Download Adline Rahmoune Crash Course US History #20: The Civil War, Part 1

Adline Rahmoune
Crash Course US History #20: The Civil War, Part 1
Basic Facts
● The Civil War​ lasted from 1861-1865
○ Abraham Lincoln​ was the president at the time
● It was between ​The Union​ (the North) and ​the Confederate
States of America​ (the South)
The Cause
● The Civil War was about slavery
● Not all slave states were part of the Confederacy
● The Confederate government…
○ Passed the first ​conscription act
■ Forced men into army that fit certain qualities
○ Enforced national taxes
○ Created a national currency
○ Government bureaucracy of about 7,000 people
● The War was also about religion
○ Northerners: extend democracy and Christianity
■ Union + religion + an end to slavery = war
○ Southerners: war would improve the U.S for God
Northern Advantages
● The Union won the war because they had huge advantages
○ North’s population = about 22 million​…………….
South’s population = 9 million (3.5m were slaves, too)
○ North manufactured 90%+ of all the goods in America
○ North had 20,000 miles of railroad (twice as much as
the South)
■ Railroads made it easier to move armies
○ Union’s army had more than 2 million men and the
South only had 900,000 men
○ Northern agriculture was better bc of mechanization
● The only advantage of the South was better military leaders
○ Ex: ​Robert E. Lee​, ​Stonewall Jackson​, and ​Jeb Stuart
Southern Thinking
● There were class conflicts in the Confederacy because the
ruling class was often not allowed to fight in the war
● If the Confederacy tried to outlast the Union,
○ The North would’ve taken forever to wear down
○ It would’ve been expensive to the South + they didn't
have enough resources to outlast the North
Northern Thinking
● Ulysses S. Grant​ was a Union general
○ Did anything to wear down the South even if it meant
enormous casualties (unlike other generals)
○ Most successful leader of the Union
○ It took 3 years before the Union adopted his strategy
● Between 1861 & 1864, it was possible that the South would
win because the Union lost a lot of battles in the first 2 years
Turning Points
● July 1863 & August 1864​: major turning points during the
war
● July 1863 saw 2 of the most important Union victories
○ Grant captured ​Vicksburg, MS​ which gave the
Federals control of the Lower Mississippi River
○ Battle of Gettysburg​ in PA
■ Confederate forces threatened ​Gettysburg, PA
■ War was in favor of the North at this point
● The turning points in August 1864 were the doom of the
Confederacy
○ Union General Sherman​ captured ​Atlanta
■ This was more significant politically because of
the election of 1864
■ The election was the Confederacy’s last
chance to possibly win the war
■ The capture of Atlanta changed opinion on
Abraham Lincoln, who looked like he was
going to lose his reelection at first
● The outcome of the Civil War was ensured by both military
and political victories
Crash Course US History #22: Reconstruction and 1876
Post Civil War
● Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865
○ His post-war idea had been reunion and reconciliation
● Andrew Johnson​: president after war (not a very good one)
○ After the war, he believed that the South never had a
right to secede in the first place (he was a
Southerner)
○ He was racist and didn’t think that blacks should have
a role in ​Reconstruction
● The period of Presidential Reconstruction​ (1865-1867)
○ Johnson appointed & ordered governors to call state
conventions for the establishment of all white govs
■ These new governments looked like the Old
Confederate governments they had replaced
Former Slaves after
the War
● Universities, primary/secondary schools est. → former slaves
● Freedmen's Bureau​ had the power to divide up confiscated &
abandoned confederate land for former slaves
○ Important to slaves bc land ownership = freedom
Sharecropping
● Sharecropping​ was a system that replaced slavery in many
places throughout the South
○ Landowners → housing, tools, seed to sharecroppers
○ Sharecroppers received between ⅓-½ of their crop
and landowners set the price for the harvest
○ Freed blacks got to control their work, and plantation
owners got a steady workforce
