1. Discuss the expansion west by the US from 1800-1875.

How did the frontier change or evolve during that

time? What forces were pushing these changes, & why or how?
a. 1803 - Louisiana Purchase January 18. Jefferson asks Congress for funds for an expedition to explore the
Mississippi River and beyond in search of a route to the Pacific. Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson's private
secretary, begins planning the expedition, which forms late in 1803.
- April 30. Robert Livingston, ambassador to France, and James Monroe, special envoy, conclude a treaty of
cession in Paris in which the United States purchases from France the whole of the Louisiana territory for
fifteen million dollars. The territory, approximately 800,000 square miles comprising the Mississippi River
Valley and most of the present-day Midwest, almost doubles the size of the United States. Jefferson's original
expectation was that Livingston and Monroe might persuade the French to yield a portion of the Mississippi
River Valley for ten million dollars. However, Emperor Napoleon of France has just lost an army and the island
of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean to Toussaint L'Overture, leader of a slave insurrection, and he is no longer
interested in maintaining a French foothold in North America. He offers the United States the whole of the
territory.
b. 1804 - May. The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departs, moving up the Missouri
River. (Lewis and Clark map, with annotations... Geography and Map Division)
c. Pike expedition: he was to go south but not successful b/c they got caught by Santa Fe and were arrested,
took his charts/maps. Colorado Pikes peak.
d. 1820 - Missouri Compromise, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Maine
immediately gives right to vote and education to all male citizens. The compromise also prohibited slavery in
the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30'N lat. (southern boundary of Missouri). The 36°30'
proviso held until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise. See map.
e. 1820-1821: santa fe trail Spanish are kicked out ofrom the North America Mexican establish a trail to trade
they used ox.
f. Oklahoma 1838, Indian territory, trail of tears.
g. 1840 fur trading and trapping: beaver and otter fur=$ American fur co 1808 and Missouri fur co 1809
h. 1845 - Santa Anna presidency is overthrown in Mexico .
i. 1846 - War with Mexico
j. 1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848
Oregon organized as territory. Oregon Control of what was known as “ Oregon country,” in the Pacifi c
Northwest, was also a major political issue in the 1840s. Both Britain and the Unitedthe region. Unable to
resolve their confl icting claims diplomatically, they agreed in an 1818 treaty to allow citizens of each country
equal access to the territory. This “ joint occupa-tion,” continued for twenty years. In fact, at the time of the
treaty neither Britain nor the United States had established much of a presence in Oregon country. White
settlement in the region consisted largely of scattered American and Canadian fur trading posts. But
American interest in Oregon grew substantially in the 1820s and 1830s. By the mid- 1840s, white Americans
substantially outnumbered the British in Oregon. They had also devastated much of the India n population, in
part through a measles epidemic that spread through the Cayuse. American settlements had spread up and
down the Pacifi c Coast, and the new settlers were urging the United States govern-ment to take possession
of the disputed Oregon territory.
k. The migrations into Texas and Oregon were part of a larger movement that took hundreds of thousands of
white and black Americans into the far western regions of the continent between 1840 and 1860. The largest
# of immigrants were from the NW. Most were relatively young people who traveled in family groups, until
the early 1850s, when the great California gold rush attracted many single men ( see pp. 323– 324). Few were
wealthy, but many were relatively prosperous. Poor people who could not afford the trip on their own
usually had to join other families or groups as laborers— men as farm or ranch hands, women as domestic
servants, teach-ers, or, in some cases, prostitutes. Groups heading for areas where mining or lumbering was
 the principal economic activity consisted mostly of men. Those heading for farming regions traveled mainly
as families. Migrants generally gathered in one of several major depots in Iowa and Missouri ( Independence,
St. Joseph, or Council Bluffs), joined a wagon train led by hired guides, and set off with their belongings piled
in covered wagons, livestock trailing behind. The major route west was the 2,000- mile Oregon Trail, which
stretched from Independence across the Great Plains and through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains.
