Unit 5: Slavery, Civil War, and the Transformation of American Society

Manifest Destiny (1845)

Belief that American settlers had a God given right to expand westward across North America, the Atlantic to Pacific Ocean, and later to the islands of the Caribbean.

Westward Expansion Push Factors

Access to minerals/natural resources, economic and homestead opportunities, and religious refuge.

Issue of Texas Before Annexation

Americans outnumbered the amount of Mexicans in Texas, refusing to obey the Mexican government. Texas applied for statehood but was refused because of slavery and British interest.

The Election of 1844

New territories of Texas, Oregon, and Maine threatened union peace because of slavery, James K Polk won who supported Manifest Destiny.

President James K Polk (1845-1849)

Promised the annexation of Texas, Oregon, and California. “Fifty four or fight”

Oregon Treaty (1846)

Agreement between the US and Great Britain that established the border between the two along the 49th parallel, resolving the Oregon boundary dispute.

Mexican American War

Mexico was angry that the US annexed Texas and wanted the territory back, US victory.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Ended the Mexican American war and allowed the US to gain Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Proposal in Congress to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican American war, proposing that any territory gained should be free. Approved by the House but not the Senate.

Free Soil Movement

Northeners who opposed the expansion of slavery in the west due to it taking away economic opportunities for white settlers

Compromise of 1850

California could come into the Union as a free state, Fugitive Slave Act, popular sovereignty to determine slavery in new territories.

Fugitive Slave Act

Required that individuals who escaped be returned to plantation owners.

Underground Railroad

Network of abolitionists who secretly transported people to freedom in the North founded by Harriet Tubman.

California Gold Rush (1848-1849)

Rapid migration to California after James W Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. Attracted 300,000 people to move to California, known as forty niners.

Economic Impact of the California Gold Rush

Revitalized American economy and merchants and transportation facilities made large profits.

Political Impact of the California Gold Rush

California sought statehood in 1849 and entered the union as a free state in 1850

Social Impact of the California Gold Rush

Gold seekers attacked indigenous societies, forced them off lands, and contributed to the decline of natives due to disease, starvation, and genocide.

Ostend Manifesto (1854)

President Polk offered to buy Cuba from Spain for 100 million but the Spanish refused. He did this because Americans were disappointed with the territorial gains from the Mexican American War.

Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854

Senator Stephan A Douglas introduced a bill that divided the Nebraska Kansas territory and allowed them to vote on if they wanted slavery. Violated the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing slavery to expand past the Mason Dixon Line.

Bleeding Kansa (1854-1859)

Sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro slavery elements because anti slavery constitutions were angry about popular sovereignty.

Dred Scott Decision (1857)

No African was a citizen and entitled to Constitutional protection even if a slave was moved to a free part of the country.

Sojourner Truth

Abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and evangelist. Famous for her speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Ohio that tested racial and gender equality.

Harriet Tubman

Activist, spy, and hero that founded and used the Underground Railroad.

Fredrick Douglass

Prominent abolitionist who wrote “The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave”

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

William Lloyd Garrison

American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer who wrote the anti slavery newspaper “The Liberator” and burnt the Constitution. Created the American Anti Slavery Society.

American Anti Slavery Society

Abolitionist society that advocated for the immediate abolition of slavery.

John Brown

Northern abolitionist who attempted to free southern enslaved people through an uprising.

John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry

Seize and give weapons to enslaved people, but did not work as the small raid was captured by a federal arsenal. South saw this as proof that the North was dedicated to destroying slavery.

American Colonization Society

Advocated for the resettlement of free African Americans to the African continent, to the colony of Liberia. Way to address slavery without abolishing it. Henry Clay, Thomas Jefferson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe supported it.

Republican Party Before the Civil War

Diverse, wanted to contain slavery and consisted of subgroups because of this. Southern democrats viewed them as a demise of the Southern way of life.

Lincoln Douglas Debate

Abraham Lincoln (Republican) and Stephan Douglas (Democrat and author of Kansas Nebraska Act) debated about slavery

Election of 1860

Abraham Lincoln won, showing how divided the US had become as he only won 39% of electoral vote. The South threatened secession.

