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Opening Question: How did migration to the United States and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny change popular ideas of American identity and citizenship, affect territorial expansionism, cause conflict and impact regional and racial identities?

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The term "manifest destiny" was first used by John O'Sullivan in 1845 when writing on the Annexation of Texas. He wrote that the American claim "is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty." After his writings, support for territorial expansion increased among Americans. It was popular belief that manifest destiny was a divine right; God gave Americans the duty of expanding their ideas to all parts of the continent (Newman 230).

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Inspired by the idea of manifest destiny, Americans flooded to the Mexican province of Texas. Tension developed between Mexico and the United States because despite the fact that Mexico had outlawed slavery prior to American immigration, Americans in Texas owned and relied on slaves for their work. In addition, Americans were required to convert to Roman Catholicism, despite being predominantly protestant. Eventually, the government of Texas declared itself a nation independent of Mexico. Texas was later annexed into the United States by President John Tyler in 1845 (Newman 233).

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America's desire for expansion and the eventual annexation of Texas led to diplomatic trouble with Mexico in 1846. Disputes over the boarder of Texas were the immediate cause of the war. The war ended with American victory and resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, making the Rio Grande the southern boarder of Texas and giving the United States the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and California (Newman 232).

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Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed that an amendment be made to forbid slavery in any new territories acquired from Mexico in 1846. This proposal, called the Wilmot Proviso, was passed in the House twice but defeated in the Senate. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso is considered to have reflected the political conflict during the time leading up to the Civil War and to be the first found in an escalating political conflict that led ultimately to the Civil War.

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While only a short episode in American politics, the Wilmot Proviso provides insight into anti-slavery positions among northerners and reopened debates about slavery in the territories which had lasting effects on the larger American political landscape.

On Saturday, August 8, 1846, amidst the Mexican-American War, President James Polk proposed an appropriation bill that would allocate $2 million to purchase any potential territory from Mexico as war reparations. It was a poorly kept secret that Polk engaged in war with Mexico to gain territory, but this served as the first time that the president publicly acknowledged his intentions. Prior to Polk's introduction of this bill, Congress voted to adjourn their session on Monday, August 10. Polk introduced the bill at the eleventh hour in an attempt to get it quickly passed without any riders. However, Democratic Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania quickly foiled the commander in chief'splan. During his ten minutes allotted time to speak on the bill, Wilmot dropped a bombshell. He proposed as an amendment to Polk's appropriation "that, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico...neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted." This provision that slavery be excluded from the Mexican Cession became known as the Wilmot Proviso. Wilmot's intentions for proposing his proviso aligned perfectly with the intentions of the free-soil movement. Wilmot did not act alone in his proviso. Many northern Democrats remained angry over the party's treatment of Martin Van Buren, by throwing him over in favor of James Polk for the presidential nomination and replacing Van Buren with Polk as Andrew Jackson' s true successor. In addition to their anger over Van Buren, many northern Democrats were upset over the perceived subjugation of northern interests to southern ones and as such wanted to lash out against Polk and the slave power. Additionally, they wanted the potential territory gained from Mexico to be exclusively reserved for whites for political and economic reasons.

In an essential Hail Mary play, Representative William Wick (Democrat-Indiana) tried to supplement Wilmot's amendment with one that extended the Missouri Compromise line to this potential territory but that attempt failed. In the House, Wilmot's amendment passed by a vote of 84-64, every negative vote except three came from a slave state. Polk's appropriation bill was amended, and a second vote was held with an 85-80 outcome. Similar to the previous vote, this vote was also along sectional lines. This represents a shift in antebellum politics as previously bills were voted almost exclusively along party lines, and this was the first bill since the Missouri Compromise that was voted on along sectional lines. This vote also illustrates that southerners would rather prevent territorial expansion all together than have expansion without the extension of slavery. This southern opposition combined with the Wilmot's Proviso highlights that Americans directly linked territorial expansion with the prevention or the expansion of slavery.

