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Topic #8 – Civil War:
Stem 1 – Causes for the Civil War
Sectionalism:
1) States’ Rights
- North supported the interests of the federal government
- South believed in authority of the states
- Reason for the difference:
- Southern states were quickly losing political power at the
federal level to the anti-slavery North because their booming
population gave them more representation in the House of
Representatives and the electoral college.
- This leads to problems over issues like the tariff issue. In 1828, the
northern manufacturing facilities received protection when Congress
instituted a large tariff. This hurt the Southerners that now had to pay
higher prices for goods. South Carolina, under the leadership of John
Calhoun, wrote the Issuance of Nullification, proclaiming the states
authority to nullify federal law and to secede if they wanted to.
Northerners disagreed with this while many Southern states agreed with
South Carolina’s position.
2) Slavery
- Started with 3/5 Compromise
- Missouri Compromise of 1820: fight over representation in the
Senate, had to create one slave state (Missouri) and one free state
(Maine). Also created the 36 30 parallel, stating that all territories
north of the line would be free and all those south would allow
slavery
- Compromise of 1850: Gave the Northerners another free state
(California), but gave the South the authority to chase down
escaped slaves with the Fugitive Slave Act. Also allowed
territories to determine for themselves if they would be free or
allow slavery. This is called popular sovereignty.
- Dred Scott Case: Complicated matters more because the Supreme
Court said that according to the Constitution, slaves were property
and that the government could not take a citizen’s property without
compensation
- Final problem – Election of 1860 – Lincoln, an abolitionist, is elected
to be President
Stem 2 – Plans for Reconstruction
- Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction
- The most lenient
- According to the Constitution, secession is not allowed; therefore, the
Southern states never really left the Union.
- Re-admittance to the Union should be fast and painless
- Pardon all Southerners except high ranking Confederate officials
- Have 10% of the state’s population swear an oath to adhere to the
Constitution, then that will be enough to allow the state to fully rejoin
the Union
- Not enacted because of his assassination in April 1865
- Johnson’s Plan for Reconstruction
- Similar to Lincoln’s plan
- Pardons all Southerners except high ranking Confederate officials and rich
Southerners
- States must disown all war debt
- States must ratify the 13th Amendment
- Not enacted because of fierce resistance by Radical Republicans and his
impeachment in 1868.
- Radical Republican’s Plan (Congress’ Plan)
- Series of Acts that focused on two major issues:
1) punishing the white Confederates
2) protecting the civil liberties of freed slaves
- Included the creation of 5 military districts throughout the entire South,
except Tennessee
- Stripped Confederate officials of their political rights
- Forced the re-writing of state constitutions by whites and blacks
- Required Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment and to allow for black
suffrage
Stem 3 – How was the entire problem of Reconstruction resolved?
- Compromise of 1877: Gives the Republicans the presidency with the disputed
election of Rutherford B. Hayes, but requires the federal government to appoint a
Southern Democrat to the cabinet, to end the martial law in the South, and to fund
more development programs in the South.
- The years of Reconstruction (1865 – 1877) had some positive and negative effects on
the South:
Positive: provided for a short lived freedom for African Americans in the South when
the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were ratified; development of Southern
industries; reunited the Union; creation of schools for blacks
Negative: Rights of freedmen were quickly stripped away with the passage of Jim
Crow laws, Black Codes, and the existence of hate groups like the KKK.
Southern white resentment of the North and the Republican Party; Racism in
North and South; Economically speaking, the African Americans were just as bad
off after slavery as during slavery