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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