After the House vote, the bill moved along to the Senate on August 10; however, by accident, the Senate never voted on the bill. In a scheme to force a vote without any amendments that would repeal the Wilmot Proviso, Senator John David (Whig-Massachusetts) planned to filibuster the bill until eight minutes before the session expired, intending to vote on the bill then. However, he was interrupted in his speech and notified that the Senate clock was eight minutes faster than the clock in the House's chambers. Consequently, the House of Representatives adjourned which triggered the expiration of the Congressional session without a Senate vote on Polk's bill. This meant that Polk's appropriations bill also expired along with the Wilmot Proviso. When Congress began its next session, Wilmot re-proposed his proviso, but Polk's new appropriation bill passed without Wilmot's rider. Despite the drama over the Wilmot Proviso only lasting three days, this event signifies a shift in American politics to one that is based on sectional lines over party lines and exemplifies an important position among anti-slavery northerners.

During the Antebellum period, even though they did not own slaves or directly benefited from the institution, many northern Democrats supported measures that protected and maintained slavery as part of a coalition with southern Democrats. As southern influence was known as the slave power, Northerners often referred to this coalition part of the "Slave Power Conspiracy." However, by August 1846, Wilmot did not want to bend to the will of the slave power anymore and advocated for anti-slavery positions, which included his proviso. In the 1840s there was a large variety of positions within the anti-slavery movement. At one end of the spectrum was the colonization movement which advocated for gradual manumission of slaves followed by emigration to "liberated" colonies, often in the Caribbean or Africa. Many prominent antebellum politicians supported colonization and joined colonization societies, including Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln stated the prevailing view behind colonization was that "it [was] better for [blacks and whites] to be separated" and thus slaves should no longer live in the United States following their emancipation. Abolitionists represented the other end of the anti-slavery spectrum, who desired immediate and forced abolition without any compensation for slaveowners. Abolitionists were few and far between in the 1840s as many Americans considered them too radical.

Free-soilers fell somewhere in the middle of the anti-slavery spectrum, which included Wilmot and a variety of northern politicians. At the heart of the free-soil movement was the commitment to keep slavery out of newly gained territories. Unlike abolitionists, free-soilers did not want to touch slavery in places it currently existed but rather wanted to stop its spread. Free-soilers objected to slavery not because they viewed it as an abominable institution, but because it hurt northern whites. Some politicians felt that the slave power disproportionally dominated national politics thereby limiting northern political influence.

Additionally, slavery created an aristocratic planter class which northerners viewed as incompatible with American democracy. Finally, slavery restricted white economic mobility by eliminating competition for labor in the areas it existed. Restricting slavery in the territories opened those lands to free white laborers and promoted labor competition, which benefitted the North. Wilmot and other free-soilers made it clear that the free-soil movement was entirely for the benefit of white northerners with little concern for those held in bondage. Free-soilers made up an overwhelming majority of those in the anti-slavery movement which illustrates that the movement was born out of hostility to perceived southern political domination and the desire to promote northern white interests rather than an actual humanitarian concern for slaves.

While the Wilmot Proviso occurred so suddenly and swiftly it had a lasting impact on American politics. The proviso provides insight into the anti-slavery movement in antebellum America. Not only did it begin to realign the structure of American politics, with votes in the House and Senate, votes and political leaings became increasingly based on sectional lines as opposed to party lines; it also reopened the debate over slavery in the territories and slavery in general-a debate that prolonged up until the outbreak of the American Civil War.

Suggested Readings:
The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Exension, and the Coming of the Civil War What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861

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While only a short episode in American politics, the Wilmot Proviso provides insight into anti-slavery positions among northerners and reopened debates about slavery in the territories which had lasting effects on the larger American political landscape.

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Americans' desire for land created conflicts with Europe over the disputed boarder between Oregon and the British occupied land of Canada. President Polk's campaign included this issue, with his slogan being "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight." Eventually he compromised for the southern half of the territory and to divide it at the 49th parallel. The treaty was ratified by the Senate in 1846 (Newman 233).

