History - Period 5

Manifest Destiny

• US is divinely destined to expand across continent (Atlantic to Pacific, and beyond?) and extend liberty

• racial component of Northern European superiority and purity

Impact of Manifest Destiny

Us expands by 1 mil. sq miles in 1840s

Annexation

one state adds territory by force

Creation of Texas

• Mexico abolishes slavery

• settlers moving to TX with their slaves

• Americans living in Texas declare independence (president: Sam Houston) in 1836

Annexation of Texas

• US annexes TX: 1845

• John Tyler (unaffiliated president) negotiates in secret until proposal is sent to Congress

• opposition: abolitionists don’t want more slave territory/representation, Jackson didn’t want more division

Election of 1844

• Annexation (and secrecy around it ) is the focus

• Democrat James Polk wins

Polk Presidency dates

1845-1849

Mexican-American War

(1846-1848)

• General Taylor (under Polk) positions US troops on border to provoke war

• Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo

Critiques of Mexican American war

• Lincoln - show me the “spot” → Spot Resolutions

  • questioning start of war - did it actually happen provoked by Mexicans? War was probably unconstitutional

• Abolitionists critique - just expanding slavery

Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo

• 15 million (600 million today)

• US acquires ½ of MX

• TX boundary @ Rio Grande

• no limitation of slavery in new states (they’ll vote)

Compromise of 1850

• Both Democrats and Whigs endorse plan

• Popular sovereignty: states decide if slavery is allowed

• 5 pts:

  • CA is free state

  • No restriction of slavery in other MX territories

  • Abolition of slave trade in DC

  • Fugitive slave law: caught escaped slaves face stronger punishment

  • Establishes Tex-Mex Border

Free Soil Party

• no expansion of slavery to west

• didn’t fit in w/ Democrats or Whigs

• Van Buren wins 10% of vote and some seats in Congress

Impacts of 1850 Compromise

• N is upset because Southerners are traveling to find slaves

• Southerners are upset because part of compromise isn’t being met

Kansas/Nebraska Act

(1850)

• opens popular sovereignty in new territories - they choose if slavery is allowed

  • defiance of Missouri compromise (everything above line is free)

Bleeding Kansas

• violent skirmish leading up to vote

• stronger divisions

• rush of pro/anti slavery settlers into Kansas to influence vote

• John Brown’s massacre

Impacts of Kansas/Nebraska Act

• incr. sectional conflict

• division between North and South

• Collapse of Whigs (over popular sovereignty) → Republicans

Big Picture Ideas leading up to Civil War

• diverging economies in North and South (industrialization vs. slavery)

• increased unwillingness to compromise on slavery

  • Western Expansion intensifies slavery debate

Context of Dred Scott

• enslaved in MO, purchased and moved to IL and WI (free states)

• Scott’s owner died, but wife wouldn’t let him buy his freedom

• sued - slaves can’t be reenslaved after being in free states

case outcome and impact (Dred Scott)

• Scott won freedom but MO Supreme Court ruled against him

• Went to Supreme Court

  • 7-2 against Scott - he couldn’t sue because he wasn’t a citizen, and no Black people free or enslaved could be citizens

• Black people lost almost all rights they had

Election of 1860

• Lincoln wins w/ 40% of popular vote

Republican party

• anti-slavery party (not abolitionist)

• whig measures - high tariffs, Western development (railroads, homesteads)

• popular sovereignty (where slavery already exists) BUT no expansion of slavery in territories

Lincoln and slavery

• moderate stance

• accepts inferiority of Black people, but thought they deserved basic rights (so other. people’s rights don’t also get taken)

• slavery is morally wrong

• wants to preserve the union (didn’t envision an easy solution to end of slavery)

• stop expansion

Democratic Party

split: N and S (less influence because they’re divided)

• N. dems: popular sovereignty, each territory decides slavery

• S. dems: pro slavery

Constitutional Party

supported union, silent on slavery

Secession

withdrawing from main body

Secession in the South

• SC secedes first (Dec. 1860; 1 mo after election)

• slavery is essential to economic and social structure in the South

Confederacy. leaders during war

• Southern states led by Jefferson Davis (pres.)