From there, migrants moved north into Oregon or south ( along the California Trail) to the north-ern
California coast. Other migrations moved along the Santa Fe Trail, south-west from Independence into New
Mexico.
l. 1850 – Compromise of 1850 admits California as free state but Fugitive Slave Law enacted.
m. 1852 - California encourages Chinese to immigrate and work on railroads
n. 1853-As the nation expanded westward, broad support began to emerge for building a transcontinental
railroad. The problem was where to place it— and in particular, where to locate the railroad’s eastern
terminus, where the line could connect with the existing rail network east of the Mississippi. Northerners
favored Chicago, while southerners sup-ported St. Louis, Memphis, or New Orleans. The transcontinental
railroad had also become part of the struggle between the North and the South. Pierce’s secretary of war,
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, removed one obstacle to a southern route. Surveys indicated that a railroad
with a south-ern terminus would have to pass through an area in Mexican territory. But in 1853, Davis sent
James Gadsden, a southern railroad builder, to Mexico, where he persuaded the Mexican government to
accept $ 10 million in exchange for a strip of land that today comprises parts of Arizona and New Mexico. The
so- called Gadsden Purchase only accentuated the sectional rivalry.
o. 1859 - Oregon admitted as State
p. Two 1862 acts assisted the rapid development of the West. The Homestead Act permitted any citizen or
prospective citizen to purchase 160 acres of public land for a small fee after living on it for fi ve years. The
Morrill Act transferred substantial public acreage to the state governments, which could now sell the land
and use the proceeds to fi nance public education. This act led to the creation of many new state colleges and
universities, the so-called land-grant institutions. Congress also moved to spur completion of a
transcontinental railroad. It created two new federally chartered corporations: the Union Pacifi c Railroad
Company, which was to build westward from Omaha, and the Central Pacifi c, which was to build eastward
from California. The two projects were to meet in the middle and complete the link, which they did in 1869 at
Promontory Point, Utah.
q. 1875 - “Jim Crow” laws enacted in Tennessee
- Federal troops sent to Vicksburg to protect Blacks
- Civil Rights Act passed
- 44th Congress has eight Black members.

2. Discuss the competing interests of the US & Mexico in North America between 1820-1850. What was the
nature & impact of the eventual war between the 2?
a. The growing number of white Americans in the lands west of the Mississippi put great pressure on the
government in Washington to annex Texas, Oregon, and other territory. And in the 1840s, these expansionist
pressures helped push the United States into war.
b. in the Democratic platform, “ that the re- occupation of Oregon and the re- annexation of Texas at the
earliest practicable period are great American measures.” By combining the Oregon and Texas questions, the
Democrats hoped to appeal to both northern and southern expansionists. And they did. Polk carried the
election, 170 electoral votes to 105. Polk entered office with a clear set of goals and with plans for attain-ing
 them. John Tyler accomplished the first of Polk’s goals for him in the last days of his own presidency.
Interpreting the election returns as a man-date for the annexation of Texas, the outgoing president won
congressional approval for it in February 1845. That December, Texas became a state. Polk himself resolved
the Oregon question. The British minister in Washington brusquely rejected a compromise that would estab-
lish the United States– Canadian border at the 49th parallel. Incensed, Polk again asserted the American
claim to all of Oregon. There was loose talk of war on both sides of the Atlantic— talk that in the United
States often took the form of the bellicose slogan “ Fifty- four forty or fi ght!” ( a reference to where the
Americans hoped to draw the northern boundary of their part of Oregon). But neither country really wanted
war. Finally, the British government accepted Polk’s original proposal to divide the territory at the 49th
parallel. On June 15, 1846, the Senate approved a treaty that fixed the boundary there. But Mexican leaders
rejected the American offer to purchase the disputed territories. On Janu-ary 13, 1846, as soon as he heard
the news, Polk ordered Taylor’s army in Texas to move across the Nueces River, where it had been stationed,
to the Rio Grande. For months, the Mexicans refused to fi ght. But fi nally, accord-ing to disputed American
accounts, some Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked a unit of American soldiers. On May 13,
1846, Congress declared war by votes of 40 to 2 in the Senate and 174 to 14 in the House.
