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
