U.S History 1301 unit 3 review

"Fire Eaters"

Fire-Eaters was the vivid name given to extreme pro-slavery politicians from the South who advocating breaking away from the Union and creating a separate nation. Throughout the 1850s, as the crisis over slavery intensified, the Fire-Eaters came to be taken quite seriously. And following the election of Abraham Lincoln, who was known to oppose the spread of slavery into new states and territories, the talk of secession in the South turned into action. The Fire-Eaters essentially got what they wanted when southern states began to secede from the Union in late 1860 and early 1861, eventually forming the Confederate States of America and, of course, fomenting the American Civil War.

Wilmont's Proviso

The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexican War (1846-48). Soon after the war began, President James K. Polk sought the appropriation of $2 million as part of a bill to negotiate the terms of a treaty. Fearing the addition of a pro-slave territory, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed his amendment to the bill. Although the measure was blocked in the southern-dominated Senate, it enflamed the growing controversy over slavery, and its underlying principle helped bring about the formation of the Republican Party in 1854.

California Gold Rush

The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 sparked the Gold Rush, arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century. As news spread of the discovery, thousands of prospective gold miners traveled by sea or over land to San Francisco and the surrounding area; by the end of 1849, the non-native population of the California territory was some 100,000 (compared with the pre-1848 figure of less than 1,000). A total of $2 billion worth of precious metal was extracted from the area during the Gold Rush, which peaked in 1852.

Thirteenth Amendment

to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865

Great Potatoe Famine

Alternative titles: Great Irish Famine; Great Potato Famine Irish Potato Famine, also called Great Potato Famine, Great Irish Famine, or Famine of 1845-49, Irish Potato Famine [Credit: The Print Collector/Heritage-Images]famine that occurred in Ireland in 1845-49 when the potato crop failed in successive years. The crop failures were caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant. The causative agent of late blight is the water mold Phytophthora infestans. The Irish Potato Famine was the worst famine to occur in Europe in the 19th century. By the early 1840s, almost one-half of the Irish population—but primarily the rural poor—had come to depend almost exclusively on the potato for their diet, and the rest of the population also consumed it in large quantities. A heavy reliance on just one or two high-yielding varieties of potato greatly reduced the genetic variety that ordinarily prevents the decimation of an entire crop by disease, and thus the Irish became vulnerable to famine. In 1845 Phytophthora arrived accidentally from North America, and that same year Ireland had unusually cool, moist weather, in which the blight thrived. Much of that year's potato crop rotted in the fields. This partial crop failure was followed by more devastating failures in 1846-49, as each year's potato crop was almost completely ruined by the blight. The British government's efforts to relieve the famine were inadequate. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel did what he could to provide relief in 1845 and early 1846, but under the Liberal cabinet of Lord John Russell, which assumed power in June 1846, the emphasis shifted to reliance on Irish resources and the free market, which made disaster inevitable. Much of the financial burden of providing for the starving Irish peasantry was thrown upon the Irish landowners themselves (through local poor relief). But because the peasantry was unable to pay its rents, the landlords soon ran out of funds with which to support them. British assistance was limited to loans, helping to fund soup kitchens, and providing employment on road building and other public works. Cornmeal imported from the United States helped avert some starvation, but it was disliked by the Irish, and reliance on it led to nutritional deficiencies. Despite these shortcomings, by August 1847 as many as three million people were receiving rations at soup kitchens. All in all, the British government spent about £8 million on relief, and some private relief funds were raised as well. Throughout the famine, many Irish farms continued to export grain, meat, and other high-quality foods to Britain because the Irish peasantry lacked the money to purchase them. The government's grudging and ineffective measures to relieve the famine's distress intensified the resentment of British rule among the Irish people. Irish Potato Famine: victims of the Irish Potato Famine arriving in Liverpool, Photos.com/Thinkstock]The famine proved to be a watershed in the demographic history of Ireland. As a direct consequence of the famine, Ireland's population of almost 8.4 million in 1844 had fallen to 6.6 million by 1851. The number of agricultural labourers and smallholders in the western and southwestern counties underwent an especially drastic decline. About one million people died from starvation or from typhus and other famine-related diseases. The number of Irish who emigrated during the famine may have reached two million. Ireland's population continued to decline in the following decades because of overseas emigration and lower birth rates. By the time Ireland achieved independence in 1921, its population was barely half of what it had been in the early 1840s.

Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and lacked a formal education. He served in the Tennessee legislature and U.S. Congress, and was governor of Tennessee. A Democrat, he championed populist measures and supported states' rights. During the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), Johnson was the only Southern senator to remain loyal to the Union. Six weeks after Johnson was inaugurated as U.S. vice president in 1865, Lincoln was murdered. As president, Johnson took a moderate approach to restoring the South to the Union, and clashed with Radical Republicans. In 1868, he was impeached by Congress, but he was not removed from office. He did not run for a second presidential term.Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808, in a log cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father, Jacob Johnson (1778-1812), was a porter at an inn, among other jobs, and died when Andrew was 3, while his mother, Mary "Polly" McDonough Johnson (1783-1856), was a laundress and seamstress.

"Bleeding Kansas"

Bleeding Kansas is the term used to described the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraksa Act overturned the Missouri Compromise's use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision. Violence soon erupted as both factions fought for control. Abolitionist John Brown led anti-slavery fighters in Kansas before his famed raid on Harpers FerrySaid to have been coined by Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, the label "Bleeding Kansas" was first fixed on that strife-ridden territory by antislavery publicists. The opening of the Kansas and Nebraska territories in 1854 under the principle of popular sovereignty provoked a protracted political crisis in both Kansas and the nation at large. Rival governments had been established in Kansas by late 1855, one backed by proslavery Missourians, the other by antislavery groups. Although the Pierce and Buchanan administrations recognized the former, Republicans as well as a number of northern Democrats deemed it a fraud imposed by Missouri "border ruffians." Civil conflict in Kansas accompanied the political polarization. The volatility to be expected of a frontier area was compounded by the activities of parties interested in the slavery issue-both the Missourians and the northerners who reputedly shipped free-state settlers and armaments to the region.Hostilities between armed bands seemed imminent in late 1855 as well over a thousand Missourians crossed the border and menaced Lawrence, a free-state stronghold. On May 21, 1856, ruffians actually looted that town. In response, John Brown orchestrated the murder several days later of five proslavery settlers along Pottawatomie Creek. Four months of partisan violence and depredation ensued. Small armies ranged over eastern Kansas, clashing at Black Jack, Franklin, Fort Saunders, Hickory Point, Slough Creek, and Osawatomie, where Brown and forty others were routed in late August.

Stephen Douglas

Born in Vermont, Douglas studied law in Canandaigua, New York, before moving to Illinois in 1833, where he became involved in politics. As a youth he had been captivated by Andrew Jackson, and it was as a Jacksonian that he built his career. He played an important part in the organization of the Democratic party in Illinois, introducing such new devices as party committees and nominating conventions and pushing for party regularity and discipline. He enjoyed a lasting popularity among the small farmers of the state, many of whom had migrated from the border South, and he used his popularity to establish a tightly knit Democratic organization.During the 1850s, he continued to fight for popular sovereignty in Congress and in Illinois, where the state election campaign of 1858 was highlighted by his famous debates with Abraham Lincoln. He blamed the agitation over slavery on abolitionists in the North and disunionists in the South, trying to find a middle way that would preserve the Union. Slavery, he believed, must be treated impartially as a question of public policy, although he privately thought it was wrong and hoped it would be eliminated some day. At the same time, he saw in popular sovereignty an extension of local self-government and states' rights and charged his opposition with seeking a consolidation of power on the national level that would restrict individual liberty and endanger the Union. Douglas's popularity waned as the party system foundered on the slavery question. Proposed as the Democratic candidate for president in 1852 and 1856, he did not win his party's nomination until 1860, when it was too late. With his party hopelessly divided and a Republican elected to the presidency, he fought strenuously to hold the sections together with a compromise on the slavery issue, but to no avail. Following the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, he pledged his support to the northern cause and urged a vigorous prosecution of the war against the rebels. He died in June, however, worn out from his exertions and broken in spirit.

