One of the earliest national mottoes of the United States is E Pluribus Unum, or "out of many- one." This refers to the thirteen colonies becoming one strong nation. As we explained in the previous lesson, although the thirteen colonies shared a common origin, language, and historic tradition, in the almost 170 years of their development they did not develop in parallel. Generally speaking they could be grouped into the three categories we showed you- New England, Middle, and Southern, but even within those groups there were differences. Some of the new states were larger than others, some more populous, and some just had different ideas about how they wanted to be governed. In order to accommodate all these competing interests and views, the Founding Fathers had to compromise with one another. They compromised around several important questions.

1. How would small states and large states be represented in the legislative branch? It seemed that the larger states, with larger populations would always defeat the smaller states if representation were based on population. The compromise: each state would receive two senate seats. but the House of Representatives would be based on population (proportional representation).

2. Another question about representation: Southern states wanted slaves to count as population, even though they had no rights and were considered property rather than citizens. In this way, southern states would get more representation in the House. The related issue of the morality of slavery was not mentioned in the Constitution, even though there were many in the New England and Middle states who deplored slavery. The simple reason is that the South would never have ratified the Constitution had slavery been prohibited in it. The representation compromise, known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, counted each slave as three fifths of a person with respect to representation. To satisfy those who favored the abolition of slavery, a provision in the Constitution would provide the opportunity of Congress to prohibit slave imports in 1807, which they did.

3. Did the Founding Fathers believe in direct democracy? Not exactly. They feared the uneducated might elect people who would manipulate them for their own power and benefit. So only the House of Representatives would be elected by the people, and the Senators by state legislatures. Similarly, the President and Vice President would be (and still are) elected by the Electoral College, which in theory could have the power to overturn the popular vote (It never has. In each election the Electors in the states have voted with the popular vote in their states).

Even then, the battle for ratification was fierce. Two camps emerged: those who favored the Constitution with its much stronger federal (central) government, known as Federalists, and those who opposed it because they thought the federal government would take too much power from the state governments (the anti-Federalists). After a nine-month struggle, the anti-federalists were convinced to support the Constitution with the promise that a series of amendments would affirm certain rights of individuals and states. These first ten amendments are what we call the Bill of Rights. Without them the Constitution would never have been ratified. They are subject to much scrutiny and interpretation even today but are considered to be the bedrock of our freedoms.

How did the United States, which began as thirteen small states along the eastern coast of North America, expand all the way across North America to the Pacific coast?

French historian and world traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, who came through the United States in 1831, believed U.S. growth and expansion was because of values rather unique to the United States at that time: political and economic freedom, self-government, equality, and self reliance.

Ever heard the term Manifest Destiny? Many Americans believed it was their destiny to control the North American continent, because to do so might encourage other nations to build strong democracies. The expansion of the United States and the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny began in 1803 and was completed by 1860, as the Civil War began. This expansion process involved both negotiation and warfare, both with other European and North American nations, and with Native Americans, who were in possession of most of the Great Plains. You will learn later about the process by which the United States drove the Native Americans off their lands.

Where?

When?

How?

Northwest Territory, west of Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio River to Canada

1783

By treaty with Britain which ended the Revolutionary War. Later the Confederation Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance, which laid out how territories could achieve statehood.

Louisiana Purchase, west of the Mississippi River, west to Mexico, and north to Canada

1803

President Jefferson negotiated the purchase from France. Many believed that he exceeded his authority under the Constitution. The purchase doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson hired Lewis and Clark to explore and map the vast region.

Florida

1810, 1813, 1819

West Florida was annexed to the U.S. in 1810, with President Madison claiming it was part of the Louisiana Purchase. East Florida, nominally under the control of Spain, was also home to the Seminole, who were subdued by the US Army in 1818. The US finally won control of all of Florida by the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819.

British Cession- parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota

1818

Granted to the US by treaty with Britain, to settle a border dispute that had gone on since the Revolutionary War.

