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American Civil War
The Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy (1861-1865) was the most costly of all American wars in terms of the loss of human life-and also the most destructive war ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. The deaths of 750,000 people, a true national tragedy, constituted only part of the impact of the war on American society. Most importantly, the Civil War freed 4 million people from slavery, giving the nation what President Lincoln called a "new birth of freedom." -
Emancipation Proclamation
On the first day of the new year, 1863, the president issued his Emancipation Proclamation. After listing states from Arkansas to Virginia that were in rebellion, the proclamation stated: I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, shall recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. -
Assassination of Lincoln
On April 14, John Wilkes Booth, an embittered actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot and killed the president while he was attending a performance in Ford's Theater in Washington. On the same night, a co-conspirator attacked but only wounded Secretary of State William Seward. These shocking events aroused the fury of Northerners at the very time that the Confederates Most needed a sympathetic hearing. -
Thirteenth Amendment
By December 1865 (months after Lincoln's death), this amendment abolishing slavery was ratified by the required number of states. The language of the amendment could not be simpler or clearer: 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. -
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
Believing the new law to be unconstitutional, Johnson challenged it by dismissing Stanton on his own authority. The House responded by impeaching Johnson, charging him with 11 "high crimes and misdemeanors." Johnson thus became the first president to be impeached. In 1868, after a three-month trial in the Senate, Johnson's political enemies fell one vote short of the necessary two-thirds vote required to remove a president from office. -
Panic of 1873
Grant's second term began with an economic disaster that rendered thousands of Northern laborers both jobless and homeless. Over speculation by financiers and overbuilding by industry and railroads led to widespread business failures and depression. Debtors on the farms and in the cities, suffering from the tight money policies, demanded the creation of greenback paper money that was not supported by gold.
