Period 5: 1844-1877

Key Concept 5.3 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.

Why did the North win the civil war?

During the war effort, both the Confederacy and the Union fought vigorously. They had economic mobilization and social mobilization efforts while also facing strong opposition for the war. New technologies were created during this mobilization, most notably faster firing rifles and submarines. Besides technology, conscription efforts appeared in both sides of the country to mobilize the populations, and in the North, the New York Draft Riots created strong opposition to the war. Since, you could pay your way out of war, northern sentiments created the "rich man's war, but a poor man's fight," idea. Furthermore, Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus showed the attempt to suppress of anti-war sentiments. In the South, many farmers refused to fight and were possessive of their slaves, not letting them fight either.

At the start of the war, Lincoln's sole goal was to reunify the nation. However, the eventual issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation had shifted the goals of the war to also abolitionism. Due to this shift in purpose and a couple well fought battles by the Union like Antietam, European powers, especially the French, were detered from interfering and helping the Confederate cause. Another effect of the Emancipation Proclamation was the enlisting of many African Americans from the South in return for freedom from slavery. These two were big swings of power towards the Union.

With the introduction of a new purpose to the civil war, Lincoln sought to reunify the country like with his Gettysburg Address speech. He emphasized fighting slavery as an extension and fulfillment of the founding ideals of equality for all men.

As ideals of freedom were set in place and the Emancipation Proclamation bringing more power towards the Union, the Union's other advantages started catching up. Initially, the strong military leadership of the Confederacy had posed a big threat to the north, under General Robert E. Lee. However, military leadership in the North ramped up with Grant and Sherman, equalizing that advantage of the confederates. What the South couldn't compete with was the amount of resources and production power the North had. With a larger population and industrial base, the South were no match in resources with the North. This is why the North's strategy was called the Anaconda Plan, an attempt at blockades to starve the Confederates out of resources slowly but surely. The North had also won crucial battles at Gettysburg and Antietam, which both gave a large morale boost created more unity in the North. The nail in the coffin was the destruction of Southern infrastructure in Sherman's famous March to the Sea where he burnt down much of Georgia.

How did the United States try to reshape their society?

After Union victory, radical Republicans jumped into the scene to reform the South. The three big reforms brought to the South were the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The 13th amendment abolished slavery; the 14th amendment gave equal protection under the law and citizenship if you are born in the United States; the 15th amendment suffrage to all adult males.

Advancing the rights of African American males greatly, this had created pushback on to the women's rights movement, which was gaining strength since the Second Great Awakening. Frederick Douglass, a member of both the abolitionist and women's suffrage movement, had advocated for African American suffrage before women's suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, however, feared that these amendments would push back the date for women's suffrage.

During Lincoln's post-war presidency, he had approached reforming the South moderately without want to overly push the South to their limits. However, the radical republican congress had wanted to enforce strict rules for readmission. Establishing martial law in the Southern states, the Union would only readmit them if they were to accept and acknowledge the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. After Lincoln's assassination, Vice President Andrew Johnson had replaced him, taking yet an even more moderate stance on reconstruction, often forgiving a state. Radical Republicans during his presidency will constantly oppose the President, even culminating in the impeachment but not removal of Johnson, the first in the country's history. Another show of this tug-of-war was the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which Johnson had vetoed. However, the senate had overriden this veto and the Civil Rights Act was passed.

These efforts by the Radical Republicans had increased the opportunities for African Americans. This can be seen in Senator Harim Revels, the first African American in the country's history to serve in the Senate. The amendments passed and the Civil Rights Act had greatly improved African Americans' legal rights, but in practice, these protections were often ignored.

Admission of the states came relatively quickly under Johnson's amnesty towards the Confederates. The efforts by Radical Republicans to reconstruct the South was rather unsuccessful because after readmition, many of these state and local governments had turned towards new "black codes" against African Americans and popular culture continued to harass African Americans. This can be seen in the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had used violence to intimidate African Americans from exercising their voting rights. Coupled with the death of influential Radical Republican Charles Sumner and the Panic of 1873, the Republican's efforts in reconstructing the South waned and eventually faded.

In the South, African Americans continued living a suppressed lifestyle. One way they were suppressed was in the land distribution. White plantation owners still owned most of the land in the South. Efforts like the Freedmen's Bureau were created to help African Americans settle into new land, however, many African Americans were still unable to acquire land, be caught in the high interest rates of the crop lien system, or suffer from unrepayable debt from sharecropping. Another way they was the South's violent and restrictive culture. The Ku Klux Klan and the White League had used violence to scare African American's from voting. Local governments had also created voting requirements targeting African Americans such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. Nationally, Jim Crow laws were created to segregate Whites from African Americans and were upheld by the case of Plessy vs Ferguson, which stated that Jim Crow laws created "separate but equal" environments.

In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes had planned out a presidential campaign in partnership with the South to end the reconstruction period. This was called the Compromise of 1877, and the last military forces were pulled out from the Southern states. Despite limited success with reforming the Southern society's culture, the 14th and 15th amendments would serve as a basis to uphold civil rights activists in the mid-20th century as seen in the Brown vs Board decision.