Download Tejanos Included many wealthy rancheros who

Tejanos
Included many wealthy rancheros who raised cattle on the shortgrass prairies of South
Texas
● Spanish speaking people born in Texas who joined American settlers fighting for Texas
independence
● Tejano elite intermixed with Americans hoping to assimilate and share power with the
Americans
● More liberal: more local control over government activities
favor provincial autonomy
and a strong role for the Americans
● Most Tejanos were small farmers or common laborers who led hardscrabble frontier lives
Vaqueros
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Poor tenant farmers
Cowboys
rancheros
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Raised cattle on the shortgrass prairies of south Texas
Part of the Tejano Community
empresarios
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Land agents like Stephen F. Austin
Managed American Colonies under the Mexican government in Texas
In these settler communities, slavery and cotton growing was introduced
Stephen F. Austin
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The first American empresario
Agreed that he and his colonists would become Mexican citizens and would adopt
Catholicism
● Handpicked settlers for his colony: no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, no idler
Juan Seguin
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Wealthy rancher and one of the leaders of the San Antonio community
During the Alamo, Travis sent him and some of his men for reinforcements; he was able
to slip past Mexican troops by speaking Spanish
● Led a regiment of Tejanos in the decisive battle of San Jacinto that won independence for
Texas
● Becomes mayor of San Antonio after independence
John C. Fremont ●
●
One of the two U.S. Senators of the new state in 1850
Soon became bogged down with lawsuits over land claims between the dispossessions
of various land owners during the Mexican-American War, and the explosion of FortyNiners immigrating during the California Gold Rush
● Lost the 1856 presidential election to Democrats James Buchanan and John C.
Brekenridge when Democrats warned his election would lead to Civil war
● During the American Civil war, he was given command of the armies in the west
●
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but made hasty decisions (Tried to abolish slavery without consulting the federal
government), and was consequently relieved of his command (fired, then court
marshaled—receiving a presidential pardon).
● In 1843-1844, he mapped the overland trails to Oregon and California
John O'Sullivan and "Mainfest Destiny" In 1845, Sullivan wrote that it is America’s manifest destiny to overspread the continent
allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions
● Americans had a God given right to bring the benefits of American democracy to other
more backward peoples (Mexicans and Indians)
Pride in what America had achieved and missionary zeal and racism
●
His newspaper, the Democratic Review, was a Democratic party newspaper: The
Democratic party was pushing for an increase in Pacific trade if the U.S. held that region
"Fifty-four Forty or Fight"
●
Relates to Oregon and the British, who had land close to Oregon
The American government wanted the border of Oregon to be at the 54 40th latitude or
they’d go to war.
● When the Mexican American war started, Polk decided not to go to war after all, because
he didn’t want a 2 front war
Davey Crockett and Jim Bowie/Alamo ●
●
Franciscan mission at San Antonio, Texas that was the site of a siege and massacre of
187 Texans by 5000 Mexican troops; “noble loss’
● The ballad of Davey Crocket ‘King of the Wild Frontier,’ bearhunter, raccoon cap, 50’s
icon
● James Bowie: died at the Alamo: Bowie knife
General Santa Anna
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President of Mexico during the siege of the Alamo
Ultimately grants Texas independence less than 2 months after the Alamo
Led 5000 Mexican troops at the Alamo
Sam Houston and the Battle of San Jacinto
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Leader of the American/Tejano troops
Defeated Santa Anna at this battle
○ Santa Anna was confident he had Houston and his troops trapped; he stopped
to rest, and was so confident, he didn’t post sentries. Although Houston advised
against it, his men immediately attacked, and captured Santa Anna
Santa Anna signed a treaty fixing the southern boundary of the independent
Texas at the Rio Grande
Election of 1844 and the Annexation of Texas/John Quincy Adams ●
Upon applying for statehood, Texas was rebuffed by Congress—it would have been the
fourteenth slave state admitted (There were 13 free states)
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts led the opposition to the admission of Texas
While Texas sought annexation, they simultaneously sought the support of Great Britain,
invoking much alarm in Americans, and they pushed for Annexation as well.
● Tyler, who became president by default when William Harrison died in office, raised the
issue of annexation in 1844, hoping to ensure his reelection, but the strategy backfired.
Calhoun connected Texas with the urgent need of slave owners to extend slavery
the
Whigs replace Tyler with Clay
● Democrats nominate their first “dark horse:” James K. Polk of Tennessee who called for
the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas ASAP
● Polk wins = viewed as a mandate for expansion, and Tyler, with one of his last actions as
president, pushed through Congress a joint resolution (which did not require 2/3 approval
by the senate necessary for treaties) for the annexation of Texas
Texas enters in December 1845 as the twenty-eighth state and fifteenth slave state
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Polk's War
The Mexican-American war instigated by Polk under the pretense that Mexico passed
the boundary of the United States, invaded our territory, and shed American blood upon
American soil. It was false.
