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Election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the U.S. over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency, though he only received 40 percent of popular votes. With a majority of electoral votes, he defeated the three other candidates. -
Secession of Southern States
The Southern States seceded due to being fought for the right of slavery while being apart of the Union. South Carolina was the first state to secede and 11 states followed soon after. -
Civil War
America’s bloodiest clash, the sectional conflict of the Civil War (1861-65) pitted the Union against the Confederate States of America and resulted in the death of more than 620,000, with millions more injured. The main cause of the Civil War was the debate on slavery. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On September 22, soon after the Union victory at Antietam, Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. -
Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen’s Bureau, created to aid millions of former slaves in the postwar era, had to inform the freedmen and women that they could either sign labor contracts with planters or be evicted from the land they had occupied. Those who refused or resisted were eventually forced out by army troops. -
Reconstruction
The Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of challenges and conflicting opinions and decisions. With Andrew Johnson as the president at the time, the South had a small advantage with a southern president. The United States went through many changes during the Reconstruction Period. -
Sharecropping
During Reconstruction, the conflict over labor resulted in the sharecropping system, in which black families would rent small plots of land in return for a portion of their crop, to be given to the landowner at the end of each year. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
At 10:15, Booth slipped into the box and fired his .44-caliber single-shot derringer into the back of Lincoln’s head. After he shot Lincoln, Booth leaped onto the stage and shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus ever to tyrants!”). At first, the crowd interpreted the unfolding drama as part of the production, but a scream from the first lady told them otherwise. Although Booth broke his leg in the fall, he managed to leave the theater and escape from Washington on horseback. -
13th Amendment
On December 6th in 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, is ratified. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” With these words, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War was officially noted in the Constitution. It was ratified 8 months after the Civil War. -
Radical Reconstruction
During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment, guaranteeing to African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. -
1st African American elected to Congress during Reconstruction
Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Mississippi, is sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South. -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Passed 1 March 1875, the law provided that all persons, regardless of race, were entitled to "the full and equal enjoyment" of accommodations of inns, public transportation, theaters, and other amusement places.
