Civil War Final

William Lloyd Garrison

(1805-1879) American journalistic crusader who published a newspaper, The Liberator (1831-65), and helped lead the successful abolitionist campaign against slavery in the United States. He was a proponent of "immediatism," which condemned slavery as a national sin, called for emancipation at the earliest possible moment, and proposed schemes for incorporating the freedmen into American society. In 1832, he founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which later became the American Anti-Slavery Society. He mixed pacifism and anarchism, arguing that there could be "no union with slaveholders. His inclusion of women in the abolitionist cause and his no-government theories split the American Anti-Slavery Society. Although he was instrumental in starting Frederick Douglass's career, he and Douglass later split over whether force should be used and whether the Constitution should be interpreted as pro- (Garrison's view) or anti- (Douglass's) slavery. From 1840 to 1860, his influence waned as his radicalism increased. The decade before the war saw his opposition to slavery and the federal government reach its peak: The Liberator denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Act, damned the Red Scott decision, and hailed John Brown's raid as 'God's method of dealing retribution upon the head of the tyrant." During the Civil War, he was forced to choose between his pacifist beliefs and emancipation. Placing freedom for the slave foremost, he supported Abraham Lincoln faithfully and in 1863 welcomed the Emancipation Proclamation as the fulfillment of all his hopes. Tenets of Garrisonianism 1) Moral perfectionism: belief in the biblical injunction to be perfect 2) Pacifism or nonresistance: called for leaving government, political parties, or militaristic societies 3) Anti-clericalism: beware of Protestant hypocrisy about slavery (became Frederick Douglass's favorite topic in the form of the "Slaveholder's Sermon") 4) Disunionism: advocated Northern withdrawal from American union to not be complicit in slavery (became hard for some black abolitionists to agree over time) 5) Non-voting: voting makes you a participant in evil (one of the reasons Douglass left) 6) Women's equality: believed in giving women the vote and equal civil rights; invited women like Abby Kelley to speak on the platform 7) African American civil rights: believed in African Americans' right to own property, vote, have access to public transportation, etc.

Panic of 1857

(1857) a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. It came right after the peak of European immigration to the US, so unemployment skyrocketed. In NYC, unemployment rose from 30,000 to 100,000 in a year. The American agricultural sector was hard hit. After the Crimean War, Russian wheat re-entered the marketplace, causing a precipitous decline in wheat prices which hurt northern farmers. Because American cotton manufacturing was closely tied to the textile industry in Britain, a slowdown in the British economy hurt Southern cotton. Arriving in the middle of bloody Kansas and the Dred Scott decision, the Panic of 1857 deepened sectional divisions, with Northern abolitionists decrying the American economy's over-reliance on slave labor and cotton and Southerners blaming the North's tariffs and banks for the crisis.

Fort Sumter

(April 12) the opening engagement of the American Civil War at the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, SC. Although Fort Sumter held no strategic value to the North--it was unfinished and its guns faced the sea rather than Confederate shore batteries--it held enormous value as a symbol of the Union. When South Carolina and other lower South states voted to secede, they began capturing Federal forts and the arms located there. In January 1861, South Carolina sent a delegation to Washington, DC, to negotiate the Fort's release but President Buchanan refused. Buchanan then tried to reinforce the Fort but when the ships were fired upon, Buchanan backed down. Fort Sumter was the last remaining Union fort in the South. Though Seward urged Lincoln to wait, Lincoln separated the idea of reinforcement, a military act, from the idea of proviso, a humanitarian act. At the time, Lincoln was a proponent of voluntary reconciliation, overestimating Southern unionist sentiment and eager to not be held responsible for instigating the war. Although the ships he eventually sent to Fort Sumter carried both food and weapons, he publicly announced a "mission of humanity" to win public support and cast Confederates as the aggressors. Before the three ships arrived, the Confederate Cabinet voted to attack Fort Sumter with guns seized from Federal arsenals, bombarding the fort for 34 hours after Major Anderson and his men refused to surrender. After 34 hours, Anderson surrendered. News spread around the country rapidly. Upper South states, including Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas voted to secede from the Union in the wake of the attack. Lincoln, on the other hand, called for 75,000 volunteers but refused to declare war on the Confederacy because doing so would legitimize the Confederate States of America. The battle helped consolidate support both for the North and South.

Mexican-American War

(April 1846-February 1848) war between the United States and Mexico stemming from the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nieces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim). The war--in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious--resulted in the United States' acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean (Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah, parts of Colorado, etc.). Causes 1) Manifest Destiny and westward expansion: vision of American destiny deeply racist 2) 1844 election: with 49% of the vote, an expansionist pro-slavery president was elected (James K. Polk) who pursued an aggressive policy towards Mexico. 3) Annexation of Texas and disagreements over the border: After the US claimed Texas, an influx of American immigrants arrived and within 1 year, Americans outnumbered Mexicans by 10 to 1. 4) "American blood on American soil": When negotiations broke down between Mexican and American forces in Texas, Mexican cavalry launched an attack on American forces killing or injuring 16 of them, prompting General Zachary Taylor to send a dispatch announcing that hostilities were underway. War Fever -War viewed as an adventure by much of the populace -War correspondents and the telegraph brought home timely news of American victories -"To the Halls of Montezuma" -Racism characterized much of the coverage: Mexicans "reptiles in path of democracy" Divisive conflict -Democrats, especially those in the Southwest, strongly favored the conflict. Most Whigs viewed Polk's motives as conscienceless land grabbing. -Texas annexation extremely divisive: only approved 27-25 in the Senate -Lincoln criticized the war, calling it "a half-insane mumbling of a fever dream" Short but costly war -13,000 Americans died (mostly from disease) -50,000 Mexicans died Raised questions about slavery and the union which set the stage for the divisive 1850s -Open questions: What to do with the new land? Slave or free? How many new states? All slave?

Battle of Gettysburg

(July 1-3, 1863) major engagement in the American Civil War that was a crushing Southern defeat. It is generally regarded as the turning point of the war. After the Union's near-total defeat at Chancellorsville, Lee marched north to Pennsylvania to take the war out of Virginia, undermine Northern morale, and convince Britain with a major victory to intervene. Led by George Meade, the Union army left Virginia and tried to catch up to Lee. Along their march through Pennsylvania, Confederates kidnapped free blacks and enslaved them. A three-day struggle, the battle blunted Lee's invasion of the North and depleted his military strength. The Confederate army lost almost 1/2 of its men killed, wounded, or missing: 28,000 men. The Union army lost about 23,000 men killed, wounded, or missing. It was said you could still smell the dead two months later. Meade failed to follow up the victory and let Lee escape back into Virginia despite Lincoln's efforts to convince Meade to encircle him. Along with Grant's victory at Vicksburg a day later, Gettysburg meant that destruction of the Confederacy was only a matter of time (barring a Republican defeat in the 1864 election).

Seven Days Battle

(June 25-July 1, 1862) series of American Civil War battles in which a Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee drove back General George B. McClellan's Union forces and thwarted the Northern attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. McClellan was forced to retreat to the James River and evacuate, ending the Peninsula campaign. Lee, an aggressive general, followed up the campaign by invading the North only to be stopped at the Battle of Antietam. A horrible bloodbath: the Union suffered 15,849 dead, wounded, and missing whereas the Confederates lost 20,000 dead, wounded, and missing.

Confederate Constitution

(March 11, 1861) most of its provisions are word-for-word duplicates from the United States Constitution. However, there are crucial differences between the two documents, primarily regarding slavery. The Confederate Constitution explicitly guaranteed the right of slavery forever, effectively establishing a slaveholder's republic. In addition, the Constitution extended the terms of the president and vice president to 6 years.

Antietam

(September 17, 1862) a decisive engagement that halted the Confederate invasion of Maryland after the Peninsula campaign. Confederates had high morale during the invasion and Lee hoped to inspire Marylanders to join his army, though few did. Lee separated his army into three corps and when he wanted to reunite them, his order to do so fell into Union hands. McClellan eventually acted on the intelligence and set out to battle Lee's army at Antietam Creek. It was the bloodiest single day of the war. McClellan refused to commit all his troops and believed he was outnumbered, which prevented the Union from gaining a more decisive victory. Rather than attempting to land a finishing blow on the battered Army of Northern Virginia, McClellan was relieved when Lee retired into Virginia. The South had lost 10,316 troops and the North had suffered casualties of 12,401. McClellan's failure to capitalize on his victory convinced Lincoln to fire him. In addition to protecting the Federal capital, the battle is sometimes cited as having influenced Great Britain not to recognize the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln used the occasion of the Antietam victory to issue his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, announcing that unless the Confederates laid down their arms by January 1, 1863, he would free all slaves not residing in Union-controlled territory as a war measure. This announcement effectively transformed the war into a war against slavery, preventing foreign intervention and transforming the purpose and scale of the war.

4 Reasons for Secession

1) "The Shrinking South": idea that the South needs to keep expanding or it will collapse. Republicans, too, believed in this idea, arguing that stopping slavery's expansion would cause it to collapse in on itself. Economics behind this argument: without expansion, the internal slave trade might break down, leaving excess slaves. Excess slaves would create a social issue and possibly result in insurrection. 2) "The Fear Thesis": Conspiracy theories were rampant in the South. There were rumors of Northern militias training and preparing to attack the South. John Brown made some of these fears real. Most people in both the North and South lacked accurate news of what was happening in the other section. Secessionists stoked fear to their political advantage. Robert Toombs, later a Confederate general, said that if the South chose not to fight, the North would destroy property, wives, and families. 3) Southern nationalism: secession was about forming a Southern nation. Many Southerners dreamed of a "Larger South," a South that extended to slave societies in the Caribbean. In fact, some Southerners in the 1850s attempted to annex Cuba. At the same time, others imagined the possibility of complete Democratic control and the types of policies that could be passed without the need for compromise. 4) Honor/mudsill/racism theory: Southern men bound to defend their way of life. Many Southerners prioritized defending their honor. At the same time, honor was merely a dog whistle for white supremacy. Most Southerners viewed slavery as the foundation of Southern society and were committed to maintaining the white supremacist social order and preventing "dishonor".

Turning Points of the Civil War

1) Antietam (1862): stopped Lee's first invasion of the North and led to the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which transformed the purpose and scale of the war 2) Gettysburg (1863): the high-water mark of the Confederacy, the battle stopped Lee's final invasion of the North and crushed his army. Prevented Britain from joining the war. 3) Fall of Vicksburg: made possible the complete control of the Mississippi River by the Union. 4) Battles around Chattanooga: forced Confederate armies back into Georgia and the Deep South and set the stage for Sherman's campaign in Georgia.

How slavery was visualized

1) imagery of a lash 2) the runaway slave 3) slave auctions

North and South similarities (1850s)

1-2% owned 45% of wealth in both sections Both lived under the same Constitution Both worshipped the same God Both shared a common heritage, celebrating the Founding period

Cotton Gin

A machine for cleaning the seeds from cotton fibers, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793. It made mass production of cotton possible, leading the yield of cotton to double each decade after 1800 to the Civil War. The price of land suitable for cotton production tripled in value every decade. Unfortunately, this growth in cotton production enabled the survival of chattel slavery in the South. Cotton production was far from slowing before the war: in 1860, the South produced its greatest cotton crop ever.

John C. Calhoun

A profoundly racist American political leader who championed states' rights and slavery. He viewed slavery as a "positive good" and was an advocate of state sovereignty, which held that Americans had a Constitutional right to own slaves as property and transport them wherever they wanted under the 5th Amendment. According to this view, Congress could not bar slaves from the territories, a view supported by Chief Justice Taney's Dred Scott decision. His solution to the problem of the preservation of the Union was to give the South everything it demanded. He frequently threatened secession, including during the crisis before the Compromise of 1850.

Slave Society

A society in which the institution of slavery affects all aspects of life. Where slave population is between 1/4 and 1/2 of total population. Before the Civil War, the American South was a slave society. Slavery impacted its economic development, westward expansion, and system of laws. Within a slave society, everyone grows up, lives, and forges basic habits in relation to humans held as property. Slavery dominated the South's economy: by 1860, 4 million slaves were worth $3.5 billion or $80 billion today. Slavery brought great wealth to upper earners: prior to the war, Mississippi had the highest GDP per capita because of its slave assets.

Emancipation as refugee crisis

Slaves experienced widespread displacement from their homes. They experienced personal hardship: awful conditions in camps and along roads, poor food, and hostile soldiers on both sides. Further, they experienced political alienation: there was widespread confusion about their status within the Union and their citizenship. Lastly, they experienced pain, loss, and suffering in their attempts to reach freedom.