Millard Fillmore

Born of humble origins in New York State, Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) became a lawyer and won election to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 1833. He served four terms in Congress but left in 1843 to mount an unsuccessful run for the governorship of New York. In 1848, he emerged as the Whig Party candidate for vice president under Zachary Taylor, and after Taylor's victory he presided over months of early debate in Congress over the controversial Compromise of 1850. Taylor died suddenly in mid-1850 and Fillmore succeeded him, becoming the nation's 13th president (1850-1853). Though Fillmore personally opposed slavery, he saw the Compromise as necessary to preserving the Union and enforced its strong Fugitive Slave Act during his presidency. This stance alienated Fillmore from voters in the North, and in 1852 he failed to gain the Whig nomination.

Election of 1848

Both of the major parties hoped to avoid the slavery issue's divisiveness in 1848. Since President Polk refused to consider a second term, the Democrats turned to Lewis Cass of Michigan, a rather colorless party loyalist. Cass advocated "popular sovereignty" on the slavery issue, meaning that each territory should decide the question for itself — a stance that pleased neither side. The Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, hero of the Battle of Buena Vista, whose earlier military blunders had been forgotten. Taylor had no political experience and had never voted. The election picture was clouded by the presence of two other parties. The Liberty Party, which had run with some success on an anti-slavery platform in 1844, tried again in 1848, but lost its issue to a stronger challenger. The Free-Soil Party nominated former president Martin Van Buren, who garnered nearly 300,000 votes—more than enough to deny victory to Cass and the Democrats.

Tenure of Office Act

Congress used this controversial law as the legal basis for its impeachment case against President Andrew Johnson in 1868. Seeking to limit his power to interfere with Radical (or even moderate) Reconstruction in the South, Congress passed it on March 2, 1867. The bill prohibited the president from removing officials appointed by and with the advice of the Senate without senatorial approval.

John Wilkes Booth

Despite his success as an actor on the national stage, John Wilkes Booth will forever be known as the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Booth, a native of Maryland, was a fierce Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War. Before the fateful night at Ford's Theatre, he had conspired to kidnap Lincoln and hide him until all Confederate prisoners were released. On April 14, 1865, Booth entered the theater's balcony, shot Lincoln at close range and immediately fled the scene. After a 12-day manhunt, Booth was tracked down and killed by Union soldiers. The celebrated actor Junius Brutus Booth immigrated to the United States from England in the early 1820s and settled his family in Harford County, Maryland, where the ninth of his 10 children, John Wilkes, was born on May 10, 1838. In 1846, it was revealed that Junius Booth had neglected to divorce his first wife before eloping with his second, Mary Ann, 25 years before. The scandal made an impression on young John Wilkes, who was fiercely proud of his illustrious family name.

Compromise of 1850

Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American (1846-48). War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former's favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves.

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter is an island fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Originally constructed in 1829 as a coastal garrison, Fort Sumter is most famous for being the site of the first shots of the Civil War (1861-65). U.S. Major Robert Anderson occupied the unfinished fort in December 1860 following South Carolina's secession from the Union, initiating a standoff with the state's militia forces. When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. After a 34-hour exchange of artillery fire, Anderson and 86 soldiers surrendered the fort on April 13. Confederate troops then occupied Fort Sumter for nearly four years, resisting several bombardments by Union forces before abandoning the garrison prior to William T. Sherman's capture of Charleston in February 1865. After the Civil War, Fort Sumter was restored by the U.S. military and manned during the Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1914-18) and World War II (1939-45). Fort Sumter was first built in the wake of the War of 1812 (1812-1815), which had highlighted the United States' lack of strong coastal defenses. Named for Revolutionary War general and South Carolina native Thomas Sumter, Fort Sumter was one of nearly 50 forts built as part of the so-called Third System, a coastal defense program implemented by Congress in 1817. The three-tiered, five-sided fort's coastal placement was designed to allow it to control access to the vital Charleston Harbor. While the island itself was only 2.4 acres in size, the fort was built to accommodate a garrison of 650 soldiers and 135 artillery pieces.