Texas

1845

Texas was annexed by the US. However, although Texas claimed to be an independent nation, Mexico had never given up its claim to Texas. Thus, the annexation quickly led to the Mexican War.

Oregon, including present-day states of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington

1846

Claimed by both Britain and the US, Oregon was split between the two by treaty, with Britain keeping everything north of the 49th parallel.

Mexican Cession, including the present-day states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, California, Colorado, and parts of Texas

1848

Annexed by the US following a successful war with Mexico. As a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the war and the annexation of Texas by the US, Mexico lost 55% of its pre-1836 territory and a sizeable Spanish-speaking population, many descendants of which live in these states today.

Gadsden Purchase, southern Arizona and New Mexico

1853

Purchased by treaty with Mexico in 1853, largely to complete a southern trans-continental railroad. Manifest Destiny had been fulfilled, except in the minds of those who believed it should include Canada as well. We shall see.

Bear in mind that slavery was legal during the pre-Revolutionary War days and practiced to some extent in each of the thirteen colonies. However, by 1804 all the northern states had virtually abolished slavery. Because of this, many in the Southern states feared that one day there might be federal laws abolishing slavery in the entire nation, which would severely affect the economy and social structure of the South, where Black slaves were considered property and had no civil rights at all.

Now, remember that one of the compromises made in the Constitutional Convention had to do with the way people are represented in Congress. The House of Representatives was proportional- based on population. The Senate, however, featured two votes for each state. Early on, Southerners and Northerners alike saw control of the Senate to being key to major initiatives such as the maintaining, or the abolition of, slavery.

As a result, between 1790 and 1860 a large number of states were admitted to the United States. Consider this: as part of the Missouri Compromise, Maine was admitted as a free state. Maine had been part of Massachusetts, but Massachusetts was willing to let it become its own state to preserve the free-slave state balance.

This state admissions frenzy had three additional major consequences in addition to the struggle to control the Senate:

* more and more Native Americans were killed or pushed off their land

* more and more Easterners and immigrants were recruited to populate the territories so that they could become states (the Northwest Ordinance required a population of 60,000 before a state could be admitted)

* wars of conquest, such as the Mexican War, were waged to add territory to the United States

With the admission of California in 1850 as a free state, the balance shifted to free states, and it stayed that way until the Civil War began.

In addition to the division into free and slave states, the nation was divided on a number of other issues and concerns. The disputes about these issues among the North, South, and West are called Sectionalism.

* Land prices: The West and South wanted low land prices to encourage settlement by farmers, and for the South to try to spread slavery. The North favored high prices to discourage the labor force from leaving the North to go West.

* Slavery: The West and North favored free labor. The North needed skilled industrial workers, while Westerners wanted to get paid for labor and not have to compete with slave labor, which was cheaper. The South favored an extension of slavery since their economy had been built on it form the beginning.

* Taxes on Imports (tariffs): The West and North favored high tariffs. The North favored them because they drove up the cost of imported goods which were competing with Northern manufacturing output. The West favored them because they provided revenue for transportation projects, which moved Western farm products to Northern markets. The South favored lower tariffs, which they thought would keep down the cost of manufactured goods, and would allow them to export raw good like cotton to other industrial nations.

* Internal improvements (infrastructure): The North and West favored these projects because they provided transportation systems to move raw and finished goods across the continent. The South opposed them as unnecessary and expensive government spending (which required high tariffs to support).

Causes

Origins

States' Rights

The Articles of Confederation had made the states more powerful than the Confederation government. When the Constitution was written, it gave more power back to the Federal Government while reserving some for the states. But many in the U.S., called Anti-Federalists, thought this made the Federal Government too powerful, and that they should be allowed to challenge it.

Slavery

The Constitution does not mention slavery, so when it was ratified slavery was legal, as it had been even during Colonial times. Slaves states were those in the South. As the movement for abolishing slavery grew, the South feared the Federal Government might outlaw slavery altogether, which would destroy the Southern economy, based as it was on agricultural slave labor.