○ By the late 1860s, poor white farmers were
sharecropping & most were white by the depression
Republicans on
Reconstruction
● Republicans in Congress weren’t happy because the
Reconstructed South​ = ​Pre-Civil War South
○ After 1867, they started leading reconstruction
● Radical Republicans​ wanted expansion of national gov’s
government’s powers
● Rank and File Republicans​ passed ​Civil Rights Bill​, giving
anyone born in the US citizenship
○ Johnson vetoed it (angering Republicans). Congress
overrode it w a 2/3rds majority, and it became a law
○ Congress added 14th Amendment as well: which
defines citizenship, guarantees equal protection, and
extends the rights in the Bill of Rights to all states
The Reconstruction
Act
● The Reconstruction Act was passed in 1867 by Congress
○ Was vetoed by Johnson, but the veto was overridden
○ The Act divided the South into 5 military districts
■ Each state was required to make a
government that included participation of
black men ​and ratify the 14th Amendment
1868 Election & the
15th Amendment
● Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 Election
● Congressional Republicans​ created the ​15th Amendment
○ It prohibited states from denying men to vote based
on their race (basically, African-Americans could vote)
○ Former slaves began to participate in the political
process, held office, voted, & most were Republican
■ about 2,000 held office during reconstruction
The End of
Reconstruction
● Reconstruction ended because:
○ Schools and road repair cost money, which = taxes
○ White Southerners couldn’t stand allowing blacks to
exercise basic civil rights, hold office, or vote
■ They wanted everything to be like it was
before so they used violence
● After 1867, violence was directed towards African Americans
○ The Ku Klux Klan​ was founded in 1866
● Fewer black men voted, letting white Democrats take control
of state governments in South (they were called Redeemers)
Depression &
Election of 1877
● In 1873, the US fell into a great ​depression
● Election of 1877
○ Samuel Tilden (Democrat)
○ Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) → won the election
Bargain of 1877
● Bargain of 1877
○ Hayes’ people agreed to cede control of South to
Democrats & built a transcontinental railroad thru TX
○ It killed Reconstruction so the states went back to
restricting the freedom of blacks
■ Legislatures passed Jim Crow laws
■ States passed laws that took away
African-Americans rights to vote
Crash Course US History #23: The Industrial Economy
American
Industrialization
● Effects of the Civil War
○ Introduced a national currency, improving the finance
system
○ Industrialization (arms, clothing manufacturers)
○ Boosted the telegraph → improved communication
○ Pacific Railway Act 1862​ → ​Transcontinental Railway
○ Overall, efficiency and productivity increased
Immigration &
Economic Growth
● America’s economic growth: geography + demography + law
● America’s population grew from 40m in 1870 → 76m in 1900
○ ⅓ of the growth was because of immigration
● The Constitution & Law
○ The Commerce Clause​ in the Constitution made the
U.S. an area of commerce
○ The Constitution protected ​patents​, encouraging
invention and innovation
● The government put up high tariffs (esp. on steel), gave large
land grants to railroads, and put Natives on reservations
● Big changes
○ 1880 → majority worked in non-farming jobs
○ 1890 → ⅔ worked for wages
○ 1913 → U.S produced ⅓ of world’s total industrial
output
Railroads
● Railroads
○ A key to American industrial success in the 1800s
○ Increased commerce + national brands emerged
○ Time zones: facilitated shipping + passenger transport
○ Made it possible to ship just about anything
■ Watches, jewelry, unconstructed houses
○ First modern corporations
■ Companies were large, many employees, all
over the country
○ Among the first publicly-traded corporations
The Robber Barons
● Industrial capitalists​ were either captains of industry or
robber barons​ , they often drove competitors out of business
+ cared very little for their workers
○ Cornelius Vanderbilt
○ John D. Rockefeller
■ He became the richest man ever
Vertical and
Horizontal
Integration
● Vertical integration
○ An innovation that combined 2 companies for
production?
