Period 5 (1844-1877) (ch. 13, 14, 15)

manifest destiny:

the widespread belief that America was “destined” by God to expand westward across the continent into lands claimed by Native Americans/European nations

Overland Trails:

trail routes followed by wagon trains bearing settlers and trade goods from Missouri to the Oregon Country, California, and New Mexico, beginning in the 1840s

Going west

• American-born Whites from S/Midwest

• for land/gold

• pioneers escape debt/dull lives/bad marriage

Indians

• Plain Indians = farmers; nomads, depend on buffalo, fight to keep land

• native land torn through, land taken

• buffalo disappear 🦬

• reservations

• exterminated by White bounty-hunters

Where were many Hispanics? How were they seen?

• New Mex + FL

• faced prejudice, hated

!!! Mexico vs. Span rule, independent, unstable

question Amer intentions (make TX slave state), outlaw immigration/additional slaves, Mexican president imprisons Stephen Austin → Texians rebel → Americans ordered to be expelled; rebels arrested + executed

Saint Patrick’s Battalion

• deserted American soldiers (Irish/German Catholics)

• San Patricios in Mexican army

• why

  • against abuse from Protestant officers + atrocities that Catholic Mexicans faced

  • attracted to higher wages + land grants + citizenship

• defectors captured+hanged (inhumane)

Lecompton Constitution → pro-slavery, boycotted, voted down/rejected, Kansas free state

Oregon Fever:

lure of fertile land, mild climate, plentiful rainfall, magnificent forests, and economic opportunities in the Oregon Country that drew hundreds of thousands of settlers westward, beginning in the late 1830s

California

• prev Span control, missions

• Mex → secularize, ranchos (estates) like S plantations

• annexed, gateway to riches of Asia

• California Gold Rush: 1849 massive migration of gold hunters (forty-niners), mostly young men, who transformed the national economy after massive amounts of gold were discovered in northern California

  • discover gold, ppl from around the world

  • want to expand west w transcontinental railroad/telegraph lines/link US markets to Asia thru Pacific Ocean

  • saloons/taverns

  • dirty/dangerous

• free state

• Anti-Vagrancy Act/Greaser Act = police can arrest anyone suspected of being a vagabond (target Spanish/Indian), force them to work on ranch/mine

Texas

• 3k Anglos in TX illegally

• Stephen Austin promoted Amer settlement in TX

• many ranchers/farmers want cheap/fertile land, some wealthy planters bring slaves (illegal)

• Texas Revolution: 1835-36 conflict between Texas colonists and the Mexican govt, result in the creation of the separate Republic of Texas in 1836

  • Alamo - abandoned Cath mission, Texians/Tejanos/Amer volunteers, Mex attack/win, Texians alienated → want war, declaration of independence from Mex, draft constitution for the Republic of Texas

  • Goliad - Texian prisoners of war killed → massacre fuels revenge

  • Sam Houston - frontiersman, commander-in-chief of Texian army

  • Battle of San Jacinto - Sam Houston/troops retreat, Mex general lets guard down, attack as revenge, capture General Santa Anna → freedom from signing treaty recognizing independence

• Lone Star Republic

  • legalize slavery

  • Sam Houston = 1st president

  • want annexation to US → would start quarrel between N/S

Tyler

• want TX to be a slave state

• vs. Clay’s American System

_{^{[Clay, all cabinet resign, kick Tyler out of party]}}

Polk

• wants to annex Oregon Country/TX, admit TX, expansion to strengthen unity

• vs. American System, lowers tariffs

  • N want higher tariffs

  • W want fed funded roads

Mexican-American War

• Mex breaks relations w/ US

• Polk provokes Mex by sending troops near Rio Grande

  • Mex soldiers attack US soldiers → excuse to start war

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: 1848 treaty between U.S. and Mexico that ended the Mexican-American War
  *Mexico City fell, Santa Anna fled

