Unit 3 - Civil War though Reconstruction
Study guide for Unit 3 test
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As the nation expanded and its population grew, regional tensions, especially over slavery, led to a civil war — the course and aftermath of which transformed American society.
Key Concept 5.1: The United States became more connected with the world as it pursued an expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere and emerged as the destination for many migrants from other countries.
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Key Concept 5.2: Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.
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Key Concept 5.3: The Union victory in the Civil War and the contested Reconstruction of the South settled the issues of slavery and secession, but left unresolved many questions about the power of the federal government and citizenship rights.
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Period 5 - 1844-1877
Manifest Destiny
The Trailer
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Key Concepts:
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James K. Polk and Manifest Destiny
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How did Manifest Destiny shape the West?
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War and Expansion
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James K Polk and the Mexican War
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Wilmot Proviso
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1850s - Road to Disunion
Backlash to the Fugitive Slave Act 1850
Kansas-Nebraska Act
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Key Concepts:
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Civil War (causes)
What caused the Civil War?
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Slavery
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Key Concepts:
- The institution of slavery and its attendant ideological debates, along with regional economic and demographic changes, territorial expansion in the 1840s and 1850s, and cultural differences between the North and the South, all intensified sectionalism.
- The North's expanding economy and its increasing reliance on a free-labor manufacturing economy contrasted with the South's dependence on an economic system characterized by slave-based agriculture and slow population growth.
- Abolitionists, although a minority in the North, mounted a highly visible campaign against slavery, adopting strategies of resistance ranging from fierce arguments against the institution and assistance in helping slaves escape to willingness to use violence to achieve their goals.
- States' rights, nullification, and racist stereotyping provided the foundation for the Southern defense of slavery as a positive good.
- Lincoln's election on a free soil platform in the election of 1860 led various Southern leaders to conclude that their states must secede from the Union, precipitating civil war.
Civil War (the war itself)
Why the Union Won
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Fascination with the Civil War
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Abe's 1st Inaugural Address - A Close Reading
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The Men of Company E - Confronting Freedom After the War
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Emancipation Proclamation (Civil War Era Criticisms)
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Close Reading - 1st Draft of Emancipation Proclamtion
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Close Reading - Gettysburg Address
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Key Concepts:
- The North’s greater manpower and industrial resources, its leadership, and the decision for emancipation eventually led to the Union military victory over the Confederacy in the devastating Civil War.
- Both the Union and Confederacy mobilized their economies and societies to wage the war even while facing considerable home front opposition.
- Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation changes the purpose of the war, enabling many African Americans to fight in the Union Army and helping prevent the Confederacy from gaining full diplomatic support from European powers.
- Although the Confederate leadership showed initiative and daring early in the war, the Union ultimately succeeded due to improved military leadership, more effective strategies, key victories, greater resources, and the wartime destruction of the South's environment and infrastructure.
Reconstruction
Reconstruction and its Legacy
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Changing Views of Reconstruction
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1866 - The Birth of Civil Rights
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Key Concepts:
- The Civil War and Reconstruction altered power relationships between the states and the federal government and among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, ending slavery and the notion of a divisible union but leaving unresolved questions of relative power and largely unchanged social and economic patterns.
- The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, bringing about the war’s most dramatic social and economic change, but the exploitative and soil-intensive sharecropping system endured for several generations.
- Efforts by radical and moderate Republicans to reconstruct the defeated South changed the balance of power between Congress and the presidency and yielded some short-term successes, reuniting the union, opening up political opportunities and other leadership roles to former slaves, and temporarily rearranging the relationships between white and black people in the South.
- Radical Republicans’ efforts to change southern racial attitudes and culture and establish a base for their party in the South ultimately failed due both to determined southern resistance and to the North’s waning resolve.
- The constitutional changes of the Reconstruction period embodied a Northern idea of American identity and national purpose and led to conflicts over new definitions of citizenship, particularly regarding the rights of African Americans, women, and other minorities.
- Although citizenship, equal protection of the laws, and voting rights were granted to African Americans in the 14th and 15th Amendments, these rights were progressively stripped away through segregation, violence, Supreme Court decisions, and local political tactics.
- The women's rights movement was both emboldened and divided over the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
- The Civil War Amendments established judicial principles that were stalled for many decades but eventually became the basis for court decisions upholding civil rights.