Division 1849-1877
Sectionalism and Causes of the Civil War
1. The politics of slavery became an increasingly divisive issue between the north and south. Most white southerners opposed abolition. White writers and public speakers argued slavery was a necessary part of life in the South. The southern economy, they said, was based on large-scale agriculture that would be impossible to maintain without slave labor. When settlers in the slaveholding Missouri Territory sought statehood, proslavery and antislavery politicians made slavery a central issue in national politics.
2. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 added complexity to the issue of slavery. The state constitution proposed by Missouri allowed slavery. Because half the states in the union allowed slavery while the other half did not, statehood for Missouri would upset the U.S. Senate’s equal balance between proslavery and antislavery senators. This issue was resolved when Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. This said Maine would be admitted to the Union as a free state, Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, and slavery would be prohibited in the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase except for Missouri. Once again, half the states would allow slavery while the other half did not, and the Senate would retain its equal balance between proslavery and antislavery senators––until the next state asked to enter the Union.
3. The Nullification Crisis resulted when southern states sought to nullify a high tariff Congress had passed on manufactured goods imported from Europe. Vice President John C. Calhoun argued with President Andrew Jackson about the rights of states to nullify (cancel) federal laws they opposed. This tariff helped northern manufacturers but hurt southern plantation owners, so legislators nullified the tariff in South Carolina. Calhoun, a South Carolinian, resigned from the vice presidency to lead the efforts of the southern states in this crisis. His loyalty to the interests of the southern region, or section, of the United States, not to the United States as a whole, contributed to the rise of sectionalism.
4. Calhoun and the advocates of sectionalism argued in favor of states’ rights––the idea that states have certain rights and political powers separate from those held by the federal government that the federal government may not violate. The supporters of sectionalism were mostly southerners. Their opponents were afraid that if each state could decide for itself which federal laws to obey the United States would dissolve into sectional discord or even warfare.
5. The Mexican-American War occurred when the Unite States declared the annexation of Texas. During the conflict, the United States occupied much of northern Mexico called the Mexican Cession (present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of other states). When the United States eventually won the war, this region was ceded to the United States as a part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
6. The Wilmot Proviso proposed that the New Mexico and California territories acquired from Mexico would be a free state with no slavery. It was not passed by the House of Representatives and the issue of slavery remained unresolved.
7. Compromise of 1850 is comprised of five different laws written to deal with the issue of slavery in new states. These include:
- Fugitive Slave Law: All citizens would be required to apprehend runaway slaves and return them to their owners. Those who failed to do so would be fined or imprisoned.
- The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, but the practice of slavery continued.
- New Mexico voters would determine whether the state would permit or prohibit the practice of slavery (popular sovereignty).
- California would be admitted to the Union as a free state.
- Reduce size of Texas
12. The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court settled a lawsuit in which an African American slave named Dred Scott claimed he should be a free man because he had lived with his master in slave states and in free states. The Court rejected Scott’s claim, ruling that no African American––even if free––could ever be a U.S. citizen. Further, the Court said Congress could not prohibit slavery in federal territories. Thus, the Court found that popular sovereignty and the Missouri Compromise of 1820 were unconstitutional.
13. John Brown was a famous abolitionist who decided to fight slavery with violence and killing. In 1859, he led a group of white and black men in a raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown’s plan was to deliver the weapons and ammunition to slaves, who would then use them in an uprising against slaveholders and proslavery government officials, but the raid failed, and Brown was captured and executed. Many northerners thought he was an abolitionist martyr.
14. The Abolition movement focused on ending slavery in the United States. By 1820, although racial discrimination against African Americans remained, slavery had largely ended in the North. Many northerners and some southerners took up the cause of abolition, a campaign to abolish slavery immediately and to grant no financial compensation to slave owners. As most slaves were held in southern states, abolition was a significant issue that led to growing hostility between northerners and southerners.
15. William Lloyd Garrison, a writer and editor, was an important white abolitionist. He founded regional and national abolitionist societies and published an antislavery newspaper that printed graphic stories of the bad treatment received by slaves.
16. Frederick Douglass, a former slave who escaped, worked for Garrison and traveled widely, giving eloquent speeches on behalf of equality for African Americans, women, Native Americans, and immigrants. He later published autobiographies and his own antislavery newspaper.
Civil War
1. Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. South Carolina voted to secede (separate from) the United States, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and then Texas. They formed a new country called the Confederate States of America (the “Confederacy”). When they attacked the U.S. base at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861, the Civil War had begun. Lincoln believed “preserving the Union” (the United States) was the most important task for any U.S. president. Lincoln did not believe the southern states had the right to secede from the Union and thought they were merely rebelling against the government. He never considered the Confederacy a separate country. Although Lincoln had often stated he in only wished to restrict the spread of slavery instead of abolish it, over time he did embrace the idea of ending the practice in the United States. 2. Emergency Powers were used by Lincoln. This included suspending habeas corpus and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
3. Lincoln used his emergency powers again to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. It emancipated (freed) all slaves held in the Confederate states (no northern slaves were freed). Lincoln did not expect Confederate slaveholders to free their slaves, but he thought news of the proclamation would reach southern slaves and encourage them to flee to the North. Encouraging slaves to flee north would hurt the southern war effort. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves held in the North, it was warmly welcomed by African Americans living in Union states. They understood the proclamation announced a new goal for the Union troops––besides reserving the Union, the troops were fighting for the belief that the United States would abolish slavery throughout the nation.
4. Antietam––September 1862––Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee marched his forces to Antietam Creek, Maryland, where he fought the war’s first major battle on northern soil. It was the deadliest one-day battle in American history, with over 26,000 casualties. Neither side won a victory. The significance of the Battle of Antietam was that Lee’s failure to win it encouraged Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and convinced England and France not to join the war effort to help the Confederacy.
5. Gettysburg––July 1-3, 1863––Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee marched north to Pennsylvania, where he was met by Union troops at Gettysburg. In a three-day battle, as many as 51,000 were killed. It was the deadliest battle of the American Civil War. Lee gave up attempts to invade the Union or show northerners that the Union troops could not win the war. Four months later, Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. His address helped raise the spirits of northerners who had grown weary of the war and dismayed by southern victories over the larger Union armies. He convinced the people that the United States was one indivisible nation
6. Vicksburg––May-July 1863––Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant laid siege to Vicksburg, Mississippi, because the army that controlled its high ground over a bend in the Mississippi River would control traffic on the whole river. After a seven-week siege, Grant achieved one of the Union’s major strategic goals: he gained control of the Mississippi River. Confederate troops and supplies in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were cut off from the Confederacy. This Union victory, coupled with the Union victory at Gettysburg, was the turning point of the war.
