Welcome to AP US History Unit 5. This unit covers the time period 1844 to 1877 in American history, and it's worth a fair amount on your AP exam. As is the same with all my other unit review videos, this video is simply a clip together video of all my unit 5 topic review videos without the AP style questions at the end of each video. If you want to try some AP style questions associated with each topic of unit 5, my full unit 5 playlist is in the description. As always, these videos take a lot of effort to make, so if you'd be so sweet and become a channel member, I'd be very appreciative. Anyway, let's get into unit 5. All right, it is the 1840s and Americans are looking west. This idea that Americans deserve and are destined to expand across the entire continent, that is something known and called manifest destiny and it was very popular in this time period. So, the big question is why? Why did Americans think they were destined to expand? Well, simply because land equaled opportunity. The West had resources, open land, and the chance to get rich. Farmers saw fertile soil. Miners chase gold. And religious groups like the Mormons just wanted to be left alone in Utah. And if you want a city to blame on that, you can look at Salt Lake City. So, people just started packing up and heading west. And when I say heading west, I mean thousands of settlers risking their lives on trails like the Oregon Trail. Imagine walking 2,000 mi, losing half of your wagon, fighting off dissentry, and all you get in the end is a nice view. But hey, for many it was actually worth it. And that leads to the one image that will always forever be used to define manifest destiny. I mean, look at that angel. It's as if these people were meant to expand west. Or at least that's what they thought at the time. And the funny part is the government wanted in on the expansion, too. To help settlers, they passed the Homestead Act, basically handing out free land. that is if you could survive on it and the Pacific Railroad Act which helped build railroads across the country. This made it way easier to move west but the US wasn't just looking west. They were looking transnational. Americans wanted more trade with Asia and in classic US fashion they weren't exactly subtle about it. The Treaty of I'm not even going to try and pronounce that opened up trade with China and the Treaty of Kagawa forced Japan to open its ports to American ships. I know I've said a million times that expansion westward would cause the Civil War, but before the Civil War, it will actually cause a revolution and another war. But that is a next video. So, it's 1845 and James K. Pulk is elected president. If there is one thing you should know about this guy, it is that he cared only about one thing, westward expansion. He started by negotiating with Britain to secure Oregon up to the 49th parallel. This would avoid war while expanding the US northwest. But here's the thing. As America expanded, tensions with Mexico escalated over the Texas border. The US claimed the Rio Grande, while Mexico insisted it was the new Cass River. Pulk sent troops into the disputed Texas Mexico border, and after a skirmish, he claimed, quote, "American blood was shed on American soil." He used this as a justification to declare war in what was known as the MexicanAmerican War. After the US captures some major cities and blockades Mexico, which cripples its economy, they end up winning the war. This war would end with the treaty of Guadalupe Helago in 1848. And while this treaty did a lot of things, what you should know is that it gave the US a lot of land. Like a lot of land. This land was known as the Mexican session. And the issue of whether each state would be slave or free would need to be solved further at something known as the compromise of 1850. It should also be noted that US interaction and conflict with American Indians and Mexican-Americans would increase because of the westward expansion. These often resulted in many unfair treaties or in the case of San Creek, it would lead to a bloody massacre where hundreds were said to have been slaughtered in 1864. On the Mexican-American War just ended, and the US gained a massive chunk of land. This land was known as the Mexican session. But here's the issue. Should slavery be allowed in this new land or not? The North proclaimed no. The South, however, said yes. So, yeah, we have another political crisis. There was an attempt to settle this issue early with something called the Wilmont Proiso. This was a proposal to ban slavery in all land gained from Mexico. It passed in the House where the North had more representation, but failed in the Senate, where the South had enough power to block it. This failure only made sectional tensions worse, pushing the country closer to conflict. So, what would attempt to solve this issue would be the compromise of 1850, but it was in many ways a messy last ditch attempt to keep the country from falling apart. The guy behind it, you guessed it, Henry Clay. This compromise had five parts and they all tried to balance free and slave state interests. First was California would become a free state. Second is that Utah and New Mexico territories got to decide on slavery themselves through voting. Third is that the slave