History Final Exam

What were the original reasons the Confederate soldiers fought and how did they change over time?

The Confederate soldiers originally fought for slavery, to defend their homeland, because they were seeking independence from the North, and because they were drafted to fight. Their motives changed over time to fighting to prevent African Americans from being equal to white and fighting for their survival.

American Equal Rights Association

The Fifteenth amendment sparked serious conflicts not only within the South but also among old abolitionist allies. The Anti-Slavery Society disbanded with emancipation, but many members believed that important work remained to be done to guarantee the rights of freepeople. They formed the American Equal Rights Association following the war. The association was a group of black and white women and men formed in 1866 to promote gender and racial equality. The organization split in 1869 over support for the Fifteenth Amendment.

Women's National Loyal League

Union women also sought to influence wartime policies. Following the Emancipation Proclamation, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone founded the Women's National Loyal League and launched a massive petition drive to broaden Lincoln's policy. Collecting 260,000 signatures, two-thirds of them from women, the League demanded a congressional act "emancipating all persons of African descent" everywhere in the nation.

Dred Scott Decision

1857 Supreme Court case centered on the status of Dred Scott and his family. Dred Scott had been a slave, but his owner moved them from Missouri, a slave state, to the Missouri Territory, a free state. When his owners moved he and his family back to Missouri, he sued in court for his freedom, being he and his family had lived in a free territory. The court ruled that Dred Scott and his family were still slaves. In its ruling, the Court denied the claim that black men had any rights and blocked Congress from excluding slavery from any territory. Therefore, this nullified the Missouri Compromise and any future effort to restrict slavery's expansion. The ruling angered many Northerners, who were now convinced that a Slave Power conspiracy had taken hold of the federal government. In the election of the US Senate in 1858, Lincoln and Douglas participated in seven debates in which they explained their positions of slavery in the wake of the case. The Lincoln-Douglas debates attracted national attention. Douglas won the election, but the Democratic Party had split into southern and northern wings. The nation was now on the verge of a civil war.

Describe the significance/importance of why the motivations/reasoning of common soldiers mattered at the time, and to historical understanding of the war.

A lot of the soldiers didn't know exactly what they were fighting for. Although it is common belief that the Civil War was fought over slavery, it was rarely recorded in the letters and journals of the soldiers that this was the reason behind why they were fighting. The Civil War was originally fought over the Union's want to be preserved and the Confederacy defending their land. However, Lincoln's issue of the Emancipation Proclamation changed the purpose of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation threatened the Confederacy to surrender by the first of the year or their slaves would be released. Now the Confederacy was fighting to prevent African Americans from gaining equal rights as whites, while the Union was fighting to abolish slavery.

Fugitive Slave Act

Act strengthening earlier fugitive slave laws, passed as part of the Compromise of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Act provoked widespread anger in the North and intensified sectional tensions. vIt was different from other slaves laws in that it eliminated jury trials for alleged fugitives and the law required individual citizens, not just state officials, to help return runaways. The number of slave owners and hired slave catchers pursuing runaways increased dramatically, but so did the number of northern abolitionists who helped the blacks escape. When African Americans reached free territory they contacted free blacks or seemed help from religious meeting houses. They then pursued on into the Underground Railroad where they continued from house to house until they found safe haven. Some fugitives, like Harriet Tubman, led slaves from the south to the north. Free blacks were endangered by the claim that slaves hid themselves in the midst, so many were kidnapped or arrested as runaways.

Sharecropping

African Americans defined freedom as obtaining political representation. Without government-sponsored land redistribution, the options for southern blacks remained limited. Lacking capital to purchase farms, most entered into various forms of tenant contracts with large landowners. This proved to be the most common arrangement. Blacks and poor whites would receive tools and supplies from landowners and farmed their own plots of land on the plantation. In exchange, sharecroppers turned over a portion of their harvest to the owner and kept the rest to themselves. During the growing season, croppers had to purchase household provisions on credit, coming out in debt by the end of the year. For some African Americans, sharecropping turned into a form of virtual slavery. Despite its pitfalls, sharecropping provided a limited measure of labor independence and allowed some blacks to accumulate small amounts of cash.