● Termed Polk’s war by the Whigs
● Polk, despite his lack of military expertise, assumed overall planning of the war’s
strategy
gave a new and expanded definition to the president as the commander-inchief during wartime
Bear Flag Revolt
●
Americans that wanted to take over the Californian territory banded together at Sonoma
to declare independence from Mexico (“Playing the Texas Game”); no confirmed until
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Henry Clay
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Replaced Tyler for the Whig nominee for President in the election of 1844
Stance on Annexation: Noncommittal. He favored annexation only if Mexico approved.
Since Mexico’s emphatic disapproval was well known, Clay’s position was widely
interpreted as a politician’s effort not to alienate voters on either side of the fence
Thoreau and "Civil Disobedience"
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Upon Polk’s declaration of War, Thoreau went to jail rather than pay the taxes he
believed would support the war effort (his aunt paid his bail a day after his confinement)
● He then returned to his cabin on Walden Pond where he wrote his classic essay “Civil
Disobedience,” justifying the individual’s moral duty to oppose an immoral government
○ Used by Gandhi and Martin Luther King
Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott
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Generals in the Mexican American war
Won battles at Palo Alto and Veracruz (which was captured), respectively
New York celebrated the twin victories with fireworks, illuminations, and grand
processions
Became overnight heroes, and in time, both became Presidential candidates
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
●
Signed February 2, 1848
Mexico ceded its northern provinces of California and New Mexico (which included
present-day Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and part of Colorado) and accepted the Rio Grande
as he southern boundary of Texas
● The U.S. agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and assume about $2 million in individual
claims against that nation
● Polk was furious by this agreement (Made by Nicholas Trist, who delivered Polk’s terms
for peace) because he wanted to capture all of Mexico
The Gold Rush/Chinese Immigrants/San Fransisco
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Thousands left farms and jobs and headed west, by land and by sea, to make their fortune
Later known as “forty-niners” for the year the gold rush began, these people came from
all parts of the U.S./the world
● They transformed what had been a quie ranching paradise into a teeming and tumultuous
community in search of wealth
● 80% were Americans
● Several hundred Chinese arrived in California in San Francisco hoping to share the
wealth of “gum Sam” (Golden Mountain)
● Most came temporarily to gain wealth and return home
● A special tax was imposed on foreign miners in 1852, and in the 1870’s, Chinese
immigration was sharply curtailed
● San Francisco became a booming city
money was to be made in feeding, clothing,
housing, provisioning, and entertaining miners
● Levi Strauss, a German Jewish immigrant, invented blue jeans
Commodore Perry's visit to Japan
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Perry went to Japan to force it to open up to the rest of the world, esp. America, for trade,
etc...
● Sent by Pierce and resulted in a commercial treat that opened Japan to American trade
Wilmot Proviso
●
A freshman Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, David Wilmot
Proposed, in an amendment to a military appropriations bill, that slavery be banned in all
the territories acquired from Mexico
● Southern Whigs joined Southern Democrats to vote against the measure, while
northerners of both parties supported it (Sectional interests trump party loyalty)
● Deleted from he necessary military appropriations bills during the Mexican-American
war
● Neither party could take a strong stand on the amendment
Liberty Party
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Founded in 1840 by abolitionists threatened to take away votes from both the Whig
and the Democratic parties
● Took an uncompromising stance against slavery
●
Proposed to prohibit the admission of slave states to the Union, end slavery in DC,
and abolish the interstate slave trade vital to expansion of cotton growing in the Old
Southwest
● Wanted to deny office to all slaveholders and forbid the use of slave labor on federal
construction projects
● Too uncompromising for the mass of northern voters
Election of 1848
Lewis Cass and popular sovereignty
● Democratic nominee for president of 1848
● Proposed to apply the doctrine of popular sovereignty to the slave-free issue
○ Notion of leaving the decision to the citizens of each territory was based on
Jeffersonian faith in the common man’s ability to vote both his one self interest
and the common good
○ Based on the accepted constitutional principle that decisions about slavery should
be made at the state rather than national level
○ In reality = admission of the nation’s failure to resolve sectional differences
● Deliberately vague about when a territory would choose its status so Cass could get votes
from both North and South
Zachary Taylor and the Whigs
● Whigs chose General Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana slave holder and war hero, over Henry
Clay
● Refused to take a position on the Wilmot Proviso, allowing both northern and southern
voters to hope he’d sign with them
● Privately, he opposed the expansion of slavery
Martin Van Buren and the Free Soil Party
● Supported by an uneasy mixture of disaffected Democrats and Whigs who joined former
Liberty Party voters to support the Free Soil Party candidate: Van Buren
