Unit 5: Civil War and Reconstruction

Anaconda Plan

- This was created by the Union, and was composed with six components which involves on liberating slaves, blockading in the Southern area, capturing and controlling enemy base and defeat the troops by dividing them

Military Reconstruction Act**

1867 Act that rejected President Johnson's Reconstruction Plan. This Act divided the South into 5 districts that would be governed by a Union military general stationed there, in other words the Act imposed martial law on the South. The act tightened requirements for the readmission of former Confederate states by requiring petitioning sates to ratify the 14th Amendment and provide for universal suffrage for men.

Gettysburg

A battle of the American Civil War in 1863; the defeat of Robert E. Lee's invading Confederate Army was a major victory for the Union. Also a speech made by President Lincoln at the dedication of the national cemetery on the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg in Nov. 1863

Dred Scott decision

A former slave living in the North sued for his freedom, but the Supreme Court ruled that he wasn't a citizen and had no rights to to sue in federal court because he was property and didn't have any rights. This caused a big uproar in the north because the court ruling made it seem like the courts had ruled slavery legal everywhere because it ruled that African Americans are not citizens and that slavery could be legal anywhere because you can't take a man's property (his slaves) away from him.

Presidential Reconstruction

A more lenient focus on expedient reintegration of the Southern States

Free Soilers/ Free Soil Party

A short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. The party leadership consisted of former anti-slavery members of the Whig Party and the Democratic Party. Its main purpose was opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, arguing that free men on free soil comprised a morally and economically superior system to slavery. They opposed slavery in the new territories and sometimes worked to remove existing laws that discriminated against freed African Americans in states.

Klu Klux Klan

A white supremacist group: a terrorist secret society organized in the South after the Civil War that used violence and murder to promote its white supremacist beliefs (Supremacist defined as having favoritism to a superior race).

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery once and for all in the United States and made this a part of the Constitution.

Tenure of Office Act**

Act passed by Congressional Republicans to prevent the President from firing a federal appointee without the express consent of the Senate. The Congressional Republicans were trying to protect their members of government and limit Andrew Johnson's power as president. Johnson ignored the Act and fired the Secretary of War, who was a Republican. This prompted the House of Representatives to impeach Johnson.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Act that determined that as they became states, the Kansas and Nebraska territories would decide the slavery issue based on popular sovereignty. This repealed the Missouri Compromise.

Sharecropping/ tenant farming

African Americans leased land, and borrowed money and supplies from the white plantation owners and paid them with a share of their crops. Many African Americans were unable to ever get ahead under this system and so remained under the financial control of white plantation owners.

Popular Sovereignty

Allowing the people of a territory or state to make their own rules by voting on what they want. This allowed the people to vote to have slavery or not in the new lands. It gave the people the power to control their destiny in the new territories.

Presidential Reconstruction

Andrew Johnson's plan for Reconstruction; the plan was lenient on the South and didn't want to give slaves any freedom.

Bull Run

Battle that took place in Manassas Junction in Virginia. This was also the place of an important railroad junction that both the North and the South wanted to control. The Battle of Bull Run took place in July 1861, was a decisive Confederate victory and after Ft. Sumter, was the first major combat of the war.

Black Codes

Codes in Southern States enacted during Reconstruction that restricted freed blacks' freedom, activity and opportunities. The codes limited freed blacks' civil rights and maintained a social order where the upward mobility of freed blacks was limited.

Congressional Reconstruction

Congress (specifically, the Radical Republicans) took control of Reconstruction in 1867. Federal troops were sent to the South to oversee the establishment of state governments that were not democratic, and Congressional Reconstruction supported the protection of rights of newly freed African Americans.

15th Amendment

Gave citizens the right to vote regardless of their skin color, religion etc.

14th Amendment

Gave equal rights and equal protection to all citizens of the U.S., guaranteed rights to the former slaves and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race.

Sherman's March to the Sea

General Sherman led some 60000 troops on a march south across Georgia; burned cities and destroyed everything in his path; killed civilians, destroyed crops. Sherman believed in total war.