7. Atlanta––July-September 1864––Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman besieged Atlanta, Georgia, for six weeks before capturing this vitally important center of Confederate manufacturing and railway traffic. Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground, and then continued his march to the sea (Atlantic Ocean), destroying the railways, roads, and bridges along their path, as well as the crops and livestock his troops did not harvest and butcher to feed themselves. Now the South knew it would lose the war, and the North knew it would win. Lincoln easily won reelection against a candidate who wanted a truce with the Confederacy.
Reconstruction
1. Presidential Reconstruction refers to the plans laid out by President Abraham Lincoln and carried out by President Andrew Johnson. This plan urged no revenge on former Confederate supporters. The purpose of Presidential Reconstruction was to readmit the southern states to the Union as quickly as possible. Republicans in Congress, however, were outraged by the fact that the new southern state governments were passing laws that deprived the newly freed slaves of their rights.
2. Radical Republican Reconstruction refers to the more laborious process of rejoining the union that Congress required of the former confederate states. Southern states had to reapply for admission to the Union and to take steps to secure the rights of the newly freed slaves. This resulted in the creation of southern state governments that included African Americans. The key feature of the effort to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves was the passage of three constitutional amendments during and after the Civil War. Southern states were required to ratify all these amendments before they could rejoin the Union. These included:
2. 13th Amendment: abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States
14th Amendment: defined U.S. citizenship as including all persons born in the United States, including African Americans; guaranteed that no citizen could be deprived of his/her rights without due process
15th Amendment: removed restrictions on voting based on race, color, or ever having been a slave; granted the right to vote to all male U.S. citizens over the age of 21
3. African Americans saw progress during Reconstruction that included the establishment of African-American newspapers, electing African-Americans to public office, and attending new colleges and universities established for them. One of these institutions, Morehouse College, was founded in Atlanta in 1867 as the Augusta Institute. A former slave and two ministers founded it to educate African American men in the fields of ministry and education. Congress also created the Freedmen’s Bureau to help African Americans to make the transition to freedom. The Freedmen’s Bureau helped former slaves solve everyday problems by providing food, clothing, jobs, medicine, and medical-care facilities. While the Freedman’s Bureau did help some former slaves acquire land unclaimed by its pre-war owners, Congress did not grant land or the absolute right to own land to all freed slaves. Such land grants would have provided African Americans with some level of economic independence.
4. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson occurred because President Johnson ignored laws passed by Congress to limit presidential powers. They passed these laws to stop Johnson from curbing the Radical Republicans’ hostile treatment of former Confederate states and their leaders. After a three- month trial in the Senate, Johnson missed being convicted by one vote, therefore he was not removed from office merely because he held political opinions unpopular among politicians who had the power to impeach him.
5. In the Reconstruction South, there was resistance to racial equality. All former slave states enacted Black Codes, which were laws written to control the lives of freed slaves in ways slaveholders had formerly controlled the lives of their slaves. Black Codes deprived voting rights to freed slaves and allowed plantation owners to take advantage of black workers in ways that made it seem slavery had not been abolished.
6. Some white southerners formed secret societies that used murder, arson, and other threatening actions as a means of controlling freed African Americans and pressuring them not to vote. The Ku Klux Klan was the worst of these societies. The Klan, or KKK, was founded by veterans of the Confederate Army to fight against Reconstruction. Some southern leaders urged the Klan to step down because Federal troops would stay in the South as long as African Americans needed protection from it.
7. Jim Crow: Southern and border states passed segregation laws that required separate public and private facilities for African Americans. These were called Jim Crow laws (after a character in an old minstrel song) and resulted in inferior education, health care, and transportation systems for African Americans.
8. Plessy vs. Ferguson: In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws in Plessy v. Ferguson. Under the “separate but equal” doctrine, the Court ruled racial segregation was legal in public accommodations such as railroad cars.
.
o abolitionism
o Suffrage
o Andrew Jackson’s
presidency
o Nat Turner Rebellion
o William Lloyd Garrison
o Frederick Douglas
o Grimke Sisters
o Missouri
o Calhoun (sectionalism)
o Mexican War 1846-1848
o Wilmot Proviso
o Compromise of 1850
o Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854
o Popular Sovereignty
o Dred Scott v. Sanford
o John Brown's Raid
o Election of 1860: Lincoln
o Ulysses Grant
o Robert Lee
o Stonewall Jackson
o William Sherman
o Jefferson Davis
o Fort Sumter
o Suspension of Habeas
Corpus
o Antietam
o Vicksburg
o Gettysburg
o Gettysburg
o Battle for Atlanta
o Emancipation
Proclamation
o Presidential
Reconstruction à
10% Lenient Plan, AJ’s Plan
o Radical Reconstruction
o
Morehouse College
o Freedmen's Bureau
o 13th Amendment
o 14th Amendment
o 15th Amendment
o Black Codes
o Ku Klux Klan
o Impeachment (Andrew
Johnson) à Tenure of Office Act
o Transcontinental
Railroad
Chapter
18
Renewing
the Sectional Struggle
1848-1854
The
Popular Sovereignty Panacea
•
Popular sovereignty meant that the sovereign people of a territory should
determine the statues of slavery. It
was popular with politicians because it was a comfortable compromise between
the abolitionists and the slaver-holders.
•
At the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, the Democrats chose General
Lewis Cass, a veteran of the war of 1812, as their candidate for
presidency. Cass supported slavery.
Political
Triumphs for General Taylor
•
The Whigs, who met in Philadelphia, chose Zachary Taylor as their candidate for
presidency. Taylor did not have an
official stance on slavery, but he did own many slaves. Henry Clay had not been chosen because he had
too many enemies.
•
The Free Soil Party emerged. It was
formed by antislavery men of the North, who didn't trust Cass or Taylor. They supported federal aid for internal
improvements. They argued that with
slavery, wage labor would wither away and with it, the chance for the American
worker to own property.
•
Zachary Taylor won the election of 1848 (sworn into office in 1849).
"Californy
Gold"
•
In 1848, gold was discovered in California.
The rush of people in search of gold in California brought much violence
and disease that the small government in California couldn't handle. Needing protection, the Californians bypassed
the territorial stage of a state, drafted their own Constitution (excluding
slavery) in 1849, and applied to Congress for admission into the Union.
•
The southerners objected to California's admission as a free state because it
would be upset the balance of free and slave states in the Senate.
Sectional
Balance and the Underground Railroad
•
Harriet Tubman- conductor of the Underground Railroad who rescued hundreds of
slaves.
•
In 1850, southerners were demanding a new and strict fugitive-slave law. (The old fugitive-slave law passed by
Congress in 1793 was very weak.) The
slave owners rested their argument on the Constitution, which protected
slavery.