Tariff Disputes

The North favored high tariffs, because it helped them compete with other manufacturing nations. The South wanted low tariffs, so that manufactured goods would be cheaper for them to purchase, since they were not a manufacturing economy.

Economic Differences

The South was more agricultural, and the North more industrial. they had different economic needs, and also different cultures. This dated back to Colonial times.

The election of 1860 was one of the most divisive in American history. Four candidates ran. Sectional differences meant that each candidate appealed to a particular area of the country. Abraham Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in 10 Southern states. The Democrats couldn't agree on one candidate and ran two, one Northerner and one Southerner. The election was held on November 6, 1860.

Lincoln did well in northern states, but won less than 40 percent of the popular vote. He won a lopsided victory in the Electoral College, doing well in states with large numbers of electoral votes. But Lincoln carried no Southern states.

The 1860 election was one of the most important in American history as it came during a national crisis. Lincoln, strongly anti-slavery, had won the Presidency. The possibility of secession had been discussed in the South even before the 1860 election, and Lincoln's victory hastened the South’s split from the Union. The Southern states believed that they had the right to secede from the United States (the Union, as it is called during this period), but Lincoln and many others in both the North and South asserted that no such right existed. Neither secession nor the possibility of it, is mentioned in the Constitution, meaning that the Founding Fathers believed that joining the United States was a permanent condition. But as soon as the election was final, South Carolina called a secession convention, which met on December 17, 1860. Three days later they voted to leave the Union. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas called their own conventions and all issued declarations of secession by February 1, 1861. On February 4, delegates from the seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to set up their new government and officially create the Confederate States of America. Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861.

South (Confederates)

North (Union)

Population

9 million, including 3.5 million slaves, in 11 states

22 million in 23 states

Military

Army: Between 600,000 and 1.5 million, and Blacks were not allowed to serve until March of 1865.

Navy: No navy other than a few cruisers

Army: 2.1 million, including about 179,000 Blacks

Navy: 84,000 white sailors, 2900 Black sailors; at its peak, 671 ships

Military Leaders

Generals Robert E. Lee, Pierre G.T. Beauregard, Nathan Bedford Forrest, John B. Hood, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Albert Sidney Johnston, J.E.B. Stuart

Generals U. S. Grant, Irvin McDowell, John Pope, William Rosecrans, Ambrose Burnside, Winfield Scott, Don Carlos Buell, Philip Sheridan, John C. Fremont, William T. Sherman, George McLellan, George Meade; Admiral David Farragut

Advantages

Excellent leadership- most Southern generals had learned their craft in the Mexican-American War.

Strong military tradition.

Fighting a defensive war on home ground provided motivation.

Could purchase needed weapons and finished goods with cotton.

Vast territory that would have to be conquered

Lincoln’s leadership.

Greater population, including 5-2 advantage in potential soldiers.

Industrial power, more weapons and finished goods.

More railroads for quickly moving troops.

The Navy could control maritime trade.

Disadvantages

State sovereignty made it difficult to conduct the war as a unified nation.

Inferior number in men, money, and machinery

No navy.

Less capable leader in Jefferson Davis

Less motivation to fight.

Poor military leadership at the beginning.

Longer supply lines.

Vast territory of the South was hard to conquer and hold.

War Aims

To preserve state sovereignty and slavery.

To preserve national sovereignty and, as the war went on, to end slavery.

Strategies

Capture Washington DC.

Capture central Pennsylvania, divide northeast and northwest.

Capture Richmond, VA

Divide the Confederacy by controlling the Mississippi River and New Orleans while blockading Southern ports (General Scott’s Anaconda Plan).

As you saw previously, the North planned to encircle and blockade the South, crippling their ability to get supplies and food from other nations (the Anaconda Plan- "Scott's Great Snake"). The North figured the South could not hold on very long if they were successful. As you may know, the war actually went on for four years.

