US History EOC Unit Review - Civil War and Reconstruction Notes

Civil War

Causes of the Civil War

  • Sectionalism:
    • Putting the interests of a specific region (North or South) above the interests of the nation as a whole.
    • Northern interests versus Southern interests.
  • Slavery:
    • A major point of contention between the North and South.
  • Federal Government versus State Government:
    • Debate over the balance of power between the federal government and individual state governments.
  • Compromises about Slavery:
    • Series of attempts to postpone dealing with the slavery issue.
    • Missouri Compromise – 1820: An agreement that regulated slavery in the country's western territories.
    • Compromise of 1850: A package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War.
    • Kansas-Nebraska Act:
      • Allowed popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise.
    • Popular Sovereignty:
      • Allowed voters in a territory to decide whether or not to allow slavery.
  • Election of Lincoln – 1860:
    • Abraham Lincoln:
      • First Republican candidate for President.
    • His election win in 1860 angered the South due to fears of abolishing slavery.
    • South Carolina secedes from the Union:
      • Followed by other Southern states before Lincoln's inauguration.
  • Fort Sumter:
    • Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, officially beginning the Civil War.

Course of the War

  • South's Strategy:
    • Fight a defensive war, without needing to invade the North.
    • Confederate army: more experienced but lacked manpower and supplies.
  • North's Advantages:
    • Larger army, a navy, and more supplies.
  • Anaconda Plan:
    • Blockade the South using the Union navy.
    • Take control of the Mississippi River to split the South in half.
  • Emancipation Proclamation:
    • Lincoln reframes the war as a fight against slavery.
    • Declared all slaves in the Confederate states to be freed.
    • Did not free slaves in the entire country, specifically exempting slave states that had not seceded.
  • Gettysburg and Vicksburg:
    • Turning points in the war, with major Union victories.
  • Sherman’s March:
    • Total war:
      • Sherman's army marched across the South, destroying anything useful to the Confederacy.

Effects of the War

  • Lincoln assassinated.
  • Slavery ended.
  • The existence of the Union was reaffirmed.
  • Secession was disallowed.
  • The power of the Federal Government was strengthened.
  • Reconstruction began as a period of post-war recovery and adjustment.

Reconstruction

Civil War Ends:

  • Southern towns and farms in ruins.
  • Many Southerners lost their lives for a lost cause.
  • Slavery abolished.
  • Confederate paper money was worthless.

Freedman's Bureau

  • Created to help newly freed slaves adjust to their new life.

Constitutional Amendments

  • 13th Amendment:
    • Freed the slaves.
  • 14th Amendment:
    • Made former slaves citizens.
  • 15th Amendment:
    • Guaranteed African-Americans the right to vote.

Southern Resistance

  • Southern states passed laws to prevent newly freed slaves from using their new rights.
  • Black Codes:
    • Restricted African Americans' freedom and compelled them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.
  • Sharecropping and Tenant Farming:
    • Former slaves often ended up in these systems, which were not much better than slavery.

Compromise of 1877

  • The Presidential election of 1876 led to the end of Reconstruction due to a tie.
  • A compromise was struck to give the Republican the Presidency.
  • The Union army had to leave the South, effectively ending Reconstruction since no one was there to enforce it.

Aftermath of Reconstruction

  • Southern Governments re-establish all-white control and pass many laws to keep the black population suppressed.
  • Jim Crow Laws:
    • State and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States.
  • Ku Klux Klan:
    • A white supremacist terrorist hate group.