Mexican-American War to Spanish-American War

Mexican-American War

  • Polk's Presidency (1845-1849):

    • Elected in 1844, assumed presidency in 1845.
    • Expansionist agenda.
    • Four-point mission:
      • Lower the tariff.
      • Restore an independent treasury (US money not in government banks).
      • Expand American territory.
      • Settle the Oregon border issue (Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!).
      • Annex California.
      • Oversaw the annexation of Texas (delayed due to slavery issues).

  • Mexican-American War (1846-1848):

    • Controversy over the war's beginning (Spot Resolution introduced by Whig senators like Abraham Lincoln).
    • Debate over the war's justification (Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience).
    • Issue of slavery expansion into new territories.
    • US victory led to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
    • US acquired territory from Texas to California, north of the Rio Grande, for $15,000,000.

  • Free Soil Party (1848):

    • Established in 1848.
    • Opposed the expansion of slavery into western territories.
    • Focused on preserving opportunities for white men, not abolition.

  • Wilmot Proviso:

    • Proposed to prohibit slavery in land acquired from Mexico.
    • Failed to pass.

Compromise of 1850

  • Proposed by Henry Clay.
  • Strengthened Fugitive Slave Laws (unpopular in the North).
  • California admitted as a free state.
  • Texas admitted as a slave state.
  • Utah and Arizona: popular sovereignty.

Escalating Tensions

  • Bleeding Kansas: Conflict over slavery in Kansas.
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act: Introduced by Stephen Douglas to pave the way for a transcontinental railroad through the North.
    • Allowed popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, overriding the Missouri Compromise.
    • Opposed by Northerners.

Dred Scott Decision (1857)

  • African Americans were not citizens and could not sue in federal courts.
  • Enslaved people were considered property and could be taken to any state.
  • Based on the Fifth Amendment right to property.

Events Leading to the Civil War

  • Bleeding Kansas: Charles Sumner beaten with a cane on the Senate floor for speaking against pro-slavery senators.
  • Civil War begins in 1861 with Fort Sumter.
  • South Carolina seceded after Lincoln's election.
    • Lincoln received no electoral votes in the South.
    • Republican platform aimed to stop the spread of slavery, not abolish it where it existed.
    • South saw this as a threat to their way of life.

Fort Sumter

  • Federal fort attacked by South Carolina when Lincoln tried to send provisions.
  • Confederate occupation for most of the war.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Side

  • Union (North):
    • Stronger economy.
    • Developed transportation system.
    • More factories.
    • Higher population.
  • Confederacy (South):
    • More experienced generals.
    • Home field advantage (but also negative effects on civilians).

Key Battles and Events

  • Bull Run: Union retreat galvanized the North.
  • Gettysburg: Turning point in the war.
  • Sherman's March to the Sea: "Hard hand of war," scorched earth policy.

Emancipation Proclamation

  • Freed slaves only in states in rebellion (not border states).
  • Turned the war into a moral cause, preventing Britain from joining the South.

End of the War

  • Surrender of General Robert E. Lee to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Reconstruction

  • Lincoln's assassination led to different plans for Reconstruction under Andrew Johnson.
  • Freedmen's Bureau: Established schools for formerly enslaved people.
  • Key Amendments:
    • 13th Amendment: Abolished slavery.
    • 14th Amendment: Granted citizenship rights to African Americans.
    • 15th Amendment: Granted voting rights.
    • These rights were infringed upon by Jim Crow laws and the KKK.

End of Reconstruction

  • Compromise of 1877: Rutherford B. Hayes became president; federal troops withdrew from the South.
  • Rise of Redeemer governments in the South.

Gilded Age

  • Economic growth, limited government regulation.
  • Rise of titans of industry (Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie):
    • Horizontal and vertical integration, trusts, monopolies.
    • Republicans (e.g., McKinley) supported them.
  • Election of 1896: Immense donations from titans of industry to ensure McKinley's victory against William Jennings Bryan (Populist/Democrat).
  • Beginning of government regulation with the Sherman Antitrust Act (initially used to break up the Pullman strike).
  • Rise of labor unions (Knights of Labor, AFL, National Labor Union) with limited efficacy.

Plessy v. Ferguson

  • Established separate but equal, legitimizing Jim Crow laws until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Spanish-American War

  • Beginning of American imperialism.
  • Explosion of the USS Maine blamed on Spain.
  • Yellow journalism.
  • Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.
  • Treaty of Paris:
    • "Independence" of Cuba from Spain.
    • US annexed Hawaii and the Philippines.
    • US gained Puerto Rico and Guam.
    • Called the "splendid little war."