IB History of the Americas - Semester Final Review

Advantages for North

• Had more value in land & properties

• Had more people (22 mil vs 9 mil [including 3/5 slaves])

• Had double the value in land

Disadvantages of North

• Manufacturing was smaller

Advantages of South

• Slavery was a bigger industry compared to Northern industries

• More military leaders

Disadvantages of South

• Worse infrastructure/less industrialized

• Smaller population

• Less money

• Less people

Battle of Antietam

• If the North won this battle: Declare Emancipation Proclamation, make North look strong

• If the South won this battle: Knocked the North off, possible international recognition of Confederacy from European countries, possible financial support

Battle of Gettysburg

• For North: Prevent Confederates from reaching Washington D.C. » take over the North

• For South: Force a negotiation/Northern surrender, ruined chance of gaining European support, left with weak offense, surrendered 2 years later

• Important points: Turning point, 50k causalities, bloodiest battle, ended Confederacy’s last invasion, ended possibilities of peace between the sides

• Battle: Union fights back against the Confederacy, Pickett’s charge wasn’t successful » huge sacrifice for South » retreated

Lincoln’s controversies

• Suspension of habeas corpus: Lincoln orders for the right of habeas corpus to be suspended when the war starts

  • Court rules against it » Lincoln ignores the order

• Emancipation Proclamation: Declared in Jan 1, 1863, said that all 3-5 million slaves in rebel states are free

  • didn’t apply to slave Union states (MIssouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware)

  • Questionable because was it legal and would the slaves be returned » became permanent

Passage of the 13th amendment

• Passed in 1865 (Lincoln’s re-election)

• Abolishes slavery and give freedom to former slaves

Congressional plans for Reconstruction

• Passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 by the Radical Republicans in Congress

  • grants citizenship to people born in the U.S and provided equal rights

  • first was vetoed by President Johnson » veto override

• Reconstruction Act of 1867 passed

  1. created 5 military districts to manage the South and enforce laws

  2. All male citizens (no Confederate leaders) to be part of new state government

  3. State constitutions required to have universal male suffrage

  4. Confederate states required to approve the 14th amendment to enter the Union

• Attempted to impeach President Johnson

Presidential plans for Reconstruction (1865-67)

• Was directed by President Johnson

• Liked components of the 10 percent plan

• Generous to former Confederates

  • Southern governments could reform with Confederate leaders in charge, no role for freedmen

• Issued over 13K pardons and forgiveness in 1868 (including the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis).

Reconstruction Amendments

• 13th: Abolishes slavery

• 14th: Guaranteed citizenship to U.S born people

  • States can’t take rights away without due process of law

  • People have equal protection of the laws

  • Rebels couldn’t hold federal office

  • Guaranteed public debt of U.S, not debt from rebels

  • DOESN’T protect voting rights

• 15th: Passed in a lame-duck session (transition period when officials are leaving) in 1869

  • All citizens have the right to vote and no states can restrict this right based on the race, color, or previous servitude of the person

Black Codes

• Southern states could pass because of the lack of Republican power over the South, especially after the assassination of Lincoln

• Only applied to Black people and mixed people with 1/8 ancestry

  • Restricted civil rights

  • Covered up labor contracts that were similar to slavery, like having to stay with their master or they will arrested if they try to escape

    • Black vagrants were forced to sign these contract or would be arrested and forced to work

    • They could be hired out and work for a White employer to reduce punishment

Extremist groups

• KKK (Ku Klux Klan): At first wanted to overthrow the Republican governments in the South

  • used violence to target freedmen and Republican whites

  • had multiple revivals that attacked certain groups

• White League/Line: A paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party

  • Instigated violence towards White Republicans and Black people

• Red Shirts: A paramilitary group that

  • used violence and murdered many African Americans

• Both disrupted Republican rallies and intimidated Black people from voting

  • Caused state governments and White Southerners to become Democratic

Disenfranchisement & “enslavement”

• Peonage: AKA debt servitude, forcing a person in debt to work forever because they will stay in debt and can’t work it off

• Vagrancy Laws: You are a criminal if you can’t prove you were employed

• “Pig” Laws: Enhanced previous misdemeanors offenses to being felonies

• Convict Leasing: Convicts were used for labor like being sold to industries, oftentimes these convicts were wrongfully arrested

Election of 1876

• Hayes (Republican) vs Tilden (Democrat)

• One of the most disputed election, had the highest voter turnout (82%), Tilden was winning the popular and electoral vote (184)

• Dispute because of the vote in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina

• Lead to the Compromise of 1877 » the end of the Reconstruction period

Compromise of 1877

• Hayes would win the Electoral vote and become President

• Hayes promised to take all federal troops out of the South

  • Republican power is lost in the South

  • Black voters lose their suffrage

Plessy v. Ferguson

• Homer Plessy was a mixed man in New Orleans who was arrested because he sat in a white only car

• He argued that the Louisiana Separate Car Act violated the 13th and 14th amendments.

• Ruled that it wasn’t a violation and led to the creation of the Separate but equal doctrine, the amendment only grants him equality

• African Americans had to use separate public accomodations and it led to school segregation

• This case led to less racial equality because African Americans could be denied in White only places

Jim Crow Laws

• Enforced segregation

• Black and White people couldn’t share the same public accommodations (schools, drinking fountains)

• Successors of Black Codes, restricted Black rights

• Made separate by equal conditions

Disenfranchisement

• Black voting is reduced because…

  • Federal troops were removed in the South

  • Various laws passed such as poll taxes (a fee that a citizen have to pay to vote), literacy test, grandfather clauses (your current voting rights depend on if your grandfather could’ve vote)