OVERVIEW: HISTORICAL PERIOD #6

SECTIONALISM, CIVIL WAR, RECONSTRUCTION (1841-1877)


TESTING THE NEW NATION, Part Three, pages 358-359

** This is an excellent overview of the time period. **

1. "peculiar institution"

a. What distinction does the American slave population hold?
b. What steps did the federal government take to check the growth of slavery?
c. How did the Mexican Cession re-open the question of extension of slavery
 

THE SOUTH AND THE SLAVERY CONTROVERSY 1793-1860
Ch. 17, pgs. 360-379

I. THE COTTON KINGDOM, pages 360-371

1. "noblesse oblige" among the planter aristocracy, (paternalism)
2. "snobocracy," ("cotton snobs"), "rednecked farmers," "subsistence
    farmers," "poor white trash," "hillbillies," "crackers," "clay eaters,"
    (yeoman farmers), "mountain whites"
3. Upper South, Lower (Deep) South, "black belt"
4. mulattos
5. Frederick Douglass
6. Congress ends the foreign importation of slaves 1808, "black ivory,"
    smuggling, slavers
7. white overseers, black drivers, "breakers," (house servants, field hands)
8. kinship taboos, ("jumping the broomstick"), call-and-response pattern,
    responsorial preaching
9. Gabriel Prosser, Gabriel's Rebellion, Virginia, 1800
10. Denmark Vesey, Charleston South Carolina, 1822
11. Nat Turner, Southampton County Virginia, 1831

a. What factors brought about the existence of "King Cotton"?
b. How could Sir Walter Scott possibly have helped to cause the Civil War?
c. What problems underlay the "moonlight and magnolia" tradition of the
    South?
d. What % of white southerners owned slaves in 1860?
e. Why were non-slaveholding southerners willing to fight to preserve
    slavery? Why were the "mountain whites" an exception?
f. What factors limited the activities of free blacks in the South? North?
g. Why did most slaveowners care for the welfare of their slaves?
h. Why were slaveholders in the Upper South willing to sell some of their
    slaves to planters in the Lower South?
i. What were the characteristics of life in slavery in the South?
j. What were the characteristics of African-American culture?
k. What methods were used by slaves to resist but survive in bondage?
l. What effect did slavery eventually have on white owners?

II. ABOLITIONISM (pages 371-376)

1. 18th. century, Quakers
2. 1817 American Colonization Society; 1822 Liberia, Monrovia
3. 1833 Britain ends slavery in the British West Indies


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4. Theodore Dwight Weld, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Lane Theological Seminary,
    Lyman Beecher (Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Beecher, Henry Ward
    Beecher), "Lane Rebels"
5. William Lloyd Garrison , The Liberator 1831, immediate emancipation
6. American Anti-Slavery Society 1833, Wendell Phillips
7. Black abolitionists, David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the
    World 1829, Sojourner Truth, Martin Delaney, Frederick Douglass, Narrative
    of the Life of Frederick Douglass 1845
8. Liberty Party 1840 (James G. Birney, 1844), Free Soil Party 1848,
    Republican Party 1854
9. Mason-Dixon Line, slave codes
10. House of Representatives, gag rule, 1836, John Quincy Adams, repeal 1844
11. 1837, Alton Illinois, Elijah P. Lovejoy, abolitionist editor, "martyr
      abolitionist," "free-soilers"

a. What arguments were used in the South to counteract abolitionist ideas?
b. What economic stake did the North have in the slave states?

III. WHAT WAS THE TRUE NATURE OF SLAVERY? (pages 377-378)

1. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, American Negro Slavery, 1918:"happy slave" theory
2. Stanley Elkins, Slavery, 1959 - harsh slavery conditions
3. Eugene Genovese, paternalism and slavery; "Sambo" stereotype
4. Kenneth Stampp, study of slave resistance
5. Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 1977 - Sambo as
    sham, retention of African culture
 