Proslavery Argument

Southern proponents of slavery responded to abolitionism with ardent defenses of the justness of slavery. 1) Rooted in conservative, organic worldview: Argued that the most important thing in the world was social order and rooted in hierarchical conception of people. Believed only in gradual change: "There is a time for all things and nothing should be done before its time" (Thomas Dew, 1831). 2) Hated the Enlightenment: Some even argued against the Declaration of Independence, saying that not all men are created equal. Freedom and liberty were never absolutes--"I love liberty but I hate democracy" (John Randolph). Torn on the idea of equality; some said no, others said only for white men. 3) Believed in dependence more than autonomy: blacks were and ought to be dependent on whites. "The Negro is but a grown-up child and must be governed as a child" (George Fitz, 1854).

Industrial Revolution and the Civil War

The Industrial Revolution began before the Civil War. From 1840 to 1860, US GNP increased from $1.62 billion to $4.1 billion. But through industrial production on behalf of the Quartermaster Corps in the North, the war accelerated industrial production.

Black enlistment

The recruitment and enlistment of black soldiers in a war to secure their freedom was one of the most revolutionary aspects of the war. By the end of the war, the 180,000 black soldiers in the Union Army represented 10% of the total army. They fought to insist upon their status as US citizens. The 54 Massachusetts, recruited from Boston and sacrificed at Battery Wagoner, is the most famous regiment. The 1st South Carolina Volunteers was made up of escaped slaves from Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. They were recruited before the Emancipation Proclamation and raided the Georgia and Florida coasts--oftentimes attacking the very same plantations they had lived on. They acquitted themselves well. Their white commander was an abolitionist and wrote a memoir detailing the elation his soldiers felt upon the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Roger B. Taney

(1777-1864) fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court, remembered principally for the Red Scott decision (1857). In that decision, Taney argued that African Americans were not citizens and never could be because the founders had excluded them on purpose. He believed that slaves were property and as such Congress had no jurisdiction. His pronouncement that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery from a territory overturned the Missouri Compromise (1820) and ratcheted up sectional tensions.

John Brown

(1800-1859) militant American abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859 made him a martyr to the antislavery cause and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War (1861-1865). Prior to Harpers Ferry, John Brown and his sons had fought in Bleeding Kansas to rescue slaves and prevent Kansas from becoming a slave state. He was responsible for the murder of 5 slaveholders in Kansas. He famously rescued 10 slaves from Missouri and escorted 11 (one was born on the way) to freedom in Canada. His attack on Harper's Ferry was ill-conceived and ineptly executed. He planned to seize the weapons from the government armory, arm the slaves, and lead an insurrection to overthrow slavery in Virginia, but no slaves joined Brown's band, the townspeople soon pinned the raiders down into a few buildings, and before long Brown and most of his men were either killed or captured by U.S. troops. He subsequently came to be seen as an antislavery martyr, which was helped by his poised speech in court about his goal to die on behalf of the oppressed. In the South, he was roundly condemned and Republican leaders were ridiculed for supposedly supporting his raid. In the North, feelings were mixed. Lincoln said that, though he may hate slavery, he could not support treason or violence. Douglass said that Brown was more valuable dead than alive as a martyr for justice. Many thought his raid ill-conceived but admired his sacrifice and the strength of his convictions. John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a critical moment in rallying the conscience of the North against slavery and in worsening sectional divisions. Complicated meaning of John Brown's hanging 1) Martyrdom - his sacrifice and its religious overtones had a profound meaning to Americans at the time 2) How do we deal with revolutionary violence? When is it justified? Was John Brown a terrorist or a freedom fighter? 3) Brown a paradoxical, complicated figure: disturbing and inspiring, frightening and idealistic, ruthless and high-minded, foolhardy and stoic, monster and warrior-saint, avenger who did the work the rest of us wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't 4) White man who killed white people to free blacks: radical white abolitionist; America's first trans-racial hero

William Seward

(1801-1872) US politician, antislavery activist in the Whig and Republican parties before the American Civil War, and secretary of state between 1861 and 1869. As a Republican, he made some of the fiercest arguments against the "Slave Power" conspiracy. In his "Higher Law" speech, Seward famously argued that some things, like fighting slavery, were supported by a higher, God-given law. The frontrunner for the nomination, Seward was beaten out by Lincoln at the 1860 Republican Convention. He was a close and influential adviser to Lincoln. He effectively prevented other countries from recognizing the Confederacy. Despite an assassination attempt simultaneous with Lincoln's, Seward survived and continued to serve as secretary of state under Johnson. He supported Johnson's unpopular Reconstruction policies and was criticized for his decision to purchase Alaska.

James Henry Hammond

(1807) Democrat politician and Senator from South Carolina and ardent defender of slavery. He touted the economic might of cotton in making his defense of the South's slave system: "No power on Earth dares to make war on cotton. Cotton is king." (1858). He argued that Southern slaves were better off than Northern free workers. He thought slaves were inferior beings and needed stewardship. He believed that the economic importance of cotton was the basis of the South's power in the nation and the world. He put forward the idea that England could not survive economically without southern cotton, and so could be convinced to aid the Confederacy.

Robert E. Lee

(1807-1870) Confederate general, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, the most successful of the Southern armies during the American Civil War. Lee was an aggressive, offensive-minded general: he launched two ill-fated invasions of the North. The first culminated in the Battle of Antietam and led to Lincoln's Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which began to transform the meaning of the war. His second invasion resulted in his defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg. During the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg, Grant engaged his army in a war of attrition the smaller South could not hope to win. So desperate was he at this point in the war that he prominently supported arming black soldiers to fight on behalf of the Confederacy in exchange for their freedom. With his army disintegrating around him, Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House is commonly viewed as signifying the end of the Civil War. The Lost Cause has tried to depict him as a reluctant Confederate but the truth is he was a tried-and-true Confederate nationalist who believed in the South's cause.

Jefferson Davis

(1808-1889) president of the Confederate States of America throughout its existence during the Civil War (1861-65). After the war he was imprisoned for two years and indicted for treason but was not tried. He was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce and had military experience in the Mexican-American War. During the 1860 election, he opposed the Northern Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas because of Douglas's support of the Freeport Doctrine. Instead, he supported John C. Breckinridge, who demanded federal government protection for slave holding in the territories. He was opposed to secession but when it came, he resigned from the Senate and took over leadership of the Confederacy. Davis had to create a nation out of thin cloth and build a war effort with limited industrial capacity. He made the inspired choice of Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862. He faced innumerable troubles during his presidency, including a squabbling Congress, a dissident vice president, Alexander H. Stephens, and the constant opposition of extreme states' rights advocates who objected vigorously to the conscription law. He was captured after the war and never tried for treason. In his "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" (1880), he made the case that states' rights had been the case of the Civil War and slavery only the last straw.

Cyrus McCormick

(1809-1884) American inventor and industrialist who is generally credited with the development of the mechanical reaper in 1834. His reaper increased wheat yields, spurring on the Market Revolution. By 1860, his Chicago factory was turning out 5,000 reapers a year. Although his invention enabled the wheat and corn boom in the North and supported the free labor agricultural system of the North, he was a staunch proslavery Virginian and remained such.

Stephen Douglas

(1813-1861) American politician, leader of the Democratic Party, and orator who espoused the cause of popular sovereignty in relation to the issue of slavery in the territories before the American Civil War. He was reelected senator from Illinois in 1858 after a series of eloquent debates with the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, who defeated him in the presidential race two years later. In those debates, he reiterated his belief that only white men were worthy of citizenships and his opposition to black equality. He developed the theory of popular sovereignty, under which the people in a territory would themselves decide whether to permit slavery within their region's boundaries. He was not himself a slaveholder. He was influential in the passage of the Compromise of 1850 (which tried to maintain a congressional balance between free and slave states. He supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which substituted local options toward slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territories for that of congressional mandate, thus repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Dred Scott decision hurt popular sovereignty because it said that neither Congress nor territorial legislatures could prohibit slavery in a territory. His "Freeport Doctrine" stated that the territories could still determine the existence of slavery through unfriendly legislation and the use of police power, in spite of the Supreme Court decision. As a result, Southern opposition to Douglas intensified and, when he ran for president in 1860, Southern Democrats split from the Democratic Party to back John C. Breckinridge instead. He later denounced secession as criminal and was one of the strongest advocates for maintaining the integrity of the Union.

Frederick Douglass

(1818-1895) African American who was one of the most eminent abolitionist leaders of the 19th century. His oratorical and literary brilliance thrust him into the forefront of the abolition movement, and he became the first black citizen to hold high rank in the U.S. government. He advocated for enlisting black soldiers in the Union Army. His first autobiography told the tale of his escape from bondage (Frederick Bailey) to freedom (Frederick Douglass). Throughout his books and speeches, he drove home the importance of education in gaining his freedom and the religious hypocrisy of Southern slaveholders. He writes about the fear he experienced contemplating escape to a "doubtful freedom" and the time he almost lost his will to the hand of slave-breaker Mr. Covey. Like other slave narratives, he writes about the last time he saw his mother before family separation and the brutality of the slave system. His slave narrative stands above the rest because of its literary value.

William Tecumseh Sherman

(1820-1891) American Civil War general and a major architect of modern warfare. He led Union forces in crushing campaigns through the South, marching through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864-65). He believed in taking the war to the Southern people and destroying the South's industrial capacity. In 1864, he famously said: "We cannot change the hearts and minds of those in the South but we can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would ever again resort to it." He said that it was impossible to change the opinions of Southern people; they must be killed or dispossessed instead. That he did. His capture of Atlanta on September 3, 1864, buoyed Northern morale on the eve of the presidential election and deprived the South of a major railroad network. After Atlanta, he led his remaining 62,000 troops on the celebrated "March to the Sea" from Atlanta to Savannah on the Atlantic Coast. Separated from its supply bases and completely isolated from other Union forces, Sherman's army cut a wide swath as it moved south through Georgia, living off the countryside, destroying railroads and supplies, reducing the war-making potential of the Confederacy, and bringing the war home to the Southern people. Sherman then captured Savannah and marched through North Carolina, forcing the surrender of Johnston's army on April 26, 1865.

Indian Removal

(1820s-) Signed by President Andrew Jackson, the law permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain the Indians' lands (100 million acres) in exchange for their relocation to what would become Oklahoma (32 million acres). It made westward expansion possible, with almost 10% of the American population moving every year after 1815. The policy cleared the way for the westward movement of 2 million slaves over 40 years. This westward movement was especially pronounced in the American south: almost 1/2 of people born in South Carolina moved west after 1815. Paternalistic: Americans hoped Indians would learn agriculture, law, and property rights within reservations. 100,000 Indians moved and, in the process, 30,000 died.

Henry Hughes

(1829-1862) American sociologist and ardent defender of slavery. Born in Mississippi but he lived in New Orleans for most of his life. Worried about Southern demographics falling behind Northern ones, he urged the revival of the African slave trade. He refused to use the term 'slavery,' instead opting for 'warranteeism.' Unlike most slaveholders, he was in favor of a strong central state to regulate the existence of slavery and govern reciprocal rights between slaveholder and slave. He believed in labor obligations and favored taxation and even supported welfare to save slavery. In many ways, he was a proslavery utopian who believed one could perfect the system of slavery.

Robert Smalls

(1839-1915) African American slave who became a naval hero for the Union in the American Civil War and went on to serve as a congressman from South Carolina during Reconstruction. In 1861, at the outbreak of the war, he was hired by the Confederates to work aboard the steamship Planter, which operated as an armed transport and dispatch vessel, carrying guns and ammunition for the Confederate army. On May 13, 1862, he and the other blacks on board seized control of the ship in Charleston Harbor, succeeded in passing through Confederate checkpoints, and turned the ship, its cargo of weapons, and several important documents over to a Union naval squadron blockading the city. This exploit brought Smalls great fame throughout the North and was an example of slaves' ingenuity in seizing their freedom. In 1863, when he was piloting the ironclad Keokuk in the battle of Fort Sumter, the vessel took many hits and was eventually sunk. Smalls's bravery was rewarded with command of the Planter later that year. He was the first African American captain of a vessel in US service. He became a proponent of recruiting black soldiers and a Reconstruction politician.

Wilmot Proviso

(1846) important congressional proposal in the 1840s to prohibit the extension of slavery into the territories, a basic plank upon which the Republican Party was subsequently built. Despite repeated attempts, the Wilmot Proviso was never passed by both houses of Congress. But out of the attempt by both Democrats and Whigs, including Lincoln, to subordinate or compromise the slavery issue grew the Republican Party, founded in 1854, which specifically supported the Wilmot principle.

