Unit Two Sources: 1844-1896

NOTE* Unit two (1754-1800) was chronological in nature; one thing led to another. Unit three (1800-1848) was more theme oriented; several interconnected yet unique themes going on all at once. Unit four (1844-1896) is chronological in nature; although related to one theme (Civil War), one thing will lead to another.

These sources are not in chronological order. For each source, provide the following:

I. Provide context of the source. Also consider POV, audience, purpose.II. Which decade and how do you know? (1820s,1830s,etc)III. List some external SFI (specific factual information) relating to it. *IV. For this unit’s activity, list cause and effect for each of the sources*

APUSH Unit Four review sources: These sources have been put into chronological order.

IX.

I. Context: In 1820 as America moves west, Missouri applies for statehood. It wants to be a slave state, so in order to keep a balance in the Senate between free and slave states (and thus the nation’s peace), Maine is admitted as a free state. For future growth, an additional aspect is added: no slavery above the 36 degree 30’ parallel.II. 1820!III. Era of Good Feelings: the period between 1816 and 1824 is known as the Era of Good Feelings, as there was no longer a Federalist Party, and thus only one party, the Democratic-Republicans. This compromise can be seen as supporting that good feeling, in that a happy compromise was made. One could argue it was not an era of good feelings due to the tension of slavery beginning to arise.

Henry Clay: Senator from Kentucky leads the effort to compromise successfully; he will continue to compromise to save the union several more times before his death in the early 1850’s.IV. The cause is westward expansion and growing tension regarding slavery. The effect is that the issue is able to be put to rest for a time.

IV.

“We hold…that on their separation from the Crown of Great Britain, the several colonies became free and independent States, each enjoying the separate and independent right of self-government; and that no authority can be exercised over them…but by their consent… It is equally true, that the Constitution of the United States is a compact formed between the several States…that the government created by it is a joint agency of the States, appointed to execute the powers enumerated and granted by that instrument; that all its acts not intentionally authorized are of themselves essentially null and void, and that the States have the right…to pronounce, in the last resort, authoritative judgment on the usurpations of the Federal Government…Such we deem to be inherent rights of the States.”

-John C Calhoun, statement adopted by a convention in South Carolina, 1832

I. Context: States’ Rights argument in relation to the Tariff of 1828, aka the Tariff of Abominations. In a futile effort to get the tariff reduced, South Carolina threatens to secede . POV: Calhoun is a states’ rights southerner. The purpose is to convince the audience, and the rest of the country, that states do have the right to nullify acts of Congress that run counter to the fundamental rights to the states.II. Early 1830s, during Jackson’s administration.III. Force Act: President Jackson will have none of South Carolina’s shenanigans, threatens to hang perpetrators and raise army to crush the state with backing from this act. Henry Clay brokers a compromise, lowering the tariff in exchange for SC backing down. IV. Cause: If the North can pass a tariff that helps only them when it knows full well that the South would be adversely affected, then the South wonders what else could the North do; end slavery perhaps? This is clearly South Carolina trying to draw a line in the sand as it sees its ability to protect slavery beginning to come into question. The effect is a compromise and reduced tension, but clearly shows that the issue of slavery is starting to take a toll on national unity. It also propels some southerners to join the anti-Jackson Whig party.

XI.

I. Context: With the Reform Era in full swing and the abolition movement starting to gain traction, pro-slavery propaganda is created to try to persuade the country that slavery is beneficial to those who are enslaved. POV: either someone who supports slavery or someone paid to advertise the benefits of enslavement. Audience: not only Northerners, but Southerners themselves, a sort of self-affirmation to ease any doubts that slavery might not be a good thing.II. 1840’s, because it is during the Reform Era and growing anti-slavery movement.III. William Lloyd Garrison: radical abolitionist from Massachusetts helps to promote abolitionism, a movement gaining traction.IV. Reform era is the cause; the effect is growing anger in the North and growing stubbornness in the south.‘King Cotton’: By this time, cotton had become extremely lucrative due to the textile industry in the North. Thus, any means needed to be employed to ensure its survival.

XII.

