http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/republican-party-founded
Republicans
The prelude to this party, the Whigs, were founded to directly oppose Andrew Jackson and his ideals. The Whigs, destroyed after the Missouri Compromise was repealed, gathered to form a new party. The Republican party was born from that. Southerners, knowing of their antislavery policies, threatened secession if a Republican ever won the presidency. When Abraham Lincoln won in 1860, South Carolina led the secession, and the Confederacy and the Civil War would soon follow after.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h139.html
The Free-Soil Party was founded on the ideals that one would expect by reading its name: to make America a land of free-soil. More specifically, its ideals were to oppose the extension of slavery into new American territories, support of internal improvement, support tariffs designed only for revenue, and to support homesteading. This party was created by Martin Van Buren when the Democrats did not choose him as their presidential nominee. The party was destroyed when they failed in both elections they took part in to gain even one single electoral vote. However, they took enough popular votes away from the democrats to ensure that Zachary Taylor gained the Presidency.
http://www.history.com/topics/know-nothing-party
Know-Nothings
This party was formed in 1850 as both an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant union. If a member was ever asked, they would reply "I know nothing." They won several small mayoral offices, but their time was short lived. Northern members abandoned the party when it supported the Kansas-Nebraska act that let slavery be legal in all American territory. Millard Fillmore, their presidential nominee, only won Maryland. They dissolved soon after.
Conscription in the Union and Confederacy
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-civil-war-conscription-act
The Conscription Act was the United States' first wartime draft in its history. All men between the ages of 20 and 45 were required to sign up. However, an exemption could be bought for $300 dollars. This outraged many poorer Americans, as they saw that the rich could buy their way out of the war, while they could not do much to prevent themselves from having to go off and fight. Draft riots occurred in New York City afterwards.
Copperheads
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/979329/posts
Copperheads were Democrats that did not want to involve themselves in the Civil War, and demanded immediate peace with the new Confederate Nation. Their name came from two sources: copperhead snakes that strike without warning, including the standard personification of snake, manipulative and sly, and from the copper pennies they wore as badges. They were also perceived often as traitors because they opposed the emancipation of slavery, opposed the total war that would end the southern nation, and met in secret with the south to discuss peace. Many Democrats were jailed because of the existence of the Copperheads. However, this group met its doom when the victories in Atlanta and at the Appomattox Courthouse. This group is significant because it reveals how not everyone in the north was the stereotypical slavery hating, war loving American. These people wanted to stop all conflict with the Confederacy at all costs to stop war and to stop the end of slavery.
Lincoln's Leadership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZjW246Mcbg&feature=youtu.be
I was not able to embed this video, so I have to use this link instead. This is my multimedia element I created myself. Enjoy.
Emancipation Proclamation
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1549.html
"All persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." This decree of the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves of the Confederacy. He was able to do this because of the presidential right to take away property of rebelling United States citizens. Since the US did not officially recognize the secession of the Confederacy, he was able to invoke this power. This piece of complicated propaganda was able to rouse southern slaves and allow northern blacks to fight in the war, as the Union army needed soldiers desperately. It also tied slavery properly to the war, giving the Union something to fight for.
Scalawags
http://www.history.com/topics/carpetbaggers-and-scalawags
Scalawags were a group of southern white men who supported the Republican Party. Some were Whigs who believed that Republicans had succeeded their party. Others were plantation owners who believed that blacks should have civil and political rights while maintaining control of their economic lifestyle. However, the majority were craftsmen and artisans who had no slaves that did not want slavery sympathizers to gain control of the south again.
Carpetbaggers
http://www.history.com/topics/carpetbaggers-and-scalawags
Carpetbaggers were northerners who appeared in the south after the war who wanted to gain profit on the now war-torn south. These carpetbaggers specifically wanted to take over southern plantations and make money off of cotton. Some southerners welcomed these new northerners, as their investments could get their operations running again. Others saw them as people who only wanted to make money off of the misfortune of the south. Some carpetbaggers wanted to help reform the south in a northern image, while others were only in the business to make a quick buck.
This picture illustrates the hatred some southerners held for the northern opportunists, and paints them all in a bad light.
Freedmen's Bureau
http://www.history.com/topics/freedmens-bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau was an organization that was created to provide shelter, food, and aid to those effected by the war, mainly displaced slaves. However, the organization started facing trouble as many southerners opposed the organization. Andrew Johnson, president after Lincoln's assassination, also believed it would cause financial and public strain on the south and country as a whole. It was dismantled before it could have too much of an impact on the lives of southerners and slaves, but it was able to feed millions of people, set up new hospitals, and it also provided aid for blacks and black veterans of the war.
This image symbolizes the hatred of the Freedman's Bureau by the south.
10 Percent Plan
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/reconstruction/section1.rhtml
The ten percent plan was a plan devised by Lincoln that would allow states to be readmitted to the union once ten percent of their legal voters swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. Afterwards, state constitutions and governments could be reformed, and representatives could be put back into Congress. However, high ranking leaders and officials would not be granted a full pardon. However, this plan was not a plan for reconstruction, but rather a political maneuver. Lincoln needed the north and south to be reunited soon, or fighting may break out again. It simply was an enticement of the south to surrender.
13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilWarAmendments.htm
The Thirteenth-
This amendment completely abolished slavery in the United States as a whole. Passed in December 1865, it was a requirement to write this amendment into all state constitutions in order to be readmitted into the Union.
The Fourteenth-
Ratified on July 1868, this amendment gave citizenship to anyone born in the United States. This included former slaves, and all citizens had equal protection under United States law. It would also punish those who attempted to reduce the rights of any one citizen or group of people. Confederate states were prevented from paying war debt, but were not compensated for the loss of their slaves.
The Fifteenth-
Ratified on February 1870, it prevented states from preventing people to vote based on their skin color, race, and occupation. However, southern states found a loophole by instituting poll taxes and literacy tests. For illiterate whites and poor whites, the Grandfather Clause was enacted, which allowed those whose grandfathers could vote to vote.
Tenure of Office Act
http://www.history.com/topics/tenure-of-office-act
The Tenure of Office act was passed in March 1867, and designed to protect cabinet members that were being ousted by the newly-appointed Johnson, as he was found to be politically corrupt. Johnson was later impeached after he tried to remove cabinet members that did not see eye to eye with him. He tried to remove two cabinet members and replace them with Ulysses S. Grant and Lorenzo Thomas, but Congress disallowed this and impeached him. He was not removed from office due to one vote. It was removed twenty years later by Grover Cleveland after he challenged its constitutionality.
Military Reconstruction Act
http://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/1431
This act was passed in March of 1867 despite Johnson's veto, and it organized all ex-confederate states into five military districts. With the exception of Tennessee, which had already committed to the Union's terms. Each was under the control of a military general. Johnson vetoed it because of its glaring unconstitutionality, as the states did not have a proper government. It also took away the equality of the southern states. Generals could also run rampant and do whatever they wanted, as the law did not apply to southern states anymore. Executions, jailing without trial, and other events could take place with no stopping them. This act would increase tensions between the north and the south once again, and a compromise would have to be made in order to settle the issues once and for all.
Compromise of 1877
http://www.history.com/topics/compromise-of-1877
After the election of 1876, Rutherford Hayes scored the presidency. However, violence broke out after states had allegedly altered the vote, throwing his victory into question. Hayes' supporters met with southern Democrats in secret, who agreed to allow his election under the condition that they are removed from military control. Hayes would also have to choose a southern cabinet member and accept the terms of a transcontinental southern rail line. These terms were met, and the south was freed, and Democrats were restored to power throughout the south. However, the south failed to hold up their end of the bargain, and Jim Crow Laws were passed that oppressed African-American citizens, and created a period of segregation in the south that would last until the 1960's through the civil rights movement.
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