EOC Test Preparation:
Secession, Civil War, Reconstruction
States’ Rights
• Favoring stronger government
– Unify national economy
– Provide infrastructure
– Pass legislation that states would need to follow
• Southern Politics
– Did not like the idea of stronger federal government
– Any power not delegated to fed. gov. by Constitution
went to state gov.
• Slavery really had to do with property laws…which was a
state right.
South Carolina
• John C. Calhoun argued for states’ rights
– You don’t need to follow a law that is
unconstitutional
• Nullification Crisis in 1832
– High tariffs on British goods
• SC threatened to secede if tariffs were not
repealed
– President Andrew Jackson sent federal troops
– Senator Henry Clay proposed a compromise
• Tensions still existed
Conflict Over Slavery
• As new regions
became US states, how
would the nation
balance free vs. slave
territories?
– Missouri Compromise
• 1820
• All states admitted
below 36 degrees north
would be slave, all
states above would be
free
– Missouri would be
slave
– Maine would be free
Conflict Over Slavery
• As new regions became
US states, how would the
nation balance free vs.
slave territories?
– Compromise of 1850
• Congress admitted California
and unorganized western
territories as free
• Utah and New Mexico could
decided by popular
sovereignty (vote) if they
would be free or slave.
• Fugitive Slave Law-northern
states must return escaped
slaves to southern owners
Conflict Over Slavery
• Wilmot Provisio
– War with Mexico reignited slave
debate
– Summer of 1846, PA congressman
David Wilmot created the Wilmot
Provisio (condition)
– Banning slavery from any land
purchased from Mexico
• Voted down, reopened sectional
divisions
Conflict Over Slavery
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
– 1854
– Allowed previously free
and unorganized
territories to choose
whether or not to permit
slavery
• Basically: repealed
Missouri Compromise
– “bleeding Kansas”
because violence erupted
– Sumner-Brooks incident
• Sumner from MA, Brooks
from SC
Dred Scott Decision
• Dred Scott v. Sanford
– 1857
• Scott was a slave in
Missouri, taken by owner
into a free territory where
he lived for 4 years
– Later, they returned to
Missouri, owner died
• Scott sued for freedom
Dred Scott Decision
• Supreme Court ruled that Scott had no right to
sue b/c he was a slave, not citizen
– Also ruled that slave owner could not be deprived
of his “property” w/o due process of law
• Struck down Missouri Compromise because it
declared that it was a violation of 5th
Amendment
– Slave could not just leave his owner without due
process, even if they were in a free state
John Brown’s Raid
• Oct. 1859
• Abolitionists led by John
Brown attacked federal arsenal
at Harper’s Ferry, VA.
• Wanted to seize weapons and
give them to slaves
– Rebellion
• Plan failed
– US troops under Robert E. Lee
surrounded them and forced
their surrender
– Brown was executed
– Raid intensified southern
resentment of abolitionist
movement
Free Blacks and Slaves (Mid 1800s)
• Life for slaves was not good
• Free African Americans
existed because they had
purchased their own
freedom or masters had
freed them
– Worked as artisans, farmers,
laborers, some owned
businesses, some even
owned slaves
Abolitionist Movement
• William Lloyd Garrison
• Grimke sisters
• Frederick Douglass
– Slave who escaped to freedom
• Harriet Tubman
– Escaped slave
– Underground RR
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
Republicans and Secession
• Election of 1860
– Democratic party split along sectional lines over
free/slave
• Northern Dems. Suppored popular soverignty
– Stephen Douglas
• Southern Dems. Wanted federal protection of slavery in
all US territories
– VP John Breckinridge
– Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln
Republicans and Secession
• Election of 1860
– South felt threatened by
Lincoln b/c he was
against its expansion
– Lincoln won, SC seceded
from the Union on Dec.
20, 1860.
– By February, 6 other
states had seceded.
– Southern delegates
from the seceded states
met in Montgomery, AL
• Confederate States of
America, Jefferson Davis
Republicans and Secession
• Fort Sumter
– Union soldiers had only a
month’s worth of supplies
– Lincoln told governor of SC
that he would be sending ships
with food
– Confederate soldiers opened
fire on the fort, forcing Union
troops to surrender (April,
1861)
Republicans and Secession
• Fort Sumter (cont.)
– Lincoln called for 75,000
volunteers
– Border states had to decide
which side they would support
– KY, MI, MD stayed with the
Union
– VA, NC, AK, TN went with
Confederacy
• Capital was moved to Richmond,
VA
Key People in the Civil War
• Union
– Lincoln
– Ulysses S.
Grant
– William T.
Sherman
• Confederacy
– Jefferson
Davis
– Robert E.
Lee
Advantages in the War
• North
– More railway lines
• Supplies can be transported
– More factories
• Produce weapons and supplies
– Standing military force
– 2/3 of nation’s population lived in the North
• Labor force and soldiers
Advantages in the War
• South
– Originally, better military commanders
– War of Attrition
• Defensive war designed to damage and wear down
enemy’s will to fight
– Motivation
• Believed they were defending their homeland, way of
life, right to govern themselves
Important Battles of the Civil War
• First Battle of Bull Run/First
Manassas
– First confrontation between
two armies
– Big defeat for Union
– Confederates were not
organized enough to invade
Washington DC
• Anaconda Plan
– Surround Confederacy and
cut of supply lines
• Coastal blockades
Important Battles of the Civil War
• Naval Battles
– Ironclad-warships used by
Confederacy with iron to
protect it from enemy fire
– Union still used wooden ships
– Confederate ship the
Merrimack/Virginia vs. Union
Monitor fought for several
hours
• Both ships were later destroyed
– Submarines were used
• Union was the first to use
Eastern Theater
• Second Battle of Bull Run
(Aug. 1862)/Second
Manassas
– Robert E. Lee commanded
Army of Northern VA
– Success for Confederacy
• Union couldn’t invade
Richmond
• Lee made an attempt to
invade the North
Eastern Theater
• Antietam (Sept. 1862)
– Lee was ready to invade
– General McClellan (Union’s
commanding general) was
unaware of Lee’s position
until they found his orders at
a Confederate camp
– Antietam Creek, MD
– Bloodiest single day of the
war
– Halted Confederate advance
– McClellan didn’t pursue,
Confederates got away
Eastern Theater
• Chancellorsville (May, 1863)
– “Lee’s perfect battle”
– General Stonewall Jackson and Lee defeated over
70,000 Union troops
• What happened to Jackson?
