Great New Blog Site for You All to Check Out!!

I received a comment on one of my post and I was amazed to find that it was from a youngster of 12 years of age that is interested in the Civil War plus also has his own Civil War blog. Kids just are not interested in the Civil War anymore unless there parents are and they take to it like my daughter did. Well, I should say her mother but I brought her father around when he saw his first battlefield and where Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. He was just blown away and from that point on he loves to visit battlefields.

Back to kids who love the Civil War. As my daughter grew up she hardly new any other kids that new about the Civil War as much as she did/does. As a matter of fact she knows more than me but that's only because she has the time to read. You should see her library, amazing. Anyway, everyone should visit this 12 year old's blog and please leave a comment on his amazing adventure he has had and will experience in the roads ahead. Stuff About The Civil War

National Park Service Press Release

Thought someone might be interested in this. It came from nps.gov

National Parks Offer Free Admission this Weekend

A walk in the park is free this weekend! Everyone is invited to national parks across the country for the second of three free admission summer weekends.

All 391 national parks will offer free admission this Saturday and Sunday, July 18 and 19, and again on August 15-16. Many park partners, including tour operators, hotels, restaurants, and gift shops, will provide discounts and special promotions to sweeten the deal. Visit http://www.nps.gov/findapark/feefreeparks.htm for more information. Fees for activities such as camping, reservations, tours, or concessions are not affected by the entrance fee waiver.

“During these tough economic times, our national parks provide opportunities for affordable vacations for families,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. “I encourage everyone to take advantage of these free admittance weekends.”

Dan Wenk, acting Director of the National Park Service, said, “Most Americans live within a few hours’ drive of a national park, and free entrance weekends offer the perfect chance to visit an old favorite or to discover and explore a new place.”

There are 147 parks that normally charge entrance fees ranging from $3 to $25. But here’s a tip – 244 national parks do not charge entrance fees, so you can plan inexpensive visits year round!

To plan your national park adventure visit www.nps.gov, and mark your calendar for the next fee-free weekend, August 15-16. For a list of family fun activities this summer visit http://www.nps.gov/pub_aff/parks2009/index.htm. Or take a look at the weekly feature Experience America's Best Idea This Summer: National Park Getaways at http://www.nps.gov/getaways/

The Compromise of 1850

Here is the next article for you that don't know much about the civil war.

The Compromise of 1850, were five bills that were intended to crush regional bitter conflict. The goal was to handle the spread of slavery into territories in order to keep the northern and southern interests in balance.

It had been nearly 75 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the federal government was still permitting professional and merciless slave traders to sell and buy people right next to the White House and the Capital. President Millard Fillmore took steps to finally abolish the slave trade in Washington on September 20, 1850 but he had been up against a bitter battle.

The abolition (ending of slavery) was a controversial component of the Compromise of 1850. Congress negotiated between pro and anti-slavery forces to allow several new states and territories to join the United States. Few Congress members were pleased with the Compromise. A pro-slavery Senator Jefferson Davis and later president of the Confederacy, went after its supporters as “sycophants, deserters, and ambitious demagogues.” A Senator by the name of Salmon P. Chase of Ohio claimed that it provided “sentiment for the north and substance for the south.” As President Fillmore signed the document ending Washington’s slave trade, he did so under an atmosphere of separation and hostility, but he changed the capital city of America.

Northern abolitionists had been lobbying Congress on the matter since 1820. Defenders of slavery (advocates) argued that the federal government had no authority to regulate the existing commercial practices of slave states such as South Carolina. Abolitionists did recognize the political strength of this argument even though they disagreed with it, so they turned their attention on the nation’s capital. The Constitution placed the capital under federal control. Abolitionists delivered petition after petition to the Capitol until 1836, when Henry Pinckney, a South Carolina Representative, headed a committee to institute a rule to automatically delay petitions without consideration. This change only increased the number of petitioners and they became more active. The biggest obstacle the petitioners had was that Washington was essentially a Southern city. Many Southern Congressmen had brought their domestic slaves with them to their residences in Washington D.C. and believed they were entitled to purchase additional slaves as needed. In 1850 blacks outnumbered the European immigrants two to one and they occupied jobs that the immigrants would have had in a typical Northern city. The majority of these blacks were free but thier numbers gave the city a feeling of a slave-driven Southern town. The abolitionists were finding this a hard place for their petitions to be accepted.