● Ran to divide the Democrats displeased with the southern dominance of the Democratic
Party
● Cost Cass the votes he needed in New York and Pennsylvania, and Taylor won with only
47% of the popular vote
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States' Rights and John C. Calhoun
John C Calhoun argued for state’s rights and insisted that Congress did not have a
constitutional right to prohibit slavery in the territories
● The territories were the common property of all the states, and slave owners had a
constitutional right to the protection of their property wherever they moved
"Slave power"
●
Group of aristocratic slave owners who conspired to control the federal government and
not just the political and social life of the South
● James Birney (Liberty Party)
● Big fear of northerners: that slave owners would slowly integrate themselves into the
government
Compromise of 1850 )-Calhoun, Webster and Clay
●
Five separate bills embodying here separate compromises
1. California was admitted as a free state, but the status of the remaining former
Mexican possessions was left to be decided by popular sovereignty when they
applied for statehood
15 slave states and 16 free states
2. Texas was required to cede land to New Mexico Territory (free or slave status
undecided). In return, the federal government assumed $10 million of debts Texas
had incurred before it became a state
3. The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was ended in the District of Columbia, but a
stronger fugitive slave law, to be enforced in all states, was enacted
● Pushed through by Stephen Douglas
Fugitive Slave Act
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Dramatically increased the power of slave owners to capture escaped slaves
The full authority of the federal government now supported slave owners, and although
fugitives were guaranteed a hearing before a federal commissioner, they were no allowed
to testify on their own behalf.
● Imposed federal penalties on citizens who protected or assisted fugitives or who did not
cooperate in their return
Anthony Burns
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An escaped slave who was recaptured
In Boston, a biracial group of armed abolitionists stormed the federal courthouse in 1854
in an attempt to save him
● When this failed, President Pierce sent marines, cavalry and artillery to Boston to
reinforce the guard over Burns and ordered a federal ship to be ready to deliver the
fugitive back into slavery.
● When the effort by defense lawyers to argue for Burns’ freedom failed, Bostonians raised
money to buy his freedom, but the U.S. attorney blocked the purchase
● Burns was marched to the docks through streets lined with sorrowing abolitionists
Radicalized many northerners
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Franklin Pierce
Democratic candidate of New Hampshire
Handsome, affable nonentity
Platform pledging “faithful execution” of all parts of the Compromise of 1850
Garnered the strong immigrant vote = a sign of the strength of the Democratic machines
in northern cities
● Pierce easily won the election of 1852, with the voter turnout below 70%
Election of 1852
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By choosing General Winfield Scott (a military hero like the party’s previous two
candidates) many southern Whigs were permanently alienated, and never again fielded a
presidential candidate
● Pierce won
Young America/filibusters
●
The Young America movement began as a group of writers and politicians in the NY
Democratic Party who believed in the promise of manifest destiny
● Wanted to conquer Central America and Cuba
● Several private filibusters (from the Spanish Filibustero, meaning an adventurer) invaded
Caribbean and Central American countries, usually with the declared intention of
extending slave territory
● William Walker = one of the best known and led 3 invasions of Nicaragua
● The pierce administration was deeply involved in an effort to obtain Cuba
Kansas-Nebraska Act
● Proposed by Stephen Douglas
● Open the lands that had been the northern part of Indian Territory to American settlers
under the principle of popular sovereignty
● Reopened the question of slavery in the territories
● To further pursue construction of a transcontinental railroad
● Though northerners would favor because it favored a northern route for the railroad, and
southerners would favor because of its popular sovereignty clause
● In effect, repealed the Missouri Compromise
● Passed, but badly strained the major political parties: Southerners all voted for it,
but Northern Whigs completely rejected
Whigs w irreconcilable split can’t get
presidential candidate in 1856
● In the congressional elections of 1854, northern Democrats lost 2/3 of their seats giving
southern democrats the dominant voice in both congress and the part y
Uncle Tom's Cabin
● Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
● Combined the literary style of the then popular women’s domestic novels with vivid
details of slavery culled from firsthand accounts by northern abolitionists and escaped
slaves
● Told the story of the Christ-like slave uncle Tom, who patiently endured the cruel
treatment of an evil white overseer, Simon Legree.
● Made people sympathetic to the plight of slavery—became a call for action
Stephen Douglas
● Introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act
● Wanted to pursue the construction of a transcontinental railroad—by allowing slavery
to be decided by slavery as a result of popular sovereignty, he hoped to gain the votes of
southern democrats
Cotton Whigs/"Bleeding Kansas"/Border Ruffians/Sacking of Lawrence and Pottawatomie Creek
Massacre
● Residents of nearby Missouri, a slave state, were the first to claim land in Kansas.