13th Amendment

As the defeat of the Confederacy loomed, the US Congress finally considered abolishing slavery throughout the nation. With intense lobbying by abolitionists, petitioning by the Women's National Loyal League, and the support of President Lincoln, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution on January 31, 1865. This amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery, even though many states had already enacted laws to ease racial inequities. Not only did it abolish slavery but is led to repealed statuses barring blacks from testifying in court and serving on juries. Massachusetts was the first state to ensure equal treatment in stores, schools, theaters, and other social spaces. Many cities desegregated their streetcars.

Politics were divisive during the 1840s-1870s and split into parties based on certain viewpoints which caused a division. Describe how politics led to the Civil War and divisions after the war.

Before the Civil War, Congress debated slavery for years, which was settled without any war because they compromised such as the compromise of 1820 and 1850, Dred Scott decision, and Kansas-Nebraska Act. The main spokesmen for the south was Calhoun (proslavery) and the main for the north was Webster (against slavery). Henry Clay is the Great Compromiser because he tried to keep things settled down. Before the election the Democratic Party split over slavery into the southern democrats and the northern democrats. The presidential election of 1860 is probably the most important, between Lincoln (Republican, against slavery) and Douglas (Northern democrat. against slavery) and Breckenridge (Southern Democrat, for slavery) and Bell (Constitutional-Union). Lincoln won the election, because the democratic votes were split. When Lincoln was elected South Carolina seceded thinking he would take away their slaves.

How did the lives of Northern and Southern African Americans change in the twenty years before, during, and in the first two decades after the Civil War?

Before they were slaves and worked in the field for nothing. During the war, African Americans fought for the North and some worked for the South in building fortifications. Some escaped to free states, through ways like the underground railroad. After the Civil War the African Americans were free, but they faced discrimination. Some Northerners still treated African Americans like second class citizens.

Freedman's Bureau

Emancipated slaves also called on federal agencies for assistance and support. The most important of these agencies was the newly formed Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, popularly known as the Freedmen's Bureau. Created by Congress in 1865 and singed into law by President Lincoln, the bureau provided ex-slaves with economic and legal resources. The Freedmen's Bureau also aided many former slaves in achieving one of their primary goals: obtaining land.

Emancipation Proclamation

Five days after the Union armies victory at the Battle of Antietam, president Lincoln announced his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to the assembled cabinet, promising to free slaves in seceding states. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the final edict, proclaiming that slaves in areas still in rebellion were "forever free" and inviting them to enlist in the Union army. The documents provisions exempted from emancipation the 450,000 slaves in the loyal border states, as well as more than 300,000 slaves in Union-occupied areas of Tennessee, Louisiana, and Virginia, The proclamation also justified the abolition of southern slavery on military, not moral, grounds. Despite its limits, the Emancipation Proclamation inspired joyous celebrations among free blacks and white abolitionists, who viewed it as a first step toward slavery's final eradication. It also ensured the Union army's full use of black soldiers in the difficult battles ahead.

U.S. Sanitary Commission

For all soldiers, medical assistance was primitive. Antibiotics did not exist, antiseptics were still unknown, and anesthetics were scarce. Union medical care improved with the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which was established by the federal government in June 1861 to promote and coordinate better medical treatment for soldiers. Nonetheless, a commentator accurately described most field hospitals as "dirty dens of butchery and horror," where amputations often occurred with whiskey as the only anesthetic.

Western Expansion (or Manifest Destiny) began to pick up during the 1800s. Give examples of what motivations were behind wanted to expand as well as the problems that arose.

Gold rush in California. The rapid influx of fold seekers heightened tensions between newly arrived whites, local Indians, and Californios. Forty-niners confiscated land owned by Californios, shattered the fragile ecosystem in the California mountains, and forced Mexican and Indian men to labor for low wages or a promised share in uncertain profits. Some people moved to Kansas because they wanted Kansas to come in as a free or slave state. A problem in Kansas was there was a conflict (Bleeding Kansas) between the pro and anti slavery people.

What role did religion play when it came to the conflict of slavery and the support or lack of support of the issue?

Some Southern churches split over if they thought slavery was right or not, for example the Baptist church. Some preachers said that the Bible said slavery was wrong, while others interpreted it differently. Some churches would help the slaves traveling from slave states to free states.