c. Colonel Stephen W. Kearny captured Santa Fe with no opposition. Then Kearny proceeded to California,
where he joined a confl ict already in progress that was being staged jointly by American settlers, a well-
armed exploring party led by John C. Frémont, and the American navy: the so- called Bear Flag Revolt. Kearny
brought the disparate American forces together under his command, and by the autumn of 1846 he had
completed the conquest of California.
d. But Mexico still refused to concede defeat. At this point, Polk and General Winfi eld Scott, the commanding
general of the army and its fi nest soldier, launched a bold new campaign. Scott assembled an army at
Tampico, which the navy transported down the Mexican coast to Veracruz. With an army that never
numbered more than 14,000, Scott advanced 260 miles along the Mexican National Highway toward Mexico
City, kept American casualties low, and never lost a battle before fi nally seizing the Mexican capital. A new
Mexican government took power and announced its willing-ness to negotiate a peace treaty. President Polk
continued to encourage those who demanded that the United States annex much of Mexico itself. At the
same time, he was grow-ing anxious to get the war fi nished quickly. Polk had sent a special presi-dential
envoy, Nicholas Trist, to negotiate a settlement. On February 2, 1848, he reached agreement with the new
Mexican government on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico agreed to cede California and
New Mexico to the United States and acknowledge the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas. In return, the
United States $ mil.
3. What were the causes & course of the civil war? What were some of the main events leading up to & during
the war?
a. Missouri compromise ∆to the Nebraska-kansas act
b. 1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South. With Eli Whitney’s invention of the
cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to
separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing
to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves.
Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On
the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. In fact, the northern
industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods. This disparity between the two
 set up a major difference in economic attitudes. The South was based on the plantation system while the
North was focused on city life. This change in the North meant that society evolved as people of different
cultures and classes had to work together. On the other hand, the South continued to hold onto an
antiquated social order.
c. States versus federal rights. Since the time of the Revolution, two camps emerged: those arguing for greater
states rights and those arguing that the federal government needed to have more control. The first organized
government in the US after the American Revolution was under the Articles of Confederation. The thirteen
states formed a loose confederation with a very weak federal government. However, when problems arose,
the weakness of this form of government caused the leaders of the time to come together at the
Constitutional Convention and create, in secret, the US Constitution. Strong proponents of states rights like
Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were not present at this meeting. Many felt that the new constitution
ignored the rights of states to continue to act independently. They felt that the states should still have the
right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts. This resulted in the idea of nullification,
whereby the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied
states this right. However, proponents such as John C. Calhoun fought vehemently for nullification. When
nullification would not work and states felt that they were no longer respected, they moved towards
secession.
d. 3. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents. As America began to expand, first with the lands
gained from the Louisiana Purchase and later with the Mexican War, the question of whether new states
admitted to the union would be slave or free. The Missouri Compromise passed in 1820 made a rule that
prohibited slavery in states from the former Louisiana Purchase the latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes north
except in Missouri. During the Mexican War, conflict started about what would happen with the new
territories that the US expected to gain upon victory. David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846
which would ban slavery in the new lands. However, this was shot down to much debate. The Compromise of
1850 was created by Henry Clay and others to deal with the balance between slave and free states, northern
and southern interests. One of the provisions was the fugitive slave act that was discussed in number one
above. Another issue that further increased tensions was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It created two
new territories that would allow the states to use popular sovereignty to determine whether they would be
free or slave. The real issue occurred in Kansas where pro slavery Missourians began to pour into the state to
help force it to be slave. They were called “Border Ruffians.” Problems came to a head in violence at
Lawrence Kansas. The fighting that occurred caused it to be called “Bleeding Kansas.” The fight even erupted
on the floor of the senate when antislavery proponent Charles Sumner was beat over the head by South
Carolina’s Senator Preston Brooks.
e. 4. Growth of the Abolition Movement. Increasingly, the northerners became more polarized against slavery.