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The discovery of gold in California in 1848 set off the first of many migrations to the West. This boom attracted miners from around the world, with almost 1/3 of the miners being Chinese by the 1860s. This large difference in races created conflict. Soon, after being harassed by whites, the Chinese miners chose to partake in the building of railroads (Newman 237).

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Inspired by the ideas of Manifest Destiny and the discovery of gold and fertile lands in the West, a hundreds of thousands of pioneers embarked on the historic Oregon Trail in the 1840s. This long and arduous trek began in Independence Missouri and ended somewhere in the Oregon territory or in California. In addition to leading people to gold and farming lands, the Oregon Trail helped spread religious and cultural beliefs westward (Newman 237).

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With the influx of settlers into California, law and order was needed. Californians drafted a constitution, known as The Compromise of 1850, for their new state. While it declared California to be a free state, one of the most controversial aspects of this constitution was the Fugitive Slave Law. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law persuaded many Southerners to accept the loss of California to the Free-Soilers; however, it sparked anger among northern abolitionists. The enforcement of the new law drove a wedge between the North and the South and is considered one of the events that led to the Civil War (Newman 248).

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Why did attempts at compromise before the war fail to prevent the conflict?

Attempts at compromise before the war failed to prevent conflict because of the threatening of the delicate balance in government between those for and against slavery. Many in the North and South believed this balance was crucial in maintaining the Union. Due to the ideas of Manifest Destiny and the new territories that resulted, this balance was being threatened and tensions arose. After the inauguration of Lincoln, many southerners thought this balance to be gone, and southern states seceded from the Union (Fraser 383-384).

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Opening Question: How did the maturing of northern manufacturing and the adherence of the South to an agricultural economy change the national economic system and impact the Civil War? How was the American conflict over slavery part of larger global events?

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Prior to the Civil War, the South's economy relied primarily on cotton, with the labor involved in cotton production being completed by slaves. Because Abraham Lincoln was against the spreading of slavery, his inauguration prompted the southern states to secede from the Union. The South's adherence to slavery caused England to remain neutral in the war, despite their need for southern cotton (Newman).

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Some believed that the South's adherence to slavery impacted the southern economy negatively. Impending Crisis of the South, written by Hinton R. Helper in 1857 attacked slavery and the economic effects of it. Helper demonstrated that slavery actually weakened the South's economy. This book angered the southern states and was soon banned, but was widely distributed in the North. (Newman 250-251).

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The Union dominated the nation's economy before and during the Civil War. The Union controlled most of the banking and capital of the country. In addition, it controlled more than 85 percent of Americas factories, more than 70 percent of the railroads and even 65 percent of the farmland. The Union's economic prosperity put the Confederacy at a disadvantage during the war (Newman 270).

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New technologies showing America's emerging industrial greatness were refined the Civil War: the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, and the steam-powered printing press
Library of Congress

The American economy was caught in transition on the eve of the Civil War. What had been an almost purely agricultural economy in 1800 was in the first stages of an industrial revolution which would result in the United States becoming one of the world's leading industrial powers by 1900. But the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the prewar years was almost exclusively limited to the regions north of the Mason-Dixon line, leaving much of the South far behind.

In 1860, the South was still predominantly agricultural, highly dependent upon the sale of staples to a world market. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it was worth more than all other exports combined. But while the southern states produced two-thirds of the world's supply of cotton, the South had little manufacturing capability, about 29 percent of the railroad tracks, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South did experiment with using slave labor in manufacturing, but for the most part it was well satisfied with its agricultural economy.

The North, by contrast, was well on its way toward a commercial and manufacturing economy, which would have a direct impact on its war making ability. By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's manufacturing output came from northern states. The North produced 17 times more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, 30 times more leather goods, 20 times more pig iron, and 32 times more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South. Only about 40 percent of the Northern population was still engaged in agriculture by 1860, as compared to 84 percent of the South.