trade was banned in Washington DC. Fourth was a stricter fugitive slave act was passed forcing northerners to return escaped slaves. And five, Texas got paid $10 million to give up some land claims. Yeah, I don't really understand that one either. The big part to know about this is the Fugitive Slave Act made northerners furious. Even if they weren't abolitionists, they hated being forced to return enslaved people. This led to massive resistance, like the Underground Railroad working overtime and northern states passing personal liberty laws to ignore the act altogether. Meanwhile, in the South, even though they got some wins from the compromise, they still weren't happy. They wanted an even bigger guarantee that slavery would expand. The failure of this compromise was easy to see, and this weak compromise is easily the biggest cause of the civil war we have talked about thus far. already know from the entirety of unit 4 that the north and south at this time were essentially two different countries with the north being industry-based and the south being farming reliant. So now stuff is going to happen in Europe. A series of revolutions break out in Europe around 1848 and a potato famine breaks out in Ireland which causes tons of immigrants from Ireland and Germany to flood into the US mostly all settling in northern cities. They built ethnic communities to preserve their language and culture. But not everybody welcomed them. But what you should understand is truly how many immigrants that came into the US. I mean, look at this graph and its spike there. Need I even say more? All right, enough about migration. Let's look at some abolitionists. Even though abolitionists were a minority in the North, they made a lot of noise. As we've talked about before, Frederick Douglas gave fiery speeches, including what to the slave is the 4th of July, exposing the hypocrisy of American freedom. Harriet Bechau wrote the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, exposing the horrors of slavery, a book that was said to be so influential that Lincoln supposedly said it started the Civil War. Harriet Tubman in the Underground Railroad helped enslaved people escaped to the North. The North and South weren't just disagreeing. They were on completely different planets at this point. Immigration, economic divide, and the fight over slavery kept deepening sectional conflict, making war almost inevitable. So, it's truly time to examine the causes of the Civil War. At this point, every compromise about slavery has flopped. The Missouri Compromise gone. The Compromise of 1850 made things worse. So, now let's look at the final attempts to hold this broken country together and how they spectacularly failed. The Kansas Nebraska Act got passed, which allowed those states to freely vote on whether they wanted to allow slavery or not. And the funny part, that whole Missouri Compromise line from earlier, it didn't matter anymore because Nebraska was well above that line. But what you should know about this act is it caused thousands to pour into these states to vote for their own side which led to what is called bleeding Kansas where everyone fought in the streets and killed each other over votes in Kansas. One of the people famous here was an absolutely insane man named John Brown who was against slavery and staged a slave rebellion at Harper's Ferry before being killed by the expertise of Robert E. Lee. The chaos of bleeding Kansas and the spread of slavery and enraged anti-slavery northerners leading to the formation of the Republican party in 1854. But now that we have all this, let's contextualize and envision the world right now. We know from the Constitution that the US needs three branches of government to function. So let's look at each of them right now. First, the executive. Leading up to the Civil War, we see a collection of weak presidents that did nothing truly notable to address the issue of slavery. Okay, so the executive branch is a no-go, but let's try the legislative. Well, here in the Senate, Charles Ser gave a speech against slavery, which caused a southern congressman named Preston Brooks to beat him within an inch of his life with a cane. Okay, so the legislative is a bust, but as long as we had the Supreme Court, Dread Scott be Sanford. God damn it. This case established that slaves were not citizens and Congress could not ban slavery in southern territories. So we have the executive branch being weak. We have people caning each other on the Senate floor in the legislative and deplorable, sadistic rulings by the Supreme Court. When you look at it this way, it honestly is hard to think a war couldn't have broken out. And I'll end this video with a quote from the most sane, reasonable, level-headed guy I can think of, John Brown. Right before he died, he said, quote, "I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood." And guess what? He was right. Because the Civil War started less than 2 years later. The stage is set. America is on the brink of collapse. The North and the South are done with compromises. Sectional tensions are at an all-time high. And now there's a presidential election that's about to decide the fate of the entire nation. America was so divided at this point that four different candidates