Out West – History Notes
American Civil War (1861–1865)
Westward Territories
Mexican Cession lands were a product of the Mexican-American War and the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848. In this treaty, Mexico gave the U.S. parts of what is Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming, and the whole of California, Nevada and Utah and recognized the Rio Grande as Texas’ Southern border. The United States paid Mexico $15 million. In addition, the United States agreed to pay claims made by American citizens against Mexico, which amounted to more than $3 million.
Homestead Act of 1862
In the United States, the Homestead Act (1862) allowed anyone to claim up to 160 acres (647,000 m²) of land. After clearing and working the land for five years, the homesteader would receive title to the land from the government. In this sense, homesteading provided a legal and viable means of obtaining land and precluded widespread squatting on the frontiers, and was the most important and prevalent means of settlement in the late 19th century.
The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, with the golden spike ceremonially driven at Promontory, Utah, after track was laid over a 1,756 mile (2,826 km) gap between Sacramento and Omaha in six years by the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad.
President Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the seventeenth President of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Johnson was a U.S. Senator from Tennessee at the time of the secession of the southern states. He was the only Southern Senator not to quit his post upon secession, and became the most prominent War Democrat from the South. In 1862 Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, where he proved energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion. Lincoln selected Johnson for the Vice President slot in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. As president he took charge of Presidential Reconstruction — the first phase of Reconstruction — which lasted until the Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1866 elections. His conciliatory policies towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederates back into the union, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with the Radical Republicans. The Radicals in the House of Representatives impeached him in 1868, but he was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate. He was the first United States president to be impeached.
Reconstruction
At first Johnson talked harshly, telling an Indiana delegation in late April, 1865, “Treason must be made odious… traitors must be punished and impoverished… their social power must be destroyed.” But then he struck another note: “I say, as to the leaders, punishment. I also say leniency, reconciliation and amnesty to the thousands whom they have misled and deceived.” His class-based resentment of the rich appeared in a May, 1865 statement to W.H. Holden, the man he appointed governor of North Carolina, “I intend to confiscate the lands of these rich men whom I have excluded from pardon by my proclamation, and divide the proceeds thereof among the families of the wool hat boys, the Confederate soldiers, whom these men forced into battle to protect their property in slaves.” Johnson in practice was not at all harsh toward the Confederate leaders. He allowed the Southern states to hold elections in 1865 in which prominent ex-Confederates were elected to the U.S. Congress; however, Congress did not seat them. Congress and Johnson argued in an increasingly public way about Reconstruction and the manner in which the Southern secessionist states would be readmitted to the Union. Johnson favored a very quick restoration of all rights and privileges of other states — and in many ways followed the similar plan of leniency that Lincoln advocated before his death.
Christmas Day amnesty for Confederates
One of Johnson’s last significant acts was granting unconditional amnesty to all Confederates on Christmas Day, December 25, 1868. This was after the election of U.S. Grant to succeed him, but before Grant took office in March, 1869. Earlier amnesties requiring signed oaths and excluding certain classes of people were issued both by Lincoln and by Johnson.