“If these outrages are to be committed upon my people, I trust my eyes have rested upon the last speaker of the House of Representatives.” -RK Meade, Virginia, 1849

“If it should pass, I am for disunion.” -Robert Toombs, Georgia, 1849

“If it were to become the law and policy of the United States, then this Union ought to be dissolved.”-William Colcock, South Carolina, 1849

I. Context: Statements in the US House of Representatives (Congress) by Southerners speaking out against the Wilmot Proviso. The Wilmot Proviso was the most blatant anti-slavery move by the North so far, and although it failed thanks to dying in the evenly divided US Senate, it aroused a level of defensive, anti-North feeling as yet unseen in the South. POV: Pro-slavery southern Congressmen. Audience/Purpose: Like a rattler rattling, this was a desperate warning by the south to the north.II. 1840s, at the end of the Mexican War (1846-1848).III. Mexican War/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Waged by Polk to get California and its access to the Pacific, it was the largest addition of land in US history.Wilmot Proviso: Named after Rep. David Wilmot, the act would have prohibited slavery in all the new territory. It passes the House of Reps (based on population, North has more votes), but fails in the evenly divided senate.IV. Mexican War/Wilmot Proviso is cause; effect is an entirely new level of tension between north and south, and more importantly, the save in the Senate shows the importance to the South of expanding the number of slave states to maintain that balance in the Senate.

*Trivia*: James K Polk served his one term, and having achieved his goal of obtaining California, retired to Nashville where he died the next year in the cholera epidemic of 1849. See? Covid-19 is not the first epi/pandemic to hit this town…

VII. Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What states are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be-an American no longer? What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty states to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be, a southern confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that anyone seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard' it suggested elsewhere, that that idea has originated in a design to separate. I am sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of, in the wildest flights of human imagination.

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and Union; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men.

Daniel Webster March 7, 1850

I. Context: With California won, the US expected it to take decades to get enough population to become a state. With the Gold Rush of 1849, Calilfornia was ready to join the union in a year’s time as a free state. The idea that the Senate would become unbalanced greatly upset the South, and a compromise to make both sides happy and keep the peace was proving very difficult. Thus, Senator Webster, one of the great compromisers along with Clay makes one of the absolute greatest speeches in Senate history, propelling the Compromise of 1850 to pass. POV: Whig Webster is moreover a dedicated Unionist; but he is old, and will be dead in under a year’s time along with Clay. These men will be replaced by hotheads with less love of union and more love of ideology. Audience: trying to get the hotheads of Congress to keep the Union together by compromise.II. 1850, because the Gold Rush of 1849 sends California to statehood.III. Compromise of 1850: Ca joins as free state, South gets strengthened Fugitive Slave law.IV. Cause: the sentiments of the post-Wilmot southerners seen in the source above this one shows that the idea of secession has appeared. Webster and others know a compromise must be struck to save the Union in 1850, 11 years before the actual war breaks out. Effect: the union is saved, but neither side is happy.

*NOTE: By this time, slavery is tearing the country apart, as seen in the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches all split over the issue of slavery into Northern and Southern factions.

I.

I. Context: Boston, the birthplace of the American Revolution, was also an important hub for abolitionist activity. Here you see a posting encouraging citizens to interfere with those who are seeking runaway slaves. Notice that the police are included in those to avoid; they, by law, are charged with apprehending fugitive slaves. POV: Abolitionists. Audience: Not only fugitive slaves, but those who hope to help fugitive slaves as well.II. 1851, right on the heels of the Compromise of 1850

III. William Lloyd Garrison: Go to radical abolitionist; so outspoken that even abolitionists disliked him. Regularly beaten up due to outrageous propositions, such as…the vote for African Americans.Fugitive Slave Act: The South got this in exchange for California being a free state. Made harboring fugitive slaves a federal crime and a federal enforcement. Poor Daniel Webster got a lot of the blame for this. Below is statue of Webster in Central Park, NYC. I think I was the only person around who was so excited to see his statue—he was from New Hampshire, not NYC so he must have clout to have a spot so close to the John Lennon memorial—or is it the other way around? Notice the words: Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable.