Twilight
of the Senatorial Giants
•
The congressional debate of 1850 was called to address the possible admission
of California to the Union and threats of secession by southerners. Known as the "immortal trio," Henry
Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster spoke at the forum.
•
Henry Clay, the "Great Pacificator," proposed a series of
compromises. He suggested that the North
enact a stricter fugitive-slave law.
•
John Calhoun, the "Great Nullifier," proposed to leave slavery alone,
return runaway slaves, give the South its rights as a minority, and restore the
political balance. His view was that two
presidents would be elected, one from the South and one from the North, each
yielding one veto.
•
Daniel Webster proposed that all reasonable compromises should be made with the
South and that a new fugitive-slave law be formed. Although, he was against slavery and he
supported Wilmot Proviso, because he felt that cotton could not grow in the
territories gained from the Mexican-American War.
Deadlock
and Danger on Capitol Hill
•
William H. Seward- senator of New York; antislavery and argued that God's moral
law was higher than the Constitution.
•
President Zachary Taylor seemed bent on vetoing any compromise between the
North and South that went through Congress.
Breaking
the Congressional Logjam
•
In 1850, President Taylor died suddenly and Vice President Millard Fillmore
took the presidency. President Fillmore
signed a series of compromises. During this time period, a second Era of Good
Feelings came about. Talk of succession
subsided and the Northerners and Southerners were determined that the
compromises would end the issue of slavery.
Balancing
the Compromise Scales
•
Within the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state and the
territories of New Mexico and Utah were open to slavery on the basis of popular
sovereignty. Thus, the Senate was
unbalanced in favor of the North.
•
The Fugitive-Slave Law of 1850, the Bloodhound Bill, said that fleeing slaves
could not testify on their own behalf and they were denied a jury trial. Northerners who aided slaves trying to escape
were subject to fines and jail time.
This was the one Southern gain from the Compromise of 1850.
•
The events in the 1850s caused the Northerners to resist succession.
Defeat
and Doom for the Whigs
•
In the Democratic Convention of 1852 in Baltimore, the Democrats chose Franklin
Pierce as their candidate for presidency.
He supported the finality of everything, including the Compromise of
1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law.
•
Meeting in Baltimore, the Whigs chose Winfield Scott as their candidate for
presidency. He also praised the
Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law.
•
The votes for the Whig party were split between Northern Whigs, who hated the
party's platform but accepted the candidate, and Southern Whigs, who supported
the platform but not the candidate.Franklin Pierce won the election of
1852. The election of 1852 marked the
end of the Whig party. It died on the
issue of the Fugitive-Slave Law. The
Whig party had upheld the ideal of the Union through their electoral strength
in the South.
President
Pierce the Expansionist
•
The victory of the Mexican War stimulated the spirit of Manifest Destiny. Americans were looking ahead to possible
canal routes and to the islands near them, notably Spain's Cuba.
•
Americans lusted for territory after the Compromise of 1850.
•
William Walker installed himself as the President of Nicaragua in July
1856. He legalized slavery, but was
overthrown by surrounding Central American countries and killed in 1860.
•
Nicaragua was the world's leading marine and commercial power. The British, fearing the Americans would
monopolize the trade arteries there, secured a foothold in Greytown.
•
The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty said that neither America nor Britain would fortify
or secure exclusive control over any isthmian waterway (waterway between two
bodies of land).In 1854, Japan was persuaded to sign a treaty that started the
trade of America with Japan.
Coveted
Cuba: Pearl of the Antilles
•
Cuba was prized by Southerners who saw it as the most desirable slave territory
available. They felt future states
arising from it would eventually restore the balance in the Senate.
•
President Polk had offered $100 million to buy from Spain, but Spain
refused. In 1850-1851, two expeditions
full of Southern men descended upon Cuba, with the hopes of taking it over.
•
Spanish officials in Cuba seized an American ship, the Black Warrior, in
1854. It was now time for President
Pierce to provoke a war with Spain and take Cuba.
•
The secretary of state instructed the American ministers in Spain, England, and
France to prepare confidential recommendations for the acquisition of
Cuba. This document was known as the
Ostend Manifesto. It stated that if
Spain didn't allow America to buy Cuba for $120 million, then America would
attack Cuba on grounds that Spain's continued ownership of Cuba endangered
American interests. The document
eventually leaked out and the Northerners foiled the President's slave-driven
plan.
Pacific
Railroad Promoters and the Gadsden Purchase
•
With the acquisition of California and Oregon, the transcontinental railroad
was proposed. The question was where to
have the railroad begin-the North or the South.
•
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis had James Gadsden buy an area of Mexico from
Santa Anna for which the railroad would pass.
Gadsden negotiated a treaty in 1853 and the Gadsden Purchase area was
ceded to the United States for $10 million.
•
The railroad ran from California to Houston, Texas.
Douglas's
Kansas-Nebraska Scheme
•
Stephen A. Douglas- longed to break the North-South deadlock over westward
expansion; proposed the Territory of Nebraska be sliced into two territories,
Kansas and Nebraska. Their status on
slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty. Kansas would be presumed to be a slave state,
while Nebraska would be a free state.
•
This Kansas-Nebraska Act ran into the problem of the Missouri Compromise of
1820 which forbade slavery in the proposed Nebraska Territory. Douglas was forced to propose the repealing
of the Missouri Compromise. President
Pierce fully supported the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
Congress
Legislates a Civil War
•
The Kansas-Nebraska act wrecked two compromises: the Compromise of 1820 which
the act repealed; and the Compromise of 1850, which northern opinion repealed
indirectly.
•
The Democratic Party was shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
•
The Republican Party was formed in the Mid-West and it had moral protests
against the gains of slavery. It
included Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, and other foes of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Southerners
hated the Republican Party.
Chapter 19
Drifting Toward Disunion
1854-1861
The
Kansas Territory erupted in violence in 1855 between proslavery and antislavery
arguments. In 1857, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision invalidated
the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
Stowe and Helper: Literary Incendiaries
· Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was white, published Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 as an attempt to show the North
the horrors of slavery. The novel was published abroad, including France
and Britain. It helped to start the Civil War and to end it.
· Hinton R. Helper, a non-aristocrat from North
Carolina, wrote The Impending Crisis
of the South in 1857.
Hated by both slavery and blacks, it attempted to use statistics to prove
indirectly that the non-slaveholding whites were the ones who suffered the most
from slavery.
The North-South Contest for Kansas
· Most of the people who came into
Kansas were just westward-moving pioneers. A minority of the people
moving to Kansas was financed by groups of northern abolitionists who wanted to
see Kansas a free state. The New
England Emigrant Aid Company was one of these groups.