● Horizontal integration
○ Big companies bought smaller ones
■ Rockefeller's Standard Oil​, for example
● U.S. Steel was put together by ​J. P. Morgan
The Workers and the
Unions
● Prices dropped, raising living standards for average workers
● Depressions in 1870s & 1890s hit working poor the hardest
● Laborers worked 60 hrs per week and an average of at least
35,000 died on the job
● The labor markets led to unions
○ First national union was the ​Knights of Labor
■ led by ​Terence V. Powderly
■ It admitted unskilled, black, & female workers
■ Damaged by the ​Haymarket Riot in 1886
● The American Federation of Labor​ (AFL) under ​Samuel L.
Gompers​ focused on pay, hours, & safety
○ Founded in 1866
Social Darwinism
● Social Darwinism​ was an alteration of ​Darwin’s theory
○ Social Darwinists argued that Darwin’s natural
selection theory should apply to ppl & corporations
● Pseudoscience​ was used to argue that govs shouldn’t help
poor people because the reason they were poor was flaws
Unions Continued
● Unions grew and fought for better conditions
○ Sometimes with violence, like at the:
■ Homestead Steel Strike of 1892
■ Pullman Rail Strike of 1894
○ They wanted a more equal economic system
Unit 8 Notes: Pages 407-414, 416-431
The Congressional
Plan
(pg. 407-409)
● The ​Radicals​ passed 3 ​Reconstruction Bills​ in 1867 and
overrode ​Andrew Johnson​’s vetoes on all of them
○ These bills established a plan for ​Reconstruction
● TN was readmitted because it ratified the ​14th Amendment
● Congress rejected the 10 other Confederate states and
combined them into 5 military districts
○ Each district was governed by a military commander,
who was supposed to register qualified voters
■ Voters had to write state constitutions
allowing black people to vote (that Congress
then had to approve)
■ State legislatures had to ratify the 14th
Amendment (wanted it in Constitution)
○ This was the only way the states could come back
● By 1868, the 14th Amendment was part of the Constitution
& every state was restored to the Union except for VA, TX,
MS
○ For last 3 to come back, Congress added a
requirement: they had to ratify the ​15th Amendment
● The Radicals passed two laws in 1867 to prevent President
Johnson from interfering with their plans
○ Tenure of Office Act
■ Forbade the President from removing officials
without the consent of the Senate
■ Protected ​Edwin M. Santon​’s job, Sec. of War
○ Command of Army Act
■ President couldn’t issue military orders except
thru General Grant, comm. general of army
(Grant couldn’t leave w/out consent of
Senate)
● The Radicals stopped the Supreme Court too
○ 1866: ​Ex parte Milligan decision​ (threatened the
military system that Radicals were planning for South)
■ Military tribunals were unconstitutional in
places where civil courts were functioning
○ Radicals in Congress proposed bills threatening Court
(they even threatened to abolish it)
The Impeachment of
the President
(pg. 409)
● Radicals saw President Johnson as an obstacle
● President Johnson violated the Tenure of Office Act
○ Radicals in the House now had a reason to impeach
him and the case was sent to the Senate
■ They didn’t reach a ⅔ vote and dropped it
The South in
Reconstruction
(pg. 409)
● White Southerners on Reconstruction: disliked the corrupt
governments Congress imposed on them, and there were
enormous debts in region that abused citizen’s rights
● Black Southerners on Reconstruction: thought that national
& state governments did not go far enough to guarantee
everyone rights of citizenship
The Reconstruction
Governments
(pg. 409-411)
● In the 10 Southern states that underwent the ​Congressional
Plan​, about ¼ of the white males couldn’t vote or hold office
○ The government soon lifted the restrictions so nearly
all white males could vote
● Southern white Republicans were called “​scalawags​”
○ Former Whigs, wealthy planters/businessmen
○ Believed that the Republican Party would serve
economic interests better than the Democrats
● Critics of Reconstruction were called “​carpetbaggers​”
○ Well-educated, middle class citizens (doctors,
lawyers, teachers) or veterans of the Union army
● Most Republicans in the South were ​black freedmen
○ They held a “​colored convention​” in AL in 1867
■ Claimed they had same rights as white men
