showing their prowess and adding to
their resumes while the Americans inched closer
7:26
to Mexico's capital. The city was eventually
taken and warfare halted, leading to the long-awaited
7:33
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo - which now forced
Mexico to cede not only the contested territories
7:40
in California and New Mexico but also lands
of modern-day Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma,
7:48
Colorado, and Wyoming. Polk had gotten his
way and more, but it wasn’t all sunshine
7:56
and rainbows. New land meant more to fight
over back home.//
8:02
Over the next few years, Iowa, Wisconsin,
and California would all give their bids for
8:08
statehood, eventually bringing about the Compromise
of 1850. This series of bills would address
8:15
a multitude of things, though mostly focused
on the institution of slavery within the union.
8:22
In short, it determined that California would
join the Union as a free state but was required
8:28
to send one pro-slavery senator to the Senate
in order to maintain the readjusted balance.
8:35
From now on, however, slave or free states
from the remaining territories gained from
8:41
Mexico would be decided as such by popular
sovereignty.
8:46
This went alright at first, as would the admission
to statehood of Minnesota in 1858 and Oregon
8:54
in 1859, but predictably, there was simultaneously
another reason for tensions to rise.
9:03
As part of the new establishment of popular
sovereignty, Senator Stephen Douglas suggested
9:09
applying the strategy to a proposed newly
organized Nebraska territory that would at
9:15
once repeal the Missouri Compromise slave-state
border and split the Nebraska territory in
9:22
two. Now, despite a struggle to actually pass
the new bill that would become known as the
9:27
Kansas-Nebraska Act, the populations of both
territories were left to vote on whether they
9:33
wished to permit slavery or not. The consequence
of this, and maybe unpredictably so, was that
9:40
settlers began flooding to both Nebraska and
Kansas - settlers from both sides of the slavery
9:48
debate. This slippery slope ushered in a tragic
era known as Bleeding Kansas, which would
9:55
eventually see Kansas enter the union in 1861,
surprisingly, as a free state. This would
10:03
be the final state admitted to the union before
the start of the Civil War…
10:10
Why did things get to this point? How could
such a young nation have fallen into battle
10:15
with itself so fast? Why were the North and
South so opposed to each other?
10:22
The issue of slavery and thus the North vs.
South contention can be blamed on vastly different
10:28
cultural aspects of the two halves of America.
For the North, slavery was not really needed
10:35
as the upper states had quickly become industrialized
and thus didn’t have to rely on as much
10:42
manpower.
10:43
This gave Northern citizens the opportunity
to unbiasedly consider the moral standing
10:48
of the entire institution of slavery, prompting
many to call it into question. Supported by
10:55
the ideas of European immigrants who had come
from nations that had already outlawed slavery,
11:01
these Northerners began to turn toward abolitionism.
This was in total opposition to their fellow
11:07
Americans down south, of course, but this
was because the South had failed to industrialize
11:13
as the North had.
11:15
Instead, Southerners were more economically
dependent on free labor for plantations and
11:21
the like, which meant that their personal
finances and way of life could be entirely
11:26
affected by the banning of slavery - thus
making it hard for a Southerner to even give
11:32
the moral aspect a second thought - though
some did and still supported the institution.
11:38
And with the invention of the cotton gin,
the matter only became more solidified - the
11:44
South needed slavery. The problem then arose
as the North wondered if Southerners wanted
11:51
to extend slavery even further, whereas the
latter worried that the former was going to
11:57
take the slaves they already had. Both, ironically,
would be right. The North and South were miles
12:05
away from reconciling this difference.
12:08
Debatably, there was also the issue of federal
vs. state rights, although this factor is
12:14
hard to blame entirely. Not only did the later-formed
Confederacy have a shockingly large bureaucratic
12:21
system for a collection of states who were
opposed to overbearing federal governments,
12:26
but there had also been previous opportunities,
such as during the Nullification Crisis a
12:32
few decades prior, for the South to go to
war with the North or at least raise more
12:37
of a ruckus if state rights were the core
issue. Still, it is true that many people
12:43
at the time, particularly in the south, had
more loyalty to their state than country as
12:49
a whole, and state vs. federal disconnect
likely played somewhat of a role in tensions,
12:56
even if second fiddle to the slavery argument.