MANIFEST DESTINY AND ITS LEGACY, 1841-1848 Ch. 18, pgs. 380-399

I. THE TYLER PRESIDENCY (pages 380-387)

1. John L. O'Sullivan, "Manifest Destiny"
2. John Tyler, "His Accidency," "president without a party"
3. British travel books, (Domestic Manners of the Americans, Frances
    Trollope, 1832), "Third War with England," 1837 Canadian rebellion,
    the Caroline Affair, 1841 Creole Affair, Maine-New Brunswick boundary
    dispute, Aroostook War, Webster-Ashburton Treaty 1842
4. Lone Star Republic, treaties with France, Holland, Belgium (1839-40)
5. Captain Robert Gray 1792 Columbia River, Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-
    1806, missionaries Willamette River Valley 1830's, Convention of 1818,
    "Oregon Fever" 1841, Oregon Trail, "border ruffians,""Fifty-four Forty or
    Fight" (1846)

a. What was the Whig legislative program at the beginning of Harrison's term?
b. What factors resulted in difficulties between Great Britain and the U.S.?
c. Why was Great Britain very interested in Texas?
d. What nations claimed the Oregon Territory? Why were only two left in the
    1840's? Upon what were Britain's claims based?

II. POLK WHO? (pages 387-390)

1. Election of 1844, Texas issue, Oregon issue, James K. Polk, "Young
    Hickory," "Dark Horse," Henry Clay, Liberty Party, James G. Birney
2. Texas annexation by joint resolution of Congress (early 1845)
3. Walker Tariff 1846, restoration of the independent treasury 1846
4. Oregon Territory, 49th. parallel, Oregon Treaty, 1846


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a. What two major factors motivated those who espoused Manifest Destiny?
b. What was Polk's four-point program?

III. WAR WITH MEXICO (pages 390-395,398)

1. Texas border, Nueces River, Rio Grande
2. John Slidell mission to Mexico City 1845
3. General Zachary Taylor, "American blood on the American soil," "Mr. Polk's
    War," Abraham Lincoln (Whig congressman from Illinois) - "spotty Lincoln"
4. Santa Anna deal and double-cross
5. Colonel Stephen Kearny, Santa Fe, California, John C. Fremont, 1846,
    California Bear Flag Republic
6. General Zachary Taylor, "Old Rough and Ready," Monterrey, Battle of Buena
    Vista 2/22-23/1847; General Winfield Scott, "Old Fuss and Feathers,"
    Veracruz, Mexico City, Sept., 1847 (yellow fever)
7. Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo 1848
8. David Wilmot, Wilmot Proviso, August 1846

a. What problems existed between the United States and Mexico in the 1840's?
b. For what reasons was Polk prepared to declare war (May 9, 1846)? What
    reason was actually cited?
c. Why did Polk provoke war with Mexico?
d. What were the terms of the treaty with Mexico?
e. What were the results of the war with Mexico?
f. What was the effect of the Wilmot Proviso?

IV. THE CALIFORNIOS (pages 396-397)

1. Mexican Cession
2. Father Junipero Serra, Franciscan missions
3. 1821 secularization program, ranchos
 

RENEWING THE SECTIONAL STRUGGLE, 1848-1854,Ch. 19, pgs. 400-419

I. COMPROMISE OF 1850 (pages 400-410)

1. northern abolitionists, southern "fire-eaters"
2. Election of 1848, Democrats: Lewis Cass (popular sovereignty) and William
    Butler, Whigs: Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, Free Soil Party:
    Martin Van Buren, "Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men"
3. California Gold Rush, "gold fever," Sutter's Mill, James Marshall, Jan.
    1848, "forty-niners," placer mining, San Francisco, (Levi Strauss)
4. Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, "Moses"
5. Henry Clay, "Great Pacificator," (omnibus bill)
6. Stephen A. Douglas, "Little Giant"
7. John C, Calhoun, "Great Nullifier"
8. Daniel Webster, Seventh of March Speech (1850)
9. William H. Seward, "higher law" argument opposing extension of slavery
10. Millard Fillmore, Compromise of 1850, "Second Era of Good Feelings"
11. Fugitive Slave Act 1850, personal liberty laws

a. What was the basis of the Free Soilers beliefs?
b. What advantages did the South enjoy by 1850?
c. Which side gained the advantage as a result of the Compromise of 1850?
    Explain.
d. What were the side effects of the Fugitive Slave Law? 