ran for president. First we have Abraham Lincoln for the Republican party. He was against slavery spreading westward but not planning to abolish it in the south. Next you have Steven Douglas who was a northern Democrat. His idea was to leave decisions in the hand of the people to vote for. Then we have John C. Breenidge who was a southern democrat. He was very pro-slavery wanting it everywhere. And finally we have John Bell with the constitutional union party who pleaded for the constitution. Ah who cares? But the real issue, Lincoln's Republican party was based entirely in the North, and he wasn't even on the ballot in 10 southern states. But guess what? It didn't even matter. He won anyway. The moment Lincoln won, the South absolutely lost its mind. They saw it as the beginning of the end for slavery. South Carolina didn't wait around. It seceded just weeks after the election. By early 1861, six more states followed, forming the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as their president. Lincoln ran on a campaign that had at its forefront to keep the Union together. He promised not to invade the South unless it was necessary to fulfill that. In April, the Confederates decided to enact the final straw and fired at Fort Sumpter, a US military base in South Carolina. Lincoln called for troops to put down the rebellion. And just like that, civil war had begun. So, Lincoln is elected, the South secedes, and war is officially started. But here's the issue. The Union and Confederacy were nowhere near evenly matched. The North had more people, more industry, more railroads, and the ability to outproduce and outlast the South. The only thing the South really had was better generals and a homefield advantage. But don't discount this part. The South had a population that was willing to fight to the death, and that's where the term a war of attrition truly comes from. The first shots were fired at Fort Sumpter, where the Confederacy bombarded a US fort in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for troops, and just like that, the war had begun. But let's be clear, the Union was not prepared. The first major battle at Bull Run ended with a humiliating Union defeat, proving this war wouldn't be over quickly. So now we see two different war strategies unfold. The Confederacy's plan was simple. Hold out, play defense, and hope Europe intervenes. Meanwhile, the Union launched the Anaconda Plan, a strategy to blockade the South, control the Mississippi River, and squeeze the Confederacy into submission. The early war saw Confederate victories, mostly thanks to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson outmaneuvering Union forces. Battles like Second Bowl Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, what the heck are these cities showed that the South had a real shot at winning. Meanwhile, both sides struggled on the home front. The New York City draft riots showed anti-war sentiment in the North, while the Richmond bread riots exposed the starvation and desperation of the South. But then comes the turning point, 1863. First, we have the Battle of Gettysburg, where Lee tried to go on the offensive, but got absolutely pummeled in a 3-day blood bath, forcing him to retreat. And around the same time, Ulissiz Srant won the Battle of Vixsburg, giving the Union complete control of the Mississippi River and splitting the Confederacy in half. So now the war completely shifts. Grant is promoted and he brings in William uh Sherman, who introduces something known as total war. This guy truly was unbelievable. Sherman burned everything in his path through Georgia, destroying crops, railroads, and entire cities in his quote march to the sea. Meanwhile, Grant takes on Lee directly, hammering the Confederates with non-stop battles. knowing that the North could replace soldiers, but the South really couldn't. By 1865, the South was done. Lee surrendered at the courthouse. And just like that, the Civil War was over. In the end, 698,000 people died. This makes the Civil War the deadliest war in American history. And no, we are not counting World War I or two in that. We talked about all the military stuff of the Civil War. Now, let's examine the political side. At first, Lincoln made it clear this war was about preserving the Union, not ending slavery. But as the war dragged on, that changed. Let's talk about how. By 1862, Lincoln knew the war needed a new purpose. And after the Union sort of victory at Antitoum, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This document freed enslaved people in Confederate held territories, but not in border states. It reframed the war as a fight against slavery, not just union preservation. And third, it kept Europe, especially Britain and France, from recognizing the Confederacy. Now, even though it didn't immediately free all enslaved people, it was a gamecher because now thousands of formerly enslaved people escaped plantations and enlisted in the Union Army. By the end of this war, nearly 200,000 African-Americans fought for the Union. The first South Carolina volunteer infantry regiment and the 54th Massachusetts proved black soldiers were essential to the Union victory. After the blood bath at Gettysburg, Lincoln gave a two-minute speech that completely