Westward Expansion, Civil War and Reconstruction

After the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory, President [blank_start]Jefferson[blank_end] appointed Captains [blank_start]Meriwether Lewis[blank_end] and [blank_start]William Clark[blank_end] to explore it.

In what year did the United States and Britain sign a treaty giving up British claims south of the 49th parallel?

Mexico was [blank_start]lenient[blank_end] about slavery in Texas.

After admitting Texas a state, President [blank_start]Polk[blank_end] wanted U.S. control of the entire Southwest. He sent a diplomatic mission with an ofer to purchase New Mexico and Upper California. The Mexican government [blank_start]refused to meet[blank_end].

Since Mexico did not sell the United States New Mexico and Upper California, both countries declared war in [blank_start]1846[blank_end].

The southwestern boundary of the United States was completed in [blank_start]1853[blank_end].

Slavery in the English colonies began in 1619 when [blank_start]twenty Africans[blank_end] arrived in the colony of [blank_start]Virginia[blank_end] at Jamestown.

After 1815 the nation enjoyed the "[blank_start]era of good feelings[blank_end]." People were moving into the West; industry and agriculture were growing; and national pride united Americans.

The [blank_start]American System[blank_end] was proposed by Henry Clay. This tariff's purpose was to fund road building and other infrastructure as well as to create a national bank. This tariff was passed in [blank_start]1824[blank_end].

In the presidential election of 1824, [blank_start]John C. Calhoun[blank_end] had proposed the very high tariffs in an effort to get Eastern business interests to vote with the agricultural interests in the South.

Vice President Calhoun declared that if any state felt that a federal law was [blank_start]unconstitutional[blank_end], that state could [blank_start]nullify[blank_end] it.

In [blank_start]1832[blank_end], Congress lowered the tariff slightly but not enough to please [blank_start]South Carolina[blank_end], which promptly declared it null and void, threatening to [blank_start]secede from the Union[blank_end].

With the admission of [blank_start]Missouri[blank_end], slavery would not be allowed in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory [blank_start]north[blank_end] of latitude [blank_start]36[blank_end] degrees [blank_start]30[blank_end]'.

Admitting Missouri as a state was the first serious clash between North and South.

In its state constitution, the Missouri Territory [blank_start]allowed[blank_end] slavery.

Admitting Missouri would also result in an [blank_start]imbalance of U.S. senators[blank_end].

The [blank_start]Missouri Compromise[blank_end] resolved the conflict by approving admission of Maine as a free state along with Missouri as a slave state.

[blank_start]Henry Clay[blank_end], known as the Great Compromiser, proposed a second Missouri Compromise. The U.S. Constitution guaranteed [blank_start]protections[blank_end] and [blank_start]privileges[blank_end] to citizens of states, and Missouri's proposed constitution could no deny these to any of its citizens.

The [blank_start]Doctrine of Nullification[blank_end] stated that the states had the right to nullify any act of Congress they believed to be unjust or unconstitutional.

The [blank_start]nullification crisis[blank_end] climaxed over a new tariff on imported manufactured goods that was enacted by Congress in 1828.

The [blank_start]tariff[blank_end] on imported manufactured goods was primarily intended to protect [blank_start]northern[blank_end] manufacturing interests in the face of imports from other countries, the effect on the [blank_start]south[blank_end] was to simply raise the prices of needed goods.

In [blank_start]1858[blank_end], Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were running for office of U.S. Senator from Illinois and participated in a series of debates, which directly affected the outcome of the 1860 [blank_start]presidential election[blank_end].

Douglas was the [blank_start]democratic[blank_end] candidate and Lincoln was the [blank_start]republican[blank_end] candidate.

Lincoln viewed slavery as [blank_start]morally wrong[blank_end] and he firmly supported his party principle that slavery must [blank_start]not be[blank_end] allowed to extend further.

[blank_start]Popular sovereignty[blank_end]: people living in territories and states should be allowed to decide for themselves whether slavery should be permitted.

In 1849, [blank_start]California[blank_end] applied for admission to the Union.

The [blank_start]Compromise of 1850[blank_end] was a series of laws designed to solve the issue of slave versus free states. California was admitted as a [blank_start]free[blank_end] state and slave trading was [blank_start]abolished[blank_end] in Washington D.C. New Mexico and Utah territories were created and the southerners were allowed to choose to keep slavery in these states. Congress also authorized implementation of stricter measures to capture [blank_start]runaway slaves[blank_end].

The Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories with the [blank_start]Dred Scott Decision[blank_end].

In the debate between Lincoln and Douglas regarding the Dred Scott case, Douglas stated that territorial legislatures could exclude slavery by refusing to pass laws supporting it. With this statement, Douglas [blank_start]won[blank_end] the race for senator and [blank_start]lost[blank_end] the [blank_start]nomination[blank_end] for president.

[blank_start]South Carolina[blank_end] was the first state to secede from the Union.

The first shots of the Civil War were fired on [blank_start]Fort Sumter[blank_end] in Charleston harbor.

The [blank_start]North[blank_end] had a larger population; superiority in finances and transportation facilities; and manufacturing, agricultural, and natural resources.