Sympathies began to grow for abolitionists and against slavery and slaveholders. This occurred especially
after some major events including: the publishing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Dred
Scott Case, John Brown’s Raid, and the passage of the fugitive slave act that held individuals responsible for
harboring fugitive slaves even if they were located in non-slave states.
f. 5. The election of Abraham Lincoln. Even though things were already coming to a head, when Lincoln was
elected in 1860, South Carolina issued its “Declaration of the Causes of Secession.” They believed that Lincoln
was anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests. Before Lincoln was even president, seven states had
seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
 g. 6. The Dred Scott decision. 7. The Compromise of 1850.8. The Fugitive Slave Act.9. The Missouri Compromise
of 1820. 10. Territorial Expansion.
h. Course of the war:
i. 1861: ft sumter (Charleston Harbor north Carolina) General Anderson & general boagard (south).
Confederacy of 11states. July 21 1 st battle of bull run “the great skedaddle” 2armies bloody.Northern
Merrimack ship/iron clad blockade=control new Orleans.
ii. 62= eastern theater goal is whoever gets the capital wins “take Richmond”, western theater who ever
controls the Mississippi wins. West=battle of Shiloh 2days unplanned battle larges # of casualties. Union
victory.
iii. 63=key year of the war: emancipation proclamation ∆political reason for war from keeping the union to
ending slavery. Confiscation act: july free if you fight the rebellion. Formation of the black regiment 54 th mass.
Stone wall Jackson. Vicksburg Grant vs Lee grant won and same day Gettysburg (3days most casualties)
pickett’s charge last (southern) resort die. 4 july 1863.
iv. 1864 battle of wilderness: grant vs lee advance on richman. March to the sea by Sherman. Burning of Atlanta
to “make the south howl…”
v. 1865: siege of Petersburg/Richmond: march lees army retreates south. Appomottox court house were lee
mets grant to turn himself in. Johnson surrenders to Shirman.
4. Discuss the attitudes of the north & south over reconstruction. Explain some of the programs attempted and
why they were considered either successes or failure.
1. Black hawk war
a. In the eighteenth century, many whites had shared Thomas Jefferson’s view of the Indians as “ noble
savages,” with an inherent dignity that made civi-lization possible among them. By the fi rst decades of the
nineteenth cen-tury, many whites were coming to view Native Americans simply as “ savages” who should be
removed from all the lands east of the Mississippi. White westerners also favored removal to put an end to
violence and confl ict in the western areas of white settlement. Most of all, they wanted valuable land that
the tribes still possessed. Events in the Northwest added urgency to the issue of removal. In Illinois, an
alliance of Sauk ( or Sac) and Fox Indians under Black Hawk fought white settlers in 1831– 1832 in an effort to
overturn what Black Hawk considered an illegal cession of tribal lands to the United States. The Black Hawk
War was notable for its viciousness. White forces at-tacked the Indians even when they attempted to
surrender, pur-sued them as they retreated, and slaughtered many of them. The brutal war only reinforced
the determination of whites to remove all the tribes to the West.
2. John C. Calhoun

was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. A powerful
intellect, Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began
his political career as a nationalist and proponent of protective tariffs; later, he switched to states' rights,
limited government, nullification and free trade. He is best known for his intense and original defense of
slavery as a positive good, for his promotion of minority rights, and for pointing the South toward secession
from the Union.

