Causes and Effects (Consequences) of the Civil War/ Reconstruction

Historical Background

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence in 1776: “All men are created Equal”

Bull Run/ Manassas

July 21, 1861

Abraham Lincoln in 1858 stated that “A house divided cannot survive being half slave or half free.”

Battle of Shiloh

April 6-7 1862

A. Settlement Patterns in the American West

Andrew Jackson the seventh president of the United States (1829-1837)

B. Reservation System: In the 1830’s, President Andrew Jackson forced Native Americans in the South to leave their homelands and move to the Great Plains. When the Indian peoples were gone, white people were allowed to seize and settle in the former tribal lands. This removal policy was useful to the U.S. government only so long as there remained and undesired by white, land onto which Native tribes could be moved. In the mid-1860’s, when whites began to move into the final remaining strongholds for Native life, the Great Plains, there was no place left for a forced relocation of Native people. The U.S. government responded by devising a new policy for controlling Native Americans, the reservation system. The 1851 Indian Appropriations Act allotted funds to move western tribes onto reservations. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Orlando Brown explained the rationale behind this policy in 1850. Brown suggested that reservations should be “a country adapted to agriculture, of limited extent and well-defined boundaries; within which all, with occasional exceptions, should be compelled constantly to remain until such time as their general improvement and good conduct may supersede the necessity of such restrictions.”

Causes of Civil War

1. Compromise of 1820 The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36˚30’ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. The 1820 passage of Missouri Compromise took place during the presidency of James Monroe.

2. Nat Turners Rebellion of 1831 Nat Turner’s Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton Counting, Virginia during August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, rebel slaves killed anywhere from 55 to 65 people, the highest number of fatalities caused by any slave uprising in the American South. The rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months afterwards. The rebellion was effectively suppressed at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, 1831.

There was a widespread fear in the aftermath of the rebellion, and white militias organized in retaliation against slaves. The state executed 56 slaves accused of being part of the rebellion. In the frenzy, many innocent enslaved people were punished. At least 100 blacks and possibly up to 200 were murdered by militias and mobs. Across the South, state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers not to preach to African American slaves.

3. Wilmot Proviso introduced in 1846 tried to prevent slavery in land purchased/ won from Mexico; Mexican American War failed to become a law due to Democratic Party and Southern Senators in Congress.

4. The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the state slaves of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican American War (1846-1848). The compromise drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas, reduced sectional conflict. Controversy arose over the Fugitive Slave provision.

Map of free and slave states of 1856

Stephen Douglas

(Senator of Illinois)

The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions.

a. Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, over which it had threatened war, as well as it claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line, transferred its public debt to the federal government, and retained the Texas Panhandle.

b. California’s application for admission as a free state with its current boundaries was approved.

c. The South prevented adoption of the Wilmot Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in the new territories and the New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory could in principle decide in the future to become slave states (popular sovereignty). In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their settlers were uninterested in slavery.

d. The most concrete Southern gains were stronger Fugitive Slave Act, the enforcement of which outraged Northern public opinion and preservation of slavery (but not the slave trade) in the national capital.

e. The slave trade was banned in Washington D.C the laws of the Compromise of 1850 prohibited the slave trade in DC but slave ownership would continue. This was not enough for abolitionist who wanted slavery banned altogether in the capital. Southerners would not accept a Union’s capital where slavery was illegal as it would set a precedent. They had to reach a compromise and it was in the middle, by banning the slave trade of slaves. As a result of the outlaw in slave trade Alexandria, a city that flourished on slave trade, decided to separate from DC and joint the state of Virginia

5. The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. This was one of the most controversial elements of 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a “slave power conspiracy”. It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and those officials and citizens of Free stated had to cooperate in this law. Abolitionists nicknamed it the “Bloodhound Law” for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves

6. The Kansas- Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening the new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory. The act was designed by the Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The initial purpose of the Kansas- Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. It became a problem when popular sovereignty was written into proposal so that the voters of the moment would decide whether slavery would be allowed or not. The result was that pro- and anti-slavery elements flooded into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, leading to a bloody civil war.

