The Civil War and Reconstruction
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Table of Contents
This section covers the following topics
- Mexico and the frontier
- The slavery debate
- Movement toward Civil War
- The Civil War
- Life in the North and South during the war
- Reconstruction
- Freedmen
- The end of Reconstruction
Section Summary
Mexican-owned Texas was settled through the Empresario System, which was developed by Stephen and Moses Austin. Texas would later rebel and request admission to the US. In addition, settlers flocked to California during the Gold Rush. President Polk’s dreams of the US’s Manifest Destiny led to the Mexican-American War, which gave the US California, New Mexico and other regions. The war also brought the slavery debate to a head. Previously, slavery had been excluded from the northern US through the Missouri Compromise, and the balance between slave and free states maintained by admitting new territories in pairs. In deciding what to do with the captured Mexican territory, the Wilmont Proviso was submitted and ignored, but the Compromise of 1850 was eventually accepted. Later, the Kansas-Nebraska Act would open those two states to Popular Sovereignty. Violence soon broke out, leading to the term Bleeding Kansas. The Republican Party formed to oppose the spread of slavery, a debate that was tilted in favor of the south by the Dred Scott decision. After the election of Lincoln as president, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Violence broke out when Lincoln tried to resupply a southern fort, leading other states to secede to form the Confederate States of America.
During the war, northern industry profited while in the south businesses came under increasingly centralized government control. Rights were suspended on both sides, and class conflicts and disturbances were also an issue for both. Slaves were legally freed, first through the Emancipation Proclamation and then by the 13th Amendment. The North won the Civil War, and began the process of Reconstruction. Lincoln, Johnson and Congress all created their own plans for... Sign up to continue reading The Civil War and Reconstruction >
