Good Links on Reconstruction and Study Guide to Understanding Reconstruction Politically

Overview from Ohio History Central

High Beam Encyclopedia

What happened in Arkanas during the Civil War and Reconstruction

Louisiana during Reconstruction

Questions for understanding:
1. Why were there competing plans for Reconstruction?
2. Why did Congress seek to assert more authority in the closing months of the Civil War?
3. Louisiana and Arkansas were captured relatively early in the Civil War. What happened in these states when they initially attempted to rejoin the Union fully?

Try to find the answers to these questions before you read the documents relating to the debate over the Wade Davis Bill, which is really a power struggle over which branch of government should reign supreme.

Video: Sherman’s March to the Sea

From PBS.

Link to “The Man Without a Country”

Bartleby.com is a great repository of online texts, and has the short story, “The Man Without A Country” here: http://www.bartleby.com/310/6/1.html

Who was the main character inspired by? And look, Aaron Burr gets a shout-out, too!

20:3 MC practice

1. The Garibaldi Guard
A. was a regiment of Southerners who fought on the side of the North.
B. was the name for Southerners who remained in the South guarding plantations and preventing slave rebellions.
C. was the special quasi-military organization that provided protection for President Lincoln before the creation of the Secret Service.
D. was a regiment of immigrants from Italy, Hungary, Germany and France who fought in the Union army.
E. was a part of the Union army sent to Mexico to topple Emperor Maximilian from power.

2. One of Jefferson Davis’ key failings as president of the Confederacy was
A. his deferential attitude toward the Confederate Congress.
B. his imperious manner and lack of political skills.
C. his lack of experience in government.
D. his belief that the Confederate presidency should be a part-time job.
E. his repeated impeachment for embezzlement and dereliction of duty.

3. Lincoln was able to take early actions of questionable constitutionality because
A. he claimed that the Constitution was not valid in wartime.
B. he successfully pressured Congress against criticizing him for fear of being called Copperheads, cowards. or worse.
C.he had the Supreme Court firmly on his side to back him in all cases.
D. he threatened to impeach officials who contradicted his seizure of power.
E. Congress was not in session when the war officially began.

4. “Shoddy millionaires”
A. made their fortunes selling worthless goods to the government during the war.
B. engaged in treason by selling goods to both the Union and the Confederacy.
C. were oil drillers who rushed to Pennsylvania in 1859.
D. charged astronomical interest rates on government contracts.
E. received government subsidies to buy homesteads in the West and promptly resell them at huge profit.

5. Women contributed to the war effort through all of the following EXCEPT
A. organizing fundraisers for war orphans, widows, and wounded soldiers.
B. helping to establish new guidelines for cleanliness of medical care in field hospitals.
C. working as nurses on the battlefield.
D. serving as spies and fighting disguised as male soldiers.
E. smuggling food from Europe in their luggage and in their clothing by exploiting standards of modesty of the time.

6. The North’s greatest strength during the Civil War was its
A. ethnic unity.
B. miltary leadership.
C. economy.
D. high morale.
E. slave population.

7. Possessing ____ percent of the national wealth in 1860, the South claimed only _________ percent in 1870.
A. 45, 25
B. 20, 45
C. 32, 5
D. 30, 12
E. 25, 5

8. All of the following states joined the Confederacy after the firing on Ft. Sumter EXCEPT
A. Alabama.
B. North Carolina.
C. Virginia.
D. Tennessee.
E. Arkansas.

9. Which of the following was NOT a Border States that remained loyal to the Union?
A. Kentucky.
B. Tennessee.
C. Maryland.
D. Missouri.
E. Delaware.

10. King Cotton failed the South as a tool of wartime diplomacy for all of the following reasons EXCEPT
A. the cotton crop was devastated by the boll weevil.
B. Britain held a surplus of cotton when the war began.
C. textile workers in Britain favored the North.
D. the North sold captured cotton to Britain.
E. Britain developed alternative sources of cotton in Egypt and India.