Douglas hoped that the formula of “popular sovereignty” would ease national tensions over the issue of human bondage and that he would not have to take a side on the issue. However, a wave of indignation erupted across the North as anti-slavery elements cried betrayal, for Kansas had been officially closed to slavery since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, now repealed. Opponents denounced the law as a triumph of the hated slave power- that is the political power of the rich slave owners, who would buy up the best lands in Kansas, leaving ordinary men with the leftovers. The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant political party in the North, electing its first president, Abraham Lincoln, in 1860. (Lecompton Constitution)

7. Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852). The novel told about the abuses of life on a Southern plantation and the abuses of slavery as an institution.

8. Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861) (Mini- Civil War)

9. The Ostend Manifesto was a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain while implying that the U.S should declare war if Spain refused. Cuba’s annexation had long been a goal of U.S. slaveholding expansionists, particularly as the U.S. set its sights southward following the admission of California to the Union. At the national level, the U.S. leaders had been satisfied to have the island remain in Spanish hands so long as it did not pass to a stronger power such as Britain or France. The Ostend Manifesto proposed a shift in foreign policy, justifying the use of force to seize Cuba in the name of national security. It resulted from debates over slavery in the United States, Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, as slaveholders sought new territory for slavery’s expansion.

10. Underground Railroad (transporting runaway slaves to freedom in the North and Canada) (Harriet Tubman-conductor)

Dred Scott

11. Dred Scott decision (March 6, 1857 with Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney writing majority opinion. He indicated that African Americans were not citizens and could be transported to any state of territory overturning all Congressional laws or compromises.

Battle of Fredericksburg

December 11-15 1862

12. Lincoln Douglas Debates (1858 in Illinois Senate race) (Abraham Lincoln lost the election but became a Presidential candidate. (House divided speech- “We cannot remain half slave and half free”.) He felt that an inherent right for everyone was that the labors of all people should be respected including by African Americans.

13. The Freeport Doctrine was articulated by Stephen A. Douglas at the second of the Lincoln- Douglas debates on August 27, 1858, in Freeport, Illinois. Lincoln tried to force Douglas to choose between the principle of popular sovereignty, where the majority vote of the public becomes law, proposed by the Kansas- Nebraska Act and the majority decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, which stated that slavery could not legally be excluded from U.S. territories (since Douglas professed great respect for Supreme Court decisions, accused the Republicans of disrespecting the court, yet this aspect of the Dred Scott decision was contrary to Douglas’ view and politically unpopular in Illinois). Instead of making a direct choice, Douglas’ response stated that despite the court’s ruling, slavery could be prevented from any territory by the refusal of the people living in that territory to pass laws favorable to slavery. Likewise, if the people of the territory supported slavery, legislation would provide for its continued existence

14. John Brown’s Raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (October 16, 1859) He tried to start a slave revolution but was captured, tried for treason and hanged.

15. Abolition Movement (did everything possible to end slavery).

16. Sectional Differences between North, South, & West

17. The Presidential election in November 1860 of Republican Abraham Lincoln (The spark that led the Southern states toward succession from the Union)

18. Nullification, in the Unites States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. The theory of nullification has never been legally upheld by federal courts. Between 1798 and the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, several states threatened or attempted nullification of various federal laws. None of these efforts were legally upheld. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were rejected by the other states. The Supreme Court rejected nullification attempts in a series of decisions in the 19th century, including Ableman v. Booth, which rejected Wisconsin’s attempt to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act. The Civil War ended most nullification efforts.

19. Secession Crisis (12-20-1860- 02-1861) Slave States call for conventions to consider Secession on November 6, 1860. Initially, 7 stated seceded from the Union between 12-20-1860 (South Carolina 1st state seceded from the Union) and 2-1861.

