Digital History
Digital History: The Mexican War
Read about the attempt by the United States to purchase land in the Southwest prior to the declaration of war between the two countries. Find out the causes of the war, and see that there was considerable opposition to the war in the...
Digital History
Digital History: War Fever and Antiwar Protests
What started out as a prowar inclination of American citizens at the beginning of the Mexican War soon deteriorated. Read about the opposition of politicians, clergymen, and intellectuals to the reasoning for the war, and later for the...
Digital History
Digital History: Peace
Read about the peace treaty that ended the Mexican War. See that there were some who wanted to annex the whole of Mexico and were disappointed with the terms of the treaty.
Digital History
Digital History: The Political Crisis of the 1840s
Read about the attempt to keep slavery out of the newly acquired Mexican Cession, and so how this attempt revealed an increased split between North and South.
Digital History
Digital History: Western Expansion: Conclusion
A good overview of the territorial expansion and its results that occurred in the United States over the first half of the 19th century.
Digital History
Digital History: The Old South: Images and Realities
First read the plantation legend about life in the South. The remainder of the article refutes the legend, explains the differences in many facets of the South, and emphasizes the importance of the Southern agricultural output to the...
Digital History
Digital History: The South's Economy
A good look at the economy of the South prior to the Civil War. Read a good explanation of how the use of slave labor impeded technological innovation and a lack of urban development. See how transportion improvements and good public...
Digital History
Digital History: Southern Nationalism
An interesting look at the Southern attempt to, at first defend the institution of slavery, and later, to become defiant about it. See how Southern intellectuals, religious leaders, and politicians strove to create a self-sufficiency in...
Digital History
Digital History: The Slave Power Conspiracy
Read about a book published in 1864 that contended that there was a conspiracy to spread slavery into the western territories. See that the accusations included in the book could not be authenicated, but the ideas presented showed the...
Digital History
Digital History: Slavery in a Capitalist World
Read about the discontinued use of slave labor in the Western world in the first half of the 19th century in all but five countries in the Western Hemisphere, most notably, the American South. See why Southern politicians and slave...
Digital History
Digital History: The Compromise of 1850
Before finding the final terms of the Compromise of 1850, read about the disputes and debate that accompanied the attempts to pass something that would address Northern and Southern concerns.
Digital History
Digital History: The Fugitive Slave Law
See why the Fugitive Slave Act was such a contentious, divisive law that exacerbated tensions between North and South.
Digital History
Digital History: The Breakdown of the Party System
As the Whig Party collapsed and the new Republican Party was forming, there was a flash-in-the pan party, the Know Nothing Party, that filled the void for a few years. Read about the success of the party in electing legislation, and find...
Digital History
Digital History: The Kansas Nebraska Act
An explanation of how the Kansa-Nebraska Act in effect voided the Missouri Compromise, which had been the law that dictated the territories that could allow slavery. Read about the act proposed by Stephen A. Douglas, and see how a...
Digital History
Digital History: "Bleeding Kansas" and "Bleeding Sumner"
Read about how the concept of popular sovereignty expressed in the Kansas-Nebraska Act resulted in political intrigue and murder in Kansas and the caning of a U.S. Senator in the Senate chamber.
Digital History
Digital History: The Dred Scott Decision
The Dred Scott decision caused a ripple throughout the country. Read a summary of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney's proslavery decision, and see how it intensified the rancor between the North and the South.
Digital History
Digital History: The Lincoln Douglas Debates
Historic debates, both in substance and form, were held between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the Illinois Senate race in 1858. Read about the debates, where tht two men stood on the issue of slavery, and its place in the...
Digital History
Digital History: Harper's Ferry
Read about the infamous raid on Harper's Ferry by John Brown and his band in 1859. His first plan had a chance of success thought Frederick Douglass, but the plan that was carried out was doomed from the start. See what John Brown was...
Digital History
Digital History: Enslavement
A very good description of how Africans were enslaved in Africa for sale to the Europeans. See how the introduction of European weapons changed the dynamic in West Africa.
Digital History
Digital History: Middle Passage
The number of Africans who died or were enslaved as a result of slave trading both across the Atlantic and into the Arabian peninsula is truly shocking. Read about the Middle Passage which brought millions of slaves to the New World, see...
Digital History
Digital History: The Slave Trade's Significance
An explanation of the significance of the slave trade in the colonial economy as well as in Europe. See why the slave trade stimulated manufacturing and resulted in the transatlantic triangular trade.
Digital History
Digital History: The Origins of New World Slavery
Read about the initial slow introduction of slave labor into the colonies, which accelerated because of the slaves' knowledge of growing crops, and the decline in the institution of indentured servitude.
Digital History
Digital History: Slavery in Colonial America
A very interesting look at slaves and free blacks in colonial America, especially in the South, up to about 1660. See how the concept of slavery and the use of slaves was fluid until that time.
Digital History
Digital History: The Diversity of Colonial Slavery
Read about the three distinct systems of slavery that developed in the colonies based primarily on the crops that were grown in each region. See how the system affected the way the culture of slaves grew out of the region.