Compromise of 1850

(1850) a series of measures proposed by Henry Clay and passed by the U.S. Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. It was passed in sections so that Northern congressmen could vote overwhelmingly for the pro-North sections and Southern congressmen could vote overwhelmingly for the pro-South segments. The crisis arose from the request of the territory of California to be admitted to the Union with a constitution prohibiting slavery. The problem was complicated by the unresolved question of slavery's extension into other areas ceded by Mexico. Clay sought to maintain a balance between free and slave states and to satisfy both proslavery and antislavery forces. The plan had several parts: 1) California was admitted as a free state, upsetting the equilibrium that had long prevailed in the Senate (Pro-North) 2) the boundary of Texas was fixed along its current line; Texas, in return for giving up land it claimed in the Southwest, had $10 million of its onerous debt assumed by the federal government; areas ceded by Texas became the recognized territories of New Mexico and Utah, and in neither case slavery was mentioned, ostensibly leaving these territories to decide the slavery question on their own by the principle of popular sovereignty. This compromise excited slaveholders because it left open the possibility of even more Southern states in the Senate. (Pro-South) 3) The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was abolished in DC (pro-North). Prior to the Compromise, the slave trade was carried out from a slave jail located 3 blocks from the Capitol. 4) Congress passed a new and stronger Fugitive Slave Act, taking the matter of returning runaway slaves out of the control of states and making it a federal responsibility. Webster was initially resistant to this provision but was convinced by Clay that it was crucial in order to maintain unity with the South. His support for it ruined his career. (Pro-South) 5) In any new state formed by Mexican cession, the question of slavery would be resolved by a popular referendum (seen as amenable to all sides) Although many Americans greeted the Compromise with relief, its strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act triggered such a strong reaction throughout the North that many moderate antislavery elements became determined opponents of further expansion of slavery into the territories.

Fugitive Slave Act

(1850) part of the Compromise of 1850, this Act enhanced enforcement of the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution and appointed federal magistrates or judges to determinate cases of fugitive slaves in an effort to convince the South to support the union. These magistrates were paid $10 for returning a slave and only $5 for setting him free, clearly incentivizing returns. Under this law, fugitives could not testify on their own behalf and were not permitted a trail by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive escaped; penalties were also imposed on individuals who helped slaves to escape. Approximately 366 fugitives were returned to the South as a result of this law. The severity of the law increased the number of abolitionists and inflamed sectional tensions, dooming the Compromise of 1850.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

(1852) an abolitionist novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that achieved wide popularity, particularly among white readers in the North, by vividly dramatizing the experience of slavery. Some 300,000 copies of the book were sold in the US in the year after its publication, and it also sold well in England, where the queen reportedly wept while reading it. By cataloging the suffering experienced by enslaved people and by showing that their owners were morally broken, Stowe made her case against slavery. Today Uncle Tom's Cabin's depiction of its black characters is seen as racist and patronizing. Summary of plot: It tells the story of Uncle Tom, depicted as a saintly, dignified slave. While being transported by boat to auction in New Orleans, Tom saves the life of Little Eva, whose grateful father then purchases Tom. Eva and Tom soon become great friends. Always frail, Eva's health begins to decline rapidly, and on her deathbed she asks her father to free all his slaves. He makes plans to do so but is then killed, and the brutal Simon Legree, Tom's new owner, has Tom whipped to death after he refuses to divulge the whereabouts of certain runaway slaves. Tom maintains a steadfastly Christian attitude toward his own suffering, and Stowe imbues Tom's death with echoes of Christ's.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

(1854) critical national policy change concerning the expansion of slavery into the territories, affirming the concept of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise had excluded slavery from that part of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, sponsored by Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas, provided for the territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska under the principle of popular sovereignty, which had been applied to New Mexico and Utah in the Compromise of 1850. The overturning of the Missouri Compromise led to Bloody Kansas, as proslavery and antislavery forces battled over whether Kansas would become a slave or free state. It was attacked by free-soil and antislavery factions as a capitulation to the proponents of slavery. Passage of the act was followed by the establishment of the Republican Party as a viable political organization opposed to the expansion of slavery into the territories. The law went through various versions as Douglass worked to win over Southern support: 1) States admitted with or without slavery as their state constitutions decide upon admittance. Here, Douglass's goal was to leave the question ambiguous. But Southerners thought this wasn't enough of a concessions. 2) Slavery should be decided by a vote of the people residing in the territory. This plan left open the question of when the vote should be held--how early or late in the process. Southerners rejected again because they wanted a more direct statement about the security of slavery. 3) The final version explicitly repealed the Missouri Compromise line and stated that popular sovereignty would be used to answer the question of slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska territory. Ended political party system: -Even though Douglas made this vote a referendum on whether you remained loyal to the Democratic Party, the Act split the Democrats: Northern Democrats voted 44 yes and 42 no while Southern Democrats voted 0 No and 45 yes. -The Whigs, too, split along sectional lines. In the South, Whigs voted 12-7 in favor while in the North, they voted 45-0 against. -In the 1856 election, the Whig Party would cease to exist and the Republican Party would begin its rapid ascent.

Dred Scott Decision

(1857) Supreme Court ruling (7-2) that stated that a slave (Died Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory where slavery was prohibited was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States and were "inferior"; and that the Missouri Compromise (1820), which had declared free all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′ was unconstitutional. The decision shocked the nation, adding fuel to the sectional controversy and pushing the country closer to civil war. Lincoln said the ruling undermined the sovereignty of people in territories to bar slavery. In response, Frederick Douglass struggled to envision freedom and said, "I walk by faith, not by sight." The case took more than 11 years to reach the Supreme Court with a local court first ruling to give Dred Scott his freedom in 1846, only for the Missouri Supreme Court to overrule the decision shortly thereafter. Both abolitionists and slaveholders recognized the importance of the case. Taney took the opportunity to try to end the territory question once and for all, though his radical reinterpretation of the Constitution only inflamed Northern opposition.

1860 Election

(1860) presidential election in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. Democrats split over slavery in the territories. Douglas was unable to gain the required 2/3 majority at the Democratic Convention in Charleston, SC, because of his support for the Freeport Doctrine. Determined to pass a federal slave code to protect the institution of slavery in the territories forever, Southerners walked out of the convention and eventually coalesced around John C. Breckinridge. So frightened of the dissolution of the Union, the Constitutional Union Party, whose only policy was maintaining the union, nominated another Kentuckian John Bell. The party's platform particularly appealed to border states in its attempt to ignore the slavery issue and focus instead on fealty to the US Constitution. He went on to win Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. Thanks to his Cooper Union speech, in which he told the history of the slavery issue in America , attacked the Dred Scott decision and Kansas-Nebraska Act, and advocated for stopping slavery forever from expanding, Lincoln built a national profile and beat frontrunner William Seward at the convention. Lincoln was not on the ballot in every slave state except Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. Lincoln won with a plurality of the vote (~40%) and only winning the electoral college votes of the North. Breckinridge got 18% of the vote but won the Deep South. Douglas got 30% but only won the states of Missouri and New Jersey (for 12 electoral votes). Bell got ~13% of the vote but won 39 electoral votes (Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee). The election was followed, first, by the secession of South Carolina and, four weeks later, that of the rest of the Deep South. Seceding states gambled that slavery would be safer outside the union than within it. During the crisis, Lincoln privately urged Republicans to not compromise on the westward expansion of slavery, because, if they did so, the Republicans would have no reason to exist.

Secession Winter

(1860-61) period between Abraham Lincoln's election in November and inauguration in March 1861 when the Confederacy formed and broke away from the US. South Carolina led the way and for 3 long weeks in December 1860 was the only state to secede from the union. In January 1861, SC was joined by Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. Secession was not a unanimous decision. In the Appalachians, where plantations were uncommon, there was a great deal of unionist sentiment. Most states held secession conventions, at which secession commissioners from states that had already seceded made the pro-slavery case for secession. In fact, Virginia voted by 2/3 against seceding in April 1861 and only changed its mind after Fort Sumter. During this period, the South seized Federal forts bloodlessly, save for Fort Sumter. Buchanan, a lame duck, condemned secession as illegal but refused to act.

Crittenden Compromise

(1860-61) series of measures intended to forestall the American Civil War, futilely proposed in Congress by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky in December 1860. He envisioned six constitutional amendments by which the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was, in effect, to be reenacted and, more important, to be extended to the Pacific; the federal government was to indemnify owners of fugitive slaves whose return was prevented by antislavery elements in the North; "squatter sovereignty" (the right to decide if slavery should exist or not) in the territories was to be sanctioned; and slavery in DC was to be protected from congressional action. His plan was narrowly defeated in the Senate. His plan was one of many last-ditch efforts at compromise which failed to convince the South not to secede, showing how the Civil War likely could not have been forestalled by compromise.

National Revenue Act

(1861 and 1862) created the first national income tax. The 1861 version created a flat-tax of 3% on income over $800. The 1862 version created a progressive income tax. Administered by the Internal Revenue Bureau, the National Revenue Act divided taxes into two tiers: taxes on producers (the first-ever corporate income tax) and taxes on people. Tax rates are very low compared to today: 3% tax on yearly income over $600, 5% tax on income between $10,000 and $50,000, and 7.5% on income over $50,000. The income tax was eliminated in 1870. It was an example of economic nationalism and the mobilization of the nation's resources on behalf of the war effort.

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

(1861) In his first inaugural address, Lincoln offered both a sword and olive branch to the South. He maintained that the union continued to exist and insisted that Republicans did not intend to end slavery where it already existed. He even downplayed Republicans' stance on restricting slavery's expansion and promised to fulfill the Fugitive Slave Act. However, he ended by putting responsibility for war in the hands of the say, saying, "You can have no conflict without your being the aggressor." His speech failed to convince Southerners to return to the union and likely never could have without negating the Republican Party's reason to exist.

Anaconda Plan

(1861) Military strategy proposed by Union General Winfield Scott early in the Civil War. The plan called for a naval blockade of the Confederate coastline, a thrust down the Mississippi, and the strangulation of the South by Union land and naval forces. The plan was unsuccessful because of the South's extensive coastline. In the first year, 90% of Southern blockade runners escaped the blockade and in the second year, 75% did so. It was not until the last year of the war that the blockade was really effective.

Trent Affair

(1861) diplomatic incident during the Civil War involving the doctrine of freedom of the seas, which nearly precipitated war between Great Britain and the United States. On November 8, 1861, U.S. Captain Charles Wilkes seized from the neutral British ship Trent two Confederate commissioners, James Murray Mason and John Slidell, who were seeking the support of England and France for the cause of the Confederacy. Despite initial rejoicing by the Northern populace and Congress, this unauthorized seizure aroused a storm of indignant protest and demands for war throughout Britain. The British government sent an ultimatum demanding an American apology and release of Mason and Slidell. Moreover, in anticipation of war, the British sent 11,000 regulars to Canada. To avert armed conflict, Secretary of State Seward replied that Wilkes had erred in failing to bring the Trent into port for adjudication, thus violating America's policy of freedom of the seas. The Confederate commissioners were released shortly thereafter and war was averted.

Homestead Act

(1862) significant legislative action that promoted the settlement and development of the American West. It was also notable for the opportunity it gave African Americans to own land. The secession of Southern states made the passage of the bill possible, as Southern states had previously opposed the bill, fearing that antislavery Northerners would settle in the West. The act granted 160 acres of unappropriated public lands to anyone who paid a small filing fee and agreed to work on the land and improve it, including by building a residence, over a five-year period. The Homestead Act proved one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of the American West, as hundreds of thousands of people moved to the Great Plains in an effort to take advantage of the free land. The only personal requirement was that the homestead be either the head of a family or 21 years of age; thus, US citizens, freed slaves, new immigrants intending to become naturalized, single women, and people of all races were eligible.

Siege of Vicksburg

(1862-1863) the campaign by Union forces led by Ulysses S. Grant to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which lay on the east bank of the Mississippi River, halfway between Memphis and New Orleans. The capture of Vicksburg was a strategic turning point in the war, one that deprived the Confederates of control of the Mississippi and split the Confederacy in two. The victory also proved the military genius of Union General Ulsysses S. Grant. After the Confederate surrender, Lincoln said, "Grant is my man and I am his for the rest of the war," a promise he kept as he appointed Grant head of the Union army in the east. Combined with the Union victory at Gettysburg a day later, the fall of Vicksburg shook Confederate morale.

