Unit 5 Notes: 1844-1877 Road to the Civil War

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion

  • Belief in the right to expand across North America due to:
    • Access to natural resources.
    • Economic opportunities.
    • Belief in American institutional superiority.
  • Facilitated by:
    • Preemption Acts: Cheap land for homesteaders.
    • California Gold Rush of 1848: Led to westward migration.
    • Southern need for arable land.

Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

  • Caused by the annexation of Texas.
  • Texas annexation led to conflict over border dispute.
  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848):
    • Led to the Mexican Cession.
    • Territories include New Mexico, Arizona, and California ceded to the U.S.
  • Wilmot Proviso:
    • Proposed banning slavery in acquired territories.
    • Created congressional tension over slavery's expansion.

Compromise of 1850

  • Three positions on slavery in new territories:
    • Southern: Slavery as a constitutional right, extend Missouri Compromise line.
    • Free Soil: All new territories should be free.
    • Popular Sovereignty (Stephen Douglas): Territorial populations decide on slavery.
  • Provisions of the Compromise:
    • Popular sovereignty in Mexican Cession territories.
    • California admitted as a free state.
    • Slave trade outlawed in Washington D.C.
    • Stricter Fugitive Slave Law enacted.

Immigration and Nativism

  • Wave of immigrants (Irish and German) led to ethnic enclaves.
  • Nativist opposition to immigrants:
    • Anti-Catholic sentiment.
    • Know-Nothing Party aimed to limit immigrant influence.

Tensions Over Slavery

  • Conflicting regional labor ideologies:
    • North: Manufacturing, paid labor.
    • South: Agriculture, coerced labor.
  • Northern opposition to slavery expansion:
    • Many feared expansion of slavery would threaten wage labor.
  • Abolitionist movement:
    • Underground Railroad.
    • Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
  • Southern defense of slavery:
    • Argued Constitution protected slavery.
    • Tenth Amendment reserves powers to states.

Failed Attempts at Compromise

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854:
    • Popular sovereignty to decide slavery.
    • Overturned the Missouri Compromise.
    • Led to "Bleeding Kansas".
  • Dred Scott Decision (1857):
    • Effectively legalized slavery in all states.
  • John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry: Aimed to incite slave rebellion.
  • Sectional divisions in political parties:
    • Southern Democrats: Protected slavery.
    • Northern Republicans: Contained slavery.

Election of 1860 and Secession

  • Abraham Lincoln's election without Southern electoral votes led to secession.
  • South Carolina was the first state to secede.
  • Reasons for secession:
    • Preservation of slavery.
    • Protection of states' rights.

Civil War

  • North vs. South mobilization.
  • North's advantages:
    • Larger population.
    • More industry and banks.
    • More Railroads.
  • Lincoln's Leadership:
    • Emancipation Proclamation changed the scope of the war.
    • Gettysburg Address.
  • Southern infrastructure destruction: Sherman’s March.

Reconstruction Era

  • Constitutional Amendments:
    • Thirteenth Amendment: Abolished slavery.
    • Fourteenth Amendment: Applied Bill of Rights to states.
    • Fifteenth Amendment: Voting rights to black men.
  • Southern occupation by federal soldiers.
  • Debates on how to treat returning Southerners.
  • Radical Republicans wanted to punish South.

Failure of Reconstruction

  • Northern weariness of forcing Southern submission.
  • Southern insistence on pre-Civil War society.
  • Sharecropping replaced slavery.
  • White supremacy: Ku Klux Klan.
  • Black Codes limited black citizens' rights.
  • Plessy v. Ferguson allowed segregation.
  • Compromise of 1877: Federal troops removed from South, ending Reconstruction.