MR. LIPMAN’S APUS HISTORY
POWERPOINT CHAPTERS 20-22
THE CIVIL WAR AND
RECONSTRUCTION
KEYS TO THE UNIT
• Ft. Sumter and the start of the war
• Border States
• Foreign Nation Issues
• Draft Issues
• Greenbacks and Monetary Issues
• The Battles
• Reconstruction
Ft. Sumter and the Start of the War
• Lincoln inauguration March 4th, 1861:
insists that there cannot be two nations
• Ft. Sumter is important is running out of
supplies.
• Lincoln informs south he is sending
supplies but no military items
• South attacks anyway on April 12th, no
one dies except a horse
• The North’s reaction to the fall of Fort
– Rallied North against the South
– Lincoln called for 75,000 troops & gets them
– Lincoln orders blockade of Southern ports
• The South responds to the call for troops
– See this as an aggressive attack on South
– 4 more states (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee,
North Carolina) join original 7 in Confederacy
• Richmond, Virginia became capital
Seceding States
Border States are the Key
Lincoln must keep four key border states:
1.Missouri
2. Kentucky
3. Maryland
4. Delaware
* Later W. Virginia will split away from
Virginia and join the Union.
• Dealing with the Border States
– Lincoln declared martial law in Maryland and
sent in federal troops
– Ex Parte Milligan ruling (civilian courts
required) will go against Lincoln but to late to
matter
– Lincoln declared North was fighting to keep
Union together, not against slavery
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
• South only had to fight defensively and
had higher moral and enthusiasm for war
• South has greater/better generals
• North has greater economy
• North has more people
• North has greater industrialized power
• North controls the seas and coast line
Population and Economic Resources of the
Union and the Confederacy, 1861
Foreign National Issues
• South wanted help from Britain or France
– Elites in Britain and France were openly supportive
of South
– Working classes in Britain and France strongly
favored North
• Wanted abolition; believed that if North won,
slavery would be abolished
• Britain depended on South for 75% of their
cotton; but doesn’t need all their cotton:
– Large shipments in 1857 – 1860 gave Britain
surpluses that lasted first 1 1/2 years of war
– India became a larger provider of cotton in 1857
– By time surpluses ran out, Lincoln had announced
emancipation, putting English working class firmly
behind North
• North sent wheat and corn to England
– North had plentiful harvests; Britain had series of bad
harvests and If England broke Northern blockade, US
would cut off shipments of corn and wheat
• Late 1861 – the Trent affair
– Union ship stopped a British ship and arrested 2
Confederate diplomats going to Europe
– Angry British prepared for war but slow
communications allowed passions to cool down
– Lincoln released the 2 prisoners (“One war at a time”)
• British-built Confederate commerce raiders
– British laws allowed the ships to be built in England,
sail away unarmed, and then pick up guns later
– Alabama was most famous; captured over 60 US
merchant marine ships before being sunk in 1864
– Over 250 US ships captured by raiders
• Mexico
– 1863 – Napoleon III (France) occupied
Mexico and put Maximilian into power
•Flagrant violation of Monroe Doctrine
– Napoleon had hoped that US would lose
war and be unable to stop France
– 1865 – US threatened war against
France if French did not withdraw
– Napoleon withdrew French Army;
Maximilian overthrown and killed
President Davis Versus Lincoln
• Davis as a leader
– Stubborn leader who sometimes defied public
– Micromanaging every detail of war
– Had to deal with STATE RIGHTS
CONFEDERATES who often refused to help
confederacy outside of their own states
• Lincoln as leader had problems, but less serious
than Davis
– North had recognized and legitimate government
– Lincoln was quiet and patient, yet firm
– Demonstrated charity to South and forgiveness to
attacks from opponents in the North
• Lincoln went around some provisions of
Constitution to keep the United States united
– Congress generally confirmed Lincoln’s actions
– Lincoln’s increases in authority were only to
continue as long as war continued
THE DRAFT ISSUES
• Northern army at first was volunteer
– States had quota based on population
• 1863 – Congress passed first national
conscription (draft) law
– Unfair to poor; rich could pay $300 for
exemption
• 1863 – draft riot in New York City
– Poor and anti-black (Irish) rioted against
the draft and killed black citizens
• 90% of Union soldiers were volunteers
– Toward end of war, bounties (up to $1,000)
paid to volunteers
• “bounty jumpers” would enlist, get the
bounty, desert, and then re-enlist
• About 200,000 deserted from Union
army (not only bounty jumpers)
• South at first also relied on volunteers