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II. THE 1850'S (pages 411-419)

1. Election of 1852, Democrats: Franklin Pierce, second Dark Horse; Whigs:
    Winfield Scott; Free Soilers: John P. Hale; "finality men"
2. (Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852)
3. "slavocrats," Nicaragua, William Walker
4. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 1850
5. Commodore Matthew C. Perry, 1854 commercial treaty with Japan, "opening of
    Japan"
6. Cuba, 1850-51 "filibustering" expeditions; Spanish seize American ship -
    Black Warrior 1854, Ostend Manifesto
7. England, France, Russia, Crimean War 1854-56
8. camel experiment; question of northern or southern route for the
    transcontinental railroad, Gadsden Purchase 1853
9. Stephen Douglas, Kansas-Nebraska bill, Missouri Compromise, 36 30'N,
    Kansas-Nebraska Act, May 1854
10. Republican Party, 1854, "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men"

a. Why was the Whig party split during the election of 1852? What did this
    forebode?
b. Why was the South interested in the Caribbean?
c. Why did the Pierce administration not move against Cuba in 1854?
d. What transportation difficulties were magnified by the Mexican Cession?
e. What were the effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
f. What groups united in the Republican Party in the 1850's?
 

DRIFTING TOWARD DISUNION, 1854-1861,Chapter 20, pgs. 420-443

I. BLEEDING KANSAS (pages 420-425)

1. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852, "Tom shows"
2. Hinton R. Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South, 1857
3. Kansas, Sharpe rifles, "Beecher's Bibles," Henry Ward Beecher
4. territorial legislature elections 1855, Border Ruffians, Shawnee Mission
    government; Free Soilers, Topeka government, Lawrence 1856,"Bleeding
    Kansas," John Brown, Pottawatomie Creek 1856; Lecompton Constitution 1857
5. May 1856, Senator Charles Sumner (Mass.), "The Crime against Kansas"
    speech, Senator Andrew Butler (S.Car.), Representative Preston Brooks

a. What prompted Stowe to write Uncle Tom's Cabin?

II. THE BUCHANAN PRESIDENCY (pages 425-433)

1. Election of 1856, Democrats: James Buchanan, Republicans: John Fremont,
    Know-Nothings: Millard Fillmore
2. American Party, Know-Nothings, 1853-1856, nativists
3. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney
4. Panic of 1857, Tariff of 1857
5. Illinois senatorial election 1858, Senator Stephen Douglas, Abraham
    Lincoln, series of 7 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Freeport Doctrine
6. John Brown, Harpers Ferry Virginia, October 1859

a. Why did Buchanan win the Election of 1856?
b. What were the effects of the Dred Scott decision?
c. Why were eastern industrialists and Southern planters opposed to a
    homestead act for western lands? 


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III. 1860-1861 (pages 434-441)

1. Election of 1860, Northern Democrats: Stephen Douglas, Southern
    Democrats: John Breckinridge, Constitutional Union Party: John Bell,
    Republicans: Abraham Lincoln, the Wigwam
2. December 20, 1869, South Carolina Ordinance of Secession
3. Deep South: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas
4. February 1861, Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, Alexander
H. Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, Montgomery Alabama
5. Senator John Crittenden, Crittenden Compromise, 1860, Lincoln rejection

a. What caused the split in the Democratic Party in 1860?
b. What was the Republican platform in 1860?
c. What was southern reaction to the possibility of a Lincoln victory?
d. What factor brought about the secession of southern states?

IV. THE CIVIL WAR: REPRESSIBLE OR IRREPRESSIBLE? (pages 442-443)

1. Nationalist School, late 19th. century, James Ford Rhodes - slavery
2. Progressive Historians, early 20th. century, Charles and Mary Beard
3. Civil War as a mistake, James G. Randall, Avery Craven, post-WWI
4. Neonationalist View, post-WWII, Civil War inevitable, Allan Nevins,
    David M. Potter
5. Eric Foner - free labor ideology
6. Eugene Genovese - Southerners feared end to their way of life
7. Ethnocultural School - collapse of political parties allowed slavery to
    become dominant issue

GIRDING FOR WAR: THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH, 1861-1865,
Chapter 21, pages 444-460

I. WAR BEGINS (pages 444-448)

1. Lincoln inauguration 3/4/1861, Seward's foreign war scheme 4/1/1861
2. April 12 1861, Fort Sumter, Charleston harbor, Civil War
3. Upper South: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas
4. Richmond Virginia, second Confederate capital
5. Border States: Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware; West Virginia mid-
    1861; "Butternut Region"
6. Billy Yank, Johnny Reb; Blue and Gray

a. Why did Lincoln declare that the war was not being fought to free slaves?
b. What did he give as the purpose of the war?
c. How were the Native Americans in the territories split by the war?

II. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES (pages 448-460)

1. Robert E. Lee, General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
2. "King Cotton Diplomacy," Trent Affair 1861, Alabama (1871 arbitration),
    Laird rams 1863
3. Canada, Irish-American invasions 1866.1870, Dominion of Canada 1867
4. Emperor Napoleon III of France, French occupation of Mexico City 1863,
    Austrian Archduke Maximilian, Secretary of State Seward 1865
5. Abraham Lincoln, expansion of federal authority, shipbuilding program,
    suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, martial law
6. 1863 federal conscription law, New York City draft riot, "bounty boys,"
    deserters; 1862 conscription in South


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7. Morrill Tariff Act 1861
8. Jay Cooke and Company, bonds
9. greenbacks, excise tax, income tax
10. National Banking System 1863, National Banking Act
11. "Age of Shoddy"
12. discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania, "Fifty-Niners"
13. Homestead Act 1862
14. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, U.S. Sanitary Commission; Clara Barton, Dorothea
    Dix - Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army; Sally Tompkins -
    ran Richmond infirmary

a. What advantages did the South have at the beginning of the war? North?
    What disadvantages did each side have?
b. Why didn't Britain and France aid the South?
c. What questionable actions did Lincoln take at the beginning of the war?
d. How could one avoid conscription in the North? the South?
e. How did the North finance the war? the South?
f. What immoral and illegal economic acts were some guilty of during the
    Civil War?
g. In what ways did the North become economically stronger during the war?
h. How did women participate in the war effort?

THE FURNACE OF CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865,Chapter 22, pages 461-486

I. BULL RUN AND THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN (pages 461-465)

1. July 21 1861, Manassas Junction, First Battle of Bull Run, General
    Irvin McDowell (U), General P.G.T. Beauregard (C), "Stonewall" Jackson,
    Southern Victory
2. General George McClellan (U), Army of the Potomac, Pinkerton's Detective
    Agency, "the slows," "Tardy George," Yorktown, Seven Days' battles (6/26
    thru 7/2/1862), General Robert E. Lee (C), Richmond saved
3. (Anaconda Plan)

a. What were the effects of the Confederate victory at First Bull Run?
b. Why did Union troops love McClellan?
c. What was union strategy at the beginning of the war? What strategy
    developed after the failed Peninsular Campaign?

II. WAR AT SEA (page 466)

1. blockade-running, "ultimate destination" and "continuous voyage"
    justification for seizure of British freighters
2. Monitor (U), Merrimack - Virginia (C), ironclads (3/9/1862)

a. Why did Britain honor the Union blockade?
b. What was the lasting significance of the battle between the Monitor and
    the Merrimack?

III. ANTIETAM AND AFTER (pages 467-472)

1. Second Battle of Bull Run (8/29-30/1862), Robert E. Lee (C), General John
    Pope (U), Southern victory
2. Confederate Offensive, Sharpsburg, Antietam (9/17-18/1862), Union win
3. Emancipation Proclamation, September 23 1862, effective January 1 1863
4. (Horace Greeley, New York Tribune, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions,"
    Lincoln's reply to Greeley)


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a. What goals did Lee wish to accomplish by going into Maryland? What
    error undermined his hopes?
b. What were the effects of the Union victory at Antietam?
c. Who was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation?
d. In what ways were blacks involved in the war effort?

IV. TURNING POINT OF THE CIVIL WAR (pages 472-473)

1. General A.E. Burnside (U), General Jeb Stuart (C), Battle of
    Fredericksburg (12-13-1862), Confederate victory
2. "Fighting Joe" Hooker (U), Battle of Chancellorsville, 5/2-4/1863, Robert
    E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Confederate victory
3. General George Meade (U), Gettysburg, 7/1-3/1863, General George Pickett
    (C), Pickett's Charge ("high tide of the Confederacy"), Union victory,
    Gettysburg Address

a. What was the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg?