Franklin Pearce

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), the son of a onetime governor of New Hampshire, entered politics at a young age. He served as speaker of the state legislature before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1833. After two terms in the House and one in the Senate, Pierce returned to practicing law, only to emerge in 1852 as the Democratic presidential candidate. During Pierce's administration (1853-1857), settlement was encouraged in the northwest region of the country, even as sectional tensions increased over the issue of slavery and its extension into new territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which Pierce signed in 1854, enraged antislavery northerners and brought about the emergence of the new Republican Party. Pierce's inability to handle the upheaval in Kansas led to repudiation by many Democrats, who denied him the party's nomination in 1856.

Sherman's March to the sea

From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this "March to the Sea" was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman's soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. The Yankees were "not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people," Sherman explained; as a result, they needed to "make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war."

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Historians have traditionally regarded the series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign as among the most significant statements in American political history. The issues they discussed were not only of critical importance to the sectional conflict over slavery and states' rights but also touched deeper questions that would continue to influence political discourse. As Lincoln said, the issues would be discussed long after "these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent." What is often overlooked is that the debates were part of a larger campaign, that they were designed to achieve certain immediate political objectives, and that they reflected the characteristics of mid-nineteenth-century political rhetoric. Douglas, a member of Congress since 1843 and a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democratic party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S. Senate, and Lincoln was running for Douglas's Senate seat as a Republican. Because of Douglas's political stature, the campaign attracted national attention. Its outcome, it was thought, would determine the ability of the Democratic party to maintain unity in the face of the divisive sectional and slavery issues, and some were convinced it would determine the viability of the Union itself. "The battle of the Union is to be fought in Illinois," a Washington paper declared.

Enforcement Acts

Image result for Enforcement Actswww.pbs.org The Enforcement Acts were three bills passed by the United States Congress between 1870 and 1871. They were criminal codes which protected African-Americans' right to vote, to hold office, to serve on juries, and receive equal protection of laws.

Gettysburg Address

In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was invited to deliver remarks, which later became known as the Gettysburg Address, at the official dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, on the site of one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Civil War. Though he was not the featured orator that day, Lincoln's 273-word address would be remembered as one of the most important speeches in American history. In it, he invoked the principles of human equality contained in the Declaration of Independence and connected the sacrifices of the Civil War with the desire for "a new birth of freedom," as well as the all-important preservation of the Union created in 1776 and its ideal of self-government.

Presidential Reconstruction

during which the states that had seceded to the Confederacy were controlled by the federal government before being readmitted to the Union.

James Buchanan

James Buchanan (1791-1868), America's 15th president, was in office from 1857 to 1861. During his tenure, seven Southern states seceded from the Union and the nation teetered on the brink of civil war. A Pennsylvania native, Buchanan began his political career in his home state's legislature and went on to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress; he later became a foreign diplomat and U.S. secretary of state. Buchanan, a Democrat who was morally opposed to slavery but believed it was protected by the U.S. Constitution, was elected to the White House in 1856. As president, he tried to maintain peace between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the government, but tensions only escalated. In 1860, after Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was elected to succeed Buchanan, South Carolina seceded and the Confederacy was soon established. In April 1861, a month after Buchanan left office, the American Civil War (1861-1865) began.

