Unit Five: The Civil War & Reconstruction SSUSH8: Explore the relationship between slavery, growing north-south divisions, and westward expansion that led to the outbreak of the Civil War. d. Explain how the Compromise of 1850 arose out of territorial expansion and population growth. e. Evaluate the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the failure of popular sovereignty, Scott v. Sanford, John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, and the election of 1860 as events leading to the Civil War. SSUSH9: Evaluate key events, issues, and individuals related to the Civil War a. Explain the importance of the growing economic disparity between the North and the South through an examination of population, functioning railroads, and industrial output. b. Discuss Lincoln’s purpose in using emergency powers to suspend habeas corpus, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, and delivering the Gettysburg and Second Inaugural Addresses. c. Examine the influences of Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, William T. Sherman, and Jefferson Davis. d. Explain the importance of Fort Sumter, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Atlanta, as well as the impact of geography on these battles. SSUSH10: Identify legal, political, and social dimensions of Reconstruction. a. Compare and contrast Presidential with Congressional Reconstruction, including the significance of Lincoln’s assassination and Johnson’s impeachment. b. Investigate the efforts of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) to support poor whites, former slaves, & Indians. c. Describe the significance of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. d. Explain the Black Codes, the Ku Klux Klan, and other forms of resistance to racial equality during Reconstruction. e. Analyze how the Presidential Election of 1876 marked the end of Reconstruction. SSUSH13: Evaluate efforts to reform American society and politics in the Progressive Era. c. Connect the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson to the expansion of Jim Crow laws and the formation of the NAACP. Chapter One: Roots of Conflict California’s desire to come into the Union as a free state led to the drafting of the Compromise of 1850. It tried to make everyone happy and succeeded in pleasing almost no one. The agreement allowed California to come in as a free state, but to make the pro-slavery folks happy, the Fugitive Slave Law was toughened up—making the work of the Underground Railroad even more important. As for the rest of the Mexican Cession, the issue of slavery was put on hold. The topic was just too controversial in Congress to even be debated, so they issued a "Gag Rule" to prevent slavery from even being discussed. (This doomed the proposed Wilmot Proviso, which tried to keep slavery out of the Mexican Cession. It never made it to the floor for a vote.) In 1852, a northerner named Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a fictional account of slavery’s cruelty called Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It became an international bestseller (at one point, second only to The Bible in sales). After reading the book, people in the North wondered how the South could be so mean. People in the South wondered why people in the North could be so easily be brought to tears. Even though this book (which is still in print) didn’t start the Civil War, it did strain relations between the North and the South. Two years after Stowe’s book hit the stands, Democrat Senator from Illinois, Stephen Douglas, proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In it was a plan to do away with the Missouri Compromise and let states decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. This is called popular sovereignty and all kinds of trouble for the Democrats resulted from it. Not only was a new antislavery political party formed during this time (called the Republican Party), but so many pro-slavery and anti-slavery men flooded into Kansas (the first to vote on the issue) that fighting broke out. For nearly ten years, hundreds of people were killed over the issue of slavery—giving the state the dubious nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.” In 1857, a slave—Dred Scott—found himself alone in a free state when his owner died. He thought that since no one now “owned” him, and he was in a free state anyway, he was free. Under the law, though, he was supposed to be shipped southward to be resold. Scott sued for his freedom. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court. They ruled that Blacks were property and therefore had no rights. The court also ruled that the whole notion of free states and slave states created by the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The Dred Scott Decision was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Tensions between the North and South grew. (By the way, Scott eventually got his freedom when he raised enough donations to buy himself. Unfortunately, he died a short time later.) Stephen Douglas ran for re-election in 1858 and was opposed by a little-known lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Unlike today when politicians use commercials to talk to the people, Lincoln and Douglas travelled around Illinois debating the issue of the day— slavery. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates made the unknown Lincoln a national figure. The South added Lincoln to their list of worries as the abolitionist movement grew in the North. There were countless people who worked to end slavery. Some of them included William Lloyd Garrison who ran an antislavery newspaper called The Liberator and Frederick Douglass who traveled around speaking eloquently about how he escaped slavery. And, of course, there was Harriet Tubman who was called “Moses” by the slaves she led to freedom along the Underground Railroad (which was a series of safe-houses and escape routes leading to free states and not a choo-choo that went underground). Yet there were other abolitionists who had more radical and violent ideas on how to end slavery. One of them was John Brown. John Brown considered himself to be God’s agent on Earth and he decided that the only way to cleanse the country of the “original sin of slavery” was with blood. So, in 1859, Brown led a group of followers into Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to 1 seize the guns stored there at the federal arsenal. He was sure that the slaves would then rally to him and he could lead them in a massive uprising that would make Nat Turner’s Rebellion like a picnic. That way, he could destroy slavery forever. (His mistake: the slaves apparently didn’t get the memo about the uprising.) Instead, the army arrived and those who survived were put on trial for treason— including John Brown himself. A short time later he was hanged (Another mistake: rope burns are a killer). Those who thought Brown’s intentions were right sang his praises. People who thought he was nuts said good riddance. One person called him the “meteor of the war” because back then comets and shooting stars were considered signs of bad things to come. And if there is one thing that may have finally pushed America into Civil War it was John Brown’s Raid. You see, because of people like John Brown scaring the crap out of southerners, they started forming militia groups to protect themselves. Those groups formed the basis of the Confederate Army. In the 1860 Presidential election the Democrat Party was split between three sectional candidates. The Republican Party saw their chance and nominated Abraham Lincoln. He was considered a moderate in the North because he only called for the restriction of slavery, not its abolition. Lincoln wanted slavery to be kept out of the territories to prevent its spread, but he vowed not to interfere with it where it existed. However, he did feel that the current situation couldn’t last forever. He said that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” In other words, Lincoln felt that eventually the country must become all one thing, or all another—slave or free. Still, to the people in the South, he was much too radical. When Lincoln won the election in November, South Carolina voted to secede from the Union the following month. By the time Lincoln took office in March of 1861, seven states had left the Union. By June, four more were gone, including Virginia where the newly elected President of the Confederate States of America (Jefferson Davis) had his capital in Richmond. (Maryland was going to vote on secession, but Lincoln had those in favor of it locked up so they couldn’t do it. Otherwise, Washington would’ve been in enemy territory. This was an example of how Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the crisis.) The “border states” of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and (later) West Virginia still had slaves, but didn’t join the Confederacy. Chapter Two: The Civil War Begins In the middle of Charleston Harbor sat Fort Sumter. South Carolina told the Union forces within to get out. They refused and in the pre-dawn darkness of April 12, 1861 (at exactly 4:30am), the South opened fire on Fort Sumter and the Civil War began. After over thirty hours of bombardment, and with no help coming, the Union soldiers in Fort Sumter surrendered. The South won its first victory and, ironically, no one was killed. It was a bloodless opening to the bloodiest war in American history. One of the reasons why the Civil War cost so many lives was because the tactics both sides used were way behind the times. Technology was far in advance of what the generals were planning. They still lined up their men like the British did at Bunker Hill and marched into the guns—which were now much more accurate and could be reloaded a whole lot faster.