APUSH Key Concepts of 5.3
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, while the 14th and 15th amendments granted African Americans citizenship, equal protection under the laws, and voting rights.
* 13th Amendment abolished slavery * South proceeded to try and put former slaves back into slavery, with black codes and violence; Johnson's bungling led Congress to promote the 14th Amendment, which made birth in the U.S. the definition of citizenship (to overturn the Dred Scott decision), as well as denying states the right to deny any person "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" and guaranteed "equal protection under the law" * After 1868 election and Reconstruction begun, Congress proposed the 15th Amendment, which would secure all males the right to vote, irrespective of race, color, or "previous condition of servitude" (poll tax and literacy tests left in place, due to California wanting to discriminate against Chinese)
Efforts by radical and moderate Republicans to change the balance of power between Congress and the presidency and to reorder race relations in the defeated South yielded some short-term successes. Reconstruction opened up political opportunities and other leadership roles to former slaves, but it ultimately failed, due both to determined Southern resistance and the North's waning resolve.
* After Lincoln's assassination, the less-competent Andrew Johnson bungled the interaction with Congress, which then proceeded to undermine the power of the presidency * Johnson's decision to pardon most of the Confederate leaders led them to assume all was forgiven and they then cracked down on the freedmen, restoring slavery in all but name with the Black Codes, which restricted the freedmen's rights to travel and work and raise their children * Congress refused to seat the former Confederates in Congress * Freedman's Bureau given extended powers in South to protect freedmen from abuses * Congress passed Civil Rights Act of 1866 which declared former slaves to be citizens, with equal protection under the law, and the right to be in court * Johnson then vetoed both, and Congress overrode both * Congress then proposed 14th amendment, and Republicans won huge majorities in 1866 midterm elections * Radical Republicans then passed Reconstruction Act of 1867, to remake the South under military law and enforce right of freed males to vote, while denying franchise to ex-Confederates; state constitutions would be rewritten, and they would have to ratify 14th amendment * Radical Republicans then tried to impeach Johnson over his violation of the Tenure Act (which forbade president right to fire his appointees); Senate cleared him by one vote, mostly to protect independent presidency in the future * 1868 election saw Grant and Radical Republicans win, and they then proposed the Fifteenth Amendment * sharecropping reinstated debt slavery, and most freedmen remained on same plantations picking cotton * Republican governments in the South did register black males, and they voted - for Republicans! * Hiram Revels became first black senator (took Jefferson Davis' old seat from Mississippi); South Carolina lower house got a black majority; sixteen black congressmen; over 200 elected officials * Black Codes abolished * Republicans remade Southern laws and institutions, trying to make them conform to Northern cultural practices: schools (biggest change, especially for freedmen, who flocked in large numbers to learn how to read), orphanages, hospitals; whipping and branding banned; streets paved and streetlights installed; boards of health and soup kitchens created * Civil Rights Act of 1875 the last gasp of Reconstruction reform, but it dropped the clauses for integrated churches and schools, while retaining "full and equal access" to jury service and no segregation on public transportation and services * Whole series of assaults on Reconstruction and Republican Party undid them: James M. Pike's book The Prostrate State decried what he called "black barbarism"; Grant administration full of corruption (Whiskey Ring Scandal, Credit Mobilier); Panic of 1873; rise of laissez faire proponents * North became exhausted with Reconstruction * South went on a full offensive (useful thesis of mine: "The North won the war; the South won the peace"), taking back political control in a process called Redemption: ex-Confederates recovered franchise; Democrats reorganized and won elections; violence was widely used against black and white Republicans (scalawags / carpetbaggers); Nathan Bedford Forrest used KKK to employ terrorism, in league with the Democrats (the two groups were much the same membership at times in the South); slowly took back state after state * Congress passed Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to try and stop it, and they broke KKK's hold on South Carolina, but federal resistance quickly faded after that * Democrats retook House in 1874 midterm election * "waving the bloody shirt" tactic not working for Republicans any more * 1876 saw Reconstruction largely finished (only three Southern states in Republican control: Louisiana, SC, and Florida) * Supreme Court tossed out most of Reconstruction in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876), limiting voting rights issues largely to states, not federal government - 14th Amendment thus gutted * In 1883, Supreme Court declared Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional * 1876 election saw Democrat Samuel J. Tilden win, but Republicans claimed victories in their three Southern states, and argued Rutherford B. Hayes won; Hayes supposedly agreed to end Reconstruction, in exchange for becoming president; Democrats supposedly agreed; Reconstruction over
Lincoln and most Union supporters began the Civil War to preserve the Union, but Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation reframed the purpose of the war and helped prevent the Confederacy from gaining full diplomatic support from European powers. Many African Americans fled southern plantations and enlisted in the Union Army, helping to undermine the Confederacy.