20. States’ Rights: whether the federal government could control tariffs, slavery, internal improvements, interpret the Constitution loosely or strictly and the ability to maintain political stability, majority rule or racial equality. Southerners consistently argued for states’ rights and a weak federal government but it was not until the 1850s that they raised the issue of secession. Southerners argued that, having ratified the Constitution and having agreed to join the new nation in the late 1780s, they retained the power to cancel the agreement and they threatened to do that unless, as South Carolinian John C. Calhoun put it, the Senate passed a constitutional amendment to give back to the South “the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium of the two sections destroyed.”

21. 1861: Preserving the Union, democracy and the rule of law. 1863: Preserving the Union, democracy, the rule of law, and justice or equality for all men.

The Storming of Fort Wagner

July 18, 1863

22. Economic Differences between North & South. Richmond and the Cotton Gin (Eli Whitney), central to the Southern Cotton Plantation Economy.

23. Confederate firing the first shots on Ft. Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina (April 12,1861)

Battle of Fort Sumter

April 12, 1861

24. Union Mobilization

Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1861 calls for 75,000 troops to fight for the Union for 90 days alarming slave holding states such as Virginia that had not necessarily planned to secede. In order to raise needed troops starting in 1863, the Union starts conscription as did the Confederacy.

Advantages of the North and South during the Civil War

A. South: Best Generals and majority of West Pointed trained officers at the start of the war

B. North: 2 1-2 times the population and many more eligible soldiers to fight or present in the armed forces during the Civil War

C. North: Much more industrial and greater use of technology during war

D. North: Many times great amount of railroad lines enabling faster transfer of soldiers and weapons, etc.

E. South: Almost all fighting took place in the South and soldiers had much more experience using rifles/ guns

F. North: After the January 1, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans fought against the South in the Army and Navy for the United States of America (Union)

G. North: Better President and Military Commander- in- Chief, Abraham Lincoln

H. North: Wealthier including more bank deposits, factories, and products produced including weapons, food, and horses

I. South: Cotton (King) and tobacco as revenue crops

J. North: more urban and soldiers including many more immigrants who gain immediate citizenship upon signing up for to fight in the Civil War.

Civil War

Battle of Gettysburg

July1-July 3, 1863

A. African- American migration to the North from the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction (1861-1939) and the Industrial Revolution. Left for large urban Northern, Northeastern and Western cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco in order to obtain 1. better jobs and 2. improved civil rights.

B. FLORIDA HISTORY

C. Florida secedes from the Union. On January 10, 1861, representatives met in Tallahassee to decide whether Florida would secede from the Union. The representatives voted to secede, and Florida joined other southern states in forming the Confederate States of America. Once the Civil War began, Florida fully supported the Confederate Army. More than 16,000 Floridians fought for the Confederacy and Florida's farms provided cattle, sugar, pork and salt to feed Confederate troops. Tallahassee; the state capitol, was never captured by Union forces during the war.

D. The Anaconda Plan or Scott’s Great Snake is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized the blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by the vociferous faction who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and who likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name.

E. The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as First Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces), was fought on July 21,1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas, not far from Washington, D.C. It was the first major battle of the American Civil War. The Union forces were slow in positioning themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail. Each side had about 18,000 poorly trained and poorly led troops in their first battle. It was a Confederate victory followed by a disorganized retreat of the Union forces.

First Manassas

on July 21, 1861

F. The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as a war measure during the American Civil War, directed to all of the areas in rebellion and all segments of the Executive branch (including the Army and Navy) of the United States. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion, thus applying to 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time. The Proclamation was based on the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief of the armed forces; it was not a law passed by Congress. The Proclamation also ordered that suitable persons among those freed could be enrolled into the paid service of the United States’ forces, and ordered the Union Army (and all segments of the Executive branch) to “recognize and maintain the freedom of” the ex-slaves. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not itself outlaw slavery, and did not make the ex-slaves (called freedmen) citizens. It made the eradication of slavery an explicit goal, in addition to the goal of reuniting the Union.

Abraham Lincoln

16th President

1861-1865

G. African American “Colored Troops” or “Black Soldiers” fight in the Civil War for the Union (180,000-200,000).

Key Battles of the Civil War

H. First shots were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 by the Confederate States of America (South) in Charleston, South Carolina.

