APUSH Unit 5

Topic 5.2: The Idea of Manifest Destiny

-Manifest Destiny
● The United States will extend its power and civilization across North
America
● Causes
○ Nationalism
○ Population increase
○ Rapid economic development
○ Technological advances
○ Reform ideals
● Expansionism not united because some ppl thought the expansion is
intended to spread slavery

-Conflicts over Texas, Maine, and Oregon (land the Americans wanted to settle
in)
● Texas
○ 1829: Mexico outlawed slavery + convert to Roman Catholicism ->

settlers (Americans) refused to obey -> Texas closed to American

Immigrants -> Mexico’s federal government abolished -> 1836:
Sam Houston (American) declared Texas independent -> Slavery
legal in Texas again -> Texas annexation into U.S. denied (1840s)
-> John Tyler (1841-1845): wanted to annex Texas, but was
rejected by the Senate
● Maine
○ Split of disputed territory
● Oregon
○ British American dispute -> Resolved: Joint occupation
● The Election of 1844
○ Annexing Texas and expansion of slavery -> Democratic Party split

(1844: Northern wing opposed annexation cuz Texas is a slave

state, and southern whigs supported cuz they were pro slavery) ->
James. K. Polk (1845, favored slavery and annexation)
● Annexing Texas and Dividing Oregon (1846)
○ Divide the Oregon territory at the 49th parallel
○ Texas annexed

-Settlement of the Western Territories

● Great American Desert
○ Arid region between the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Coast
 ● Fur Traders’ Frontier
○ Fur traders went to the far west
● Overland Trails West)
○ Gold rush, farming, and cities for middle and upperclassmen)
● Foreign commerce
○ Growth in imports and exports
○ Causes
◆ Growth in manufactured goods and agricultural products

(Western grains and southern cotton)

-Expansion After the Civil War

● 1855-1870: despite the issues of union, slavery, civil war, and postwar
reconstruction, the idea of Manifest Destiny persisted (e.g. 1867
purchase of Alaska)

Topic 5.3: Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War

Context: Annexation of Texas -> diplomatic trouble with Mexico

-Conflict with Mexico

● U.S. wanted Mexico to (1) sell California and (2) settle the Mexico-
Texas border -> Mexico disagreed
● Immediate Causes of the War
○ Mexico captured an American army patrol, killing 11 -> U.S. sent

war message to Mexico

● Military Campaigns
○ America overthrew Mexican rule in Northern California -> California

became Bear Flag Republic

-Consequences of the War (U.S. won)

● Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
○ Mexico recognized Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas
○ U.S. took possession of the Mexican Cession (California and New

Mexico).
● Wilmot Promiso (1846)
○ Proposed by Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot
○ Proposition: no slavery in territories from Mexico -> dissenting

opinions about slavery -> defeated in the Senate because

 ○

Southern states had greater influence -> political conflict

Topic 5.4: The Compromise of 1850

-Southern Expansion
● Manifest Destiny to the South
○ Ostend Manifesto by President Polk and the Southern

Expansionists)
◆ The U.S. buys Cuba from Spain (in a menacing way) -> secret

plan leaked
○ Walker (Southern America’s adventurer) Expedition
◆ Attempt to take California -> defeated by Central American

countries
○ Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850 - 1901, between U.S. and Britain)
◆ Neither nation can take control of a canal (through Central

America) route in Central America

○ Gadsden Purchase (by Franklin Pearce)
◆ U.S. purchased southern sections of present-day New Mexico

and Arizona

-Conflict over Status of Territories

● Three conflicting positions on slavery expansion
○ (1) Free soil movement (Northerners)
◆ No slavery in Mexican Cession, and all African-Americans

should be free
○ (2) Southern positions
◆ Some objected, and some remained neutral
○ (3) Popular sovereignty (by Lewis Cass)
◆ Whether to allow slavery is determined by people who settled a

territory
● The Election of 1848
○ Zachary Taylor, a Whig, became president

-Compromises to preserve the Union — Compromise of 1850

Topic 5.5: Sectional Conflict: Regional differences

-Immigration Controversy
 ● Irish
○ Roman Catholics -> faced discrimination
○ Good English -> politics -> joined Democratic Party (anti-British

and pro-worker) and eventually controlled Tammany Hall (1880s)

