Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Civil War (1850-1880)


 William Seward – Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson; purchase of Alaska “Seward’s Folly”

Compromise of 1850 – (1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4) federal assumption of Texas debt, (5) slave trade abolished in DC, and (6) new fugitive slave law; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas

Fugitive Slave Act – runaway slaves could be caught in the North and be brought back to their masters (they were treated as property – running away was as good as stealing)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin – depicted the evils of slavery (splitting of families and physical abuse); increased participation in abolitionist movement, condemned
by South

Know-Nothing (American) Party – opposed to all immigration, strongly anti-Catholic

Popular Sovereignty – the principle that a state should decide for itself whether or not to allow slavery

Kansas-Nebraska Act – territory split into Kansas and Nebraska, popular sovereignty (Kansas slave, Nebraska free); proposed by Stephen A. Douglas
 
“Bleeding Kansas” – border ruffians in election on issue of slavery incited controversy, proslavery group attacked Lawrence, Kansas, Pottawatomie Massacre

Lecompton Constitution – proslavery constitution in Kansas, supported by Buchanan, freesoilers against it (victorious), denied statehood until after secession

John Brown – led Pottawatomie Massacre, extreme abolitionist who believed he was doing God’s work

Pottawatomie Creek (May 1856) – John Brown and his sons slaughtered five men as a response to the election fraud in Lawrence and the caning of Sumner in Congress

Republican Party – formed in response to Kansas-Nebraska Act, banned in the South, John C Fremont first presidential candidate

Harpers Ferry (1859) – Brown aimed to create an armed slave rebellion and establish black free state; Brown executed and became martyr in the North

Dred Scott v. Sandford – slaves could not sue in federal courts (blacks no longer considered citizens), slaves could not be taken from masters except by the law, Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, Congress not able to prohibit slavery in a state

Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) – over Senate seat for Illinois (Douglas victor), Lincoln stated the country could not remain split over the issue of slavery

Freeport Doctrine – Douglas was able to reconcile the Dred Scott Decision with popular sovereignty; voters would be able to exclude slavery by not allowing laws that treated slaves as property

Fort Sumter – first shots are fired at Charleston, North Carolina

20-Negro Law – exempted those who owned or oversaw twenty or more slaves from service in the Confederate Army; “rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight”

Anaconda plan – the Union planned a blockade that would not allow supplies of any sort into the Confederacy; control the Mississippi and Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico

Ulysses S. Grant – won battles in the West and raised northern morale (esp. Shiloh, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson), made Union commanding general

William T. Sherman – pushed through northern Georgia, captured Atlanta, “march to the sea” (total war and destruction), proceeded to South Carolina

Robert E. Lee – opposed to slavery and secession, but stayed loyal to Virginia, despite offer for command of Union Army

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson – Lee’s chief lieutenant and premier cavalry officer

Battle of Antietam – Lee’s attack on Maryland in hopes that he could take it from the Union, bloodiest day of the war, stalemate, McClellan replaced by Burnside, stalemate,
South would never be so close to victory again

Emancipation Proclamation – issued by Lincoln following Antietam (close enough to a victory to empower the proclamation), declared slaves in the Confederacy free (did not include border states), symbolic gesture to support Union’s moral cause in the war

Battle of Gettysburg – Lee invaded Pennsylvania, bloodiest battle of the war, Confederate Pickett’s Charge (disastrous), Lee forced to retreat (not pursued by Meade), South doomed to never invade North again, Gettysburg Address given by Lincoln (nation over union)


New York City draft riots (1863) – drafting extremely hated by Northerners, sparked by Irish-Americans against the black population, 500 lives lost, many buildings burned

Military Reconstruction Act (1867) – South divided into 5 military districts; states to guarantee full suffrage for blacks; ratify 14th amendment

Compromise of 1877 – South to gain removal of last troops from Reconstruction; North wins Hayes as president