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was a Mexican War hero, U.S. senator from Mississippi, U.S. secretary of war and president of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Prior to the start of the war, Davis had argued against secession, but when Mississippi seceded he resigned from the U.S. Senate. In February 1861 he was elected president of the Confederacy. Davis faced difficulties throughout the war as he struggled to manage the Southern war effort, maintain control the Confederate economy and keep a new nation united. Davis' often contentious personality led to conflicts with other politicians as well as his own military officers. In May 1865, several weeks after the Confederate surrender, Davis was captured, imprisoned and charged with treason, but never tried. Davis had an impressive political career before he became president of the Confederacy, but he was appointed, not elected, to many of the offices he held in his antebellum career. His limited experience with electoral politics was a handicap to his presidency, and, perhaps more important, he lacked the personal qualities that made Abraham Lincoln a successful president.

John Brown

John Brown was a radical abolitionist who believed in the violent overthrow of the slavery system. During the Bleeding Kansas conflicts, Brown and his sons led attacks on pro-slavery residents. Justifying his actions as the will of God, Brown soon became a hero in the eyes of Northern extremists and was quick to capitalize on his growing reputation. By early 1858, he had succeeded in enlisting a small "army" of insurrectionists whose mission was to foment rebellion among the slaves. In 1859, Brown and 21 of his followers attacked and occupied the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry. Their goal was to capture supplies and use them to arm a slave rebellion. Brown was captured during the raid and later hanged, but not before becoming an anti-slavery icon.

John C Fremont

John C. Frémont, one of the United States' leading western explorers in the 1830s and 1840s, was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1813. He joined the U.S. Topographical Engineers in 1838 and earned a national reputation for his reports on the American West. In early 1846, Captain Frémont and a small mapping expedition arrived along the border of Mexican California. Whether by accident or design, Frémont soon plunged into local political intrigue. After several dustups with locals, Frémont encountered a force of Anglo immigrants and disgruntled Californios who advocated a Texas style insurgency to force California into American hands. These agitators declared California as the Bear Flag Republic in June 1846 and Frémont declared himself the U.S. commander in California and led the insurgents and his regulars in a campaign to neutralize all Mexican resistance. The arrival of U.S. Commodore John D. Sloat and a naval expedition added momentum to the campaign, and, by the end of the summer, all of California had fallen to U.S. forces. Frémont then declared himself military governor of the conquered province. When Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny arrived later in the year, the men feuded and Kearny had Frémont arrested and hauled before a court martial. The sensational trial made an even greater celebrity out of Frémont, but he resigned his commission in the army in protest. After the U.S-Mexican War, Frémont served as U.S. senator from California and, in 1856, became the first Republican candidate for president of the United States. He served in the Union army during the Civil War, and afterward was territorial governor of Arizona. He died in New York City in 1890, one of the most celebrated personalities of the Nineteenth Century.

Reconstruction Acts

Nearly two years following the end of the Civil War, Congress finally forged a complete plan for reconstruction. Three measures were passed in 1867 as well as additional legislation the following year. The measures' main points included: Creation of five military districts in the seceded states (not including Tennessee, which had ratified the 14th Amendment and was readmitted to the Union) Each district was to be headed by a military official empowered to appoint and remove state officials Voters were to be registered; all freedmen were to be included as well as those white men who took an extended loyalty oath State constitutional conventions, comprising elected delegates, were to draft new governing documents providing for black male suffrage States were required to ratify the 14th Amendment prior to readmission.

Appomattox Courthouse

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807-70) surrendered his approximately 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) in the front parlor of Wilmer McLean's home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War (1861-65). Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and city of Petersburg, hoping to escape with the remnants of his Army of Northern Virginia, meet up with additional Confederate forces in North Carolina and resume fighting. When Union forces cut off his final retreat, Lee was forced to surrender, finally ending four years of bloody sectional conflict.