Even in the agricultural sector, Northern farmers were out-producing their southern counterparts in several important areas, as Southern agriculture remained labor intensive while northern agriculture became increasingly mechanized. By 1860, the free states had nearly twice the value of farm machinery per acre and per farm worker as did the slave states, leading to increased productivity. As a result, in 1860, the Northern states produced half of the nation's corn, four-fifths of its wheat, and seven-eighths of its oats.

The industrialization of the northern states had an impact upon urbanization and immigration. By 1860, 26 percent of the Northern population lived in urban areas, led by the remarkable growth of cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Detroit, with their farm-machinery, food-processing, machine-tool, and railroad equipment factories. Only about a tenth of the southern population lived in urban areas.

Free states attracted the vast majority of the waves of European immigration through the mid-19th century. Fully seven-eighths of foreign immigrants settled in free states. As a consequence, the population of the states that stayed in the Union was approximately 23 million as compared to a population of 9 million in the states of the Confederacy. This translated directly into the Union having 3.5 million males of military age - 18 to 45 - as compared to 1 million for the South. About 75 percent of Southern males fought the war, as compared to about half of Northern men.

The Southern lag in industrial development did not result from any inherent economic disadvantages. There was great wealth in the South, but it was primarily tied up in the slave economy. In 1860, the economic value of slaves in the United States exceeded the invested value of all of the nation's railroads, factories, and banks combined. On the eve of the Civil War, cotton prices were at an all-time high. The Confederate leaders were confident that the importance of cotton on the world market, particularly in England and France, would provide the South with the diplomatic and military assistance they needed for victory.

As both the North and the South mobilized for war, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the "free market" and the "slave labor" economic systems became increasingly clear - particularly in their ability to support and sustain a war economy. The Union's industrial and economic capacity soared during the war as the North continued its rapid industrialization to suppress the rebellion. In the South, a smaller industrial base, fewer rail lines, and an agricultural economy based upon slave labor made mobilization of resources more difficult. As the war dragged on, the Union's advantages in factories, railroads, and manpower put the Confederacy at a great disadvantage.

Nearly every sector of the Union economy witnessed increased production. Mechanization of farming allowed a single farmer growing crops such as corn or wheat to plant, harvest, and process much more than was possible when hand and animal power were the only available tools. (By 1860, a threshing machine could thresh 12 times as much grain per hour as could six men.) This mechanization became even more important as many farmers left home to enlist in the Union military. Those remaining behind could continue to manage the farm through the use of labor-saving devices like reapers and horse-drawn planters.

Northern transportation industries boomed during the conflict as well--particularly railroads. The North's larger number of tracks and better ability to construct and move parts gave it a distinct advantage over the South. Union forces moving south or west to fight often rode to battle on trains traveling on freshly lain tracks. In fact, as Northern forces traveled further south to fight and occupy the Confederacy, the War Department created the United States Military Railroads, designed to build rails to carry troops and supplies as well as operating captured Southern rail lines and equipment. By war's end, it was the world's largest railroad system.

Other Northern industries--weapons manufacturing, leather goods, iron production, textiles--grew and improved as the war progressed. The same was not true in the South. The twin disadvantages of a smaller industrial economy and having so much of the war fought in the South hampered Confederate growth and development. Southern farmers (including cotton growers) were hampered in their ability to sell their goods overseas due to Union naval blockades. Union invasions into the South resulted in the capture of Southern transportation and manufacturing facilities.

The Southern economy, while shaky throughout the war, grew markedly worse in its later years. The Emancipation Proclamation both enraged the South with its promise of freedom for their slaves, and threatened the very existence of its primary labor source. The economy continued to suffer during 1864 as Union armies battered Confederate troops in the eastern and western theaters. In the East, General Ulysses S. Grant threw men and materiel at Robert E. Lee's depleted and increasingly desperate army. Grant took advantage of railroad lines and new, improved steamships to move his soldiers and had a seemingly endless supply of troops, supplies, weapons, and materials to dedicate to crushing Lee's often ill-fed, ill-clad, and undermanned army. Though the campaign eventually fell into a stalemate at Petersburg, Virginia, Grant could afford to, as he stated, "fight it out along this line if it takes all summer," while Lee could not.