– Had to resort to draft 1 year earlier than Union
(April 1862)
– Willing to take almost anyone, including young
and old (17 – 50)
• Confederate draft very unjust
– Rich could hire a substitute or purchase an exemption
– Slave owners or overseers with 20 or more slaves
could claim exemption
– Many poor, Southerners felt they were fighting so rich
could keep slaves
• “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight”
The Economic Issues
• Taxation
– Excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol
– Income tax levied for first time by Congress
• Tariffs
– 1861 – Morrill Tariff Act passed
- Raised tariffs 5% to 10%, to gain revenue
– Tariffs continued to go up as war costs
increased & Republican Party becomes
recognized as party of big business
• Paper money
– Greenbacks printed ($450 million)
– Not backed by gold so no constant value
– lead to large inflation issues
Borrowing
– $2.6 billion raised (net) through sale of bonds
– Treasury sold bonds through private banking
house of Jay Cooke and Company
• National Banking System Passed in 1863
– Purpose to stimulate sale of government bonds
and establish standard bank-note currency
• (to replace different worthless notes issued by
different banks)
– Banks would purchase government bonds and
then issue money backed by the bonds
– A 10% tax was placed on notes issued by state
banks to tax them out of existence
– First unified banking network since Jackson
killed the Bank of the US in 1836
– Lasted until 1913 when FED established
• SOUTH HAS HUGE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
$400 million in Confederate bonds sold
• States’ righters opposed direct taxation
– Only 1% of CSA’s revenue came from taxes
• Confederate paper dollar
– Printed without backing
– Runaway inflation (9,000%) over course of
war; Confederate dollar worth only 1.6 cents when
war ended
• NORTH EXITS WAR RICHER THAN IT STARTED
• New Factories and technology improvements
1859 – oil discovered in Pennsylvania
• 300,000 pioneers continued to move West
– Free land under Homestead Act of 1862 and desire to
avoid draft led many to go West
• Only major industry to be hurt during war was
ocean trade
– Because of Alabama and other Confederate raiders
• Opportunities for women during the war
– Women moved into industrial jobs to make war
supplies (especially sewing uniforms and shoes)
– Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1st female doctor)
• Trained nurses, collected medical supplies for
hospitals
– Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix trained nurses
– Sally Tompkins (in South) ran infirmary for
wounded Confederate soldiers
THE BATTLES OF THE WAR
• North (and South) expected a quick war
– Thus Lincoln only called for 90 day volunteers
• Summer 1861 – Union soldiers at Washington
move to attack smaller Confederate army at
Bull Run (Manassas Junction), 30 miles south in
Virginia July 1861
– If Union successful strength would be
demonstrated and Union could move to
Richmond
• Effects of Bull Run
– South’s victory increased overconfidence
• Soldiers believed war was over
• Enlistment rates decreased; preparations for longterm war slowed
• Andrew Stonewall Jackson earns his nickname
– North’s defeat was better (long-term) for the Union
• Ended belief that war would be over quickly
• Caused Northerners to prepare for long war
• Congressman embarrassed by retreat
• Late 1861 – Gen. George B. McClellan given
command of Army of the Potomac (main army)
– Excellent organizer and drillmaster
– Extremely cautious
• Lincoln would grow impatient with his refusal to ever attack
• June 26 – July 2, 1862 – Seven Days’ Battles
– General Lee counterattacked McClellan, driving
Union back to sea
• Lincoln relieved McClellan of command
– Campaign was not total failure, since South had
lost 20,000 men, to Union’s 10,000
• Union turned to 6-part strategy of total war
– Suffocate South by blockading its ports
– Free the slaves to undermine economy
– Cut Confederacy in 1/2 by control of M. River
– Cut Confederacy into small pieces
– Take Confederate capital at Richmond
– Engage the enemy everywhere
• Merrimack vs. the Monitor
– 1862 – South rebuilt old US warship (the
Merrimack); used old iron rails to plate its
sides; ship renamed the Virginia
– March 9, 1862 – Monitor (a small Union iron
ship) fought Merrimack to standstill
– Confederates destroyed Merrimack to keep it
from being captured by Union
• August 29/30, 1862 – Second Battle of Bull Run
– Lee attacks and defeats boastful Gen. Pope
-Over confidence by Lee would have him march
North to Maryland and the battle of Antietam
in hopes of forcing a peaceful resolution with
North, securing foreign assistance, and having
those in Maryland rise up and join him but
plan will fail
Antietam
• September 17, 1862 – Antietam Creek, MD.
