Road to Civil War

Road to Civil War

• Sectionalism increased before the Civil War because people wanted states to have more autonomy.
• Tariffs in the 1800s aided the industrial North by safeguarding factories and boosting trade.
• In the agricultural South, tariffs increased the price of imported goods, led to foreign tariffs on cotton, damaged the Southern economy, and increased tensions between North and South.
• Southern slavery provided cheap cotton to Northern factories, fueling the textile industry and boosting Northern banks, shipping, and trade, altogether profiting from the cotton economy.
• Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave, abolitionist, and conductor on the Underground Railroad
• Tubman is known for leading many enslaved people to freedom, acting as a spy and nurse during the Civil War, and advocating for women's rights.
• Nat Turner’s Rebellion was a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831, led by Nat Turner.
• Turner and his followers killed about 60 white people before being captured, resulting in harsher slave laws and increased fear of future uprisings in the South.
• The Compromise of 1850 made California a free state, strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, and allowed popular sovereignty in certain territories.
• The North gained a free state but had to return escaped slaves, increasing abolitionist anger.
• The Republican Party formed in 1854 to oppose slavery's expansion.
• The Party was formed by abolitionists, former Whigs, and Free Soilers, who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, sought to stop slavery's spread, and became a major political force.
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 let settlers in Kansas and Nebraska decide on slavery via popular sovereignty
• The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had banned slavery in those territories and led to violent conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas" and increased tensions.
• "Bleeding Kansas" (1854–1859) involved clashes between pro- and anti-slavery settlers due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, heightening North-South tensions before the Civil War.
• The 1857 Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford stated Black people were not citizens and struck down the Missouri Compromise, increasing sectional tensions.
• The Dred Scott decision angered the North by denying Black citizenship and allowing slavery in all territories, strengthening the South and pushing the nation closer to Civil War.
• John Brown was an abolitionist who used violence against slavery.
• Brown led the Raid on Harpers Ferry (1859) to start a slave revolt but was captured and executed, becoming a martyr for the anti-slavery cause.
• Secession is when a state leaves a country, with South Carolina seceding first in 1860, leading to the Civil War.
• Secession, triggered by South Carolina in 1860, led to the creation of the Confederate States of America (1861) and started the Civil War with Jefferson Davis as president.

Civil War

• The Civil War (1861–1865) was a conflict between the North (Union) and South (Confederacy) over slavery and states' rights and was fought within the same country.
• The Civil War spanned from 1861 to 1865.
• The northern army was called the Union Army.
• The southern army was called the Confederate Army.
• Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, leading the South to preserve slavery and states' rights.
• Ulysses S. Grant was the commanding general of the Union Army during the Civil War and later became the 18th President.
• Robert E. Lee commanded the Confederate Army during the Civil War and led Southern forces in major battles.
• Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President who led the Union and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, starting the process of ending slavery.
• Fort Sumter's attack in April 1861 marked the start of the Civil War when Confederate forces fired on the Union garrison there.
• Antietam (1862), the bloodiest single day in U.S. history, led President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
• Gettysburg (1863) was a turning point in the Civil War, where the Union victory ended the Confederate invasion and shifted the war's momentum.
• Vicksburg (1863) was significant because the Union victory secured control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy.
• The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) declared enslaved people in Confederate states free, motivating slaves to escape, join the Union Army, and shifting the war's purpose to ending slavery.
• The Sacking of Atlanta (1864) was a major Union victory led by General William Tecumseh Sherman, crippling the South by disrupting supply lines and damaging infrastructure.
• Appomattox Court House (April 9, 1865) marks Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant, ending the Civil War.
• The Homestead Act (1862) granted 160 acres of free land to settlers who farmed it for five years, promoting westward expansion.
• The Morrill Land Grant Act (1862) provided federal land to states to fund agricultural and technical colleges, expanding education in the U.S.

Reconstruction

• Reconstruction (1865–1877) was the period after the Civil War focused on rebuilding the South and reintegrating Confederate states politically, socially, and economically.
• John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, due to Booth's opposition to Lincoln’s policies.
• The 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery in the United States, except as punishment for a crime.
• Andrew Johnson, the 17th U.S. president, succeeded Lincoln, opposed strict Reconstruction policies, vetoed civil rights laws, and was lenient toward the South, causing conflicts with Congress.
• Sharecropping was a system in which freed slaves and poor farmers rented land for a share of their crops, keeping them in poverty and debt.
• Radical Republicans in Congress favored strict Reconstruction policies to protect Black rights and punish the South.
• The 14th Amendment (1868) granted citizenship to all born in the U.S. and ensured equal protection under the law; its equal protection clause is still significant today, shaping civil rights cases.
• The Freedmen's Bureau (1865) assisted former slaves with food, shelter, education, and legal aid during Reconstruction.
• The 15th Amendment (1870) granted Black men the right to vote, but the South used poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses to prevent many African Americans from voting.
• Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate in 1870, representing Mississippi, marking progress in African American political participation.
• A "carpetbagger" was an insulting term for a Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War, especially to profit.
• A "scalawag" referred to a white Southerner who supported Republicans during Reconstruction.
• The 1876 election effectively ended Reconstruction when the Compromise of 1877 withdrew federal troops from the South, ending efforts to enforce civil rights for freed slaves.
• Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans in the South from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s.