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The story of the Civil War is often told as a triumph of freedom over slavery, using little more than a timeline of battles and a thin pile of legislation as plot points.
- Early Republic, 1780-1830
The War of 1812 (1812-1815) had begun, and the Great Lakes...
- Reconstruction, 1865-1877
In this period, two of the most iconic amendments were...
- Abolitionists, 1780-1865
In the years preceding the Civil War, print remained key in...
- Black Voices, 1780-1910
Spanish-language primary sources documenting Caribbean...
- Enslaved Lives in The Archives
One of the most difficult and emotionally intense aspects of...
- Advanced Collection Research
Civil War, 1861-1865; Reconstruction, 1865-1877; Black...
- Memoirs and Slave Narratives
Especially following the Civil War, though in some cases...
- Explore the Collection
Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation and Freedom: Primary...
- Early Republic, 1780-1830
Slavery played the central role during the American Civil War. The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, especially Southern political leaders' resistance to attempts by Northern antislavery political forces to block the expansion of slavery into the western territories .
Today, most professional historians agree with Stephens that slavery and the status of African Americans were at the heart of the crisis that plunged the U.S. into a civil war from 1861 to 1865. That is not to say that the average Confederate soldier fought to preserve slavery or that the North went to war to end slavery.
Slavery existed in the United States from its founding in 1776 and became the main cause behind the country's bloody Civil War. Slavery officially ended in America with the passage of the...
American Civil War, four-year war (1861–65) fought between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded to form the Confederate States of America. It arose out of disputes over slavery and states’ rights.
The Civil War, which ultimately liberated the country’s slaves, began in 1861. But preservation of the Union, not the abolition of slavery, was the initial objective of President Lincoln. He initially believed in gradual emancipation, with the federal government compensating the slaveholders for the loss of their “property.”
The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves.