– Northern soldiers found a copy of Lee’s
battle plans wrapped around 3 cigars
dropped by mistake
– McClellan stopped Lee’s advance on the
bloodiest day of the war (3,600 dead on
both sides, over 20,000 wounded)
– McClellan relieved of command for not
pursuing Lee’s retreating army
Dead Soldiers after Antietam
• Importance of Antietam
– Most decisive battle of Civil War; South had come
very close to victory but loss proves costly
• British and French governments remain neutral
– Lincoln finally ready to issue emancipation
proclamation after a victory
Said that on Jan. 1, 1863 would issue final proclamation
– Did not actually free any slaves
• Declared “forever free” slaves in Confederate
states not conquered by Union
• Did not affect slaves in Border States or areas
of South the Union had conquered
• Feared emancipation would cause disunion in
Union-controlled areas if carried out fully
• Effect of Emancipation Proclamation
– Moral cause of the North strengthened
• South’s moral position weakened
– Showed that slavery was over in all of South
when North won the war
– Changed nature of the war because there was
no chance of negotiation to end the war
• Southern reaction to the Proclamation
– Lincoln trying to cause slave insurrection
• Northern reaction to the Proclamation
– Moderate abolitionists praised Lincoln
– Radicals believed he did not go far enough
– Many Northerners believed he had gone to far
– Fall 1862 elections went against Republicans
(although they kept control of Congress)
– Desertions in Union army increased; soldiers
(especially from Border States) fought to
preserve the Union, not free slaves
• Union took blacks in Army as white numbers ran
low but originally had not let them fight
– Whites in North and South protest black
service but 180,000 blacks did serve
– Allowed blacks to fight for slaves’ freedom
and strengthen their claim to full citizenship at
end of war
• Black resistance in the South
– Fear of rebellion forced many white “home
guards” to stay in South
• General Burnside replaced McClellan after
•
Antietam
December 13, 1862 – Fredericksburg, Va.
– Burnside launched frontal assault on Lee’s entrenched
position and 10,000 Union casualties lead Lincoln to
relieve Burnside with “Fighting Joe” Hooker
• May 2 – 4, 1863 – Chancellorsville, Va.
– Union army defeated
– Costly for Lee because Jackson mistakenly killed by
his own men that evening
– Hooker relieved of command; General George G.
Meade put in command of Union Army
The Road to
Gettysburg,
December
1862–July
1863 and
Lee’s Last
Hope for end
to war
• July 1 – 3, 1863 – Gettysburg
– Battle went back and forth over 3 days
– Gen. George Pickett’s charge against Union lines
driven back, breaking Confederate advance,
forcing Lee to retreat
• Importance of Gettysburg
– Confederate peace delegation (moving toward
Washington from south, while it was hoped
victorious Confederate Army advanced on
Washington from north) rejected by Lincoln
– Final chance for Southern victory; South
fought lost cause for 2 more years
• November 19, 1863 – Gettysburg Address
– 2-minute address (following 2 hour address
by a former president of Harvard -Evert)
– Not appreciated at the time; now seen as one
of the greatest speeches in US history
– Purpose that day was to create a national
park/burial ground for all the dead still there
– FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO……
Victories in West brings Grant to Lincoln
• Grant’s background
– Mediocre student at West Point
– Had fought in Mexican War
– Stationed in isolated western posts
• Boredom and loneliness drove Grant to
drinking
– Grant still drank, but Lincoln refused to
punish him because of his successes
• April 6 – 7, 1862 – Shiloh
– Grant attempted to capture Corinth, Mississippi
– Confederate force stopped Grant at Shiloh, just across
Tennessee border from Corinth
– Showed that war in West would not be won quickly or
easily
– Lincoln refused to remove Grant after loss
• “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”
• July 4, 1863 – Vicksburg (Mississippi)
– General Grant laid siege to city for several
months, starving out the city
– Confederates inside ate rats and mules to survive
– Vicksburg surrendered to Grant day after
Confederate defeat at Gettysburg
The
Mississippi
River and
Tennessee
1862-63
General William Tecumseh Sherman
• Conquest of Georgia
– September 1864 – Atlanta captured
– November 1864 – Atlanta burned
-Nov.– Dec. 1864 – March to the sea
– 60K Union soldiers lived off the land
– Union burned buildings, railroads and destroyed all
– “War…is all hell” (Sherman)
• Purpose was to destroy supplies and morale of
South
Sherman's
March
1864-65
• Dec. 1864 – April 65 – Sherman turns
north to South Carolina and North Carolina
– South Carolina blamed for provoking
war (first state to secede)
– Destruction in South Carolina even
worse than in Georgia
– “Forty Acres and a Mule” order was not