Devoted to the principle of liberty and fearful of corruption, Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist by his
redefinition of republicanism to include approval of slavery and minority rights--with the white South the
minority in question. To protect minority rights against majority rule he called for a "concurrent majority"
 whereby the minority could sometimes block offensive proposals. Increasingly distrustful of democracy, he
minimized the role of the Second Party System in South Carolina. Calhoun's defense of slavery became
defunct, but his concept of concurrent majority, whereby a minority has the right to object to or perhaps
even veto hostile legislation directed against it, has been incorporated into the American value system. [1] He
held every major post except president, serving in the House, Senate and vice presidency, as well as secretary
of war and state. He usually affiliated with the Democrats, but flirted with the Whig Party and considered
running for the presidency in 1824 and 1844. As a "war hawk" he agitated in Congress for the War of 1812 to
defend American honor against Britain. As Secretary of War under President James Monroe he reorganized
and modernized the War Department, building powerful permanent bureaucracies that ran the department,
as opposed to patronage appointees. Although Calhoun died nearly 10 years before the start of the American
Civil War, he was an inspiration to the secessionists of 1860–61. Nicknamed the "cast-iron man" for his
determination to defend the causes in which he believed, Calhoun supported states' rights and nullification,
under which states could declare null and void federal laws which they deemed to be unconstitutional. He
was an outspoken proponent of the institution of slavery, which he famously defended as a "positive good"
rather than as a "necessary evil".[2] His rhetorical defense of slavery was partially responsible for escalating
Southern threats of secession in the face of mounting abolitionist sentiment in the North.
3. Nullification
a. Who- In 1832, states' rights theory was put to the test in the Nullification Crisis, after South Carolina passed
an ordinance that nullified federal tariffs. The tariffs favored northern manufacturing interests over southern
agricultural concerns. The South Carolina legislature declared them unconstitutional. Calhoun had formed a
political party in South Carolina explicitly known as the Nullifier Party.
b. In 1832, the controversy over nullifi cation fi nally produced a crisis when South Carolinians responded angrily
to a congressional tariff bill that offered them no relief from the 1828 tariff of abominations. Almost im-
mediately, the legislature summoned a state convention, which voted to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832
and to forbid the collection of duties within the state. At the same time, South Carolina elected Hayne to
serve as governor and Calhoun to replace Hayne as senator. Jackson insisted that nullifi cation was treason.
He strength-ened the federal forts in South Carolina and ordered a warship to Charleston. When Congress
convened early in 1833, Jackson proposed a force bill authorizing the president to use the military to see that
acts of Congress were obeyed. Violence seemed a real possibility. Calhoun faced a predicament as he took his
place in the Senate. Not a single state had come to South Carolina’s support. But the timely interven-tion of
Henry Clay, also newly elected to the Senate, averted a crisis. Clay devised a compromise by which the tariff
would be lowered gradually so that by 1842 it would reach approximately the same level as in 1816. The
compromise and the force bill were passed on the same day, March 1, 1833. Jackson signed them both. In
South Carolina, the conven-tion reassembled and repealed its nullifi cation of the tariffs. But unwilling to
allow Congress to have the last word, the convention nullifi ed the force act— a purely symbolic act, since the
tariff had already been repealed. Calhoun and his followers claimed a victory for nullifi cation, which had,
they insisted, forced the revision of the tariff. But the episode taught Calhoun and his allies that no state
could defy the federal government alone.
4. William L. Garrison
a. In 1830, with slavery spreading rapidly in the South and the antislavery movement seemingly on the verge of
collapse, a new fi gure emerged: William Lloyd Garrison. Born in Massachusetts in 1805, Garrison was in the
1820s an assistant to the New Jersey Quaker Benjamin Lundy, who published the leading antislavery
newspaper of the time. Garrison grew impatient with his employer’s moderate tone, so in 1831 he returned
to Boston to found his own newspaper, the Liberator. Garrison’s philosophy was so simple that it was
 genuinely revolutionary. Opponents of slavery, he said, should not talk about the evil infl uence of slavery on
white society but rather the damage the system did to blacks. And they should, therefore, reject “
gradualism” and demand the immediate abolition of slavery and the extension to blacks of all the rights of
American citizenship. Garrison wrote in a relentless, uncompromising tone. “ I am aware,” he wrote in the
very fi rst issue of the Liberator, “ that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. . . . I am in earnest— I will not
equivocate— I will not excuse— I will not retreat a single inch— and I will be heard.” Garrison soon attracted
a large group of followers throughout the North, enough to enable him to found the New England Antislavery
So-ciety in 1832 and a year later, after a convention in Philadelphia, the American Antislavery Society.