* Davis said the Confederacy was fighting the same fight as the Patriots had in 1776: the "sacred right of self-government." {VP Alexander Stephens was far more blunt: he said Confederacy's "cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery - subordination to the superior race - is his natural or normal condition." * Lincoln argued secession was a betrayal of the republic, and the war would be about preserving the union * Abolitionists tried to push the war for their cause, while slaves fled from South to Union army * runaways were called "contraband" at first, and Congress passed the Confiscation Act, which legalized the North taking away this "property" from the South * abolitionists in Congress began to pass laws to destroy slavery (Salmon Chase, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens): slavery ended in D.C. in April 1862, but with compensation for owners; in June 1862, all slavery in territory ended; in July, 1862, all runaways declared "forever free") * After the battle of Antietam, Lincoln then issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed NO slaves in the North, and gave the South a chance to protect slavery if they renounced secession by January 1, 1863: after that, all their slaves would be freed (Lincoln had to keep border states on his side, so he couldn't free their slaves): BUT from that moment on, the war became a war to free the slaves (which kept out British and French) * at start of war, North had rejected free blacks trying to enlist, but Emancipation Proclamation changed all that, and former slaves were welcomed, as were free blacks; 54th Massachusetts Infantry attacked Fort Wagner heroically (see Glory); almost 200,000 African-Americans ended up serving * Racism persisted in North: black soldiers initially paid less; disease hit them harder; often kept out of combat in menial positions
Both the Union and the Confederacy mobilized their economies and societies to wage the war even while facing considerable home front opposition.
* Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy never organized into a competent national government, as Southern states wanted to run their own affairs, and often defied Davis * Lincoln, on the other hand, was able to organize a national effort with much greater ease and effectiveness, and the federal government became much stronger as a result * Confederacy just had to not lose, while the Union had to win * the North effectively mobilized for total war, with a nation's economic, political, and cultural might going to defeat the South * Davis never got that kind of war effort going, despite army's successes (volunteers were much more enthusiastic in the South, as military service, duty, and honor were highly valued; volunteering slowed down as damage from war became apparent) * South turned to draft first, as all men from 18-45 were eligible; however, slave-owners had exemptions ("a rich man's war and a poor man's fight), and rich could also buy their way out * Confederate courts tried to block compliance with draft, but Confederate Congress forced courts to stop * Union instituted a much more ruthless draft, but even they allowed rich men to hire a substitute for service * Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and simply arrested opposition * German and Irish immigrants often opposed draft, due to their feeling the war wasn't theirs to fight, and Northern Democrats fed that resistance to try and win elections by playing the race card that the war was out to free blacks so they could take away jobs * New York City draft riots in 1863 slaughtered blacks, and had to be put down by troops victorious at Gettysburg * Sanitation Commission kept Union camps clean, but disease still swept armies and killed more than bullets did [still, a far lower rate of death in Union army from disease than in Europe or Confederacy] * scurvy a major problem for South * women volunteered as nurses, which changed that profession for the next century and more * North had 2/3 of population, 2/3 of railroads, 90% of industry, and most of the arms production * South managed to field enormous armies as well, while slaves produced food and cotton [King Cotton failed to bring in Britain, which had India and Egypt producing cotton by then] * Northern economy and transportation boomed as a result of the war; government had little trouble financing the war with tariffs, income taxes, bonds, and printing greenbacks * South had little taxes, some borrowing, but mostly printed money, which caused massive inflation and suffering
Lincoln sought to reunify the country and used speeches such as the Gettysburg Address to portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of America's founding democratic ideals.