I. First battle of Bull Run (Manassas): was won by the Confederacy on July 21, 1861.

J. Battle of Antietam: Single bloodiest day of the war 9-17-1862. First instance that the Army of Northern Virginia invaded the North. Result was a Union victory under General McClellan and the Confederates marched back to Virginia without ending the Civil War (Turning point of the war).

K. Battle of Chancellorsville

L.

M. The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville Campaign. It was fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville. Two related battles were fought nearby on May 3 in the vicinity of Fredericksburg. The campaign pitted Union Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against an army less than half its size, Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because his risky decision to divide his army in the presence of a much larger enemy force resulted in a significant Confederate victory. The victory, a product of Lee's audacity and Hooker's timid decision making, was tempered by heavy casualties and the mortal wounding of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson by friendly fire, a loss that Lee likened to "losing my right arm."

N. Battle of Gettysburg: (51,000 plus casualties) The largest amount of casualties in North American). This major victory for the Army of the Potomac was a significant turning point for the Union efforts to win the Civil War. The Army of Northern Virginia returned to Virginia with 17 miles of covered wagons with taken materials including food, injured soldiers and slaves taken from Maryland and Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg campaign. Robert E. Lee failed to end the war, failed to have Great Britain and France recognize or assist the Confederacy or have the USA sue for peace (Turning point of the war).

O. Battle of Vicksburg: 1862-July 4, 1863; won by the North (Union) forces under General U. S. Grant (Unconditional Surrender Grant). Gained total control of the Mississippi as part of General’s Scott’s Anaconda Plan (Turning Point of the war).

P. Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia where the South surrendered to the North on April 9, 1865. General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrenders at Appomattox Court House to General Ulysses Grant (Union) and the Army of the Potomac.

Q. The Gettysburg Address is a speech made by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. Abraham Lincoln’s carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. In just over two minutes, Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle for the preservation of the Union due to the secession crisis, with “a new birth of freedom”, that would bring true equality to all of its citizens. Lincoln also redefined the Civil War in 1863 as a struggle not just for the Union, but also for the principle of liberty, equality, democracy and freedom for all. He felt that “government of the people” was viable for all nations not just limited to the United States. Beginning with the now-iconic phrase “Four score and seven years ago”- referring to the Declaration of Independence, written at the start of the American Revolution in 1776- Lincoln examined the founding principles of the United States in the context of the Civil War, and memorialized the sacrifices of those who gave their lives at Gettysburg and extolled virtues for the listeners (and the nation) to ensure the preservation of America’s representative democracy and equality of African Americans. His most lasting words in the address were “a new birth of freedom” and “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Gettysburg Address

November 19, 1863

Ulysses S. Grant

R. Battle of Vicksburg; (5-18- July 4, 1863) General U.S Grant (Unconditional Surrender Grant) led the Union troops to victory and the Union gained total control of the Mississippi River. This was a significant turning point for the Union efforts to win the Civil War.

S. Westward Expansion:

Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a “homestead”, at little or no cost. In the United States, this originally consisted of grants totaling 160 acres (65 hectares, or one-quarter section) of unappropriated federal land within the boundaries of the public states. An extension of the Homestead Principle in law, the United States Homestead Acts were initially proposed as an expression of the “Free Soil” policy of Northerners who wanted individual farmers to own and operate their own farms, as opposed to Southern slave owners who could use groups of slaves to economic advantage. The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. Anyone who had ever taken up arms against the U.S. government (including freed slaves and women), was 21 years or older, or the head of a family, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. There was also a residency requirement.

Battle of Vicksburg

May 18- July 4, 1863

T. Richmond was burned down by the Confederacy and captured by the Army of the Potomac on April 2, 1865. Following the fall of Richmond and the escape by Confederate Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered the Confederacy at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 to Ulysses Grant and the Army of the Potomac.

