AP US History Exam - Review Ch. 9 Toward the Civil War and Reconstruction (1845-1877)

Political and Judicial Activity Before the War Political Activity Whigs vs. Democrats Whigs were more the national party; wanted to make internal improvements: bridges, roads, canals, etc. Pro business and commerce. Democrats became the party of the south; states’ rights, supported westward expansion, in part to add slave states and keep congressional balance A pro-southern Supreme Court made several decisions favoring slavery in the decades before the war, including the Dred Scott decision (1857). The court declared that slaves were property, not citizens, and that the government couldn’t regulate slavery in the territories. Slavery, therefore, could exist anywhere! Lincoln was able to appoint 5 justices while president, and shifted the balance of power to the Republicans.

The Polk Presidency (1844-1848) Democrat elected to expand westward! Texas annexed Oregon settled The Mexican-American War adds the ‘Mexican Session’: --California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico

The Compromise of 1850 California was admitted as a free state. The South prevented adoption of the Wilmot Proviso that would have outlawed slavery in the new territories, and the new Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory were allowed, under the principle of popular sovereignty, to decide whether to allow slavery within their borders. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their settlers were uninterested in slavery. The slave trade was banned in the District of Columbia. A more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act and ‘Bleeding Kansas’ 1854: Senator Stephen Douglass wanted a transcontinental railroad to run from Illinois (his home state) to the west coast. Southern congressmen wanted the railroad to originate in the south. To get their votes for his plan, he included the idea of popular sovereignty for the Kansas and Nebraska territories. The Act is passed by Congress, but: --it invalidates the Missouri Compromise! --it leads to violence in Kansas!

Buchanan, Dred Scott, and the Election of 1860 President James Buchanan was a Democrat who was sympathetic to the South. He did little to try to resolve the issue of slavery, and the problem worsened . . . In the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court declared that African Americans whose ancestors were imported into the U.S. and sold as slaves could not be U.S. citizens, and that the federal government didn’t have the authority to regulate slavery in the territories. This decision shocks the North! It galvanizes and accelerates the abolitionist movement . . .

The Civil War and Reconstruction (1860-1877)

Emancipation of the Slaves

The Election of 1864 and the End of the Civil War

Reconstruction and Johnson’s Impeachment

The Failure of Reconstruction

Southern Blacks During and After Reconstruction