B1 America: from new nation to divided union, 1783–1877 - History - Pearson IGCSE

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Welcome to B1 America: From New Nation to Divided Union (1783–1877)

Hello future historians! This chapter is all about the incredible, often chaotic, journey of the United States. We start right after they won independence (1783) and follow them as they expand across a continent, argue fiercely over the issue of slavery, fight a brutal Civil War, and then try to put the pieces back together.
This is a story of growth, conflict, and big ideas. Don't worry if some of the concepts seem tricky—we will break them down step-by-step!

Why is this period important? It laid the foundation for modern America and determined whether the idea of a self-governing republic could actually survive.

Part 1: The Birth of a Nation and the Constitution (1783–1789)

1.1 Establishing the Rules: From Chaos to Order

After winning the Revolutionary War, the USA was technically free, but the states were behaving like 13 different countries. The first government setup, called the Articles of Confederation, was too weak. It was like trying to run a sports team where the captain (the federal government) couldn't force anyone to pay for uniforms or even show up for practice.

Key Problem Areas:

The central government couldn't raise taxes (no money!).
It couldn't regulate trade between states.
There was no strong leader (like a President) or national court system.

1.2 The Constitutional Convention (1787)

In 1787, leaders met in Philadelphia to fix the Articles, but quickly decided to scrap them entirely and write a new Constitution.

Key Features of the New Constitution:

1. Federalism: This is the idea that power is shared between the national (federal) government and the state governments. (Analogy: Think of it as sharing chores at home—some tasks are national, like printing money, and some are local, like running schools.)

2. Separation of Powers: To make sure no one person or group became too powerful, the government was divided into three branches:

Legislative (Congress: makes the laws)
Executive (President: carries out the laws)
Judicial (Supreme Court: interprets the laws)

3. Checks and Balances: Each branch has the power to limit the others. For example, Congress can pass a law, but the President can veto it. If you remember nothing else, remember this system was designed to prevent tyranny (dictatorship).

The Big Debate: Slavery and Representation

The biggest conflict was over how to count enslaved people for representation in Congress. The South wanted them counted to gain political power, even though they couldn't vote.

The Compromise: The Three-Fifths Compromise agreed that three-fifths (60%) of the enslaved population would be counted. This was a dark deal that hugely increased the South's power in government.

Quick Review: The Constitution created a strong national government but protected individual rights (eventually, through the Bill of Rights). It also contained the dangerous seed of conflict—the protection of slavery.

Part 2: A Growing Nation – Westward Expansion

Once the nation was formed, Americans looked west. This expansion was driven by a powerful idea that shaped the entire 19th century.

2.1 Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny was the widespread belief, popular in the 1840s, that the United States was morally and religiously destined to expand its borders from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Pacific Ocean. It implied that this expansion was inevitable, righteous, and God-given.

Key Expansions:

Louisiana Purchase (1803): President Jefferson bought a huge area of land from France, instantly doubling the size of the US.
Mexican-American War (1846–1848): A war fought primarily over Texas, resulting in the US acquiring vast territories, including California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

Did you know? Manifest Destiny sounds exciting, but it often meant taking land violently and ignoring the rights of others, especially Native Americans.

2.2 The Impact on Native Americans

Expansion led directly to tragedy for the indigenous populations already living on the land.

Forced Removal: As settlers moved in, the US government often pushed Native American tribes off their ancestral lands.
Trail of Tears (1838): This is the name given to the forced removal of thousands of Cherokee people from their homes in the Southeast to designated areas west of the Mississippi River. Thousands died from disease, hunger, and exhaustion during the journey. This demonstrates how expansion came at a terrible human cost.

Key Takeaway: Westward Expansion (Manifest Destiny) rapidly increased the size of the US but brought huge conflict with Mexico and catastrophic consequences for Native Americans.

Part 3: The Deep Divide – Sectionalism and Slavery

As the nation grew, the differences between the North and South became impossible to ignore, leading to extreme Sectionalism (intense loyalty to one's region rather than the nation as a whole).

3.1 North vs. South

3.2 The Failure of Compromise

As new states were added from the western territories, Congress constantly had to debate: will this new state be Free or Slave? To keep the balance, leaders devised several compromises, which were only temporary fixes:

1. Missouri Compromise (1820): Missouri entered as a slave state, and Maine entered as a free state, keeping the Senate balanced. It also drew a line (the 36°30’ parallel) dividing future free and slave territories.

2. Compromise of 1850: Included several measures, most controversially the new Fugitive Slave Act. This Act required northern states to return runaway enslaved people to their owners. This infuriated the North and strengthened the Abolitionist movement.

3. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): Proposed by Stephen Douglas. It effectively canceled the Missouri Compromise line. It stated that settlers in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska would decide the issue of slavery themselves (a process called Popular Sovereignty). This led to violence in Kansas, nicknamed "Bleeding Kansas."

The Final Breaks

Dred Scott Decision (1857): The Supreme Court ruled that black people, free or enslaved, were not citizens and had no rights. Furthermore, Congress had no power to stop slavery in any territory. This enraged Northerners, proving to them that the courts were biased toward the South.
John Brown’s Raid (1859): An extreme abolitionist led a raid on a federal armoury to try and start a slave revolt. He failed and was executed, but the South saw him as a terrorist, confirming their fears that the North wanted to destroy their way of life.

Key Takeaway: Every attempt to compromise failed because the issue of slavery was fundamentally moral for the North and fundamentally economic for the South. The compromises just postponed the inevitable conflict.

Part 4: The Civil War (1861–1865)

The failure of compromise led to war, the deadliest conflict in US history.

4.1 Secession and the Start of the War

The Trigger: In 1860, Abraham Lincoln (Republican Party), who was strongly against the expansion of slavery, was elected President. The Southern states felt they had lost all political voice.

Secession: Eleven Southern states formally withdrew (seceded) from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America (or the Confederacy), led by President Jefferson Davis.

The War Begins: Fighting started in April 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

4.2 Advantages and Disadvantages

4.3 Key Turning Points

Emancipation Proclamation (1863): Issued by Lincoln, this declared that all enslaved people in Confederate-held states were free. It changed the war from just preserving the Union into a moral crusade against slavery. It also prevented European nations from officially aiding the Confederacy.
Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863): A massive Union victory in Pennsylvania. This was the Confederacy's last major attempt to invade the North; after this, the South was largely fighting a defensive war.
Vicksburg (July 1863): Union forces captured this key city, giving them control of the entire Mississippi River. This split the Confederacy in two.

4.4 The End of the War

Under the leadership of General Ulysses S. Grant and the destruction caused by General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea," the Confederacy was eventually exhausted. The war ended in April 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Key Takeaway: The North won due to superior resources, steady leadership, and the decisive shift in purpose brought about by the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the victory came at the cost of over 600,000 lives.

Part 5: Reconstruction (1865–1877)

The period after the war, known as Reconstruction, focused on three main tasks: rebuilding the South, reuniting the states, and defining the rights of four million formerly enslaved people (freedmen).

5.1 Defining Freedom: The Constitutional Amendments

Congress passed three crucial amendments to the Constitution to secure the results of the war. These are vital for your exam:

13th Amendment (1865): Formally abolished slavery throughout the United States.
14th Amendment (1868): Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the US (including freedmen) and guaranteed them "equal protection of the laws."
15th Amendment (1870): Guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." (This granted suffrage to black men.)

Memory Aid: Think F-C-V (Free, Citizen, Vote) for 13, 14, 15.

5.2 Challenges and Southern Resistance

Reconstruction was extremely challenging. Many white Southerners bitterly resented the changes and the presence of federal troops.

Black Codes and Jim Crow: Southern states quickly passed laws called Black Codes (and later, Jim Crow laws) designed to restrict the freedom and economic opportunities of black citizens (e.g., forcing them into low-wage labour contracts).
Violence: Groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) emerged, using terror, lynching, and violence to intimidate black voters and stop Republicans (the party of Lincoln) from gaining power in the South.

5.3 The End of Reconstruction (1877)

By the mid-1870s, Northerners began to lose interest in the costly, drawn-out process of supervising the South.

The Compromise of 1877: A highly disputed presidential election led to a political deal. In exchange for the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, winning the presidency, the Republicans agreed to withdraw all remaining federal troops from the South.

With the troops gone, the Southern Democrats regained full political control. They immediately began dismantling the remaining Reconstruction efforts, ensuring that black citizens were denied their rights (despite the new amendments) for nearly another century.

Key Takeaway: Reconstruction successfully restored the Union and established monumental constitutional changes (the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments). However, it ultimately failed to protect the rights of freedmen, ending prematurely in 1877, which led to decades of racial segregation and oppression in the South.

Final Chapter Summary (1783–1877)

This period saw the US move from a fragile experiment to a powerful, unified nation—but only after confronting its greatest moral contradiction. Remember the flow:

1. Foundation: The Constitution creates a strong federal system but is flawed by the slavery compromise.
2. Growth: Manifest Destiny drives expansion, leading to conflict with Native Americans and Mexico.
3. Conflict: Sectionalism over slavery tears the nation apart.
4. Crisis: The Civil War preserves the Union and abolishes slavery.
5. Aftermath: Reconstruction fails to fully integrate freedmen due to Southern resistance and the political decision of 1877.