Nullification: The South is not the only nullifier; here is nullification as well.IV. Cause: Compromise of 1850. Effect: Increased anger for the South, who was angry at the North being so angry at the South for being so angry at the North.

XIII. Sir: We have arrived at the conclusion, and are thoroughly convinced, that an immediate and earnest effort

ought to be made by the government of the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain at any price for which it can be obtained.

The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in such a manner as to be presented though the necessary diplomatic forms to the Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous question, in which the people both of Spain and the United States are so deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to be open, frank, and public. They should be of such a character as to challenge the approbation of the world.

We firmly believe that, in the progress of human events, the time has arrived when the vital interests of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale, as those of the United States in the purchase of the island, and that the transaction will prove equally honorable to both nations.

-Excerpt from Ostend Manifesto, 1854

I. Context: The Ostend Manifesto was a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain while implying that the U.S. should declare war if Spain refused. It was driven by Southern desire to get new territory, preferably in Central America, so that it can add slave states to contest Northern free state expansion and control in the Senate. POV: US diplomats. Audience: the US government, trying to justify a high stakes expansionary move.II. 1850s, after Compromise of 1850/CaliforniaIII. Balance in SenateIV. Cause: Southern power in the high levels of government, including President Pierce who was sympathetic to the South even though he was a Northerner, willing to try to add new slave states by imperialistic moves. Effect: FAILED. When Notherners caught wind of this secret plan, they had a cow and the plan fell through.

V.

I. Context: The rise of the Free Soil Party, the predecessor to the Republican Party. By this time the Whig Party was so weakened by dissention in its ranks regarding slavery policy that some Northern Whigs began looking for an alternative. Notice the planks: Kansas, Cuba (Ostend Manifesto); all were seen as threats to keeping slavery out of the North. POV: Pro Free Soiler. The reason I think it is not just an observer is the hanging in

the background and the burning house as well, indicating an anti-slavery attitude. Purpose: to explain the purpose of the Free Soil Party, which was keeping slavery out of where it was already absent.II. 1854, after Kansas Nebraska Act.III. Free Soil Party: a northern party made up mostly of farmers in the Midwest who opposed the potential spread of slavery to the Kansas and Nebraska Territories. AS OF THIS TIME, IT WAS NOT AN ABOLITIONIST PARTY. Even when it morphs into the Republican Party, it will not be abolitionist. Even Abe Lincoln, when running for president, said his goal was not abolition, only to stop the spread of slavery. Most northerners did not like slavery, but did not care for slaves either.

Kansas-Nebraska Act: Again, people thought it would take forever to populate the Midwest, but with the transcontinental railroad coming, it was time to consider settlement. The Act overrode the 36/30 line of the Missouri Compromise, allowing for slavery to potentially move into Kansas and Nebraska if the people so chose through popular sovereignty.

Bleeding Kansas: now that Kansas was popular sovereignty, a volatile mix of people moved into Kansas trying to make it fit their wants. Pro and anti slave forces clashed there, with murder and the burning of a free soil town by pro-slavery men.

Dred Scott Decision(1857): Further inflamed free soilers when the supreme court said that Congress could not forbid slavery from territories; thus, anybody could bring slaves into any territory (Kansas, for example), thus increasing possibility of it becoming a slave state.

John Brown’s Raid (1857): frustrated by perceived lack of action by the federal government, Brown attempts to start a slave rebellion.

Cause of all this: Kansas Nebraska Act was a desperate attempt to keep union together. Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (the Southern compromiser) were all dead and nobody of their stature emerged. Effect: Violence in Kansas and the rise of the Third Party System: Republicans v Democrats.

XIV.

I. Context: Civil War. Blue states are Union; red are Confederate States of America; yellow are border states, which are states with slavery but that stay in the Union.II. 1861, right after election of 1860.

III. Election of Lincoln: He only got about 40% of the vote, but none of the other three running got any more. He wasn’t even on the ballot in the South. Even though he said clearly he would not interfere with slavery where it was, he clearly stated that he would interfere with its spread. As we know, slavery must spread if the South is to keep its power in the Senate. Since this looked less and less likely, the South felt it had no choice. King Cotton!

