Civil War and Reconstruction

Civil War

Causes

  • Sectionalism

    • The Compromises throughout the war

      • Missouri Compromise

        • 36 30 line

        • Establishes any state North of the line to be free and any state South to be slave states

      • Compromise of 1850

        • Contradicted Missouri Compromise

        • California wants to come in as a free state

        • Rest of the Mexican cession was divided into free and slave states

    • Free soil party → Republican party was born out of this party

      • Created out of the failed Wilmot Proviso

      • Didn’t want slavery to spread

      • Didn’t care about abolitionism

    • Kansas Nebraska act

      • Douglas wanted to open up the territory for statehood

      • Pro and anti slavery people pour into Kansas

        • Popular sovereignty determines the status of slavery

        • Bleeding Kansas

    • 1857 Dred Scott decision

      • States that slaves are property → you can bring slaves anywhere

      • Nullifies Missouri Compromise and popular sovereignty

    • 1859

      • John Brown’s raid

      • Harper’s ferry

        • Goes absolutely insane and believes god told him to free all the slaves and bring them to Africa

        • Frees about fifty or so and raids a military arsenal (Harpers ferry Virginia)

        • Ends up getting most of the slaves he freed executed

        • Arrested by Robert E. Lee and Jen Stuart

      • Scares the South

        • New republican party will abolish slavery

        • If slavery were abolished, South economy would be destroyed

    • EXIGENCE

      • Election of 1860

        • Lincoln wins without winning the majority vote

        • No one votes for him in ten southern states

        • Lincoln is not seen as the south’s President

        • South Carolina succeeds a few months later

  • Reform movements

    • Literature

      • Uncle Tom’s Cabin

During the War

  • Lincoln

    • Initially, slavery was not a part of the war

    • Lincoln was focused on keeping the Union together and keeping the border states loyal to the Union → Shifts his focus once he see that Abolition will weaken the Confederacy for good

    • Never pushes for abolishing slavery in the border states because he understands their importance

Turning Points

  • January 1st 1863

    • Emancipation Proclamation

      • Adds a moral objective towards the war

      • Freed slaves only in territories opposing the Union

  • 1863

    • Draft Riots and NYC

      • Draft riots were largely immigrants protesting (disruptively) having to fight in the civil war because it was now over emancipation (which they did not care about) and people were able to buy their way out of service

  • Transcontinental Railroad - Infrastructure connecting the country from Atlantic to Pacific, cut the travel time from four months to six days. Gave jobs to immigrants (many Chinese immigrants) though there were many casualties in mines working on the railroad

  • Morill land grant act - the government built and funded many colleges

Role of Women in the War

  • Nursing

  • Play critical roles

  • Run businesses farms

  • Raise money and goods for the soldiers

Economy / Industrialization

  • Gave North an advantage

    • Railroads

    • Resources

    • Food

    • Meatpacking

  • Increased national tariff promoted northern manufacturing

Ending

  • Ended with the 13th amendment

Reconstruction

Political

  • Division of Republican party

  • Moderates

    • Primary Concerns

      • Admitting the southern states back in and rebuilding rather than civil rights

      • Concerned with white middle class

        • Provided land for the middle class

          • Morrill land grant act

          • Homestead Act 1862

    • Lincoln’ plan

      • Began to prepare ideas for Reconstruction

      • 10 percent plan

        • 10 percent of voters in the South pledge loyalty to the Union

        • Had to promise to accept emancipation

  • Radical Republicans:

    • Concerned with civil rights and punishing the south

      • Led by C. Sumner and T. Stevens

        • Want black equality

      • 1866

        • Create a veto proof Congress

        • Drive Reconstruction

      • 1864

        • Wade Davis Bill

          • Require 50% to pledge loyalty to the Union

          • Exclude former Confederates from holding government positions

          • Anyone who served as Lieutenant or higher in Confederate army was STRIPPED of citizenship

          • NEVER PASSES

Lincoln utilizes the pocket veto

Put it aside and let it expire (Congress can not override the veto)

Sent back to the beginning

  • Presidential Crisis

    • Lincoln dies in 1865

    • Andrew Johnson takes presidency

      • Believed he would mirror Lincoln → Didn’t do that at all

        • Was harsh on paper but would pardon anyone

      • Couldn’t be a worse president

      • Tried to veto everything (it’s these Andrew’s man💀)

      • Claimed to be aligned with radicals and then just went with whatever he wanted

Landmark Cases

  • Plessy v Ferguson

    • Legalized racial segregation

    • “Separate but equal” ideology

    • Anything provided for whites must be provided for blacks (does not have to be in the same condition though)

Civil Rights Acts

  • 1866

    • Very Vague

    • Attempted to ban state sponsored discrimination

      • Couldn’t right a law barring only black people from voting

    • Attempted to define aspects of citizenship

    • Set the foundation for the fourteenth amendment

    • 14th Amendment

      • Defines citizenship

      • Equality before the law

    • Radical republicans were worried that a civil rights act wouldn’t be permanent

    • Fourteenth amendment is this permanent solution

    • 1875

      • Last piece of legislation from Reconstruction era

      • Equal in travel and public accommodations

Economic

  • Southern economy was destroyed

    • Slavery is gone

    • Railroads were destroyed by the war

    • War debts

  • Northern economy is booming

South response after election of 1876

  • Black codes - Made to keep black people as second class citizens

    • Curfew

    • Arresting people who were unemployed

    • Taking children away from their parents if they were unemployed

  • White redeemers come back

    • Redeemers destroy education and infrastructure for black people and cut back spending almost entirely

  • Solid South: White Southerners often vote Democratic for 100 years

    • Out of spite

    • To take black people out of political offices and inferior to white

  • Managed to get around federal amendments

    • Claimed to be equal because things are provided for black people and whatever is illegal or required for black people would also be illegal or required for white people

    • Election laws == reserved powers by the states

      • Didn’t deny anyone the right to vote

      • Poll Taxes - To uphold registration to vote people would have to pay an annual tax that many black people could not afford

      • Literacy Tests - Tests made to either confuse black people or designed with knowledge from an education black people likely hadn’t received

      • These laws prohibited a few white people from voting too but it was deemed a necessary sacrifice

      • Applied the laws to everyone

        • Grandfather Clause

          • Exempted poor whites from these laws

Reconstruction Pros and Cons

  • Successes of the Reconstruction

    • 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments

    • Reunite the Union

    • For a short time many blacks people held political power

  • Failures of Reconstruction

    • Sharecropping: System of land ownership

      • Rent land to black families

      • Grew some crops

      • But black families owed rent to a landlord → maintains the cycle of poverty in the South

    • Black Codes

    • White Redeemers politicians

    • Election of 1876

      • Hayes promising to leave the south alone in exchange for the presidency