Raid on Harper's Ferry

On the evening of October 16, 1859 John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hide-out en route to Harpers Ferry. Descending upon the town in the early hours of October 17th, Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. Brown had hopes that the local slave population would join the raid and through the raid's success weapons would be supplied to slaves and freedom fighters throughout the country; this was not to be. First held down by the local militia in the late morning of the 17th, Brown took refuge in the arsenal's engine house. However, this sanctuary from the fire storm did not last long, when in the late afternoon US Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived and stormed the engine house, killing many of the raiders and capturing Brown. Brown was quickly placed on trial and charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. Brown was sentenced to death for his crimes and hanged on December 2, 1859.

Charles Summer

Orator and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was known for his deep commitment to the cause of civil rights and emerged as an antislavery leader in the late 1840s. The Harvard-educated lawyer had previously engaged in disarmament efforts and prison and school reforms. In 1849, in the Roberts case, Sumner argued for integrated public schools in Massachusetts. He also became active in political protests against Texas's annexation and the Mexican War. In 1848, he joined with other disenchanted Whigs and Democrats to form the Free-Soil party, which opposed the extension of slavery into newly acquired territories.

Redeemers

Redeemers were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the conservative, pro-business faction in the Democratic Party, who pursued a policy of Redemption, seeking to oust the Radical Republican coalition of freedmen, "carpetbaggers", and "scalawags".

Robert E Lee

Robert E. Lee (1807-70) served as a military officer in the U.S. Army, a West Point commandant and the legendary general of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War (1861-65). In June 1861, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which he would lead for the rest of the war. Lee and his army achieved great success during the Peninsula Campaign and at Second Bull Run (Mansassas) and Fredericksburg, with his greatest victory coming in the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville. In the spring of 1863, Lee invaded the North, only to be defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg. With Confederate defeat a near certainty, Lee continued on, battling Union General Ulysses S. Grant in a series of clashes in Virginia in 1864-65 before finally surrendering what was left of his army in April 1865. Lee has been praised by many for his tactical brilliance, and remains a revered figure in the American South.

Homestead Act

Signed into law in May 1862, the Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States, allowing any American, including freed slaves, to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. By the end of the Civil War, 15,000 homestead claims had been established, and more followed in the postwar years. Eventually, 1.6 million individual claims would be approved; nearly ten percent of all government held property for a total of 420,000 square miles of territory. The Homestead Act (May 20, 1862) set in motion a program of public land grants to small farmers. Before the Civil War, the southern states had regularly voted against homestead legislation because they correctly foresaw that the law would hasten the settlement of western territory, ultimately adding to the number and political influence of the free states. This opposition to the homestead bill, as well as to other internal improvements that could hasten western settlement, exacerbated sectional conflicts. Indeed, the vision of independent yeomen establishing homesteads on the prairies was offered in the political rhetoric of the 1850s as a vivid contrast to the degradation of slave labor on southern plantations. A homestead bill passed the House in 1858 but was defeated by one vote in the Senate; the next year, a similar bill passed both houses but was vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1860, the Republican platform included a plank advocating homestead legislation.

Fourteenth Amendement

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States," which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." By directly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans and is cited in more litigation than any other amendment.

Fifteenth Amendment

The 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads: "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South. After decades of discrimination, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that denied blacks their right to vote under the 15th Amendment.

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." President Andrew Johnson's veto of the bill was overturned by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, and the bill became law. Johnson's attitude contributed the growth of the Radical Republican movement, which favored increased intervention in the South and more aid to former slaves, and ultimately to Johnson's impeachment.

Ten Percent Plan

The Ten Percent Plan was conceived by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War in order to reunify the North and South after the war's end. On December 8, 1863 he issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction offering pardon to Confederates who would swear to support the Constitution and the Union. The lenient Ten percent Plan first required 10% of seceded state voters take oath of loyalty to Union. Second to create a new state government and third to adopt a new constitution abolishing slavery.

Bargain of 1877

The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era.