5. Joseph Smith
a. Among the most important efforts to create a new and more ordered so-ciety was that of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter- day Saints— the Mormons. Mormonism began in upstate New York through the efforts of
Joseph Smith. In 1830, when he was just twenty- four, he pub-lished a remarkable document— the Book of
Mormon, named for the an-cient prophet who he claimed had written it. It was, he said, a translation of a set
of golden tablets he had found in the hills of New York, revealed to him by an angel of God. The Book of
Mormon told the story of two ancient civilizations in America, whose people had anticipated the coming of
Christ and were rewarded when Jesus actually came to America after his resurrection. Ultimately, both
civilizations collapsed because of their rejec-tion of Christian principles. But Smith believed their history as
righteous societies could serve as a model for a new holy community in the United States. In 1831, gathering
a small group of believers around him, Smith began searching for a sanctuary for his new community of “
saints,” an effort that would continue unhappily for more than fi fteen years. Time and again, the Latter- day
Saints, as they called themselves, attempted to establish peaceful communities. Time and again, they met
with persecution from their neigh-bors, who were suspicious of their radical religious doctrines— their claims
of new prophets, new scripture, and divine authority. Opponents were also concerned by their rapid growth
and their increasing political strength. Near the end of his life, Joseph Smith introduced the practice of
polygamy ( giving a man the right to take several wives), which became public knowl-edge after Smith’s
death. From then on, polygamy became a central target of anti- Mormon opposition. Driven from their
original settlements in Independence, Missouri, and Kirtland, Ohio, the Mormons founded a new town in
Illinois that they named Nauvoo. In the early 1840s, it became an imposing and economi-cally successful
community. In 1844, however, bitter enemies of Joseph Smith published an infl ammatory attack on him.
Smith ordered his follow-ers to destroy the offending press, and he was subsequently arrested and
imprisoned in nearby Carthage.
6. Compromise of 1850
a. Faced with this mounting crisis, moderates and unionists spent the winter of 1849– 1850 trying to frame a
great compromise. The aging Henry Clay, who was spearheading the effort, believed that no compromise
could last unless it settled all the issues in dispute. As a result, he took several measures that had been
proposed separately, combined them into a single piece of legislation, and presented it to the Senate on
January 29, 1850. Among the bill’s provisions were the admission of California as a free state; the formation
of territorial governments in the rest of the lands acquired from Mexico, without restrictions on slavery; the
abolition of the slave trade, but not slavery itself, in the District of Columbia; and a new and more effective
fugitive slave law. These resolutions launched a debate that raged for seven months. In July, after six months
of impassioned wrangling, a new, younger group of leaders emerged and took control of the debate from the
 old “ triumvirate” of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. The new leaders of the Senate were able, as the old leaders
had not been, to produce a compromise. One spur to the compromise was the disappearance of the most
powerful ob-stacle to it: the president. On July 9, 1850, Taylor suddenly died— the vic-tim of a violent
stomach disorder. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore of New York. A dull, handsome, dignifi ed man who
understood the politi-cal importance of fl exibility, Fillmore supported compromise and used his powers of
persuasion to swing northern Whigs into line.
7. Kansas-Nebraska Act
a. He also realized the strength of the principal argument against the northern route: that it would run mostly
through country with a substantial Indian population. As a result, he introduced a bill in January 1854 to
organize ( and thus open to white settlement) a huge new territory, known as Nebraska, west of Iowa and
Missouri. Douglas knew the South would oppose his bill because it would pre-pare the way for a new free
state; the proposed territory was north of the Missouri Compromise line ( 36839) and hence closed to
slavery. In an effort to make the measure acceptable to southerners, Douglas inserted a provi-sion that the
status of slavery in the territory would be determined by the territorial legislature. In theory, the region could
choose to open itself to slavery. When southern Democrats demanded more, Douglas agreed to an additional
clause explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise. He also agreed to divide the area into two territories—
Nebraska and Kansas— instead of one. The new, second territory ( Kansas) was somewhat more likely to
become a slave state. In its fi nal form the measure was known as the Kansas- Nebraska Act. President Pierce
supported the bill, and after a strenuous debate, it became law in May 1854 with the unanimous support of
the South and the partial support of northern Democrats. No piece of legislation in American history
produced so many immedi-ate, sweeping, and ominous political consequences. It divided and destroyed the
Whig Party. It divided the northern Democrats ( many of whom were appalled at the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise) and drove many of them from the party. Most important of all, it spurred the creation of a new
party that was frankly sectional in composition and creed. People in both major parties who opposed
Douglas’s bill began to call themselves Anti- Nebraska Democrats and Anti- Nebraska Whigs. In 1854, they
formed a new organization and named it the Republican Party. It in-stantly became a major force in American
politics. In the elec-tions of that year, the Republicans won enough seats in Congress to permit them, in
combination with allies among the Know- Nothings, to organize the House of Representatives.