· In 1855, the day that the first territorial legislatures were to be
elected, many pro-slavery people came in from slave- state Missouri to vote,
enacting pro-slavery officials. The slavery supporters set up their own
government at Shawnee Mission. The free-soilers then set up their own
government in Topeka, giving the Kansas territory two governments.
(Kansas and Nebraska territories were to have popular sovereignty in choosing
slavery according to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Nebraska was so far north
that its future as a free state was never in question.)
· In 1856, the Civil War in Kansas started when a group of pro-slavery
riders burned down a part of the free-soil town of Lawrence.
Kansas in Convulsion
· John Brown- fanatical abolitionist who, in May of 1856 in response to the
pro-slavery events in Lawrence, hacked to death 5 presumed pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie Creek.
· Civil War flared up in Kansas in 1856, and continued until in merged
with the nation's Civil War of 1861-1865.
· In 1857, Kansas had enough people to apply for statehood. Its
citizens were going to vote again on whether or not to have slavery in the state of Kansas. In order to
keep the free-soilers from creating a free state, the pro-slavery politicians
created the Lecompton Constitution.
The document stated that the people were not allowed to vote for or against the
constitution as a whole, rather, they could vote on whether the constitution
would be "with slavery"
or "without slavery."
If slavery was voted against, then one of the provisions in the constitution
would protect those who already owned slaves in Kansas. Many free-soilers
boycotted voting, so the pro-slaveryites voted, approving the constitution to
include slavery.
· James Buchanan, a democrat, succeeded Pierce as
the President of the United States. He had a strong southern influence
and approved of the Lecompton Constitution. Senator Stephen Douglas
was strongly opposed to the document and he campaigned against it.
Eventually, a compromise was
reached that enabled the people of Kansas to vote on the Lecompton
Constitution, itself. It was revoked by the free-soil voters, but Kansas
remained a territory until 1861,
when the southern states seceded from the Union.
· President Buchanan divided the powerful Democratic
Party by enraging the Douglas
Democrats of the North. He divided the only remaining national party and with it, the Union.
"Bully" Brooks and His Bludgeon
· In 1856, abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts
made an intense speech condemning pro-slavery men, also insulting South
Carolina and state representative, Preston Brooks. In response to
this, Brooks, on May 22, 1856, beat Sumner with a cane to
unconsciousness.
· The speech made by Sumner was
applauded in the North, angering the South.
· The clash between Sumner and
Butler showed how violent and impassioned the Northerners and Southerners were
for their cause.
"Old Buck" Versus "The Pathfinder"
· Meeting in Cincinnati, the Democrats chose James Buchanan
as their presidential candidate to run in the election of 1856 because he wasn't influenced by the
Kansas-Nebraska Act as Pierce and Douglas had been. The Democratic
platform campaigned for popular sovereignty.
· Meeting in Philadelphia, the Republicans chose Captain John C.
Fremont because he was also not influenced by the Kansas-Nebraska
Act. The Republican platform campaigned against the extension of slavery.
· The American Party, also called the Know-Nothing Party, was formed by Protestants who were alarmed by
the increase of immigrants from Ireland and Germany. They chose former
president Millard Fillmore as their candidate for the election of 1856.
The Electoral Fruits of 1856
· James Buchanan won the election of 1856.
· It was quite possibly a good
thing that the Republican Party did not win the election, because some
southerners said the election of a Republican president would mean war, forcing
them to secede.
· This election was a small victory
for the Republican Party because the party was just 2 years old, yet putting up
a fight for the Democrats.
The Dred Scott Bombshell
· Dread Scott, a slave who had lived with his
master (residence in Missouri) for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory,
sued for his freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The
Supreme Court ruled that because a slave was private property, he could be
taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery. The Fifth Amendment forbade Congress from
depriving people of their property without the due process of law. The
Court went further and stated that the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional
and that Congress had no power to ban slavery from the territories, no matter
what the territorial legislatures themselves wanted.
· This victory delighted
Southerners, while it infuriated Northerners and supporters of popular
sovereignty.
The Financial Crash of 1857
· The panic of 1857 broke out due to California gold inflating the
currency and over-speculation in land and railroads. The North was the
hardest hit, while the South, with its cotton, continued to flourish.
· Northerners came up with the idea
of the government giving 160-acre plots
of farming land to
pioneers for free. Two
groups opposed the idea: Eastern industrialists feared that the free land
would drain its supply of workers and the South feared that the West would fill
up with free-soilers who would form anti-slavery states, unbalancing the Senate
even more. Congress passed a homestead
act in 1860, making
public lands available at $0.25/acre, but it was vetoed by President Buchanan.
· The Tariff of 1857 lowered duties to about 20%. The North blamed
it for causing the panic, because they felt they needed higher duties for more
protection. This gave the Republicans two economic issues for the
election of 1860: protection for the unprotected and farms for the
farmless.
An Illinois Rail-Splitter Emerges
· In Illinois's senatorial election
of 1858, the Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln to run against Democrat
Stephen Douglas. Lincoln served in the Illinois legislature as a Whig
politician and he served one term in Congress.
The Great Debate: Lincoln versus Douglas
· Lincoln challenged Douglas to a
series of seven debates that
were arranged from August to October 1858.
· The most famous debate came at
Freeport, Illinois. Lincoln asked Douglas, "What if the people of a
territory should vote down slavery?" The Supreme Court in the Dred
Scott decision had decreed that the people could not. Douglas's reply to
him became known as the "Freeport
Doctrine." Douglas
argued that no matter how the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if
the people voted it down. Laws to protect slavery would have to be voted
on by the territorial legislatures.
· Douglas
won the senatorial
election, but Lincoln won the popular vote.
John Brown: Murderer or Martyr?
· Abolitionist John Brown's
scheme was to invade the South secretly with a handful of followers, call upon
the slaves to rise, give the slaves weapons, and establish a black free state
as a sanctuary.
· In October 1859, he seized the
federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Because many of his supporters
failed to show up, he was caught and sent to death by hanging. When Brown
died, he lived on as a martyr to the abolitionist cause.
The Disruption of the Democrats
· For the election of 1860, the Democrats
met in Charleston, South
Carolina to choose their candidate. The northern wing of the party wanted
to nominate Stephen Douglas, but the southern "fire-eaters" saw him as a traitor
for his unpopular opposition to the Lecompton
Constitution and unpopular Freeport
Doctrine reply. After the delegates from most of the cotton states
walked out, the Democrats met again in Baltimore
to elect a candidate. This time, Douglas was elected, despite the fact
that the southerners again walked out.
· The southern Democrats met in Baltimore
to choose their own Democratic presidential candidate. They chose
Vice-president John C. Breckenridge. The platform favored the
extension of slavery into the territories and the annexation of slave-populated
Cuba.