20:2 MC practice

1. Lincoln’s declaration that the North sought to preserve the Union with or without slavery
A. revealed the influence of the Border states on his policies.
B. contradicted the campaign promises of the Republican party.
C. caused some of the seceded states to rejoin the Union.
D. came as a disappointment to most Northerners and demoralized the Union.
E. cost him support in the “Butternut region” of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

2. To fill the Army’s demand for troops, the North relied mainly on
A. the draft.
B. bounty brokers.
C. volunteers.
D.substitute brokers.
E. foreign mercenaries.

3. As a result of the Civil War, the Northern economy
A. emerged more prosperous than ever before.
B. saw industrial profits improve but agricultural profits fall.
C. became dependent upon international trade.
D. greatly helped the day laborer.
E. became so prosperous that unscrupulous business practices were dramatically reduced.

4. How many Border slave states remained within the Union as of 1862?
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4
E. 5

5. Lincoln argued that his assertion of executive power and suspension of certain civil rights was justified because
A. he was only suspending civil liberties in areas that had committed treason against the Union.
B. the South had committed an even greater breach of the Constitution.
C. as president during wartime he had unlimited presidential power.
D. he had indicated he would take such steps during his campaign for the presidency.
E. it was necessary to set aside certain Constitutional provisions to preserve the Union.

6. Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter when it was learned that
A. Lincoln had ordered supplies sent to the fort.
B. Lincoln had called for 75,000 volunteers to form a Union army.
C. the fort’s commander was planning to evacuate his troops secretly from the fort.
D. Lincoln had ordered the fort reinforced with federal troops.
E. Southern support for secession was weakening.

7. Which of the following was a Union advantage during the Civil War?
A. The Union could fight a defensive war.
B. The Union had more experienced generals.
C. The Union had a better-funded treasury.
D. Britain offered the Union its military support.
E. The Union had greater support from its citizens.

8. Lincoln’s primary objective in suppressing the writ of habeas corpus was to
A. suppress Southern sympathizers in Border States.
B. better control the newspapers of the North.
C. bolster the size of the army with a draft.
D. be allowed to officially end slavery in the capital.
E. increase taxes to better fund the war effort.

9. The main reason why Lincoln stated he HAD to have Kentucky was
A. because it was his home state.
B. Ft. Knox, the depository of federal gold, was there, and those deposits could help pay for the war.
C. its northern border was made up of a large part of the strategic Ohio River.
D. Samuel Colt’s weapons factories were located there.
E. Kentucky contained a rich deposit of lead for bullets.

10. Technically in Midwestern territory, this region was know to be filled with population that was pro-Southern settlers.
A. the “mountain white” region of Virginia.
B. the Chesapeake Bay of Maryland.
C. the Oregon country.
D. the “Butternut” region of Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana.
E. the Green River area of Vermont.

The Story of the Prisoners of Berga

In honor of Veterans’ Day…

At the Battle of the Bulge, some American POWs captured by the Nazi forces were used as slave laborers at a camp that was part of the Buchenwald complex because they were (or were assumed to be) Jews. A little known story that should never be forgotten.

From PBS, Berga: Soldiers of Another War.

20:1 MC Practice

1. In order to reach his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln
A. had to agree to an amendment guaranteeing slavery in the territories.
B. had to pass the Crittenden Compromise.
C. had to sneak into Washington in partial disguise.
D. had to hold his inauguration in Illinois.
E. traveled by water along the Mississippi, the Gulf, and the Atlantic Ocean.

2. The first shots of the Civil War were fired at
A. Bull Run, Maryland.
B. Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
C. the First Battle of Manassas.
D. Fort McHenry, Maryland.
E. Antietam, Maryland.

3. After Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen on April 15, 1861
A. the Confederacy grew to eleven states.
B. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to briefly become an independent country.
C. ten times that number volunteered for the Confederate army.
D. the first shots in the war were fired.
E. a slave rebellion arose in Louisiana.

4. Lincoln steadfastly refused to characterize the Civil War as a fight to end slavery because
A. he did not believe in the equality of the races.
B. he believed that if he did so, the breakaway of the Confederate states would be halted.
C. he desperately needed to keep the Border States within the Union.
D. Southern members of Congress would have cut off all funding for the war.
E. his cabinet would have resigned had he done so.

5. The last state to secede from the Union was
A. Virginia
B. Texas
C. North Carolina
D. Maryland
E. Tennesssee

6. Lincoln said that he hoped to have God on his side, but he had to have
A. his wife.
B. Virginia.
C. Maryland.
D. Robert E. Lee.
E. Kentucky.

7. The North had all of the following advantages at the start of the Civil War EXCEPT:
A. a better navy.
B. more industrial might and manufacturing capacity.
C. more miles of railways.
D. better military leadership.
E. a larger population from which to draw for its army.

8. The city in which the first shots of the Civil War were fired was
A. Washington, DC.
B. Atlanta, Georgia.
C. Baltimore, Maryland.
D. Charleston, South Carolina.
E. New Orleans, Louisiana.

9. Secretary of State William Seward
A. disagreed with Lincoln’s plan to resupply Fort Sumter.
B. suggested declaring war against Spain, Great Britain, or France to get the South to abandon secession.
C. felt that Lincoln was too rash and rushed too hastily into war.
D. had sons of his own that fought on the Confederate side.
E. demanded that Lincoln approve the building of an all-steel navy.

10. In order to retain the Border States, Lincoln
A. deployed federal troops and declared martial law.
B. offered to build federal facilities in these states if they remained in the Union.
C.attempted persuasive speeches to maintain their loyalty.
D.threatened to send black troops in to occupy secessionist areas.
E. all of the above.

Lincoln’s House Divided Specch

This launched his bid for the Senate.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2934.html

Charles Sumner’s Charges Against Senator Andrew Butler

Excerpted from a three- hour long speech in the Senate known as “The Crime Against Kansas.” After Sumner personally insulted Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina and Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, Senator Butler’s kinsman, Representative Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner on the floor of the Senate until he was beaten unconscious. Here are the specific charges of what exactly the “Crime Against Kansas” was, who was responsible, and what exactly Sumner said about Butler.

A longer version of the speech can be found here: http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/Crime.html

“Take down your map, Sir, and you will find that the Territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east and the Pacific on the west, from the frozen waters of Hudson’s Bay on the north and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south, — constituting the precise geographical centre of the whole vast Continent. To such advantages of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a health-giving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions. A few short months have hardly passed since this spacious mediterranean country was open only to the savage, who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens crowded within her historic gates….
Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a Crime has been committed which is without example in the records of the Past.…

The wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of Slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of Slavery in the National Government….

Such is the Crime which you are to judge. The criminal also must be dragged into the day, what you may see and measure the power by which all this wrong is sustained….In its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting ambition which would hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose insensible to the judgment of mankind; a madness for Slavery, in spite of Constitution, laws, and all the great examples of our history… There, Sir, stands the criminal, unmasked before you, heartless, grasping, and tyrannical, with an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings. Justice to Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this influence; for this is the Power behind — greater than any President — which succors and sustains the Crime….

Before entering upon the argument, I must say something of a general character, particularly in response to what has fallen from Senators who have raised themselves to eminence on this floor in championship of human wrong: I mean the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler] and the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], who, though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from his seat; but the cause against which he has run a tilt, with such ebullition of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him, — though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight: I mean the harlot Slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition be made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator.

19:2 MC practice

Your test over chapters 17-19 is Friday unless you are going debating!!!!

1. The consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act included
A. splitting of the Democratic party.
B. organization of the Republican party.
C. an erosion of the Missouri Compromise.
D. exacerbating sectional tensions.
E. all of the above.

2. The Crittenden Compromise included all of the following EXCEPT
A. attempted to revive the latitude line of 36° 30’ as the dividing line between slave and free territory.
B. provided that the US government should compensate owners for fugitive slaves whose owners were prevented from recovering them.
C. slavery would be protected in the District of Columbia so long as Maryland and Virginia were both slave states.
D. six amendments would be added to the Constitution.
E. a reopening of the African slave trade.

3. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 included all of the following EXCEPT
A. the requirement that escaped slaves be returned from Canada.
B. denial of a jury trial to runaway slaves.
C. denial of fugitive slaves’ right to testify in their own behalf.
D. the penalty of imprisonment for northerners who helped slaves to escape.
E. the payment to a federal commissioner of a higher fee if the apprehended person was ruled to be a runaway slave.

Use the excerpt for questions 4-6.
“I hear with distress and anguish the word “secession,” especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg every body’s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir!”

4. What is the source of this excerpt?
A. General Cass on the Wilmot Proviso.
B. the Clay Compromise Measures by John C. Calhoun.
C. the Seventh of March speech by Daniel Webster.
D. the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
E. Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address.

5. When the author speaks of—and criticizes– someone who is “patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services,” who is being referred to?
A. Daniel Webster
B. Henry Clay
C. Stephen Douglas
D. John Calhoun
E. Jefferson Davis

6. What is the main point of the excerpt?
A. No one who is truly patriotic can suggest secession.
B. Slavery is an abomination which must be kept out of the territories.
C. Secession is an act of war and violence.
D. Our country is like a solar system, and the Constitution is the gravity that holds it all together.
E. Anyone who doubts the sincerity of the threats by southerners to secede is deluding himself.

7. According to Charles Sumner, who were “hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization?”
A. Black Republicans
B. radical abolitionists
C. slaves
D. pro-slavery sympathizers
E. immigrants

8. What reward did Sumner get for his remarks?
A. He was named “man of the year” by the Liberator.
B. Repeated blows with a cane until he was knocked unconscious.
C. Nomination for president from the Democratic party.
D. Tarring and feathering by his own constitutents.
E. He was challenged to a duel by John Calhoun.

Use the excerpt, from John C. Calhoun’s response in 1850 known as the Clay Compromise Measures, written in the heat of the debate over the Compromise of 1850, to answer question 9 and 10.

“How can the Union be saved? To this I answer, there is but one way by which it can be, and that is by adopting such measures as will satisfy the States belonging to the Southern section that they can remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety…. The North has only to will it to accomplish it–to do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired territory, and to do her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be faithfully fulfilled–to cease the agitation of the slave question, and to provide for the insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South, in substance, the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this government…. At all events, the responsibility of saving the Union rests on the North, and not on the South. The South can not save it by any act of hers, and the North may save it without any sacrifice whatever, unless to do justice and to perform her duties under the Constitution should be regarded by her as a sacrifice.”

9. What territory is in dispute as referred to in the excerpt?
A. Louisiana Purchase
B. Mexican Cession
C. Kansas and Nebraska
D. Maine and Oregon
E. Texas

10. How was an “equal right in the acquired territory” obtained?
A. the Dred Scott decision abolished the right of Congress to restrict slavery.
B. the Missouri Compromise created a line at 36° 30 latitude.
C. popular sovereignty was granted in the new territories of New Mexico and Utah.
D. a transcontinental railroad was built in the South.
E. all of the above.

11. John Brown’s “Pottawatamie Massacre” was launched in retaliation for
A. the attack on Harpers Ferry.
B. the “Sack of Lawrence” by pro-slavery thugs.
C. the Sumner-Brooks incident.
D. the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
E. all of the above.

12. What was the main consequence of Stephen Douglas’s blockage of congressional approval of the Lecompton Constitution?
A. He was hailed as a hero by abolitionists.
B. He lost his bid for reelection to the Senate.
C. Many northerners saw him as an enemy of “free soil” principles.
D. Many southerners refused to support him in the presidential election of 1860.
E. He was censured by the US Senate.

13. Place the events in chronological order: President James Buchanan leaves office; (X) Abraham Lincoln elected president; (Y) South Carolina secedes; (Z) Jefferson Davis inaugurated as president of the Confederacy.
A. W, X, Y, Z
B. X, W, Y, Z
C. W, Y, Z. X
D. Y, Z, X, W
E. X, Y, Z, W

14. Place these events in chronological order: Dred Scott decision; (X) Lincoln-Douglas debates; (Y) Kansas-Nebraska Act; (Z) Harpers Ferry raid.
A. W, X, Y, Z
B. X, Z, Y, W
C. Y, X, Z, W
D. Y, W, X, Z
E. Z, X, W, Y

15. During the debate of 1850, who claimed that there was a “higher law” than the Constitution that compelled him to demand the exclusion of slavery from the territories?
A. William H. Seward
B. Henry Clay
C. James Buchanan
D. Daniel Webster
E. Abraham Lincoln