Charles Sumner was an American politician and a leader of anti slavery in Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders who led the Radical Republicans. He fought to give equal rights and voting rights to the freed African Americans. He also fought to block ex-confederates from power. He was attacked by Andrew Butler’s second cousin after he gave a speech accusing pro-slavery states. This led to northerners strengthening their determination to resist the “barbarism of slavery.”
Stephen Douglas was well known for promoting the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. This act is what made Lincoln challenge Douglas for his seat in the senate. The act allowed new settlers in new territories north of Missouri to decide themselves whether slavery would be allowed or not. Douglas was chosen for the Democratic candidate against Lincoln in 1858 for the president election. Douglas supported popular sovereignty.
John Brown was a fervent abolitionist. In 1859 he developed a plan against slavery to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Then he would free enslaved people in the area. Soon after he had seized the arsenal, him and his followers were faced by U.S. Marines. Brown’s attempt for a slave revolt ended up in his capture and sentenced to death. Northerners looked at Brown as a martyr for a noble cause, while southerners saw Brown’s attempt as further proof they needed to say that Northerners were plotting the murder or slaveholders.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This book demanded that the United States deliver freedom and equality. It changed how Americans viewed slavery. This book allowed the public to truly see how awful slavery was. The book made sectionalism worse, some southern states attempted to having the book banned.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and he played a large role in the civil war. Abraham Lincoln was a leader that helped keep the union in tact. he also started the process of the emancipation proclamation that lead to the end of slavery. He was also one of the triggers of the civil war. By being elected it made many southerners angry and pushed them to succession. |
Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America. Before becoming the president of the confederate states he was the Secretary of war, a congressman and as a Mississippi senator. After the Civil When the south lost Davis fled to Europe and only returned to the states when the charges against him were dropped.
Robert E. Lee was in command of the Northern Virginia Army. His strategies worked well for the Confederate states until the battle of Gettysburg in which the confederate states lost and was the turning point of the war. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in 1865.
- William Tecumseh Sherman was a soldier for the Union. He was recognized for many of the outstanding things he did during the Civil War. He was recognized for his military strategies, and one of the things he is recognized for most was the very harsh and critical policies that he implemented against the Confederate States while organizing a total war against the Confederate states called Scorched Earth.