approved by Lincoln and would be
rescinded after the war
The Politics of War
• Republicans in North divided before election of
1864 and Lincoln faces challenges
– Radicals, including Secy. of Treasury Salmon
Chase Questioned Lincoln’s abilities as
commander-in-chief and commitment to
abolition
• Democrats in North even more dangerous
than Republicans but were very divided
• “War Democrats”
– Supported Lincoln and the war
• “Peace Democrats”
– Did not support the war
• Copperheads
– Named for poisonous snake
– Radicals who opposed the war and openly
sympathized with the South
– Attacked the draft, Lincoln, and emancipation
– Strong in Southern Ohio, Illinois, Indiana
The Election of 1864
• Lincoln depended on his defeating the
Peace Democrats and Copperheads
– Republicans joined with War Democrats to
form the Union Party (in existence for only
that election) to gain more votes and support
– Republican Party not on ballot in South
The Election of 1864
• Vice-presidential nominee Andrew Johnson
– War Democrat from Tennessee and small
slave owner
– On ticket to gain Democratic votes from War
Democrats and Border States
• Democrats nominate Gen. George McClellan
• Late 1863 – Grant takes command
– Meade removed for not pursuing Lee
– Grant’s strategy was to attack on all fronts
• Led to bloody and brutal warfare, but
ended war
– Northern public opinion turned against
Grant after bloody losses in 1864 but Lee
actually to blame for much of it.
• Lee’s loss rate double that of Grant’s
• April, 1865 – North captured Richmond
and on the 9th Lee surrenders at
Appomattox Court House in Virginia
– Lincoln traveled to Richmond right
after surrender
•Recognized by freed slaves as their
emancipator
•Some small battles continue until
word is spread
• Good Friday, April 14, 1865
Lincoln’s assassination
–
–
–
–
–
5 days after Lee’s surrender
John Wilkes Booth, a pro-Southern actor
Lincoln died the next morning
Seward also attacked but survives
Johnson a target but he avoids attack
• Impact of Lincoln’s death
– Lincoln’s faults minimized; he became hero
– His death was a disaster for much of the South
• He was moderate and reasonable, & would have
led Reconstruction better than Johnson could
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
The Escape of John Wilkes Booth
The Results of the War
• Federal Government begins to grow in size at
expense of State power
Casualties of war
– 600K men died and 400K were wounded
– More Americans killed than any other war
America will be involved in.
Monetary cost
– $15 billion in direct costs
– More money needed for continuing expenses
(pensions, interest on national debt)
Civil War Deaths Compared to U.S.
Deaths in Other Wars
4 Questions of Reconstruction (1865-1877)
• How would the South be rebuilt?
• How would liberated blacks fare as free
men and women?
• How would the Southern states be
reintegrated into the Union?
• Who would direct the process of
Reconstruction – the Southern states, the
president, or Congress?
• Southerners after the war
– Planter aristocracy humbled temporarily
• Gutted and burned mansions, lost
investments, worthless land
• Slaves (primary wealth) were gone
– Remained defiant and angry
• Viewed D.C. as separate government
• Believed secession was right
• Planters resisted end to slavery until
state legislatures or Supreme Court
declared emancipation was the law
• Black churches become important
– Provide aid and assistance to blacks in need
• Blacks had always been denied education
– Freedmen raised money to buy land, build
schoolhouses, and hire teachers
• Demand too great for supply so Northern
volunteers and federal government provide
education
• Freedmen’s Bureau created by
Congress in March, 1865
– Purpose to provide food, clothing, medical
care, education to freedmen and whites
– Headed by Gen. Oliver O. Howard
• Later founded black Howard University even
though he was white
• Successes and failures {ended in 1872}
– Taught 200,000 blacks to read
– Failed to deliver promised 40 acres to blacks
– Conspired with planters to get blacks to sign
work contracts
Andrew Johnson as President
• Johnson’s background
– Born poor and never attended school
–
–
–
–
Taught himself to read and do simple math
Active in politics in Tennessee
Refused to secede with Tennessee
Appointed governor of Tennessee when the state was
“redeemed” by Northern army
– 1864 – Johnson ran with Lincoln as vice president to
gain support from War Democrats
Presidential Reconstruction
• Lincoln’s 10 percent plan (1863)
– Believed South never legally left the Union
– A state could be reintegrated into Union when
10% of its voters in the presidential election of
1860 took an oath of allegiance to US
• Then formal state government would be established
• Then president would recognize the new government
– Congress, especially as it gains more radical
republicans , will be against this.
