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Invention of Morse Telegraph
This technology would paly a crucial role in the Civil War. It allowed troop coordination on a massive scale. It also led to the wires becoming important millitary targets. -
Annexation of Texas
This caused US-Mexican relations to become tense. War between these two powers would end with the US integrating vast tracts of new territory. The new territory would reopen the issue of slavery. -
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Mexican American War
This conflict led to the conclusion of manifest destiny. The US took most of Mexico's terriytory to the Pacific coast in the north. This war trained southern officers and rekindled the slave debate. Lincoln also rose to prominence through the spot resolutions. -
Wilmot Provisio
This provision was an attempt to ban slavery in the new Mexican Cesstion. This provisiopn was never passed due to strong oposition in the South. While a failure, thgis document kept the slavery debate alive -
Compromise of 1850
This bill was a short lived attempt to lower tensions between the North and the South. Texas was forced to give up sevral claims and admitted California as a free state. To appease the South, a strong Fugitive Slave Law was enacted and Utah and New Mexico were allowed popular sovreighnty in deciding wether they would be free or slave. -
Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin
This novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe set off a fire storm of slavery related rhetoric. This novel rallied the North to the idea that slavery was immoral. It also frustraterd the South by endangering slavery. -
Ostend Manifesto
This document explained the reasoning behind threatening Spain to force it to sell Cuba to the US. This millitant expansionism raised th question of slavery once again. Outrage over a possible imbalance in free and slave states led to sectional tension up to the Civil War. -
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Lincoln-Douglas Debates
A series of debates held in sven towns that gave uture president Lincoln a platform for his beliefs. Douglas is considered to have won the debates along with the senate seat of Illinios. However, Lincoln was thrust on to the national stage and made a viable canidate for the election of 1860. -
First Ironclad Battleship
The Admirality of France realeased the world's first ironclad battleship, the Gloire. This would instigate the US to have ironclads in its fleet at the start of the Civil War. This enabled the Union to fight the Merrimac to a draw and blockade the Confederacy. -
Election of 1860
With the split between the northern and southern Democrats and the creation of the Constitutional Union party, the Election of 1860 proved to be a highly contested four-way election. The Republican canidate, Lincoln, ended up winning the elcetion with only 40% of the vote. Fears of the abolition of slavery led to the session of South Carolina and the creation of the Confederacy. -
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Presidential Reconstruction
Both Johnson and Lincoln advocated a lenient reconstruction plan. Johnson was largely responsible for its implementation after Lincoln's death. Johnson alo harmed efforts for racial equality through his racist and pro-southern-poor policies. -
Wade-Davis Bill
A failed piece of legislation that would required readmitted states to have a majority of citizen's take an ironclad oath. Lincoln veteod the bill claiming it would impede the reintegration of the South. Radical republicans repected Lincoln, but would ram a similar measure through against Johnson. -
Sherman's March to the Sea
Union's Genreral Sherman condu conducted a policy of total war in Georgia. All infastructure was bvurned, looted, and otherwise destroyed. This created great resentment towards the North after the war and while ending the war quickly caused the effects to last mmuch longer. -
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Reconstruction Amendments
The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendemnts were pushed through while the South had no representatives. Republicans feared this chance would never ome again and used the South's ban to pass these amendments to ban slavery, grant citizenship to all born in the US or to citizens, and protect the rights of all citizens. While the South was forced to adopt these amendments, they largely ignored them -
Fall of Richmond
The Confederate capital was captured by Union forces after the Virginian campaign. Genral Lee fled with his forces, but surrendered shortly afterwards. This made any continued southern resistance pointless. -
Appomattox Courthouse
Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union's General Grant. This caused most Confederate war efforts to rapidly collapse. Grant would later be remembered as a war hero and elected president. -
Assassination of President Lincoln
Popular actors John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head during a production for the death of the Confederacy. He was later found in a barn and killed in the ensueing conflict. This led to Johnson being made president and argueably making a mess out of reconstruction. -
First Ku Klux Klan Founded
White supremacist group founded in response to the defeat of the Confederacy and the end of slavery. Eventualy completly detroyed by the US army for terrorist activity, but managed to chase blacks away from the ballot box and offices, allowing for white democrats to return to power. Modern groups are not related to this. -
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Congressional Reconstruction
Frustrated with Johnson's ineffectual and reluctant reconstruction efforts, radical Republicans took over in 1869. Pardon's for sevreral groups had constraints added to them and some were done away with completely. Attempts at racial equality were enforced upon the SOuth by millitary rule. -
Election of 1876
Rutherford B Hayes elected as president in controversial election Republicans aggreed to end millitary control of the South in exchange for Democrats conceding 20 contested elctoral votes to Hayes. This greatly delayed the equlaity of blacks in the South.