Eastern Theater
• Gettysburg (July, 1863)
– Key turning point
– Lee’s forces were not as
aggressive as usual
• Couldn’t win high ground early in the
battle
– Union forces under General
George Meade defeated
Confederates and ended any hope
for them to invade the North
– 51,000 soldiers killed, wounded,
missing
• Bloodiest battle in entire war
Western Theater
• Vicksburg (May-July 1863)
– Mississippi
– Last Confederate obstacle for Union control of the
river
– General Grant (Union) laid siege (similar to
Anaconda Plan)
• People were starving, eating animals like dogs and rats
Western Theater
• Sherman’s March (MayDec. 1864)
– William T. Sherman
commanding Union forces
– Captured Atlanta
• Secured reelection of
Lincoln
– March to the Sea
• Lots of destructions of
Southern areas
Political Issues of the War
• Issues with border states
• Writ of habeas corpusguarantee that a person can’t
be imprisoned w/o being
brought before a judge
– Lincoln suspended this and
declared martial law
• Draft
– Who was drafted?
• Copperheads: Union Dems.
Who criticized Lincoln
Emancipation Proclamation
• Freed slaves in states in
rebellion against the Union
• But: allowed slavery in border
states loyal to the Union
• Hope was that Confederate
states would return to union
rather than risk losing slaves
• Get support from France and
England
Emancipation Proclamation
• Encouraged free African Americans to
serve in Union army
• Segregation existed in most military
areas
– Navy was the exception
– Racism and discrimination still existed
• 54th Massachusetts
– Movie: Glory
– Led an assault on Fort Wagner near
Charleston, July 1863
Union Victory
• March 1864
– Grant in command of Union army
• Union troops outnumbered
Confederates
• Grant’s armies lost 65,000 men
in less than 2 months but
Confederates were on the
retreat
• April 9, 1865: Lee surrendered
at Appomattox Courthouse
• 2 weeks later: General Joseph
Johnston surrendered to
General Sherman in Durham, NC
Reconstruction
• Gov. attempted to rebuild (and punish) the
South
• Lincoln wanted healing, not all felt that way
– Lincoln killed on April 14, 1865
Reconstruction
• Andrew Johnson
– New president
– Sympathetic to the South
– Presidential Reconstruction
plan
• Radical Republicans-viewed
Johnson’s plan as too lenient
Reconstruction
• Radical Reconstruction:
• African Americans will get full citizenship
rights,
• Congress should oversee Reconstruction,
• Majority of the voting population of a state
needs to pledge allegiance before being
readmitted to the Union
Reconstruction
• Republicans ended up dominating southern govs.
During Reconstruction
– Drafted new state constitutions which reflected their
ideals
• 14th Amendment
– Recap: 13th ended slavery in the US
– 14th: guaranteed that no person would be deprived of
life, liberty, or property without due process
• Blacks got full citizenship
• Bill of Rights applied to both state and federal gov.
Reconstruction
• Johnson’s Impeachment
– 1868: tensions between
president and Congress
– Radical Republicans led by
Thaddeus Stevens voted to
impeach Johnson
• Saved by 1 vote
Reconstruction
• 15th Amendment
– Grant becomes president
– No citizen can be denied right to
vote due to race, color, or
previous condition (slavery)
• Meant slaves had the ability to vote
in Southern elections
African Americans During
Reconstruction
• Farming
– No land
– Sharecropping-farmed a
portion of a landowner’s
land in return for housing
and a share of the crops
• Turned into its own form of
slavery
– Tenant farming
• Paid rent to farm the land
• Owned the crops they grew
• Were not at the mercy of
white landowners
African Americans During
Reconstruction
• Freedmen’s Bureau
– First relief agency
•
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Clothing
Medical attention
Meals
Education
Land granted to freed blacks
and some poorer whites
– Disbanded in 1869
African Americans During
Reconstruction
• Education and Church
– Became the center of life and culture b/c it was
truly led by African Americans
– Ministers were often political figures as well
– First black schools established
• Children and adults
African Americans During
Reconstruction
• African Americans took on political roles
through Republican policies
– In Congress
– State Legislatures
– Lt. Governor
• Issues between blacks
– Northern blacks and southern “elites” saw
themselves superior to poorer, uneducated blacks.
Racism During Reconstruction
• Black Codes
• Ku Klux Klan
Compromise of 1877 and End of
Reconstruction
• Compromise of 1877
– 1876 election issues between
dem. & rep. candidates and votes
– Dems agreed to rep Hayes
becoming president
– Republicans agreed to end
Reconstruction
– Southern states got federal
money, more power to govern
themselves, withdrawal of federal
troops.
• Solid South
– Southerners supported
Democratic candidates for almost
100 years
Post-Reconstruction
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Jim Crow Laws
Literacy Tests
Poll Taxes
Grandfather Clauses
Segregation
– De jure
• Plessy v. Ferguson
– De facto
Important African Americans
• Booker T.
Washington
• WEB DuBois
• Ida Wells
Barnett