• Congress’s reaction to the 10 percent plan
– Republicans feared restoration of planter aristocracy
– 1864 – Wade-Davis Bill passed
• 50% of a state’s voters had to take oath of
allegiance for states to be readmitted to
Union
• Pocket-vetoed by Lincoln
– Angry Republicans refused to seat Louisiana
delegation to Congress (that had reorganized
its government, following Lincoln’s plan)
• Differences between president & Congress:
– Congress says the seceding states had left the
Union and had given up all rights as states
• Could only be readmitted as “conquered provinces”
under conditions outlined by Congress
- President believed that none of the rebelling states
had never left the Union officially and thus could be
easily restored to their former positions
REPUBLICANS WANT TO INSURE THEIR CONTINUED
POWER IN CONGRESS AND THUS MUST LIMIT
RETURN OF SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS AND INSURE
THAT BLACKS CAN VOTE SINCE THEY WILL VOTE
REPUBLICAN
– May 29, 1865 – Johnson issued his own plan
• Disenfranchised leading Confederates and
those with over $20,000 in taxable property
(although they could petition to him for
pardons)
• Special state conventions would repeal
ordinances of secession, repudiate Confederate
debts, and ratify 13th amendment
• Late 1865 – Confederate states moved
to carry out Johnson’s plan
– Johnson enjoyed having planters begging
for pardons but Republicans angered over
lack of fundamental change in new states
• Black codes passed by new state
governments in South as they are brought
into Union under Johnson’s plan
– Designed to regulate lives of freed blacks
– Blacks forbidden to serve on juries
– Prohibited blacks from renting or leasing land
– “idle” blacks can be forced to serve on chain
gang
– No blacks were allowed to vote
• Sharecropping
–Poor, uneducated blacks (and some
whites) with no capital, became
sharecroppers
–Rented land from owners, borrowed
money for seed and tools, and paid
off rent and loans at harvest time
–Few sharecroppers ever got out of
debt or paid off rent, leading to
cycle of debt and poverty
Sharecroppers
• December 1865 – Congressional delegations
from newly formed Southern states came to
Washington, DC
– Many former Confederate leaders
– South had voted for their experienced political
leaders, who also had led South during rebellion
• Republican reaction to South’s congressional
delegation
– Angry that ex-Confederates to be back in office
– Don’t want Southern Democrats back into US too
quickly since they would challenge balance of power
Clash between Congress and Johnson
inevitable
• February 1866 – Johnson vetoed extension of
Freedman’s Bureau (later passed over his veto)
• March 1866 – Congress passed Civil Rights Bill
– Gave blacks citizenship and attacked black
codes
– Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress again
passed it over his veto
Johnson
Vetoing the
Freedman's
Bureau,
Kicking a
Dresser Full
of African
Americans
Down the
Steps
• 14th Amendment
– Passed to write principles of Civil Rights bill into
Constitution
– Gave civil rights (including citizenship) to blacks
– Reduced representation of a state in Congress and
Electoral College if it denied vote to blacks
– Former Confederate officers and leaders disqualified
from federal and state offices
– Guaranteed the federal debt & repudiated
Confederate debts
– Radicals refused to allow former Confederate states
back into Union without ratifying the amendment;
all but Tennessee refused to do so
Elections of 1866
• Johnson campaigned in support of his “easy”
re-admission strategy but he losses and is
ridiculed
• Republicans now have veto-proof Congress
and control of Reconstruction policy
– Radicals and moderate Republicans disagree on
how to carry out Reconstruction
• Radical Republicans
– Led in Senate by Charles Sumner
– Thaddeus Stevens led Radicals in House
– Wanted to change South (economically and
socially) using federal power
• Tried to keep South out of Union as long as possible
to allow Republicans to change South
• Moderate Republicans
– More sympathetic to views of states’ rights
– Wanted to restrain states from abridging
citizens’ rights but avoid federal government in
people’s lives
The AntiFreedmen
Riot in New
Orleans,
1866
showed
need for
military
occupation
Reconstruction by Sword not the vote
• March 2, 1867 – Reconstruction Act
