Civil War Apush

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the slave power.” The Northern part of the Republican Party eventually began making it a goal to prevent from associating with any form of slavery and absolutely despised the idea and concept of it, making them part of Union in the upcoming Civil war.

Just 3 years prior to the Civil War, Stephen A. Douglas’s Freeport Doctrine (1858) claimed that despite what the U.S. Supreme Court had to say, territories had the right to exclude slavery using laws if they truly wanted. This law, contrary to its intentions, angered both proslavery and antislavery citizens because they felt that the state or territory in which they lived in was already stable, and shouldn’t be adjusted on it’s stand on slavery. Although, the South was especially offended at the fact that Douglas motioned this doctrine and denied him a spot of their committee’s chairman, a position he previously held. Not only did they deny him of this position, but the South also voted against Douglas in the presidential election, only receiving 12 electoral votes and giving Abraham Lincoln the winning spot as president. During the Civil War, Douglas and his Freeport Doctrine sided with the Union and was their strongest supporter, urging them to calmly accept the results of him losing the presidency, but also helped maintain the Union’s loyalty throughout the war.

Once the Civil War fully came into action in 1861, all the anger, confusion, and emotions from the previously mentioned acts and laws that the Union and Confederacy were holding burst and came out during the first battle of the war, taking place at Fort Sumter. The war consisted of the Union facing secessionists in a total of eleven different Southern states that formed the Confederate States of America. While the Confederacy managed to take claim of two western states and territories, the Union and North continued to stay loyal through it all. In the end, the South’s Confederacy military units, including General Robert E. Lee, lost the Civil War when he surrendered on April 9th 1865 at Virginia. Despite fighting long and hard, the Confederates were unable to continue any longer, and ended the war with the successful win of the Union, making them feel proud of their constant stand against slavery.