· The Constitutional Union Party was formed by former Whigs and
Know-Nothings. They nominated John Bell as their presidential
candidate.
A Rail-Splitter Splits the Union
· The Republican Party met in
Chicago and nominated Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate.
· The Republican platform had an appeal to nearly every part of the nation.
For the free-soilers, non-extension of slavery; for the northern manufacturers,
a protective tariff; for the immigrants, no abridgment of rights; for the
Northwest, a Pacific railroad; for the West, internal improvements at federal
expense; and for the farmers, free homesteads (plots of land) from the public
domain.
· The Southerners said that if
Abraham Lincoln was elected as President, the Union would split.
The Electoral Upheaval of 1860
· Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, but he did not win with the popular vote. 60% of the nation
voted for another candidate. 10 southern states didn't even allow Lincoln
to appear on the ballot.
· South Carolina was happy at the
outcome of the election because it now had a reason to secede.
· Even though the Republicans won
the presidential election, they did not
control the House of Representatives,
the Senate, or the Supreme Court.
The Secessionist Exodus
· In December 1860, South Carolina's legislature met in Charleston and
voted unanimously to secede.
6 other states joined South Carolina: Alabama, Mississippi,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
and Texas.
· The 7 seceders met at Montgomery,
Alabama in February 1861 and created a government known as
the Confederate States of America.
The states chose Jefferson Davis, a recent member of the U.S. Senate
from Mississippi, as President.
· During this time of secession,
Buchanan was still President for Lincoln was not sworn in until 1861. President
Buchanan did not hold the seceders in the Union by force because he was surrounded by southern advisors and he could
find no authority in the Constitution to stop them with force. One
important reason was that the tiny army of 15,000 men of the Union was needed
to control the Indians of the West.
The Collapse of Compromise
· The Crittenden amendments to the Constitution were designed to appease
the South. They said that slavery in the territories was to be prohibited
north of 360 30', but south of that line was to be given federal
protection in all territories existing or herby acquired. Basically,
states north of the line could come into the Union with or without slavery,
depending on what they chose, but below that line, there would always be
slavery. President Lincoln rejected the amendments.
Farewell to the Union
· The southern states seceded
fearing that the Republican Party would threaten their rights to own slaves.
· Many southerners felt that their
secession would be unopposed by the North. They assumed that the northern
manufacturers and bankers, dependent upon southern cotton and markets, wouldn't
dare cut off the South.
Chapter 20
Girding for War: The North
and the South
1861-1865
The Menace of Secession
·
President
Abraham Lincoln declared that secession was impractical because the North and
South were not geographically divided. He also stated that with
secession, new controversies would arise, including the national debt, federal
territories, and the fugitive-slave issue.
South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
·
When
President Lincoln was elected, there were only two significant forts in the
South that flew the Union's flag. Fort
Sumter, in the Charleston harbor, needed supplies in order to support
its men. Therefore, Lincoln adopted a middle-of-the-road solution. He told the South that the
North was sending provisions to the fort, not supplies for reinforcement.
Taking the move by Lincoln as an act of aggression, the South Carolinians fired
upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.
·
Virginia,
Arkansas, and Tennessee all seceded after the attack on Fort Sumter. The
11 seceded states were known as the "submissionists.
·
Lincoln
now had a reason for an armed response, and he called upon the Union states to
supply militiamen.
Brothers' Blood and Border Blood
·
Missouri,
Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia were the Border States. They were the
only slave states that hadn't seceded from the Union. The Border States
contained the Ohio River, a vital necessity for both the North and the South.
·
The
official statement that Lincoln made for war was to fight to preserve the
Union, not to end slavery.
·
The
Five Civilized Tribes (Native
American) (Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles) sided with
the Confederacy. These tribes were allowed to send delegates to the
Confederacy congress. Most of the Plains Indians sided with the Union.
The Balance of Forces
·
The
South had the advantage of
fighting defensively on its own land and it did not have to win in order to
preserve the Confederacy-it just had to fight to a draw.
·
Abraham
Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee command of the Northern army, but Lee
turned the job down deciding to fight for his home state of Virginia. Thomas
J. "Stonewall" Jackson was Lee's chief lieutenant.
·
There
were not a lot of factories in the South, but the South was able to seize
federal weapons from the Union.
·
The
North held ¾ of the nation's
wealth, and ¾ of the nation's railroad system. It also had nearly twice
as large of a population of the South as more and more immigrants arrived in
the North from Europe.
Dethroning King Cotton
·
The
South counted on foreign intervention to win the war.
·
The
common people of Britain supported the North, hoping to extinguish
slavery. Britain restrained its own and French ironclads from breaking
the Union blockade.
·
The
British manufacturers depended upon cotton from the South, but before the war
from 1857 to 1860, a surplus of
cotton had developed in Britain, allowing it to function without purchasing
cotton from the South. In 1861,
the cotton supply ran out and many British factory workers were laid off.
As Union armies penetrated the South, they sent cotton to Britain. King Wheat and King Corn, which were produced great quantities in the North,
proved to be more powerful than King
Cotton. Therefore, Britain wasn't able to break the blockade to
gain cotton, because if it had, it would have lost the granary from the North.
The Decisiveness of Diplomacy
·
The
Trent affair occurred in late 1861. A Union warship stopped a
British mail steamer, the Trent,
and removed 2 Confederate diplomats who were heading to Europe. Britain
started to send troops to Canada in retaliation, but the situation was ended
when President Lincoln freed the Confederate prisoners.
·
Britain
shipyards were unknowingly producing Confederate commerce-raiders. The
British ships left their ports unarmed, picked up arms elsewhere, and captured Union
ships. One notable ship was the Alabama.
Foreign Flare-Ups
·
In
1863, two Confederate warships
were being constructed in the British shipyard of John Laid and Sons. Their large iron rams would have
destroyed the Union blockade. To avoid infuriating the North, the London
government bought the ships for the Royal Navy.
·
The
British established the Dominion of
Canada in 1867. It
was partly designed to strengthen the Canadians against the possible vengeance
of the United States.
·
Emperor
Napoleon III of
France dispatched a French army to occupy Mexico City in 1863.
He installed Maximilian as emperor of Mexico City. The actions of
Napoleon were in direct violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Napoleon was
counting on the Union not retaliating due to its weakness. When the Civil
War ended in 1865, Napoleon was forced to abandon Maximilian and Mexico City.
President Davis versus President Lincoln
·
The
one defect of the South was that its own states
could secede. Some state troops refused to serve outside their borders.
·
President
Jefferson Davis
of the Confederacy often had disputes with his own congress. Davis's task
as President proved to be beyond his powers. Lincoln and the North
enjoyed a long-established government that was financially stable and fully
recognized at home and abroad.