In the western theater of the war, William T. Sherman's Union troops laid waste to much of the Georgia countryside during the Atlanta Campaign and the subsequent "March to the Sea." Sherman's campaigns inflicted massive damage to Southern industry, agriculture and infrastructure. His soldiers destroyed rail lines and captured the major economic and transportation hub of Atlanta and the critical seaport of Savannah. When Sherman famously telegraphed Lincoln in December 1864, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah," his gift included "about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." Sherman himself later estimated that this campaign, which eventually moved north and similarly impacted the Carolinas, caused $100 million of destruction. An already troubled Confederate economy simply could not absorb such massive losses and survive.

As the war progressed, substantial and far-reaching changes were taking place far from the battle lines. When Lincoln became president in March 1861, he faced a divided nation, but also a Congress dominated by Republicans after many Southern Democratic members left to join the Confederacy. Lincoln and congressional Republicans seized this opportunity to enact several pieces of legislation that had languished in Congress for years due to strong Southern opposition. Many of these bills set the course for the United States to emerge by war's end as a nation with enormous economic potential and poised for a massive and rapid westward expansion. When Southerners left Congress, the war actually provided the North with an opportunity southerners from Congress, the war actually provided the North with an opportunity to establish and dominate America's industrial and economic future.

Foremost among these bills was the Homestead Act, a popular measure regularly debated in Congress since the 1840s. This law provided free title to up to 160 acres of undeveloped federal land outside the 13 original colonies to anyone willing to live on and cultivate it. Southerners had for years opposed the idea because it would severely hamper any opportunity to expand slavery into the areas where settlement would be likely. In the North, "free soilers" had clamored for the bill for decades, while abolitionists viewed it as a means to populate the West with small farmers vehemently opposed to slavery's expansion. Abraham Lincoln publicly stated his support while president-elect, stating, "In regards to the homestead bill, I am in favor of cutting the wild lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home." He made good on his promise by signing the Homestead Act into law on May 20, 1862.

In order to make the farms more efficient and to help industries develop new and better equipment, as well as provide opportunities for students in the "industrial classes," in 1862 Congress passed the Morrill Act (Land-Grant Colleges Act), by which each state was granted land for the purposes of endowing Agricultural and Mechanical (A and M) colleges. The purpose of the act was "to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts." This unprecedented national investment in higher education also required instruction in military tactics.

Another major initiative was the Pacific Railway Act, approved by President Lincoln on July 1, 1862. The transcontinental railroad linking the East and West had, like the homestead bill, been heavily debated by pre-war Congresses. Southerners wanted a railroad built along a southern route. Northerners, not surprisingly, wanted a Northern route. Once Southerners left Congress at the outset of the war, Republicans passed legislation that actually dictated a so-called "middle route" with an eastern terminus at Omaha and a western one at Sacramento. The construction of the first transcontinental railroad meant jobs for thousands in factories producing tracks and tools as well as those that labored for years to lay the tracks across rough terrain. It also meant the literal and symbolic linking of East and West (to the exclusion of the South) and decreased travel times for passengers and goods. It improved commercial opportunities, the construction of towns along both lines, a quicker route to markets for farm products, and other economic and industrial changes.

During the war, Congress also passed several major financial bills that forever altered the American monetary system. The Legal Tender Act authorized the federal government to print and use paper money, called "greenbacks," to pay its bills and finance the war. Even though greenbacks were not backed by similar amounts of gold and silver, creditors were required to accept them at face value. By the end of the war, the government had printed over $500 million in greenbacks, and the American financial system's strict reliance on transactions in gold or silver ended. The National Bank Act created a national banking system to reduce the number of notes issued by individual banks and create a single federal currency. The Internal Revenue Act eased inflation primarily by placing excise taxes on many luxury items such as tobacco and jewelry. More famously, the first U.S. income tax was imposed in July 1861, at 3 percent of all incomes over $800 up to 10 percent for incomes over $100,000 to help pay for the war effort.