They established proslavery strongholds, and blatantly swamped Kansas elections with
Missouri votes
● Most of the proslavery votes were cast by “border ruffians” from Missouri: frontiersmen,
fond of boasting hat they could ‘scream louder, jump higher, shoot closer, get drunker
at night and wake up soberer in the morning that any man this side of the Rocky
Mountains.’
cast 6,307 ballots in an area with fewer than 3,000 eligible voters
● Northerners quickly respond
establish free soil town of Lawrence, named for
former “cotton whig” amos Lawrence, who financed them
●
Soon became a bloody battleground as both factions struggled to secure popular
sovereignty
● Pro slavery forces burned and looted Lawrence
John Brown led his sons in the raid on
the proslavery settlers of Potawatomie Creek, killing 5 unarmed people
● Burnings and killings become commonplace
● John Brown and his followers were just one of many bands of murderers who were never
arrested / brought to justice
Nativism and the Know-Nothing Party
● Anti-immigrant feeling caused by the break up of the Whig Party
● The new American Party was formed to give political expression to Nativism
● A reaction to the Democratic Party’s success in capturing the support of the Catholic
Irish immigrants (voted Demo bc of their anti-black prejudices and as a result to Demo
hostility)
● Nativism drew in former Whigs, especially young white-collar men and skilled bluecollars; at the heart were many secret frats where they had to pledge never to vote for
a Catholic. When questioned about their beliefs, party members would say “I know
nothing”
their name as the know nothings
● Scored startling victories in election of 1854
● After split the know-nothings became republicans
Election of 1856
● Republicans attracted to the economic core of the Whigs: economic growth by supporting
a protective tariff, transportation improvements, and cheap land for western farmers
(Strong central government)
● Threeway between James Buchanan (Democrat), John C. Fremont (Republican), and
Millard Fillmore (American)
● Fremont’s name only appeared on the ballot in 4 southern states, and even there he didn’t
poll much. He decisively beat Buchanan in the north, wining 11/16 of the free states
● Buchanan won the election with only 45% of the popular vote
● Attracted the highest voter turnout in American history: 79%
● Favored politicians who at least claimed to speak for national rather than sectional
interests (popular vote for Buchanan and Fillmore = 67%)
● Northerners decided the threat posed by the expansion of slavery was greater than that
posed by immigrants
nativism subsided
Caning of Sumner
Dred Scott and Justice Taney
● A southern-dominated Supreme Court attempted –and failed—to solve the political
controversy over slavery
● Dred scot was a slave all his life. His owner, army surgeon John Emerson, had taken
Scott on his military assignments to Illinois (a free state) and Wisconsin Territory (a free
territory), during which, Dred scott married another slave Harriet, and their daughter
Eliza was born in free territory. When they returned to Missouri (a slave state) Dred Scott
sued for his freedom and that of his wife and daughter (As women they had no legal
standing of their own).
● It took 11 years for the case to reach the Supreme Court
● Chief Justice Taney declared the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, that
the federal government had no right to interfere with the free movement of property
●
throughout the territories
● He then dismissed the case on the grounds that only citizens could bring suits before
federal courts and that black people, slave or free, were not citizens
● Further, he stated that Congress could not prohibit territorial slavery
● While all southerners in the court (and one northerner, believed to be pressured by
Buchanan to decide with the majority) agreed, the northerners dissented
many found
themselves seriously questioning the power of the supreme court to establish the law of
the land
● The claim that the Missouri compromise was illegal shook the foundations of the
republican party: bc it urged the containment of slavery, it might be illegal
● Pushed the country closer to civil war: but in the decision’s after math, Dred and Harriet
were sold, and were granted their freedom by manumission
Lecompton Constitution
● The proslavery constitution in Kansas: free soil voters boycotted a June 1857 election
of representatives to a convention called o write a constitution for the territory once it
reached statehood. They wrote this constitution, then applied to congress for statehood
● Buchanan endorsed this constitution (despite the fact that Free soilers held fair elections
which turned a free soil majority) because he feared the loss of support of southern
democrats
● Stephen Douglas opposed the passing of this constitution on the premise that it violated
popular sovereignty
● Douglas voted with the majority in congress to refuse admission of Kansas as a slave
state: elections were held and Kansas was submitted as a free state
Panic 1857
● The failure of an Ohio investment house was the subject of a news story flashed
immediately over telegraph wires to wall street and other financial markets
● A wave of panic selling ensued, leading to business failures and slowdowns that threw
thousands out of work
● The major cause of the panic was a sharp, but temporary, downturn in agricultural
exports o Britain (recovery well under way by early 1859)
● Less harmful to the south than to the North
John Brown's and Harper's Ferry ● New England abolitionist John Brown’s ill-fated attempt to free Virginia’s slaves with a
raid on the federal arsenal at harpers Ferry, VA
● He did no notify the slaves that this was happening