Lincoln's 10% Plan

(1863) Lincoln's starting position, his 10% plan represented a lenient, rapid, moderate Reconstruction plan. In his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, Lincoln announced the following Reconstruction policies: -He would pardon all ex-Confederates except high-ranking officers or those who had resigned their commissions, left Congress, or resigned from a judgeship. -He would not pardon those who had mistreated black soldiers -When 10% of those who had voted in the election of 1860 had taken a loyalty oath and established a new state government, they would be recognized and re-admitted to the Union under the president's war powers. -Excluded blacks at all levels More anti-slavery than anti-Southern, Lincoln did not seek revenge against the South. His plan was rooted in his constitutional views: he believed that Confederate states had never left the union and, therefore, Southern states merely had to be restored to the union. The goal of Lincoln's plan: defeat the Confederate armies and then let loyal citizens create loyal governments and restore them to the union before a guerrilla war broke out. He argued that restoring states to the union could be done by the president without Congress, a crucial source of conflict with Radical Republicans in Congress. Lincoln viewed Reconstruction as an experiment. Three Southern states set up new state governments during the war: Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Collectively, they became known as 'Lincoln governments.' They were all weak and would have collapsed without the protection of the Union army. Lincoln pursued all these policies without congressional approval

Draft Riots of 1863

(1863) major four-day eruption of violence in New York City, resulting from deep worker discontent with the inequities of conscription during the US Civil War. Although laboring people in general supported the Northern war effort, they had no voice in Republican policy and occasionally deserted from the army or refused reenlistment. Because of their low wages, often less than $500 a year, they were particularly antagonized by the federal provision allowing more affluent draftees to buy their way out of the Federal Army for $30. When the drawing of names began in New York, mobs (mostly of foreign-born, especially Irish, workers) surged onto the streets, assaulting residents, defying police, attacking draft headquarters, and during buildings. Property damage eventually totaled $1.5 million. The New York draft riot was also closely associated with racial competition for jobs. Northern labor feared that emancipation of slaves would cause an influx of African American workers from the South, and employers did in fact use black workers as strikebreakers during this period. Thus, the white rioters vented their wrath on the homes and businesses of innocent African Americans. The riot was finally quelled by police cooperating with the 7th NY Regiment, which had been hastily recalled from Gettysburg.

Wade-Davis Bill

(1864) unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans and others in the US Congress to set Reconstruction policy before the end of the Civil War. The bill provided for the appointment of provisional military governors in the seceded states. When a majority of a state's white citizens swore allegiance to the Union, a constitutional convention could be called. Each state's constitution was to be required to abolish slavery, repudiate secession, and disqualify Confederate officials from voting or holding office. In order to qualify for the franchise, a person would be required to take an oath that he had never voluntarily given aid to the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln's pocket veto of the bill presaged the struggle that was to take place after the war between President Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress. The Radical Republicans responded vehemently to Lincoln's pocket veto, accusing him of acting dictatorially in the midst of an election.

Sherman's March to the Sea

(1864-65) after taking Atlanta, Sherman led his 62,000 troops on the celebrated 'March to the Sea' from Atlanta to Savannah on the Atlantic Coast. Before leaving Atlanta, he set fire to the Confederate city, destroying the South's industrial base. Separated from its supply bases and completely isolated from other Union forces, Sherman's army cut a wide swath as it moved south through Georgia, living off the countryside, destroying railroads and supplies, and reducing the war-making potential of the Confederacy, and bringing the war home to the Southern people. Tens of thousands of slaves fled their plantations and joined the army to gain their freedom. He reached Savannah by Christmas. By February 1865, he was heading north through the Carolinas toward Virginia. Sherman's Army behaved the most harshly in South Carolina, where secession originated. The opposing Confederate forces led by Johnston could offer Sherman only token resistance by now. Johnston surrendered shortly after Lee. The campaign broke the back of the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. His campaign inaugurated total war, and is still controversial in the South. The objective of Sherman's march twas to destroy the will of Southern civilians. "We are not fighting hostile armies but a hostile people," he said. Sherman believed he could win the war with fear, destruction, maneuver, and speed--total war.

Thirteenth Amendment

(1865) amendment to the US Constitution that formally abolished slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves held in the Confederate States of America. In depriving the South of its greatest economic resource--abundant free labor--Lincoln's proclamation was intended primarily as an instrument of military strategy. Only when emancipation was universally proposed through the Thirteenth Amendment did it become national policy. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment was extremely close and required bribing some Northern Democrats. It passed with only 2 votes above a 2/3 majority: 119-56. On the day it passed, it was met with rejoicing in Congress and throughout DC. In modern times, the amendment has been used to combat human trafficking.

Freedmen's Bureau

(1865-1872) established by Congress to provide practical aid to 4,000,000 newly freed African Americans in their transition from slavery to freedom. It might be termed the first federal welfare agency. It was an unprecedented response to the social-human challenge of what to do with the refugees and destroyed landscapes of the South. Despite handicaps of inadequate funds and poorly trained personnel, the bureau built hospitals for, and gave direct medical assistance to, more than 1,000,000 freedmen. More than 21,000,000 rations were distributed to impoverished blacks as well as whites. Its greatest accomplishments were in education: more than 1,000 black schools were built and over $400,000 spent to establish teacher-training institutions. Less success was achieved in civil rights, for the bureau's own courts were poorly organized and short-lived, and only the barest forms of due process of law for freedmen could be sustained in the civil courts. Its most notable failure concerned the land itself. Thwarted by Andrew Johnson's restoration of abandoned lands to pardoned Southerners and by the adamant refusal of Congress to consider any form of land redistribution, the bureau was forced to oversee sharecropping arrangements that inevitably became oppressive. Congress, preoccupied with other national interests and responding to the continued hostility of white Southerners, terminated the bureau in July 1872.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

(1866) first US federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. After the Civil War, it was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. A 2/3 majority overrode Johnson's veto. Written by Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, it was the first statutory definition of rights of US citizens. It outlawed public, not private, acts of discrimination: one could not bar blacks from public institutions but could bar them from one's home or church. It declared full citizenship "regardless of race, creed, or religion." It left enforcement to the states, not the federal government.

Peninsula Campaign

(April 4-July 1, 1862) large-scale but unsuccessful Union effort to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, by way of the peninsula formed by the York and the James rives. McClellan was accompanied by 100,000 Union troops. The first phase of the campaign, during which the North reached the town of White House, within striking distance of Richmond, concluded with the indecisive Battle of Seven Pines, in which Confederate General Joseph Johnston was seriously wounded and field command passed to Robert E. Lee. A second phase was characterized by three weeks of inactivity. The final phase ended triumphantly for the Confederate forces of General Lee, who forced the withdrawal of the Federal Army of the Potomac after the Seven Days' Battles. Lincoln had supported a more direct attack on Richmond but had been overruled by McClellan. When McClellan failed to seize Richmond, he blamed Lincoln for improperly reinforcing his army even though his army outnumbered Lee's. McClellan moved extremely cautiously throughout the campaign and consistently believed he was outnumbered when just the opposite was true. The campaign further harmed Lincoln and McClellan's relationship and established Lee as a formidable Confederate general. However, Lee followed the campaign up by invading the North, resulting in the fateful battle of Antietam and Lincoln's announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Shiloh

(April 6-7, 1862) battle fought in southwestern Tennessee, resulting in a victory for the North and in large casualties for both sides. In February, Ulysses S. Grant had taken Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. The Confederates had acknowledged the importance of these forts by abandoning their positions in Kentucky and evacuating Nashville. Grant's next aim was to attack the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and to this end he encamped his troops on the Tennessee at Pittsburg Landing. At this point, General A.S. Johnston, commanding Confederate forces in the West, and General Beauregard were collecting a force in Mississippi aimed at recovering some of their recent losses. Since Union troops were planning an offensive, they had not fortified their camps. To their surprise, General Johnston seized the initiative and attacked Grant before reinforcements could arrive. The battle was fought in the weeds by inexperienced troops on both sides. Johnston was mortally wounded on the first afternoon. The Union army was nearly pushed into the river and defeated on the first day. Despite a rallying of Northern troops and reinforcements on the second day, the battle ended the next day with the Union army doing little more than reoccupying the camp it had lost the day before while the Confederates returned to Mississippi. Although both sides claimed victory, it was a Confederate failure; both sides were immobilized for weeks because of the heavy casualties--about 10,000 men on each side. The ferocity of the battle, Grant later said, convinced Grant that the the war would be a long, resource war.

Appomattox Court House

(April 9, 1865) site in Virginia of the surrender of the Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee to those of the Union under Ulysses S. Grant. By this point, Grant's army had surrounded Lee's. Facing imminent defeat, Lee met Grant at the McLean House in Appomattox Court House to negotiate a surrender. Not a peace treaty or political document, Lee's surrender was a military document. With Lincoln's approval, Grant granted the following terms to Lee: Southerners had to lay down their arms and were then paroled; officers were permitted to keep their sidearms while regular soldiers had to surrender their weapons; soldiers were allowed to keep their horses so they could become farmers again; and the Confederates would be given 1-2 days' worth of rations from Grant's army.

1860 Democratic Convention

(April-May 1860 in Charleston, SC) Democratic Party convention where a disagreement over the official party policy on slavery prompted dozens of delegates from the Deep South to withdraw. Southern Democrats, who wanted to pass a new law guaranteeing slavery in all Western territories, criticized Douglas for his Freeport Doctrine, the idea that, despite Dred Scott, Western citizens could vote to keep slavery out of their territories. Unable to nominate a candidate (Senator Stephen A. Douglas received a majority of the delegates' support but could not amass the required two-thirds majority needed for nomination), Democrats held a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland in June, though many Southern delegates failed to attend. Douglas was nominated at the Baltimore Convention. Disaffected "Southern Democrats" then nominated Breckinridge, a Kentuckian. The split of the Democratic Party meant that neither Douglas nor Breckinridge could win a majority, paving the way for Lincoln's plurality win.

Massacre at Ebenezer Creek

(December 8, 1864) As Union troops crossed Ebenezer Creek under fire from Confederate troops, Union Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis ordered his provost marshal to prevent 600 freed people from crossing with his army. They were told they would be able to cross after a Confederate force in front had been dispersed. IN reality, no such force existed. As the last Union soldiers reached the eastern bank, Davis's engineers abruptly cut the bridge loose and drew it up onto the shore. On realizing this, a panic set in amongst the freedmen, who knew the Confederate cavalry were nearby. In the uncontrolled, terrified crush, many quickly drowned. Some of Davis's troops made efforts to help the drowning freedmen. The freedmen continued their frantic efforts to ferry as many as possible across the stream on the makeshift raft, but when Wheeler's cavalry arrived in force, those refugees who had not made it to the eastern bank, or drowned in the attempt, were enslaved once more. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton brought the incident up with Sherman and Davis during a visit to Savannah in January 1865. Davis defended his actions as a matter of military necessity, with Sherman's full support. The massacre is an example of the challenges, pain, and loss slaves experienced.

Treaty of Guadulaupe Hidalgo

(Feb. 1848) treaty between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican War. The treaty drew the boundary between the United States and Mexico at the Rio Grande and the Gila River; for a payment of $15,000,000 the United States received more than 525,000 square miles of land (now Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah) from Mexico and in return agreed to settle the more than $3,000,000 in claims made by U.S. citizens against Mexico. Relationship to the Civil War The treaty helped precipitate civil war in both Mexico and the United States. The expansion of slavery in the United States had been settled by the Missouri Compromise (1820), but the addition of the vast Mexican tract as new U.S. territory reopened the questions. Attempts to settle it led to the uneasy Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854).

Emancipation Proclamation

(January 1, 1863) edict issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves of the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union. After the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), he issued his Preliminary Proclamation calling on the revolted states to return to their allegiance before the next year, otherwise their slaves would be declared free men. No state returned, and the threatened declaration was issued on January 1, 1863. In some ways, the Emancipation Proclamation was brought on by events, as soldiers on the front line and citizens back home embraced the idea of slaves as "contraband" whose freeing would deprive the Confederates of labor. Before issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln had declared that he meant to save the Union as best he could--by preserving slavery, by destroying it, or by destroying part and preserving part. His decision to tie emancipation to winning the war helped win Northern support for the measure. International importance: the conversion of the struggle into a crusade against slavery made European intervention impossible. Although the Emancipation Proclamation's decision to recruit black soldiers strengthened the North's war effort, the Proclamation also renewed Southern resolve, raising fears of slave revolts and a transformation of Southern society. Differences with the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation: 1) No reference to colonization: Lincoln had moved on 2) Announced Lincoln's intent to recruit black soldiers: To this invitation to join the army the blacks responded in considerable numbers, nearly 180,000 of them enlisting during the remainder of the war. By the end of the war, to Lincoln and to his countrymen, it had become evident that the proclamation had dealt a deathblow to slavery in the United States, a fate that was officially sealed by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.