For better or worse, the political philosophies underlying the creation of the Confederate States of America, with its emphasis upon a strong state and a weak central government, coupled with its vast investments in a slave-labor-based agricultural economy, meant that the South had neither the ability nor the desire to develop the kind of industrial economy or centralized financial system required to sustain a "modern" war. By contrast, the Union's willingness and ability to vastly increase the influence and footprint of the federal government not only contributed directly to its military success in the war, but it also transformed many other areas of national life, including industrial, economic, agricultural, mechanical, and financial realms. Simply put, the United States of America would be a very different nation today than had the war never been fought. If we are truly the world's last remaining superpower, then it is, at least partially, the massive industrial and economic expansion enabled by the Civil War that allowed us to ascend to that role in the first place.

This essay is taken from The Civil War Remembered, published by the National Park Service and Eastern National. This richly illustrated handbook is available in many national park bookstores or may be purchased online from Eastern at www.eparks.com/store.

C&O Canal National Historical Park, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Governor's Island National Monument, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Richmond National Battlefield Park, Shiloh National Military Park

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Industry and Economy during the Civil War (U.S. National Park Service)

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The American economy was caught in transition on the eve of the Civil War. What had been an almost purely agricultural economy in 1800 was in the first stages of an industrial revolution which would result in the United States becoming one of the world's leading industrial powers by 1900.

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The Confederacy relied on outside help during the war and was in continual debt. Confederate leaders ineffectually tried to solve the economic issue in many different ways: loans, income taxes and impressment of private property. The government eventually issued more than a billion dollars in paper money, causing severe inflation. By the end of the war, the value of the Confederate dollar was worth less than two cents (Newman 271).

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2.5 Greenbacks and National Banking System

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2.5 Greenbacks and National Banking System

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To finance the war, the Union borrowed $2.6 billion through the sale of government bonds. In addition, they raised tariffs, added excise taxes, and created the first income tax. The government also issued more than $430 million in Greenbacks, a paper currency. Greenbacks could not be redeemed by gold, causing creeping inflation. Congress created a national banking system in 1863 to manage the revenue moving in and out of the Treasury (Newman 280).

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How did the Civil War struggle shape Americans' belief about equality democracy, and national destiny? To what extent, and in what ways, did the Civil War transform American political and social relationships?

The impact of the Civil War on the different regions of the United States was immense. Many in the North who had begun fighting in the war to save the Union ended with the intention to abolish slavery. Those in the South who had begun fighting the war to keep slavery slowly became resigned to a different fate even if they never stopped resenting the reality that the war had created. Lastly, those who began the war as enslaved people exited it as free men. Although regional differences still remained after the Civil War, ideas of the right to citizenship slowly evolved (Fraser 414).

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Opening Question: How did the growth of mass migration to the United States, the end of slavery and technological, including the railroad, and military developments transform the environment and settlement patterns in the South and the West?

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After the end of slavery, many African Americans migrated to places where "freedom was freer" and created communities of freed slaves. In addition to creating African American communities, they put an emphasis on education and created churches and schools with their scarce resources. Black colleges such as Howard, Atlanta, Fisk and Morehouse were established to prepare future African American teachers and ministers (Newman 299).

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Immediately following the Civil War, white northerners migrated to the South. These individuals were known as "Carpetbaggers." Many northerners traveled south for various reasons: some were investors interested in setting up business, and others were ministers and teachers looking to help in reform. Many of the carpetbaggers were even former Union soldiers. At first, the South welcomed the northerners, as their devastation after the war called for northern capital and investment. As time drew on, they began to resent the newcomers because many came solely to profit off of the South's misfortune ("Carpetbaggers & Scalawags").

