Economics ↴

• North

  • More population

  • More factories

  • More railroads

  • More money

• South

  • Agriculturally oriented (Cash crops: tobacco, cotton, indigo, race)

  • More cotton

Civil War ↴

Slavery compromises (to have a political balance): 

• Missouri Compromise (1820)

  • Missouri is a free state and Maine is a free state

  • The 36 ‘ 60 line (half of the country)

  • Since it was very shortsighted It was a quick fix making it did not fix the root problem

• Kansas-Nebraska Act

  • California was considered a free state

  • The slave trade was allowed in the district of Colombia (DC), but slavery was not allowed

  • New Mexico and Utah were given Popular Sovereignty (people can choose) - both chose to be slave states 

• Bleeding Kansas

  •  violence was sustained

  •  overwhelming shift between Kansas being a slave state or a free state 

  • Kansas ended up being a free state

States vs federal rights: 

• Dred Scott v. Sandford

  • Dred Scott had been born a slave under a family and later purchased by John Emerson who he later married Irene Sanford. After the death of John Emerson, Scott tried to purchase his freedom from Irene Sanford but was denied, causing him to sue the woman due to the fact he had lived in a free state according to the Missouri Compromise. The first decision made by the lower court was that there was a lack of detail on Scott’s side, causing him to lose the case. He later went to the Supreme Court of Missouri where the full verdict was that he had the right to be emaciated. Another case took place there and the court ruled with Irene Sanford. The Supreme Court decided that since Scott was a slave, he was not considered a U.S. citizen and hence had no right to bring the case to the Supreme Court.  

• Harpers Ferry raid

  • The leader was John Brown

  • The plan was to make the enslaved in the area free from their owners. Brown was successfully able to bail several slaves but was later captured as his actions were considered treason and brought more intense feelings between the South and North leading to the Civil War making his plan fail. 

  • John Brown was hanged after he was found guilty 

Lincoln and the Election of 1860

• Lincoln won; anti-slavery

• Sparked the secession (Confederates States of America - where South Carolina was the first to leave)

• The government had more influence

• Lincondepsied the idea of secession

The first shots of the Civil War were by the Confederate troops on Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor.

Reconstruction↴

The period where the United States made policies to rebuild the South and integrate new free African Americans after the Civil War 

• 13th Amendment

  • Ends slavery 

•  14th Amendment

  • Granted citizenship 

  • Equal protection of the laws

•  15th Amendment

  • Granted voting rights to all African American males 

The US military was sent to enforce these rights in the south 

• Freedmen’s Bureau

  • US government agency that helped provide basic education for free slaves and created schools

  • Provided food and Medical Care and land to farm 

• Economic control

  • Owning land was a symbol of freedom

  • Sharecropping:  allowed freedmen to rent land from their former Masters by paying with crops. employers also provided seeds and tools.

  • Tenant farming: Involving farmer slaves renting land from landowners to grow crops

• Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

  • A hate group towards the reconstruction controlled by white power in the south 

  • Attacked politicians that wanted to continue the reconstruction 

Post - Reconstruction↴

• Violence in the South could not be stopped the Army was sent to control it

• Many were dissatisfied that the Army had to act like a police

• The North became tired of it as South violence grew

1876 -  A compromise made during the presidential election

• The Republican candidate won which resulted in removing the military from the South which ended all protections for African Americans.

• The South becomes the same as before the Reconstruction leading to the Jim Crow Era: Legal Segregation 

Jim Crow Era: Legal Segregation↴

• Southerners were afraid that black people would take over political power so racial segregation in public places

  1. Dance that mocked people

  2. Tax tests and other tests were made to test the intelligence of black people (they made it purposefully harder)

• Plessy v. Ferguson → The Supreme Court decided that segregating races is okay as long as the separate facilities are of equal quality - “Separate but Equal”

• NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) → to ensure the political, and educational, equality of minority group citizens of States and eliminate racial prejudice

• Charles Hamilton Houston → First special counsel for the NAACP

• Brown v. Board of Education → Separating children in public schools based on race was unconstitutional

• Thurgood Marshall → Civil rights lawyer who used the courts to fight the Brown v. Board of Education

• Civil Rights Act of 1964 → Bans segregation and discrimination in all public facilities

Voting↴

• Grandfather Clause → “If your grandfather voted, you can vote” 

• Literacy test → Exam for assessing a person's ability to read and write

• 24th Amendment → Bans poll taxes (a tax that must be paid to vote)

• Voting Rights Act (1965) → Bars literacy tests and the federal government will not enforce equal voting rights

Affirmative action↴

Types of Segregation: 

De Jure (in jury) 

• Most common in the south

• Separation of races is required by government laws

De Facto (in fact)

• Separation of races is not required by law

• Cause by personal prejudice, customs, and choices that individuals and families make

Affirmative action:

• improve opportunities for historically excluded groups in American society. 

• employment and education.

• equal access to education for those groups that have been historically excluded or underrepresented, such as women and minorities. 

• Controversy surrounding the constitutionality of affirmative action programs has made the topic one of heated debate.

Cases: 

• California v. Bakke

  • Alan Bakke was a white student who had been denied admission twice to the medical school of the University of California

  • He had better grades the some minority students who were accepted to the school

  • He felt his 14th Amendment rights were violated 

  • Quota - a certain percentage of minorities who must be admitted

  • Reverse Discrimination - discrimination that targets white people as the victim

  • Verdict: affirmative action is constitutional, but racial quotas are not

• Gratz. V. Bollinger

  • To be accepted at the University of Michigan, a student had to score 100 points on the admission scale

  • Jennifer Gratz was a white woman who was denied admission

  • She claimed her 14th Amendment rights were violated

  • In Michigan's admission policy, certain minority groups earned bonus points in the admission process

  • Verdict: Gratz; her First Amendment rights were violated 

• Harvard Admission Policy 

  • Asian Americans felt their rights were being violated

  • Harvard's use of the 'personal score' unfairly improved Black and Hispanic students chances of admission

  • Verdict: Harvard's admissions policy was acceptable