• VP: Alexander Stephens (cornerstone speech - confederacy supports white supremacy and slavery)

• had trouble with getting enough soldiers (100k desertions, rich people got out of it)

Northern economy during Civil War

• 2x population of South

• advances in manufacturing (factories) and railroads (extensive transportation network)

• taxes, greenbacks (not backed), loans from Americans and banks financed the war

$$$ in North

• issue greenbacks (paper $ not backed by gold/silver)

• war = need for $ to supply and fund war

  • inflation 60%

• sold war bonds to individuals, but mostly companies

$$$ in South (start of war)

• S. states struggled w/centralization

• unstable banking system (9000% inflation)

• poor white Southerners didn’t support civil war (didn’t have slaves) → high desertion rates

Union Policies

• martial law

• suspension of habeas corpus (protection against unlawful punishment)

• censure of people supporting Confederacy

Lincoln’s power

• abuses exec. powers

  • asking Congress for permission = recognizing Confederacy as a foreign nation 

  • Confiscation Acts

  • no one in congress challenges him because South is gone

Confiscation Acts

(1861-62)

• frees slaves crossing union lines

• frees slaves whose owners were supporting Confederacy

Emancipation Proclamation

• all slaves in Confederacy free (except border states)

• wartime proclamation, not a law

Laws Passed During Civil War

• Homestead Act - 160 acres to white settlers for a small fee after living in the west for 5 years (supports Western Expansion)

• Morril Land Grant: lang given for public universities

• Pacific Railway Act: first transcontinental railroad

• Charter for National Bank: uniform system for banknotes, eliminates uncertainty of currency

• high tariffs to protect Northern manufacturers (from foreign competition)

First Battle of Bull Run

1861

• “Picnic Battle” near D.C

  • first big Confederate win

2nd Battle of Bull Run

1862

• 1 year later in same place

• 21k casualties, Confederate win

  • they move North

Battle of Antietam

1862

• 22k deaths in one day - bloodiest 1 day battle of war

• same as all deaths in American Revolution

  • Union victory - Lincoln needed for Emancipation Proclamation

Battle of Gettysburg

1863

• bloodiest battle of war (50k casualties in 3 days)

• Pickett’s charge - many Confederate soldiers die

• Union Victory - Gettysburg Address

Lincoln’s speeches

• Gettysburg Address (the fight and deaths were not in vain)

• 2nd Inaugural - Union is on verge of winning war and should prepare to let South back into US

End of War

1865 - Lee surrenders to Grant

Challenges after Civil War

• address rebelling states

• destruction in South (homes, fortunes, 1/5 of males died)

  • end of slavery - how to incorporate freed people?

Terms of Readmission to Union

• revoke secession

• abolish slavery

• ratify 13th amendment

• Deny Confederate and state war debts (helped)

• elect state government and send representatives to Congress

Politics of Reconstruction

• Lincoln favored lenient Reconstruction

  • after 1865 assassination, Andrew Johnson (anti-abolitionist) continues overseeing Confederate states

• radical republicans try to impeach him (fired secretary of war who was a rad. rep) → acquitted

Reconstruction Amendments

13th, 14th, 15th amendments

13th amendment

no slavery, except as punishment for a crime

14th amendment

• citizenship, equal protection, due process, (some) voting rights for Black Americans

  • first definition of citizenship

• former Confederates can’t serve in Congress

15th amendment

• right to vote - forbids denial of suffrage based on race/color/previous servitude

• adds specificity

Reconstructionist Policies

• military control

• voting

• Freedmen’s Bureau

• schools

• failure of land distribution

• compromise of 1877

military control in the South

• states are divided into federally controlled military zones

• govts:

  • scallywags: S. White Republicans

  • carpetbaggers: N. white men serving as Republican leaders

• motivated by union loyalty or former Whigs who opposed secession

  • want to modernize, but seen as traitors to region and race by Democrats

Freedmens Bureau

• provided food, shelter, clothes, and land to displaced Southerns and newly freed slaves