● In less than a day, the raid was over. 8 of his men were dead, no slaves had joined the
fight, and brown was killed
● All northerners mourned extensively
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
● A series of debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign during which Douglas and
Lincoln Staked out their differing opinions on the issue of slavery
● Illinois was divided between slavery, so what they said in various parts of the state varied
● Illinois was very racist: had laws prohibiting a free black to enter the state
● Lincoln:
○ From Illinois
Didn’t have a great national political career, and got famous through speeches and
such
○ Before becoming President, he served one term in Congress: strongly opposed the
Mexican War
○ Born in Kentucky: a slave state Indiana
Illinois
○ Had the idea that a president should not be able to start a war all by himself on
fictitious grounds
○ Felt that the Kansas Nebraska act was a violation of the long standing sectional
compromise
○ Played a role in the formation of the modern republican part to stop the westward
expansion of slavery
○ Thought that slavery would eventually have to be abolished (very vague because
he did not know when)
○ Doesn’t think the country will fall apart but rather will become all proslavery or
all antislavery
○ Founding fathers did not mean for slavery to be extended into new territories
● Douglas
○ Blacks should never be US citizens
○ This country was made for the benefit of white men
○ God did not make blacks so they would be capable of self-government
○ Founding fathers mean that all white men were created equal
● At the time, slavery and racism were not as closely related: Lincoln tries to debate
whether slaver is right or wrong (moves away from racism) but Douglas says that it is not
the place of politicians to debate that
● Democrats won the legislature and Douglas got reelected but Lincoln became famous;
elected in 1860 as the presidential candidate and Douglas got chosen for the Democrats
(but the party later split)
● Lincoln changed his views greatly (esp after the Civil War); 1st president to meet with
blacks in the White House; for a long time he supported re colonization
Election 1860-know all the major contenders and the electoral and popular vote breakdown
● Douglas was elected by the remaining two-thirds of the Democrat party (more than a
third of the Democrat party bolted in Baltimore while the party was trying to compromise
in a way that would allow douglas to be nominated without him compromising his beliefs
as the southern democrats wanted)
● Southern Whigs joined with border state nativists to form the Constitutional Union Party,
which nominated John bell OF tENNESSEE
● Lincoln was the republican candidate
● On the key issue of slavery: Breckinridge supported its extension to all territories,
Lincoln stood firmly for its exclusion, Douglas attempted to hold the middle ground with
his principle of popular sovereignty; Bell vaguely favored compromise as well
● Lincoln: won 40% of the popular vote
● Breckinridge (southern democrat): won 18 % of the popular vote
● John Bell: (constitutional Union) : 13% of the vote
● Stephen a. Douglas (northern democrat): won 29% of the popular vote
● Produced the second highest voter turnout in us history (81.2%)
● Turned out to be two regional contests: Breckinridge versus Bell in the South, Lincoln
○
versus Douglas in the North
● Lincoln won all 18 of the free states but his name didn’t appear on the ballot in 10
southern states: the true winner was sectionalism
Lincoln's 1861 Inaugural ● “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to
every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
● Urged the states to stay together. Overall a grave inaugural speech, but one that touched
the conscious of the people
● The Confederacy is not our enemy: we are friends
Fort Sumter
In Charleston
So long as it remained in Union hands, Charleston, the center of secessionist sentiment,
would be immobilized
● Low on supplies, Lincoln notifies the governor he’s sending a relief force carrying only
food and no military supplies.
● Jefferson david demanded the surrender of the fort. He opened fire on Lincol’s relief
force, and they surrendered
Border states
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Missouri
○ Bordered the Mississippi River
○ Controlled the routes to the west
○ Divided
● Kentucky
○ controlled the ohio river
○ Divided: traded with Tennessee
● Maryland
○ The main railroad link with the West ran through Maryland and the hill region of
western Virginia
○ Surrounded the capital
○ Loyalty was divided
● Delaware
○ Controlled access to Philadelphia
○ Loyal to the union
Battle of Bull Run
●
First battle
Union was confident and initially held their own
untrained northern troops broke ranks and retreated
Relative Strengths of Each Side
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North
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2 ½ times the south’s population
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9x industrial capacity
More railroads, more cloth production, and more footwear production
Can feed, clothe, arm and transport all the soldiers it chose
South
This was a defensive war: so the north would have to invade and fight against
guerilla tactics
○ Greater tradition in military leadership
○ Slaves do work while masters fight
○ Cotton: thought the British and French would recognize the Confederacy as a
separate nation
The Lincoln Presidency and Jefferson Davis' Confederacy
○
Jefferson Davis and the Southern Cause:
Davis had experience as an administrator and former military man
Davis not a leader by personality
Failed to unify Confederacy because he emphasized autonomy and
details, and made his cabinet feel alienated.