There were [blank_start]24[blank_end] Northern states, including CA, OR, MD, DE, KY, MO and WV

The Southern states numbered eleven and included...

The South knew they were at a disadvantage and did not expect to win the Civil War.

An advantage of the [blank_start]South[blank_end] is that a number of its best officers had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at [blank_start]West[blank_end] [blank_start]Point[blank_end] and had had long years of army experience.

Men from the [blank_start]South[blank_end] were conditioned to living outdoors and were more familiar with horses and firearms.

The major aim of the Confederacy never wavered: to win [blank_start]independence[blank_end], the right to [blank_start]govern[blank_end] themselves as they wished, and to [blank_start]preserve[blank_end] slavery.

The [blank_start]northerners[blank_end] were not as clear in their reasons for conducting war. At the beginning, most believed that [blank_start]preservation[blank_end] of the Union was paramount. By the war's end more northerners had come to believe that [blank_start]freeing the slaves[blank_end] was just as important.

The Civil War took more American lives than any other war in history.

The [blank_start]South[blank_end] lost one-third of its soldiers in battle compared to about one-sixth for the [blank_start]North[blank_end].

More than half of the total deaths were caused by [blank_start]disease[blank_end] and the horrendous conditions of [blank_start]field hospitals[blank_end].

The Civil War resulted in the destruction of towns, farms, trade, industry, lives, and homes. An entire [blank_start]Southern[blank_end] way of life was lost.

The Civil War has been called the first modern war. It changed the methods of waging war. Civil War soldiers were the first to

The Civil War was considered a [blank_start]modern[blank_end] war because of the vast destruction it created, and it was a "[blank_start]total war[blank_end]," involving the use of all of the resources of the opposing sides.

After the Civil War, Lincoln [blank_start]did not[blank_end] propose to punish the South.

Lincoln's program to restore the Union consisted of two major steps. They included...

Reconstruction refers to the period between [blank_start]1865[blank_end] and [blank_start]1877[blank_end] when the federal and state governments debated and implemented plans to provide [blank_start]civil rights[blank_end] to freed slaves and to set the terms under which the former [blank_start]Confederate[blank_end] states might once again join the Union.

In [blank_start]1865[blank_end], Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, leaving Vice President [blank_start]Andrew[blank_end] [blank_start]Johnson[blank_end] to oversee the beginning of the implementation of Reconstruction.

Johnson allowed former Confederates to keep control of their state governments which consequently enacted [blank_start]Black Codes[blank_end]. These [blank_start]denied[blank_end] the vote to blacks and granted them [blank_start]limited[blank_end] civil rights.

The radical Republicans in Congress sought to override the Black Codes by granting [blank_start]U.S. citizenship[blank_end] to blacks by passing a [blank_start]civil[blank_end] [blank_start]rights[blank_end] bill. Johnson [blank_start]vetoed[blank_end] the bill and Congress received the necessary [blank_start]votes[blank_end] to pass the law.

In 1866, the radical Republicans won control of Congress and passed the [blank_start]Reconstruction[blank_end] [blank_start]Acts[blank_end], which placed the [blank_start]governments[blank_end] of the southern states under the control of the federal military.

[blank_start]Scalawags[blank_end] were white southerners who had not supported the Confederacy.

[blank_start]Carpetbaggers[blank_end] were northerners who had moved to the South.

Resentful of Republican control, white southerners fought the new political system by joining a secret society called the [blank_start]Ku Klux Klan[blank_end]. It used [blank_start]violence[blank_end] to keep black Americans from voting and was a loos group made up mainly of former Confederate soldiers who opposed the Reconstruction government. They espoused a doctrine of [blank_start]white[blank_end] [blank_start]supremacy[blank_end].

In 1871, President [blank_start]Ulysses[blank_end] [blank_start]S[blank_end]. [blank_start]Grant[blank_end] took action to use federal troops to halt the activities of the KKK and actively [blank_start]prosecuted[blank_end] them in federal court.

Between [blank_start]1866[blank_end] and [blank_start]1870[blank_end], all of the states had returned to the Union.

Reconstruction was a limited success. It

The [blank_start]Emancipation Proclamation[blank_end] of 1863 and the [blank_start]Thirteenth Amendment[blank_end] in 1865 ended slavery in the United States.

The [blank_start]Redeemer[blank_end] governments consisted of Democrats who took control after federal troops and Republicans left at the end of Reconstruction. The rise of these governments marked the beginning of the [blank_start]Jim Crow[blank_end] laws and official [blank_start]segregation[blank_end].

Blacks were allowed to vote but [blank_start]literacy tests[blank_end] and [blank_start]poll taxes[blank_end] made it difficult to do so.

This court case upheld the Jim Crow laws in 1896 in the case [blank_start]Plessy[blank_end] v. [blank_start]Ferguson[blank_end]. [blank_start]Louisiana[blank_end] passed a law requiring separate train cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, [blank_start]Homer[blank_end] [blank_start]Plessy[blank_end] purchased a ticket in the white section and did not move when he was told to.

Segregating races was not unconstitutional as long as the facilities for each were [blank_start]identical[blank_end]. This became known as the "[blank_start]separate but equal[blank_end]" principle.