AP US History Period 5

Period 5: 1844 (Polk’s election)-1877(end of Reconstruction) Context: War of 1812 over, new land, slavery issues, expansion, Native American conflict, division between North and South Slavery ● Causes for its expansion: cheap labor (tobacco and cotton), Native Americans were hard to enslave and indentured servants got freed but slaves were for a lifetime, o 47 percent of the South’s population was made up of slaves o Slave codes: (laws for slaves - they can’t be emancipated and are considered property for life) o Slave conditions: long hours, isolated, punished (whipping), seen as inferior Abolitionism ● American anti-slavery society: abolition organization created by William Lloyd Garrison in 1833, wanted immediate abolition of slaves, seen as a radical due to the change that abolition would bring about America ● Liberty party: separate from the anti slavery organization, separated in order to pursue an abolitionist agenda through the political process. Attempted to function as a third party. ● William Llyod Garrison: abolitionist, published The Liberator, an anti slavery newspaper published weekly ● Harriet Tubman: a conductor of the underground railroad, helped slaves escape to the North ● Harriet Beecher Stowe: Wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Writing turned much of British public against helping the Confederates during the Civil War. (South wanted to trade cotton but Britain had other colonies to trade with) ● Fredrick Douglass: African American social reformer, abolitionist, counter example to the argument that slaves lacked intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens ● Free Soil party: political party that opposed the exapansion of slavery in territories, most became Republicans, wanted free soil, free labor, and free men ● Conscience whigs: faction of the Whig party noted for their moral opposition to slavery. Opposed annexation of Texas and Mexican American War because they feared the expansion of slavery into new territories would endanger the United States ● Modern Republican Party 1854: formed after the Whig party dissolved over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the issue of slavery. Opposed expansion of slavery into the Territories. ● Lincoln-Douglas debates: Lincoln debated about the issue of slavery, was against its expansion but not its existence → made him popular, made people want him as president, debate for the US Senate. Lincoln lost but gained popularity. Territorial Expansion & Impacts on Slavery: ● Wilmot Provision: long term cause of the war, never passed but it said that slavery shouldnt expand to new territory ● Gadsden purchase: land in present day Arizona and New Mexico that the US purchased from Mexico as a potential route for building the southern Transcontinental Railroad ● California Gold Rush 1849: prospectors known as forty niners streamed to California after the discovery of gold, gaining wealth by moving west ● Compromise of 1850: attempted to stop the issue of division between the states due to slavery, written by Henry Clay. California enters as a free state, popular soverignty in New Mexico and Utah, fugitive slave law-- law that provided for the return of escaped slaves found in the north to their owners in the south -- the end of the slave trade in Washington DC (does not end slavery since the slaves are not free and they keep producing slaves) ● Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854: Stephen Douglas wanted to build a railroad. To get the South's approval, he agreed to split Nebraska into Kansas and Nebraska, then allow for popular sovereignty (good for the south) that allowed for Kansas and Nebraska to decide on the issue of slavary. Ended the Missouri Compromise, led to a civil war in Kansas (Bleeding Kansas). North tried to stop slavery, Nebraska is free so Southerners flood Kansas to try to make it a slave state. o Bleeding Kansas: result of the Kansas Nebraska act, anti-slavery and pro-slavery poured into Kansas to alter popular sovereignty. John Brown massacred people, started a violent attack, resulted in the failure of popular sovereignty. ● John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry: Harper Ferry was a site of a federal arsenal in VA, radical Brown hoped to capture arsenal and start a slave rebellion in the south. Brown eventually hanged ● Dred Scott v Sanford 1857: African Americans aren't allowed to sue as they are considered property, not citizens. Angered the north. ● Freeport Doctrine 1858: Belief held by Senator Stephen Douglas of Illnois that a territory could exclude slavery by creating laws that made slavery impossible. U.S. Congress could not outlaw slavery in territories because of Dredd Scott v Sanford, but there is popular sovereignty. ● Homestead Act of 1862: a federal law that provided 160 acres of public land to anyone who lived on and cultivated that land for five years, led to mass western migration postCivil War ● Stephen Douglas: Kansas-Nebraska Act, proposed popular sovereignty should be used (Kansas=slave state, Nebraska=free state) Panic of 1857 ● Causes of the Panic of 1857: gold rush in California caused inflation over speculation of land and in railroad construction. ● Effects of the Panic of 1857: many businesses failed, unemployment rose, North affected the most because of the industry.South wasn't as affected because they had cotton. Made the south think that they are superior. Election of 1860: ● Lincoln wins as a Whig with no southern votes, led to southern secession and marked the start of the Civil War. Union advantages Confederate advantages ● Huge work force that could fight ● Immigrants contributed greatly to the war ● ● Fought in their own territory, the war was mostly fought in the south ● Economy: very rich, had many factories that could produce war supplies fast ● ● Had motivation, wanted independence from the union ● Had a lot of cotton to trade Transportation: many railroads, transport (disadvantage: Britain didn’t trade troops and they were also controlled by