The Impacts Of Reconstruction, Westward Expansion, And The Industrial Revolution

The trail to the Thirteenth Amendment is covered in the bloodshed caused by the ideological split between the Northern and Southern American states. Because of the South’s plantation-based economy, longstanding European traditions of chattel slavery had a stronger grip on farmers seeking to increase the profit margin of their harvests. With the growth of abolitionist agitation and the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Southern states seceded from the union and thus the Civil War began, and with it the stronger push for African-American rights. Upon the war’s conclusion, Lincoln, persuaded further by African-American participation in the war, put an emphasis on ending slavery that led to the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Union won!This is great for the north, however what is next for the Confederate army. With slaves becoming freedmen and the south destroyed after total war, a lot was to be done after the civil war. A solution to this was Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a period in american history from 1865 to 1877 lasting twelve years (Foner). Reconstruction after the war caused many social, political, and economic changes to the newly formed union.

The United States was challenged with many issues after the Civil War like crop lien work contracts, segregation, and unresolved problems with the seceded states. This period was called Reconstruction.

By the mid nineteenth century, the United States was expanding westward rapidly. And as America expanded, so did the sectionalism. The rifts between the North and the South, caused by conflicting views on Westward Expansion were becoming more evident. Not only were the debates over westward expansion tedious; the ever growing social debate was also becoming alarmingly prevalent. And in 1860, the Civil War broke out, ultimately because of economic, political and social aspects of westward expansion. Therefore, westward expansion caused the Civil War.

The United States was able to maintain both liberty and slavery at the same time until around 1848. Between 1848 and the time of the Civil War, many events, mostly pertaining to Westward Expansion, caused a greater divide between the Union. The election of Lincoln was the last draw for the South because they grew tired of negotiating and not getting their way, causing them to succeed from the Union and sparking the Civil War in 1861. With all the acquired new land that was gained in 1848 from the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, people had to start to address the long standing issues that involved a state's slave status. The new land left both sides vying for new states to join their side of the debate, giving them more power and land over the

Matthew, as you referenced I truly believe that western expansion a major reason that caused the Civil War, especially with the Kansas and Nebraska entering as U.S. territories (M. Moore, personal communication, May 25, 2017 & Schultz, 2014). However, the threat to the Southern way of life was the fact that they were unwilling to advance technologically as the North had during the market revolution. However, I fail to fully understand how the new territories being fully anti-slave states really would affect the South as long as they were still able to own slaves. So, was the issue possibly that to justify their treatment of slaves that they wanted other states to join them to soothe their conscience?

During the early 1800’s in the United States of America, both the Early Industrial Revolution and the Westward Expansion contributed to the sectional tension between the North and the South. While the North had factories popping up everywhere, the South had more and more land dedicated to plantations. To stay at the pace of the North, the South decided it would be beneficial if they were to become their cotton suppliers. With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton was being mass-produced and sent to the North to be made into items such as clothing. Whilst this was going on, the point of slavery became a big issue and the debate over it began, dividing the North and South more and more over time. The North didn't support slavery and instead, hired workers to work in the factories (specifically low-wage woman), while the South supported slavery and used African slaves to work on plantations. This caused many problems as both sides wanted more land to promote their opinion on slavery for either plantations or factories. Due to each of the sides having contradictory points of view on slavery, the Missouri Compromise and the addition of other territories such as during the Louisiana Purchase, the Oregon Treaty, and the Annexation of Texas, much strife occurred in the Senate. The Westward Expansion led to the desire for more land, therefore the United States expanded their land from the East coast to the West coast. The Westward Expansion promoted the addition of new land and

The Reconstruction Era occurred between 1866 and 1877, immediately following the Civil War between the Northern and Southern states. The Reconstruction Era brought change to not only the American economy, society, and government, but significant changes to the lives of African Americans as well. Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865 impacted conditions for African Americans in the post-war period through political and social changes in the Reconstruction Era; which ranged from a new array of rights to many new opportunities in society.

A change in the economy can cause lots of problems and can really impact a country in a brutal way. Meaning an economy can affect a country and its people in a short amount of time and can plumet a country's wealth, progress, and economy from one wrong decision or move. Westward expansion was a factor in something that impacted our country. Switching from an agricultural economy to an industrial also had an impact on our economy and ways of living. Immigration too had an impact on Americans and American life. Immigrants came to America to be free and even for a better life. Sometimes this could have meant taking hundreds of American jobs. The Progressive era is also an affect on our country and economy. The Progressive Era was the era when Teddy Roosevelt was president and had his goal to progress America and its economy and country together.

Westward expansions of the united states molded and affected the nations advancement socially, politically and economically holding quick to its connections to agriculture, its relations with and through slavery with the westward expansion therefore there would not be an abolishment movement and the women would not have been there to find against it. Although the Indian removal has helped shape the westward expansion politically and economically because it has given America more land and cotton. The Mexican war shaped the western expansion culturally and politically because the Mexican were racially religiously superior.

In Appomattox Court House, 1865, the Civil War concluded, ushering in the Reconstruction Era. Approximately one week after, John Wilkes Booth, a radical southerner, assassinated President Lincoln. The Reconstruction Era, which ended when Rutherford B Hayes ceased its enforcement to keep the peace, was a time for the country to consolidate and forgive the wrongs of the past. This Reconstruction period included many lasting effects on the governing of America. However, it shattered the welfare of southerners, Freedmen, and the general public. Additionally, discrimination ran rampant in the newly reunited country. Reconstruction was successful in the government, but not fiscally nor with public unity.

America was in disarray following the events of the Civil War. Southern economy was in shambles while congress was struggling to find a middle ground between the radical republicans and Lincoln’s lenient policies. Many Southerners faced the aftermath of uprooting their society and their way of life while thousands of newly freed slaves struggled to find a way to support themselves. The country needed a strong leader, however on the 14th of April, 1865 President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theatre in Washington (Farmer). Without the man that had once held the nation together, the country now faced an enormous obstacle; reconstructing American economics, politics and social life.

The Civil War left a country divided not only by property lines and borders but by beliefs as well. Not just religious beliefs, moral beliefs also. It left both sides, north and south struggling, trying to figure out what their next move towards reuniting the divided America was going to be. The period following the end of the Civil War would become known as the “Reconstruction Era.” An era that raised just as many questions as it did answers. A reconstruction of America that seems to carry on many decades later.

The purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 opened the door to westward expansion. Thomas Jefferson purchased this extensive plot of land with the hopes of strengthening and expanding the Republic, unaware that it would have the opposite effect. Jefferson’s fateful decision to expand the United States nearly destroyed the Republic that Americans worked so hard to build. It triggered the rise of divisions amongst Americans. These small cracks continued to grow and tear at the seams of the nation. Although westward expansion between 1800 and 1848 granted many new opportunities to the American people, it also brought about tension that plagued the nation for years to come.

Industrialization changed the Northern section of America in unbelievable ways. Americans would gain more jobs in factories, mills and banks, city life was booming, and both woman and men being employed in the cities. Money revenue would be generated and profited in mass production. Transportation became easier with the production of making parts or materials to build roads, steamboats, and railroads. Industrialization would trigger people to become invertors. Inventors seek new ideas of everyday use products to be easier or improve the machines to work faster and longer.