On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began with a Confederate attack on Ft. Sumter, near Charleston SC. Fort Sumter was one of the few federal facilities left flying the Union flag. In January, South Carolina had demanded that it be turned over and fired on a ship carrying supplies for the fort. In April, President Lincoln notified South Carolina that he was going to provision Fort Sumter, but that he would not send ammunition, weapons, or troops. In response, South Carolina insisted that the fort surrender, and when it did not, opened fire to force the issue. The assault on Fort Sumter galvanized Northerners. War had begun, and now the North was ready for a fight. And four more Southern states seceded.

The American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914. The Civil War resulted in almost half the total number of deaths of all the wars the United States has fought. A number of technological developments, most of which benefitted the Union, made the Civil War one of the first “modern” wars.

* The use of railroads to move soldiers, supplies, and equipment

* More advanced weapons, including breech-loaded firearms

* The use of telegraphy to communicate in the field

* Better medicines and medical techniques

* “Ironclad” ships

* The use of cameras to photograph the war

Northern armies were named for bodies of water like the Army of the Potomac, and Southern armies were named for land areas like the Army of Northern Virginia. Famous Civil War battles are often known by two names. Similarly, the Union named battles after the nearest creek or river, while the Confederate practice was to use the name of the nearest town.

Many battles were fought, but here is a list of the major ones you should remember from your previous U.S. History course:

1861- First Bull Run (Manassas, Virginia)- the first large scale battle of the war and a Confederate victory. The total casualties- about 5,000- shocked both sides and signaled the beginning of a long, bloody conflict.

1862- Antietam (Maryland)- one of only two major battles fought in the North and the bloodiest single day of the war. Confederate General Lee had invaded Maryland and hope the state would defect to the South. This did not happen. The Union victory forced Lee back to the South. It also gave Lincoln the good news he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in areas not controlled by the Union.

1863- Gettysburg (Pennsylvania)- the turning point of the war. After successes at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville Lee invaded the North again. The frontal assault on entrenched Union forces, “Pickett’s Charge,” failed and Lee retreated back to Virginia. Never again would the South have a chance to win the war or threaten the North. Deadliest battle of the war with 51,000 casualties. Inspired Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

1863- Vicksburg (Mississippi)- was one of the most important Union victories in the west. The fortress of Vicksburg was the key to the last Confederate-held stretch of the Mississippi. With its defeat the Confederacy was split in two along the river.

1864 Atlanta (Georgia)- The siege of Atlanta by Gen. Sherman ended with the burning of the city by Union troops. This battle was immortalized in the famous book and film “Gone with the Wind.” After burning the city Sherman began his famous “march to the sea,” during which his troops looted and plundered their way across Georgia, destroying nearly everything in their path

1865- Appomattox (Virginia)- the last major battle of the Civil War. Lee surrendered to Grant. By the time he surrendered Lee had less than 10,000 soldiers left.

Away from the war, The United States was carrying out many new policies which continued the general development of the nation before the war.

Today Lincoln is still regarded as one of the greatest US presidents. Some of his achievements that are not directly related to the Civil War help to illustrate this greatness. The Lincoln administration did more than manage the Civil War.

* The Revenue Act of 1862 established the United States' first income tax, largely to pay the costs of total war.

* The Morrill Act of 1862 established the basis of the state university system in the US.

* The Homestead Act, also passed in 1862, encouraged settlement of the West by offering 160 acres of free land to settlers.

* Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law, which led to the transcontinental railroad linking Chicago the the west coast.

* Lincoln also created the Department of Agriculture.

* He formally instituted the Thanksgiving holiday.

* Internationally, he settled the "Trent Affair," a diplomatic crisis regarding the seizure of a British ship carrying Confederate envoys, in such a way as to avoid threats of war coming from Britain as well as from the United States.

Lincoln wanted an end to the war and to rebuild the union quickly. He wanted to treat the South as kindly as possible. That’s what “malice toward none and charity toward all” meant. He also said he wanted to “bind up the nation’s wounds,” so that means he wanted everyone to put the war behind them. Unfortunately for those in the South, Lincoln did not live to carry out his "reconstruction" plan. He was assassinated five days after the war ended, on April 14, 1865. Vice President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was sworn in as President. It fell to him to implement reconstruction.