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3.3 Modernizing the North's Industrial Economy

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3.3 Modernizing the North's Industrial Economy

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The impact of the war on the North's economy was complex. On one hand, workers' wages did not keep up with inflation; however, many parts of the industrial economy were accelerated and modernized by the war. The war emphasized the importance of mass production, speeding up the consolidation of the Northern manufacturing businesses. Those who made enormous profits off of the production of military supplies became immensely rich and would continue to finance the North's industrialization after the war (Newman 280-281).

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3.4 Corruption in Business and Government

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3.4 Corruption in Business and Government

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The years after the end of slavery were known for the corrupt schemes devised by business and political bosses to gain money and power at the expense of the public. Because of the profits made off of the sale of military supplies during the Civil War, some believe that big businesses began to dominate politics. This period is known as the "Gilded Age" (Newman 300).

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In addition to the profits made off of war supplies during the Civil War, the innovations in Transportation made certain individuals immensely rich. In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad was finished and led to rapid settlement of the western United States. The boom in railroad expansions led to the creation of tycoons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould. The Gilded Age marks the era where the wealth gap in the United States became stark ("Gilded Age").

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The end of slavery brought on a new era of white supremacy. Southern whites organized secret societies to intimidate the recently freed African Americans. The most prominent group was the Ku Klux Klan, formed in 1867. The members of this society burned black-owned buildings and flogged and murdered freedmen to keep them from exercising their voting rights (Newman 302).

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After the end of the Civil War and of slavery, the South's agricultural economy was suffering. At first, southerners attempted to bind African-Americans into working for them with contracts, creating permanent and unrestricted labor. This type of work was essentially slavery in a different form. Afterwards, the white landowners developed a system of sharecropping. Under this system, the landowner provided seed and other supplies needed for farming in exchange for half of the grown crop. While this system gave poor men an opportunity to work their own piece of land for profit, most sharecroppers would remain dependent on the landowners or in debt (Newman 300).

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With the end of slavery came more issues for African Americans. Southern legislatures adopted Black Codes that restricted the rights of former slaves. The codes prohibited Blacks from either renting land or borrowing money to buy land, placed freedmen into a form of semi-bondage by forcing them to sign work contracts and prohibited blacks from testifying against whites in court (Newman 294).

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Black codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished during the Civil War. Though the Union victory had given some 4 million enslaved people their freedom, the question of freed Black people's status in the postwar South was still very much unresolved. Under black codes, many states required Black people to sign yearly labor contracts; if they refused, they risked being arrested, fined and forced into unpaid labor. Outrage over black codes helped undermine support for President Andrew Johnson and the Republican Party.

Reconstruction Begins

When President Abraham Lincoln announced the impending passage of the Emancipation Proclamation in early 1863, the stakes of the Civil War shifted dramatically. A Union victory would mean no less than revolution in the South, where the "peculiar institution" of slavery had dominated economic, political and social life in the antebellum years.

In April 1865, as the war drew to a close, Lincoln shocked many by proposing limited suffrage for African Americans in the South. He was assassinated days later, however, and his successor Andrew Johnson would be the one to preside over the beginning of Reconstruction.

Did you know? In the years following Reconstruction, the South reestablished many of the provisions of the black codes in the form of the so-called "Jim Crow laws." These remained firmly in place for almost a century, but were finally abolished with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Johnson, a former senator from Tennessee who had remained loyal to the Union during the war, was a firm supporter of states' rights and believed the federal government had no say in issues such as voting requirements at the state level.

Under his Reconstruction policies, which began in May 1865, the former Confederate states were required to uphold the abolition of slavery (made official by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), swear loyalty to the Union and pay off their war debt. Beyond those limitations, the states and their ruling class-traditionally dominated by white planters-were given a relatively free hand in rebuilding their own governments.

Passage of the Black Codes

Even as former enslaved people fought to assert their independence and gain economic autonomy during the earliest years of Reconstruction, white landowners acted to control the labor force through a system similar to the one that had existed during slavery.