President Jefferson Davis

Robert E. Lee

Appomattox Court House

April 9, 1865

U. Role of Women

1. Bread riots in Richmond, Virginia on April 2nd, 1863.

2. Home Front and surviving the war.

3. Nurses

4. 250 women in the ranks of the Confederate army posing as men.

5. The United States Sanitary Commission was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North and raised an estimated $25 million in Civil War era revenue an in-kind contributions to support the cause.

V. Total War/ Hard War:

During the last two years led by Generals U.S. Grant and General William Sherman, the union fought to win the war and do whatever necessary to be victorious in the Civil War.

W. Casualties:

625,000 Plus soldiers die in action during the Civil War. More men died in the Civil War than all other American Wars put together.

John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham at Ford’s theater Friday, April 14, 1865

X. United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play, Our American Cousin, at Ford’s Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was the first American president o be assassinated, though an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson 30 years before in 1835. The assassination of Lincoln was carried out by the well-known stage actor, John Wilkes Booth. Booth’s three co-conspirators were Lewis Powell and David Herold, who were assigned to kill Secretary of State, William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt who was tasked to kill Vice President, Andrew Jackson. By simultaneously eliminating the top three people in the administration, Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to sever the continuity of the United States government. Lincoln was shot while watching the play Our American Cousin with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died early the next morning. The rest of the conspirators’ plot failed; Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Altzerodt, Johnson’s would-be-assassin, lost his nerve and fled. The funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln was a period of national mourning.

John Wilkes Booth

Y. Diplomacy:

One of the most important victories won by the United States during the Civil War was not ever fought on a battlefield. Rather, it was series of diplomatic victories that ensured that the Confederacy would fail to achieve diplomatic recognition by even a single foreign government. Although this success can be attributed to the skill of Northern diplomats, the anti-slavery sentiments of the European populace, and European diversion to crises in Poland and Denmark, the most important factor still rises for the battlefields on American soil. The American states were incapable of winning enough consecutive victories to convince European governments that they could sustain independence.

Lincoln as War-Time President:

To win the war, President Lincoln had to have popular support. The reunion of North and South required, first of all, a certain degree of unity in the North. But the North contained various groups with special interests of their own. Lincoln faced the task of attracting to his administration the support of as many divergent groups and individuals as possible. Fortunately for the Union cause, he was a president with rare political skill. He had the knack of appealing to fellow politicians and talking to them in their own language. He had a talent for smoothing over personal differences and holding the loyalty of men antagonistic to one another. Inheriting the spoils system, he made good use of it, disposing of government jobs in such a way as to strengthen his administration and further its official aims. Lincoln used controversial presidential powers as well, such as the suspension of habeas corpus, authorizing the calling up of the state militias’ without authorization from Congress in 1861, freeing the slaves and refusing to accept a compromise of peace with the South prior to the election of 1864.

Results of the Civil War/Effects

Reconstruction

C. Slavery abolished with the passage of the 13th amendments in 1865.

D. Citizenship, rights and freedom are provided to African Americans with the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments by 1870. (Civil War Amendments = 13th, 14th, and 15th

E. Constitutional Issued after the War: Status of Confederate States & Rights of African.

F. Financial Losses

G. Impact of the Economies of North & South

H. Supremacy of the Federal Government Americans

I. Divisive Issues for the Republican Party

1. Different Views on Reconstruction

2. The Role of Radical Republicans

· Generally belligerent toward the South, the Republicans were regarded by the Southerners with mingled hatred and fear as sectional tension increased. They were successful in the elections of 1858 and passed over their better-known leaders to nominate Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The party platform in 1860 included planks calling for a high protective tariff, free homesteads, and a transcontinental railroad; these were bids for support among Westerners, farmers, and eastern manufacturing interests. Lincoln’s victory over Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell was the signal for the secession of the Southern state, and the Civil War followed. Union military failures early in the war and conservative options to such measures as the Emancipation Proclamation caused the party to lose ground in the Congressional elections of 1862. But despite mutterings against his leadership, Lincoln was renominated on the Union (Republican) ticket in 1864 defeated Gen. George B. McClellan.