○ Created black churches that gave unity + political
self-confidence to former slaves
● African-Americans in politics of the Reconstruction South
○ Served in state legislatures/other state offices, and as
delegates to constitutional conventions
○ Blacks barely made it to state offices in the South
● Southern Reconstruction governments were corrupt and in
debt (but so were Northern state governments)
● The South was in desperate need of public education, public
works programs, and poor relief
Education
(pg. 411)
● The Educational reform movement in the South came from
outside groups
○ Freedmen’s Bureau
○ Northern private philanthropic organizations
○ Northern women (black/white) who traveled to the
South to teach in freedmen schools
○ Southern blacks
● Reformers est. large networks of schools for former slaves
● Southern education was becoming segregated
Landownership and
Tenancy
(pg. 411)
● Freedmen’s Bureau & Radical Republicans in Congress
wanted to reform land ownership in the South
○ Freedmen's Bureau tried redistributing land but
plantation owners wanted their land back and
Johnson was supporting their demands
● Among whites, there were huge declines in land ownership
○ Some lost it because of unpaid debt/increased taxes
● Land ownership among blacks increased and some relied on
assistance from white institutions
○ Ex. ​Freedmen's Bank​, est. by antislavery whites
● Blacks that didn't own land worked for others
○ Black agricultural laborers worked for wages
● Most became tenants of whites and worked their own land
while paying rent or for a share of the crop
The Crop-Lien System
(pg. 412-313)
● Period after war = Period of progress for African-Americans
○ Black share of profits was increasing
○ Per capita income grew more than it did for whites
● Total profits of Southern agriculture were declining because
of the reduction of cotton
● Many blacks were still in poverty
● Crop-lien system
○ A system of credit centered around local country
stores owned by planters or independent merchants
■ Black/white people, landowners, & tenants
depended on these stores for food, clothing,
seed, and farming tools
○ Farmers relied on credit to buy necessities
○ Most local stores had no competition so they raised
interest rates to 50-60%
○ Farmers had to give merchants a lien (claim) on their
crops as collateral for the loans?
● Effects of the Crop-lien system
○ Some blacks who acquired land during early Recon.
lost it as they fell in debt (so did small white
landowners)
○ Southern farmers became dependent on cash crops,
esp. cotton (this began to exhaust the soil)
○ This system impoverished small farmers and helped
to decline the Southern agricultural economy
The African-American
Family in Freedom
(pg. 413-414)
● The black response to Reconstruction was the effort to
build/rebuild family structures
○ Slaves left plantations seeking relatives and family
● Male vs. Female Roles
○ Women + children didn’t work in the fields as much
○ Women focused on domestic work
● Former slaves were impoverished so black women had to
work for wages, as domestic servants, doing laundry, or
helping in the fields
The Southern States
“Redeemed”
(pg. 416)
● States where whites were a majority
○ Overthrew Republicans
○ By 1872, most Southern whites regained suffrage
● States where blacks were a majority (or equal to the white
population)
○ Intimidation & violence was used to overthrow
Reconstruction
■ Ku Klux Klan
■ Knights of the White Camellia
■ Red Shirts
■ White Leagues
● Ku Klux Klan (1866) → largest and most effective
organization
○ Led by ​General Nathan Bedford Forrest
○ Many white Southerners considered it patriotic
■ Battle against Northern rule
○ Worked to advance interest of planter class &
Southern Democratic party
■ (since they would gain the most from white
supremacy)
The Ku Klux Klan Acts
(pg. 416-417)
● The Republican Congress tried to prevent white control
○ 2 enforcement Acts were passed in 1870 and 1871
(​Ku Klux Klan Acts​)
■ Prohibited states from discriminating against
voters based on race
■ Gave federal government power to replace
state courts & prosecute violations of the law
■ Authorized president to use military to protect
civil rights & suspend right of habeas corpus
■ Weakened the KKK
