APUSH Period 5 Review-timeline

Time Period: 1844-1877

As the nation expanded and its population grew, regional tensions, especially over slavery, led to a civil war. The course and aftermath of which transformed American society

• American Expansion 1844-1877

  • Texas was admitted to the Union as a slave state in  1845. “Manifest Destiny”, the idea that the US had a special right and duty to spread its democratic system from coast to coast, was a crucial theme used to justify the Mexican-American war that followed hard on annexation. 

• New Territories, New Problems. SECTIONALISM 1845-1860

  • Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led to the civil war.

• Mexican-American War 1846

  • President Polk sent US representatives to the Mexican government to make an offer to buy California and parts of New Mexico. Disputes over territory claims in Texas. For 25-30 million$, and 3 million in debit relief owed to Americans by Mexico. Mexican government refused, Polk ordered US Army to move into disputed territory. 4/24/1846

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848, February 2 

  • Ended the Mexican-American War. US acquired California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming

• Compromise of 1850, September 9

  • Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850, which admitted California into the Union as a free state, without, forbidding slavery in other territories acquired from Mexico.

• Fugitive Slave Law, September 1850

  • Passed by the Congress as a part of the Compromise of 1850. Forced northerners to cooperate in returning runaway slaves to the south. 

• Slave Trade Abolished in Washington, DC, September 20, 1850

  • January 1st, slavery was still going on though. 

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin March 20 1852

  • Published and written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a white woman. Sold a lot across America. Lincoln to Stowe “Is this the little woman whose book made such a great war?” increased tensions over slavery. Northerners became even more empathetic about slavery and sought abolition.

• 1st meeting of Republican Party, February 28, 1854

  • Formed to combat the spread of slavery into new territories (Free-soil) 

• Kansas-Nebraska Act May 30, 1854

  • By Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Proposed the area west of Iowa and Missouri (had been set aside as a permanent Indian reservation)-be open for white settlement. Southern members of Congress demanded that Douglas adds a clause that specifically repealed the Missouri Compromise, and instead, allowed popular sovereignty in the region . Created 2 territories (Kansas & Nebraska) and declared Missouri compromise as “inoperative & void”. Northerners considered this as a sign of the rising power of the south. 

• Bleeding Kansas 1855-1860

  • After passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, supporters of both North and South flooded into the territory of Kansas, where violence soon erupted. Rival governments of anti-slavery settlers and proslavery Missouri transplants fought to claim popular sovereignty in favor of their side. In retaliation for sack of the free-state town of Lawrence on May 21, 1856, abolitionist John Brown led a brutal attack on proslavery settlements. The violence and his execution brought many anti-slavery people together. It also inspired abolitionists and slave uprisings and increased sectional tensions significantly

• Sumner’s Caining by Brooks May 22, 1856

  • Increased tensions between political leaders of different sections. Really brought the conflicts up to the surface because of the conflict between two leaders. 

  • He was beaten with a cane 

• Dred Scott Decision March 6, 1857

  • Scott in 1856, sued for his freedom saying that he had lived for years in Illinois, a free state, a Wisconsin, a free territory, so that residence on free soil made him a free man. Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because African Americans were not citizens, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from owners. This decision nullified the Missouri Compromise and any future effort to restriction slavery. It ultimately widened the gap between the North and South by undermining compromises that had previously maintained a fragile balance. Tensions over slavery increased. 

• Laws & Compromises proposed but not put into action

  • Wilmot Proviso 1846: To outlaw slavery in all territory acquired from Mexico. Defeated, but fights over its adoption foreshadowed the sectional conflicts of the 1850s. 

  • Lecompton Constitution 1857: aimed to admit Kansas as a slave state under popular vote. Many anti-slavery boycotted to vote, not enacted, Kansas eventually entered as a free state in 1861.

• Lincoln-Douglas debates August 21, 1858-October 15, 1858

  • Series of 7 political debates across the state of Illinois, Lincoln & Douglas argued the question of slavery. Lincoln asked Douglas how he could favor popular sovereignty. Douglas accused Lincoln of being in favor of social and political equality for African Americans. Lincoln said he supported economic equality but not social and political equality and that slavery would be one or the other, not ½ and ½ , in order for the Union to be together. This deepened sectional thoughts by revealing opposing thoughts of sectional leaders even more, highlighting differences on expansion of slavery, equality, and the future of the nation. It also set the stage for Lincoln’s presidential election

• Lincoln Elected November 6, 1860

  • The election revealed how divided the country had become. This was the first election with purely sectional votes! White southerners were FURIOUS that a Republican had won without carrying a single southern state

• Secession and Confederacy, December 20, 1860-February 8, 1861

  • Fearing that LIncoln’s election meant the end of slavery, South Carolina 1st seceded in December of 1860, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana in January 1861. In February, the states of the lower south established a new government named the confederate states of America and drafted a constitution modeled after the US constitution. However, the document specifically referred to slavery, state soverignty, and God granted slavery in states and territories but prohibited international slave trade 

• Attack on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861 (Civil war begins!)