● Germans
○ Many were farmers and artisans
○ Settled in Northwest
○ Overtime, they supported public education and opposed slavery
○ Formed Roman-Catholic or Lutheran churches in rural areas
● Nativist opposition to Immigration
○ 1840s: Nativism, or hostility towards immigrants, led to rioting in

big cities
○ Know-nothing party: anti-foreign society

-Ethnic Conflict in the Southwest

● Religious discrimination faced by American Indians and Mexican
Americans (traditional American Indian beliefs and Roman Catholics)

-The Expanding Economy (economic growth from the 1840s to 1857)

● Industrial Technology
○ Sewing machine, railroads, telegraph (1844)
○ Industrialization spread from New England to other states of the

NE
● Railroads
○ Illinois (North) Central Railroad -> united commercial interests and

gave the North strategic advantages in Civil War

● Panic of 1857
○ North affected with decreases in prices of agricultural crops and

increase in unemployment
○ South less affected

-Agitation over Slavery

● Fugitive Slave Law
○ Enforcement: Arrest fugitives
○ Resented by White activists in the North
● Underground Railroad
○ Network that helped enslaved people escape to freedom
○ Created by Harriet Tubman, a woman who has escaped slavery and

helped 300 ppl escape

Topic 5.6: Failure of Compromise

Context: Attitudes about the morality of slavery, views about the rights of states
(to protect slavery), and differences over economic policies between the free-
labor industrial North and the slave-labor agricultural South divided the North
and the South.

-National Parties in Crisis

● The Election of 1852
○ Franklin Pearce became president
○ Whigs improved roads and harbors
● The Kansas-Nebraskas Act (1854)
○ Bill to divide the Nebraska Territory into two parts — the Kansas

and Nebraska territories — and allow popular sovereignty to decide

their free-slave state status

-Extremists and Violence

● Bleeding Kansas
○ People flooded the territories from other established free and slave

states to help turn the vote to their side. People were murdered.
○ Sumner, an anti-slavery senator, was beaten on the head by Brooks
○ Tension in both the people and Congress
● Birth of the Republican Party
○ Comprised of Free-Soil Party supporters, anti-slavery Whigs, and

Northern Democrats
○ Supported largely in the North
○ Views
◆ Restrict slavery’s expansion (because it didn’t line up with

Northern economics, not because of morality)

◆ Build infrastructure and support land distribution
◆ Increase protective tariffs
● The Election of 1856
○ James Buchanan became president (Democrat)

-Constitutional Issues
● Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
○ The U.S. Supreme Court declared all Western territories open to

slavery
● Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Lincoln runs against Senator Joseph
Douglass)
○ Abraham Lincoln: The country must exist under one view of slavery

Topic 5.7: Election of 1860 and Secession

-The Road to Secession
● The Election of 1860
○ Lincoln, a republican, became president
○ Lincoln’s Views:
◆ Exclusion of slavery from the territories, a protective tariff for
 ◆

industry, free land for citizens, and internal improvements

○ South crazy about Lincoln, but did not unite cuz the south had too

many candidates that they divided the votes -> So Lincoln won
● A Fourth Political Party
○ The Constitutional Union Party: preservation of union
● Secession of the Deep South

-A Nation Divided
● Confederate soldiers attacked Fort Sumter (Federalists in South
Carolina who were pro north) -> Excuse for Lincoln to march down
South -> Civil War
● Secession of the Upper South
○ Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas seceded and

joined the Confederacy.

● Keeping the Border States in the Union
○ (1) Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky didn’t join the

Confederate
○ (2) Crucial for the north

Topic 5.8: Military Conflict in the Civil War

Context: Civil War between Union and the Confederacy (1861-1865) -> (1)
slavery abolished (2) Industrialization

-War
● Military Differences
○ Union had telegraph, railroad, navy, and more troops (22 million)

than the Confederates (5.5 million) with only militia

● Economic Differences
○ Union dominated the economy, while the confederates had to rely

on outside help
● Political Differences
○ Union (Central government) v.s. Confederates (Decentralized

government)
● The Confederate States of America
○ Severe financial problems (inflation)

-First Years of a Long War: 1861-1862

● No victory for either side

-Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy

● Trent Affair
○ Confederates tried gaining recognition from Britain for their

support of the war

● Confederate raiders
 ○ Confederate soldiers who disrupt Union shipping and commerce
on the high seas (Alabama ship)
● Failure of Cotton Diplomacy
○ Confederacy failed to garner European intervention
○ Causes
◆ (1) Setback at Antietam
◆ (2) Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation appealed to Britain’s

working class

-The Union Triumphs (1863-1865)