* Lincoln constantly strove to reunite the nation, as seen in his gentle treatment of states which were recovered during the war, and in his attempts to deal fairly with Lee after Appomattox Courthouse, and his 10% plan to re-admit the states after the war * Gettysburg Address says Civil War is about freeing Americans and preserving democracy ("that this 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's assassination cost the South far more than his survival would have, as he was far more politically astute than Andrew Johnson [one wonders if the 14th and 15th amendments would have ever been passed had he lived, or if he would have restricted himself to the 13th amendment that was ratified after his death)
Although the Confederacy showed military initiative and daring early in the war, the Union ultimately succeeded due to improvements in leadership and strategy, key victories, greater resources, and the wartime destruction of the South's infrastructure.
* Lincoln's biggest problem was finding generals who not only could fight, but would fight * Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan of slowly dividing and blockading the South eventually became the dominant strategy Lincoln used, but only after early assaults failed * South consistently outfought and outgeneraled the North, particularly when Robert E. Lee was in command * North's resources, in both men and materiel, were overwhelming in the end * In the West, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman proved indomitable, as they took the Mississippi Valley with the Battle of Vicksburg, after David Farragut and the Navy took New Orleans ("Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!") * But in the East, one incompetent general after another failed against the South, especially once Lee took command: McDowell failed at Bull Run; McLellan replaced him, and trained a highly capable army, which he then refused, time and again, to use properly to win; Lee invaded North after McLellan failed at invasion of Virginia (McLellan actually got hold of a copy of Lee's plans before Antietam, and ignored them, thus failing to defeat Lee a second time); McLellan dismissed for Burnside, who lost at Fredericksburg; Hooker replaced Burnside, and lost at Chancellorsburg; Meade then replaced Hooker, and defeated Lee at Gettysburg, but then failed to chase Lee down) * Vicksburg turning point in West; Gettysburg turning point in East; Britain stopped arming Confederacy after that, stopping the construction of more modern warships like the Alabama * Grant brought east to fight Lee, while Sherman went on to take Atlanta (and the railroad hub), then did his March to the Sea * Lincoln won 1864 re-election after Atlanta fell, defeating McLellan * South rapidly lost ability to keep fighting effectively, although they held out as long as anybody possibly could * After losing battles repeatedly to Lee - the purpose of which was to grind down Lee's army, since Grant could replace his own men - Grant besieged Lee at Petersburg, then defeated him at Appomattox Courthouse
Southern plantation owners continued to own the majority of the region's land even after Reconstruction. Former slaves sought land ownership but generally fell short of self-sufficiency, as an exploitative and soil-intensive sharecropping system limited blacks' and poor whites' access to land in the South.
* North never enacted promise implied by the Sherman lands of "forty acres and a mule" (Sherman had only given freedmen those lands to get them out of his way on his marches) * Property rights protected, rather than rights of freedmen * Freedman's Bureau tended to take the side of the planters * Reconstruction portrayed as illegitimate and corrupt * sharecropping was debt slavery, successfully imposed on poor blacks and whites alike by planters and local merchants
The women's rights movement was both emboldened and divided over the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
* women who had supported abolitionists for decades were furious that their right to vote wasn't included in the 15th amendment * Radical Republicans afraid adding women would kill the 15th amendment * women's groups split over whether to support the amendments: American Women Suffrage Association supported, in hopes Republicans would reward them with franchise later; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and National Woman Suffrage Association opposed, believing their chance would have to be fought for and won * Some women tried to vote, then sued, claiming the 14th amendment guaranteed them equal protection; courts ruled against them (Supreme Court: Minor v. Happersett said no)
main 3 concepts:
-The Union victory in the Civil War and the contested reconstruction of the South settled the issues of slavery and secession, but left unresolved many questions about the power of the federal government and citizenship rights. -The North's greater manpower and industrial resources, the leadership of Abraham Lincoln and others, and the decision to emancipate slaves eventually led to the Union military victory over the Confederacy in the devastating Civil War. -Reconstruction and the Civil War ended slavery, altered relationships between the states and the federal government, and led to debates over new definitions of citizenship, particularly regarding the rights of African Americans, women, and other minorities.
Segregation, violence, Supreme Court decisions, and local political tactics progressively stripped away African American rights, but the 14th and 15th amendments eventually became the basis for court decisions upholding civil rights in the 20th century.
See Box C, but Black Codes, KKK and other terrorist groups, collapse of Freedman's Bureau, U.S. v. Cruikshank, 1883 overturning of Civil Rights Act, end of Reconstruction - all left 14th and 15th amendments unenforced until 1950s and 1960s