Secession

The withdrawal of eleven southern states from the union in 1860, leading to the Civil War

Crittenden Compromise (1860)

Divided the nation between slave and free territories from California to the Missouri Compromise Line to prevent the southern secession, but was defeated.

Secession Crisis

After Lincoln’s election, the South left the union and became the Confederate States of America to preserve their right to slavery

Civil War (1861-1865)

War fought in the South between the northern union and southern confederacy. The South sought to establish themselves but the north wanted to reunite the union.

President Lincoln’s view on state rights

No state had the legal right to leave the union or seek to destroy the nation

Lincoln’s goal during the war

Preserve the union through increasing presidential/ central gov power. This increased military size, authorized military spending without Congress’ approval, suspended Habeus Corpus, and censored newspapers and arrested publishers/editors.

Pacific Railroad Act

Completed transcontinental railroads, aiding with economic growth in the West

Homestead Act

Increased development in Western lands

Union Commander of the Army

Ulysses S Grant

Confederacy Commander of the Army

Robert E Lee

Strategy utilized in the Civil War

War of Attrition, Union planned to wear down the South through constant fighting

Northern Civil War advantages

Larger population, strong navy to patrol seas, controlled banks, factories, and railroads, and had a well established central government

Southern Civil War advantages

Home field advantage and more experienced military leaders

Confederate War strategy

Offensive Defensive approach where they aimed to defend their territory and they relied on foreign trade but this failed because Europe started to buy Egyptian cotton

Union War strategy

Anaconda Plan Imposed a naval blockage on Southern ports and cut off Southern supplies, taking the Missisippi River which they relied on for trade

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

Executive order issued by Lincoln that abolished slavery to help win the war but didn’t work that well because it didn’t free those in the confederacy and bordering the confederacy

Lincolns Gettysburg Adress Purpose

Unify the nation and portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of democratic ideaks

Reconstruction Era

Meant to build up the nations economy and government by helping the South after the war

Lincolns Ten Percent Plan

Pardons to southerners who pledged loyalty to the US, recognition of any southern state with at least 10% of its voters making a loyalty pledge, acceptance of the abolishment of slavery

Radical Reconstruction Plan (1867)

Military Reconstruction Act divided the South into five districts while Congress rebuilt the government, more rights granted to African Americans, meant to force political and social reform

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Federal law that defined US citizenship and affirmed all citizens were protected by the law

Civil Rights Act of 1875 / Enforcement Act / Force Act

Federal law that guaranteed all Black Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service.

13 Amendment (1865)

Abolished slavery

14 Amendment

Granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized within the US except for Native Americans and state governments could not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law

15 Amendment

States could not keep people from voting because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

Heram Revels

First Black Senator and elected into the Missisippi seat

Blanche K Bruce

Represented Mississippi as a Republican in the Senate and first Black senator

The Freedmen’s Bureau

Congress tried to help newly emancipated black people and impoverished white people in the South due to the war with schools, food, housing, medical aid, and legal assistence but failed due to a lack of funds

Carpetbagger

Northern who went to the south after the war to profit from Reconstruction

Scalawags

White Southerners who collaborated with Northern republicans during Reconstruction for personal profit (slur used by southern democrats who opposed reconstruction)

Klu Klux Klan

Domestic terrorist organization who wanted to terrorize Black Americans and their supporters and prevent them from advancing in society

Black Codes

Laws established in the South immediatly after the Civil War in an effort to limit the rights of newly freed Black Americans. Prohibited them from renting/buying land, testifying against white people in court, and provided the legal racial segregation of Black and White Americans in the South

Sharecropping

System of farming where a poor family would rent small plots of land and give a small portion of their crop to the landowner, keeping former slaves economically dependent

Compromise of 1877

In exchange for Presidency, Rutherford B Hayes made Congress withdrew federal troops from the South, allowing the south to go back to racism

Jim Crow Laws

Forced seperation of racial groups

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

Narrowly defined civil rights where Black people were protected against state action to limit their rights but not against individual actions and declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional

Plessy vs Ferguson Surpeme Coirt Ruling

Jim Crow Laws were legal as long as Black Americans had access to separate but equal facilities

15th Amendment Loopholes

Literary tests, Grandfather clause, and poll taxes were enacted by Southern states to restrict the voting rights of African Americans