● Turning point (for Union)
○ (1) Vicksburg
◆ Due to the Union’s control of Mississippi River
○ (2) Gettysburg
◆ Robert Lee moved north, making the supply of food more

difficult with increasing distance

● Grant in Command
○ Grant, the general, fought the south through attrition (消耗)
○ Sherman’s March
◆ William Sherman (Union general) won in a landslide
● The End of the War
○ South had poor conditions -> Lee surrendered at Appomattox

Topic 5.9: Government Policies During Civil War

-The End of Slavery

● Confiscation Acts
○ Any escaped slaves from the South became soldiers for the North
● Emancipation Proclamation (outside Confederate states)
○ All ppl held as slaves are free -> 1% enslaved people freed and

union armies continued fighting slavery

● African Americans in War
○ The union has 200000 African-Americans in war!

-Effects of the War on Civilian Life

● Political change
○ (1) Civil liberties (citizens have protections against government

actions)
○ (2) Drafting: drafting men into service
○ (3) Political dominance of the North
● Economic change
○ The Union financed the war by borrowing $2.6 billion through

selling government bonds

● Modernizing Modern Society
 ○ (1) emphasis on mass production and complex organization ->
consolidation of the North’s manufacturing businesses
○ (2) Homestead Act (1862): Great Plains settlement: 160 acres of
public free land to any person who farmed that land for at least five
years (helped whites, not blacks)

-Assassination of Lincoln
● Lincoln died on April 14, 1865

Topic 5.10: Reconstruction (1865-1877)

-Postwar Conditions
● Slavery gradually crumbled
● South devastated
● Conflicts between north and south continued
● Federal governments concentrated on political issues, while states and
individuals rebuilt the south

-Reconstruction plans of Lincoln and Johnson

● Process of readmitting Confederate states back into the Union
● Lincoln’s policies
○ Very minimal - ten percent of voters had to pledge loyalty to the

Union
○ Lincoln was assassinated before he could enforce it
○ Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
◆ Fifty percent of voters had to pledge loyalty to the Union >>>

Lincoln vetoed it
○ Freedmen’s Bureau
◆ Welfare agency to both Black and White Americans affected by

the war
● Johnson’s policies
○ Disenfranchisement of (1) all former leaders and officeholders of

the Confederacy and (2) Confederates with more than $20,000 in

taxable property
● Johnson’s Vetoes
○ Made southern states restrict the rights of former slaves

-Congressional Reconstruction
● Radical Republicans
○ Republicans divided between moderates and radicals
◆ Moderates: concerned with economic gains for the White

middle class
◆ Radicals: concerned with civil rights for Black citizens
○ Radicals
 ◆ Leader is Charles Sumner, who struggled to extend equal rights
to all Americans
○ Thirteenth Amendment
◆ All black men in the Confederacy are free, no slavery
○ Civil Rights Act of 1866
◆ All African Americans are U.S. citizens!
○ Fourteenth Amendment (1866)
◆ Blacks are citizens
○ Election of 1868
◆ Ulysses S. Grant became president: Republicans won against

Andrew Johnson
◆ Andrew Johnson was pro-slavery so he lost and was

impeached
● Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
● Reforms after Grant’s Election
○ Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
◆ As citizens, black men are now allowed to vote

-Reconstruction (in a nutshell)

-Women’s Changing Roles

● Factory jobs, military nurses
● Women suffrage
Topic 5.11: Failure of Reconstruction

-The End of Reconstruction

● White Supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan
○ Ku Klux Klan (founded 1867)
◆ Secret society to intimidate African Americans and White

reformers
○ Southern Governments
◆ Still no voting rights to Blacks
○ Black Codes (by Andrew Johnson)
◆ Restricted rights of African Americans
○ Sharecropping
◆ African Americans farmed another landlord’s land to make

money, but had to give some of their crop from their landlord
◆ Gave poor people of all races in the South to work on land

● The Amnesty Act of 1872

○ Removed the last restrictions on ex-Confederates (except for the

top leaders)
○ Allowed Southern conservatives to vote for Democrats, thus

allowing Southern conservatives to retake control of state

governments

● The Election of 1876

○ Hayes (Republican) won against Tilden (Democrat)

● The Compromise of 1877

○ Hayes becoming president in return for:
◆ End of federal support for the Republicans in the South
◆ Support the building of a Southern transcontinental railroad
○ Contributed to end of reconstruction