Harper's Ferry

John Brown, a fierce abolitionist, lead a small group in raiding a federal arsenal here. The raid was unsuccessful in that the Virginia militia captured, tried, and hung John Brown, however this event rallied support for the opposing causes of the North/ Abolitionists vs. the South/ pro-slavery groups.

Secession

Leaving a group or organization of a political state. The Southern states seceded from the United States.

Anaconda Plan

Military strategy created By Abraham Lincoln and it basically was to surround and squeeze the South. This was a three part plan. The first part was to set up a naval blockade which was a line of ships that would stop the sea traffic which meant no trade for the South. The second part was to control the Mississippi river and separate Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas from the South. The third part was to invade Virginia and take control of the capital (Richmond).

Carpetbaggers

Northern Republicans who moved south seeking economic opportunities. Southerns saw them as trying to profit from the South's misfortunes.

Election of 1860

Presidential Election consisting of four presidential candidates. Two candidates were democrats one for the North and one for the South. Another candidate was a Constitutional Union and Abraham Lincoln was the Republican. Abraham Lincoln won the election because of the electoral vote and not popular vote. The election precipitated the secession of the Southern states from the Union, because Lincoln was anti-slavery

Border Ruffians

Pro-slavery activists from the slave state of Missouri who crossed the border and settled in Kansas in order to tip the popular vote in favor of slavery.

Bleeding Kansas

Refers to violent confrontations in Kansas involving anti-slavery Free-Soilers and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian"

Radical Republicans

Republicans in Congress that wanted equal rights for everyone did not approve of slavery; they opposed President Johnson's plan for Reconstruction because they felt it was too easy on the South.

Antietam

Robert Lee invaded Union territory by crossing into Maryland. He wanted to show strength to Maryland and wanted them to join the Confederacy. The North responded and a battle took place at the Potomac river. The north won and this forced the retreat of the remaining of Lee and his troops. This battle was known as the bloodiest day of the war because 20,000 soldiers and people were lost and injured.

Compromise of 1877

Samuel Tilden, a democrat from NY, won the popular vote in the 1876 presidential election, but did not win enough electoral votes to win the election. The decision was made in the House of Representatives with a compromise, where the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes became President, but in return he agreed to name a Southerner to his cabinet, remove federal troops from the South, and aid construction of a railroad in the South. This marked the end of Reconstruction.

Jim Crow Laws

Southern laws (passed after Reconstruction) that drew an imaginary line between blacks and whites, preventing blacks from mixing with whites in many public places including transportation, restaurants, hotels, and schools.

Redeemer governments

Southern state governments that were controlled by white supremacists that opposed giving rights to African Americans. They referred to themselves as "redeemers" of the South because they intended to return the South to "white man's rule." These governments imposed voting restrictions such as poll taxes and literacy tests and supported the passages of Jim Crow laws.

Scalawags

Southerners who had opposed secession and voted Republican. Many were poor farmers who had never voted before. Southern Democrats viewed these new Republicans as traitors and referred to them as worthless scoundrels.

Emancipation Proclamation

Statement issued by Abraham Lincoln to free all of the slaves in the south, after the momentum the North gained in the battle of Antietam. This however did not free the slaves in the border states. Lincoln sent a message to the south saying that they needed to join the Union by January 1st 1863 or he would free their slaves. On January 1st 1863, Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation.

"The Crime Against Kansas"

Sumner's speech that denounced slavery and Butler and resulted in his attack by Preston Brooks

Ft. Sumter

The first battle of the civil war, when the South fired on the North after secession.

Reconstruction

The period after the American Civil War when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union between 1865-1877.

Vicksburg

The this battle took place in Mississippi when General Grant, a union leader, led a force and hammered the fort at Mississippi river that the confederates controlled. After 6 days, the North gained control of the Mississippi river.

Free- Soilers

Were against slavery and also wanted land to be given to western settlers for farming

Compromise of 1850

by Daniel Webster, California wanted to join the Union, but if California was accepted the North would gain control of the Senate, and Southerners threatened to secede from the Union. This compromise set up California joining the Union as a free state, New Mexico and Utah use popular sovereignty to decide the question of slavery, slave trading is banned in the nation's capital, The Fugitive Slave Law is passed, and the border between Texas and New Mexico was set.