  • US get CA/AZ/NM/TX + parts of CO/UT/WY/NV

  • natives/Mexicans can keep property + U.S. citizenship + stay Catholic

    • cheated/killed

    • get lowest-paying jobs with worst conditions (manual laborers, miners, railroad workers)

    • Land Act of 1851 must have documented titles, no land titles = land taken

• critiques

  • N/abolitionists say unjust, only for slavery, killed many Mexicans

Wilmot Proviso:

1846 proposal by congressman David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, to prohibit slavery in any lands acquired in the Mexican-American War *wants TX as slave state though
-ignites debate over westward expansion of slavery, could divide the Union

-Calhoun vs.

popular sovereignty:

legal concept by which the White male settlers in a U.S. territory would vote to decide whether to permit slavery

-most democratic

-Afr Amer can’t vote on their fate, Whites strip their freedom

Free-Soil party:

a political coalition created in 1848 that opposed the expansion of slavery into the new western territories (but won’t endorse abolition)

-ppl from N Dem/Whigs/Liberty Party

Compromise of 1850:

a package of 5 bills presented to Congress by Henry Clay intended to avoid secession/civil war by reducing tensions between North and South over the status of slavery
*South threaten to leave Union when CA/NM added as free states

-Calhoun vs., no compromise, must protect rights of slaveowners

-all passed, temporary truce - only postpones secession/civil war

_proposals:

1. _{CA = free}

2. _{NM + Utah decide to allow slavery or not}

3. _{TX no claim to NM}

4. _{fed govt compensate TX by paying their debts}

5. _{keep slavery in D.C., but no sale of slaves in capital}

6. _{adopt more effective law to recapture freedom seekers}

7. _{deny congressional authority to interfere with interstate slave trade}

Fugitive Slave Act:

1850 part of the Compromise of 1850 that authorized federal officials to help capture then return freedom seekers to their owners without trials
_{^{*including free Blacks + freedom seekers who escaped months/years ago}}

-abolitionists mad/oppose

-some N states pass personal liberty laws (state govt can’t cooperate w slave catchers, penalty for falsely accusing Afr Amer of being fugitive slave, etc.)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

• written by Harriet Beecher Stowe

• successful novel abt the evils of slavery, fueled abolitionist mvmt

Pierce

• doughface (N man, S views)

• western expansion

Kansas-Nebraska Act:

1854 controversial legislation by Stephen Douglas that created 2 new territories taken from Native Americans, Kansas and Nebraska, where resident males would decide whether slavery would be allowed (popular sovereignty)
+Douglas want to repeal Missouri Compromise (South more land for slavery)

-anti-slavery faction in Congress (mainly Whigs) crushed, Whig party dies, new party = Republicans

Lincoln

• Republican

• stop pro-slavery S

• prevent extending slavery to W territories

• Lincoln-Douglas debates: 1858 series of 7 dramatic debates focusing on the issue of slavery in the territories (Illinois race for seat in U.S. Senate)

  • Dem Douglas: White supremacy, popular sovereignty

  • Repub Lincoln: natl bank, high tariff, fed funded internal improvements

• inaugural address

  • won’t interfere with slavery where it exists

  • secession is not lawful

  • ‘we are not enemies, but friends’

• Black man’s president, 1st to show respect for their rights

• assassinated by John Wilkes Booth

Bleeding Kansas:

1856 series of violent conflicts in the Kansas Territory between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions over the status of slavery

-violent competition, want pol control of Kansas

-Missouri border ruffians vs. free state constitutional convention w no slavery

Buchanan

• states’ rights

• expansion

• South

• Congress shouldn’t interfere w slavery in states/territories

Panic of 1857:

• decreased European demand for American wheat/corn 🌾🌽

• banks close, businesses bankrupt 💸

• many jobless

Buchanan does nothing

Dred Scott v. Sandford:

1857 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that enslaved people were not U.S. citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in territories

