Period 5

Manifest Destiny

• Manifest Destiny is the idea that we are destined by god to extend west in order to pocess the whole continent

• Why move west

  • New access to natural resources

    • California Gold Rush - Gold was found in california which led to mass migration

  • New economic opportunies

    • Preemption Acts - Made land cheap to encourage westward expansion

  • Religous refuge

    • Moroms migrate to Utah

• Election of 1844

  • President James Polk was a massive fan of manifest destiny and adding territories to the union

• Land Aquisition

  • Texas was originally from Mexico, however many americans lived in this region, with enslaved people, which was outlawed in mexico; this resulted in revolt under the leadership of Sam Huston

  • In the Battle of San Jacinto, the leader of Mexico was captured and forced to sign a treaty that granted mexico its independance

  • Oregan Territory was originally shared by Britian and the U.S. and conflict arose on who could claim the land; The British and U.S. ended up dividing the land at the 49th parallel

The Mexican American War

• Texas wanted to be annexed by the U.S. and James Polk was the president who set the course into motion

• The U.S. sent Zachery Taylor to organize troops at land they supposed to be theirs, than Mexican troops arrived, and than afterwards 11 U.S. troops were dead which ultimately started the Mexican-American War

• Effects of the War (Because America Won)

  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    • Established the Mexican border

    • Mexico ceeded texas and california to the the U.S.

    • Mexicans on U.S. ceeded land were automatically given citizenship (while native americans did not…)

• David Wilmot - Senator that made the Wilmot Proviso; stated that all land gained automatically be freed states but was ultimately rejected

The Compromise of 1850

• Wilmot proviso ignited the topic of slavery

• Sides

  • Southern Position

    • Slavery was a constitutional right

    • Slavery had been decided in the Missouri Compromise

    • Free Soil Movement

      • Composed of Northern Democrats and Whigs

      • Wanted new territories acquired to be the dominion of free laborers

    • Ablitionists

      • Wanted to ban slavery EVERYWHERE

    • Popular Sovereignty

      • The people in each territory should decide where slavery should take place

• Admission of California and Texas as free states became very controversial because if they did enter as free states, they would make it much easier for the Senate to pass anti slavery laws, which the southern senators did not like

• The Compromise of 1850

  • The Mexican Cession divided into Utah and New Mexico Territories, and would decide the slavery question through popular sovereignty

  • Slave trade was banned in Washington D.C.

  • Stricter Fugitive Slave Law (very important)

Sectional Conflict: Regional Differences

• Immigration conflicts were raging at the time

  • Mostly Irish and Germans

• Nativism - Policy of protecting the interests of the native born people against the interests of immigrants

  • Know Nothing Party - nativist political party

• Slavery

  • North

    • The economy was stimulated by free wage laborers working manufacturing jobs in factories

  • South

    • Economy fueled by enslaved labor working on agricultural plantations

  • Free Soil Party - Supporters of the Wilmot Proviso, still saw black people as less than human though

  • Abolitionists -

    • William Lloyd Garrison - Wrote the Liberator to get people to fight against slavery

    • Harriet Becher Stowe - Wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin to showcase the dehumanization of slavery that was extremely popular

    • Frederick Douglass - Said many speeches about abolitionism

    • John Brown - Believed the only way to get rid of slavery was through violence

  • Underground railroad - the pathway of safe houses and trails that enslaved people could find safe passage towards the north

Failure of Compromise Pre-Civil War

• Kansas-Nebraska Act - Senator Stephen Douglas proposed that the Kansas territory be divided into the Kansas and Nebraska Territory and they decide slavery via popular sovereignty; overturned the Missouri compromise

• Bleeding Kansas - Violence between pro and anti slavery people in Kansas and Nebraska to gain the most votes for their side

• Ultimately failed because Kansas was recognized as a slave state

• Dred Scott Decision - The Dred Scott Court case officially stated that enslaved people were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court, and used the Constitution to declare enslaved people as purely property

• Whig Party and Know Nothing Party ultimately crumbled by the mid-1800s

• The Democratic Party would be the party that adopted the idea of pro slavery

• The Republican Party was created in 1854

  • Former Know Nothing Party members

  • Abolitionaists

  • Freesoilers

  • Argued that slavery shouldn’t spread NOT AGAINST SLAVERY

  • Democrats worry if a republican president takes office, then slavery is done for

Election of 1860 and Secession

• Stephen Douglas was the democratic elect for president while Abraham Lincoln was the republican elect for president

• Democratic faction was divided on who to represent them and elected a whole other person as president, which allowed for Abraham Lincoln to win

• Lincoln’s win caused 7 states to secede from the Union before he was inaugurated, with 4 states seceding afterwards, creating the Confederate States of America

• Why did the South secede

  • Slavery

  • State rights

Military Conflicts in the Civil War

• Union

  • Strength

    • 4x the population of the South

    • Possessed a navy to control the seas

    • Controlled majority of banks, manufacturing, and railroads

    • Well established central government

  • Relied on manufacturing

  • Anaconda Plan - North would lean heavily in blocking southern ports, which would stop trade on the south

• South

  • Strength

    • Fought a defensive war

    • Greater and more experienced leaders

  • Relied on export trade and foreign help

  • Ulysses S. Grant - the ONLY good union general

• Draft Riots - happened after controversy arose when people paid to get out of the draft

• Abraham Lincoln

  • Lincoln did NOT want to start a war, until Fort Sumter

• Battles

  • Fort Sumner - the attack of a federal armory and its incoming suppliers, which forced the Union to declare war

  • First Battle of Bull Run - led by Stonewall Jackson, the Confederates won and showed the strengths both sides possessed

  • Vicksburg - Union gained control of the Mississippi River, which led to the Union Victory

  • March to the Sea - Led by William Tecumseh Sherman, the demolition of the South

• Emancipation Proclamation - freed all enslaved people in the Confederacy; created the scope of the war to include slavery, keeping Britain and France away from the war

• Appomattox Courthouse - where the Confederacy announced their surrender

Government Policies during The Civil War

• Gettysburg Address - Unified the nation and portrayed the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of American democratic ideals

Reconstruction and Its Failure

• Should the South be entered into the Union with leniency or not, there were two perspectives

  • Lincoln's 10% Plan - States could reestablish their state government if 10% of voters declared loyalty to the Union

  • Congress’s

• When Andrew Johnson became president, he had no sympathy for emancipation, although he did follow the 10% plan, he turned a blind eye to racial discrimination in the south

• Freedmen’s Bureau - agency to help newly freed black people (Veto’d by Johnson)

• Civil Rights Act of 1866 - Gave black people equal protection (Veto’d by Johnson)

• 14th amendment - all people born in the U.S. were citizens

• 15th Amendment - All men regardless of race were given the right to vote (notice how women are NOT INCLUDED)

  • National Woman Suffrage Association - fought for women’s rights to vote

  • American Woman Suffrage Association - focused on reconstruction, but on the side, women’s suffrage

• Reconstruction Acts of 1867 - Assured that all laws in the south would be imposed, increased requirement to enter the union

• Tenure of Office Act - illegal to hire someone from your cabinet without Congress’s permission (Johnson ignored and was brought to an impeachment trial)

• Why Reconstruction Failed

  • Black Codes - Codes that took away the freedom of black people

  • Sharecropping - Replaced slavery by forcing black people to be contractually obligated to work for people

  • Ku Klux Klan - White Supremacy terrorist group

  • The Election of 1876/Compromise 1877 -

    • Democrats allowed Rutherford Hayes to be president in exchange for all federal troops leaving the south, which resulted in even less protection for black people.