Unit 4: Civil War and Reconstruction
CIVIL WAR
The country began tearing apart due to sectional differences and arguments over states’
rights with regard to slavery. “A house divided against itself cannot stand…” In 1860,
Abraham Lincoln was elected president – soon after, the South seceded because they
feared that he would try to get rid of slavery.
They formed the Confederate States of America, elected Jefferson Davis as their
President and flew their own flag.
In April 1861, the Confederacy fired on the federal Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The Civil
War began.
Lincoln’s main focus was to preserve the Union. He worked to keep the 4 border states
(slaves states) in the Union.
He broadened the power of the executive branch in a number of ways, most famously by
suspending the writ of habeas corpus in areas not in rebellion (When the privilege of the
writ is suspended, a prisoner is denied the right to secure such a writ and therefore can be
held without trial indefinitely.)
In 1862, he issued the Executive Order of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed
the slaves in the rebelling states. It aided in the war effort. The 13th Amendment officially
abolished slavery.
The Union had overwhelming advantages in terms of population, industrial capacity, and
transportation facilities. Because most of the military academies were in the South, the
Confederacy began the Civil War with a larger group of officers. Since most battles were
fought in the South, the Confederacy also had “home court advantage.”
Strategies
Confederacy: defensive war
Union: Anaconda Plan –a naval blockade of the Confederate coast, a thrust down the
Mississippi, and the strangulation of the South
Total war: used by Union General William T. Sherman to decimate the South
Gettysburg Address: Lincoln dedicated the Union military cemetery at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, the site of the turning point of the war (it was the last time the South
attempted to invade the North) “Four score and seven years ago…” expressed Lincoln’s
view of America’s past and vision for its future.
In his second Inaugural Address, Lincoln’s expresses his desire to put the country
back together:
The war ends when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General
Ulysses S. Grant in 1865. A week later, Lincoln is assassinated.
Major Impacts of the War:
Union preserved
Abolishment of slavery
Supremacy of the federal government upheld
Economic growth for the North
South economically devastated
RECONSTRUCTION
the effort to rebuild the Southern states and to restore the Union from 186 – 1877
Plans for Reconstruction:
President Andrew Johnson was impeached (but not removed from office) essentially
due to his struggle with Congress over Reconstruction.
Freedman’s Bureau: created by Congress to aid former slaves and poor whites with
education, housing, legal representation, etc.
The “Reconstruction Amendments” FREE CITIZENS VOTE
13th: officially outlaws slavery in all states
14th: all people born in the United States are citizens, have the same rights “equal
protection under law”
15th: Cannot deny the right to vote based on race, color or previous servitude
Rebuilding the South was challenging. Many Southerners were bitter and resentful.
Carpetbaggers: Northerners who came South after the war; scalawags: white Southerners
who supported the Republican Party
Sharecropping was often just another word for slavery as it often kept freed slaves on
plantations to rent land for a “share” of the crop harvested -- cycle of poverty.
End of Reconstruction happens with the Compromise of 1877 -- an informal, unwritten
deal that settled the disputed 1876 Presidential election; Republican Rutherford B. Hayes
was awarded the White House on the understanding that he would remove the federal
troops from South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana.
Withdrawal of federal troops enabled white Southerners to eliminate any political advances
African Americans had made during Reconstruction.
Black Codes: based on old slave codes; tried to control behavior of freedmen
Literacy tests, poll taxes, “grandfather clause” –attempts to stop African Americans voting.
Secret societies like the Ku Klux Klan formed to terrorize and intimidate African Americans.
Jim Crow: laws that established social as well as well as legal separation.
Plessy v. Ferguson: landmark SCOTUS ruling that “separate is equal”
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois took different approaches to securing civil rights
during the Jim Crow era:
Susan B.
Anthony “tested” the 15th Amendment by voting in the Presidential election of 1872. She
was arrested and put on trial, found guilty, and fined $100. She refused to pay. She and
many women alongside and following her launch a campaign to promote women’s suffrage
(right to vote).
