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people, who disliked their religious vision and some of their beliefs. The Mormon community was driven out of several areas. The leader of the community finally moved his people to the distant frontier. Near the valley of the Great Salt Lake, the group stopped, looked around and said, ”This is the place.” The land outside their city was desert. But the Mormons built irrigation ditches and brought fresh water to the land. They grew crops and made everything they needed with their own hands. They had found a place where they could support themselves and practice their religion freely. In the years that followed, the Mormons turned the settlement into Salt Lake City, where they built the famous Mormon Temple and through discipline and hard work also constructed an exemplary society.

California

Group after group of Americans traveled over the Mountains to California, a distant outpost. By the 1840s, a few thousand Americans lived there. At the beginning of 1848, James Marshall and about twenty men, were sent to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to build a sawmill. It was nearly complete when a glint of something on the bottom of a shallow river caught Marshall’s eye. Later he wrote, “I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another.”

Suddenly people in California got “gold fever.” Half the population of San Francisco left their homes and went to look for gold. In the rush for gold, sailors deserted their ships when they arrived at San Francisco. By the end of the year, whispers of gold strike had drifted across the countrybut few easterners believed it until President James Polk made a statement to Congress on December 5 1848. The discovery, he declared was a fact. Within days “gold fever” descended on the country. The news was telegraphed to every village, to every town. Hundreds of thousands of people, almost all of them men, began to prepare for the epic journey west. They sold possessions, mortgaged farms, borrowed money, and banded together with others from their towns to form joint stock companies. They said their goodbyes and streamed west – more than 80,000 young adventures willing to take a chance on gold: a year of pain in return for a lifetime of riches. They were called “forty-niners” because they left home in 1849 and they all dreamed of making their fortune. Some came from South America and Mexico; more than 25,000 came from China. In new California, some people appeared to be in the way, some got disillusioned and left the state. Some had the best opportunity to capitalize on the discovery of gold. A German businessman named Levi Straus bought strong denim canvas and used it to make sturdy overalls for gold prospectors and miners. He called them Levi’s. Today jeans are known and worn worldwide. Until

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the1840s, San Francisco was a settlement of some 200 people. Thanks to the Gold Rush, it grew and became important. In a few years its population had grown to 50 thousand.

Questions

1. What did the phrase “Go West, young man” express? 2. How was “Indian problem” settled by the US government? 3. What is “The Trail of Tears”? 4. Why did the

Americans want to settle Florida? 5. Why did Spain sell Florida to the US? 6. Did the Mexican government welcome the Americans to settle in Texas? On what condition? 7. What were the contradictions between the Americans and Mexicans? 8. Was Texas an independent country? 9. Who was elected the President of the Republic of Texas? What did the Texans call their land and why? 10. What caused a war on Mexico? What was the result of the 1846-1848 War? 11. What lands did the Oregon Territory occupy? 12.

What influenced people to move to the Far West? 13 What was the ‘Oregon Trail’? 14.

What were the dangers faced by pioneers on the trail? 15. When and how was Utah settled? 16. Why did a lot of people begin coming to California? 17. Who were “fortyniners”? Where did they come from? 18. What city grew thanks to “gold rush”? 19.

How did Levi Straus make his name famous? 20. Who is James Marshall?

Chapter 7 New Ways, Old Ways in the New Nation

The United States was a growing nation in the first half of the 19th century. The spirit of democracy grew with the growing nation. Formerly, only white men who owned property were allowed to vote. Women, blacks, American Indians and poor white men could not vote. Each new state that joined the Union after 1800 gave the right to vote to all white men, rich and poor. Gradually the older states in the East changed their laws. However, women, blacks and American Indians did not enjoy the right to vote.

DEMOCRACY GROWS: WOMEN’S RIGHTS

American women had almost no rights. A married woman could not hold property hold in her own name, and in divorce proceedings men were commonly awarded permanent legal care of any children. Women of color and women of working class were always expected to toil in the fields and factories, and to except inferior wages and treatment. When there were forests to be cleared, crops planted, business to be run, and a household economy to be managed, women and men both became indispensable partners in the daily struggle to survive and prosper. But their roles were regarded in terms of their being “devoted, subservient housewives and mothers” with severely limited capacity to act freely in the public arena or pursue economic aspirations.