-Scott should be free since lived in Illinois (slavery outlawed) → considered inferior/property

-Congress can’t exclude slavery → territorial govt can’t exclude either → West/North technically open to slavery

-pro-slavery yay, abolitionists boo

Towards secession

• Lincoln won, S don’t want him to stop slavery + cotton exports

• SC secedes to keep slavery

• SECESSION

  • other Southern states leave (FL/GA/LA/TX/MS), won’t compromise, Buchanan does nothing

  • why: racist, no equality of races, preserve slavery system

  • met in Alabama to write constitution of Confederate States of America ⬇

    • honor ‘Almighty God’

    • no tariffs or federally funded internal improvements

    • only agricultural economy

    • slavery protected

    • President Jefferson Davis, VP Alexander Stephens

• Fort Sumter

  • little food/supplies

  • Confed fire cannons

  • Lincoln declares war, start of civil war (1861)

Union vs. Confederacy

N

• want to restore Union

• Ulysses S. Grant

• more soldiers

• industrial development/manufacturing

• ships/wagons/railroads

• finances

  • taxes (Morrill Tariff on imports, Internal Revenue Service - 1st income tax - not many had high enough income to pay)

  • print paper $ (Legal Tender Act of 1862)

  • sell govt bonds to investors

• politics

  • suspend habeas corpus (speedy trial)

  • Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 can arrest those ‘suspicious’ of treason (Confederate sympathizers)

S

• Confederates want recognition of independence

• Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson

• Robert E. Lee

• defend (easier) home turf

• strategy prolong the war (British/French join cause for cotton or Lincoln give in to negotiation)

• finances

  • disaster

  • Treasury dpt + revenue-collecting system from scratch

  • poor tax enforcement + easy evasion

• politics

  • criticize Davis’ leadership

  • poor White Southerners hate planter elite (scarce food, they jack up prices)

  • Confederacy is ‘tyrannical’

Anaconda Plan:

Union’s primary war strategy

1) Main army defends Washington, D.C. + pressure Richmond (Confederate capital)
2) Federal navy blockade main Southern ports (no access to foreign goods/weapons)
3) ⭐Divide Confederates by pushing South along Mississippi + Tennessee + Cumberland Rivers (to control these rivers)

!!! Civil War soldiers - immigrants (cash bonus, steady pay/job, belief in cause), conscription, Texans (volunteer, ethnically diverse)

Afr Amer run away, sabotage, join fighting

Kansas-Missouri border brutal guerrilla warfare

battles - Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Seven Pines, Second Battle at Bull Run, Fort Pillow Massacre, Cold Harbor

Confed victories, low Union morale

civil war medicine - amputation; stomach wounds = fatal (infection)

Morrill Tariff - raise govt revenue, protect American manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and fishing industries from foreign competition

❕Pacific Railway Act: 1862 Congress helped fund transcontinental railroad from Nebraska to CA

❕Homestead Act: 1862 legislation granting “home-steads” of 160 acres of govt-owned land to settlers who agreed to work the land for at least 5 years
_{^{+new federal agency = Department of Agriculture}}

Morrill Land-Grant College Act: 1862 federal statute that granted federal lands to states to help fund the creation of land-grant colleges/universities, which were founded to provide technical education in agriculture, mining, and industry

contrabands:

freedom seekers who sought refuge in Union military camps or who lived in areas of the Confederacy under Union control

-many refugees

-Second Confiscation Act - contrabands now ‘forever free,’ need to eliminate slavery from Confederate states to win the war + save the Union

Battle of Antietam:

1862 turning-point battle near Sharpsburg, MD, leaving almost 25k solders dead or wounded, in which Union forces halted a Confederate invasion of the North

-Lee planned invasion/capture of Maryland

-revived Union morale, Lincoln wants to end slavery w the war (not just restore the union)

Emancipation Proclamation:

1863 military order issued by President Lincoln that freed enslaved people in areas still controlled by the Confederacy
“military necessity” + “an act of justice”

-✅: abolitionists in North → ‘far-reaching’

-❌: Democrats → unconstitutional + dictatorial, some Union troops desert (didn’t enlist to free enslaved/have racial equality)

-word spreads

-slaves in N border states/S inspired to escape

-Union armies free enslaved + circulate copies

Militia Act:

1862 Congressional measure that permitted formerly enslaved people to serve as laborers/soldiers in the U.S. Army

-all Black units under White officer

-paid less, no enlistment bonus

-U.S. War Department created Bureau of Colored Troops to recruit free Blacks

-Confed captured Black soldiers, enslaved, execute White officers

Women’s role in the Civil War

• work in mills/factories

• sew uniforms

• raise $/supplies

• nurses, US Sanitary Commission

  • Clara Barton

    • founded American Red Cross

    • nursed wounded

    • delivered medical supplies/food to sick/wounded

• camp followers (cook + write letters + assist with amputations) 🍳📝

• spies

National Banking Act:

1863 U.S. Congress created a national banking system to finance the enormous expense of the Civil War

• enabled loans to the govt

• est. single national currency + issue paper money (“greenbacks”)

Battle of Vicksburg:

1863 prolonged battle in Northern Mississippi where Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant besieged the last major Confederate fortress on the Miss. River, forcing inhabitants to starve then surrender
+no escape, food, or supplies

-Union want to control to isolate TX/AR/LA from Confederacy, split CSA in 2, no food/livestock from west to Eastern armies

Battle of Gettysburg:

1863 monumental 3-day battle in Southern Pennsylvania, turning point, Union forces defeated Lee’s army and forced it back to Virginia

-Lee retreats, decreased rebel morale
_{^{[*strong position + good defense, hit Confed w/ cannons/rifles behind stone wall, death everywhere]}}

Gettysburg Address =

• new national cemetery

• express pain/sorrow

• message of hope for freedom/the Union

Grant’s fighting strategy

• focus on defeating Confed army (not capture Richmond)

• persist/prolong fighting to win + wear out Confed

• total war, confiscate/destroy civilian property that military can use

Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’:

1864 Union army’s devastating march through GA from Atlanta to Savannah led by General William T. Sherman, intended to demoralize civilians and destroy the resources the Confederate army needed to fight

_{^{*South’s example of Union being ruthless}}

-to Savannah (got)

-Union live off land + destroy plantations/crops/rail lines + freed 40k enslaved

-invoke fear to decrease Confed morale + encourage deserters

Appomattox Court House:

Virginia village where Confed general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865

-peace terms:

—Lincoln: “malice towards none” → no treason, Confed given food + keep property/pistols/horses

—not all surrender - some flee to Caribbean/C/S America/Europe, some want revenge

Effects of the Civil War

• S econ/cities/railroads destroyed

• fed power expanded at expense of states’ rights

• Union indissoluble, states can’t leave

• clarify meaning of ideals from U.S. establishment (All men are created equal)

• industry/agriculture/settlement develop

_{^{[railroads/steamboats/cameras; muskets/cannons/rifles, love guns and right to bear arms; 750k died 50k return amputated, widowed women]}}

13th amendment:

1865 Amendment to the Constitution that ended slavery and freed all enslaved people in the U.S.

*Lincoln now abolitionist; no more questioning legality of emancipation!