Sherman's Field Order #15

(January 1865) Sherman's order which set aside a large swath of land along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia for the settlement of black families. Though the Freedmen's Bureau Act of March 1865 authorized the bureau to rent or sell land in its possession to former slaves, President Johnson ordered land returned to former white owners. Thus, blacks did not receive the land they equated with freedom and economic independence.

Second Confiscation Act

(July 1862) law designed to liberate slaves as "contraband" in the seceded states. Passed over Lincoln's objections, the law declared that slaves of disloyal owners in all Confederate states should henceforward be free. Lincoln objected to the act on the basis that it might push border states, especially Kentucky and Missouri, into secession in order to protect slavery within their boundaries. It was virtually an emancipation proclamation but it was only enforceable in areas of the South occupied by the Union Army. Though it continued Lincoln's policy of distinguishing between loyal and disloyal slaveowners, the law paved the way for the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Moreover, it gave Lincoln the power to employ and arm freed slaves, a power which he exercised in the Emancipation Proclamation.

Bull Run

(July 21, 1861) the first engagement of the American Civil War fought near Manassas Junction in northern Virginia, only about 20-25 miles from DC. Although Lincoln did not want to have a battle until his army was trained, press leaders like Horace Greeley urged action and called for an advance on Richmond. General McDowell, who was training an amateur army to defend DC, recognized his men were not prepared to take the offensive and told Lincoln as much. Lincoln, however, overruled him, saying that Confederate troops were as untrained as Union troops. When the Union army marched, the press claimed it would be a summer outing and American congressmen picnicked nearby and watched. To reach Bull Run, the Union Army took 2 days to travel 22.5 miles, a slow pace relative to later marches. The Confederates knew they were coming and waited. Both armies feinted to the left and moved to the right, so they effectively traded positions. The battle was a complete Confederate victory, as Union troops broke ranks and ran back to Washington, DC. McDowell's army of 28,450 suffered 460 killed and 1,124 wounded with 1,300 listed as missing or captured. Beauregard and Johnston's 32,230 Confederates lost 387 killed and 1,582 wounded with just 13 reported missing or captured. Although by later standards this would be deemed a skirmish, at the time it was extremely bloody and foreboding. The Confederates' unwillingness to follow up the victory permitted George McClellan to raise, organize, and train the Army of the Potomac. The humiliation of Bull Run provided focus to the unorganized enthusiasm of the North, which eventually coalesced into a determination to crush the rebellion at all costs.

Siege of Petersburg

(June 1864-1865) a siege that culminated in the defeat of the South. Petersburg, located to the south of Richmond, was a strategic point for the defense of the Confederate capital. After the battle of Cold Harbor, both sides rapidly constructed fortifications 35 miles long. Mostly owing to mismanagement and inefficiency, Southern railroads had broken down or been destroyed. Thus the Confederates were ill-fed to the point of physical exhaustion, and the lack of draft animals and cavalry mounts nearly immobilized the troops. Hunger, exposure, and the apparent hopelessness of further resistance led to increasing desertion, especially among recent conscripts. As his army melted away around him, Lee abandoned Petersburg and Richmond and tried to make his escape. But his efforts to join his army with Johnston's were thwarted and he surrendered to General Grant on April 9 at Appomattox Court House.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

(March 4, 1865) delivered a mere five weeks before Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate partisan John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's Second Inaugural was borne of humility and loss. In it, he both expressed hope for national healing and depicted the war as divine retribution for the sins of slavery, which he said caused the war and made God extend the bloodbath.

Battle of Cold Harbor

(May 31-June 12, 1864) disastrous defeat for teh Union Army that caused some 18,000 casualties. In 30 minutes, Grant's army lost 7,000 men dead or wounded. Continuing his relentless drive toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, General Ulysses S. Grant ordered a frontal infantry assault on General Robert E. Lee's Confederate troops, who were now entrenched at Cold Harbor. Grant believed Lee's men were overextended but Lee had taken advantage of a delay in Grant's assault to bring in reinforcements and improve his fortifications. The result was Lee's last major victory of the war and a bloodbath for the Union army. After the battle, both armies settled down for the Siege of Petersburg.

Battle of the Wilderness

(May 5-7, 1864), the first battle of Union General Ulysses S. Grant's "Overland Campaign," a relentless drive to defeat once and for all Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and capture the South's capital at Richmond. Although a bloody and inconclusive encounter resulting in a high body count, the battle put the Confederates on the defensive and set the stage for the aggressive war of attrition that followed, ultimately spelling the South's defeat. The battle took place in an area of almost impenetrable scrub. During the battle, the forest caught fire, burning alive the wounded. Lee's losses were higher in proportion to the size of his army: Grant's army suffered 17,000 casualties and the Confederates suffered 11,400 casualties in two days. Importantly for his ultimate success, unlike his predecessors in the Eastern Theater, Grant did not withdraw his army following his setback at the Wilderness. Instead, he renewed his march south, engaging the South in a war of attrition it could not win.

Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

(May 8-21, 1864) Part of Grant's Overland Campaign, a Union failure to smash or outflank Confederate forces defending Richmond, Virginia. A lull might have been expected after the Battle of the Wilderness (5-7 May) with both Union and Confederate armies exhausted and disorganized. But General Ulysses S. Grant pressed on relentlessly with his offensive. A day later, he met Lee's army again. Maneuvering continued until May 21, when the stage was set for the nine-month Siege of Petersburg. Union losses: 18,400 casualties. Confederate casualties: 11,000.

Overland Campaign

(May-June 1864 a series of battles fought in Virginia during May and June 1864 in the American Civil War. Although Grant suffered severe losses during this campaign (17,000 Union casualties vs. 11,400 Confederate casualties at the Battle of the Wilderness; 18,460 Union casualties vs. 11,000 Confederate casualties at Spotsylvania; 7,000 Union casualties in 30 minutes at Cold Harbor)it was a strategic Union victory. It inflicted proportionately higher losses on Lee's army and maneuvered it into a siege at Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, in just over eight weeks. Unlike his predecessors in the Eastern Theater, Grant did not withdraw his army following his setback at the Wilderness. The campaign resulted in the siege of Petersburg, which would stretch until the spring of 1865 and deplete Lee's forces in a war of attrition the South could not hope to win.

Sherman's Capture of Atlanta

(May-September 1864) important series of battles in Georgia that eventually cut off a main Confederate supply center and influenced the Federal presidential election of 1864. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman believed a sustained campaign deep into Confederate territory would bring the entire war to an end. The fighting foreshadowed Sherman's March to the Sea later in the year and introduced many Southern civilians to the horrors and ravages of 'total war,' working to undermine Confederate morale. After a series of seesaw battles, Sherman forced the Confederate evacuation of Atlanta. This Union victory presented President Lincoln with the key to reelection in the fall of 1864.

Battle of Chickamauga

(September 19-20, 1863) a vital part of the maneuvering and fighting to control the railroad center at nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee. For two days the conflict raged in a tangled forest along Chickamauga Creek. Union General George H. Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga," skillfully organized the defenses and withstood the ferocious Confederate attack until the assistance of a reserve corps made possible an orderly withdrawal to Chattanooga. Of 120,000 troops participating, casualties numbered 16,000 Union troops and 18,000 Confederate troops, making this one of the bloodiest engagements of the Civil War. Chickamauga was considered a decisive victory for the South, but General Bragg did not choose to follow it up, and two months later the results were completely nullified at the Battle of Chattanooga.

James K. Polk

(president 1845-1849) 11th president of the United States (and 7th slaveholder POTUS). Under his leadership, the United States fought the Mexican War (1846-48) and acquired vast territories along the Pacific coast and in the Southwest. 1844--momentous election Polk ran for president on annexing Texas, which had been independent of Mexico since 1836, and openly laid claim to the whole Oregon territory. He beat Henry Clay with 49% of the vote and a popular plurality of 38,000 votes and 170 electoral votes against 105 for Clay (partly because of the new antislavery Liberty Party which siphoned votes from Clay in NY). Presidency By sending troops to the southern border of Mexico, Polk precipitated a divisive war. The war resulted in a quick American victory (13,000 Americans perished). As a result, America acquired the Southwest and far West (California). Furthermore, during his presidency, the northwestern boundary between Canada and the US became fixed by treaty. Slavery Polk was a slaveholder himself and the only US president to buy and sell slaves from the White House. He supported Texas annexation partly because he wished to see the expansion of slavery. His war with Mexico inflamed sectional tensions and set the stage for the divisive debates over slavery in the 1850s that would lead to the Civil War.

4 Factors of Emancipation

1) Character of Slave Community: More or less autonomy? Live on small family farms or large plantations? Skilled or unskilled? Mobile or stationary? Whereas in Virginia slaves had experience being hired out, living in urban spaces, and working on family farms, in Mississippi slaves lived in large clusters on large plantations. On the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina, slaves lived on large plantations, outnumbered white population, and spoke a special Creolized language. 2) Geography of war: Where you lived changed your chances of being freed. If you lived near coastal seaports like New Orleans or the Georgia coastline, you were freed earlier. In Memphis, slave refugee camps were disease-filled and biological disasters; at the same time, they provided slaves in Tennessee a target to escape to. During Sherman's March, slaves followed the army because camps weren't built. 3) Policy: Whether slaves attained their freedom often depended on what policy the Union Army was following at the time. Were slaves to be returned? Were they considered contraband of war? Were they to be freed by the Emancipation Proclamation? Were any of these policies enforced? If so, by whom--military or political appointees? 4) Ingenuity of the enslaved: When Sherman marched through Georgia, ~20,000 slaves followed him--equivalent to 1/3 of the army and double the population of Atlanta. Slaves such as Robert Smalls, later captain of the gunboat Planter, had to seize their freedom in ingenious ways.

Open Questions before the Kansas-Nebraska Act

1) Had the Compromise of 1850 ended the Missouri Compromise? 2) Was popular sovereignty already established as precedent everywhere? 3) Which principle should be applied to the question of slavery in the West? Geographical division along the Missouri Compromise line or popular sovereignty?

Challenges of Reconstruction

1) If the Union wins, who will rule in the South? Will ex-Confederates be allowed back into the US Congress? Will black people be given the franchise? 2) Who will rule the federal government? The president? The Congress? Or some compromise solution involving both? 3) What were the dimensions of black freedom going to be? In law and in social life? 4) Was Reconstruction going to be a preservation of the antebellum Republic or the birth of a second Republic?

Changing historical explanations for the Civil War

1) Lincoln, in his second inaugural (1865) slavery the primary cause of the war. Slaves made up 1/8 of the whole population and localized in the South. "Slave's interest" the cause of the war. 2) The "graying" leadership (1880s): In his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," Jefferson Davis penned a massive defense of the Confederacy. He argued that states' rights was the cause of the war and that the South cared about rules. In his rendition, slavery was only the last straw. His memoirs inaugurated the "Lost Cause" narrative. Ulysses S Grant, on the other hand, said that slavery was the cause. That the North had been willing to countenance slavery but had been unwilling to play the role of police for slavery. He ended by hoping for good feeling between North and South, the reconciliationist view that the war had to happen and brought the nation together. 3) Beard's economic interpretation (1920s-1950s): war an inevitable result of economics. An industrial people in the North and an agricultural people in the South had to go to war. People played little role. 4) Civil Rights historians attacked slavery and called it the primary cause. Driven by slavery, the North needed to end slavery. This view makes the North feel virtuous. This view also points out that African Americans knew that the war was about abolition long before Lincoln and the country.