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Elizabeth (Cady) Stanton and Lucretia Mott were the early American feminists and ardent abolitionists dedicated their lives to working for women’s rights. 1848 the first convention that would address the social, civil and religious rights of women took place in New York, where Cady Stanton presented a “Declaration of Sentiments” listing 18 grievances against male suppression of women. First, married women had no right to their children if they left an abusive husband or sought a divorce. Second, if a woman was granted a divorce, there was no way for her to make a professional living unless she chose to write or teach. Third, women could not testify against their husbands in court. Then, married women who worked in factories, were not entitled to keep their earnings, but had to turn them over to their husbands. In addition, single women who owned property were taxed without the right to vote for the law-makers who imposed those taxes – one of the very reasons why the American colonies had broken away from Great Britain.

Convention attendees passed the resolution unanimously with the exception of the one - women’s suffrage (the right to vote).Only after an impassioned speech in favor of women’s right to vote by Frederick Douglas, the black abolitionist, did the resolution pass. Still, it seemed an incredibly radical idea at that time. Stanton and her group of suffragists, the National Woman Suffrage Association, began winning some battles as states changed their property laws so that women could own property.

Later, Cady Stanton declared that she had earlier realized that without the right to vote, women would never achieve their goal of becoming equal with men. She saw that the key to success in any endeavor lay in changing public opinion, and not in party action. By awakening women to the injustices under which they labored, the convention became that catalyst for future changes. Soon other women’s rights conventions were held and other women would come to the forefront of the movement for political and social equality. Slowly women gained more and more rights. Colleges for women were opened; some men’s colleges began accepting women students. Some women began to enter jobs that only men had done before. In 1848, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school. A constitutional amendment guaranteeing US women the right to vote was first introduced in 1878. Stanton and her cohorts also helped women in other countries in their struggle to win rights such as to vote. The suffrage, it was believed, would help transform society, even as it promoted women into a larger role of responsibility and equality.

THE DILEMMA OF NEGRO SLAVERY

In the middle of the 19th century, the country’s future seemed bright, except for one large problem. The North, the South and the West were developing in different ways.

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The crisis was brought about by a national rivalry between the agricultural slaveowning states of the South and the industrializing states of the North. America’s acquisition of vast territories extending to the Pacific Ocean led to a conflict between those (Southerners) who wanted to extend slavery to the new western lands and those (Northerners) who did not. Many people hoped that a peaceful solution could be found to the differences between the North and the South. But in the end, these differences led to war. These were sad years when the people of the United States faced each other on the battlefield.

The democracy that was spreading was not shared by black Americans. Most of them were slaves. An active slave trade was operating during the 18th century. An estimated 5.5 million slaves were brought from West Africa to the New World. The American colonies alone imported nearly a half million slaves. They were bought and sold as if they were objects, not human beings. The American Constitution recognized slavery as a local institution within the legal rights of the individual states. But in the North, slavery was not adaptable to the local economy, and to many, it contradicted the compelling vision of the Founding Fathers of the United States for a free and democratic society in which “no individual could claim inherent rights over another”, for a nation in which “all men are to be free.” By 1830, slavery was outlawed in all Northern states. The South, with vast cotton plantations and slaves as an important source of labor, considered slavery a necessary institution for the plantation economy. Slavery was linked to the local culture and society.

The mass migration of Africans to North America began in1619just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown, the first British colony. The first slaves were not regarded as slaves. They were looked upon as indentured servants- as bondsmen for a period of a fixed term of years who could look forward to freedom. Many whites came to America under similar circumstances. By 1661, blacks became to be bondsmen for life - this was the beginning of slavery in the U.S.A.