  • COnfederates attacks Fort Sumtner in the Harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, Officially beginning the Civil War. Union FOrces t Firt Syntber syrrebders after 34 hours of bombardment of Union territory

• First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861

  • Union armies were defeated. 1st major battle of war at Bull Run in Virginia. Both sidess consisted poorly trained volunteers and forced union to realize that the fight to hold the US together wouldn’t be easily won. 

• Battle of Shiloh, April 7, 1862

  • TN, ended in Union victory. Bloodiest battle up until that point in American history.

• Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1st 1863, signed in 1862

  • By Lincoln. Declared “al person held as slaves within any state/designated art of state in rebellion against the US… be free and forever free”. Didn’t account for slaves in loyal and border states and Confederate states didn’t follow LIncoln’s rules, so it freed no one. Howevern it changed the war for a moral cause, about slavery. Slaves drafted in military or just escaped to Union lines and freed themselves. Lincoln ued this to announce recruitment of African Americans

• Battle of Gettysberg, July 1-3, 1863

  • 51,000 casualties, bloodiest battle of civil war. Lee ordered retreat Confederacy faced nefarious defeat

• Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1862

  • Lincoln “that these dead shall not have died in vain, that his nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth” 

• Lincoln Re-elected, November 8, 1864

• Freedmen’s Bureau Established, March 3, 1865

  • To assist newly freedslaves in transitioning to their new status. President Johnson went with Northern democrats to be against the education, land, and economic programs of the Bureau. 

• Surrender at Appomattox Court House

  • By April 1865, Grant’s (Union) armies have cut of Lee’s (confederate) supply lines, forcing them to evacuate Petesburg and Richmond. Lee recognized that further resistance would be pointless and surrendered. 

• Lincoln Assassinated, April 14, 1865

  • Shot by John WIke, making vice president Andrew Johnson president

• 13th Amendment Ratified, December 6, 1865

  • To abolish slavery in the US and, in January 1865, at Lincoln’s urging, the house passed it too. 

• Ku Klux Klan organized, December 24, 1865

  • Founded at the law offices of Thomas M Jones. Made up of Southern white men, white supremacists. Used violence and intimidation to resist the advancement of the civil rights of African Americans and to undermine the Reconstruction Policies. 

• Civil Rights Act of 1866, April 9, 1866

  • Enacted into law despite President Johnson’s veto. Defined all persons born in US as citizens. Equal protection under law, property rights, legal enforcement! A significant step towards establishing civil rights for African Americans

• Reconstruction Acts of 1867

  • Divided the south into military districts and placed the former confederate states under martial laws pending their adoption of constitutions guarenteeing civil liberties to former slaves. Gave African American men in the south the right to vote. 

• Johnson Impeached, February 24, 1868

  • He had vetoed 20 reconstruction bills and urged southern legislatures to reject the 14th amendment. Also had ordered African American families evicted from lands on which they’d been settled by the US army. 

• 14th Amendment Ratified, July 9, 1868

  • Guarenteed citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the US” This amendment’s qual protection clause guaranteed that no state could “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” 

• Ulysses S. Grant Elected President, November 3, 1868

  • 214 out of 294 electoral votes. 18th president!

• Fifteenth Amendment February 26, 1869

  • Provided “right of citizens of the US to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the US or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Intended to support 14th amendment. Some southern states acquired literacy test and grandfather clause to eliminate black voters. 

• First AA in Congress 1870-77

• Amnesty Act of 1872

  • Removed voting and office holding restrictions on most former members of the confederacy

• Panic of 1873, September 18, 1873

  • Prompted by international economic problems and led to major depression. Congress passed the Resumption Act of 1875, which created compensatory deflationary pressure that contributed to general decline princess

• Minor v. Happersett, march 29, 1874

  • US supreme court ruled that the equal protection in 14th amendment did not extend to women. 

• Election of 1876

  • Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won 

• Compromise of 1877

  • Democratic leaders accepted Haye’s election in exchange of Republican promises to withdraw federal troops from the south, provide federal funding for southern internal improvements, and name a prominent southerner to president’s cabinet. When Federal troops were withdrawn, Republican governments in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina collapsed, bringing Reconstruction to a formal end. Under this compromise, the national government cannot interfere in state affairs, therefore, the imposition of racial segregation and the disfranchisement of black voters became permitted.