Regents Review: Civil War and Reconstruction



Mr. Bernard American History

Regents Review: Civil War and Reconstruction

The Road to the Civil War: As America expanded westward, the issue of whether new states would be free or slave became a problem. Initially, the country was able to make compromises to avoid conflict. These compromises only delayed the inevitable clash between two different ways of life.

1. Missouri Compromise (1820): Congress bans slavery in lands north of Missouri’s southern border

2. Compromise of 1850: California is free state; popular sovereignty to determine status of other lands won in Mexican War (Arizona and New Mexico)

3. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): overturns Missouri Compromise; popular sovereignty will determine status of Kansas and Nebraska; leads to Bleeding Kansas

4. Rise of Republican Party: founded to oppose the spread of slavery

5. Dred Scott Case (1857): finds the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional; Congress may not ban slavery in any territory because it would deprive slaveowners’ right to property.

6. John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry: Brown tried to lead a slave uprising; he failed but became a hero in the North

7. Election of 1860: Abraham Lincoln opposes extension of slavery into west; South secedes.

Advantages of each side during Civil War:

• North = more people, far more industry, more $

• South = fighting on “home turf”; better trained generals

Lincoln during the war:

• Starts war to preserve the Union (says South has no right to secede), NOT to free slaves

• Suspends habeas corpus (which prevents imprisonment without a trial) – extends power of President during time of crisis

• Emancipation Proclamation – frees slaves under Confederate control; symbolic value, but increases support of African-Americans, who enlist in large numbers

Reconstruction. There were two competing plans for Reconstruction of devastated South:

1) Presidential Reconstruction (backed by Lincoln and, after Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson)

a) Lenient towards South; goal is to reunite Union

b) South takes advantage of leniency; pass black codes; this angers Republicans

2) Radical Reconstruction (backed by Republican Congressmen)

a) Much more harsh towards South = South would be overlooked by U.S. Army

b) Amendments: 13th abolishes slavery; 14th guarantees civil rights; 15th gives vote to all men

c) Rise of national government power over state governments

3) Reconstruction weakens

a) President Grant is seen as very corrupt; weakens support of Republican Party

b) White southerners begin to vote together as Democrats = solid South

4) Reconstruction ends

a) Compromise of 1877: in close Presidential race, Southern Democrats agree to name Republican for President, in exchange for U.S. Army pulling out of South

b) Southern states pass Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses

c) Ku Klux Klan = prevent African-Americans from taking part in voting and government

d) Supreme Court allows whites to reestablish control in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) segregation is upheld as constitutional.

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