After this setback in 1836, they found themselves in a new political setting in the years that followed.

Southern leaders believed the expansion of slavery was vital to the survival of the institution. Northern politicians felt that such a thing was unacceptable. Senator Henry Clay stepped in again like he did during the admission of Missouri to the Union and mediated the dispute. He set out 40 resolutions and tried to put together a group of bills that would satisfy all parties. By September these resolutions were reduced to five bills. These bills would pacify the Southerners by opening up new districts of Utah and New Mexico with no slavery restriction. This would also strengthen the Fugitive Slave Law, but would admit California as a free state and abolish the slave trade in Washington D.C.

In February 1848, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) that ended the Mexican War and gave the United States a large portion of the Southwest, which also included California. On January 24, 1848, gold had been discovered in Sacramento on the American River. With this gold rush came a huge population growth, which increased the need of civil government. California sought statehood in 1849. The U.S. Congress had heated debates over California because of the slave issue but in 1850 California was admitted to the Union as a nonslavery state by the Compromise of 1850.

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, or Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as it was also called, stated that any United States marshal or official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave was liable to pay a fine of $1,000. Law enforcement officials have a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway slave. The slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her behalf. Also, any person who aided a runaway slave by providing food or shelter was subject to six months imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Officers who captured a fugitive slave were entitled to a fee. The Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial of all five bills.

The longest-debated of all five of these bills was the Washington bill. Pro-slavery politicians saw this as a strong censure of slavery and also feared that it would start the first nationwide abolition movement, which were what the slavery’s opponents wanted. Many Southern Congress members understood that this could be a painless concession and in return they could gain much more. There were only 10 Southern votes in favor of the bill but they were willing to let the bill pass.

In 1849 Utah petitioned for statehood and a constitutional convention was called to draft a State Constitution to propose State of Deseret (a territory established by the Mormons in 1849) on March 8, 1849. The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate rejected the proposed state and instead created the Territory of Utah. New Mexico also became the Territory of New Mexico, which included the present-day Arizona and a portion of southern Nevada and was organized without any restrictions of slavery. Both territories were organized on the same day that California was admitted to the Union.

New Mexico and Utah were allowed to use popular sovereignty to decide the issue of slavery. Popular sovereignty was the political doctrine, which provided for the settlers of federal territorial lands to decide the status (free or slave) under which they would join the Union. The concept was aired in the late 1840s, but was widely popularized by Stephen A. Douglas in 1854. Douglas, who came up with the term, thought the settlers should vote on their own status early in the territories development. Others took a different stance, arguing that the status should be determined by a vote taken when the territory was fully prepared for statehood.

In 1836 the Republic of Texas had legalized slavery. By 1842 Texans wanted to be annexed into the United States but abolitionist blocked Texas admission because they were a slave state. On December 29, 1845 Texas was finally admitted to the Union but there was a dispute concerning the borders. The Texas territory was about fifty percent larger than it is today. It included parts of present states of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. Other groups contested the land so much that by 1850 it reached a point of hostility. The U.S. Congress began plans for settling the dispute. There were four plans that were under consideration:

Thomas Benton Plan (January 16) – would divest Texas of its northern and western territory and later split Texas into two states.

John Bell Plan (February 28) – similar to Benton’s Plan, but would split Texas into three states.

Henry Clay Plan, representing a committee of thirteen (April 17) – reduced the size of Texas by about the same amount, but with no provision for further subdivision.

James Pearce Plan (August 5) – similar to Clay’s Plan, but set the boundaries known today.

On September 9, 1850, the Pearce Plan was adopted and Texas lost almost one-third of its territory. The settlement also included compensation of $10,000,000, which provided much needed funding for Texas to pay its pre-statehood debts.

The Compromise of 1850 came from the Senate but much of the debating was by less prominent people, including:

Henry Clay of Kentucky – who was 72 years of age, near the end of his ellustrious career and had finally rid himself of presidential ambitions. He introduced a bill that lumped all parts of the compromise into a single measure.