redefined the Civil War. In it he said number one the war was about preserving democracy and fulfilling the ideals of the founding fathers and number two the union must win so government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. This speech solidified that America wasn't just fighting the south. It was fighting for its identity. But I want you to think beyond the political aspect for a second. For black Americans all around the country this wasn't about some simple politics. This was about having the simple human right to live freely. This is about being able to be treated with just some dignity in their life. This war was about freedom, democracy, and most of all, national unity. The civil war is over. So many battles of attrition along with various scorched earth policies have caused the South to be in ruins, literally. Yes, the South had lost the war, but now they were a part of the Union again. So, the government tried to usher in an era known as reconstruction to rebuild the South. Originally during the war, Lincoln issued his 10% plan that told the South he would readmit a southern state to the Union and give it America's protection and benefit so long as 10% of the voters pledge loyalty to him. Lincoln's plan aimed to be lenient and avoid punishing the South, focusing on restoring the Union quickly. But then Lincoln had to go and die in 1865 by John Wils Booth, which upset quite a bit. Andrew Johnson came in and gave his plan, which was very similar to Lincoln, apart from offering pardons to former Confederates. Then later in reconstruction, the radical Republican plan was put into effect as Republicans gained more power. This was meant to punish the South, protect black rights, and send the military to enforce it. The South absolutely hated this. And the thing is, Andrew Johnson hated radical Republicans and tried to veto everything. Congress responded by impeaching him, making him the first US president to almost be removed from office. Reconstruction also allowed some amendments to be passed as well. the 13th amendment which abolished slavery, the 14th, which granted birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law, and the 15th, which gave black men the right to vote. But even though this seems like a good idea, you need to understand that this era was really no better for African-Americans than before the Civil War. Almost immediately after the southern states were readmitted to the Union, they passed black codes, which were codes in the South that limited freedoms of African-Americans and continuously forced African-Americans into forced labor. Despite slavery being technically over, blacks worked the fields in a system known as sharecropping where it wasn't technically slave labor, but with their wages it might as well have been. There would be public events held in the south where people would gather to watch African-Americans be hanged or and feathered or any number of ways to die known as lynchings. And then you have organizations like the Ku Klux Clan and the White League which used literal terrorism to suppress black voters. All of this would force the North to just give up entirely and cause reconstruction to fail. But that is a next video. So reconstruction was supposed to fix the South and bring equality for all African-Americans, but instead it completely failed. At first, things looked promising. Black men gained citizenship and voting rights. Over 2,000 African-Americans held public office and federal troops were stationed in the South to enforce reconstruction policies, but white southerners hated this and they fought back hard. We already talked about some examples of this being sharecropping, lynchings, and organizations like the KKK, but you also had things like convict leasing, where black men were arrested for madeup crimes and forced into unpaid labor. Then came the Supreme Court, which basically gave up on protecting black rights. The slaughterhouse cases in 1873 gutted the 14th Amendment by saying civil rights were a state issue, not a federal one. In the US, v that they said that the federal government couldn't punish white mobs that murdered black Americans. With no one left to enforce black rights, white southerners took control again. And then came the final nail in the coffin, being the compromise of 1877. Essentially, the 1876 presidential election was a mess. So, Republicans and Democrats made a backroom deal. The North would remove troops from the South, and in return, they would elect a Republican Rutherford Be Hayes as president. But this would mean reconstruction would end, and the South could do whatever it wanted. So, that's exactly what happened. Black rights were crushed for nearly a century. Jim Crow laws, segregation, and voter suppression took over. Reconstruction was the US's first attempt at civil rights, and it failed miserably. But the 14th and 15th Amendments didn't go away. They became the legal foundation for the civil rights movement 100 years later. Just like that, unit 5 is done. Reconstruction has ended and nothing bad happens in American history ever again. Right. Anyway, why don't you subscribe to this YouTube channel? It's my non-educational channel and I promise it's a thousand% cooler than this one. Come on, please. Please. [Music]