12:59
The fanning of the flames, however, came from
a string of amplifying events. The Fugitive
13:05
Slave Act, for example, had been part of the
Compromise of 1850 and galvanized abolitionists
13:13
as it had made the federal government responsible
for finding, returning, and penalizing escaped
13:20
slaves and anyone who aided them - even if
they made it to a free state.
13:26
With the Northerners deeply troubled by this
development, politically active citizens of
13:31
the upper United States would soon form their
own opposition party to the pro-slavery Democrats
13:37
- the Republican Party.
13:39
This new entity would also become host to
the controversial Abraham Lincoln shortly
13:46
after its birth.
13:48
Lincoln had previously served on the U.S.
House of Representatives in 1846 before joining
13:54
the Republicans and running for Senate a decade
later. Although he lost the Senate race to
13:59
Stephen Douglas, the series of speeches and
debates that proceeded the election had both
14:04
catapulted him to popularity in the North
while earning him a fair share of enemies
14:09
in the South. His mere existence as a political
entity, thus, stirred the pot and increased
14:15
tensions. But then, so did Bleeding Kansas.
14:20
Guerilla warfare is one way that this period,
from 1855 through 1859, has been described.
14:28
While Nebraska was somewhat hit by the flood
of both pro and anti-slavery settlers hoping
14:34
to sway the coming vote, it was Kansas that
was truly beaten. Pro-slavery residents of
14:40
neighboring states used legal loopholes to
cross the border and vote in Kansas’s territorial
14:47
elections, setting off a domino effect that
would lead to a split government and all-out
14:53
violence.
14:54
Historians estimate that anywhere from 50
to 200 Americans died as a consequence in
15:00
the 4 years span, something akin to pouring
a couple of gallons of gasoline on the growing
15:05
fire burning toward Civil War.
15:09
Charles Sumner’s congressional speech about
Kansas would further heighten the situation.
15:14
A Republican Northerner, Sumner had actually
memorized every last word in his impassioned
15:20
speech titled “The Crime Against Kansas”
in which he lambasted the entire institution
15:26
of slavery and even took direct jabs at pro-slavery
senators.
15:31
This instance serves as a clear example of
the current level of tensions in the union
15:36
and Congress, as South Carolina Representatives
Preston Brooks and Laurence Keitt reacted
15:42
to the damning speech by physically assaulting
Charles Sumner with a cane, beating him so
15:47
severely that he would need 3 full years of
leave to recover. And this was only a year
15:54
before one of the most controversial and anger-fueling
incidents of the entire lead-up to the civil
16:00
war.
16:02
It was the Dred Scott Case that soon put the
move toward all-out military conflict between
16:08
the North and South into hyperdrive. The case
revolved around a slave-since-birth by the
16:14
name of Dred Scott. After the death of his
original owner in 1832, Scott had been purchased
16:21
by a man named John Emerson, and upon his
death, Scott and his family would then be
16:26
transfered into the ownership of Emerson’s
wife, Irene. Previously, Scott and his family
16:32
had been brought along for travels across
multiple free states and territories, although
16:38
at no point had they attempted to run or sue
for their freedom. Instead, once Irene took
16:44
ownership, Scott attempted to buy their freedom
off of her. Irene was obstinate and insisted
16:51
on keeping her slaves around, which led Dred
and his wife Harriet to, finally, go the route
16:58
of a lawsuit.
16:59
They each filed on the basis of two Missouri
statutes, as they were currently living with
17:04
Irene in St. Louis. One stated that any slave
taken to a free state would thus be free and
17:11
could not be returned to enslavement even
if they left the free state, while the other
17:17
allowed for anyone to file a suit for wrongful
enslavement.
17:21
The Scott couple was given logistical support
from abolitionists, fellow churchgoers, and
17:27
ironically, the family of their previous owner.
17:31
This allowed them to actually take their case
to court, which was first shot down in 1847
17:36
on a technicality but was given the option
of a retrial. The next trial would come in
17:42
January of 1850 and this time, the Scotts
actually won their freedom. Irene, however,
17:50
quickly appealed the decision to the Missouri
Supreme Court. Two years later, the court
17:56
sided once more with Irene, thus re-enslaving
the Scott family.
18:02
Unwilling to give up now, Scott filed a federal
lawsuit with the United States Circuit Court
18:08
for the District of Missouri the following
year.