Why there was a fuss over slavery in the West

1) Mobility: With a burgeoning immigrant population of farmers and industrial workers, mobility was the dream of the North. To preserve the American dream, Northerners believed the west needed to remain open. Because people believed that slavery could take root anywhere, they worried about a slave aristocracy or "Slave Power" conspiracy blocking white laborers from achieving mobility. 2) Free labor ideology: belief that representative government at the core of republicanism. Free labor supporters worried that letting an oligarchy of slaveholders rule in the West would deprive the common white man of liberty. This belief coincided with fear of concentrated power and a "Slave Power" conspiracy against freedom. Free labor ideology helps explain why racist white Northerners could hate slavery--because they saw slavery as a degradation of labor 3) For the South, slavery needed to expand or die. By the 1850s, the vast majority of Southern whites did not own slaves and yet power in the South remained tied to slaveholding. Southerners could see that slavery was on the decline around the world as empires freed their slaves. Southerners worried that if they didn't expand, they would lose political parity. The population of free states was already double that of slave states. If the North also had more states in the Senate, the South would lose its last check. 4) The legal status of slavery in the Western territories stood as a test of slavery's moral standing. It was believed that if the North condemned the right to own slaves in the West, it could condemn slavery everywhere.

Tenets of Garrisonianism

1) Moral perfectionism: belief in the biblical injunction to be perfect 2) Pacifism or nonresistance: called for leaving government, political parties, or militaristic societies 3) Anti-clericalism: beware of Protestant hypocrisy about slavery (became Frederick Douglass's favorite topic in the form of the "Slaveholder's Sermon") 4) Disunionism: advocated Northern withdrawal from American union to not be complicit in slavery (became hard for some black abolitionists to agree over time) 5) Non-voting: voting makes you a participant in evil (one of the reasons Douglass left) 6) Women's equality: believed in giving women the vote and equal civil rights; invited women like Abby Kelley to speak on the platform 7) African American civil rights: believed in African Americans' right to own property, vote, have access to public transportation, etc.

Four Plans for Settlement of the West before Compromise of 1850

1) Wilmot Proviso: Called for the exclusion of slavery from all new territories acquired from Mexico. Although Wilmot was a white supremacist Democrat, his support for free labor ideology made him want to keep the West free from slavery. Divisive - All but one Northern state legislature supported and all Southern state legislatures condemned. It passed the House 83-64 but never passed the Senate, in which the South had a much stronger hand. 2) State sovereignty (the Calhoun position) - Individuals had a constitutional right to own slaves as property and transport them wherever they would like. Since the territories were a common property of all Americans, slave owners could not be barred from bringing their Constitutionally-sanctioned property with them. 3) Popular sovereignty: idea that called for letting the people vote in a popular referendum in the territories about whether they wanted to be free or slave states. However, this idea was charmingly ambiguous: it left open the question of when to hold the referendum, which could decide the outcome. 4) Missouri Compromise (1820) - maintain an equal number of free and slave states. This idea called for extending the Missouri Compromise line (36 30') further west.

Garrison Frazier

After Sherman captured Savannah, he met with black ministers led by Baptist minister Garrison Frazier to figure out what to do with slave refugees. Frazier was an elderly minister who had purchased his own freedom in 1857. Frazier told Sherman and Stanton that slaves needed land to take care of themselves. He was an eloquent speaker and displayed a deep understanding of the Emancipation Proclamation and how the abolition of slavery came to represent the object of the war. He offered a profound definition of slavery and freedom: "Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not his consent. The freedom, as I understand it, promised by the proclamation, is taking us from the yoke of bondage, and placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, take care of ourselves and assist the Government in maintaining our freedom."

Election of 1864

American presidential election in which Republican President Abraham Lincoln defeated Democrat George B. McClellan. As the election occurred during the Civil War, it was contested only by the states that had not seceded from the Union. During the summer, two movements tried to dump Lincoln: one for Salmon Chase and another for John C. Frémont. Lincoln survived but he was under attack for casualties and the length of the war. By August 1864, Lincoln thought he might lose. Democrats nominated a pro-slavery Democrat George McClellan. Democrats became known as the "Peace Democrats" because they promised a negotiated peace. Battlefield weariness put Lincoln in danger. Democrats ran a racist, white supremacist campaign; they painted Lincoln as a "n*****-lover", as "Abraham Africanus I," and as a supporter of miscegenation, a term they invented and popularized during the campaign. Lincoln was so worried about defeat that in August 1864 he invited Frederick Douglass to the White House, asked Douglass if emancipation could be delayed (no), and asked Douglass if he would lead a legal, John Brown-esque scheme to funnel blacks north in case he lost (yes, but how?). Battlefield successes turned the tide and secured Lincoln's victory. On September 3, 1864, Atlanta fell to Sherman. This news coincided with the capture of Mobile Bay in the largest naval battle and Sheridan's move down the Shenandoah Valley. News of these Union victories spread across the North, convincing many that the war's momentum had turned and improving Northern morale. Lincoln won the soldier's vote: Out of 154,000 Union soldiers who voted, 78% cast their ballots for Lincoln over McClellan. Republicans won a commanding congressional majority and established their identity as the party of winning the war, preserving the Union, and ending slavery.

Death in the Civil War

Americans shared the belief that death should be witnessed by family and scrutinized. But during the war, so many soldiers died nameless, unattended, unknown. These kinds of deaths violated 19th-century traditions. Soldiers and nurses wrote condolence letters to deceased's loved ones, telling them about the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths. More than 1/2 of Union dead were unknown (400,000 people), meaning they died without ID or location. ~25,000 Union dead were never buried at all.

West Point and Secession

At the start of the Civil War, West Point cadets were forced to choose sides in the conflict. Jefferson Davis, Lee, and Beauregard had deep roots at West Point. The South had always had outsize representation in the Academy. When Beauregard, as superintendent, resigned and left West Point in 1861, many cadets followed. 74 Southern cadets resigned or were dismissed while 21 stayed, a much higher proportion than of Southern students at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. At the same time, many Northern cadets and officials stayed, including the librarian who would become one of the few Union abolitionist generals.

Confederate Policy Regarding Slavery

Confederacy enacted policies that increased chances slaves would attain their freedom. They impressed and hired out slaves to build fortifications and work in factories, moving them closer to the war and the US Army. During the siege of Atlanta, the Confederate Army sent slaves north of Atlanta to build defenses. When the Confederates retreated, slaves managed to reach the US Army. By the end of the war, the Confederates contemplated arming slaves. One Confederate congressman, Howell Cobb, said it would never work and would undermine the theories upon which the Confederate government rested. Lincoln, appreciating the irony of the slaveholder's republic contemplating arming slaves, said, "They don't know which way they're going to shoot."

Conscription in the Civil War

Confederates: -Created the first draft in US history in April 1862 -All able-bodied men 16-35 (later 45) had to serve 3 years if drafted -Allowed the hiring of substitutes if you could find one. This led to claims of elitism and resulted in corruption, with some people selling themselves over and over again to make money. -The "20 Negro Law" allowed owners of 20 black slaves to escape the draft so that they could maintain the plantation system. This was unpopular within the South and stirred class resentment -20% of Confederate soldiers in the war were conscripted Union: -North passed the Enrollment Act in March 1863, which applied to all able-bodied men 20-35. -Fewer exemptions: could escape with a $300 bounty ("rich man's war") -Only about 6% of Union soldiers were conscripted

Reaction to Appomattox

Hard for many to believe the war had ended. Many experienced confusion about the future. Confederate soldiers were told to walk home--but to what? Union war memories bred hatred. One Southern woman said she felt "conquered, subjugated" and rejoiced in Lincoln's assassination. Thousands of Confederates fled the country--to Mexico, Brazil, Canada, etc. Some Southerners worried about "Negro equality" while others felt shocked and sorrowful. Ex-slaves in the Confederacy gathered first to celebrate emancipation and then to mourn Lincoln's death.

Grant vs. Lee

In 1861, Grant was a nobody. In the 1850s he struggled with drunkenness. But during the war, he became one of the greatest American military strategists. He keenly understood the importance of civilian morale for maintaining the war effort. Unlike Lee, he wasn't tied to the military theory of the supremacy of taking the offensive espoused by West Point strategists. He was a practical general concerned about resources, logistics, and landscapes. Grant devised a strategy in 1864 that targeted Lee's army, not Richmond, as his primary objective. By destroying Lee's army and Southern resources, the Confederacy could not continue. Unlike McClellan before him, he did not retreat out of Virginia after suffering defeat; instead, he continued to apply maximum pressure on the Confederacy. Lee came from an aristocratic background and was well read. He was an audacious, daring, aggressive general. He sacrificed a great deal for the Confederacy and was a tried-and-true Confederate nationalist. He preferred to go on the offensive whenever possible but during the Overland campaign, he dug in to resist Grant's invasion.

Congressional Reconstruction

In response to Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policy, Radical Republicans took back control of Reconstruction and implemented harsher policies. Reasons for Congressional backlash: 1) Moral revulsion to Johnson's leniency 2) Political motives: desire to transplant the Republican Party to the South with black voters 3) Economic motives: viewed the South as a new economic frontier for development and "carpet-bagging" 4) Social motives: desire to remake the South in the North's image When ex-Confederates elected under Johnson constitutions came to Washington to take their seats in Congress, Radical Republicans refused to recognize them. They created the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (February 1866) to evaluate conditions in the South and devise a strategy for Reconstruction. The committee consisted of 12 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The committee heard from 144 witnesses, including freed people and ex-Confederates like Robert E. Lee. Its conclusions were: (1) that it was "madness" to let ex-Confederates run Southern states; (2) that Johnson's leniency was "foolish"; and (3) that there must be "safeguards" to protect freedmen and re-establish the economy. These conclusions acted as a blueprint for Congressional action. Civil Rights Act (April 1866): written by Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, it was the first statutory definition of rights of US citizens. It outlawed public, not private, acts of discrimination: one could not bar blacks from public institutions but could bar them from one's home or church. It declared full citizenship "regardless of race, creed, or religion." It left enforcement to the states, not the federal government. 2/3 of Congress overrode Johnson's veto. Fourteenth Amendment (June 1866): Created by John Bingham in an effort to "federalize the Bill of Rights," the Fourteenth Amendment enshrined into the Constitution birthright citizenship. It declared "equal protection before the law" for all citizens and said that "No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, and property" without due process. Southern states had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to re-join.

Southern Home front.

Most of the war was fought on Confederate soil, straining Confederate resources and bringing the war home to all segments of Confederate society, including women and slaves. The Confederacy faced numerous problems at home: money supply; transportation; inefficient bureaucracy; class tension between poor whites and slaveholding plantation owners; social disintegration; breakdown of slavery; small industrial base. The South's agricultural base broke down during the war, as Northern armies disrupted production. Wherever the war went, agriculture was destroyed. 0.5 million men left agriculture to serve in the army, depleting productivity. The escape of 600,000 slaves to Union lines depleted Southern economic productivity. The South experienced widespread hunger. The South's cotton industry collapsed as well. In 1860, the South produced 5 million bales of cotton; by 1865, that number was down to 0.25 million bales. In 1863 and 1864, the Confederacy tried to embargo their cotton to convince Britain and France to come to their aid. It didn't work; those countries substituted Indian cotton for Southern cotton and failed to intervene. Fiscal policy in the South was a disaster. Since Confederate politicians opposed taxation, they waited until 1863 to enact a comprehensive tax law; even so, only 7% of Confederate revenues came from taxes. The rest came from borrowing, bond sales (25%), impressment of provisions, and printing money (50%). Southern money printing led to mass inflation. Southern states were divided in their allegiances. Approximately 100,000 Southern whites fought for the Union. If you add blacks, some Southern states provided more troops to the Union than the Confederacy (namely, Kentucky).

Triple Revolutions

Mostly affected the North, transforming Northern society while Southern society remained predominantly agricultural. 1) Market Revolution: Subsistence farming overtaken by farming for a market, which transformed people's lives. Americans began growing cash crops and increasingly used mechanized machinery to farm. People began purchasing products from markets rather than making it all by themselves. 2) Communication Revolution: the invention of the telegraph and rotary presses revolutionized politics and newspapers. News spread far more quickly across the country, raising tensions. 3) Transportation Revolution: railroads, steamboats, and improved roads made possible the transport of agriculture and industrial goods, enabling the market revolution. By 1860, there were more than 60,000 miles of railroad in the US. These railroads ran predominantly from east to west, changing language and creating time zones as well as re-orienting the country towards the west.

Comparative strengths and weaknesses of the North and South

North's advantage: industrial might Total population: 2.5 to 1 Naval ship tonnage: 25 to 1 Farm acreage: 3 to 1 Free men, 18-60: 4.4 to 1 Factory production value: 10 to 1 Draft animals: 1.8 to 1 Free men in military service: 44% of Northern men vs. 90% of Southern men Textile goods production: 14 to 1 Railroad mileage: 2.4 to 1 93% of pig iron produced in North In fact, New Haven County produced more guns than the entire South during the war. North advantage: existing two-party enabled Lincoln to use partisanship to pass war legislation. Southern advantage: large landmass. The South's huge coastline made the Northern blockade ineffective in the first few years. Southern advantage: interior lines. If the South stayed on the defensive, its armies could establish interior lines, stretching its enemy out so long as the Confederacy stayed on the defensive. However, Robert E. Lee rejected this defensive posture, venturing, first at Antietam and then at Gettysburg, into the North only to lose critical battles. As the insurgent, the Confederacy could make the enemy come to them and so long as the Confederacy's armies survived, the Confederacy could survive.