Gen. George B. McClellan

Although a separate ticket headed by the radical Fremont Withdrew before the election in 1864, the cleavage within the party between radicals and moderates widened as the war progressed. Radicals such as Benjamin F. Wade, Henry W. Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Edwin M. Stanton advocated a punitive policy for the South, while Lincoln on the moderates were inclined to leniency.

Z. Westward Expansion:

Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a “homestead”, at little or no cost. In the United States, this originally consisted of grants totaling 160 acres (65 hectares, or one-quarter section) of unappropriated federal land within the boundaries of the public states. An extension of the Homestead Principle in law, the United States Homestead Acts were initially proposed as an expression of the “Free Soil” policy of Northerners who wanted individual farmers to own and operate their own farms, as opposed to Southern slave owners who could use groups of slaves to economic advantage. The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. Anyone who had ever taken up arms against the U.S. government (including freed slaves and women), was 21 years or older, or the head of a family, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. There was also a residency requirement.

J. Effects of Black Codes on African Americans in the United States, the most notorious Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans’ freedom and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. Since the early 1800s, many laws in both North and South discriminated systematically against free Blacks. In the South, “slave codes” placed significant restrictions on Black Americans who were not themselves slaves. A major purpose of these laws was maintenance of the system of white supremacy that made slavery possible. With legal prohibitions of slavery ordered by the Emancipation Proclamation, acts of state legislature, and eventually the Thirteenth Amendment, Southern states adopted new laws to regulate Black life. Although these laws had different official titles, they were (and are) commonly known as Black Codes. (The term originated from “negro leaders and the Republican organs” according to Confederate historian John S. Reynolds.) The defining feature of the Black Codes was vagrancy law which allowed local authorities to arrest the freed people and commit them to involuntary labor.

Reconstruction

“Ten Percent” Solution: Abraham Lincoln Reconstruction Plan - 1863-1865

President Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (December 8, 1863) offered a full pardon and the restoration of all rights “except to slaves” to persons who resumed their allegiance by taking an oath of future loyalty and pledging to accept the abolition of slavery

· Lincoln viewed Reconstruction as part of the effort to win the war and secure Emancipation (1864)

· Wade-Davis Act proposed to delay the start of Reconstruction until a majority of a state’s white males had pledged to support the Federal Constitution (1864). Lincoln pocket vetoed this alternative to his 10% Plan

· He defined as a Unionist virtually every white Southerner who took the oath pledging to uphold the Union and the abolition of slavery

· The former slaves believed that owning land would complete their independence (1865)

· In the cities, many former slaves believed that “freedom was free-er”. Many African Americans began what became known as the Great Migration

· The Black Freedman’s Bureau offered protection from violence and the KKK (1865)

· As Fredrick Douglas put it, “the work does not end with the abolition of slavery, but only begins”

· The Radical Republicans advocated a Reconstruction program of federal intervention which should confiscate planter’s lands and their division to the freedmen (1865)

· The Radical Republicans in Congress believed that black suffrage (voting) must come, as it finally did in 1870 with the passage of the 15th amendment

· The railroads received a great deal of land and tax breaks while Congress and the states provided very little for former slaves

· 13th Amendment ended slavery (1865)

· 14th Amendment provided citizenship to African Americans (1868).

· 15th Amendment provided voting rights to African Males (1879).

Black Codes

· 1865

· These Southern State and local laws had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.

· Limited rights of freed blacks

Great Migration

· 1865-1930

· More than 6 million African Americans moved from the rural South to the cities of the Northeast (New York, Boston, etc.), North/Midwest (Chicago, Detroit), and West (Los Angeles, San Francisco).

· The main reason was to 1. obtain better paying jobs and 2. to improve civil rights.

FLORIDA HISTORY

Pensacola thrives during Reconstruction. Following the war, Pensacola became a major port for shipping lumber and forest products and a central military post. Railroad lines linked Pensacola to other southern cities. The lumber industry and easy transportation put Pensacola in a superior position to other southern cities struggling to rebuild their economies after the Civil War.

