Unit 5: Period 5: 1844-1877

-mexican-american war, polk -compromise of 1850 -popular sovereignty, stephen douglas -whigs & democrats, slavery -mexican cession, gadsden purchase -american civil war, abe Lincoln, Jefferson Davis -bleeding kansas, Treaty of Guadalupe-hidalgo -crittenden compromise, John brown -reconstruction era >> fails -sea island experiment, redeemers, kkk, restrictions on voting -free blacks in the south -lincoln assassinated

Santa Fe Trail

opened in 1821; linked Santa Fe (New Mexico) with Independence, New Mexico and Missouri’s commerce with US

• westward expansion & market revolution

Polk’s Goals (4 » Mexican-American War)

1. reduce tariffs

2. establish an independent treasury

3. settle Oregon boundary dispute

4. acquire CA

Californios

class of Mexican cattle ranchers who tended to settle in California

Tejanos

non-Indian population of Spanish origin

» Texas = first part of Mexico where Americans began to settle

Led up to the Texas Revolt

More Americans began settling in Texas, and the Mexican government accepted an offer from a Connecticut farmer named Moses Austin that allowed Americans to colonize Texas

→General Santa Anna sent army to impose central authority

Texas Revolt

war that erupted between Texans and Mexico, calling for Texan independence

» Americans who settled in Texas demanded more autonomy

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

Mexico’s ruler

→sent an army to impose central authority on Texas, which erupted the Texas Revolt

Battle of the Alamo

Santa Anna’s army stormed Alamo mission and killed 187 American & Tejano defenders » “Remember the Alamo!”

“Reannexation” of Texas & “Reoccupation” of Oregon

Leading up to the election of 1844, James K. Polk garnered lots of support for presidency bc of his support of annexation and connections with Jackson

• Democratic Party call for reannexation (implying that Texas once belonged to US) of Texas & reoccupation of Oregon

Wilmot Proviso

resolution that prohibited spread/expansion of slavery in Mexican Cession; rejected

Free Soil Party

organized by opponents of slavery’s expansion (NOT necessarily abolitionists) & nominated Martin Van Buren

Southern supporters » no want to compete with slaves in west

• appealed to North bc wanted to stop creation of New slave states

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

allowed federal commissioners to determine fate of alleged fugitives without benefit of trial by jury of testimony by defendant

• local authorities COULDNT interfere with capture

• required individuals to ASSIST with capture

Compromise of 1850

offered by Henry Clay with 4 main provisions:

1. CA enter as FREE state

2. slave trade abolished in nation’s capital (Washington, DC @ the time)

3. Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

4. popular sovereignty will determine slavery in Mexican Cession

Popular Sovereignty

proposed by Stephen A. Douglas; status of slavery determined by votes of local settlers, NOT Congress

• settlers choose if state will be slave or free

Stephen A. Douglas

Democratic politician from Illinois who advocated the idea of popular sovereignty; he was also a supporter of westward expansion

• wanted to build a transcontinental railroad through Kansas or Nebraska

• believed popular sovereignty promote self-gov & middle ground

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

act that REPEALED Missouri Compromise (referring to balance of free & slave states) because allowed popular sovereignty and creation of Kansas & Nebraska

• shattered Democratic Party unity

• Whigs collapse →Republican party creation that sought to stop expansion of slavery

Know-Nothing Party

nativists; reserve political office for native-born Americans and resist Catholic Church agressions

• prominent in Massachusetts

• against Kansas-Nebraska Act

• support for reforms movements (temperance, abolitionism, nativism) & CATHOLICS = against those

“Balloon Frame” Houses

mass produced precut frame buildings that were shipped off and nailed together on treeless prairies in Chicago

→facilitated further westward settlement

Slave Power

term in which Republicans referred to South’s proslavery political leadership as

• believed rich southerns in government were “pulling the strings”

“Bleeding Kansas”

violence/armed conflict between pro and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas territory; “mini civil war” with 200 killed

• result of popular sovereignty

Caning of Charles Sumner

incident between two Congressmen (pro & anti slavery); South Carolinian representative Preston Brooks assaulted anti-slavery Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner (until unconscious) with a gold-tipped cane

Dred Scott Decision

ruled that Dred Scott had no right to sue (his master) because he wasn’t considered a US citizen

• Could a black person be considered a citizen and thus sue in a federal court?

• Did residence in free state make Scott free?

• Did Congress have power to prohibit slavery in any territory?

Lecompton Constitution

President Buchanan’s administration try to admit Kansas as slave state, which violated popular sovereignty, and Douglas formed alliance with Republicans to stop attempt

»contributed to Democratic Party Split

»one of Democratic Party’s most popular leaders sided with Northerners

Harpers Ferry, Virginia

militant abolitionist John Brown led an armed assault on federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (violent)

• Brown believed God = vengeful father of Old Testament

• executed and seen as martyr of North

“Filibustering”

19th century invasions of Central American countries that were privately launched by groups of Americans seeking to establish personal rule & spread slavery

» led by military adventurer William Walker » violated neutrality laws

“Fire-eaters”

Southern nationalists that hoped to split the Democratic Party and USA to form a new southern confederacy

Crittenden Compromise

(Republicans) going to allow slavery to be legal but Lincoln rejected it!

