-
The Election of Abraham Lincoln
On November 4th, 1860, president Abraham Lincoln was elected. Though he didn't win by popular vote(only 40%) agianst the three other candidates, he won by electoral votes. -
The Secession of the Southern States
When president Abraham Lincoln was elected, the Southerndecided to secede, or leave, the United States. South Carolina was the first to leave the Union and form a new nation called the Confederate States of America. Four months later, six other states seceded. They were Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. -
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States fought from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America. In the end, the Union won the war. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was created by Congress in March 1865 to assist for one year in the transition from slavery to freedom in the South. The Freedmen's Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. It also attempted to settle former slaves on Confederate lands confiscated or abandoned during the war. -
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to revive the Confederate cause. Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head on the evening of April 14, 1865. He was attending a play, Our American Cousin, at the Ford Theater. He was taken across the street to a boarding house, The Peterson House, where he died within 24 hours of being shot. -
Reconstruction
After the Civil War, the North was left pretty much untouched, but the South on the other hand, they couldn't even go home without finding their whole town being destroyed. Since the North used total war strategies, which included destroying buildings, towns homes, in order to bring down the morale of the South. This meant that reconstruction would need to be made after the war. And such reconstruction may take a lot of money. -
Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. After the Civil War, sharecropping will be a very popular system in which people whole lost their homes can sharecrop in order to get money. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." -
Radical Reconstruction
During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. -
1st African American elected to Congress during Reconstruction
During Reconstruction, only the state legislature of Mississippi elected any black senators. On February 25, 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels was seated as the first black member of the Senate, while Blanche Bruce, also of Mississippi, seated in 1875, was the second. Revels was the first black member of the Congress overall. -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The last biracial U.S. Congress of the 19th century passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It protected all Americans, regardless of race, in their access to public accommodations and facilities such as restaurants, theaters, trains and other public transportation, and protected the right to serve on juries. However, it was not enforced, and the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1883.
