Civil War & Reconstruction DBQ



Civil War & Reconstruction DBQ

In what ways and to what extent did constitutional and social developments between 1860 and 1877 amount to a revolution?

Use the documents and your knowledge of the period from 1860 to 1877 to answer the question.

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Document A: South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession, December 24, 1860.

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|By this [United States] Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several states, and the exercise of certain of their powers was |

|restrained, which necessarily imperiled their continued existence as sovereign states. But, to remove all doubt, an amendment was added which |

|declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the |

|states, respectively, or to the people. . . . Thus was established, by compact between the states, a government with defined objects and |

|powers, limited to the express words of the grant. |

Document B: Resolution of the United States Congress, July 26, 1861

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|"This war is not waged...for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the established institutions of those States, but to maintain the|

|States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war should cease." |

Document C: Senator John Sherman (R-Ohio), speech in Congress on the new banking and currency systems, February 10, 1863.

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|The policy of this country ought to be to make everything national as far as possible; to nationalize our country, so that we shall love our |

|country. If we are dependent on the United States for a currency and a medium of exchange, we shall have a broader and more generous |

|nationality. The [lack] of such nationality, I believe, is one of the great evils of the times. . . . It has been that principle of states |

|rights, that bad sentiment that has elevated state authority above national authority, that has been the main instrument by which our |

|government is sought to be overthrown. |

Document D: General Order no. 38, issued by General Ambrose Burnside, commander of Union forces in Ohio, April 1863

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|“The habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this department [region]. Persons committing such offenses will be at |

|once arrested with a view of being tried. . .or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. It must be understood that treason, |

|expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this department.” |

Document E: Union officer Joseph H. Maitland, in a letter to his brother, 1863

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|”[F]or my part[,] if I could not command a Co[mpany] of white men, I would not command any. I believe in arming and equipping them and making |

|them fight for their freedom, but I would rather be excused from having anything to do with them, there are enough of Abolitionists to do |

|that." |

Document F: Petition from American citizens of African descent to the Union convention of Tennessee assembled in the capitol at Nashville, January 9, 1865.

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|"If we are called on to do military duty against the rebel armies in the field, why should we be denied the privilege of voting against rebel |

|citizens at the ballot-box? The latter is as necessary to save the Government as the former. . . . The Government has asked the colored man to|

|fight for its preservation and gladly has he done it. It can afford to trust him with a vote as safely as it trusted him with a bayonet. . . .|

|At present we can have only partial protection from the courts. . . . If this order of things continue, our people are destined to a malignant|

|persecution at the hands of rebels and their former rebellious masters . . . because the courts will not receive negro testimony. . . . Is |

|this the fruit of freedom, and the reward of our services in the field? . . .There have been white traitors in multitudes in Tennessee, but |

|where we ask, is the black traitor?" |

Document G: Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America, 1865-70

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|13th Amendment, 1865 |

|Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within |

|the United States, or and place subject to their jurisdiction..... |

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|14th Amendment, 1868 |

|All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the |

|State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United |

|States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its |

|jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.... |

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|15th Amendment, 1870 |

|The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, |

|color, or previous conditions of servitude. |

Document H: “Black Codes” passed in Opelousas, Louisiana, 1865.

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|1. "No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission from his employers. |

|Whoever breaks this law will go to jail and work for two days on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars.” |

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|2. “No negro or freedman shall be permitted to rent or keep a house in town under any circumstances. No negro or freedman shall live within the|

|town who does not work for some white person or former owner.” |

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|3. “No public meetings of negroes or freedmen shall be allowed within the town.” |

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|4. “No freedman shall be allowed to carry firearms, or any kind of weapons. No freedman shall sell or exchange any article of merchandise |

|within the limits of Opelousas without permission in writing from his employer.” |

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|5. “Every negro is to be in the service of (work for) some white person, or former owner.” |

Document I: Source: Senator Lot Morrill (R-Maine), speech in Congress, February 1, 1866.

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|"I admit that this species of legislation [Civil Rights Act of 1861 is absolutely revolutionary. But are we not in the midst of a revolution? |

|Is the Senator from Kentucky utterly oblivious to the grand results of four years of war? Are we not in the midst of a civil and political |

|revolution which has changed the fundamental principles of our government in some respects? . . . There was a civilization based on servitude.|

|. . . Where is that? . . . Gone forever. . . . We have revolutionized this Constitution of ours to that extent and every substantial change in|

|the fundamental constitution of a country is a revolution." |

Document J: Contract between landowner Isham G. Bailey or Marshall County, Mississippi, and freedmen Cooper Hughs and Charles Roberts, January 1, 1867

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|. . . the said Cooper Hughs. . . with his wife and one other woman, and the said Charles Roberts with his wife Hannah and one boy are to work |

|on said farm and to cultivate forty acres in corn and twenty acres in cotton, to assist in putting the fences on said farm in good order and to|

|keep them so and to do all other work on said farm necessary to be done to keep the same in good order and to raise a good crop and to be under|

|the control and directions of said IG Bailey and to receive for their said services one half of the cotton and one third of the corn and fodder|

|raised by them on said farm in said year 1867." |

Document K: "The First Vote", front cover of Harper's Weekly, November 16, 1867.

Document L: Memorial [appeal] of colored people of Georgia in favor of the Sumner Civil Rights bill, January 26, 1874

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|"We. . . do hereby respectfully petition your honorable bodies to speedily pass the Civil Rights Bill, now under consideration in Congress, |

|with the earnest request that . . . your honorable bodies will, in view of the unjust manner in which we are now treated by the Legislature |

|and judicial tribunals in this State, enact such laws as. . . are necessary to secure each citizen in the United States, without regard to |

|race, color, or previous condition of servitude, equal civil and political rights. . . " |

Document M: Memorial [appeal] of the Board of the St. Louis Public Schools against the school integration clause of the Civil Rights bill, received by Congress on June 16, 1874.

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|. . . in St. Louis, public schools have been provided for the colored people in sufficient number to accommodate all who apply for admission , |

|and of as good quality as those schools opened for white children. . . the passage of a bill, which, like the so-called "Civil Rights Bill," |

|necessitates the admission of both races to the same schools and classes in all instances, would work irreparable injury, if not total |

|destruction, to the Public School system of St. Louis, by causing the withdrawal of large numbers of white children from the Public Schools, |

|and by strengthening the cause of those who are hostile to Public Schools, to such an extent as to secure the repeal of the public tax by which|

|they are supported." |

Document N: The Union as it was / The Lost Cause: Worse than slavery, a cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly, 1874

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