Declaration to the Immediate Causes of Secession

document that placed the issue of slavery at the center of the secession crisis; Lincoln winning the election of 1860 was the South’s LAST STRAW

• South Carolina = first to secede from the Union

Lincoln’s first inaugural address (1861)

• rejected the right of secession

• denied intention to interfere with slavery in the states

Fort Sumter

first battle of the US Civil War

First Modern War (US Civil War)

The American Civil War; called this because it was the first time in history that mass armies had confronted each other with deadly weapons created by industrialization

Monitor v Merrimac

Famous sea battle between the Union vessel Monitor and the Confederate vessel Merrimac

• demonstrated the superiority of ironclads over modern military communication & submarines

• Industrial impact & how it revolutionized warfare

Army of Northern Virginia

Smaller Confederate army

• led by general Joseph E. Johnson & later, General Robert E. Lee

Battle of Antietam

Battle in Maryland, where McClellan and Army of Potomac repelled Lee’s advanced in a single day

• UNION victory

• Showed GB & France that the Union was not a lost cause

Contraband of War

Treating escapes blacks as property of military value subject to confiscation

• escaping slaves called this and put in “contraband camps”

Radical Republicans

Group within Republican Party that advocated strong resistance to expansion of slavery, opposition to south secession, emancipation, and arming of black soldiers during the Civil War + equal civil & political rights for blacks during Reconstruction

• believed that slavery = target of war effort

Army of Potomac

Union’s main army/force in the East

• led by General McClellan for a while (who wouldn’t actually do anything)

Battle of Gettysburg

Fought in southern Pennsylvania in which Lee suffered massive casualties and were forced to resterait; massive morale boost for union

Gettysburg Address

President Lincoln’s most famous speech that redefined the war not JUST as a struggle to preserve the Union, but also as a struggle for human equality

Emancipation Proclamation

Abolished slavery in the Confederacy (“warring states”)

• set off jubilation among abolitionists & slaves in the North

• Some abolitionists did not support bc found it odd that Lincoln would pass this in regards to areas that were not under Union jurisdiction

• Abolition became Union goal

Black soldiers & sailors

group of African Americans that became prominent after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in which the government became committed to allowing more blacks to enlist in the Union Army

Second Confiscation Act of 1862

Allowed government to liberate any enslaved person owned by someone who supported secession IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM

First Confiscation Act of 1861

Gave government the right to seized enslaved people to propel “insurrectionary” purposes (support for secession/any sort of sympathy for warring states)

Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

Lambdin P. Milligan was arrested and charge with conspiring to free Confederate prisoners;Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to bring accused persons before military tribunals when civil courts were in session

• was tried in a military court under President Lincoln; guilty &sentenced to hanging

• Milligan’s lawyers sought a writ of habeas corpus; deprived of 6th Amendment rights & was pardoned

• Lincoln was jailing people (unlawfully) who were antiwar

Transcontinental Railroad

(1869) First line across continent from Omaha/Nebraska to Sacramento, CA w/ linkage of Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad

• extended the national market

• Facilitated spread of settlement & investment in west

National Banking System

Stimulated by need to pay for war whose policies included government increasing tariffs, imposing new taxes on production & consumption of goods, income tax

• national debt w/ interest-bearing bonds

Greenbacks

Paper money issued by the government

• Lincoln initiated the printing of a national currency

Women & War Work

Northern women were able to move into jobs in factories and have male-dominated professions (nursing) during wartime since men were at war!

• many opportunities were opened to women!

“King Cotton Diplomacy”

Diplomatic methods used by Confederates to coerce Great Britain & France into entering the war to support the Confederacy » strategy was to embargo against GB & France (UNSUCCESSFUL) bc of global reliance on southern cotton for textile manufacturing

Southern Unionists

Southerners that were loyal to the Union; made significant contribution to Northern voting

• 50k white southerners in Union army

• Server as Union Spies

Elizabeth Van Vew

(With help of Mary Elizabeth Bowser) passed information about Confederate plans to Union forces

Women in Confederacy

Burdens on Southern women in which they were left or organize and manage the business affairs (plantations) & discipline slaves

• Some were spies for union

• Self-sacrificing devotion

• We’re miserable, so after war, all changes that gave them more freedom in the public sphere and it was undone (wanted the men back)

Sea Island Experiment

“Rehearsal” for Reconstruction; on sea islands off of the South Carolina coast in which the government tried to convert plantation slaves to get used to wage labor

