Quarter 2 Questions Flashcards
(25 cards)
Who were the extreme abolitionists? What did they want? Who were the moderates and what did they advocate?
Abolitionists were always a minority within American society, encountering heavy opposition from the majority that either supported slavery outright or wanted to avoid making slavery a divisive political issue. Moderates were those who opposed the Reign of Terror many were interested in a Parliamentary monarchy such as the English had achieved. Others did want a republic, but they did not want to ban religion, guillotine anyone who was born into the noble classes and those who supported them. The most famous moderate was the Marquis de LaFayette, the same man who was so helpful to the American revolutionaries.
The moderates were horrified by the tyrannical rule of the Consulate which sought to kill all who were associated with the Ancien Regime, or old order.
Texas declared its independence in 1836? Why was it not annexed until 1845?
There was strong resistance from within Texas and within the United States. As early as 1837, the Republic made several attempts to negotiate annexation with the United States. Opposition within the republic from the nationalist faction, along with strong abolitionist opposition within the United States, slowed Texas’s admission into the Union. Texas was finally annexed when the expansionist James K. Polk won the election of 1844. On December 29, 1845, Congress admitted Texas to the U.S. as a constituent state of the Union.
What were the four major objectives that James Polk had as President? Was he successful?
He accomplished all 4 1. bring Texas into the Union; 2. acquire California; 3. fix the border of Oregon, and secure a treaty with the British; 4. have an independent Treasury, and lower tariffs.
Give the events that led America to War with Mexico in 1848.
The Mexican-American War was the first major conflict driven by the idea of “Manifest Destiny”; the belief that America had a God-given right, or destiny, to expand the country’s borders from ‘sea to shining sea’. This belief would eventually cause a great deal of suffering for many Mexicans, Native Americans and United States citizens. Following the earlier Texas War of Independence from Mexico, tensions between the two largest independent nations on the North American continent grew as Texas eventually became a U.S. state. Disputes over the border lines sparked military confrontation, helped by the fact that President Polk eagerly sought a war in order to seize large tracts of land from Mexico.
Explain the compromise of 1850. How was it passed?
Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American (1846-48). War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves.
Who was John Brown? Give the details of his actions in Both Kansas and South Carolina. What were the long and short term results of his actions?
In 1859, around a year and a half before the start of the Civil War, abolitionist John Brown tried to lead a slave uprising in Virginia. His efforts cost him his life, but his cause lived on when the slaves were set free six years later. He became passionate about ending slavery once and for all. He also became frustrated with the peaceful nature of the abolitionist movement. John felt that slavery was a horrible crime and that he should use any means necessary to put an end to it, including violence.
Explain the Kansas Nebraska Act and its long and short-term impact.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each. This made the world of difference for slavery.
Describe the specific events in the struggle in Bleeding Kansas.
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery “Border Ruffian” elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861.
Describe the specifics of the Dred Scott Decision. What were the consequences of the decision?
In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks – slaves as well as free – could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all of the country’s territories. The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom.
Describe the chain of events that led to succession and any failed attempts at compromise.
In the growth years following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Congress was compelled to establish a policy to guide the expansion of slavery into the new western territory. Missouri’s application for statehood as a slave state sparked a bitter national debate. In addition to the deeper moral issue posed by the growth of slavery, the addition of pro-slavery Missouri legislators would give the pro-slavery faction a Congressional majority. Ultimately, Congress reached a series of agreements that became known as the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state, preserving the Congressional balance. A line was also drawn through the unincorporated western territories along the 36⁰30 parallel, dividing north and south as free and slave.
Explain why Britain decided against intervention on behalf of the confederacy.
Firstly, slavery was seen as abhorrent to the British government and people, so there was a moral obstacle. Intervention would probably have cost the government a lot of votes at the next election. Secondly, serious shortcomings in the performance and organization of the British army in the 1850s (Crimean War, Indian Mutiny) led the government to institute a thorough review (the Cardwell Reforms) which were not instituted till 1868. Thus, it was impractical for Britain to go to war anyway unless its own interests were directly threatened. Finally, the British government doubted that the Confederacy could win, and were unwilling to invest blood and treasure in a losing cause. Britain did help in a number of ways: trade with the Confederacy continued, despite the Northern blockade, and a lot of arms were sold. The government also helped organize a huge loan to the Confederate government, and allowed the building of Confederate warships by British firms in British dockyards.
In what ways did Lincoln violate the constitution.
