Download Civil War and Reconstruction

Civil War and
Reconstruction
Southern society: conservative,
traditional, slavery, honor
►Most
southerners
were farmers.
►A
slave-owning
planter minority
dominated southern
society.
Prom night in Kentucky 2004:
What does this have to do with the
Civil War?
“King Cotton” : Cotton is king in the
south
► Cotton
Gin: Eli Whitney
► A person could clean
much more cotton
than by hand.
► Increased demand
for slaves as more
cotton could be
grown and
processed
The Cotton Belt: causing slave
owners to move westward
Causes of the Civil War:
sectional tensions lead to war
► 3/5
Compromise
► Missouri Compromise (1820)
► Nullification
► Compromise of 1850
► Kansas - Nebraska Act (1854)
► Dred Scott decision (1857)
► Election of 1860
Three – fifths compromise
Missouri Compromise (1820)
Nullification
► Nullification
is a constitutional theory
that gives an individual state the right to
declare null and void any law passed by
the United States Congress
The Dred Scott Case (1857)
► Taken
by his master
into free territory
► Supreme Court
decision outrages
northerners
Supreme Court decision increases
sectional tension between north and
south
►
“We think ... [that Negroes] ... are not included, and
were not intended to be included, under the word
“citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore
claim none of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provides for and secures to citizens of
the United States. On the contrary, they were at
that time considered as a subordinate and inferior
class of beings, who had been subjugated by the
dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not,
yet remained subject to their authority, and had no
rights or privileges but such as those who held the
power and the Government might choose to grant
them.”
The Dred Scott ruling: Why would this make it
harder for the north and south to compromise over
the issue of slavery?
► Ruled
that because Scott was a slave, he
was not a citizen and could not sue.
► Congress had no power to regulate slavery
in the territories
► Free states could not prevent slavery from
Spreading into free areas
Election of 1860
Immediate Cause of War:
John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry
► Convicted
of murder
and hanged.
THE WAR THAT TURNED “BROTHER
AGAINST BROTHER”
► LINCOLN’S
MAIN OBJECTIVE WAS TO SAVE
THE UNION, NOT END SLAVERY.
► NORTH
SEEMED TO HAVE MORE
ADVANTAGES BUT LINCOLN HAD
PROBLEMS WITH HIS GENERALS, SO THE
NORTH DID BADLY AT FIRST.
What this war was really about
►The
North said this was a war to “save
the union.”
►The South said the war was about
“states rights.”
►The Civil war was really about
SLAVERY
CIVIL WAR 1861 - 1865
► President
•
•
•
Lincoln was elected to two terms
as President:
1860 – 1864
1865 –Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at
Ford’s Theater.
South Carolina was the first state to secede
Union (North)
United States
Confederacy (South)
Confederate States of
America “Dixie”
Two Countries, Two Presidents
Abraham Lincoln
Jefferson Davis
Lincoln’s generals did not want to fight!
McClellan is replaced by Burnside
Southern (Confederate) General
Robert E. Lee
Sherman and Grant:
Believers in Total War
Total war = destroy civilian areas
Making a run for the union lines
WAR IS HELL:
ANDERSONVILLE PRISON
GETTYSBURG: The Turning Point:
50,000 KILLED, INJURED OR
MISSING
► TURNING
POINT IN
WAR IN UNION’S
(NORTH) FAVOR
►Started
with
Confederates
looking for shoes!
Lincoln at Gettysburg:
November 1863
1862: Emancipation Proclamation
Lee surrenders to Grant:
Appomattox Courthouse
April 1865
Lincoln is assassinated and unable to implement his
Reconstruction Plan, which was fairly lenient toward
the former Confederate states
Reconstruction: 1865 – 1877:
How can this nation be put back together?
►Who
will rule in the south?
►Who
will rule in the federal
government?
►What
will be the conditions that
African-Americans will live under?
What are some issues that would
need to be dealt with after the Civil
War?
► People
with no homes
► Angry white men stripped of “honor”
► Economy and how will people eat?
► Angry black people- no homes, etc
► South is poor and not very industrialized
Problems after the Civil War
► How
to help the former slaves
► How to bring back Confederate states into
the union
► How to rebuild the south
► How to deal with the fact that Lincoln,
Johnson and Congress all had different
ideas for Reconstruction.
The “failure” of Reconstruction
► By
the end of the 19th century (1800’s)
many African –Americans will find
themselves in similar conditions to what
they experienced before the Civil War
► A few will be able to move into the middle
class.
► Some historians will argue that the
Reconstruction years helped lay the
foundation for later success in civil rights
THERE WAS A
GROWING
BLACK MIDDLE
CLASS DURING
THE
PROGRESSIVE
ERA
However, many African –Americans find
themselves in circumstances as bad and
sometimes worse than slavery=
sharecropping
Thomas Nast cartoon:
Worse than Slavery
JIM CROW LAWS: LEGALIZED
SEGREGATION
FREDERICK DOUGLAS
WAS WIDELY REGARDED
AS THE LEADER AND
SPOKESMAN FOR THE
BLACK COMMUNITY UNTIL
HIS DEATH IN 1895.
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
ASSUMED DOUGLAS’S
ROLE BUT WAS
CHALLENGED BY W.E.B.
DuBOIS. THE TWO HAD
DIFFERING IDEAS ON
HOW BLACK AMERICANS
SHOULD DEAL WITH THE
RACISM AND LACK OF
OPPORTUNITY.
AFRO-AMERICAN LEADERS
BOOKER T.
WASHINGTON
W.E.B. DuBOIS
What accounted for this failure?:
That is our topic!