To that end, in late 1865, Mississippi and South Carolina enacted the first black codes. Mississippi's law required Black people to have written evidence of employment for the coming year each January; if they left before the end of the contract, they would be forced to forfeit earlier wages and were subject to arrest.

In South Carolina, a law prohibited Black people from holding any occupation other than farmer or servant unless they paid an annual tax of $10 to $100. This provision hit free Black people already living in Charleston and former slave artisans especially hard. In both states, Black people were given heavy penalties for vagrancy, including forced plantation labor in some cases.

Limits on Black Freedom

Under Johnson's Reconstruction policies, nearly all the southern states would enact their own black codes in 1865 and 1866. While the codes granted certain freedoms to African Americans-including the right to buy and own property, marry, make contracts and testify in court (only in cases involving people of their own race)-their primary purpose was to restrict Black peoples' labor and activity.

Some states limited the type of property that Black people could own, while virtually all the former Confederate states passed strict vagrancy and labor contract laws, as well as so-called "anti-enticement" measures designed to punish anyone who offered higher wages to a Black laborer already under contract.

Black people who broke labor contracts were subject to arrest, beating and forced labor, and apprenticeship laws forced many minors (either orphans or those whose parents were deemed unable to support them by a judge) into unpaid labor for white planters.

Passed by a political system in which Black people effectively had no voice, the black codes were enforced by all-white police and state militia forces-often made up of Confederate veterans of the Civil War-across the South.

Impact of the Black Codes

The restrictive nature of the codes and widespread Black resistance to their enforcement enraged many in the North, who argued that the codes violated the fundamental principles of free labor ideology.

After passing the Civil Rights Act (over Johnson's veto), Republicans in Congress effectively took control of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment-which granted "equal protection" of the Constitution to former enslaved people-and enact universal male suffrage before they could rejoin the Union.

The 15th Amendment, adopted in 1870, guaranteed that a citizen's right to vote would not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." During this period of Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877), Black men won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress.

As indicated by the passage of the black codes, however, white southerners showed a steadfast commitment to ensuring their supremacy and the survival of plantation agriculture in the postwar years. Support for Reconstruction policies waned after the early 1870s, undermined by the violence of white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

By 1877, when the last federal soldiers left the South and Reconstruction drew to a close, Black people had seen little improvement in their economic and social status, and the vigorous efforts of white supremacist forces throughout the region had undone the political gains they had made. Discrimination would continue in America with the rise of Jim Crow laws, but would inspire the civil rights movement to come.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

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Black Codes - Definition, Dates & Jim Crow Laws

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Black codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished during the Civil War.

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To what extent, and in what ways, did Reconstruction alter relationships between the states and the federal government, and lead to debates over new definitions of citizenship for minority groups (i.e. African Americans and women.)?

Debates over whether it was the state government or the federal government's job to reconstruct the union occurred during the time after the Civil War. After Andrew Johnson's unsatisfactory reconstruction of the Union, many came to distrust the presidential office. In addition to the conflict over the power of the federal government, conflict occurred over the civil rights of freed slaves and of women. With the end of the Civil War came the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which declared the right to vote should not be abridged on account of race for men. Although it was a step in the right direction for many, women were deeply disappointed by the amendment, as it ignored the rights of women to vote. In addition, the amendment excluded the right for citizens of all colors to hold office. In addition to the missing parts, the amendment was ignored by some whites as they threatened violence to minorities who tried to exercise their right. The amendment was the start of a period of issues that would not be resolved for a long time (Fraser).

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Fraser, James W. By the People: A History of the United States. Pearson Education, 2015.

History.com Editors. “Carpetbaggers & Scalawags.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 24 June 2010, www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/carpetbaggers-and-scalawags.

History.com Editors. “Gilded Age.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 13 Feb. 2018, www.history.com/topics/19th-century/gilded-age.

Newman, John J., and John M. Schmalbach. United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination. AMSCO School Publications, 2018.

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