Lincoln ordered the military blockade of Southern ports. This an act of war. Only Congress can do that. Lincoln ordered hundreds of Northern newspapers who dared to speak out against him to be shut down. And their owners and editors were arrested for disloyalty. Lincoln ordered the arrest of Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham for the crime of speaking out against him. Lincoln sent Union troops door to door in areas of Maryland, a Union state, to confiscate weapons.
Why did it take Lincoln so long to make ending slavery a war objective.
President Lincoln was concerned about reaction in the Border States and the Army. “I would do it if I were not afraid that half the officers would fling down their arms and three more states would rise,” President Lincoln said of the Emancipation Proclamation, “It is my last card, and I will play it and may win the trick.” But Mr. Lincoln did not believe that one card alone would win the war. He told Canadian doctor Alexander Milton: “I am glad you are pleased with the Emancipation Proclamation, but there is work before us yet; we must make that proclamation effective by victories over our enemies. It’s a paper bullet, after all, and of no account, except we can sustain it.”
Why was King Cotton a failure for the South?
King Cotton was a slogan used during the American Civil War by the Confederacy (1860–61) to support secession from the United States, claiming that cotton exports would make an independent Confederate States of America economically prosperous, ruin the textile industry of New England, and—most importantly—would force Great Britain and France to support the Confederacy in the Civil War because their industrial economy depended on cotton textiles. The slogan was successful in mobilizing support: by February 1861, the seven states whose economies were based on cotton plantations had all seceded and formed the Confederacy. While the cotton south seceded, the other eight slave states remained in the Union. To demonstrate the power of King Cotton, southern cotton merchants spontaneously refused to ship out their cotton in early 1861; it was not a government decision. By summer 1861, the Union blockade shut down over 95% of exports. Since the Europeans had large stockpiles of cotton, they were not immediately injured by the boycott; indeed the value of their stockpiles went up. For Britain to intervene meant war with the U.S. and a cutoff of food supplies, so it did not intervene. Consequently, the strategy proved a failure for the Confederacy—King Cotton did not help the new nation
Why was the South’s devotion to State’s Right a major source for its defeat in the war?
The individual State legislatures were so gung-ho on “States Rights” that when they formed the Confederacy and the war started, the often kept the best weapons, supplies, and a great number of soldiers/militia behind to “protect” their state. If the South had acted as a Union, a true Confederacy, they could have caused the North sufficient losses/damages that the Union might have issued for peace. The first major battle of the war (The First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas) was a Confederate victory, but they didn’t press their advantage. They could have taken Washington DC and caused Northern panic and perhaps surrender.
Assess the role of Blacks in the war, both North and South, Free and Slave.
Events in the 1850s would give the abolitionists a new audience for their ideas and lead to the emergence of a mass movement against slavery. During that decade a national controversy erupted over whether the South’s labor system should be allowed to expand into newly acquired western territories. This issue, more than any other, would create an antislavery majority in the free states and thereby convince the planters that their position in the Union was untenable. Ironically, the planters’ own greed and land hunger helped to detonate the crisis of the 1850s. Southern politicians and their Northern sympathizers had been agitating for a war with Mexico since the 1830s. White settlers in Texas—including many slaveholders—had already fought and won a secessionist war against the Mexican government. The Southern elite hoped to annex not only Texas but also lands further to the west, including New Mexico, Arizona, and California (they also had their eyes on Cuba). They felt that the climate in at least some of these regions might lend itself to the expansion of slavery.
Give a general outline of the battle of Gettysburg.
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (July 1–July 3, 1863), was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee. Casualties at Gettysburg totaled 23,049 for the Union (3,155 dead, 14,529 wounded, 5,365 missing). Confederate casualties were 28,063 (3,903 dead, 18,735 injured, and 5,425 missing), more than a third of Lee’s army. These largely irreplaceable losses to the South’s largest army, combined with the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, marked what is widely regarded as a turning point—perhaps the turning point—in the Civil War, although the conflict would continue for nearly two more years and witness several more major battles, including Chickamauga, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Monocacy, Nashville, etc.
Explain why Sherman conducted his devastating march to the sea.
Because he did not think he would be able to pursue the Army of Tennessee into the mountains, with such a long and vulnerable supply-line. Instead, he would turn Southeast, and conduct punitive raids across Georgia, living off the land as he went, so he would be able to forget his supply-line. Sherman’s March to the Sea can’t be considered only as a series of punitive raids across Georgia. It was part of a major strategic plan aiming to take from behind the Confederacy’s “Atlantic Fortress”, approved by Grant and Lincoln. It represented a new development of the Art of War. It was made possible by the error committed by the Confederates with their offensive against the Tennessee, which left no adequate force to keep at bay Sherman Army. The European strategist would take eighty years to find out that penetrate in the heart of the enemy country can achieve more decisive outcomes than lagging against secondary objectives. The military leaders who applied the same principles in the WW2 were Guderian, Cerniakowsky, Bradley, Patton, Rommel etc.
