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This is a survey course that provides students with an investigation of important political, economic, and social developments in American history from the pre-colonial time period to the present day. Students will be engaged in activities that call upon their skills as historians (i.e. recognizing cause and effect relationships, various forms of research, expository and persuasive writing, reading of primary and secondary sources, comparing and contrasting important ideas and events).
Reconstruction
Reconstruction was the process of bringing the southern states that had seceded during the Civil War back into the Union. There were many disagreements about the best way to accomplish this and many important pieces of legislation emerged as a result. Reconstruction lasted from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the Tilden-Hays Compromise in 1877 restored the Democrats to power in the South.
The 1850s: The Road to Secession
During the 1850s, sectional issues such as slavery became very divisive. The issue of slaver polarized people, and Southern slaveowners felt that their rights and interests were no longer being fairly represented. Northerners began to increasingly support free soil and even abolition, so tensions between the two-sided mounted until Southerners became convinced that nothing short of secession could protect them Northern persecution.
Expansion and Slavery
The expansion of slavery into new territories and onto the western frontier became a major issue after the Mexican-American War. Southerners fought to assert their rights while many Northerners wished to prevent the expansion of slave labor into new states.
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny is the belief that Americans had the right, or even the duty, to expand westward across the North American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This would spread the glorious institutions of civilization and democracy to the barbaric Native Americans. In order to accomplish this destiny, Americans did not flinch at atrocities such as provoking war with Mexico or slaughtering Indians.
Below are the US History topics covered in this unit:
Expansion to 1840
1n 1790, a great majority of Americans lived east of the Appalachian Mountains, but many began moving west intermittently. Before, 1840, they mainly settled the areas east of the Mississippi River and avoided the arid Great Plains region. Texas was a popular destination for American settlers, especially southern planters with slaves, so when the Mexican government tried to restrict the rights of these settlers, the Texas War for Independence resulted.
Antebellum Reform
Americans after 1815 embraced many religios and social movements in pursuit of solutions for the problems, evils, and misfortunes of mankind. These movements were generally more active in the Northern states.
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is support for a complete, immediate, and uncompensated end to slavery. In the North before the Civil War, there were only a few abolitionists and these were generally considered radicals. However, they were prominent and vocal, and as sectional tension mounted, they became more prominent and influential.
Jacksonian Democracy
Jackson personified the desireable and undesireable qualities of Westerners. He stood for the right of the common people to have a greater voice in government. Distinct changes in laws, practices, and popular attitudes gave rise to Jacksonian Democracy and were in turn accelerated by the new equilitarian spirit.
Reform: Social & Intellectual
European Romanticism branched into American mainstream society. The basic goals emphasised were to transced the bounds of intellect and to strive for emotional understranding. It agreed on the scaredness, uniqueness, and the authority of the individual apprehension experience.
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