Free-soil Party

The Free-Soil Party was formed in 1848 by supporters of the failed 1846 Wilmot proviso, including members of the Whig Party, the Liberty Party, and anti-slavery "Barnburner" Democrats. Founded on the ideals of "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men," the party campaigned against the expansion of slavery into the territory aquired from Mexico. Though the Free-Soil nominee for president, former President Martin Van Buren, did not win the election, several Free-Soilers were elected to the House of Representatives, and in 1854 the party helped to form the Republican Party.

Fugitive Slave Act

The Fugitive Slave Acts were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves within the territory of the United States. Enacted by Congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. Widespread resistance to the 1793 law later led to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which added further provisions regarding runaways and levied even harsher punishments for interfering in their capture. The Fugitive Slave Acts were among the most controversial laws of the early 19th century, and many Northern states passed special legislation in an attempt to circumvent them. Both laws were formally repealed by an act of Congress in 1864.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated "popular sovereignty"-allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state's borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas-Abraham Lincoln's opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates-the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise's use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of the act's passage led to the period of violence known as Bleeding Kansas, and helped paved the way for the American Civil War (1861-65)

Panic of 1873

The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879, and even longer in some countries. In Britain, for example, it started two decades of stagnation known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the country's economic leadership.

Radical Republicans

The Radicals, a faction of the regular Republican Party, came into prominence on the national level after 1860. They never achieved majority status within Republican ranks, but were successful with manipulating the other factions to their advantage. Radical influence was especially strong in the New England states. Their basic aims included the following:

Freedman's Bureau

The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established in 1865 by Congress to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War (1861-65). Some 4 million slaves gained their freedom as a result of the Union victory in the war, which left many communities in ruins and destroyed the South's plantation-based economy. The Freedmen's Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. It also attempted to settle former slaves on Confederate lands confiscated or abandoned during the war. However, the bureau was prevented from fully carrying out its programs due to a shortage of funds and personnel, along with the politics of race and Reconstruction. In 1872, Congress, in part under pressure from white Southerners, shut the bureau.

Impeachment of President Johnson

The U.S. House of Representatives votes 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite Johnson's removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The House vote made President Johnson the first president to be impeached in U.S. history. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Andrew Johnson, a senator from Tennessee, was the only U.S. senator from a seceding state who remained loyal to the Union. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee, and in 1864 he was elected vice president of the United States. Sworn in as president after Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, President Johnson enacted a lenient Reconstruction policy for the defeated South, including almost total amnesty to ex-Confederates, a program of rapid restoration of U.S.-state status for the seceded states, and the approval of new, local Southern governments, which were able to legislate "Black Codes" that preserved the system of slavery in all but its name. The Republican-dominated Congress greatly opposed Johnson's Reconstruction program and in March 1867 passed the Tenure of Office Act over the president's veto. The bill prohibited the president from removing officials confirmed by the Senate without senatorial approval and was designed to shield members of Johnson's Cabinet like Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had been a leading Republican radical in the Lincoln administration. In the fall of 1867, President Johnson attempted to test the constitutionality of the act by replacing Stanton with General Ulysses S. Grant. However, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the case, and Grant turned the office back to Stanton after the Senate passed a measure in protest of the dismissal. On February 21, 1868, Johnson decided to rid himself of Stanton once and for all and appointed General Lorenzo Thomas, an individual far less favorable to the Congress than Grant, as secretary of war. Stanton refused to yield, barricading himself in his office, and the House of Representatives, which had already discussed impeachment after Johnson's first dismissal of Stanton, initiated formal impeachment proceedings against the president. On February 24, Johnson was impeached, and on March 13 his impeachment trial began in the Senate under the direction of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. The trial ended on May 26 with Johnson's opponents narrowly failing to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary to convict him.

