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Antebellum America & Civil War Study Guide

Manifest Destiny: America needs to have all territory coast→coast

  • Think West = land of romance/adventure

  • Pony-Express: deliver news/mail b/w MO & CA (replaced by railroad)

    • Mainly skinny orphaned teen boys 


Election of 1844: Dem Polk

  • Polk: TN, 54d-40 or Fight

    • “Oregon Fever”: people w/o jobs move to & get own land

      • Work for themselves, frontier lifestyle promised

    • “Texas Coming In”: wanted to join US

      • North didn’t want to because would be Slave (MO pt2)

      • Only had to have majority Congress to admit (tho never done w/o being territory beforehand)

Polk Administration

Goals

  1. Lower tariffs

  2. Resolve Oregon boundary dispute

  3. Restore independent treasury

  4. Acquire California

Mexican-American War 1845-48

Before (Slidell & Mexico won’t sell)

  • Mexico recognized bordered as Rio Grande River

  • Forgave American citizens claim against Mexican government

  • Purchased New Mexico for 5mil

  • Would buy California for any price (trade w/China & Asia through Pacific)

Cause: 

  • Mexicans shoot US soldiers (dispute over whose soil it was)

    • Polk uses to declare war

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo 1848

  • Mexico gives up claims to Texas ^Rio Grande

  • Gave US Cali & New Mexico

  • US pays Mexico 15mil & agrees to pay claims of US citizens against Mexico (>3.5mil)


Results of War

  • 17-month war costs 100mil & 13k deaths (mostly disease)


[David] Wilmot Proviso: Congressional law ensures any new territory is Slave-Free

  • Stop repeat of MO crisis


Overland Immigration Westward (Oregon, California, Utah)

  • Utah: Mormonism: Joseph Smith founds in Burned Over district

    • Church of the Ladder-Day Saints

    • Lead by Brigham Young (Modern Mose) after Smith dies in IL

      • Brings group to Salt Lake (wanted to be away from rest of pop)

  • California: Gold Rush: Gold at Sutter’s Mill (Sacramento)

    • Lead to population increase due to people wanting to get rich

International Immigration: 

  • German: Karl Marx + Economic Depression = Revolutions throughout Europe

    • Settle in Farmlands

  • Nativism: America is for Americans only (not immigrants)

    • American “Know-Nothing” Party: wants to end immigration & naturalization

      • Didn’t last long

  • Irish: Potato Famine 

    • Willing to work for less (NINA)

    • Americans think Catholics are threat to Protestantism

Road to Secession

  • Southerners threaten secession 

    • Fugitive slaves via Underground RR not being returned (personal liberty laws)

  • “Fire Eaters”: some Southerners would rather ‘burn down country’ than ban slaves

Free-Soil Party: Northern Whiggs & Democrats who supported Wilmot Proviso

  • Some just didn’t want Blacks in general, some were Abolitionist

Election of 1848: Cass vs. van Buren vs. Taylor

  • Democrat = North

  • Free-Soil = White West

  • Whigg = Mixed

Taylor Administration
Not a Whigg.. Again

  • Didn’t want to raise tariffs, implement bank, or internal improvements

  • Dies from eating too much food

California = Missouri’s Opposite

  • Enters as free (North happy, South sad)

Fillmore Administration

Millard Fillmore

  • Later nominated as a Know-Nothing

Prigg vs. Pennsylvania: Do you have to give back Fugitive Slaves?

  • Supreme Court says Unconstitutional


Daniel Webster’s 7th of March Speech: Supported Returning Fugitive Slaves

Clay’s Compromise of 1850: No one wins, but no one is happy with most of it

  1. California enters as Free

  2. Mexican Cession open to slavery by popular soverignty

  3. Slavery allowed in DC, but no slave trade

  4. Pass Stronger Fugitive Slave Law

New Fugitive Slave Law: Dumb

  • Can capture if slaveholder claims was a slave (under oath, but no proof)

    • Fugitive Blacks can’t testify that they weren’t

  • Obstructing captures results in large fine or Jail

“Bleeding Kansas”: Slave owners moved into Kansas to try and make it a slave state above MO Comp. Line

  • Many murders by both Pro- and Anti-Slavery

  • Leads to Southerners wanting heavy violence against Northern politicians

  • John Brown: Abolitionist who killed many people

    • On the run, wants slave uprising, then killed

    • Northerners treated him as a martyr cuz anti-slavery

    • Southerners take him as evidence of violent abolitionist North


Dred Scott v. Sanford 1857: All territories allow slavery

  • All congressional laws & people who want no slavery in territories are unconstitutional

  • Rejects NW Ordinance, Missouri Compromise, and Kansas-Nebraska Act


Lincoln-Douglas Debates Illinois Senate 1858: “A House Divided Cannot Stand”