What each side said they were fighting for in 1861

North: Flag, Union, Constitution, saving the Republic. In the North, the Union and Constitution had come to mean a shield for free labor and individual rights. For Southerners, union had come to mean a threat to their very existence. Both sides claimed to be fighting for liberty. Both armies included highly politicized soldiers and citizens. IN the 12 years preceding the Civil War, the US had experienced record turnout of on average 75% of white males. Southerners claimed they were fighting against grievances: against the fanaticism of abolition and Northern conspiracy. Southerns claimed to be following the example of the American Revolution, revolting against a tyrannical centralized government. Southerners refused to submit to Northern 'subjugation.'

Radical Republicans and Reconstruction

Radical Republicans viewed Reconstruction as an opportunity to build a new social-political order in the South. Radical Republicans wanted to slow Reconstruction down and give Congress, not the president, control of the process. Unlike Lincoln, Radical Republicans believed that Southern states had forfeited their membership in the Union through secession and so needed to apply to Congress to return to the Union. Thaddeus Stevens labeled Southern states "conquered provinces." He said that Southern states had ceased to exist and had to be remade by Congress as though they had been part of a foreign nation. Senator Charles Sumner termed secession "state suicide." He argued that Southern states had ceased to exist when they seceded from the union, had forfeited their rights, and reverted to unorganized territories. As such, it was up to Congress to re-admit them. In July 1864, Radical Republicans in Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill. The law stated that states could only be re-admitted by the majority vote of a state's white male citizens. To vote or be delegates, a person had to declare they'd never served in the Confederate Army or aided the Confederate war effort (in an effort to delay the process). All officers above the rank of lieutenant and all civil officials would be disenfranchised. The law declared Confederate states were "conquered enemies." Lincoln pocket-vetoed the bill, saying that while he didn't reject the bill, he refused to be inflexibly committed to a plan. In response, Radical Republicans issued the Wade-Davis Manifesto on August 5, 1864. An unprecedented attack on the president by members of his own party, the Manifesto said Lincoln was usurping presidential power and behaving dictatorially. Whereas Lincoln tended to view Reconstruction as a means of defeating the Confederacy, Radical Republicans viewed Reconstruction as about punishing the South and reshaping the South's social and political order. Ideology: Their plans were rooted in their Unionism. They believed in equal rights before the law and the right to vote. Further, they believed in a positive, energetic, interventionist government. They sought to define equality as "equality before the law" and determine how to enforce that.

Social history and the Civil War

Some early scholars ignored the war but have since turned to the subject. Some early social historians like Charles Beard ignored slavery and focused on the economic differences between North and South. Social history can measure many things: demographic change; death, disease, and casualty rates; industrial production and loss of civilian pursuits; budgets and social impacts on towns or families. But it can't measure despair, loneliness, suffering, dislocation, nationalism, psychological trauma, home front anxiety, morality, values, concept of manhood, or the meaning of freedom to freedmen.

Northern Home Front

The Civil War transformed the relationship between people and their government. Before the war, the federal government did little more than deliver mail, collect tariffs, and conduct foreign affairs. The war expanded markets, bolstered domestic production, and changed the way individuals going to war experienced the nation-state. Republicans were able to enact an activist, interventionist government. They re-shaped the federal government, centralizing and empowering it and making it the engine of social change and economic growth. 1) Finance: The federal government sold war bonds to banks and financiers, raising $500 million by 1862--bought out of faith in US government. Because of the bond-buying program, the total national debt was absorbed by the general public. With the Legal Tender Act, the federal government also created a national currency, the greenback dollar backed by specie. Greenbacks became a symbol of union. 2) Taxes: In the Morrill Act of 1862, Republicans implemented a national income tax. Administered by the Internal Revenue Bureau, the Morrill Act divided taxes into two tiers: taxes on producers (the first-ever corporate income tax) and taxes on people. Tax rates are very low compared to today: 3% tax on yearly income over $600, 5% tax on income between $10,000 and $50,000, and 7.5% on income over $50,000. The income tax was eliminated in 1870. It was an example of economic nationalism. 3) Agricultural: With the Homestead Act, the government offered free land to settlers willing to farm the land. The law also created land-grant colleges, which were meant to educate farmers. The law inspired and promoted education abroad. 4) Transcontinental railroad: the Federal government created private corporations like the Union Pacific Railroad to build railroad to the Pacific. This setup led to corruption. 5) Freed the slaves: Through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, Republicans confiscated $3.5 billion in legal property, a massive expansion of federal power. Republicans argued slaves were deserving laborers and should be freed (free labor ideology). 6) Created the Quartermaster Corps: a military bureaucracy, the Quartermaster Corps established the relationship between government and private enterprise and orchestrated a massive economic mobilization. In 4 years, the Quartermaster Corps led to the purchase of 1 million horses and mules, 1.5 million barrels of pork, 100 million pairs of shoes, and employed 100,000 people.

Threats of Foreign Intervention

The principal aim of Union diplomacy during the war was to keep Britain neutral. The British aristocracy relished the idea of a divided America and wanted to see republicanism crushed. The British working classes and educated liberal middle class tended to sympathize with the Republican North, including workers in textile mills. In the first years of the war, some liberals thought the South was fighting for self-determination because the North was unwilling to make the war about slavery. Because the British textile industry depended on Southern cotton, industrialists favored the South and were hit hard when the South implemented an embargo policy of cotton to Europe to force the world to come to the South's aid. Unemployment rose in textile mills and interest rose in recognizing the Confederacy. To keep Britain, France, and Russia neutral, Seward insisted they remain uninvolved because the Civil War was a domestic affair. Union diplomat Charles Francis Adams cultivated support for the North's cause in public opinion and among the ruling classes. The UK nearly entered the war on the South's behalf during the Trent Affair but backed down after the US apologized profusely and released the Confederate diplomats. The intervention question was mostly settled by the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Great Britain was proud of being antislavery. Once the war became about slavery, it was much harder for Britain to support the Confederacy without risking political opposition at home.

Henry Clay

US Congressman (1811-1814, 1815-1821, 1823-25) and US Senator (186-07, 1810-11, 1831-42, 1849-52 who was noted for his American System (which integrated a national bank, the tariff, and internal improvements to promote economic stability and prosperity and was a major promoter of the Missouri Compromise (1820) and the Compromise of 1850, both efforts to shield the American union from sectional discord. Clay's loss in the presidential election of 1844 elevated James K. Polk to the presidency, who precipitated a crisis in the Union with the Mexican-American War. In the end, the Compromise of 1850 failed to heal sectional divisions, with the Fugitive Slave Act actually increasing the number of abolitionists and inviting severe criticism in the North.

Daniel Webster

US congressman (1813-1817, 1823-27), a US Senator (1827-41, 1845-50), and US secretary of state (1841-43, 1850-52). He is best known as an enthusiastic nationalist and as an advocate of business interests. He was an outspoken opponent of the Mexican-American War, accusing James K. Polk of maneuvering the country into war and demanding that the war be brought to an early end without the acquisition of territory. He was also an advocate of sectional compromise to preserve the Union, supporting the Compromise of 1850 despite the strengthened Fugitive Slave Act. His support for the Compromise tarnished his political career.

Lincoln's Evolution on Slavery

Upbringing: Lincoln grew up in racist Indiana and Illinois, the son of a dirt-poor failure of a farmer. He was self-taught. He was fond of negro dialect stories and loved blackface minstrel stories like many of his countrymen. Many of his jokes were off-color and racist. However, he did not believe in the racial science of the time. He grew up a Henry Clay Whig, admiring his national vision of the country and appreciating his staunch support for colonization. Pre-war position on slavery: Lincoln always believed slavery was wrong and morally indefensible. He was a free-soiler: a gradualist opposed to the extension of slavery. As early as 1837 as an Illinois state legislator, he was one of only two legislators to vote against right of property in slaves to the South. In one term as Congressman in 1847, he was personally appalled by DC slave auctions. As congressman, he introduced compensated emancipation bill. Nevertheless, in Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln expressed his opposition to social equality while opposing slavery. Even so, in his "House Divided" speech, he skewered the slave power conspiracy, calling for resistance to Dred Scott decision. Evolution during the war: Lincoln as commander-in-chief was conditioned to enact emancipation. Though he initially resisted drastic action, he gradually moved the country toward a policy of emancipation, preparing public opinion for the change and casting his actions as a military necessity. -In the first year of the war (Fall of 1861-Winter 1862), Lincoln tried to enforce policy to return fugitive slaves to loyal owners. This "denial of asylum" policy effectively denied asylum to fugitive slaves of loyal masters. The policy was designed to maintain border states' loyalty. The policy didn't work because it was next to impossible for officers to distinguish between loyal and disloyal slaveowners and because it inspired near-mutinies in some Union regiments who didn't want to act as slave-catchers. -General Butler created the idea of "contraband of war," arguing that freeing slaves was akin to confiscating the property of the enemy and so reducing their war potential. This idea was embraced by the North. -Lincoln tried to get border states to cooperate with compensated emancipation. He started with Delaware, begging Delaware's senator to accept a gradual, compensated emancipation policy. He argued that a compensated emancipation policy would be less expensive than continuing to fight the war. Delaware, along with the other border states, was uninterested. Lincoln never tried again. -In March 1862, Lincoln wrote an article of war authorizing Congress to begin to act against slavery. In April 1862, Congress passed, and Lincoln signed, legislation abolishing slavery in DC. In June 1862, Congress abolished slavery in the territories, fulfilling the classic Republican promise to stop the westward expansion of slavery. In July 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which Lincoln reluctantly signed, that declared that slaves of disloyal owners in any Confederate state shall henceforward be free and will be seized as contraband of war. Importantly, the law stated that slaves could be employed by the US. Lincoln referred to this legislation in his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation as legal jutification. -August 1862: In his public response to Horace Greeley, Lincoln declared that he meant to save the Union as best he could--by preserving slavery, by destroying it, or by destroying part and preserving part. Thus, in public opinion, Lincoln tied his position on emancipation to his plan to defeat the Confederacy. That same month, Lincoln lectured black ministers on his colonization scheme, calling on them to lead a colonization movement and blaming the presence of blacks for the Civil War. -September 1862: Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which began to transform the war into a crusade against slavery. It gave the Confederates 100 days to lay down their arms or else he would enact it. Lincoln explained his policy as a military necessity. -January 1, 1863: Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to the black community's relief.

Anthony Burns

Virginia slave-fugitive whose attempted rescue from a Boston jail ended in violence. Burns escaped from Richmond to the North by sneaking aboard a ship. Thanks to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Burns' owner, Suttle, traveled to Boston to reclaim Burns. Burns was arrested and Boston abolitionists, vehemently opposed to the Slave Act, rallied to aid Burns. A group of free blacks and abolitionists tried to break him out of jail but failed. Determined to see the Fugitive Slave Act enforced, President Franklin Pierce ordered marines and artillery to assist the guards watching over Burns and ordered a federal ship to return Burns to Virginia after the trial. Burns was convicted of being a fugitive and was escorted back to slavery past a crowd of 50,000 Bostonians. A black church soon raised $1,300 to purchase Burns' freedom and in less than a year, Anthony Burns was back in Boston. Importance: Burns' case illustrates the widespread and vehement opposition of New England to the Fugitive Slave Act, which sometimes resulted in illegal action to free slaves.

Jordan Anderson Letter

When a former slave from Big Springs, Tennessee, wrote a letter dictated to an attorney to his former master after the war, his response garnered attention in Northern newspapers. After the war, he resettled with his family in Dayton, OH. His former master wrote him a letter begging him to return to the plantation. Jordan Anderson's letter captured the absurdity of the slave system and the appreciation freed slaves had for their newfound freedom. "I thought the Yanks would've hung you long ago," he began his letter. He bragged about how he was now paid $25 a month, had a "comfortable home," and his children attended school. Sarcastically, he told his former master that he was awaiting back paid wages of $11,680 for his labors before he would return. He stated that "the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education," reflecting freed slaves' appreciation of education and learning.