  • almost no whites attended

• only 1 year

Black Representation

1869-1901: former slaves determined to serve in Senate (20 in House, 2 in Senate)

Schools

• >1/2 of white children and 2/5 of Black children

• segregated naturally (time of tension)

failure of land distribution

• Union promised “40 acres and a mule”

• radical Republicans tried to confiscate and redistribute land w/ limited support

• Johnson supports returning land to whites @ end of Reconstruction

Economic state in South after civil war

Per capita income:

• S. Blacks increase by 46%, Southern whites decrease by 35%

• * total profits of Southern Agriculture decrease (free Blacks work less than slaves)

Compromise of 1877

• election of 1876 was close - both parties claim victory

• Republicans win president (Hayes) in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South, internal improvements in the South, etc.

• formally ends Reconstruction and leads to Jim Crow Laws - freed Black Americans lose political power and legal protections

Racial Relations in the South

• KKK

• restriction of voting rights

• sharecropping

• Plessy vs Ferguson

KKK

1866

• formed by former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest

• paramilitary terrorist organization

• threatened free Black political (voter intimidation) and economic power

• considered patriotic by Southerners

  • many planters and storekeepers refused to rent/give credit

• Grant uses Enforcement act

Enforcement act

• rose again in 1890s

• prohibited race-based discrimination and gave federal government power to supersede state courts (prosecute crimes of the individual under federal law)

Restriction of Voting Rights

• poll taxes

• literacy tests

• grandfather clause

sharecropping

• Black farmworkers are tenants of white landowners

• owe fixed rent/share of crops

• leads to cycle of debt: physically independent, but in reality stuck

Plessy vs. Ferguson

1896

• separate, but equal = equal and justified

  • in reality very unequal

• allows for Jim Crow Segregation (took away gains made, especially in urban areas)

  • 14th amendment prohibits state government from discrimination, but not private organizations or individuals

California Gold Rush

• gold found → 100k people (some immigrants) go to seek fortune

• 49ers (95% men)

• Chinese benefit from labor shortage, but most people don’t make money

WW expansion and slavery

• transcontinental RR - where should it go?

• more and more people want to move and bring their slaves

Brooks Sumner Incident

• Sumner (MA) gives speech making fun of Brooks uncle

• Brooks attacked Sumner w/ cane

• Both are heroes in their regions

free soil ideology

all Americans should have opportunities, in South, slavery makes society static w/ no mobility

slave power conspiracy

South wants to spread slavery through the US and take away Northern capitalism

South pro-slavery arguments

• slavery had good conditions and peace between races

• Us needs S. economy

• Southern way of life based on slavery - slow, stable, society

• Blacks were biblically/biologically inferior

John Brown’s Raid

• Brown tried to lead slave uprising

• Southerners thought it proved they weren’t safe in Union and that Republicans supported Brown

Lincoln → secession

• S. knew Lincoln wanted slavery to be outlawed eventually

• Republican party went against Southern ideals

• couldn’t see a good future with Lincoln

centralization in the South

• strong believes in states rights

• issues w/ military and authority

• throughout war went in direction of centralization

Lost Cause Myth

• romanticizing of Confederacy, its leaders, antebellum South

• monuments built to dead

post war conditions for Blacks

• coming off serving in Union/Confederate army

• homeless after being freed

• little assistance/assets

what did southern whites want after the war?

• autonomy

• back to antebellum

• keep blacks tied to plantations

what did southern blacks want after the war?

• end to slavery

• rights and protections

• built autonomous communities

southern “redemption”

take back govt, affiliated w/ racist policies

social darwinism and the end of Reconstruction

• individuals fail because of weakness/unfitness

  • poor and Blacks - it’s their fault

  • govts shouldn’t intervene

  • bc of this and less $$, cutback on social services

lynchings

• public or in private by vigilante mobs

• some criminals, but. mainly innocent/suspected people

• exceptional shock and outrage from whites

• Ida B Wells generated awareness by writing articles