Timeline
Four Worlds
Primary Sources
The women at the Women's Rights Convention express their utter contempt for the hypocrisy and parochialism of the government because, even after current political upheavals, they do not recognize equal rights to all- including women.
The significance is that initiatives have been taken to amend the system. Voices never been heard before or suppressed are now making their way to the surface. Despite the fact that women would not receive suffrage for at least another fifty years, they have the audacity and hope enough to gather and exchange ideas. This and other movements such as, the abolitionist movement, were inspired by other groups' progress and, in turn, worked to foment the institution they were striving against. -Tommy E. This website gives a description of two armies coming together and how they were set up on the battlefield. Also the accounts of a witness from a civilian show the turmoil that the people in the city were in the day and days leading up to the event of when the Confederates came into town.
This article intent was to explain not only why the battle was where it was but what was the reaction of the everyday people who witnessed it. The Confederacies push to the North not only effected their chance of winning the war but also they had effected the community of Gettysburg by forcing them to either evacuate their supplies or lose them. -Chris S. |
This is letter written by a mother of a northern black soldier to the President. She is distressed by the cruelty the south has shown to the Union's black soldiers. She pleads to Lincoln to get the south back with an eye for an eye, because although it is wrong to do harsh things to another human being, the southerners will not understand until they personally feel the pain. She stresses that Lincoln is a good man and his proclamation was great. She fears for her son but she does not want the President to back down because of the cruelty done to both the black slaves in the past and the black Union soldiers of the present.
This is significant because it relates back to the text because it exemplifies that blacks were being treated harshly when captured by Southerners. The mother expresses her gratitude to Lincoln which shows the support Lincoln gained, yet she also expresses fear that he will take back what was said because of the other half of public opinion. Lincoln obviously had to deal with many issues and his ability to cope with them was extraordinary. -Kelsey O. Women in the civil war had many duties in order to keep life back home and in the war running as it should. Women at home took matters of working in factories in place of the men as well as making clothing to send to the soilders. This was helpful in terms of everyone doing their part for war. Also, some women became nurses to aid on the actual battle field however most of them were not taking specific sides considering they'd help whoever needed help. Some women even took matters into their own hands and joined the war as "males" in order to take part.
These events were significant because it shows that women had a big role in supporting the troops and trying to bring them home and fight for their beliefs. Women looked at the soilders as human beings not as north or southern men. America was still united even when it was pulling apart. -Natalie M. |
Trigger Words
Know-Nothing party
The Know-Nothing (American) party was a nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic political party organized in the early 1850s in response to the recent flood of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. The party enjoyed some success in local and state elections in 1854.
Radical Republicans
The Radical Republicans in Congress, headed by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade, insisted on black suffrage and federal protection of the civil rights of blacks. They gained control of Reconstruction in 1867 and required the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of readmission for former Confederate states.
Ostend Manifesto
The Ostend Manifesto (1854) was a confidential dispatch to the U.S. State Department from U.S. ambassadors in Europe (specifically, Ostend, Belgium). It suggested that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States, the United States would be justified in seizing the island. Northerners claimed it was a plot to expand slavery and the Manifesto was disavowed.
Black Codes
Black Codes were special laws passed by southern state and municipal governments immediately after the Civil War. The laws denied many rights of citizenship to free blacks and were designed to control black labor, mobility, and employment, and to get around the Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves. The laws outraged northerners.
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was Congress's attempt to settle several outstanding issues involving slavery. It banned the slave trade, but not slavery in Washington, D.C.; admitted California as a free state; applied popular sovereignty to the remaining Mexican Cession territory; settled the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute; and passed a more stringent Fugitive Slave Act.
Dred Scott decision
In the Dred Scott decision (1857), the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not citizens and could not sue in a federal court, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to ban slavery from a territory, that, in effect, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The decision threatened both the central plank of the Republican party platform and the concept of popular sovereignty. Scott, a slave, had brought the lawsuit demanding his freedom based on his residence in a free state and a free territory with his master.
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. It freed all slaves in areas then in rebellion against the United States (i.e., the Confederacy). It made emancipation a war goal and speeded the destruction of slavery.
Freeport Doctrine
During the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, Douglas declared that, even in the face of the Dred Scott decision, the people of a territory could exclude slavery simply by not passing the local laws essential for holding blacks in bondage. This Freeport Doctrine helped Douglas win reelection to the Senate, but it hurt his bid for the presidential nomination of the Democratic party in 1860.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, a proposal to organize the remaining Louisiana Purchase Territory. Since the Missouri Compromise had banned slavery in that territory, his proposal to use popular sovereignty to determine the fate of slavery in the territory outraged northerners. The bill passed, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise, and northern opponents of slavery's expansion organized the Republican party.
Reconstruction Plans
The 1867 Reconstruction Acts divided the South into five military districts, each governed by a general. It required southern states to guarantee black suffrage, and it disfranchised many former Confederates. Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of their readmission to the Union.
Wilmot Proviso
In 1846 Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot introduced an amendment (proviso) to an appropriations bill that provided for banning slavery from any territory the United States might acquire from Mexico as a result of war. It never passed Congress, but the Proviso generated a great debate on the authority of the federal government to ban slavery from the territories.
The Know-Nothing (American) party was a nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic political party organized in the early 1850s in response to the recent flood of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. The party enjoyed some success in local and state elections in 1854.
Radical Republicans
The Radical Republicans in Congress, headed by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade, insisted on black suffrage and federal protection of the civil rights of blacks. They gained control of Reconstruction in 1867 and required the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of readmission for former Confederate states.
Ostend Manifesto
The Ostend Manifesto (1854) was a confidential dispatch to the U.S. State Department from U.S. ambassadors in Europe (specifically, Ostend, Belgium). It suggested that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States, the United States would be justified in seizing the island. Northerners claimed it was a plot to expand slavery and the Manifesto was disavowed.
Black Codes
Black Codes were special laws passed by southern state and municipal governments immediately after the Civil War. The laws denied many rights of citizenship to free blacks and were designed to control black labor, mobility, and employment, and to get around the Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves. The laws outraged northerners.
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was Congress's attempt to settle several outstanding issues involving slavery. It banned the slave trade, but not slavery in Washington, D.C.; admitted California as a free state; applied popular sovereignty to the remaining Mexican Cession territory; settled the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute; and passed a more stringent Fugitive Slave Act.
Dred Scott decision
In the Dred Scott decision (1857), the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not citizens and could not sue in a federal court, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to ban slavery from a territory, that, in effect, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The decision threatened both the central plank of the Republican party platform and the concept of popular sovereignty. Scott, a slave, had brought the lawsuit demanding his freedom based on his residence in a free state and a free territory with his master.
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. It freed all slaves in areas then in rebellion against the United States (i.e., the Confederacy). It made emancipation a war goal and speeded the destruction of slavery.
Freeport Doctrine
During the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, Douglas declared that, even in the face of the Dred Scott decision, the people of a territory could exclude slavery simply by not passing the local laws essential for holding blacks in bondage. This Freeport Doctrine helped Douglas win reelection to the Senate, but it hurt his bid for the presidential nomination of the Democratic party in 1860.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, a proposal to organize the remaining Louisiana Purchase Territory. Since the Missouri Compromise had banned slavery in that territory, his proposal to use popular sovereignty to determine the fate of slavery in the territory outraged northerners. The bill passed, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise, and northern opponents of slavery's expansion organized the Republican party.
Reconstruction Plans
The 1867 Reconstruction Acts divided the South into five military districts, each governed by a general. It required southern states to guarantee black suffrage, and it disfranchised many former Confederates. Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of their readmission to the Union.
Wilmot Proviso
In 1846 Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot introduced an amendment (proviso) to an appropriations bill that provided for banning slavery from any territory the United States might acquire from Mexico as a result of war. It never passed Congress, but the Proviso generated a great debate on the authority of the federal government to ban slavery from the territories.