APUSH 1: Vocabulary Outline

The aftermath of the civil war left the U.S in a terrible position; thus calling for the dawning of the Reconstruction era. The idea of Reconstruction was brought up by Pres. Abe Lincoln, but it was brought out by Andrew Johnson after President Lincoln was assassinated. The hopes for former slaves was lifted when the 13th-15th amendments were established and many rights for black men were created. While Southern state governments abolished slavery, they did nothing to alter the status of freedmen and women; to show, the rights once held by former slaves were taken away from them. Black men could not vote, they could not own property, and they were forced into sharecropping, which made debt highly likely. Slavery was still punishment for crimes, but the biggest punishment for crimes committed by blacks was lynching.

As we already noted – in the 1800s expediency of slavery was disputed. While industrial North almost abandoned bondage, by the early 19th century, slavery was almost exclusively confined to the South, home to more than 90 percent of American blacks (Barney W., p. 61). Agrarian South needed free labor force in order to stimulate economic growth. In particular, whites exploited blacks in textile production. This conditioned the differences in economic and social development of the North and South, and opposing viewpoints on the social structure. “Northerners now saw slavery as a barbaric relic from the past, a barrier to secular and Christian progress that contradicted the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and degraded the free-labor aspirations of Northern society” (Barney W., p. 63).

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

A Nation Rising, Kenneth C. Davis tells the story of the “black hole” in American History. He presents a series of political events that occurred during 1800-1850 that shaped our nation and it’s political views. HeIn describes in several different chapters what occurred during this period of the US. This paper will review Davis’s view as well as his main arguments, and will explain the untold tales of American History.

Before this sanguinary war began, there was a divided America. The inhabitants of these nations couldn’t define America’s founding principles, which were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pre-Civil War era was one of the most chaotic periods in human history. The South and the North were the disagreeing nations in America. The free and industrialized North was the center of the abolitionists while the agrarian South was the center of

In the article “The Central Theme of Southern Slavery” Ulrich B. Phillips asserts that among several other motives that served as a drive for white Southerners to support slavery, the predominant one was their desire to preserve white supremacy in the South. He claims that all of the states in the US are similar except for the opinion about slavery. Phillips emphasizes that the idea of slavery in the South was important and perceived by southerners as heritage and a tradition. He also claims that the institution wasn’t merely economic, but also a system of social order. In addition, the white southerners saw abolition as a major threat to their economic freedom. According to Phillips, some Southerners saw deportation of african-american citizens as another solution to the slavery crisis in the United States. However,

David M. Potter theme of Impending Crisis is the study of sectional conflict dealing primarily with political events that led up to or caused southern states to secede from the Union resulting in the Civil War. Potter contends that during the expansionist period of the 1840s the country was experiencing a growth of American nationalism, but “the emergence of the sectionalism which almost destroyed the nation was symbolized by an amendment to an appropriation bill which was never enacted.” For the next fifteen years the Wilmot Proviso (1846) and the issue of slavery would become “a catalyst of all sectional antagonisms, political, economic, and cultural…opened the floodgates of sectionalism, for now all the pent-up moral indignation which had been walled in by the constitutional inhibition could be vented into the territorial question.”

In William Barney’s article, “The Quest for Room,” he analyzes the differing opinions between the North and South regarding the expansion of slavery into the newly acquired Western territories. The author argues that the West would have been important to slaveholders as a place to expand slavery if the territories had not been free-soil. The reason for this article was to show us how prominent the sectional differences were in the nineteenth century because of the argument over slavery. This, in turn, led to the secession of the Southern states from the Union as they formed the Confederacy; this dug the nation into a deep-pitted civil war.

The 1850s were believed to be a period of compromise to prevent Southern secession from the Union. Instead, it brought more divisions along sectional lines, Northern Democrats and Northern Whigs (free-states) against the Southern Democrats and Southern Whigs (slave states). David M. Potter’s book Impending Crisis provides evidence of sectionalism between free and slave states. Potter contends that during the expansionist period of the 1840s the country was experiencing a growth of American nationalism, but “the emergence of the sectionalism which almost destroyed the nation was symbolized by an amendment to an appropriation bill which was never enacted.” For the next fifteen years the Wilmot Proviso (1846) and the issue of slavery would become “a catalyst of all sectional antagonisms, political, economic, and cultural…opened the floodgates of sectionalism, for now all the pent-up moral indignation which had been walled in by the constitutional inhibition could be vented into the territorial question.”