An active slave trade operated during the 18th century. An estimated 5.5 million Africans, in shackles and chains were brought to the New World as slaves to be sold at public auctions. Families were divided up and sold to different owners. Little children were often taken from their mothers. Slaves had no rights under the law. The Constitution counted each Negro slave as three-fifth of a white man. Slaves were forced into humiliating obedience. It was illegal to teach a slave how to read or write. They could not travel without permission; they were not allowed to meet together in public. Slaves could be physically punished for disobedience and even put to death.

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More and more people in America were beginning to understand that slavery was shameful for a democratic society; that the institution of slavery went against basic values of the new American nation. How could a free society deny equal rights to some of its members? It was a contradiction of democratic rights and liberty. It was to be abolished. Abolitionist movement grew stronger; it gained much more supporters in

1851, after a woman from New England, named Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote “Uncle

Tom’s Cabin”, an antislavery novel that galvanized political opinion across the nation. Largely as a result of that best-selling melodramatic story, a slavery question became a passionately debated political issue.

The first great struggle toward that realization was the war against slavery. There was a secret rout called the “Underground Railroad” to help fugitive slaves to escape from the

South to the North and Canada. Strangely, called so, the rout had nothing to do with either trains or underground. People, who knew the way, guided slaves along the footpath at night to avoid being seen. In the daytime, the slaves were hidden in the homes of supporters. These homes were called “stations”, and the guides were called “conductors.”

Sometimes blacks fought back violently against slavery. But these revolts were ruthlessly suppressed.

Say True or False

1.Each new state that joined the Union after 1800 gave the right to vote to all white rich man.

2.Women, blacks and American Indians did not enjoy the right to vote.

4. Women and men were indispensable partners in the daily struggle.

5.Declaration of Sentiments listed 16 grievances against white men suppression of slaves.

6.If a woman was granted a divorce, she couldn’t make a professional living.

7.Women could not testify against their husbands.

8.Single women who owned property were not taxed.

9.Convention did not pass the resolution on women’s suffrage because Fred Douglas was against.

10.In 1878 that the constitutional amendment on women’s suffrage was adopted.

Questions for Discussion

1. Who wanted slavery to be allowed in the new western lands? 2.How did the US Constitution count each slave? 3. Did American Constitution recognize the local slavery? 4. Was slavery linked to the local culture and society in the South? 5. Who

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were indentured servants? 6. What was it like to be a slave on a large plantation in the South? 7. What rights did slaves have under the law? 8. Why do you think little children were taken from their mothers at auctions? 9. Who were the abolitionists? What did they call for? 10. What was “the Underground Railroad”?

Chapter 8 Civil War: a House Divided

Slavery had become both a moral issue and a question of political power. The election of 1860 showed clearly that the United States was a divided nation. President James Buchanan wanted to hold the Union together and keep the southern states from seceding, but was unable to do so.

Abraham Lincoln, America’s Moral Leader

(1809-1865) Term: 1861-1865 Party: Republican

Here was a man to hold against the world, A man to match the mountains and the sea.

From “Lincoln, the Man of the People” by Edwin Markham

Lincoln became a virtual symbol of the American dream whereby an ordinary person from humble beginnings could reach the pinnacle of society as president of the country. He spent difficult years of his childhood in the frontier of Indiana which set the course for his character and motivation later in life. In 1837, he was elected to the House of Representatives and began studying to become a lawyer. He was vehemently against slavery and took stands on other controversial issues. He was not elected for the second term, so he returned to his law practice. A few years later, Lincoln joined the Republicans, a new political party that was opposed to slavery. The Republicans nominated him for the U.S. Senate in his acceptance speech, he said, “a House divided against itself cannot stand… This government cannot endure, permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect it will dissolved, do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” Abraham Lincoln’s oratorical powers brought him to the attention of the nation. Nominated by the Republican Party in 1860 as its candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Lincoln won by small margin. But with his election, the country began the process of “dividing against itself”- splitting of the nation into two parts.

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Although its origins are complex, the immediate cause of the Civil War (18611865) was not the practice of slavery in the South, but the attempt of the Southern States to secede from the Union. “The South will never submit to such humiliation and degradation as the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln,” one Atlanta newspaper declared.