Robert E. Lee
A military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of
Northern Virginia
● Lee chose to follow his home state despite his personal desire for the Union to stay intact
and Lincoln’s offer to command the Union army
● Shrewd tactician and won numerous battles against larger union armies
● Lee ultimately surrendered to Grant at Appomattox court house on 1865
○ By that time, he had been promoted to the commanding officer of all confederate
forces
● Battle of Gettysburg: in the assault known as pickett’s charge, got heavy confederate
losses (wanted to launch massive frontal assult on the center of union lines)
S
ec. of Treasury Salmon P. Chase
●
Staunch abolitionist
Opposed concessions to the south and considered Lincoln too conciliatory
Vocal and dangerous critic
Taxes and the Greenback
Homestead Act and Morrill Act ●
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1.
Legal Tender Act – act creating a national currency in February 1862
2.
National Bank Act – act prohibiting state banks from issuing their own notes and forcing
them to apply for federal charters
3.
Morrill Tariff Act – act that raised tariffs to more than double their prewar rate
4.
Homestead Act – law passed by Congress in 1862 providing homesteads with 160 acres
of free land in exchange for improving the land within five years of the grant
5.
Morrill Land Grant Act – law passed by Congress in July 1862 awarding proceeds from
the sale of public lands to the states for the establishment of agricultural and mechanical
colleges
Sec. of State William Seward and his diplomatic objectives
"Cotton Diplomacy"
It was seward’s objective to ensure that Britain and france didn’t extend recognition to
the confederacy
○ Southerners thought king cotton would get them recognition, but British public opinion,
which had strongly supported the abolition of slavery within the British Empire, would
not now countenance the recognition of a new nation based on slavery. British cotton
manufacturers found other alternatives (Egypt)
○ Seward didn’t recognize the new Mexican government in order to appease the French
○ Achievement of his goals was uncertain for more than 2 years and not until battle of
Vicksburg and getysburg could seward be confident of success
○ Cotton diplomacy: the southerners grew cotton, but withheld it from the market in hope
that lack of raw material for textile mills would lead the british and French to recognize
the confederacy, but the british claimed it was economic blackmail. South ended their
embargo, flooded markets with cotton, and thus the price of cotton plummeted
Anaconda Plan ○
The original plan of the union to squeeze the south with a blockade at sea and on the
Mississippi river (proposed by Winfield scott)
○ Avoided invasion and conquest in the hope that a strained south would recognize the
inevitability of defeat and surrender
○ Public clamor for fight pushed Lincoln to agree to disastrous battle of bull run and then
major buildup of union troops in north virginia
General George B. McClellan/Peninsular Campaign ○
Union plan - offensive
Objective to capture Richmond, the confederate capital
Troops and supplies ferried from Washington to fortress monro
Antietam
Shiloh and U.S. Grant
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○
○
Antietam: checked lee’s advance, but either side was strong to lose but too weak to win
Shiloh: confederates withdrew, but loses were enormous on both sides; davis was too
preoccupied with Richmond to send reinforcments
○ Grant: Once resigned from service because of a drinking problem
○ Promoted from colonel to brigadier general in 2 months
○ March 1864: Lincoln appoints grant general in chief of all union forces: critics are
appalled bc grant is a course westerner
○ A butcher in a way, but it was his tactic and it worked
○ Won Shiloh
Vicksburg "The Gibraltar of Mississippi"
○
○
Union forces kept moving (after Davis reinforced troops to defent Richmond but
not to stop grant) aiming for Vicksburg, where grant and other generals faced strong
confederate resistance, so progress was slow. But naval forces had captured new Orleans
and traveled up the Mississippi River, making union stake on most of the river
Quantrill's Raiders
○
Chronic fighting continued to occur along the Kansas Missouri border as confederate
William quantrill’s raiders made an attack on Lawrence, Kansas massacring 150
inhabitants and burning several towns
Emancipation Proclamation
○
Freed slaves in the areas of rebellion (i.e. the areas that the UNION did not control)
Specifically exempted slaves in the border states and in former confederate areas
conquered by the union
○ Purpose was to meet the abolitionist demand for a war against slavery while not losing
support of conservatives especially in border states
○ Because slaves in the south were already fleeing/refusing to work for their masters, this
proclamation only gave a name to what was already happen
54th Regiment
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First black regiment Massachusetts Copperheads
/ Vallandigham
○
After douglas died, the democrats split into two factions: war demos and peace demos
PEACE DEMOS were the copperheads
Opposed emancipatio, denounced the draft, martial law, and high handed actions
of “King Abraham’
○ Vallandigham was the leader: advocated armistice and a negotiated peace that would look