Radical Republicans

· 1867

· The Radical Republicans were a faction of American politicians within the Republican Party of the United States from about 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877. They called themselves "Radicals" and were opposed during the War by the Moderate Republicans, by the conservative Republicans and the largely pro-slavery and later anti-Reconstruction Democratic Party as well as by self-styled "conservatives" in the South and "liberals" in the North during Reconstruction. Radicals strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted ex-Confederates, demanding harsh policies for punishing the former rebels and emphasizing equality, civil rights and voting rights for the "freedmen".

Buffalo Soldier

· Originally members of the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This nickname was given to the "Negro Cavalry" by the Native American tribes they fought in the Indian Wars. The term eventually became synonymous with all of the African American regiments formed in 1866: 9th Cavalry Regiment, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 24th Infantry Regiment and 25th Infantry Regiment

· Although several African American regiments were raised during the Civil War as part of the Union Army (including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the many United States Colored Troops Regiments), the "Buffalo Soldiers" were established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. Fought in the Indian Wars, protected the U.S. border and participated in the Spanish American War. On September 6, 2005, Mark Matthews, who was the oldest living Buffalo Soldier, died at the age of 111. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Andrew Johnson

17th President (1865-1869)

Became the President after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 17, 1865

The division was made complete when, after Lincoln’s assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, adopted a moderate program of Reconstruction. Johnson, a Jacksonian Democrat from Tennessee, had been added to the ticket in 1864 to strengthen the idea of a Union party. Ultimately his policies and attempts to implement them antagonized his supporters among the moderate Republicans and paved the way for triumph of the radicals in the congressional elections of 1866. The height of radical power was reached in 1868 with the impeachment of Johnson, which was defeated by only a one-vote margin.

· Republicans in Congress united to pass the Freedman’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bill over the objection of President Johnson’s Reconstruction Policies (1866).

· The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency established in 1865 to aid freedmen (freed slaves) in the South during the Reconstruction era of the United States, which attempted to change society in the former Confederacy. Union General O. O. Howard was the first Commissioner.

· Permitted almost all Confederate Offices to be elected and participate in local, state and federal government (1866).

· Supported the continued domination of Southern politics by the planter class (slaveocracy) that had controlled the antebellum South (before the Civil War).

· Purchased Alaska from Russia (1867) and becomes 49th state in 1959.

· Difficulty with the Radical Republicans (February 24, 1868).

· In 1867, Congress required that all orders to subordinate army commanders pass through General Grant and in the Tenure of Office Act, authorized officials appointed with the Senate’s consent to remain in office until a successor had been approved

· Johnson fired Secretary of War Stanton on February 21, 1868

· Impeachment Trial before the Senate for “high crimes and misdemeanors”. The roots of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson lay not only in the increasingly hostile relations between himself and Congress but Republican Reconstruction policy.

· Impeachment failed to be obtain a super majority in the Senate by one vote in mid-May, 1868

· Was against the passage of the Reconstruction Act (1867), the ratification of the 14th amendment (1868) and the 15th amendment (1870)

· Despite the ratification in 1870 of the 15th amendment prohibiting disenfranchisement because of race, Southerners developed methods of limiting black voting power: literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clause (physical intimidation such as Ku Klux Klan).

President Ulysses S. Grant

· 18th President (1869-1877)

· The nomination of the war hero Ulysses S. Grant assured Republican success over the Democrats led by Horatio Seymour in the presidential election 1868. The radicals were supreme under Grant, but their excesses and the open scandals of the administration created a new schism, leading to the formation of the Liberal Republican party. Its candidate, Horace Greeley, although supported by the democrats, was not popular enough to defeat Grant in 1872, and corruption became even more widespread. The election of 1876 indicated that radical Republicanism had lost much of its popular support.

· Transcontinental Railroad – connects the coasts of the United States; greatest transportation achievement (1869).