Tenure of Office Act

Having ensured congressional Reconstruction in the South, Republican lawmakers turned their attention to disciplining the president. Congress passed this act, which prevented Johnson from firing cabinet officers sympathetic to congressional Reconstruction. This measure barred the chief executive from removing from office any appointee that the Senate ratified previously without returning to the Senate for approval. Convinced that the new law was unconstitutional and outraged at the effort to limit his power, the quick Johnson chose to confront the Radical Republicans directly rather than seek a way around a congressional showdown. In February 1868, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stranton, a Lincoln appointee and a Radical sympathizer, without Senate approval. The Home voted in late February 126 to 47 to impeach Johnson, the first president to ever be impeached. The case went to trial and the Senate fell one vote short of convicting Johnson. Although Johnson remained in office, Congress effectively ended his power to shape Reconstruction policy. The Republicans had restrained Johnson, and in 1868 they won back the presidency with Grant.

Gold rush

In 1849 news of fold being discovered at Sutter's Mill in northeastern California brought tens of thousands of settlers from the eastern United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. In the gold rush, the "forty-niners" raced to claim riches in California, and men vastly outnumbered women. The rapid influx of fold seekers heightened tensions between newly arrived whites, local Indians, and Californios. Forty-niners confiscated land owned by Californios, shattered the fragile ecosystem in the California mountains, and forced Mexican and Indian men to labor for low wages or a promised share in uncertain profits. Forty-niners from the United States regularly stole from and assaulted migrants from Asia and South America. The gold rush also led to the increased exploitation of women as thousands of male migrants demanded food, shelter, laundry, and medical care. Some women made a profit off of taking care of the men, while Indian and Mexican women were especially vulnerable to sexual harassment and rape and Chinese women were prostitutes. Chinese men were also victim of abuse by whites, who ran them off their claims.

Bleeding Kansas

In 1854 after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, advocates and opponents of slavery poured into Kansas in anticipation of a vote on whether the state would enter the Union slave or free, which made it difficult to determine who was eligible to vote. In 1855 Southerners installed a proslavery government at Shawnee Mission in Lawrence. Proslavery settlers invaded Lawrence and killed one resident. In 1856 abolitionist John Brown brought his own roles to Kansas. To retaliate for proslavery attacks on Lawrence, the Browns and two friends kidnapped five proslavery advocates from their homes and hacked them to death. The Pottawatomie Massacre infuriated southern settlers, while then drew up the Lecompton Constitution, which declared Kansas a slave state. Armed battles continued between the two sides, while Congress debated. In the frost six months of 1856, another two hundred settlers on both side of the conflict were killed. Fighting also took out on the floor of Congress. Preston Brooks assaulted Charles Sumner with a cane, putting him in a coma. The violence in Kansas intensified the sectional division over slavery. Buchanan, a proslavery advocate, won the presidential election 1856, but would do little to resolve the differences.

Knights of the KKK

In 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, General Nathan Bedford Forrest organized Confederate veterans into a social club called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The followers donned robes and masks to hide their identities and terrify their victims. They rode on horseback to the homes and churches of black and white Republicans to keep them from voting. When threats did not work, they beat and murdered their victims. Many of the individuals targeted had managed to buy property, gain political leadership, or in other ways defy white stereotypes of African American inferiority. Congress passed three Force acts in 1870 and 1871 to combat the terror unleashed by the Klan and its allies. These measures empowered the president to dispatch officials into the South to supervise elections and prevent voting interferences. One law, specifically directed towards the KKK, barred secret organizations from using force to violate equal protection of the laws. In 1872 Congress established a joint committee to probe Klan tactics, which produced thirteen volumes of gripping testimony about the horrors penetrated by the Klan. Some 3,000 KKK members were prosecuted and 600 convicted.

14th Amendment

In April 1866, Congress reposed both the Freedman's Bureau extension and Civil Rights Act over the president's vetoes. In June, the lawmakers adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, which incorporated many of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act, and submitted it to the states for ratification. Reflecting its confrontational dealing with the president, Congress wanted to ensure more permanent protection for African Americans than simple legislation could provide. Lawmakers also wanted to act quickly, as there had been a race riot in Memphis, Tennessee. The Fourteenth Amendment defined citizenship to include African Americans, thereby nullifying the ruling of the Dred Scott decision, which declared that blacks weren't citizens. It extended equal protection and due process of law to all persons, not only citizens. It repudiated Confederate debts, which some state governments had refused to dos and it barred Confederate officeholders from holding elective office unless Congress removed this provision by a two-thirds vote. It also gave the states the option of excluding blacks and accepting a reduction in congressional representation if they did so.