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts – who saved one of his greatest formal speaches until the twilight of his career. He expressed the opinion that the maintenance of the Union was more important than the injustices caused by an unpopular piece of legislation, the Fugitive Slave Act. Webster’s support of a strong federal role in returning runaway slaves cost him much support in the North.

William H. Seward of Hew York – who had recently come to the Senate from a distinguished career in state politics, called for a “higher law” than the Constitution in his arguments against slavery.

John C. Calhoun of South Carolina – who was dying of throat cancer, but managed to supply the basic framework for the Southern position. His repeated plea was for the North to stop attacking the South and the institution of slavery.

James Murry Mann of Virginia – who spoke on behalf of the ailing Calhoun.

Stephen A. douglas of Illinois – who secured passage of the compromise by breaking it into segments that could gain majority approval, one by one.

Prior to 1812, the concern about balancing slave-states and free states was not profound.

In the years following 1812, and prior to the Civil War, maintaining the balance of free and slave states within the federal legislature was considered of paramount importance if the Union were to be preserved. The states were typically admitted in pairs.

The Compromise of 1850 was thought to be the answer but with the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and the tragic events that followed, it proved the doctrine’s shortcomings.

The Civil War Preservation Trust Unveils Newest Weapon

Recieved my email today from The Civil War Preservation Trust and wanted to share their exciting new news. Here's what it said:

Whether you're a teacher in search of classroom resources, a dedicated buff looking for book recommendations, or a casual student of history wanting to learn more about a battle or famous general, the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) is one of the top resources for Civil War enthusiasts.

In a nut shell, CWPT is a 60,000-member non-profit that's dedicated to the preservation of our nation's endangered Civil War sites. And since 1987, CWPT has permanently protected more than 25,000 acres of hallowed ground across the country.

CWPT recently unveiled its newest weapon: a redesigned and expanded website, set to become one of the Internet's greatest resources for Civil War history lovers around the world. The updated site includes a vast collection of interactive and easy-to-navigate battle maps, thought-provoking articles written by top historians from the pages of CWPT's member magazine Hallowed Ground, and lesson plans for educators—written by educators.

I really like their new site, so much more information in one spot.

Slavery in the Territories

I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July. I sure did. Had family here for the first time and we all had a ball. The meaning of family is price less!

Back to business.

Here is the next article for you that don't know much about the civil war. You can read the 1st article here.

As the North and South drew further and further apart in society and economically, the political separation was growing wider and wider.

Slavery increased the severity of the regional and economic differences that the north and south had against each other. Southerners resented the large profits that the Northern businessmen were receiving from selling the cotton crop. Southerners attributed the backwardness of their own separation to the Northerners wealth. Northerners declared that slavery also called by the North “peculiar institution,” which was essential to the South’s economy, was totally responsible for their backwardness. This hardening between the North and South grew wider and wider.

In 1808 congress abolished the slave trade with Africa and was constantly being protested. With the invention of the cotton gin and the westward expansion of the Mississippi region there was an increasing demand for slaves.

With the westward expansion, Americans had been settling in territories that were not states as of yet. Texas was an independent republic up until 1845.the United States negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago with Mexico that gained the United States the Southwest region and California. The United States had gained a vast new territory of 1.36 million square kilometers, which are the present-day states of Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. Upon the arrival of all the new territory the explosive question was: Would the new territories be free or slave?

The Northern abolitionist grew more and more opposed to the extension of slavery into the western territories. The Southerners regarded slavery as a way of life. Slavery had been going on 200 years and was part of their economy. By 1860, just before the start of Civil War, there were a total of 46,274 individuals that owned at least 20 slaves. More than half of these slaves worked on plantations.

The Southerners considered expansion a necessity because cultivating only cotton crops, quickly exhausted the soil which increased the need of new fertile lands. Additionally the South believed that they needed new territories for slave states just like the North needed new territories for free states. Each needed to offset the another.