• provided opportunities for education, becoming self-reliant

Black families

Component central to black community during Reconstruction; emphasized that freedom = escaping oppressions of slavery: whips, denial of education, separation of families, and sexual exploitation

Freedman’s Bureau

Agency created by Congress in 1865 to establish a working free labor system; agents provided school, aid to poor and old, settled disputes between whites&blacks, equal treatment before courts

• underfunded (overall failure)

• Helped finance 3,000 schools in South & hospitals (medical care for blacks in south)

Sharecropping

Allowed each black family to rent a part of the plantation with the crop divided between worker & owner at the end of the year; stable resident force; aka GANG LABOR by former slaves because working under white supervision like slavery

Crop-lien system

To obtain supplies from merchants, farmers were forced to take up the growing of cotton and pledge part of the crop as collateral (property creditor can seize if debt not paid)

• lots of farmers became in debt

• Increasing interest rates

• Debt for life

Black Codes

Laws that were passed by new Southern governments that tried to regulate the lives of former slaves, denying blacks many constitutional rights: testify against whites, serve on juries or state militias, vote

• violated FREE LABOR principles because forced blacks to sign yearly contracts or be turned over to white landowners

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

Define all persons born in US as citizens and spelled out the rights they were to enjoy regardless of race

• Johnson vetoed, but Congress overruled

14th Amendment

All American citizens have equal protection under the law

Sherman’s March to Sea (1864)

Union General Sherman and his soldiers marched from Atlanta to the sea in which the Union army burned everything in their path in order to decrease Southern morale & destroy their resources

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery

Reconstruction

Government attempt through extensive reforms and government policies/laws to integrate newly freed blacks into American society; was ultimately a failure

Lincoln’s 10% Plan

Required 10% of Confederate voters who voted in 1860 election to swear an oath of allegiance to Union and accept emancipation through the 13th Amendment

• seen as too lenient

• Opposite of what Radical Republicans believed

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

Proposed by Radical Republicans; provided that formers Confederate states should be ruled by a military governor & required 50% of the electorate to swear allegiance to US

» forced abolishing of slavery & forced repealing of ordinance of secession in South

• pocket-vetoed by Lincoln

Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan

based on Reconstruction plan approved by Lincoln; creation of provisional military governments to run the states until readmitted into Union (separate South into 5 military districts) & required ALL Southern citizens to swear a loyalty oath & prohibited former southern elite from participating in new governments

• forced southern governments to write a new constitution that eliminated slavery & renounced secession

40 acres and a mile

Special Field Order No. 15 (General Sherman) in which Confederate land was seized to be redistributed along freedmen BUT President Johnson rescinded the order

» INSTEAD Johnson order that freedmen were given this (the term)

40 acres and a mile

Special Field Order No. 15 (General Sherman) in which Confederate land was seized to be redistributed along freedmen BUT President Johnson rescinded the order

» INSTEAD Johnson order that freedmen were given this (the term)

Bradwell v Illinois (1873)

Myra Bradwell invoked free labor in challenging an Illinois statute limiting the practice of law to men, but Supreme Court denied her claim

• claiming equal rights

Enforcement Acts

Adopted by Congress, outlawing terrorist societies and allowing the president to use the army against them

» bc the KKK was using violence to scare and intimidate blacks from voting

“Reign of Terror”

Colfax Murders

Hundreds of blacks were killed when whites were assaulted with canons; Grant arrested Klansmen with federal marshalls

» KKK disappeared

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Outlawed radical discrimination in places of public accommodation

Swing Around the Circle

Term by which journalists called Johnson speaking tour in the North to push voters to elect members of Congress committed to his Reconstruction Program

• accused radicals of trying to assassinate him

“Waving the bloody shirt”

Tactic Republicans used in which they identified opponents with secession and treason

Tenure of Office Act

Barred the President from removing officeholders without the consent of the Senate

» Johnson violated this act

Johnson Impeachment

Was impeached because he violated the Tenure of Office Act

15th Amendment

Gave black men the right to vote; prohibited gov from denying ANY CITIZEN the right to vote bc of race

Literacy Tests

New type of suffrage restriction (NOT based on race)

• discriminated about minorities bc did not have equal access to good education

Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)

Butchers were excluded from Louisiana state-sponsored monopoly, claimed that their right to equality before law (that was guaranteed by 14th amendment) had been VIOLATED; justices did not care

• later ruled that rights of most citizens were under state control

US v Cruikshank

The court got rid of the Enforcement Acts by getting rid of conviction of those involved in the Colfax murders

Redeemers

Democrats who regained control In South (southern states); claimed to “redeem” the white South from corruption, misgovernment, and northern/black control

Bargain of 1877

Compromise between Republicans and Democrats

• since Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) won the election, Hayes agreed to recognize Democratic control of the South & to avoid further intervention in local affairs

• In return, Democrats accept Hayes’ presidency and respect civil rights of blacks