Limitations on Wartime Liberties
·
Due
to the fact that Congress was not in
session when the war broke out, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade,
increased the size of the Federal army, directed the secretary of the Treasury
to advance $2 million without appropriation or security to 3 private citizens
for military purposes, and suspended the habeas corpus (stated that a citizen could not be held without the
due process of a trial) - all of which were required to be approved by
Congress.
Volunteers and Draftees: North and South
·
Due
to lack of volunteers, Congress passed in 1863 a federal draft law.
Men who were called in the draft could pay $300 in order to buy a replacement.
The Confederacy also passed a draft law.
The Economic Stresses of War
·
The
North increased tariffs and excise taxes to financially support the war.
It also created the first income tax.
·
In
early 1861, after enough
anti-protection Southern members had seceded, Congress passed the Morrill Tariff Act. It was a
high protective tariff that increased duties 5%-10%. The increases were
designed to raise additional revenue and provide more protection for the
prosperous manufacturers. A protective
tariff became identified with the Republican Party.
·
The
Washington Treasury issued green-backed paper money. The greenbacks were backed by the nation's
fluctuating gold supply. Hence, the value of the greenback was constantly
changing.
·
In
1863, Congress authorized the National Banking System. It was
designed to stimulate the sale of government bonds and to establish a standard
bank-note currency. Banks who joined the National Banking System could
buy government bonds and issue sound paper money backed by the bonds.
·
The
Confederate government was forced to print blue-backed paper money that was subject to "runaway
inflation."
The North's Economic Boom
·
Newly
invented laborsaving machinery enabled the North to expand economically. Mechanical reapers (farm machines used
to harvest grain) allowed for men to leave the farms for the war and provided
grain that contributed to Northern profits.
·
The
discovery of petroleum in
Pennsylvania in 1859 led to a
rush of people known as the "Fifty-Niners."
·
The
Civil War opened up many jobs for women that were originally occupied by men.
A Crashed Cotton Kingdom
·
The
North's blockade severely hampered the South's economy. Transportation in
the South collapsed during the Civil War. Cotton capitalism had lost out to industrial capitalism.
Chapter 21
The Furnace of Civil War
1861-1865
Bull Run Ends the "Ninety-Day War"
·
President
Abraham Lincoln concluded that an attack on a smaller Confederate force at Bull Run would be worth trying.
If successful, the victory would show the superiority of Union arms and might
eventually lead to the capture of Charleston.
·
On
July 21, 1861, the Union and
Confederate forces met. A Union victory was thought to be for sure, as
evident when spectators showed up. The Confederates won as "Stonewall"
Jackson held his line of Confederate soldiers until reinforcements
arrived.
"Tardy George" McClellan and the
Peninsular Campaign
·
In
1861, General George B.
McClellan was given command of the Army of the Potomac.
·
Starting
the Peninsula Campaign,
McClellan's army launched a waterborne attack in the spring of 1862 and captured Yorktown. He
came within sight of Richmond
and attacked "Stonewall" Jackson. General Robert E. Lee
launched a counterattack against the Union forces-the Seven Days' Battles-from June 26 to July 2, 1862 and drove
McClellan's forces back to the sea.
·
The
Northern military plan had 6 components:
1.
Slowly suffocate the South by blockading its coasts.
2.
Liberate the slaves and undermine the very economic foundation of the South.
3.
Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River.
4.
Dismember the Confederacy by sending troops through Georgia and the Carolinas.
5.
Capture its capital at Richmond.
6.
Try everywhere to engage the enemy's main strength and grind it into
submission.
The War at Sea
·
The
Northern sea blockades were
concentrated at the principal ports.
·
Blockade
was the chief offensive weapon of Britain. Britain did not want to tie
its hands in a future war with the U.S. by insisting that Lincoln maintain
impossibly high blockading standards.
·
In
order to combat the strong blockades, ships were developed to run through
them. Some fast ships had the capability of running through blockades in
order to make profits transporting
cotton. These ships were able to break the blockades up until the
latter part of the war when blockades were strengthened.
·
In
1862, the Confederates created
the Merrimack, renamed
the Virginia. It
was an old U.S. wooden ship that was plated with metal armor. It was a
great threat to the Northern blockades because it had the ability to crush
through the wooden ships.
·
On
March 9, 1862, the Union
ironclad, the Monitor,
and the Confederate Merrimack met
and fought to a standstill.
The Pivotal Point: Antietam
·
After
General Lee crushed McClellan's forces in Richmond, Lee moved northward.
In the Second Battle of Bull Run
(August 29-30, 1862), General Lee defeated General Pope's Union
forces.
·
As
Lee moved into Maryland, he met McClellan's forces again at the Battle of Antietam on September 17,
1862. McClellan managed to halt Lee's forces after his forces discovered
Lee's battle plans. Although not a victory, the Union stopped the
Confederate march northward.
·
Antietam
provided Lincoln with the military backing to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September
23, 1862. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued a final proclamation.
Lincoln now made the Civil War a war to end slavery because he declared that
"the rebels could not experiment for 10 years trying to destroy the
government and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt."
·
The
Confiscation Act of 1862
punished "traitors" by declaring their slaves property of war who shall
be free.
A Proclamation without Emancipation
·
The
Emancipation Proclamation called for the freeing of all slaves, although it did
not actually free them. Lincoln did not even enforce the freeing of
slaves in the Border States for fear that they, too, would secede. The
proclamation fundamentally changed the nature of the war because it effectively
removed any chance of a negotiated settlement between the North and the South.
·
The
Emancipation Proclamation caused an outcry to rise from the South who said that
Lincoln was trying to stir up slave rebellion.
·
The
North now had a much stronger moral
cause. It had to preserve the Union and free the slaves.
Blacks Battle Bondage
·
After
the Emancipation Proclamation and as manpower ran low, blacks were allowed to
enlist in the Union army. Towards the end of the war, the Confederacy
allowed blacks to enlist, but by then it was too late.
Lee's Last Lunge at Gettysburg
·
After
Antietam, Lincoln replaced McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac
with General A. E. Burnside. But due to Burnside's massive defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia on
December 13, 1862, he was replaced by Hooker. During the battle at
Chancellorsville, Virginia on
May 2-4, 1863, Hooker was badly beaten, but not before Jackson was mortally
wounded. Hooker was replaced by General George G. Meade.
·
As
Lee moved his Confederate force to the north again (this time to Pennsylvania),
he was met by Meade's force at Gettysburg
on July 1-3, 1863. The failure of General George Pickett's charge enabled the Union to
win the battle. President Jefferson Davis was planning to deliver negotiators to the Washington D.C.
with the Confederate victory at Gettysburg. Since the Union won the
battle instead, Lincoln did not allow the negotiators to come.