● In October 1871, President Grant used these laws in SC and
hundreds of suspected KKK members were arrested
Waning Northern
Commitment
(pg. 417)
● KKK Acts marked peak of Republican enforcement of new
rights that Reconstruction was extending to black citizens
● Southern blacks started losing support of many of their
former backers in the North
● Former Radical leaders → Liberals cooperating w Democrats
● Many white Republicans joined the Liberals and eventually
moved to the Democratic Party in the South
● The Panic of 1873​ weakened support for Reconstruction
○ Northern industrialists and allies tried to find an
explanation for the poverty + instability around them
■ They found it in the idea of ​Social Darwinism
● Social Darwinism
○ Individuals who failed did so because of their own
weakness and unfitness
■ (Darwin’s theory applying to people)
○ Homeless people in the North were seen as misfits
○ This theory encouraged critique of government
intervention in social + economic life
■ Weakened commitment to Reconstruction
○ After 1873,
■ Less support for land distribution
■ Less willingness to spend money from the
federal treasury to aid freedmen
○ State and local governments were short of funds, so
they rushed to cut back on social services
■ In the South, this meant the end of almost all
services to former slaves
● Congressional Elections of 1874
○ Democrats won control of the House of Reps
○ Grant used military force to keep up Republican
regimes in the South
■ By end of 1876, SC, LA, and FL were left in
hands of Republicans
The Compromise of
1877
(pg. 417-420)
● Election of 1876
○ Most Republican leaders wanted the new president
to appeal to liberals
○ Republicans → ​Rutherford B. Hayes
○ Democrats → ​Samuel J. Tilden
○ Hayes & Tilden were both conservatives in favor of
moderate reform
● Disputed returns​ from LA, SC, FL, and OR
○ In these states, the total electoral vote was 20 and
Hayes needed them all in order to win
○ Tilden had 184 electoral votes
● In Jan. 1877, Congress created a ​special electoral commission
to judge the disputed votes
○ Composed of 5 senators, 5 representatives, and 5
Supreme Court justices
○ Congressional delegation would consist of 5
Republicans & 5 Democrats
○ Court delegation would include 2 Republicans, 2
Democrats, and an independent (favored Republican)
● Compromise of 1877
○ Democratic ​filibuster​ threatened commission's report
○ Republican + Southern Democrats met at
Washington’s Wormley Hotel
■ Southerners agreed to abandon filibuster in
return for a Republican pledge that Hayes
would w/draw the last fed troops from South,
overthrowing the last Republican govs there
● Hayes planned to withdraw Federal troops and let white
Democrats take over state governments
Legacies of
Reconstruction
(pg. 420-421)
● Reconstruction → important contributions to former slaves
○ In the end it was a failure because the US failed to
resolve the problem of race / racial injustice
■ People that directed it: errors + weaknesses
■ Conservative obstacles
■ Most liberal whites still believed blacks were
inferior
○ Veneration of Constitution
■ Limited willingness of national leaders to
infringe on rights of states + individuals
The “Redeemers”
(pg. 421)
● By the end of 1877, every Southern state government had
been redeemed by white Democrats
○ Political power in the region was very restricted
○ South fell under control of the ​Redeemers / Bourbons
■ Powerful post-Reconstruction ruling class
● Redeemers: merchants, industrialists, former planters,
railroad developers, northern immigrants
○ Commitment to “​home rule​”, social conservatism,
and economic development
● Democratic regimes lowered taxes, reduced spending, and
diminished state services including public schools
● By 1870s, disagreeing groups challenged the Redeemers
○ They protested cuts in state services
○ Denounced the commitment of the Redeemer govs to
paying off the pre war and Reconstruction debts
■ Readjuster Movement in VA
Industrialization and
the “New South”
(pg. 421-424)
● After Reconstruction, many white Southern leaders hoped
for the region to become an industrial economy
○ Promoted the virtues of thrift, industry, and progress
○ Advocates of the New South didn’t want total change
● Southern industry expanded dramatically after Recon.