During the 19th century, so known “peculiar institution” of slavery dominated labor systems of the American South, also dominated most production in the US and led to a boost of the economy of the New Republic. By the 1850 's, US had become a country segregated into two regional identities, known as the Slave South and the Free North. While the South maintained a pro-slavery identity that supported and protected the expansion of slavery westward, the North largely held abolitionist views and opposed the slavery’s westward expansion. Until the 1850 's the nation uncertainly balanced the slavery subject between the two opponents. However, the acquisition of the Louisiana territories in 1803 by the Jefferson administration doubled the size of the US and the victory in the Mexican-American War extended the territory to the Pacific which quadrupled the area of the US. Ultimately, the territorial expansion led to the spread of slavery. In this essay, I will describe some of the reasons for the expansion of slavery including its influence in national politics, and consequences such as political debates and crises of 1850’s.

The introduction of this book is very unique in that it gives a brief overview of American history that not many Americans were taught. The book fills in the blanks about how exactly our country started out being a small trading partner with European countries and in a few decades became the world’s largest economy. “For some fundamental assumptions about the history of slavery and the history of the United States remain strangely unchanged. The first major assumption is that, as an economic system a way of producing and trading commodities American slavery was fundamentally different from the rest of

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, in Document C, that “the United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic.” This statement points out a key similarity between this war and the Civil War- both were tainted by slavery. The Mexican War would result in new slave states, making abolitionists angry, resulting in the conflicts that started the Civil War. Document D, written by David Wilmot of the Wilmot Proviso, reveals the tensions created by the Mexican cession, saying, “I ask not that slavery be abolished, I demand that this government preserve the integrity of free territory against the aggressions of slavery-against its wrongful usurpations.” Up until that point, there were an equal number of slave and free states. How would the balance be maintained? Wilmot suggested that slavery remain only in the current slave states and not spread to any new territories. However, his plan was rejected, showing that neither side would compromise, but, instead, that the Union would break apart. Therefore, the Compromise of 1850 was passed as a way to appease the north and the south. Document E shows the distinct separation of slave and free states resultant of this compromise. This reveals a major breakup of the Union over slavery. Document F points out the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, created by Stephen Douglas, which divided the newly gained Nebraska Territory into two

However, the commerce in question directly arose from and served slavery, and therefore the Nullification movement in South Carolina must be seen in its correlation to Carolinians feeling the threat of abolition. It is for this reason that I look to John C. Calhoun, a fervent opposer of the Tariff, who perfectly embodies the connection I am making by saying “I am a planter - a cotton planter. I am a Southern man and a slaveholder.” Calhoun is a man who believes that slavery is, in his own words, a “positive good”, and is, as most other Southers opposers are, channeling his anxiety concerning the threat upon institution of slavery being channeled into another, more controllable issue. Calhoun believes that the Tariff favors the industrial North such as my home state of Massachusetts, but fails to see that prosperity within the manufacturing industry of the North will benefit the country as a whole. Giving the states the right to veto or nullify laws is, by nature, unconstitutional, and gives way for immense separation between states, as slaveholding states could veto laws that they deem to be a to the industry of

The South’s agriculture was predominantly dependent on slave labor prior to the Civil War. Although the North continued to industrialize and improve its technology to advance their farming, the South stuck to their tradition of using slaves, which proved to be inefficient. By 1860, the productivity of the North was almost double of that of the South, and the reason is revealed in this article. When he was traveling short distances, he found the slaves to be completely inefficient. Only few slaves on a farm were capable of working for their masters, others were often too young, too old, or too ill to work. The white men didn’t like work because of their belief that work was meant for slaves, and the slaves that worked never gave their best effort, for they were lacking

In chapter 14, we look into changes to the two political parties in the events of the 1840s and 1850s. When the Compromise of 1850 broke apart, the implementation of the Fugitive Slave Act brought the horror of slavey into the North. Whigs and Democrats had organized and channeled political conflict in the nation. To achieve national political power, the Whigs and Democrats had to retain their strength in both the North and the South. Eventually due to the fallout of the Whig party, they were called the “Know- Nothings” and eventually named the ‘Republican Party’.