8. Battle of Gettysburg
a. During the siege of Vicksburg, Lee proposed an invasion of Pennsylvania, which would, he argued, divert
Union troops north. Further, he argued, if he could win a major victory on Northern soil, England and France
might come to the Confederacy’s aid. The war- weary North might even quit the war before Vicksburg fell. In
June 1863, Lee moved up the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland and then entered Pennsylvania. The Union
Army of the Potomac, commanded fi rst by Hooker and then ( after June 28) by George C. Meade, moved
north, too. The two armies fi nally encountered one another at the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
There, on July 1– 3, 1863, they fought the most celebrated battle of the war. Meade’s army established a
strong, well- protected position on the hills south of the town. Lee attacked, but his fi rst assault on the Union
forces on Cemetery Ridge failed. A day later, he ordered a second, larger effort. In what is remembered as
Pickett’s Charge, a force of 15,000 Confederate soldiers advanced for almost a mile across open country
while being swept by Union fi re. Only about 5,000 made it up the ridge, and this remnant fi nally had to
surrender or retreat. By now, Lee had lost nearly a third of his army. On July 4, the same day as the surrender
 of Vicksburg, he with-drew from Gettysburg. The retreat was another major turning point in the war. Never
again were the weakened Confederate forces able seriously to threaten Northern territory.
9. Gen. William T Sherman
a. SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA, 1864– 1865 While Grant was wearing Lee down in Virginia, General William
Tecumseh Sherman was moving east across Georgia. After a series of battles in Tennessee and northwest
Georgia, Sherman captured Atlanta and then marched unimpeded to Savannah, on the Georgia coast—
deliberately devastating the towns and plantations through which his troops marched. Note that after
capturing Savannah by Christmas 1864, Sherman began mov-ing north through the Carolinas. A few days
after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Confederate forces farther south surrendered to Sherman.
10. Andrew Johnson
11. Seward’s Folly
12. Missouri Compromise
13. Trail of tears
a. About 1,000 Cherokee fl ed to North Carolina, where eventually the federal government provided them with
a small reservation in the Smoky Mountains that survives today. But most of the rest made a long, forced trek
to “ Indian Territory,” what later became Oklahoma, beginning in the winter of 1838. Thousands, perhaps a
quarter or more of the émi-grés, perished before reaching their unwanted destination. In the harsh new
reservations, the survivors remembered the terrible journey as “ The Trail Where They Cried,” the Trail of
Tears. Between 1830 and 1838, virtually all the Five Civilized Tribes were forced to travel to Indian Territory.
The Choctaw of Mississippi and west-ern Alabama were the fi rst to make the trek, beginning in 1830. The
army moved out the Creek of eastern Alabama and western Georgia in 1836. A year later, the Chickasaw in
northern Mississippi began their long march westward and the Cherokee, fi nally, a year after that. Only the
Seminole in Florida were able to resist the pressures, and even their success was limited. Like other tribes,
the Seminole had agreed under pressure to a settlement by which they ceded their lands to the United States
and agreed to move to Indian Territory within three years. Most did move west, but a substantial minority,
under the leadership of the chieftain Osceola, balked and staged an uprising beginning in 1835 to defend
their lands. ( Joining the Indians in their struggle was a group of runaway black slaves, who had been living
with the tribe.) Jackson sent troops to Florida, but the Seminole and their black allies were masters of
guerrilla warfare in the junglelike Everglades. Finally, in 1842, the gov-ernment abandoned the war. By then,
many of the Seminole had been either killed or forced westward.