Emancipation Proclamation: 1863, freed slaves in Confederate territory but not in Border States because they would probably leave for the South if it did. The Emancipation was a wartime executive order, with no Constitutional backing. Once the war ended, it would probably have no effect. Thus, as the war dragged on it became apparent to Lincoln that he would have to get a 13th Amendment passed.

VIII.

• All freedmen under 18 years who are orphans shall be forcibly apprenticed.• If apprentice escapes and is caught, master may reclaim him.• Reward offered to any person who catches a freedman who quits his employer’s service prior

to official termination.• Penalty of up to $200 for any white man who employs or aids a runaway freedman.• All freedmen over the age of 18 who do not have written proof of employment at the beginning

of each year are vagrants.• All vagrants shall be fined up to $50 and jailed up to 10 days.• If freedman cannot pay the fine, he shall be hired out to any white man who will pay it for him,

with the amount deducted from his wages.• Illegal for freedmen to carry firearms, sell liquor, participate in riots, use insulting language or

gestures, or preach the Gospel without a license.-Mississippi Black Codes, 1866

I. Context/purpose: these are examples of ‘black codes’, the name describing the various laws passed in Southern states to regain a measure of control over the freedmen and reestablish them as a source of controlled labor.

II. After Civil War and the South’s defeat, so 1865 at earliest.

III. de facto slavery: These codes established a way to re-enslave the freedmen, thus creating a system that wasn’t legally slavery but basically slavery.

Freedmens Bureau: these codes were state laws; meanwhile, the Federal government was experimenting with an unheard of institution up to that time: a social welfare program, aimed at helping a group with assistance such as food, education, and legal help.

13th Amendment: Passed at end of war, ends slavery for all time unless you are in jail. Stay out of jail.

IV. Cause: Southern need to keep slavery alive somehow in face of Civil War defeat. Effect: Radical Republicans in Congress get angry, get the Federal government much more involved in Reconstruction.

III.

I and IV. Context: Military Reconstruction (aka Radical Reconstruction). To combat violence and shenanigans such as the Black Codes, the US Army occupies the South with soldiers and oversees their compliance. This was very effective, and the South entered a period of overall tranquility for freedmen, punctuated occasionally by random violence.

II. 1868 onward for a while.

III. KKK: One of the reasons this was needed was the rise of this organized group.

14th and 15th Amendments: One of the ways a state cold get out from under this act would be to pass the 14 th (citizenship rights for all) and 15th (vote for Black men) Amendments.

XV.

I. Context: With the Military occupying the South and the 14th and 15th Amendments passed, things were looking up for the freedmen, and looking down for former Confederates. Many former Confederates still had not regained the right to vote. POV: Thomas Nast, cartoonist who was sympathetic with the plight of the freemen since during the Civil War. Notice how the freedman is drawn in a positive fashion (for the era, maybe not now) and the southerner is all droopy. Audience: he is a political cartoonist, so he is reporting on the situation, which seems to show progress for post war reconstruction.

II. 1870’s, well into Military Reconstruction.

III. Hiram Revels: with the right to vote and many southern Whites not having the right to vote, African Americans gain quite a bit of political power in the various southern state legislatures. Revels becomes the first African American senator in US history, from Mississippi.

IV. Cause: Military occupation. Effect: the vote. And anger among southern Whites.

EXTRA SOURCE

Grant on the left; Hayes on the right. That’s Puck at the top, not what you were thinking. President Grant was pro Reconstruction. President Hayes was not.

VI.

I. Context: This source describes the political failure of Reconstruction. With the end of Reconstruction, the US pulled troops out of the South and the protection for freemen with it. The KKK, although not organized as it was before, still existed as scattered groups with it purpose preventing African Americans from voting through terror and violence. POV: Thomas Nast again; notice the man on the left does not show his face; this is a common technique in political cartooning. To show a face is to show humanity; to hide a face is to do the opposite. Audience: Northerners, trying to get them to support the effort to help the freedmen.

