APUSH Period 5 Study Notes (1844 - 1877) Adam Norris studied

Manifest Destiny

  • Concept driven by racial and cultural superiority, often expressed as "White Man's Burden" or Anglo-Saxon superiority, believing it was America's divinely ordained right to expand across the continent.

  • Central focus of political debates in the 1840s and 1850s, particularly regarding the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Territory, which fueled intense sectional debates over the expansion of slavery.

  • Territorial expansion raised the question of slavery in new states, leading to a constant struggle to maintain the balance between free and slave states in Congress.

Key Events

  • Mexican-American War (1846-1848): Precipitated by the annexation of Texas and boundary disputes, it resulted in the Mexican Cession (including California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming), enlarging US territory by one-third. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ended the war, granting vast lands to the U.S. for 15 ext{ million}.

  • Wilmot Proviso (1846): A controversial congressional proposal to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico. Though it never passed, it significantly intensified sectional debates over slavery and future expansion, highlighting growing Northern opposition to slavery's spread.

Impacts of Expansion

  • Environmental changes and exploitation of natural resources (e.g., gold rush in California), significantly altering landscapes and ecosystems across the newly acquired territories.

  • Settlement on Native lands led to increased conflicts, forced displacement, and the implementation of removal policies, resulting in numerous treaties and wars such as the Sand Creek Massacre and Fetterman Fight.

  • Initiatives toward Asia for economic growth, particularly seeking new markets and trade routes. Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition to Japan in 1853-1854 forcibly opened Japanese ports to American trade, while efforts were also made to expand trade with China.

Immigration and Nativism

  • Old Immigrants: Predominantly German and Irish, arriving in large numbers between the 1830s and 1860s.

    • Irish immigrants, fleeing the Great Potato Famine (1845-1849), often settled in overcrowded urban centers in the Northeast, providing cheap labor for factories and infrastructure projects.

    • German immigrants, often fleeing political unrest and economic hardship, tended to move further westward, establishing agricultural communities and maintaining distinct cultural traditions.

  • Faced severe nativism, driven by anti-Catholic sentiment against Irish immigrants and fears of job competition and cultural erosion. This led to the rise of political movements like the Know-Nothing Party, which advocated for restricting immigration and limiting the rights of foreign-born citizens.

Northern vs. Southern Differences

  • North: Characterized by a rapidly industrializing economy based on free labor, manufacturing, and commerce. This region developed strong abolitionist movements, advocating for the end of slavery on moral and economic grounds, contrasting with the South's reliance on enslaved labor.

  • South: Predominantly an agrarian society, heavily reliant on agriculture, especially cotton, which was cultivated using enslaved labor. This system led to a slower population growth compared to the North, limited industrialization, and a rigid social hierarchy dominated by plantation owners.

Abolitionist Movement

  • Emerged slowly in the North but gained momentum through various strategies:

    • Publications: William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, advocated for immediate and uncompensated emancipation.

    • Underground Railroad: A network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved African Americans to escape to free states and Canada, aided by conductors like Harriet Tubman.

    • Violent resistance: Events like John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry (1859) aimed to incite a slave rebellion, escalating tensions between North and South.

    • Political Action: Formation of parties like the Liberty Party and later the Free-Soil Party, which sought to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories.

Southern Defense of Slavery

  • Arguments framed slavery as a 'positive good' (most notably by John C. Calhoun), asserting it was beneficial for both enslaved people (claiming paternalistic care) and Southern society, economically and socially.

  • Utilized the doctrine of nullification and states' rights to resist federal interference with slavery. They also employed pseudoscientific racial stereotypes and biblical justifications to dehumanize enslaved people and maintain the institution.

Compromises and the Election of 1860

  • Compromise of 1850: A package of five separate bills passed by Congress, designed to avert a crisis between North and South.

    • Admitted California as a free state.

    • Abolished the slave trade (but not slavery) in the District of Columbia.

    • Organized the New Mexico and Utah territories on the basis of popular sovereignty, allowing residents to decide on slavery.

    • Settled a border dispute between Texas and New Mexico.

    • Enforced a stricter Fugitive Slave Act, which made it easier for slaveholders to recover runaway enslaved people, infuriating abolitionists in the North.

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): Proposed by Stephen Douglas, it allowed citizens in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to determine whether slavery would be allowed there through popular sovereignty. This act effectively overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820, leading to intense violence known as "Bleeding Kansas," as pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers clashed, forming rival governments.

  • Dred Scott Decision (1857): The Supreme Court ruled that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's majority opinion also declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, asserting that Congress could not legislatively prohibit slavery in federal territories, deeply dividing the nation and increasing sectional tensions.

  • Election of 1860: The Democratic Party fractured over the issue of slavery, nominating multiple candidates. Abraham Lincoln, representing the Republican Party which advocated for the non-extension of slavery, won the election without carrying a single Southern state. His victory served as the immediate catalyst for the secession of Southern states, beginning with South Carolina.

Civil War (1861-1865)

  • The Union's victory was largely due to its superior industrial capacity, larger population, more extensive railroad network, and effective military strategies.

  • Key strategies included the Anaconda Plan, which involved a naval blockade of Confederate ports and control of the Mississippi River to split the Confederacy.

  • Decisive military leadership from generals like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, whose "March to the Sea" devastated the Southern infrastructure and morale.

  • Emancipation Proclamation (1863): Issued by President Lincoln, it declared that all enslaved people in the Confederate states were free. While its immediate effect was limited due to Union control, it fundamentally shifted the war's focus from preserving the Union to a war of liberation and allowed African-American soldiers to fight for the Union.

Reconstruction Amendments

  • 13th Amendment (1865): Formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. This led to the rise of sharecropping and tenant farming systems, which often kept African Americans in economic dependency similar to slavery, and later to convict leasing.

  • 14th Amendment (1868): Defined national citizenship and guaranteed "equal protection of the laws" and "due process of law" to all persons, regardless of race, overriding the Dred Scott decision. It prohibited states from abridging the rights of citizens, laying the legal groundwork for future civil rights movements.

  • 15th Amendment (1870): Granted suffrage to African-American men, stating that the right to vote could not be denied based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." However, states soon found loopholes through literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses to disenfranchise Black voters.

Post-Reconstruction

  • Waning Support: Northern resolve for Reconstruction decreased significantly by the 1870s due to "reconstruction fatigue," economic panics (1873), and the rise of other political issues. The Compromise of 1877, which resolved the disputed presidential election of 1876, led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction.

  • Jim Crow Laws: A system of state and local statutes emerged across the South to enforce racial segregation and maintain white supremacy. These laws mandated separate public facilities (schools, restrooms, transportation) and severely limited the civil rights and economic opportunities of African Americans through tactics like literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses.

Women's Rights Impact

  • The Reconstruction era caused a significant split within the women's rights movement, primarily over the support for the 15th Amendment.

    • Leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony opposed the amendment because it granted suffrage to Black men but not to women.

    • Other feminists, such as Lucy Stone, supported the amendment as a step towards universal suffrage, believing that women's suffrage would eventually follow.

  • These debates had long-term effects, shaping the strategies and alliances of the women's suffrage movement that would continue into the 20th century and connecting their struggle to later civil rights movements.