only to the welfare, peace, and safety of the white race, without reference to the effect
settlement may have on the African
○ Lincoln proclaimed all people who discouraged enlistments in the army were subject
to martial law
arrested 13,000 people including vallandigham who was exiled to the
confederacy
NYC Draft Riots
○
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1863: congress passed national conscription law
Newyork, july 1863: Looting, fighting, and lynching claim lives of 105 people (,any
African Americans)
○ Causes: racial and class antagonisms, anger at draft, urban growth and tensions: civil war
showed the pronounced differences between the rich and the poor
Bread Riots in Richmond
○
○
More than 1000 people (mostly women) broke into bakeries and stole bread
Inflation in the south reached a high of 9000% because the northern blockade of ports
was successful and transportation system broke down
○ Jefferson davis himself appealed to crowd to disperse but had to threaten gunfire
Gettysburg/Pickett's Charge
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At the battle of Gettysburg, pickett (confederate) charged with a weakened army to attack
the heavily defended union center
Suicidal
Lee’s gamble failed and he never again mounted a major offensive
Sherman's March through Atlanta
Sherman’s goal was to make war terrible for civilians
Lived off land and destroyed everything in their path
‘Special Order #15
○
○
Order by General Sherman in January 1865 to set aside abandoned land along the
southern atlantic coast for 45 acre grants to freed men
○ Rescinded by prez Johnson later than that year
○ Done in response to the meeting arranged by the secretary of war to speak with 20 african
ministers who spoke for freed slaves
Election 1864, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
○
Lincoln was disapproved by the radicals because they thought he was too peaceful
towards the south and the republicans because of the emancipation proclimation
○ Democrats had a war hero: General George Mclellan
○ Lincoln won because Sherman captured Atlanta
○ Inaugural address was very somber, and grave because he looked to reconstruction
○ With malice toward none, with charity for all
○ He was not planning on punishing the south because he believed the war was from god
for committing the sin of slavery and endorsing it
Appomattox
○ Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomatax Court house
○ Grant treated lee with respect and set historic precedent by giving the confederate troops
parole
○ Hey sent every starving man witht three days’ rations fo reach man
John Wilkes Booth
○ Actor, killed the president at ford theater
○ Lincoln was a despicable Bonaparte
○
Lincoln's 10 Percent Plan
○ determined TO RESPECT PRIVATE PROPERT Y
○ FULL PARDON AND THE RESTORATION OF PROPERTY NOT INCLUDING
SLAVES TO WHITE SOUTHERNERS WILLING TO SWEAR AN Oath of allegience
to the U.S. and its laws, including the emancipation proclamation
○ When the number of any confederate state’s voters who took the oath reached 10% of
the number who had voted in the election of 1860, this group could establish a state
government that Lincoln would recognize as legitimate
○ Acceptance by the reconstructed governments of the abolition of slavery
○ Angered radical republicans who advocated only equal rights for the freedmen but a
tougher stance toward white south
Wade-Davis Bill
○ 50% of a seceding state’s white male citizens to take loyalty oath before elections could
be held for a convention to rewrite the state’s constitution
○ equality before the law for former slaves
○ threatened efforts to build political consensus withing southern states, and Lincoln
pocket-vetoed it
13th Amendment
○ Prohibited Slavery
Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction
○ Johnson extended pardons to southerners who swore an oath of allegiance
○ He restored property rights to southerners who swore an oath of allegience
○ His plan had nothing to say about the voting and civil rights of former slaves
Sherman’s Order #15
○ Set aside sea islands off the Georgia coast and a portion of the south Carolina low
country rice fields for exclusive settlement of freed people
○ 40 acres and a mule
○ relieve demands placed on his army by the thousands of impoverished African Americans
who followed his march to the sea
Thaddeus Stevens
○ Radical republican
○ Supported redistribution of land to blacks and impeachment of Johnson
"black codes"
○ Passed by sc, Mississippi, lousiana, and others
○ Designed to restrict freedom of black labor force to keep freed people as close to the
slave status as possible
○ Lborers who left jobs before contracts expired would forfeit wages already earned and be
subject to arres by any white citizen
○ Vagrancy (Broad definition) punishable by fines and involuntary plantation labor
○ Apprenticeship clauses made black kids work wout pay
○ Tried to bar aa from land ownership
○ Excluded hem from juries, prohibited interracial marriages
Civil Rights and Freedmen's Bureau bills
○ Civil rights bill : all persons born in the us as national citizens, enumerated rights: make
and enforce contracts, sue, give evidence, buy and sell property
○ Aa acquired full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings
○ Freedman’s bureau bills: empowering it to build schools, pay teachers, establish courts to
prosecute those who deprived aa’s of their rights.