The War in the West
·
Ulysses
S. Grant became
a colonel in the Union volunteer army. His first victory was when he captured Fort Henry and
Fort Donelson in February 1862. He then moved to capture the junction of
the main Confederate north-south and east-west railroads in the Mississippi
Valley at Corinth. His plan was foiled when he was defeated by a
Confederate force at the Battle of
Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862.
·
General
Grant was given command of the Union forces attacking Vicksburg. The city fell and surrendered on July 4, 1863.
·
Due
to back-to-back Union military victories at the Battle of Gettysburg
and the Battle of Vicksburg, all Confederate hopes for foreign help were lost.
Sherman Scorches Georgia
·
General
Grant won the battle at Chattanooga,
and the state of Tennessee was
cleared of Confederates. Grant was made general in chief due to this win.
·
The
invasion of Georgia was left up
to General William Tecumseh Sherman. He captured Atlanta in September of 1864 and
burned it in November. He destroyed rail lines and burned
buildings. He continued on through Georgia, with the main purposes of
destroying supplies destined for the Confederate army and to weaken the morale
of the men at the front by waging war on their homes. Sherman captured Savannah on December 22, 1864.
He moved up through South Carolina,
capturing and burning Columbia
on February 17, 1865.
The Politics of War
·
Critics
in President Lincoln's own party were led by secretary of the Treasury, Salmon
Chase.
·
The
Congressional Committee on the Conduct
of the War, formed in late 1861,
was dominated by radical Republicans who resented the expansion of presidential
power in wartime and who pressed Lincoln on emancipation.
·
After
Stephen A. Douglas, the leader of the Democratic Party in the North,
died, the party split between those who supported Lincoln (War Democrats) and those who didn't (Peace Democrats).
·
Congressman
Clement L. Vallandigham was a prominent member in a group called the Copperheads, which were radical Peace
Democrats. Vallandigham was banished from the North to the South by
Lincoln but he later returned after the war had ended.
The Election of 1864
·
Fearing
defeat, the Republicans joined with the War Democrats to form the Union Party in the election of 1864. Lincoln's
running-mate was Andrew Johnson, a local War Democrat.
·
The
Democrats, including the Copperheads, nominated General McClellan was
their presidential candidate.
·
The
Northern Democrats lost the election of 1864. This was one of the most
crushing losses suffered by the South. The removal of Lincoln was the
last hope for a Confederate victory.
Grant Outlasts Lee
·
President
Lincoln chose General Grant to lead the assault on the Confederate capital of Richmond. Grant had 100,000 men
and engaged Lee in a series of battles in the Wilderness of Virginia (Wilderness Campaign).
·
On
June 3, 1864, Grant ordered the frontal assault on Cold Harbor. Thousands of Union soldiers were killed within
a matter of minutes, but Grant's strategy of losing two men and killing one
Confederate worked. He captured Richmond and cornered Lee. On April 9, 1865, Lee was forced to
surrender the Army of Northern Virginia (a significant portion of the
Confederate army) at Appomattox
Courthouse in Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War.
The Martyrdom of Lincoln
·
On
April 14, 1865, President
Lincoln was shot and killed at Ford's
Theater by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson took over as
President.
The Aftermath of the Nightmare
·
The
Civil War claimed over 600,000 lives and cost over $15 billion.
Chapter 22
The Ordeal of Reconstruction
1865-1877
The
Problems of Peace
·
All rebel (Confederate) leaders were pardoned
by President Johnson in 1868.
Freedmen Define Freedom
·
Emancipation took effect unevenly in different
parts of the conquered Confederacy. Some
slaves resisted the liberating Union armies due to their loyalty to their
masters.
·
The church became the focus of black community
life in the years following emancipation.
Blacks formed their own churches pastured by their own ministers. Education also arose for the blacks due to
the emancipation proclamation. Blacks
now had the opportunity to learn to read and write.
The Freedmen's Bureau
·
Because many freedmen (those who were freed
from slavery) were unskilled, unlettered, without property or money, and with
little knowledge of how to survive as free people, Congress created the
Freedmen's Bureau on March 3, 1865. It
was intended to provide clothing, medical care, food, and education to both
freedmen and white refugees. Union
general Oliver O. Howard led the bureau.
The bureau's greatest success was teaching blacks to read. Because it was despised by the President and
by Southerners, the Freedmen's Bureau expired in 1872.
Johnson:
The Tailor President
·
Andrew Johnson was elected to Congress and
refused to secede with his own state of Tennessee.
·
Johnson was made Vice Democrat to Lincoln's
Union Party in 1864 in order to gain support from the War Democrats and other
pro-Southern elements. Johnson was a
strong supporter of state's rights and of the Constitution. He was a Southerner who did not understand
the North and a Democrat who had not been accepted by the Republicans.
Presidential Reconstruction
·
In 1863, Lincoln stated his "10
percent" Reconstruction plan which stated that a state could be
reintegrated into the Union when 10% of its voters in the presidential election
of 1860 had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States and pledged to abide
by emancipation. Then a formal state
government would be constructed within the state, and the state would be
re-admitted into the Union.
·
Due to Republican fears over the restoration
of planter aristocracy and the possible re-enslavement of blacks, Congress passed
the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864. It required
that 50% of a state's voters take the oath of allegiance and it demanded
stronger safeguards for emancipation.
President Lincoln refused to sign the bill.
·
The disagreement between the President and
Congress revealed differences in Republicans and two factions arose: a majority that agreed with Lincoln and
believed that the seceded states should be restored to the Union as quickly as
possible, and a radical minority that felt the South should suffer greatly before
its re-admittance - this minority wanted the South's social structure to be
uprooted, the planters to be punished, and the newly-emancipated blacks
protected by federal power.
·
President Johnson issued his own
Reconstruction plan on May 29, 1865. It
called for special state conventions which were required to: repeal the decrees of secession, repudiate
all Confederate debts, and ratify the slave-freeing 13th Amendment.
The
Baleful Black Codes
·
The Black Codes was a series of laws designed
to regulate the affairs of the emancipated slaves. Mississippi passed the first such law in
November 1865.
·
The Black Codes aimed to ensure a stable and
subservient labor force.
·
Blacks were forced to continue to work the
plantations after their emancipation due to the system of
"sharecropping." Plantation
owners would rent out pieces of their land to blacks and make the cost of rent
higher than the return the land produced.
The renters of the land were bound by contract to continue to work the
land until debts were repaid to the plantation owner. Unable to repay the debts, blacks began to
"jump" their contracts.
·
The codes imposed harsh penalties on blacks
who "jumped" their labor contracts, some of which usually forced the
blacks to work for the same employer for one year. The codes also sought to restore the
pre-emancipation system of race relations.