On December 20, 1861, South Carolina proved the prediction accurate by seceding from the Union, an action soon taken by ten other Southern states. Together they formed the Confederate States of America – their own nation with Jefferson Davis as their President – to preserve the slavery that Lincoln opposed, to protect states rights, and to ensure freedom from domination by the North. The North and South were divided and on April 12, 1861, the Civil War began. It was a war between people of the same nation: Confederacy ( the eleven Southern states including South and North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia) against the Union. A war in which brother fought against brother, the American Civil War cost the lives of more American soldiers than any other war the nation has fought. It was hugely murderous. In 1860 the US had 31.5 million people. In the next five years 364,511 union soldiers and sailors died; Confederate deaths (including those in prison camps) totaled at least 159,821. As a share of population, the Civil War was more than five times as deadly as World War II.

White southerners were fighting to preserve their way of life. For them the Civil War was a second war for independence. 9 million southerners believed they had the right to secede from the Union, just as the colonies had the right to secede from Great Britain. 23 million northerners were inspired to preserve the undivided nation. From the outset, President Davis faced overwhelming problems. Southern nationalists blamed him for not creating the strong central government the South needed to win the war, while most governors jealously guarded states’ rights. Some would not even allow their men to fight in the states other than in their own. Lack of money was an even bigger problem. The Confederacy had to resort to increasingly unpopular measures, printing paper money unbacked by gold and sending soldiers to seize crops and livestock, paying for the goods with worthless scrip. One farmer said he would “prefer seeing Yankees to our Cavalry,” and many others began hiding their produce and animals. The Confederate troops were led by Robert E. Lee, probably the greatest soldier of the Civil War. Since 1864, the Union armies were under the command of Ulysses S. Grant, a remarkable general who could led the Union to victory. In both the South and the North, groups of women formed women’s aid societies making uniforms, flags and bandages, collecting money to buy food and other supplies, organizing nursing services for the sick and wounded. As the war dragged on and enthusiasm wanted, the Confederate Congress

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instituted the first draft in American history. But by exempting men who owned at least 20 slaves, it prompted cries of “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.” The Governors of

Georgia and North Carolina ignored the draft.

The bloodiest Battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) in July 1863 was the largest battle ever fought on American soil - more than 50.000 Americans were killed or wounded. It was the turning point of the War, the Confederacy suffered one defeat after another. The Confederate armies finally lost by attrition, their cause torn by internal dissension and drained of resources. After that epic struggle, a national cemetery was established on the battlefield.

On April 9, 1865, with Lee’s surrender, the Civil War was over. The Confederacy was dissolved and its member states were gradually re-admitted into the Union. No work about the Civil War has attained the place of Gone With the Wind. It first won praise as the novel by Margaret Mitchell. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Mitchell grew up among relatives who had first-hand memories of the war and the 1864 invasion that burned their city to the ground. Published in 1936, the novel became an instant publishing phenomenon. It sold 50,000 copies in one day, a million within six months. In 1937, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Even before the book was released there was a feverish fight for the movie rights. Mitchell refused to write a script. Making of the film version, which took more than three years, was an epic in itself. Shooting began before the script was even complete. Gone With the Wind premiered in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. The film became an even bigger success than the book and won nine! Oscars.

On the fourth Monday of every May, is a Memorial Day on which Americans honor the dead. Originally a day on which flags or flowers were placed on graves of soldiers who died in the Civil War, it has become a day on which the dead of all wars and all other dead are remembered. In many communities special ceremonies are held in the cemeteries or at monuments for the war dead by veterans of military services. Some hold parades and other hold memorial services or special programs in churches, schools or other public meeting places.

Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864. The war ended. The difficult task of national reconstruction lay ahead, but Lincoln would not be the person to lead the country through that difficult period. He was the first President to be assassinated. On April 14, five days after the victory, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln attended a play at the Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. A few minutes past ten o’clock, in the Presidential box, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who disagreed with Lincoln’s political opinions. Lincoln died the following morning. When the shocked nation recovered from the impact of Lincoln’s murder, it cried for vengeance on the conspirators. The trigger man Booth was killed before he could make any public statements. He died, according

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to the general understanding, as a result of being shot to death by a religious fanatic named Boston Corbett, although Corbett’s claim is subject to question. It is important to note that with Booth dead and with the execution of the four co-conspirators from Booth’s boarding house, any higher-ups who might have been involved were reasonably safe from exposure.