Conditions after the war

• slaves liberated

  • won’t be sold/separated

  • can learn to read/write & go to church

  • new names

• still racism, S violence/murder, don’t want Black ppl to vote

• _{^{questions: citizenship, American rights, what is freedom?, role of federal govt in ensuring freedom/equality}}

Radical Republicans:

abolitionist Congressmen who sought swift emancipation of the enslaved, Rebel punishment, and tight controls over former Confed states

• full citizenship for freedmen

• no racism

• U.S. Congress readmit states

• must change S societies/institutions

• replace planter elite with small farmers

Freedmen’s Bureau:

Federal Reconstruction agency established to protect the legal rights of formerly enslaved people and to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and land ownership

-provided land/food/shelter

-seeked justice in courts

-helped ppl find relatives

-not enough agents/troops

-failed to redistribute land to former enslaved

Johnson’s Restoration Plan:

• require S states to ratify 13th amendment w/ convention of men

• disqualify wealthy ex-Confeds from voting/regaining political power

• appoint Unionist governor in each S state

→ pardon White aristocrats anyway to buy political support for reelection

-Johnson vs. Rad Repub

freedmen’s conventions =

• protest mistreatments

• want free public education 🏫

• own land/paying jobs

• full civil rights (+voting) 🗳

South after the Civil War

• destroyed buildings/railroads/cities, barren land

• ⬇property value, worthless $, wealth dropped 60%

• resent N, want to rebuild to how it was before (Old South) with their own way/leadership, no “reconstruction” from outsiders!!!

• resentment

  • spit on Union soldiers

  • hate Yankees + defy Northern rule

• shattered plantation system + upended racial relations (no slavery/slave labor for crops/cotton!) 😵

• Black codes: laws passed in Southern states to restrict the rights of formerly enslaved people which angered Republicans

convict leasing =

• prisoners rented out for work to individuals/businesses

• exploitative labor system, disguised form of slavery

Civil Rights Act of 1866:

all people born in U.S. are citizens, get full/equal benefits of all laws (was vetoed then overruled)

14th amendment:

1866 guaranteed equal protection under the law to all U.S. citizens, including formerly enslaved people

+ birthright citizenship

-fed govt must protect civil rights from violation

_{^{*former Confed states must ratify before readmitted to the Union}}

!!! Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction: Confed can re-create govt once same # as 10% of people who voted in 1860 swear allegiance to the Constitution

Military Reconstruction Act:

• military control in districts (not enough troops)

• abolish govts in Rebel states

• must write new state constitutions saying all men can vote, must be drafted by elected conventions of any men (1st to do = VA!)

• _{^{!!!1867; ratify new constitution → ratify 14th amendment → can send representatives to Congress!!!}}

Command of the Army Act: president must issue all army orders through General in Chief Grant

Tenure of Office Act: Senate must approve presidential effort to remove a federal official

tried to impeach Johnson for violating Tenure of Office Act (tried to fire Sec of War Stanton (critic of Johnson)), no majority so not impeached, weakened public support for Congressional Reconstruction)

Black churches/schools - Baptist/Methodist, AME Church grows, want schools/education

Union Leagues

• N speakers convince freedmen to be Republican + vote → ~90% freedmen registered, men of color can be elected in office

• initiations + rituals + secret meetings / met in churches/schools/fields

Congressional Reconstruction:

phase of Reconstruction directed by Radical Republicans through the passage of 3 laws: the Military Reconstruction Act, the Command of the Army Act, and the Tenure of Office Act

-equal rights for all

-legacy

• rebuilt railroad networks/buildings 🚂

• protect Black voting rights

• 1st free public schools 🏫

• Republican state govts lasting effect on later constitutions

• women can own private property

15th amendment:

1870 forbid states from denying any male citizen the right to vote on grounds of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

Prejudice vs. Chinese Americans

no citizenship/voting, are completely different race + inferior → CA/OR don’t ratify 15th amendment

sharecropping:

farming system developed after the Civil War by which landless workers farmed land in exchange with the landowner for farm supplies and a share of the crop

-can’t leave w/o permission or must forfeit crop

-violate contract → evicted, jobless/homeless, can be arrested as vagrant

-trapped in debt (bad weather, insects, disease ruin harvest)

-Whites want to control African Americans

Carpetbaggers and scalawags

C

• S see as scheming Northerners invading the South to take political power/plantations