The codes forbade a black to serve on a jury or to vote. The Black Codes mocked the idea of freedom
and imposed terrible hardships on the blacks who were struggling against
mistreatment and poverty to make their way as free people.
·
The Republicans were strongly opposed to the
Black Codes.
Congressional Reconstruction
·
In December 1865, Southern states represented
themselves in Congress with former Confederate generals and colonels. This infuriated the Republicans who were
apprehensive about embracing their Confederate enemies in Congress.
·
The Republicans had enjoyed their supreme rule
in Congress during the time of the Civil War, but now there would be an opposing
party. This time, the South would have
much more control in Congress due to the fact that slaves were now counted as a
whole person, not just 3/5; giving the South a larger population. Republicans feared that the South would take
control of Congress.
·
On December 4, 1865, Republicans shut the door
in the face of the newly-elected Southern delegates.
·
President Johnson announced on December 6,
1865 that the Southern states had met his conditions and that the Union was now
restored - this statement angered the Republicans.
Johnson
Clashes with Congress
·
The clash between President Johnson and
Congress erupted in February 1866 when the president vetoed a bill extending
the life of the controversial Freedmen's Bureau (later re-passed). Congress (controlled by the Republicans)
passed the Civil Rights Bill in March 1866, which gave blacks the privilege of
American citizenship and struck at the Black Codes.
·
Fearing that the Southerners might someday
repeal the hated Civil Rights Law, Congress passed the 14th Amendment in
1866. The amendment: 1- gave civil rights, including citizenship,
to the freedmen; 2- reduced proportionately the representation of a state in
Congress and in the Electoral College if it denied blacks on the ballot; 3-
disqualified from federal and state offices former Confederates who, as federal
officeholders, had once sworn to support the Constitution of the United States;
and 4- guaranteed the federal debt, while the Union assumed all Confederate
debts.
·
Congress began to develop into the dominant
role in controlling the government.
·
All Republicans agreed that no state should be
welcomed back into the Union without ratifying the 14th Amendment.
Swinging 'Round the Circle with Johnson
·
As President Johnson went on a tour of giving
speeches denouncing the radical Republicans in Congress, his reputation
dropped.
·
Over 2/3 of the ballots cast in the
congressional elections of 1866 had gone to the Republicans.
Republicans Principles and Programs
·
Charles Sumner led the Republican radicals in
the Senate for black freedom and racial equality. Thaddeus Stevens led the radicals in the
House of Representatives.
·
The moderate Republicans, the majority in
Congress, preferred policies that restrained the states from cutting citizens'
rights, rather than policies that directly involved the federal government in
individual lives.
Reconstruction by the Sword
·
On March 2, 1867, Congress passed the
Reconstruction Act. It divided the South
into 5 military districts, each commanded by a union general and policed by
Union soldiers. It also required that
states wishing to be re-admitted into the Union had to ratify the 14th
Amendment, and that states' constitutions had to allow former adult male slaves
to vote. The moderate Republican goal
was to create voters in Southern states that would vote those states back into
the Union and thus free the federal government from direct responsibility for
the protection of black rights.
·
The 15th Amendment was passed by Congress in
1869. It granted black men the right to
vote.
·
Military Reconstruction of the South took
control of certain functions of the president, who was commander in chief, and
set up a martial regime.
·
In 1877, the last federal arms were removed
from Southern politics and the Democratic South was made.
No
Women Voters
·
Feminists were angered that the 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments gave rights to black males, but not to women.
The
Realities of Radical Reconstruction in the South
·
After gaining the right to vote from the 15th
Amendment, blacks began to organize politically. They were strong participators in the Union
League, originally a pro-Union organization.
Freedmen turned the Union League into a network of political clubs that
educated members and campaigned for Republican candidates. The League also took up building black
churches and schools, representing black grievances before local employers and
government, and recruiting militias to protect black communities from white
retaliation.
·
From 1868-1876, blacks began to hold major
offices in government (senator, congressmen).
·
"Scalawags" were Southerners who
were accused of plundering the treasuries of the Southern states through their
political influence in the radical governments.
·
"Carpetbaggers" were sleazy
Northerners who had come to the South to seek power and profit.
The Ku
Klux Klan
·
The "Invisible Empire of the South",
otherwise known as the Ku Klux Klan, was founded in Tennessee in 1866. It was formed by disgruntled white
Southerners who were angered by the success of black legislators. The group worked through intimidation.
·
Congress passed the Force Acts of 1870 and
1871 in response to the murders the Klan had committed. They enabled Federal troops to stop the
atrocities of the Ku Klux Klan. The Acts
came too late, though, after the intimidation of the Klan had already been
accomplished.
Johnson
Walk the Impeachment Plank
·
Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in
1867. It required the president to
secure the consent of the Senate before he could remove his cabinet members
once they had been approved by the Senate.
Its purpose was to keep the secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, in the
president's cabinet. When Johnson
dismissed Stanton in 1868, the House of Representatives voted to impeach
Johnson for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
A Not-Guilty Verdict for Johnson
·
The House of Representatives prosecuted the
president, while the Senate served as the court to try Johnson on the
impeachment charges.
·
President Johnson argued that the Tenure of
Office Act was unconstitutional and that he had fired Stanton in order to bring
a case before the Supreme Court so the Court could rule on the Act's
constitutionality.
·
On May 16, 1868, the Senate voted the
president "not guilty" by a margin of one vote. The radical Republicans failed to gain the necessary
2/3 majority vote in the Senate to remove the president.
·
Fears of creating a poor precedent and
opposition to abusing the checks and balances system caused Senators to vote
"not guilty." These Senators
also considered his presidential replacement, Ben Wade. Wade was disliked by many for his economic
policies.
The
Purchase of Alaska
·
In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward
signed a treaty with Russia that gave Alaska to the United States for $7.2
million.
·
Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. because it felt
that it was over-expanded in North America.
Russia also wanted to strengthen the United States as a barrier against
its enemy, Britain.
·
Although the American people were concentrated
on Reconstruction and anti-expansion, they supported the purchase of Alaska
because they did not want to offend the Russians, who had helped them during
the Civil War.
The
Heritage of Reconstruction
·
Many white Southerners felt that
Reconstruction was more of a painful process that the war itself.
·
The Republican Party wanted to protect the
freed slaves and to promote the fortunes of the Republican Party. In doing this, though, it extinguished itself
in the South for nearly 100 years.
·
Despite good intentions by the Republicans,
the Old South was in many ways more resurrected than reconstructed.
Thaddeus Stevens had
a radical program of drastic economic reforms and heftier protection of
political rights. This program was never
enacted.