Garibaldi's Question

When the Union tried to recruit Italian general Garibaldi to fight on their side, he first wanted to know whether the North was fighting to defeat slavery, in which case the war would have universal appeal, or only fighting for union, in which case he saw little reason to become involved. His question demonstrated how in the first years of the war, the North's reluctance to make the war about slavery reduced foreign support for the North and allowed Britain and France to contemplate intervening on the Confederate's behalf.

Battle of Chattanooga (November 23-25, 1863)

a decisive engagement fought at Chattanooga, which contributed significantly to the victory for the North. Chattanooga had strategic importance as a vital railroad junction for the Confederacy. In September 1863 a Federal army led by General William S. Rosecrans was besieged there by a Southern army commanded by General Braxton Bragg. The following month General Grant took over the campaign to relieve the Union troops to relieve the Union troops and seize the offensive. With the help of reinforcements from General Hooker and Sherman, the Federal forces defeated the Confederates in the Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge and lifted the siege; by the end of the month the Confederate army was in retreat into Georgia. Losses of men were less than at Chickamauga (about 6,000 Union and 7,000 Confederate), but the result was completely decisive. Along with Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the Union victory at Chattanooga was a turning point in the war, pushing the Confederates into the Deep South in Georgia and opening the way for Sherman's march to Atlanta and Savannah the following year.

John Washington

a half-white slave born in Fredericksburg who escaped to Union lines when Union armies approached Fredericksburg in 1862. When the white residents of Fredericksburg panicked and fled the city at the approach of the Union Army, Washington decided not to re-join his owner further south. Instead, after locking up the hotel at which he worked, he told the other slaves/hotel workers to escape past Union lines. Upon entering Union lines, he passed around Confederate newspapers to Union soldiers eager to assess Confederate morale. He then served as a cook/guide in the Union forces until he left to make his way to Washington D.C. Because Congress passed a law eliminating slavery in D.C., Washington gained his freedom upon entering the city and was later joined by his wife, child, and mother. An example of how a slave seized his freedom given the opportunity by the Union forces and by Congress.

Copperheads

during the American Civil War, any citizen in the North who opposed the war policy and advocated restoration of the Union through a negotiated settlement with the South. Nearly all Copperheads were Democrats, but most Northern Democrats were not Copperheads. Copperhead strength was mainly in the Midwest, where many families had Southern roots and where agrarian interests fostered resentment of the growing dominance of industrialists in the Republican Party and federal government. In addition, groups opposed to conscription and emancipation--e.g., the Irish population in New York City, who feared that freed Southern blacks would come north and take jobs away--backed Peace Democrat leaders. Copperheads also drew strength from the ranks of those who objected to Lincoln's abrogation of civil liberties and those who simply wanted an end to the massive bloodshed. By the end of the war, the terms Democrat and Copperhead had become virtually synonymous throughout much of the North. As a result, even though the Copperheads failed to exercise any significant influence on the conduct or outcome of the war and even though most Northern Democrats supported Lincoln and the war effort, the Democratic Party carried the stigma of disloyalty for decades after Appomattox.

Port Royal

freedman's colony during the war and became a model/test case for emancipation. Slaves transitioned from slave labor to free labor. White leaders tried to destroy myths about free people by convincing them to still work on cotton fields but this time for wages. But free people wanted to grow corn, beans, sweat potatoes; they wanted to promote their own independence and sustenance. They were tired of working in gangs and the men didn't want their women to work in the fields. Using work stoppages, the freedmen of Port Royal wrangled concessions from the whites, such as the construction of a school for black children, in return for working the cotton fields. Enslaved people saw their autonomy wrapped up in land ownership. This disagreement over who could control labor became a major issue of Reconstruction.

George McClellan

general who skillfully reorganized Union forces in the first year of the Civil War but drew wide criticism for repeatedly failing to press his advantage over Confederate troops. After the miserable defeat at Bull Run, McClellan was appointed head of the Army of the Potomac. He effectively raised, organized, and trained the Army of the Potomac. He became a genius at developing the morale of his army through frequent marches. However, he was reluctant to march his army against Richmond, leading Lincoln to order him to march. Instead of marching directly at Richmond, he landed his 100,000 troops on the Virginia Peninsula, where they became bogged down and eventually had to be evacuated. He blamed Lincoln for his failure, saying that he had not been adequately reinforced since Lincoln had held onto some troops to defend DC. At the Battle of Antietam, he fought Lee's Army to a stalemate but failed to press his advantage. After, Lincoln relieved him of command permanently. A proslavery New Jersey Democrat, he resisted turning the war into a war against slavery and vehemently criticized Lincoln privately and behaved insubordinately. In 1864, he was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party, though he repudiated its platform, which denounced the war as a failure. He was defeated, in part thanks to the votes of his former soldiers in the Army of the Potomac.

Border States

in the civil war the slave states between the north and the south that stayed in the union: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In the first years of the war, Lincoln treaded carefully around the question of slavery so as not to drive the border states into the Confederacy. Each state experienced fierce intra-family warfare. In Maryland, 30,000 men volunteered for the Union army and 20,000 for the Confederate army. In Kentucky, 50,000 white men and 25,000 black men fought for the Union while 35,000 fought for the Confederacy (despite most Kentuckians fighting for the Union, 90% of postwar monuments celebrated the Confederacy). Missouri was the site of a fierce border war: 80,000 men fought for the Union and 30,000 Missourians fought for the Confederacy.

Abolitionism

movement against slavery chiefly responsible for creating the emotional climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. Never more than 5% of the Northern population but they managed to have an outsized effect on events thanks to newspapers like William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator. Progression: from colonization to gradualism to immediatism. Barriers to anti-slavery movement: -proslavery defense: most abolitionists didn't understand how harshly proslavery defenders would defend slavery -abolitionists considered dangerous: a danger to the social order -small in number: never more than 5% of Northern population. Used newspapers to amplify message out of proportion to their numbers. -legacy of American Revolution: Enlightenment ideals fueled the antislavery movement (hostility to monarchy, growth in republican ideas, faith in human reason, notion of individual liberty, right to revolution, doctrine of consent/popular sovereignty, idea of equality). At the same time, the Revolutionary War intensified the defense of slavery thanks to expansion of US following the war. -America a republic: With polarizing issues like slavery, the side under attack has the right to dissent (Confederacy greatest dissent) -Sanctity of the Constitution: Because of Southern constitutional power and Supreme Court decisions like Dred Scott, abolitionists had to think about combating slavery in illegal ways. One of the central themes in Uncle Tom's Cabin, for example, is the necessity of illegal action and violence. With so much aligned against them, it sometimes felt like abolitionists were up against a behemoth.

Republican Party

party founded in 1852 after the Kansas-Nebraska Act devoted to the principle of excluding slavery from the West. The Kansas-Nebraska Act led to the dissolution of the Whig Party and split Northern Democrats. The Republican Party became the fastest ascending and most successful third party movement in American history. Members of the Republican Party recognized that you might not be able to end slavery outright but you could cordon it off so it would kill itself. In 1856, Republicans ran John C. Fremont as their presidential candidate and he came close to winning if it weren't for the Know Nothings in the American Party, an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Party popular in New England.

Freeport Doctrine

position stated by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas that settlers in a U.S. territory could circumvent the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision--which held that neither states nor territories were empowered to make slavery illegal--simply by failing to provide for police enforcement of the rights of slave owners to their slaves. While Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act had infuriated Northern Democrats who were opposed to the spread of slavery, his Freeport Doctrine was acceptable to many Northern Democrats. However, it angered those in the South who favored the continuation of slavery. Although Douglas was returned to the Senate in 1858, his stature as leader of the increasingly divided Democratic Party was diminished, and the Freeport Doctrine played a role in the division of the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern Democrats in the 1860 election and played a role in the ascendancy of the antislavery Republican Party.

Andrew Johnson

president (1865-1869) who took office upon the assassination of President Lincoln. His lenient Reconstruction policies toward the South embittered the Radical Republicans in Congress and led to his political downfall and to his impeachment, though he was acquitted. Johnson was placed on Lincoln's ticket in a symbolic role: he had been the wartime governor of Tennessee under Lincoln's 10% plan and had been the only Senator from a Confederate state to not secede with his state. A fan of Andrew Jackson, Johnson was admired in Tennessee as a Jacksonian populist. A unionist and states' rightist, Johnson had once owned 11 slaves and was an ardent white supremacist. Presidential Reconstruction: Johnson's first statement on Reconstruction made it seem as if he would pursue a tough approach to the South: "Treason must be made odious." Though he personally hated the Southern planter aristocracy, Johnson pursued a lenient policy toward the South. His slogan: "The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was," meaning that he wanted to bring back Southern states as leniently as possible and opposed amendments to the Constitution that would create black civil and political equality. In the summer of 1865, before Congress returned to session, Johnson appointed provisional governors of Southern states, allowed Southern states with less than 10% of their population to write new constitutions and rejoin the Union. These "Johnson governments" created whites-only governments led by ex-Confederates. They passed black codes, which barred blacks from jury duty, voting, or serving in the government. He vetoed the re-passage of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1866; Congress later overrode his veto. Though 40,000 blacks had been given 40 acres each thanks to Sherman's Field Order No. 15, Johnson in early October returned all of that land to its "rightful previous owners." Save for his decision to no longer pardon great Southern landowners unless they personally applied for a pardon, Johnson's policies were so lenient to the South that some called it "Confederate Reconstruction." When Congress returned to session in the fall of 1865, Congress began reversing his policies and Johnson became more and more isolated. His decision to take to the stump in the 1866 election--and compare himself to Jesus--against Radical Republicans contributed to a Republican landslide in the North.

Morrill Act of 1862

provided grants of land to states to finance the establishment of colleges specializing in 'agriculture and the mechanic arts.' Funds from the sale of the land were used by some states to establish new schools; other states turned the money over to existing state or private colleges to create agriculture and mechanic arts.

Charles Harvey Brewster

racist Union soldier who became antislavery as the war progressed. Going nowhere in life, he enlisted with the 10th Massachusetts regiment after Fort Sumter. He became the official scribe of his regiment, keeping records and writing home when his comrades were killed. He became a commissioned officer, an achievement he was supremely proud of. During the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, he began writing antislavery passages, becoming aggressively anti-Southern and anti-slavery. When an escaped slave named David reached Union lines, he adopted him as his personal servant and supplied him with clothes. When Orders arrived that fugitive slaves must be returned to loyal slaveholders, he chose to instruct David to run away rather than turn him in. Slavery divided his regiment: some were abolitionist and others hated the idea that they were fighting to end slavery. Although he used the n***** word constantly, he felt that to win the war the North must destroy the system of slavery. He nearly died from dysentery twice, had his horse shot out from under him, and fought in every major engagement in the Eastern theater except Antietam. He and his regiment were discharged after Spotsylvania because only 200 out of the original 1,000 were still fit for duty. He hated civilian life and resented men who had not enlisted, so he re-enlisted to recruit black soldiers. At his desk job in Norfolk, VA, he also wrote love letters from illiterate black women to soldiers at the front. Importance: Brewster demonstrates how many racist Northerners came to oppose slavery. He also wrote well about the confusion and horror of battle for the common soldier.

"The Gates Ajar" by Elizabeth Ward

second or third best-selling book of the 19th century (behind Uncle Tom's Cabin and possibly Ulysses S Grant's memoir). Informed by her personal experience of loss after a soldier with whom she was in love was killed in Antietam, Ward wrote the novel for other women and widows. A combination of mysticism and spiritualism, the novel describes heaven as a place with trees, mountains, rivers, people in the flesh. Her book made heaven something people could live, in contrast to the tragedy of real life. One of no less than 80 books published about the afterlife, "The Gates Ajar" represented a trend in post-Civil War America towards religion and hope.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. The debates attracted thousands and each lasted 3 hours. Douglas attacked Lincoln as a radical, threatening the continued stability of the Union and advocating for racial equality. Lincoln emphasized the moral iniquity of slavery and attacked popular sovereignty for the bloody results it had produced in Kansas. At Freeport Lincoln challenged Douglas to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. Douglas replied that settlers could circumvent the decision by not establishing the local police regulations--i.e., a slave code--that protected a master's property. Without such protection, no one would bring slaves into a territory. This became known as the "Freeport Doctrine." Douglas's position, while acceptable to many Northern Democrats, angered the South and led to the division of the Democratic Party and diminished Douglas's stature as national leader of the Democratic Party. Douglas won re-election. While Lincoln lost, he won acclaim as an eloquent spokesman for the Republican cause, kick-starting his run for the presidency.