  • Shows Lincoln as radical abolitionist in South


Democrats

  • South: Pro Dred Scott

  • North: Against Dred Scott

1860 Election: Lincoln vs. Breckenridge vs. Douglas

  • Divided Democrats = Republican Victory = SC Ceded

Reforms

Second Great Awakening

  • Transcendentalism: liberation from understanding & reasoning

    • ‘Transcend’ limits of intellect & allow soul to create relations w/universe

    • People & Things

      • Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature, Self-Reliance)

Utopian Society

  • Utopian Agenda

    • Freedom to slaves

    • Well-being to poor & miserable

    • learning to ignorant

    • Health to sick 

    • Peace & justice to underserved

  • All societies failed miserably because human nature sucks

Asylum Reforms: Dorothea Dix

  • Reveals horrific conditions for mentally ill (chained naked & beaten in psych hospitals)

  • →create asylums, aka residential institute w/better conditions

Temperance Movement: pre-Prohibition

  • Women didn’t like how inebriation led to consequences

  • Promoted ‘demon gin’ rhetoric

  • Similar to political cartoons

  • Drastically reduced alcohol consumption

Education Movement

  • Instill mass education for good workers

Lincoln-Douglas Debates 1858: Leads to positions →

  • North Democrats: ( Doug Freeport Doctrine) Popular Sovereignty for slavery in terrs.

  • Southern Democrats: Agrees w/Dred Scott

  • Republicans: Slavery should be banned in territories

1860 Elections: Lincoln Wins cuz Democrats = Divided

South Carolina Secession: North Not Obeying Fugitive Slave Clause in Constitution

  • Leads Secession Winter (Most of South secedes)

Compromises

  • Corwin Amendment: not federal interference w/slavery

    • South says can’t because not part of the union

Lincoln Address: Never left the union

  • Says all states must agree

CIVIL WAR

Starts because North wants to preserve the union, but becomes about slavery later

North didn’t want South to secede (then they would keep people inslaved)

Fort Sumter: South wants Feds to Leave

  • Gave them months to leave, but Lincoln sent supplies instead

  • Lincoln calls troops to put down ‘rebellion’ (SC)

    • SC troops take over the fort & →

  • Fed gov. Fires back

Anaconda Plan: Southern Naval Blockade

  • Cut off trade w/Europe & imported supplies

  • Lincoln puts in motion, but can he do it to states that ‘never left’?

    • Is he being unconstitutional? Depends (did the southern states actually leave?)

Martial Law Declared & Bill of Rights Suspended

Habeas Corpus: Due process in arrests & charging of crimes (Lincoln Suspends)

  • …in Maryland 

  • No more constitutional rights for anyone (Military runs everything)

  • Supreme Court: agrees w/Lincoln, who says necessary so DC isn’t surrounded by Conf.

Ex parte Merryman 1861: 

  • Lieutenant Merryman arrested cuz sympathized w/Confeds in home state

    • Chief Justice Taney said to give habeas corpus

  • Generals keep under arrest for ‘public interest’

  • Taney says Only Congress can Suspend Habeas Corpus (It's in the Constitution)

Lincoln’s Response: Says ends are so important means are always justified

Can Lincoln Blockade the South?

  • Confederacy is ‘foreign’ under Anaconda Plan, but…

  • Still part of US in rebellion for everything else

Can Lincoln just Free the Southern Slaves?

  • He would, but only for the war effort

Emancipation Proclamation: No surrender, so Lincoln frees all Southern Slaves

  • If not surrender by 1862, Union will free any slaves in southern towns conquered.

  • Lincoln says can only do as military effort to hurt the South

  • Changed Purpose for War to Ending Slavery

Judicial Decisions: Let Lincoln do what he wants because wartime

Northern Support of Emancipation Proclamation: 

  • Abolitionists & Free Blacks Enlist

  • Non-Abolitionists who enlisted to preserve Union Leave


Civil War led to first ever Draft (All able & of Age Men)

Antietam: Bloodiest Day in US Military Hitory

  • 26,000 Dead in 1 Day

  • Gets Lincoln ready to use Emanc. Proc.

Gettysburg, PA: Southern retreats

  • Turned into Gettysburg Address: 

    • All men are created equal, even slaves

Sherman’s March to the Sea: First use of Total War

  • Marches Atlanta→Savannah→DC & pillages cities & frees slaves

Republican Congress: Hamiltonian System Wins

  • Revenue Acts: Income Tax

  • Transcontinental RR Act: subsidized land to RR (sell & make bank)

  • Homestead Act: give money if move west

  • National Banking Act: Enacts BUS against (1st since Jackson)

  • Habeas Corpus Suspension

Party Equivalents

  • Republicans = Hamiltonians

  • Democrats = Jeffersonian