II. 1874: This cartoon was actually published three years before the end of Reconstruction. Nast foresaw what was going to happen and warned everyone through his cartoons. It was all for naught.

III. KKK

Literacy tests/Poll taxes: with the end of Reconstruction, terror prevented some African Americans from voting in the South. With fewer votes, southern Whites gained more political power and began to enact legal voting barriers. This in turn prevented even more A-A’s from voting, etc. By the late 1880’s, there were virtually no elected A-A’s in the South, and even by the 1960’s there were some counties in the South where the A-A voter participation was zero.

IV. Cause: Compromise of 1877, which pulled troops out of the South. On a wider scale, this demonstrates how history works; people can only focus on one issue for so long. By 1877, the Indian Wars were in full swing, the Gilded Age was cranking up, and most Northerners assumed all was well in the South if they cared at all.

II.

He was free from the individual master, but the slave of society. He had neither money, property, nor friends. He was free from the old plantation, but he had nothing but the dusty road under his feet. He was free from the old quarter that once gave him shelter, but a slave to the rains of summer and to the frosts of winter. He was, in a word, literally turned loose, naked, hungry, and destitute, to the open sky… Now, since poverty has, and can have, no chance against wealth, the landless against the landowner, the ignorant against the intelligent, the freedman was powerless. He had nothing left him with which to fight the battle of life, but a slavery-distorted and diseased body and lame and twisted limbs.

-The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass 1818-1895

I. Context: This source describes the economic failure of Reconstruction. Despite constituting around 50% of the population of Georgia, African Americans controlled less than 5% of the wealth in Georgia. POV: Douglass is pro-freedmen, being a former slave himself. Audience: History. He wanted to explain to future generations the plight and difficulties of African Americans in the post slavery South.

II. Post 1865 really, but especially post Reconstruction.

III. 40 acres and a mule: This was a proposal in Congress right after the war in which confiscated Confederate’s land would be given to freedmen so they could start their lives with some wealth. Remember, the radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens were the freedmen’s friends, but most Republicans still didn’t care for them—they hated slavery but didn’t like African Americans particularly. This proposal was too radical to pass (would probably be too radical to pass even today).

Sharecropping: most southern A-A’s thus found themselves sharecropping; giving half the crop to the landowner in exchange for using his land.

Cycle of debt: Having no wealth at the time of emancipation, the freemen had to borrow everything at inflated prices. Having to give half the crop away meant never getting ahead financially. Thus, cyclical poverty was a fact for generations.

Cause: Federal government getting out the picture/limiting aid for freedmen. Look at Covid-19: today, Congress is giving billions of dollars to everyone to help them. This concept just didn’t exist in the 1880’s. It will take the New Deal, Great Society (1960’s) etc to bring that concept around. Effect: cycle of poverty; today, African Americans still constitute the lowest income ethnicitiy in the US except for Native Americans.

“Everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. Our Constitution is color-blind. The destinies of the two races in this country are indissolubly linked ... the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law.”

-Justice John Harlan’s dissenting opinion, Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

I. Context: Homer Plessy tries to ride a White’s only railroad car but is stopped because he is part African American. He sues, it gets to the Supreme Court, and in Plessy v Ferguson the Court rules 8-1 that segregation is legal as long as there is access to the same service— the “separate but equal” doctrine. POV: this is the lone dissenter of that opinion—seen as a freak back then, seen as a genius today. Audience: this is the official dissent for this case, so the audience is not only Americans but primarily the legal community.

II. 1890’s, well after Reconstruction ended and the time of expanding Jim Crow laws.

III. Jim Crow laws: The nickname given to various state laws that segregated the races; included everything from taxis and barbers to entrances at circuses. These laws were a result of the decline of African American political power in the South after the end of reconstruction.

IV. Above is cause; the effect is segregation that will last into the 1960s.

Remember:Reconstruction was a failure politically (poll taxes, literacy tests), economically (no land or wealth), and socially (Jim Crow). It will not be until WWII into the 1950’s and 60’s that Americans increasingly see the injustice of this and gain the political will to address them.