Civil War

 

Main Ideas:

1.       Sectionalism and the issue of slavery tore the nation apart

Material Covered:

1.      Growth of Sectionalism

a.       Attempts at Compromise: Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act

b.      Legal Position: Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision; Lincoln-Douglas debates

c.       Increasing Violence: Bleeding Kansas, John Brown’s Raid

d.      Election of Lincoln

2.      Civil War

a.       Causes: political, economic, social

b.      Northern-Southern advantages and disadvantages

c.       Military Strategy and significant battles: Sumter, Gettysburg, & Antietnam

d.      Civil Rights

                                                                           i.      Emancipation Proclamation

                                                                         ii.      Gettysburg Address

                                                                        iii.      Role of African-Americans

e.       Results

                                                                           i.      North: industrial Growth, international trade, increase in immigration, Homestead Act

                                                                         ii.      South: end of plantation economy, sharecropping, tenant farming, New South, segregation

Reconstruction (1865 – 1877)

 Main Ideas:

  1. The south had to re-built after the civil war.
  2. Radical republicans attempted to protect former slaves in the south.
  3. Federal legislation improved the condition of freedmen only temporarily.

 Material Covered:

  1. Lincoln’s and Johnson’s plans vs. Congress’ Radical Reconstruction plan
    1. Secretary of war: Edward Stanton, Tenure of Office Act, Impeachment
  2. Congressional (Military) Reconstruction implemented
    1. Black codes, Freedmen’s Bureau, Carpetbaggers, Scalawags
    2. Amendment 14 and 15: Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Cases (1883)
  3. The New South
    1. Slave Labor replaced by sharecropping, tenant farming, segregation
    2. New industrial development: Tobacco, steel, textiles
    3. Solid South: Southern Whites, primarily Democratic regains control
  4. The “End” of Reconstruction
    1. Disputed election of 1876 + Hayes – Tilden election: Compromise: withdraw of troops
    2. Erosion of political gains of the Freedmen: Literacy Tests, poll taxes, Jim Crow Laws (Plessy vs. Ferguson)