V. WAR IN THE WEST (pages 473-475)

1. Ulysses S. Grant, Forts Henry (Feb.6,1862) and Donelson (Feb.16,1862),
    "unconditional and immediate surrender"
2. Battle of Shiloh, 4/6-7/1862, General Albert Sidney Johnston (C)
3. Admiral David Farragut (U), capture of New Orleans (April, 1862)
4. Vicksburg, 7/4/1863, Union victory

a. What was the importance of the Battle of Vicksburg?

VI. SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA (pages 475-477)

1. Battle of Chattanooga Nov. 1863, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Sherman
    Captures Atlanta 9/2/1864, Sherman's March to the Sea, Savannah Dec. 1864,
    total war, March through the Carolinas

VII. POLITICS OF WAR (pages 477-479)

1. Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War 1861, Radical
    Republicans (George Julian, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens)
2. Democratic Party Split, "War Democrats," "Peace Democrats," Copperheads,
    Clement L. Vallandigham
3. Election of 1864, Democrats: George McClellan, peace plank; Republicans:
    Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, National Union ticket, "bayonet vote"

VIII. THE END OF THE WAR (pages 480-484)

1. Battle of the Wilderness 5/5-7/1864, Battle of Spotsylvania 5/8-20/1864
    Battle of Cold Harbor 6/1-12/1864, Siege of Petersburg 6/16/1864 4/2/65
2. Capture of Richmond, Lee Surrenders, April 9 1865, Appomatox Courthouse
3. Good Friday, April 14 1865, Ford's Theater, Our American Cousin, John
    Wilkes Booth, April 15 1865; Stanton - "Now he belongs to the ages."

a. What were the total military casualties of the war?
b. What was the estimated cost of the war?
c. What economic, political, and social changes were effected by the war?

IX. VARYING VIEWPOINTS: WHAT WERE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR?
1. 13th. Amendment 1865


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THE ORDEAL OF RECONSTRUCTION, 1865-1877,Ch. 23, pages 487-509

I. PEACE AND THE FREEDMEN (pages 487-491)

1. Freedmen's Bureau March 3, 1865, Oliver O. Howard, ended 1872

a. What four major questions needed to be addressed at the end of the war?
b. What problems beset the South by the end of the war?
c. How did blacks respond to emancipation? What institutions were developed?

II. THE ANDREW JOHNSON PRESIDENCY (pages 491-495)

1. December 1863, Lincoln's 10% Plan
2. Wade-Davis Bill 1864, 50%, "iron-clad oath," pocket veto
3. Johnson's Reconstruction Plan: disfranchised certain leading Confederates,
    special state conventions to repudiate secession & ratify 13th. Amendment
4. Johnson's pardon bonanza
5. Black Codes, passes, curfew, vagrancy laws, restrictive labor contracts,

III. THE CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION PLAN (pages 495-500)

1. 12/4/1865 - southern congressional delegations rejected by Congress
2. Freedmen's Bureau Renewal, Johnson veto 2/1866, Civil Rights Bill 3/1866,
    Johnson veto, overridden
3. Fourteenth Amendment 1866, 1866 congressional elections, "swing around the
    circle," Republican mandate
4. Radical Republicans: Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens
5. Reconstruction Act of 1867
6. ex parte Milligan 1866 - military tribunals cannot try civilians
7. Fifteenth Amendment 1870
8. "Redeemers," "Home Rule"; 1877 end of Reconstruction

a. How did women respond to the Reconstruction Amendments?

IV. LIFE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION SOUTH (pages 500-503)

1. Union League Clubs, black officeholders
2. Carpetbaggers, Scalawags
3. (Regulators), Ku Klux Klan 1866 (Invisible Empire of the South),
    nightriders, Force Acts (1870,71)
4. sharecropping, lien laws

a. How did white southerners resist Reconstruction?

V. IMPEACHMENT (pages 504-506)

1. Tenure of Office Act 1867, dismissal of Secretary of War Stanton 1868
3. Impeachment of Andrew Johnson by House of Representatives 1868, trial in
    the Senate, acquittal
4. Alaska Purchase Treaty 1867, Secretary of State William Seward

a. What factors led to the impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson? What
    were the results?

VI. HERITAGE OF RECONSTRUCTION (page 506)

a. What were the effects of Reconstruction?