There are many unanswered questions in the events that followed the murder of Abraham Lincoln. Why the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, who as well was in charge of Secret Service, refused for hours to identify the killer; why his testimony at the trial was so contradictory; why he refused to let Mr. Lincoln be guarded that fateful night by the man whom the President requested; why he failed to investigate the fact that detailed stories of the assassination were published in two newspapers many hours before the deed! If we knew the answers to these and many other questions, we might know what prompted Robert Todd Lincoln to burn some of his father’s letters. Teddy

Roosevelt, the 26th President, asked why he was burning letters that might have historical significance. Robert Lincoln replied, “It would serve no purpose to make them public. They deal with

a man who played a part in my father’s death, a member of father’s cabinet.”

Of all the presidents in the United States, Abraham Lincoln is probably the one that Americans remember the best and with deepest affection. He brought a new honesty and integrity to the White House. He would always be remembered as “honest Abe.”

Most of all he is associated with the final abolition of slavery. He put forth to the

Emancipation Proclamation, giving freedom to the slaves in the “rebel” states (1863).

The Emancipation Proclamation was a historic political step, but it did not provide a permanent legal basis for elimination of slavery. The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified on December 18, 1865, made all Americans free.

Questions for Discussion

1. Why is Lincoln believed to be a virtual symbol of the American Dream? 2. What party nominated him for the US Senate? 3. What did the presidential election of 180 show? 4. How did the South respond to Lincoln’s inauguration? 5. Which state was the first to secede from the Union? What states followed its example? 6. What did the seceding nations call their new nation? Who was Jefferson Davis? 7. Did Lincoln agree to the division of the United States? Why? 8. Why was it the hugely murderous war? 9. Which side suffered defeats and why? 10. What was the turning point of the Civil War? 11. Where the Confederacy member states re-admitted to the Union after the War? 12. When and how was President assassinated? 13 Can you provide any other examples of

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political leaders’ assassinations? 14. How is Abraham Lincoln remembered in the USA?

14What is the Emancipation Proclamation? Did it provide a legal basis for elimination of slavery? 15. When were blacks made free? Did they get the right to vote?

Talk It Over

1.Jefferson said he was afraid for his country because of slavery. Are there any conditions in your country that you are worried about?

2.As the United States grew, the North and South developed completely different economic and social conditions. Does your country have different economic regions with different economic systems or lifestyles? Do these differences cause any problems? Explain.

3.Has your nation’s history known periods when some regions/republics aspired to secede from the union? Why did it happen? What came of this?

Chapter 9 The Years of Reconstruction (18651877)

THE SOUTH AFTER WAR

President Lincoln had planned for a period of reconstruction after the Civil War. He had thought it necessary to choose new leaders for the South and to restore good relations between the North and the South. Lincoln had hoped that the Reconstruction would go quickly. But after Lincoln’s death Americans fought over how to carry out the

Reconstruction. Though the victory of the North in the American Civil War assured the integrity of the United States as an invisible nation, much was destroyed in the course of the war, and the secondary goal of the war, the abolition of the system of slavery, was only imperfectly achieved.

Much of the South was in ruin. The defeat of the Confederacy left what had been the country’s most fertile agricultural area economically destroyed and its rich culture devastated. More than 250,000 southerners had died in the fighting. With its largest and most important cities in ashes, the South entered a period of Reconstruction. The abolition of slavery created the largest minority group in the nation’s history. In a period of only a few years, millions of ex-slaves entered a world where they virtually were free to compete with all other groups for jobs and other resources. They were greatly handicapped, however by inadequate education, an agrarian background and widely held prejudice among the other ethnic groups in the United States.

Radical Republicans planned to put black southerners on an equal footing with whites and to redistribute old plantation land. White southern leaders resented these efforts.