The ABC’s of US History

The ABC’s of US History
By: Connor Baskin
Unit Used: Civil War and Reconstruction

A is for the Annexation of Texas, …
• ... which is when the United States of
America annexed the Republic of Texas and
admitted it to the Union as the 28 th state.
This occurred in 1845 and it involved both
the United States and Mexico because this
event caused the United States to inherit
Texas’ border dispute that they had with
Mexico which, consequently, led to the
Mexican-American War.

B is for Bleeding Kansas…
• …which was a sequence of violent events
involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery
elements that took place in Kansas Territory
and the neighboring towns in Missouri. In
these states, a policy called “popular
sovereignty” was enacted which made the
people decide whether or not to have
slavery, which caused pro-slavery and antislavery
constitutions to compete. This
dispute further strained the relations of the
North and South, making the Civil War
imminent. This event occurred between
1854 and 1861.

C is for Contraband…
• …which are goods that have been imported
or exported illegally. Many people used
contraband including smugglers and illegal
traders. Contraband was used in America
but it wasn’t just limited to America, it was
used in other countries as well because, if
you illegally import something, it has to be
illegally exported from somewhere else or
it isn’t called importing, it’s called
commerce. Contraband took the form of
anything from a toothbrush to a giant
steamship. They usually traded by ship,
since they didn’t have cars or planes yet.

D is for the Dred Scott Case (Dred Scott v. Sandford)…
• …which was a case by the United
States Supreme Court which they
decided that African Americans,
slave or free, are not American
citizens and cannot sue in federal
court. Also, it says that, even if a
slave was in a free state, slaves are
not free because they are property.
This court case was carried out in
the years 1856 and 1857.

E is for the Emancipation Proclamation…
• …which was an executive order issued by
President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 which
proclaimed the freedom of slaves in all states of
the United States of America. This proclamation,
in itself, did not outlaw slavery, nor did it
compensate the owners or make the freedmen
citizens. It did say that the freedmen, who were
able, could fight in the army. This proclamation
led to the 13 th amendment of the Constitution,
which actually did outlaw slavery. Lincoln
passed this proclamation because he wanted to
make freeing the slaves an explicit goal of the
Union war effort.

F is for freedmen…
• …who were slaves who were freed because
of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and
because of the 13 th amendment to the
constitution. Some of them fought in the
civil war and some of them didn’t. Most, if
not all, of them were blacks. Freedmen,
although they were freed, were still not
citizens of the United States. Many of
these people, after the Civil War, were part
of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which gave
them “40 acres and a mule”.

G is for Gettysburg…
• …which was the place where the Battle of
Gettysburg took place. The Battle of Gettysburg
was a large battle in the American Civil War. It
took place in southern Pennsylvania from July 1
to July 3, 1863. Union General George G. Meade
led an army of about 90,000 men to victory
against General Robert E. Lee's Confederate
army of about 75,000. Gettysburg is the war's
most famous battle because of its large size,
high cost in lives, location in a northern state,
and for President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address, which was a very influential speech
which was “short but sweet”.

H is for Habeas corpus…
• …which was an order which required that
an arrested person be brought before a
judge before being tried. This order was
passed so that people can be released if
they were put into jail unlawfully. This
order was suspended (Illegally!) by
President Lincoln during the Civil War.
Lincoln suspended this so he would be able
to put anybody in jail who was rebelling
and he didn’t need to have a trial.

I is for intimidation…
• …which is what many people, including the Ku Klux Klan, did to
African Americans to deny the African Americans their civil
rights. The things that intimidation included were things like
threatening to kill them or actually killing them or someone in
their family.

J is for John Brown’s Raid…
• …which was an attempt by John
Brown, a white abolitionist, to start
an armed slave revolt in 1859 by
seizing a United States arsenal at
Harpers Ferry, Virginia. This raid
failed badly and Brown was tried
and found guilty of treason. He was
hanged.

K is for the Ku Klux Klan…
• …which was also known as the
“Invisible empire of the South”. It was
a secret society created by white
southerners in 1866 that used terror
and violence to keep African Americans
from obtaining their civil rights. It did
many things to keep them from
obtaining their civil rights including
standing outside of voting booths and
threatening to kill them if they went in.

L is for Lewis Cass…
• …who was a veteran of the War of
1812. He was a senator and
diplomat. He was known as the
"Father of Popular Sovereignty“
because he created the idea of
popular sovereignty. He was the
Whig presidential candidate in 1848.
He lived from 1782 to 1866.

M is for Manifest Destiny…
• …which was the belief that it
was the American’s divine right
to expand the union from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific
Ocean. This belief was the
driving force for most, if not
all, of the purchases,
annexations, and conquering
of land by the United States.

N is for Nebraska Territory…
• …which was a territory created by the Kansas-
Nebraska Act of 1854. This act created Kansas,
as well as this territory. This territory existed
until 1867, when it became a state, but between
1854 and 1867, many parts of the Nebraska
territory broke off and became their own
territories, as can clearly be seen by the map to
the right. This territory was created in order to
make the first step to creating a transcontinental
railroad.

O is for the Oregon Trail…
• …which was a 2000 mile trail from
Missouri to Oregon's Willamette
Valley. It was began in the 1830s by
fur trappers and traders that wanted
to settle in the Oregon Territory. It
didn’t become widely publicized
until 1843, where many people and,
later, it was used for people who
wanted to use other trails, including
the California trail and the Bozeman
Trail.

P is for the Panic of 1837…
• …which was an economic downturn caused by over speculation of western lands,
railroads, gold in California, and grain. It mostly affected northerners, who called for
higher tariffs and free homesteads. This financial crisis made unemployment go up,
and most prices go down. This economic crisis went from 1837 until the mid-1840s.

Q is for the quarters of the slave…
• …which were the places where slaves
slept and/or were kept. Some slave
owners had good quarters for their
slaves and some slave owners gave
them the equivalent of a doghouse
for their quarters. Nevertheless,
slave masters usually gave their slaves
pretty good quarters so they would
still be able to work.

R is for the Republican Party…
• …which was created when anti-slavery
Whigs and Democrats, Free Soilers and
reformers from the Northwest met and
formed a party in 1854 in order to keep
slavery out of the territories. Abraham
Lincoln was the first president who was a
member of this party. Now, it is one of the
two major political parties in the United
States of America, with the other being the
Democratic Party.

S is for Slave…
• …which is a term for a person who is
the legal property of another person
and is forced to obey them. In the
United States, most, if not all, of the
slaves were African American. Slavery
existed in the United States until 1865
with the passing of the 13 th
amendment.

T is for the Tenure of Office Act…
• … which was an act that was passed in 1867. It
prohibited the president from removing a fed
official or military commander without the
approval of the senate. This was passed during
the presidency of Andrew Johnson and they
passed this so they would be able to trick him
into breaking the law and also getting
impeached. However, he avoided removal by
one vote.

U is for the Union…
• …which is also known as the United
States of America. It fought in the
Civil War with the other side known
as the Confederacy, or the
Confederate States of America. It
started with the 13 colonies. During
the Civil War, the president was
Abraham Lincoln.

V is for Virginia…
• …which is a state in the United States of
America. It joined the Union in 1788. Virginia
was the place where the battle of
Chancellorsville took place. This is also the place
where Appomattox courthouse is located, which
is where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to
the Union Army, which ended the Civil War.

W is for the Wilmot Proviso…
• …which was an 1846 proposal that
outlawed slavery in any territory gained
from the War with Mexico. This is one of
the major events leading to the Civil War.
This was introduced by Congressman David
Wilmot and this proviso continuously
failed, even though they tried to pass this
through the house, the senate, and they
also tried to make it a part of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo.

X is for eX-slave…
• …which is someone who was formerly a
slave, or the property of someone else, and
is not anymore. After the passing of the
13 th Amendment of the Constitution, every
slave was turned into an ex-slave lawfully
and legally. There were many influential
ex-slaves during the Civil War including
Booker T. Washington and Frederick
Douglass.

Y is for Yankee…
• …which was a person who had their
loyalty to the North. This term was
also used by the southerners to
describe their rivals from the north
because Yankee was mostly used to
describe New Englanders. Yankees
are also big players in the game of
politics.

Z is for Zook, Samuel…
• …who was a general for the union
during the Civil War. He was born
in 1821 and he died in 1863. He
fought in the army from 1861 until
1863. Due to medical leave, he was
able to miss the Battle of Antietam,
but he was killed in action at the
Battle of Gettysburg.

Generalizations

#1: Slavery was a influential topic to what occurred
during this time.
• Supporting terms:
• Bleeding Kansas because they were fighting about whether to have slavery or not.
• Dred Scott Case because he was a slave who was fighting for his freedom.
• Emancipation Proclamation because it put an end to slavery.
• Freedmen because they were people who were freed slaves.
• Quarters of the slave because they were the place where the slaves were held.
• Slave because slavery creates slaves.
• Wilmot Proviso because it would have outlawed slavery in all territories gained from Mexico and people
continuously were against it.
• eX-Slave because these were people who were freed slaves.

#2: During this time, the American people believed in
expanding their country.
• Supporting Terms:
• Annexation of Texas because the annexation of Texas was made so they could
expand their territory.
• Manifest Destiny because that is the belief that they were born to expand their
country.
• Nebraska Territory because this was a new territory that was created for this
country.
• Oregon Trail because it was the trail that people used to be able to settle in
Oregon, so it shows that they wanted to expand the area in which people lived.

#3: The power of the federal government was
changed during this time
• Supporting Terms:
• Habeas Corpus because Lincoln changed the powers of the President by
suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus.
• Tenure of Office Act because it changed the power of the president to
remove his staff.
• Bleeding Kansas because, with this event, came the change of the federal
government’s control over slavery because they changed it to popular
sovereignty.

#4: Many new laws were created during this time.
• Supporting Terms:
• Emancipation Proclamation because it was a new proclamation/law that
was created during the Civil War by Abraham Lincoln.
• Tenure of Office Act because it was an act created and, although initially
vetoed by president Johnson, passed during Johnson’s presidency.

#5: Abolitionist ideas were critical in changing society
during this time.
• Supporting terms:
• Emancipation Proclamation because there was an abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln, who
passed the Emancipation Proclamation which changed society by freeing slaves.
• John Brown’s Raid because it was an abolitionist who changed society by creating a giant
slave rebellion.
• Republican Party because it was anti-slavery people who banded together into a party
and it changed society because it created one of the 2 major political parties in the
United States of America.