with them because they were the north so the north can cut them off against slavery and had other and the south wouldn't be able to move colonies to get cotton from) Anaconda Plan: block the ports in south and control Mississippi River Important Civil War Figures: ● Ulysses Grant: Commanding General of the Union forces, led a Union victory over the Confederate states. ● William Tecumseh Sherman: general in the Union army, had outstanding military strategy (Sherman March to the Sea, belief in total war to break southern moral) ● Abraham Lincoln: Republican, was against the expansion of slavery, wanted to preserve the Union, suspended the writ of habeaus corpus (in Confederate states people can be arrested without knowing the charges) issued Emancipation Proclamation (changed the purpose of the war) - doesn’t free slaves but now African Americans in the North are considered free, wrote the famous Gettysberg Address Causes of the Civil War: ● Long term: northern tariffs (tariff of abominations 1828), Missouri Compromise, nullification crisis, Mexican cession ● Short term: political: compromise of 1850, free sovereignty. Kansas Nebraska-Act (south and north issue), Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott v Sanford. Social: abolition meetings (+ organizations), fugitive slave laws, Underground Railroad, literature + newspaper ● Immediate causes: Election of 1860, Fort Sumter Civil War Battles ● Fort Sumter: Union fort, attacked and won by Confederate forces, starts the war ● Battle of Bull Run: First battle, Confederate victory, set stage for the war ● Antietam: bloodiest, Union victory, Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation (reframed the purpose of the war) abolished slavery in all the states (confederate states) ● Monitor vs. Merrimack: Confederacy sinks a Union ship, began naval warfare, it was an attempt by the Confederacy to break the blockade of southern ports that had been imposed (part of the Anaconda Plan) ● Battle of Gettysburg: furthest north, turning point, southern forces led by Robert E. Lee are stopped from invading north o Gettysburg Address: Lincoln's short speech after the battle of Gettysburg, stated that the nation was based on the principle of quality ● Battle of Vicksburg: successfully cut the Confederacy in half, which prevented reinforcement from Texas, weakened the Confederacy ● Sherman's March to the Sea: burn everything through Georgia, an attempt to force the South to surrender ● Appomattox Court House: location where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant. Ending the war. Reconstruction ● Radical Republicans: wanted to be very harsh to the south, opposed slavery and supported civil rights, wanted rights for blacks ● Charles Sumner: radical Republican leader, wanted equal rights for freed men ● Thaddeus Stevens: powerful radical Republican, wanted to give African-Americans land from the southern plantation owners ● Sharecropping: slavery 2.0, rent farmland, you work on farmland and you owe a share of your crops for ‘rent’. Many freed slaves worked on these farms, was a cycle of debt o Used by cotton farmers in the South o Sharecroppers who did not own the land they worked, obtained supplies and food on credit from local merchants had to gave a share of crops to farmers. Resulted in a cycle of debt that kept the farmer poor. ● Carpetbaggers: derogatory term used to describe Northerners by southerners, northerners who came to the south after the Civil War to take advantage of the instability. The northerners were accused by white southerners of taking advantage of Reconstruction policies simply to benefit themselves at the expense of the south ● Scalawag: derogatory term used by the South to describe other Southerners who cooperated with the Republican Party during Reconstruction, basically means a traitor to the Confederacy ● KKK: secret organization in south after the Civil War that used violence and intimidation to restore power to southern whites ● Redeemers: southern Democrats who brought the Democratic party back to power, thus suppressing black reconstruction, based on the idea of racism and white supremacy ● Andrew Johnson: Lincoln’s VP who became president, an old-fashioned Jacksonian democrat with strong state-rights views o Impeached after obstructing radical Republicans attempts to create reconstruction policies. The U.S. senate failed by one vote to convict him o Vetoed all 3 military construction acts and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 Acts & Amendments ● Pacific Railway Act: law that gave loans and land to subsidize construction of a railroad to the pacific coast, enabled Americans to more easily move west after the CW ● 13th Amendment: abolished slavery ● 14th: former slaves became citizens and guaranteed them equal protection under the law ● 15th: prohibited states from denying anyone the right to vote due to race or whether they were former slaves ● Black codes: Jim Crow laws, passed in south after Civil War, tried to restrict the rights and activities of free slaves ● Civil rights act of 1875: law that prohbited racial discrimination in jury selection, transportation, business, was declared unconstitutional in ‘83 ● Compromise of 1877: was used to end the disputed presidential election of 1876, Republicans gained the presidency under Rutherford B. Hayes. In return, he agreed to remove northern troops from south, thus ending military reconstruction and allowing the redeemers to come to power. Lincoln's 10% plan: ● 10% plan: 10 percent of voters in election of 1860 must sign loyalty oath to the union ● 13th amendment must be ratified by former Confederacy ● Viewed as too lenient ● Southerners could gain property and political rights Radical republican reconstruction plan: ● Punish the south ● Freedmen's Bureau: organization for blacks to get education, rights, jobs ● Civil Rights Act of 1866 ● Reconstruction act of 1867- divide south into 5 military districts to keep order ● 14th and 15th amendment MUST be ratified ● Conf. leaders could not hold office