○ Become more important part of the economy
○ Growth in textile manufacturing
■ Textile factories appeared in the South
■ Water power, cheap labor, low taxes,
conservative governments
○ Tobacco-processing industry
○ Iron + steel industry grew
○ Railroad development greatly increased
■ Trackage in South from 1880-1890 doubled
■ Integrated transportation w rest of nation
● Southern industry was still limited and its effects on the
region were not huge
○ It only regained what it lost before & during the war
● Growth of industry in the South required a workforce
○ Most factory workers + textile workers = women
○ Factories hired entire families
○ Hours were long, wages were far lower than North’s
● Life in mill towns controlled by factory owners & managers
● Company stores sold goods at inflated prices and issued
credit at exorbitant rates and there was little competition
● Some industries, like the textile industry, offered no
opportunities to African-Americans
○ For the industries that did, they usually didn’t require
skill and pay was little
Tenants and
Sharecroppers
(pg. 424-425)
● Although Southern industry was expanding, it remained
primarily agricultural
● 1870s & 1880s: systems of ​tenantry​ and ​debt peonage
○ Reliance of a few cash crops instead of a diversified
agricultural system
○ Most Southern farmers → tenants bc crop-lien
system
■ Crop-lien​: farmers borrowed money against
their future crops and often fell deep into
debt
● Tenantry​ took several forms (​sharecropping​)
○ Farmers who owned tools, equipment and farm
animals usually paid an annual cash rest for their land
■ Many farmers had no money or equip. at all
○ Landlords provided farmers with land, a house, a few
tools, seed, and sometimes a mule
■ In return, farmers would promise the
landlords a large share of the annual crop
■ After paying their landlords and their local
furnishing merchants, sharecroppers rarely
had anything left to sell on their own
● Transformation of the backcountry
○ In the 1870s many communities began to pass fence
laws, which required farmers to fence their animals
■ widespread protests against the new laws
African-Americans
and the New South
(pg. 425-426)
● African-Americans: progress & self-improv in New South
○ Some blacks elevated themselves to the middle class
○ Former slaves who managed to acquire property,
establish businesses, or enter professions
○ A few blacks gathered fortunes by establishing banks
and insurance companies for their race
■ Ex. ​Maggie Lena
● For African-Americans, education was vital to their future
○ They expanded the network of black colleges and
institutions
○ Chief spokesman for the commitment to education
was ​Booker T. Washington
■ He believed that African-Americans should
adopt the standards of the white middle class
to win the respect of the white population
■ Speech in GA, 1895: ​Atlanta Compromise
where he outlined philosophy of race relations
The Birth of Jim Crow
(pg. 427-430)
● Few white Southerners had ever accepted the idea of racial
equality and they still practiced segregation
● Eventually, the Supreme Court validated state legislation that
established the separation of the races
○ Plessy v. Ferguson​ (1896)
■ Separate accommodations didn’t deprive
blacks of equal rights if the accommodations
were equal (segregated schools for example)
○ Cumming v. County Board of Education​ (1899)
■ Laws establishing separate schools for whites
were valid even if there were no comparable
schools for blacks
● White Southerners worked to strengthen white supremacy
and to separate the races as much as they could
○ In some states, ​disfranchisement​ began almost as
soon as Reconstruction ended
○ In the 1890s, disfranchisement became more rigid
and some small white farmers demanded complete
disfranchisement. Two reasons:
■ Racial prejudice
■ They objected to the black vote being used
against them by Bourbons
○ Many members of the conservative elite also began
to support disfranchisement
● To disfranchise black males, the Southern states had to find a
way to evade the 15th Amendment (any race can vote)
○ One idea was the ​poll tax
■ Some form of property qualification that
blacks couldn’t meet, so they couldn’t vote
○ Another idea was the ​literacy/understanding test
■ Required voters to demonstrate their ability
to read and interpret the Constitution
■ Even literate blacks had trouble with it
■ Literacy tests for whites were sometimes
much easier but it affected poor white voters
○ Because of the decrease in the black vote, some
states passed ​grandfather laws
■ Blacks who didn’t meet requirements could
still vote if their ancestors did before Recon.
● Jim Crow Laws
○ Laws restricting franchise and segregating schools
○ Institutionalized an elaborate system of segregation
○ Lynching​ increased in the 1890s
■ Blacks were hanged by white mobs (no trials)
○ In 1892, ​Ida B. Wells​ launched an anti-lynching
movement with the goal of a federal anti-lynching law
that would punish those responsible for them