APUSH

• The Compromise of 1850 resolved the conflict between Northern and Southern states over the legality of slavery in new territories by ruling that it would be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states.
• The Fugitive Slave Act, contained within the Compromise of 1850, required escaped slaves to be returned to their owners, even if they had escaped to a free state.
• Abraham Lincoln became the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party, running in the election of 1860. The Democratic Party was divided between two candidates, which allowed Lincoln to win the election with only 40% of the popular vote.
• The Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865.
• The inciting event of the Civil War was an attack carried out by Confederate forces against the U.S. military at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, on April 12, 1861.
• Most of the battles of the Civil War were fought in the South, bringing the most destruction to that region.
• The Civil War ended with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865.
• During the 1850s, the indigineous people of the Great Plains, the Cheyenne, moved to Sand Creek. They moved close to U.S. Soldiers at Ft. Lyon. They were attacked on November 29, 1864. Over 150 Native Americans were killed.
• Presidential Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1867.
• Presidential Reconstruction granted amnesty for all who swore loyalty to the United States and vowed to obey federal laws related to the end of slavery. Confederate states could reenter the union once they agreed to ratify the 13th Amendment, repudiate their debts, and outlaw secession.
• 13th Amendment: Outlawed slavery
• Radical Reconstruction lasted from 1867 to 1877.

  • Invalidation of state governments formed under Presidential Reconstruction
  • Division of the south into 5 military districts, each governed by a Union general
  • Ratification of the 14th Amendment and later the 15th Amendment in each state
  • Disqualification of former Confederate officials from voting or holding political office per the 14th Amendment
• Presidential Reconstruction, proposed by President Andrew Johnson, propounded granting amnesty to Confederates and allowing them to reenter the Union as swiftly as possible. He vetoed numerous radical bills. When Radical Republicans gained a sweeping majority in the 1866 midterms, they took initiative with their own series of reforms, known collectively as the Radical Reconstruction, which revoked the amnesty provided by Presidential Reconstruction and carried out a much more rigorous process against Confederates.
• 14th Amendment: Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all U.S. citizens, including former slaves
• Wade-Davis Bill: 1864, allowed Confederates states to reform their state governments if a majority took the Ironclad Oath to the effect that they had never supported Confederacy. Was pocket vetoed by President Lincoln, in favor of his ten percent plan.
• President Abraham Lincoln favored the ten percent plan, issued on 1863, which allowed re-admittance to the Union if 10% of a state's population took loyalty oaths.
• President Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth.
• The Compromise of 1877 was an unwritten political deal to settle the intense dispute over the results of the 1876 presidential election. Southern Democrats agreed to accept Rutherford B. Hayes as president if he removed all remaining troops from the South and appointed a Southern Democrat to his cabinet. Hayes acquiesced, whereupon he received all 20 electoral votes, winning the election. The removal of the remaining federal troops marked the end of Reconstruction, and the return to "home rule."
• 15th Amendment: Granted voting rights to African American men
• Black Codes, passed in 1865 after the end of the Civil War, severely restricted the rights of African Americans in Southern states, in resistance of the ongoing reformation.
• The Dawes Act of 1887 was a law designed to assimilate Native Americans by dividing tribal reservation land and giving it to individual Native Americans. This ended in the end of traditional Native American social structures.
• In the Battle of Wounded Knee, 1890, 300 Sioux were massacred by the Cavalry in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The massacre was considered the end of the Indian Wars.
• Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, upheld segregation as legal on the provision of the services being "separate but equal."
• The Dred Scott decision, 1857, featured a slave suing for his freedom based upon the fact that he had lived in a free territory. The Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens and could not sue, and that taking a slave from their owner was a violation of property rights.
• The ruling in the Dred Scott decision established a precedent that prohibited the federal government from regulating slavery, effectively declaring it to be protected under the Constitution.
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854, established Kansas and Nebraska as territories, and stated that slavery there would be decided by popular vote. Both Abolitionists and pro-slavery settlers went to Kansas in an attempt to sway the vote, resulting in a violent conflict.
• The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, issued by President Lincoln, freed the slaves in the Confederate states. The proclamation encouraged African Americans to flee from their owners. Many of these freedmen joined the Union and helped them to their victory.
• Reconstruction Amendments

  13th Amendment: 1865, outlawed slavery

  14th Amendment: 1868, made African Americans citizens

  15th Amendment: 1870, gave African American men the right to vote
• Radical Republicans were members of the Republican party who supported equal rights for African Americans and harsher terms for Reconstruction, while opposing Johnson's more lenient policies.
• The Ku Klux Klan was a secret society established during the Reconstruction by white Southerners, who used threats and violence against African Americans and white Republicans to try to end Reconstruction.
• Sharecroppers are farmers who are given the use of land in exchange for a portion of their harvest as rent. Following the Civil War, most freed slaves lacked the money to purchase farmland, and became effectively indentured servants under sharecropping systems.
• Homestead Act of 1862: Granted any citizen or immigrant seeking citizenship up to 160 acres of land at no cost; encouraged westward migration, and frequently brought homesteaders into conflict with Native Americans over territory
• What battle resulted in the beginning of the Civil War?

  Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861)
• Which battle marked the end of the armed Native American resistance to American expansionism, otherwise known as the Indian Wars?

  Battle of Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890)
• The National Grange, 1867, was an order of farmers, formed by Oliver Hudson Kelley, who worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to help the nation's farmers.
• The construction of the Transcontinental Railroad (completed in 1869) increased travel and settlement in the west.
• The Knights of Labor were formed by Uriah Stephens and a group of tailors in 1869. They accepted skilled and unskilled workers, women, and people of any race. They fought for an 8 hour workday and equal pay for women.
• In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received the patent for the telephone, which improved upon the telegraph.
• The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882, denied U.S. citizenship to people born in China, and banned Chinese immigration for 10 years.
• The Haymarket Riot was a violent riot in 1886 which resulted in a bomb and police shootout. The union movement lost some public support in consequence.