○ Schools lay foundation for southern public education
○ Network of courts allowed freed people to bring suits against white people in disputes
14th Amendment
○ Conferred national citizenship on all persons born or naturalized in the US
○ Reduced state representation in congress proportionally for any state disenfranchising
male citizens
○ Denied former confederates right to hold state/national office
Tenure of Office Act
○ Act stipulating that any officeholder appointed by the president with the senate’s advice
and consent could not be removed until he senate had approved a successor
Election of 1868
○ Grant v Seymour (against emancipation, pro states’ rights) ; KKK terrorized black and
white Republicans from voting
○ Republicans nominated U.S. Grant
○ Democrats: horatio Seymour : foe of emancipation and supporter of states’ right
○ Grant won; republicans also retained majorities in house and congress
KKK
○ Perhaps the most prominent of the vigilante groups that terrorized black people in the
south during the reconstruction era
○ Founded by confederate veterans
15th Amendment
○ Prohibited denial of suffrage because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude
Woman Suffrage/Stanton and Anthony opposition to 15th Amendment
○ Opposed it because it still restricted women from voted
○ Established w lucy stone the American equal rights association to remove racial and
sexual restrictions on voting from state constitutions
○ Argued ratification would establish an aristocracy of sex and would leave women without
political privileges
AWSA v. NWSA
○ American Women suffrage association: more moderate; focused on achieving suffrage on
the state level and supported 15th amendment
○ National women suffrage association: more radical; demonstrated self government and
democratic participation were crucial for women
sharecropping
○ Labor system evolved during and after reconstruction
○ Landowners furnished laborers w house, farm animals, tools and advanced credit in
exchange for a share of laborer’s crop
the Union League
○ Republican party organizations in northern cities that became an important organizing
device among freedmen in southern cities after 1865
Southern Republicans-carptebaggers, scalawags
○ Carpet baggers : northern transplants to the South, many of whom were Union soldiers
who stayed in the South after the war; tended to be well-educated and from the middle
class; also included Freedmen’s Bureau agents and businessmen who had invested in
cotton plantations etc. ; won a large share of Reconstruction offices
○ Scalawags: southern whites, mainly small landowning farmers and well-off merchants
and planters, who supported the southern Republican Party during Reconstruction record
of Reconstructionist Governments
Colfax Massacre
○ Easter Sunday
○ Nearly 100 african Americans wer killed after they tried to hold a besieged courthouse
during a contested election
○ KKK did it
KKK Act 1871and U.S. Grant
○ The violent infringement of civil and political rights became a federal crime punishable
by federal government
Civil rights Act of 1875
○ Outlawed racial discrimination in public places
○ Enforcement required aa take their cases to court which was costly
Redemption
○ the regaining of control of the southern states by the democrats by 1877, after which
African American rights were further restricted. The idea that the Reconstruction was a
lost cause and that rights had been given to African Americans before they were prepared
prevailed.
Supreme Court Cases-Slaughterhouse cases, U.S. v. Reese, U.S. v. Cruikshank
○ Slaughterhouse cases – group of cases resulting in one sweeping decision by the US
Supreme Court in 1873 that contradicted the intent of the 14th Amendment by decreeing
that most citizenship rights remained under state, not federal, control
○ In US v. Reese and US v. Cruikshank, the Court restricted congressional power to
enforce the KKK Act, future prosecution would depend on the states. Court held that the
14th Amendment extended federal power to protect civil rights only in cases involving
discrimination by states and also ruled that the 15th Amendment did not guarantee a
citizen’s right to vote. In 1883 it declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional
Age of Capital
○ Business boomed, especially railroad building and industries associated with it and the
Republicans increasingly identified with the interests of business rather than civil rights
of freed men and “free labor”
Depression of 1873
○ End of postwar boom brought depression
○ Collapse resulted from commercial overexpansion especially speculative investing in the
nation’s railroad system
○ By 1876, half nation’s railroads had defaulted on their bonds
○ More than 100 banks folded and thousands businesses closed
○ Mass meetings of workers in ny and other cities issued calls to gov officials to create jobs
through public works
○ Longest economic contraction in the nation’s history up until that time