The US Civil War (1840-1877)

The forced movement of roughly one million enslaved people from the Upper South to the new Cotton Belt states after the cotton gin made cotton hugely profitable.

It made short-staple cotton fast to process and highly profitable, driving planters to expand cotton farming — and slavery — westward.

Gang system: enslaved people worked in groups under constant overseer supervision (common on cotton plantations). Task system: each person had a daily quota to complete (common in rice cultivation).

Gabriel's Rebellion (1800, VA) — betrayed before it began. Denmark Vesey's plot (1822, SC) — discovered and suppressed. Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831, VA) — ~55 white deaths, revolt crushed, ~200 Black people killed in reprisals.

A secret network of safe houses and routes that helped enslaved people escape to freedom in the North or Canada; Harriet Tubman was its most famous guide.

Launched *The Liberator*, a newspaper demanding immediate, uncompensated emancipation, helping build the organised abolitionist movement.

John C. Calhoun argued slavery was not a necessary evil but a positive good that supposedly civilised and cared for enslaved people — a defensive, self-serving pro-slavery claim that hardened Southern politics.

The Tariff of 1828 ('Tariff of Abominations') raised costs for the agricultural South while protecting Northern industry; South Carolina declared it null and void within the state.

Jackson secured the Force Bill (1833) to enforce the tariff by force if needed; Henry Clay's Compromise Tariff of 1833 lowered rates, and South Carolina backed down.

It was a rehearsal for 1861: it proved a state would threaten secession over federal policy and gave the South a states'-rights argument it reused to defend slavery.

The growing sense that the North and South had become two separate societies with conflicting economic, cultural and social interests rather than one unified nation.

Economic: North industrialised with free wage labour; South stayed agricultural, dependent on enslaved labour and cotton exports. Cultural: North built identity around reform and free labour; South around a slaveholding planter hierarchy.

California entered as a free state; the rest of the Mexican Cession used popular sovereignty; a tougher Fugitive Slave Act was passed. It bought time but angered both sides.

The idea that settlers in a territory should vote to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery there, rather than Congress deciding.

Let Kansas and Nebraska choose slavery by popular sovereignty, scrapping the 1820 Missouri Compromise line and triggering 'Bleeding Kansas'.

Violent conflict (1854–59) between pro-slavery and free-soil settlers competing to control Kansas, including rival legislatures and John Brown's Pottawatomie killings.

The Supreme Court ruled Scott, an enslaved man, had no right to sue because Black Americans were not citizens, and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.

It struck down the idea of any compromise limiting slavery's spread, convincing the North that a 'Slave Power' controlled the government.

Brown tried to seize a federal arsenal to arm an enslaved uprising; he failed and was executed, but the South saw it as proof the North wanted a race war.

Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won without a single Southern electoral vote, convincing the Deep South that its interests could never be protected in the Union.

Compromise of 1850 to Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854) to Bleeding Kansas to Dred Scott (1857) to Harpers Ferry (1859) to Lincoln's election (Nov 1860) to South Carolina secedes (Dec 1860).

Bigger population, more factories and railways, a navy, and an existing government and currency — decisive over a long war.

Fighting defensively on home ground, strong military tradition and experienced officers, and only needing to survive, not conquer.

Freed enslaved people in Confederate states, reframed the war as a fight against slavery, deterred British/French intervention, and opened the Union army to Black soldiers.

Abolished slavery throughout the United States (except as punishment for a crime).

Gave citizenship to all people born in the US (including formerly enslaved people) and promised equal protection under the law.

Said states could not deny a man the vote because of his race — but left loopholes states later exploited.

Southern state laws (1865-66) that restricted freed people's rights — controlling where they could work, live, and move.

A white supremacist terror group founded in 1866 that used violence and intimidation to stop Black political participation.

Deal that gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

Andrew Johnson's lenient plan — quick Southern readmission, no land redistribution, allowed Black Codes.

Republican Congress took over — military districts in the South, Black male suffrage enforced, harsher terms on former Confederates.

Rapid industrial growth, expanded railroads, national banking system, and a stronger federal role in the economy.

Devastated infrastructure, destroyed slave-based wealth, and a shift toward sharecropping that kept many Black families in debt.

System where landless farmers worked land for a share of the crop, often trapping Black families in cycles of debt.

Argue both sides: real gains (amendments, Black political office, schools) vs real failures (violence, Black Codes/Jim Crow roots, 1877 abandonment) — then reach a substantiated judgement.