15th Amendment

In February 1869, Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment to protect black male suffrage, which had initially been guaranteed by the Military Reconstruction Acts. A compromise between moderate and Radical Republicans, the amendment prohibited voting discrimination based on race, but it did not deny states the power to impose qualifications based on literacy, payment on taxes, moral character, or any other standard that did not directly relate to race. The wording of the amendment provided loopholes for white leaders to disfranchise African Americans. The amendment covered the entire nation, including the North, who still excluded black from voting. This amendment sparked serious conflicts not only within the South but also among old abolitionist allies. The Anti-Slavery Society disbanded with emancipation, but many members believed that important work remained to be done to guarantee the rights of freepeople. They formed the American Equal Rights Association following the war, but members divided over this amendment. This amendment ignored women, which led to the formation of competing organizations committed to women's suffrage like the National Woman Suffrage Association.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

In January 1854 Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act to Congress to reopen the question of slavery in territories. The act extinguished Indians' long-held territories rights in the region and repealed the Missouri Compromise. Two new territories - Kansas and Nebraska - would be carved out of the unorganized lands, and voters in each would determine whether to enter the nation as a slave or free state. The act spurred intense opposition from most whigs and some northern Democrats who wanted to retain the Missouri Compromise line. Months of fierce debate followed, but the bill was ultimately voted into law. The act enraged many Northerners who considered the dismantling of the Missouri Compromise a sign of the rising power of the South. In the fall of 1855, conflicts between white settlers and Indians erupted across the Great Plains. The US army then sent six hundred troops to retaliate against a Sioux territory, killing 85 residents of Blue Water in Nebraska Territory and triggering continued violence throughout the region. The Republican Party emerged in 1854 (made up of antislavery Whigs and Free-Soilers). The Republican Party and American Party led to the demise of the Whig Party.

Oregon Trail

In the 1830s, a growing number of people began to migrate to the far West. The panic of 1837 also prompted people to head west. Thousands sought better economic prospects in Oregon, the Rocky Mountain region, and the eastern plains, while Mormons settled in Salt Lake City. For many pioneers, the journey on the Oregon Trail began at St. Louis. From there, they traveled by wagon train across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast. By 1860 some 350,000 Americans had made the journey, claimed land from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, and transformed the United Stares into an expanding empire. Because the journey west required funds for wagons and supplies, most pioneers were of middling status. The major of pioneers made the three to six month journey with family members, to share the labor. Most families traveled in wagon trains for support and security. Traditional gender roles broke down on the trail. All susceptible to disease, injuries, and death. One in every 10 to 15 people died on the journey west.

Battle of Gettysburg

Key July 1863 battle that helped turn the tide for the Union. If the Confederates won a victory here, European countries might finally recognize the southern nation and force the North to accept peace. Neither Lee or Meade had intended to launch a battle in the small Pennsylvania town. Lee was afraid of outrunning his supply lines, and Meade wanted to keep the Confederates from gaining control of the roads that crossed at Gettysburg. The battle lasted from July 1 through the 3rd. The Union troops occupied the high ground and the Confederates launched deadly assaults from below. More that 4,700 Confederates were killed and 18,000 were injured, captured, or missing. The Union lost many lives too, but they had more men to lose, so they won the battle Union victory at Gettysburg, combined with a victory at Vicksburg that same month, positioned the Union to push farther into the South.

Copperheads

Northern Democrats who did not support the Union war effort. They rallied behind Ohio politician Clement L. Vanlandingham in opposing the war. They presented themselves as the "peace party," these Democrats enjoyed considerable success in eastern cities where inflation was rampant and immigrant workers were caught between low wages and military service. The party was also strong in parts of the Midwest, like Missouri, where sympathy for the southern cause and antipathy to African Americans ran deep.