18:11
Before the case could be decided upon again,
Irene would transfer the Scotts over to her
18:17
brother, John Sandford, hence the name of
the new case: Dred Scott vs. Sandford. In
18:23
the spring of 1854, the federal court ruled
in favor of Sandford, thus prompting Scott
18:30
to appeal yet again, now to the United States
Supreme Court.
18:34
This final trial would start on February 11,
1856, with a growing list of abolitionist
18:40
and even politician supporters in favor of
the Scotts. Nevertheless, less than a month
18:47
later, a decision was made, and once more,
Dred Scott had lost.
18:54
And not only this, but the judge most notably
credited for the final ruling, a Southerner
18:59
named Roger Taney, asserted that no African
American even had the right to sue for anything
19:04
in the federal court, because they lacked
the ability to be United States citizens.
19:11
While the Scotts would already have their
freedom by now thanks to Irene's new abolitionist
19:17
husband and the help of their old owner’s
family, the case itself was the final straw
19:23
for many abolitionists…
19:25
John Brown has gone down in history as one
of America’s most infamous abolitionists,
19:32
and on October 16, 1859, he would prove exactly
why. He warned an armory watchman as he and
19:40
a group of fellow abolitionists launched what
would be an ambitious but ultimately failed
19:45
raid on Harper’s Ferry. After taking several
hostages from the town and capturing the U.S.
19:52
Armory and Arsenal, the raiders would be stalled
by a local militia as General Robert E. Lee
19:57
made his way into the town to wrap things
up.
20:01
Brown and his men had aimed to spark a local
slave rebellion, but instead, many of the
20:06
raiders were killed once Lee and his Marines
arrived, with Brown himself being captured
20:12
and later hanged for his acts of treason against
the state of Virginia. John Brown had failed
20:19
and he had died, but his animosity for the
South was shared by far too many for the tide
20:25
to be turned by this point.
20:27
With the election of anti-slavery Northerner
Abraham Lincoln in 1860 to the presidency,
20:33
enough was enough…
20:35
Immediately after the future “Emancipator”
was elected to office, the South Carolina
20:40
General Assembly called for a convention to
consider secession. Much to the pleasure of
20:46
the locals, South Carolina thus voted unanimously
to leave the United States of America. Days
20:52
later they issued a document justifying their
decision to secede, and making one dramatically
20:59
important point in the process: “A geographical
line has been drawn across the Union”.
21:06
And it truly had. 10 more Southern states
would follow suit and join the newly founded
21:12
Confederate States of America, led by their
chosen president, Jefferson Davis. The Union
21:20
president, Abraham Lincoln, refused to recognize
the Confederacy as legitimate, insisting that
21:25
he wished to take no one's slaves and simply
wanted to keep the Union together. This meant
21:31
nill to the Southerners, who were rapidly
attempting to create a unified nation out
21:36
of a handful of states who had all made a
big fuss about state autonomy. And not just
21:42
that, but the South was at a major disadvantage
for the impending war.
21:48
Precise numbers are debated, but it can be
estimated that at the time of the mass secession
21:53
and formation of the Confederacy, the Union
boasted a population of roughly 22 million,
21:59
in comparison to the South’s approximate
9 million. Of those numbers, the Union would
22:06
eventually enlist around 2 million soldiers
whilst the Confederates could only tally about
22:12
900,000. Furthermore, the Northerners had
something close to 20,000 miles worth of railroads,
22:20
which was double what the Confederate states
could claim, thus giving the Union a better
22:25
advantage for moving troops and supplies in
wartime.
22:29
And while its often argued that the Confederate
generals, such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall
22:35
Jackson, James Longstreet, Nathan Bedford
Forrest, and Patrick Cleburne gave the South
22:40
a tactical military edge on their upstairs
neighbors, the North was surely ahead in other
22:46
ways; like the fact that they produced around
90% of goods in the former United States at
22:51
the time.
22:52
But still, the Union was losing its grip on
the South. It only had limited holdings left
22:58
in Confederate states, and it was about to
lose another…
23:03
Fort Sumter was the last Union stronghold
in South Carolina, and “strong” is being
23:09
generous. It was outmanned and undersupplied,
to say the least, and with Southerners now
23:15
cracking down on Union property within their
borders, it was surrounded. The Confederates
23:20
attempted to force the little remaining Union
forces at the fort to surrender. The latter
23:26
refused, and the Confederates opened fire.
The Civil War had begun…
— end of transcript —
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