– Divided South into 5 military districts
– Each district under command of a general
– 20K troops sent to enforce federal power
– Temporarily disenfranchised tens of thousands
of former Confederates
– ACT PUSHED BY THE RADICAL REPUBLICANS
• Congress’s conditions for readmission
– States required to ratify 14th Amendment
– State constitutions had to guarantee full voting
rights for black males
– Influenced by moderates, did not give freedmen
land or education 15th Amendment
– Passed because Radicals feared Southern
constitutions could be amended after readmittance to take vote away from blacks
– Passed by Congress in 1869; ratified in
1870
• By 1870 – all states had been readmitted into
•
•
•
•
Union with full rights
Federal troops removed when Republican
governments (in South) seemed firmly in power
But when troops left South returned to white
Democratic governments
Blacks would be denied right to vote
1877 – all federal troops left South as part of
“deal”
– “solid” Democratic South would remain until 1960s
Reconstruction Amendments
• The complex story of blacks gaining right to vote
– Lincoln and Johnson had proposed to give
blacks right to vote gradually
• 14th Amendment (most important
Reconstruction Amendment) saw blacks as
citizens but not voters (like women)
– 1867 – Republicans decided that blacks had to
be given right to vote
• Most Northern had outlawed black voting
before 15th Amendment also; South says
North hypocritical for forcing black vote
• Whites angered by former slaves’ new political
power; attacked blacks’ and their white allies
– “scalawags” – Southerners (former Unionists or
Whigs) who supported the North over South
– “carpetbaggers” – Northerners who brought
everything they owned in carpet bags to come
South for money and power
• Some Southern whites used violence to
oppose Reconstruction
– Most well-known organization was the Ku Klux
Klan, organized in Tennessee in 1866
A Warning to Carpetbaggers
• Force Acts of 1870 and 1871
– Passed by Congress to use federal troops to
put down Klan
• Until 1960s, South openly ignored 14th and
15th Amendments
– Literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses
used to keep blacks from voting
– Civil Rights movement would finally bring
reforms to education, voting and equality
• Why more Reconstruction was not done
– Racism
– American beliefs against government interference
with property rights
– Principle of local self-government
– Indifference in North to blacks’ situation
• Moderate Republicans underestimate effort
necessary to make slaves equal in South
– If radical program had been passed, situation for
blacks might have been different
Blacks Unwanted in North and South
• Tenure of Office Act (1867)
– Passed over Johnson’s veto
– Required president get approval of
Senate before removing appointees that
had required approval of Senate
•Contrary to precedent since
Washington
– Purpose was to keep Secretary of War
Edwin Stanton in office
•Appointed by Lincoln; secretly worked
with Radicals
• Early 1868 – Johnson removed Stanton
from office
– House voted 126 to 47 to impeach Johnson
• Senate tried Johnson for his crimes
– Defense argued that Act was unconstitutional
(Supreme Court agreed, 58 years later)
• May 16, 1868 – Johnson not removed by 1
vote {needed 2/3rds to convict}
– 7 Republican Senators voted against
impeachment
Johnson’s Trial in the Senate was hottest
ticket in town
• Why impeachment failed:
– Fear of creating destabilizing precedent
– Ben Wade, radical Republican, president pro
temp of the Senate would become president
• Vice presidency was vacant – procedure had
not been set up yet to choose new vice
president when office empty
• Wade was unpopular with moderate
Republicans and business community
– Johnson (through attorney) told Republicans
he would stop obstructing their agenda if
allowed to remain in office
The Purchase of Alaska in 1867
• Russians want to sell Alaska
•
– Fur production had been greatly reduced
– Wanted to sell to US to strengthen US against
Russia’s rival, Britain
1867 – US buys Alaska for $7.2 million
– Negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward
– Called “Seward’s Folly” by shortsighted critics at time
– Seward and others thought there would be
natural resources (oil, etc.) and were right
Alaska and the Lower Forty-eight States
(a size comparison)