One of the largest forced migrations in history was the transatlantic slave trade. From the beginning of slavery to the mid-19th centuries, more than 10 million Africans were taken from their homes, herded onto ships which were so tightly packed they could barely move, and taken to a new land. A total of over 39,000 slaves were brought to the United States. In the 1660s, colonies enacted laws that black slaves and children of slave women would serve for life. In the Southern colonies, 40 percent of the population was slaves by 1770 with the majority in South Carolina. Slaves performed tasks from clearing forest to house servants but they were mostly agricultural laborers. Landowners that grew staple crops like tobacco, rice, and cotton owned the majority of slaves. In the Northern colonies, slavery never became as important as it did in the South. In New York only 10 percent of the population were slaves and as a whole the North had less than 5 percent, most of which were domestic servants.

By the mid-18th century, 90 percent of American slaves lived in the South. Despite the ending of slave imports in 1808, the number of slaves continued to grow. Between the years of 1808 to 1860 the slave population of the United States grew from about 1.2 million to almost 4 million thus proving that slavery could survive without slave imports.


With the world demand for cotton slavery expanded rapidly, the South became the heart of the cotton kingdom and by the 1830s produced more than half of the nation’s supply, the bulk of which was cultivated by slaves. Between 1790 and 1860 about one million slaves were moved west. Some slaves moved with their masters and others were sold to planters of the cotton-growing region, from the seaboard states.


Slavery was a growing custom. By the 1830s the United States was divided by the slave South and the free North. Slavery was essential in the South. If you defended slavery you were pro-Southern so if you opposed slavery you were anti-Southern. Although most southern whites did not own slaves, slavery set the South apart from the rest of the country. Of the whites that did not own slaves the majority were “poor whites” or “low income” in the Southern society. They did however support the institution of slavery because they feared the freed blacks would compete with them for land. By the middle of the 19th century slavery only existed in the Southern United States. The South did not grow with the industrial revolution like the north did. The South remained mostly rural. Only five Southern cities with more than 50,000 people, less than 10 percent of southerners, lived in towns out of at least 2500 people compared to more than 25 percent of Northerners. The South also lagged behind in railroad development to public education. Southern whites that were politicians, ministers, newspaper editors and authors rallied for slavery as the foundation of southern society. Southerners defended slavery in many ways from race and economic necessity to claiming that slavery was part of God’s plan for civilizing a primitive heathen people. By the 1840s the struggle over slavery became central to American politics. Northerners who were committed to free soil felt that new western territories should be exclusively for free white settlers. Southerners insisted that any limitation on slavery’s expansion was unconstitutional with the Southern order and a grave insult to Southern honor. This difference of opinion caused the two sides to greatly clash.

In 1860, southern families that owned more than fifty slaves numbered less than 10,000, those that owned more than a hundred were less than 3,000 in the entire south. A typical slave owner owned one or two slaves and was an artisan, mechanic, or a small farmer. This is important in understanding why white Southerners went to war in 1861 to defend slavery. Most did not have a financial investment in the system but the defense was more complicated than a simple fear of loss of money. The south deeply believed in the Southern way of life, which slavery was a complicated part. They also believed that to weaken slavery would unleash the pent-up hostilities of 4 million African American slaves who had been enslaved for centuries.

Article IV, section 3 of the constitution gave Congress the power to make appropriate “Rules and Regulations” for federal territory and provide that new states “may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.” This granting of the end clause was the source of considerable controversy. This controversy and debate over slavery in the territories tended to ruin congressional authority.

The territory of Missouri asked to join the Union in 1818 without any slavery restrictions; Northern congressmen tried to attach amendments restricting further slaveholding but slave owners objected to any limits being set on their owning slaves. After heated debates, Congress agreed to admit Missouri as a slave holding state and Maine, which was originally part of Massachusetts, also requested statehood. This was the first compromise led by Henry Clay, that allowed Missouri admission as a slave state and Maine as a free state but slavery was prohibited from then on in territories north of Missouri’s southern border. This compromise was designed to quiet and settle the slavery issue. Congress set the 36th parallel as the boundary, which above it, slavery could not spread.

Happy 4th of July

Hope everyone has a safe & happy 4th of July. See everyone next week!