“Reconstruction Period” covers the years following the surrender of Confederate military forces in April 1865 to the final withdrawal of Union occupation troops in the early part of 1877. During this time the North attempted to reshape Southern government and society according to the goals determined by the victorious North, and the South continued to resist change in legal and not so legal ways.

At the end of the Civil War the differences between North and South that had caused the war in the first place only seemed to deepen. The South, formerly a strong agricultural economy, was in ruins. Cities, plantations, and farms were destroyed. Southern cities were burned practically to the ground. Property values had collapsed, not to mention the lost "investments" that wealthy landowners had held in the human capital of slaves. Confederate money was worthless, and so were the banks who had supported it. In most places, society operated at or near the level of a barter economy. Hunger and deprivation were everywhere as the men returned home from the front lines. Railroad transportation networks were destroyed. The Union had seized much of the cash crops still of any value.

About 290,000 southern soldiers died in the war, and about 200,000 were wounded. Former Confederates were disillusioned with the United States, some choosing to leave the South and move to the West or even out of the country. Between 3 and 4 million slaves were suddenly free, and most had no education and no way to make a living. White Southerners feared the impact of freed slaves on their economy and culture.

Although there was substantial disagreement among Northerners as to the exact condition under which Southern states could be readmitted to the Union, almost everyone agreed that the former Confederate states be required to ratify the 13, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution. These amendments were called the Reconstruction Amendments, and are also called the Civil Rights amendments. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, the 14th granted citizenship to the former slaves (and also created birthright citizenship to all born within the U.S., which is controversial even today), and the 15th gave the right to vote to all Black males. But under the more lenient Reconstruction plan favored by Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson, the Southern states elected former Confederates to office that circumvented these rights by passing laws, called Black Codes or Jim Crow laws aimed at suppressing newly freed and enfranchised Blacks. A harsher reconstruction plan, known as Radical Reconstruction, was soon passed by the Congress. Among other policies, the plan called for the South to be occupied by Federal troops, who were charged with enforcing the Reconstruction Amendments. Southerners were quite bitter about this.

Reconstruction was ultimately overthrown by a political movement known as Redemption, which reestablished white supremacy in the South. "Redeemers" sought to redeem, or regain, the South of the pre-Civil War years. Through the tactics of the supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan they worked to discourage black involvement in the political process. By 1876, Republican governments that had been established under Reconstruction had been replaced in all but three states.

The former slaves were at an economic disadvantage, as they had few skills, owned no property, and had never received any education. As such, their economic prospects were small. Slowly, they began to rebuild their social and economic lives. Freed blacks, looking for opportunities to become financially self-sufficient, entered into sharecropping agreements with landowners who needed non-slave laborers. Children benefited from the public school system set up by the Freedmen’s Bureau, and literacy became a primary goal of black families across the South. Thousands of separated families worked hard to find their missing family members, sold through slavery and scattered great distances. With the help of the Freedman's Bureau, by 1870 most freed slaves lived in two-parent households. and Black churches grew at great pace during Reconstruction. Churches and the social programs and activities that grew out of them became central to African American life.

President Johnson's successor to the Presidency was former Union General U.S. Grant. Republicans had high hopes for his administration, but were soon discouraged by numerous scandals involving the government. Although he was re-elected in 1872, Democrats were gaining strength in the North and again in the South as a result of the corruption. And then the results of the election of 1876 were disputed, with both the Democrat, Tilden, and the Republican, Hayes, claiming victory. A commission composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats ultimately awarded Hayes the victory. Privately, leaders in Congress agreed to Democratic acceptance of Hayes' election in exchange for a withdrawal of federal troops in the last Southern Republican states. Republicans agreed to provide federal support for railroads and other improvements in the South, and Democrats promised to treat freedmen fairly. Neither promise was kept, and it was the freedmen who suffered most for it. This Compromise of 1877 basically ended Reconstruction. It set the African American challenge of attaining equal rights back by almost a century.Slavery was still outlawed, but further progress for blacks in the South was all but impossible.