What were the general strengths and weaknesses of George McClellan? Describe his relationship with Lincoln.
General George B. McClellan made a good first impression. Lincoln recalled he is the healthy, strong, uniform, brilliant, intelligent, good will-power and self-assertion, natural leader of men, educated for such duties as are now upon him, and he has studied the science and art of war among European camps and forts and armies and battlefields. He has vast stores of technical knowledge never to be acquired by any man among the backwoods, or on the prairies, or in law courts, or in political conventions. The paths of McClellan and Mr. Lincoln had crossed in the late 1850s in Illinois. McClellan had resigned from Army in 1857 and became general superintendent of Illinois Central Railroad, for which Mr. Lincoln was an attorney.
Give a general outline of the role that U.S. Grant played in the Civil War.
President Abraham Lincoln called for troops to put down the Southern rebellion. With the help of Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, he was named colonel of the 21st Illinois Regiment, June 17, 1861. At the end of July he was made a brigadier general of volunteers, to date from May 17. Placed in command of a series of departments—one of which took him back to Missouri where he used his officer’s pay to settle with his old creditors—he first led troops in combat during the Civil War on November 7, 1861, at Belmont, Missouri. After initial successes, he was forced to withdraw his men when Confederate reinforcements arrived.
Why was July 1863 a turning point in the war.
The battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) is considered the turning point of the Civil War. Gen. Robert E. Lee’s defeat by the Army of the Potomac forced his Confederate forces to retreat; they never recovered. Lee was emboldened by his victory in Chancellorsville, Va., in May 1863 and hoped to solidify his seeming advantage in Gettysburg. He was unprepared for the ferocity and strength of the Union forces under the newly named Potomac Army commander, Gen. George G. Meade.
Describe the elections of 1860 and 1864.
The United States presidential election of 1860 was held 1860, and served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. In 1860, these issues broke the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union Party appeared. In the face of a divided opposition, the Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a majority of the electoral votes, putting Abraham Lincoln in the White House with almost no support from the South. The United States presidential election of 1864 was held on 1864. Abraham Lincoln ran as the Republican (National Union Party) nominee against Democratic candidate George B. McClellan, who ran as the “peace candidate” without personally believing in his party’s platform. Lincoln was re-elected president. Electoral College votes were counted from 25 states. Since the election of 1860, the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states. As the American Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven Southern states. Lincoln won by more than 400,000 popular votes on the strength of the soldier vote and military successes such as the Battle of Atlanta. Lincoln was the first president to be re-elected since Andrew Jackson in 1832.
Identify the significance of the Border States.
the Border States were those four slave states that had strong political sympathy for the Confederacy but either did not or could not secede in 1861 (they were quickly occupied by federal troops or the internal battle was won by people loyal to the federal government). This situation gave a false sense of power to leaders of the Confederacy because they believed if they invaded these areas (Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri) that they would be greeted as liberators, the ranks of the Southern armies would swell, and that the states themselves would secede if given the chance. With the exception of Delaware, all three of the other Border States were entered in force by Confederate forces, yet the local populations showed no overwhelming desire to join in the fighting on the side of the Confederacy. In Missouri specifically, this split in loyalties led to a civil war within the overall civil war, where the people of Missouri often fought against each other, and often with even more cruelty than the regular fighting.
Compare and contrast the reconstruction plans of Lincoln, Johnson and Congress.
In late 1863, Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which came to be known as his 10 Percent Plan.Andrew Johnson was a “War Democrat” who had spent most of his life in Tennessee, one of the few southern members of the party who sided with the Union in the Civil War and who was selected as Lincoln’s running mate in the 1864 election as a symbol of unity. After he became president upon Lincoln’s assassination in the spring of 1865, he called for general amnesty and restoration of property—except for slaves—to all southerners who would swear loyalty to the Union. But those whose pre-war property value exceeded $20,000 (the equivalent of more than $400,000 in today’s money) had to personally seek a pardon from the president. During Reconstruction, the government passed a series of laws establishing the criteria by which the former Confederacy could reenter the Union. When the Congressional (or “Radical”) phase of Reconstruction commenced in 1867, the criteria became more stringent and states had to accept several new federal requirements for readmission. The Radical Republican Congress sought to safeguard the rights and liberties of African-Americans, and for a time, it succeeded at least in part.