14. Henry clay
15. Brigham young
16. Gen. Santa Ana
17. Dred Scott
a. On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court of the United States projected itself into the sectional controversy with
one of the most controversial and no-torious decisions in its history— Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott was
a Missouri slave, once owned by an army surgeon who had taken Scott with him into Illinois and Wisconsin,
where slavery was forbidden. In 1846, after the surgeon died, Scott sued his master’s widow for freedom on
the grounds that his residence in free territory had liberated him from slavery. The claim was well grounded
in Missouri law, and in 1850 the circuit court in which Scott fi led the suit declared him free. By now, John
Sanford, the brother of the surgeon’s widow, was claiming ownership of Scott, and he appealed the circuit
court ruling to the state supreme court, which reversed the earlier decision. When Scott appealed to the
 federal courts, Sanford’s attorneys claimed that Scott had no standing to sue because he was not a citizen.
The Supreme Court ( which misspelled Sanford’s name in its decision) was so divided that it was unable to
issue a single ruling on the case. The thrust of the various rulings, however, was a stunning defeat for the
antislavery movement. Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote one of the majority opinions, declared that
Scott could not bring a suit in the federal courts because he was not a citizen. Blacks had no claim to
citizenship, Taney argued. Slaves were property, and the Fifth Amendment prohibited Congress from taking
property without “ due process of law.” Consequently, Taney concluded, Congress possessed no authority to
pass a law depriving persons of their slave property in the territories. The Missouri Compromise, therefore,
had always been unconstitutional. The ruling did nothing to challenge the right of an individual state to
prohibit slavery within its borders, but the statement that the federal gov-ernment was powerless to act on
the issue was a drastic and startling one. Southern whites were elated: the highest tribunal in the land had
sanc-tioned parts of the most extreme southern argument. In the North, the decision produced widespread
dismay. Republicans threatened that when they won control of the national government, they would reverse
the decision— by “ packing” the Court with new members.
18. Stephen Douglas
19. Jefferson Davis
20. Black code
a. Meanwhile, events in the South were driving Northern opinion in still more radical directions. Throughout the
South in 1865 and early 1866, state legislatures enacted sets of laws known as the Black Codes, which
authorized local offi cials to apprehend unemployed blacks, fi ne them for vagrancy, and hire them out to
private employers to satisfy the fi nes. Some codes forbade blacks to own or lease farms or to take any jobs
other than as plantation workers or domestic servants, jobs formerly held by slaves. Congress fi rst
responded to the Black Codes by passing an act extend-ing the life and expanding the powers of the
Freedmen’s Bureau so that it could nullify work agreements forced on freedmen under the Black Codes.
Then, in April 1866, Congress passed the fi rst Civil Rights Act, which declared blacks to be citizens of the
United States and gave the federal government power to intervene in state affairs to protect the rights of
citizens. Johnson vetoed both bills, but Congress overrode him on each of them.
21. Credit Mobilier
22. Freedmans’s Bureau
a. In the war’s immediate aftermath, the federal government’s contribu-tion to solving the question of the
South’s future was modest. Federal troops remained to preserve order and protect the freedmen. And in
March 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau, an agency of the army directed by General Oliver
O. Howard. The Freedmen’s Bureau distributed food to millions of former slaves. It established schools,
staffed by missionaries and teachers sent by Freedmen’s Aid Societies and other private and church groups in
the North. It even made a modest effort to settle blacks on lands of their own. But the Freedmen’s Bureau
was not a permanent solution. With authority to operate for only one year, it was, in any case, far too small
to deal effectively with the enormous problems facing Southern society. In the meantime, other proposals for
reconstruct-ing the defeated South were emerging.