Confederate States of America

On December 20, 1860, six weeks after Lincoln's election, the legislature of South Carolina announced that because "a sectional party" had engineered "the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose o[pinions and purposes are hostile to slavery," the people of South Carolina dissolve their union with "the other states of North America." In early 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia Louisiana, and Texas followed suit. Representatives from these states met on February 8 in Montgomery, Alabama, where they adopted a provisional constitution, elected Jefferson Davis as their president, and established the Confederate States of America. Buchanan did nothing to stop the secession movement. Kentucky senator John Crittenden proposed a compromise that gained a lot of support. Congress approved the first part of his plan which called for a constitutional amendment to protect slavery from federal interference in any state where it already existed. But the second part of the Crittenden plan failed to win Republican votes. It would have extended the Missouri Compromise line to the California border and barred slavery north of that line. South of that line, slavery would be protected. Congress feared that passage would encourage southern planters to again seek territory in Cuba, Mexico, or Central America, so they rejected the plan.

What were the original reasons the Unions soldiers fought and how did they change over time?

The Union soldiers fought to abolish slavery, preserve the Union, because they were drafted to fight, they wanted to control the Western territory, and because the factories in the North wanted the South's resources. Their motives changed to ending the war quickly.

Compromise of 1877

The presidential election of 1876 set in motion events that officially brought Reconstruction to an end. The outcome of the election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden depended on twenty disputed electoral votes, nineteen from the South and one from Oregon. Tilden won 51% of the popular vote, but Reconstruction political battles in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina put the election up for grabs. In each of the states, the outgoing Republican administration certified Hayes as the winner, while the incoming Democratic regime declared for Tilden. The Constitution assigns Congress the task of counting and certifying the electoral votes submitted by the states. In 1868 the Democrats controlled the House and the Republicans controlled the Senate and neither branch would budge on which votes to count. Hayes needed all 20 to win, while Tilden only need one. Congress created a fifteen-member Joint Electoral Commission, composed of seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent. A majority voted to count all twenty votes for Hayes, so he became president. A series of meeting between Hayes supporters and southern democrats led to a bargain. Democrats would support Hayes in exchange for the president appointing a Southerner to his cabinet, withdrawing the last federal troops from the South, and endorsing construction of a transcontinental railroad through the South. This compromise averted a crisis over presidential succession, underscored increased southern Democratic influence within Congress, and marked the end of strong federal protections for African Americans in the South.

States' rights were a topic highly debated in the moments leading up to the Civil War. Explain why states felt their rights were being infringed upon- include social and economic ideals. Connect these arguments to the larger picture of US politics, economy, and social debates.

They are arguing about slavery. Southern states felt that according to the constitution they had a right to govern what went on in their state and that the federal government shouldn't have a say so for what went on there. The south felt that all the federal laws favored the industrial states of the north rather than the agricultural states of the south. Some argued succession was a constitutional right and others as a natural right as a result of a revolution. A social result would be the southerners who fought against the north if they would swear allegiance after the war to the US they got their rights as a citizen returned to them. A political result the Republican Party won the election five times in a row (not including Johnson who filled in after Lincoln's assassination). The economic result is the wealth of the south was tied up in the plantation and that disappeared. The value of the slaves leading up to the war was economically more than all the industries and banking combined. During the war the south had to start making weapons, but they had fewer factories then in the north. After the war the south became more mechanized (machines) to make up for the loss of the slave industry. After the war people began to move to the cities in the south, even though they were still agriculturally based. Several cities in the south had to be rebuilt after the war, because they had been damaged.

Enrollment Act

Two months after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, a new law deepened the concerns or many working-class Northerners. Passed in March 1863, this act established a draft system to ensure sufficient soldiers for the Union army. Draftees were to be selected by an impartial lottery, the law did allow for a person with $300 to pay the government in place of serving or to hire another man as a substitute. Many workers deeply resented the draft's profound inequality. Dissent turned to violence in July 1863 when the new law went into effect. Riots broke out in cities among the North. Women and men attacked Republican draft officials, wealthy businessmen, and the free black community. Between July 13th and 16th, rioters lynched at least a dozen African Americans and looted and burned the city's Colored Orphan Asylum. The violence ended when Union troops put down the riots by force. By then, more than 100 New Yorkers (mostly black) were dead.