• most want to help rebuild S econ/help free Blacks + poor Whites to have better lives

  • ex) Union veterans, teachers, social workers

• some corrupt opportunists

• most are Unionists who opposed secession

S

• traitors

• southerners who support Reconstruction

• Union sympathizers

→ both want to work with Republicans to rebuild S econ

Southern resistance

• Whites use terror/violence to suppress Black efforts to get social/economic equality

• Black codes to deny equality

• beat/kill

• prevent Blacks from exercising political rights

  • poll taxes + inconvenient registration procedures

• Ku Klux Klan: secret terrorist organization founded in Pulaski, TN, in 1866 targeting formerly enslaved people who voted and held political offices, as well as those labeled as carpetbaggers/scalawags

  • violent

  • harass White/Black Republicans

  • threaten

  • motives: anger over Confed defeat, resent Federal soldiers occupying the S, don’t want to pay Black workers

• Colfax Massacre = mob of White vigilantes shoot/slit throat/hanged African Americans then burned down the building 🔪🔥 _{^{[in Colfax, LA]}}

Grant

• Reconstruction in S

• freedpeople should be able to exercise civil rights w/o fearing violence

• natives

  • progressive views, protect them from Whites with govt reservations

  • Board of Indian Commissioners to oversee operations of Bureau of Indian Affairs and root out corruption

  • many racist + want to exterminate natives

_^[scandals]

Republican party splits

• why

  • disputes over pol corruption/bribes + fate of Reconstruction

• Liberals (Conscience Repub)

  • ✅free-enterprise capitalism, gold coins 🪙

  • ❌govt regulation of business/industry, Grant tyranny, “Negro Supremacy” in S

• Stalwarts (Grant Repub)

greenbacks:

paper money issued during the Civil War, which sparked currency debates after the war

-more supply = inflation

hard $ vs. soft $

Eastern bankers/merchants: no paid with paper

vs.

Farmers/debtors: less money supply would deflate crop/livestock prices then decrease income

Panic of 1873:

financial collapse triggered by President Grant’s efforts to withdraw greenbacks from circulation and transition the economy back to hard currency ❌💵

*businesses close + jobless

Enforcement Acts =

• penalize those who interfered with a citizen’s right to vote

• Federal supervisors monitor elections in South w/ lot of political terrorism

• Ku Klux Klan Act outlawed activities of KKK like forming conspiracies, wearing disguises, resisting officers, intimidating officials

  • can send Federal troops to community where rights are being violated

-Grant get prosecutors/marshals to enforce, convict 1000+ Klansmen → Klan killed

What do Democrats do when they are in power?

• oust Black legislators

• closed public schools for Black children

• poll taxes to restrict Black voting

redeemers:

postwar White Democratic leaders in the South who supposedly saved the region from political, economic, and social domination by Northerners and Blacks

*rig vote

*⬇ Republican control + Reconstruction efforts in S

Slaughterhouse Cases =

~limited ‘privileges or immunities’ of U.S. citizenship outlined in 14th amendment → 14th weakened → discrimination/violence against African Americans

~states responsible for protecting citizens from attacks by other citizens

Compromise of 1877:

secret deal by Congressional leaders to resolve the disputed election of 1876; Hayes _{^{(lost popular vote)}} declared winner in exchange for his pledge to remove federal troops from the South, marking the end of Reconstruction

End of Reconstruction and importance

• no more Federal troops in South

• Democrats in House ban use of Federal troops to enforce civil rights in former CSA

• African Americans can’t keep civil rights

  • states rewrote constitutions

  • prevent Blacks from voting/holding office/riding in same railcar

  • college/university don’t admit Blacks

  • “put back in slavery again”

• -

• 13/14/15 effort to extend equality to African Americans

• foundation for future advances in equality/civil rights (Black, women, minority)

• states’ → fed govt’s responsibility to protect citizens’ rights + ensure states treat Blacks equally