· By the time Grant left office, railroads traveled the Great Plains, farmers and cattlemen had replaced the buffalo, most Indians had been concentrated on reservations, and although warfare did not end until the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890, the World of the Plains Indians had come to an end. (1877). Throughout Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, the Federal and State governments provided a great deal of land and tax benefits to Railroad companies but very little to former slaves (1877). The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 involved the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America Construction Company in the building of the eastern portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.

Whiskey Ring

· A scandal, exposed in 1875, involving diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. The Whiskey Ring began in St. Louis but was also organized in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Peoria.

Reconstruction Act

· 1867

· laid out the process for readmitting Southern states into the Union

Debt Peonage

· 1867

· Is a system where an employer compels a worker to pay off a debt with work.

· Out-lawed by Congress in 1867.

Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868

Ulysses S. Grant

18th President 1869-1877

Andrew Johnson

17th President 1865-1869

Jim Crow Cartoon

K. Impact of Jim Crow Laws on African American Americans. The Jim Crow Laws were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level. The mandated de fure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy with, starting in 1890, a “separate but equal” status for African Americans. The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that were inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. De fure segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States, while Northern segregation was generally de facto- patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants , bank lending practices and job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.

L. Constitutional Issues after Reconstruction & Rights of African Americans

1. The Loss of Suffrage for African Americans in the South

2. Poll Taxes, Literacy Tests, & the Grandfather Clause:

In order for freedmen to vote, they had to pay poll taxes, take and pass literacy test and obtain approval of the grandfather clause due to the fact that most were born in the U.S. However, there was a loophole that made it impossible for African Americans to vote. The grandfather clause stated that in order for you to vote, your grandfather must have participated in the election of 1860. Since African Americans were still slaves during this time period, they could not vote. In which those present African Americans could not vote either.

3. Labor Systems: Sharecropping & Debt Peonage

4. Debt Peonage, also known as debt servitude, is a method of debt repayment in which an individual makes his payments to a credit by physical labor. This form of payment was more common in the past when economies were driven by crops and physical labor. System mainly enacted throughout the South after the end of Reconstruction.

5. Sharecropping, Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law.

6. Conflicts with Native Americans as a result of the Civil War

M. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or just the Klan is the name of the three distinct movements in the United States. They first played a violent role against African Americans in the South during the Reconstruction Era of the 1860s. The second was a very large controversial nationwide organization in the 1920s. The current manifestation consists of numerous small unconnected groups that use the KKK name. They have all emphasized secrecy and distinctive costumes, and all have called for purification of American society, and all are considered right-wing.

Ku Klux Klan

N. In the United States history, a carpetbagger was a Northerner (Yankee) who moved South after the U.S. Civil War, especially during the Reconstruction era (1865-1877), in order to profit from the instability and power vacuum that existed at this time. The term carpetbagger was a pejorative term referring to the carpet bags (a fashionable form of luggage at the time) which many of these newcomers carried. The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders. The term is still used today to refer to an outsider perceived as using manipulation or fraud to obtain an objective. Together with Republicans, carpetbaggers were said to have politically manipulated and controlled former Confederate states for varying periods for their own financial and power gains. In the sum, carpetbaggers were seen as insidious Northern outsiders with questionable objectives meddling in local politics, buying up plantations at fire-sale prices and taking advantage of Southerners. The term carpetbagger was also used to describe the Republican political appointees who came south, arriving with their travel carpetbags. Southerners considered them ready to loot and plunder the defeated South.

Rutherford B. Hayes

19th President of the United States 1877-1881

O. End the Reconstruction with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes. His election was decided by the House of Representatives with the Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction. This resulted in Union troops no longer supporting African American freedoms in the South. The election of 1876 indicated that radical Republicanism had lost much of its popular support. The Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, received a popular plurality of over 250,000 votes, but the disputed electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, the only Southern states still under Republican control, were awarded to Rutherford B. Hayes by the House of Representatives and the Republican was declared President-elect. With the election, however, Republican domination of the South and radical rule of the party were definitely ended.

P. The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887), adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act.

Q. Plessy v. Ferguson

R.

S. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 was a landmark constitutional law case of the US Supreme Court. It upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan.