Introduction to the Civil War Era (1850–1877)

The Civil War, or the War between the States, was a major war between the United States (the Union) and eleven southern states (the Confederacy) that had seceded. Although the Civil War lasted for only four years (1861–1865), the Civil War era encompassed a more expansive time frame—the decade leading to the war (the antebellum) and the decade following it (Reconstruction). All three periods in the Civil War era were years of disagreement and bitter fighting between the Northern and Southern U.S. states.

In the antebellum years the North and the South were fighting a battle of differing ideologies. The beliefs, attitudes, and values that unified and defined the culture of the northern states differed dramatically from those that unified and defined the culture of the southern states. These deep-seated differences involved not only the issue of slavery but also issues of political and economic power.

In 1850 the United States was a country consisting of free states in the north, slave states in the south, and territories in the west. The westward expansion fueled U.S. business and economic growth, but it also created serious political problems. Bitter disputes arose over the expansion of slavery into new territories as both the North and the South worried about the balance of power in Congress between slave states and free states.

The Compromise of 1850 was developed to diffuse the disputes between the urban, industrial North and the rural, agricultural South—disputes that had risen to the status of a national crisis. Although the mood of the nation was somewhat calmed by the terms of the compromise, the differences between the North and the South continued to cause national tension, and disagreements became increasingly divisive.

The politics of the 1860 election manifested these differences. A unified Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) for the presidency and built a platform on promising those factors important to the North. A disjointed Democratic Party was divided over the question of slavery in the territories and over many other issues—even their nominations for presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Lincoln won the presidential election, and South Carolina seceded from the union in response, followed by other southern states. These states formed the Confederate States of America, but President Lincoln refused to recognize the secession.

The Civil War began at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1861. As federal forces approached the fort to resupply it, Confederate forces fired on them. This minor skirmish began a major war, and in the end the North was victorious. The results were the preservation of the Union, the abolition of slavery, and the political and economic dominance of the North.

Only days after the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln was assassinated. Before his death, Lincoln had started a Reconstruction program in several southern states. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson (1808–1875), took over the program. He restored Union governments in formerly Confederate states, repaired the economy of the South, and legislated rights for newly freed slaves. Congress eventually took over the Reconstruction program from Johnson, thinking that his approach was too soft on former Confederates. Congress imposed military rule to support new Republican governments and refused to seat former Confederates in the U.S. Congress.

The South retaliated by denying rights to African-Americans, enacting discriminatory laws, and electing former leaders of the Confederacy. Violence drove African-Americans from the polls, and political corruption became widespread in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885). Eventually, the Republican governments in the South collapsed and Reconstruction came to an end. Although racial equality was written into the Constitution with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, it did not stop the racism, poverty, and racial segregation rampant at the end of Reconstruction.