Radical Reconstruction

The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive "black codes" to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for the approach known as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces-including the Ku Klux Klan-would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

"Black Codes"

The Union victory in the Civil War may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but African Americans faced a new onslaught of obstacles and injustices during the Reconstruction era (1865-1877). By late 1865, when the 13th Amendment officially outlawed the institution of slavery, the question of freed blacks' status in the postwar South was still very much unresolved. Under the lenient Reconstruction policies of President Andrew Johnson, white southerners reestablished civil authority in the former Confederate states in 1865 and 1866. They enacted a series of restrictive laws known as "black codes," which were designed to restrict freed blacks' activity and ensure their availability as a labor force now that slavery had been abolished. For instance, many states required blacks to sign yearly labor contracts; if they refused, they risked being arrested as vagrants and fined or forced into unpaid labor. Northern outrage over the black codes helped undermine support for Johnson's policies, and by late 1866 control over Reconstruction had shifted to the more radical wing of the Republican Party in Congress.

Election of 1876

The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes uncounted.

Wade-Davis Bill

The Wade Davis Bill was passed by Congress on July 2, 1864. The Wade Davis Bill was sponsored by radical Republican senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry W. Davis, and outlined far stricter requirements for re-admission to the United States during the reunification period of Reconstruction. The Wade Davis Bill was a response in opposition to President Lincoln's lenient Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction and his Ten Percent Plan. The Wade Davis Bill was pocket vetoed by President Abraham Lincoln and never took effect.

Ulysses S Grant

Ulysses Grant (1822-1885) commanded the victorious Union army during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877. An Ohio native, Grant graduated from West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). During the Civil War, Grant, an aggressive and determined leader, was given command of all the U.S. armies. After the war he became a national hero, and the Republicans nominated him for president in 1868. A primary focus of Grant's administration was Reconstruction, and he worked to reconcile the North and South while also attempting to protect the civil rights of newly freed black slaves. While Grant was personally honest, some of his associates were corrupt and his administration was tarnished by various scandals. After retiring, Grant invested in a brokerage firm that went bankrupt, costing him his life savings. He spent his final days penning his memoirs, which were published the year he died and proved a critical and financial success.

Emancipation Poclimation

When the American Civil War (1861-65) began, President Abraham Lincoln carefully framed the conflict as concerning the preservation of the Union rather than the abolition of slavery. Although he personally found the practice of slavery abhorrent, he knew that neither Northerners nor the residents of the border slave states would support abolition as a war aim. But by mid-1862, as thousands of slaves fled to join the invading Northern armies, Lincoln was convinced that abolition had become a sound military strategy, as well as the morally correct path. On September 22, soon after the Union victory at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom.

Windfield Scott

Winfield Scott (1786-1866) was one of the most important American military figures of the early 19th century. After fighting on the Niagara frontier during the War of 1812, Scott pushed for a permanent army that adhered to standards of professionalism. In 1821, he wrote "General Regulations for the Army," the first comprehensive, systematic set of military bylaws that set standards for every aspect of the soldier's life. Named commanding general of the U.S. Army in 1841, Scott unsuccessfully ran for president as the Whig Party nominee in 1852. His Civil War tactics were originally derided, but eventually became part of the Union's successful strategy.

Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) served in the army for some four decades, commanding troops in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War (1832) and the second of the Seminole Wars (1835-1842). He became a full-fledged war hero through his service in the Mexican War, which broke out in 1846 after the U.S. annexation of Texas. Elected president in 1848, Taylor entered the White House at a time when the issue of slavery and its extension into the new western territories (including Texas) had caused a major rift between the North and South. Though a slaveholder, Taylor sought to hold the nation together-a goal he was ready to accomplish by force if necessary-and he clashed with Congress over his desire to admit California to the Union as a free state. In early July 1850, Taylor suddenly fell ill and died; his successor, Millard Fillmore, would prove more sympathetic to the interests of southern slaveholders.

Ostend Manifesto

a declaration (1854) issued from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, France, and Spain, stating that the U.S. would be justified in seizing Cuba if Spain did not sell it to the U.S.

"Carpetbaggers"

a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections