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This lesson will touch on some important events in the country’s growth. It will review the rise of regionalism, the seeds of the Civil War, and the conflict itself.
The previous section discussed the colonies, several key figures, and how the colonists rebelled against Britain. The development and ratification of the U.S. Constitution were also examined.
Although the abolitionist spirit was alive and well in the colonies (chiefly in the Quaker colonies) since the eighteenth century, the movement experienced a resurgence in the first decades of the nineteenth century, primarily in the northern states. Abolitionism was part of a general wave of reform, and the movement became better organized in the years prior to the War between the States. William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas were two abolitionists who wanted the immediate emancipation of all slaves.
The North and South in the nineteenth century had very different economies. The agrarian South relied on exporting its crops and importing machinery and equipment from abroad. Conversely, the North’s burgeoning industrial-based economy was more insular. These differences led to many conflicts over trade tariffs. The South deplored the tariffs and their effects while the North encouraged them as they protected their own industries.
The Tariff of 1828, for example, was known in the South as the Tariff of Abominations. This tariff protected northern industry by raising prices of competing goods from overseas. Higher import prices meant an economic downturn in the South, which negatively affected North-South relations.
Adding new territories and states to the nation was another contentious issue between the proslavery South and the antislavery North. When new states petitioned for entry into the United States, acrimony and dissent took hold in Congress. The Missouri Compromise was an attempt to smooth over this rising sectionalism.
In some ways, Lincoln’s election was the last straw in sending the states to war. After his victory, several proslavery states (led by South Carolina) seceded—even before Lincoln’s inauguration. In February 1861, these states formed a provisional government for the Confederate States of America.
Confederate forces took control of most of the forts in the South, but a few holdouts remained. Fort Sumter in South Carolina was one of them. After prolonged shelling from the South Carolina militia, the Union forces relinquished Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861. Though neither side suffered casualties, this event was the first conflict in a bloody war that would last until the spring of 1865 and would take about 500,000 lives.
Here follows a brief overview of some of the conflict’s important battles. Click here for a map view.
This pitched battle eventually ended in a victory for the South. It is considered the first major land battle in the war and helped General Thomas Jackson earn his nickname “Stonewall.” The armies clashed again at this site in 1862 at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
One of the bloodiest of the war, this battle was also the first major conflict in the North. With more than 20,000 casualties in one day of fighting, the victor in this battle was not clear. Many historians, however, see this as a Union victory because it stalled General Robert E. Lee’s march into the North. The Union performance at Antietam also gave Lincoln the confidence to issue his Emancipation Proclamation (September 1862).
In April 1865, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the war between the North and South. As word spread throughout the Confederacy about Lee’s surrender, other southern commanders followed suit.
With most of its battles in the South, in addition to Sherman’s “March to the Sea,” the war left the southern regions in shambles. The U.S. government divided the South into five military districts and stationed thousands of military personnel there to affect the recovery of the battle-scarred areas.
In order to be re-admitted into the United States, the secessionist southern states had to adopt laws and practices to which they were ideologically opposed. Contingent upon their re-entry, the states were forced to adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, and by July 1870, they were all once again part of the United States.
While ostensibly equal in the eyes of the U.S. Constitution, African Americans in the Reconstruction-era South faced extreme hostility from many southern whites. In response to the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment, many southern legislatures adopted “black codes,” which in effect returned African Americans to slave status. These codes evolved into Jim Crow laws, which held sway in the south until the Supreme Court began to strike them down in the twentieth century.
