History Professor Edward O'Donnell explains how former Confederates "redeemed," or restored a majority white rule throughout the South after Reconstruction by suppressing blacks' newly won right to vote.
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Josh Brown of the American Social History Project examines a cartoon by Thomas Nast that lampoons the Democratic Party right after the Civil War.
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The November 6, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly included this double-page cartoon that mocks the platform of the New York Democratic Party, including its opposition to the 15th Amendment. Josh Brown of the American Social History Project examines the details.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the expansion of federal power during the Civil War to include a national income tax, a national currency, and a federal draft.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary introduces the strain paying for the Civil War placed on both the North and South enormously. The South had to build an industrial infrastructure to support its war effort.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how both the north and the south had to draft soldiers during the Civil War. Since the wealthy could buy their way out of being drafted, class tension erupted into draft riots.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes Abraham Lincoln's tough reelection, three years into the Civil War. General Sherman's victory in Atlanta helped turn public opinion.
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As runaway slaves crossed into the North, they demanded their freedom from the Union government. But the Lincoln administration wasn't prepared to deal with them, says Columbia University Professor Eric Foner.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes one of the horrors of slavery: the separation of families. After Emancipation, slaves wandered hundreds of miles across the south to try to find their spouses and children.
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Columbia University Professor Eric Foner describes the difficulties that slave families faced as they ran north across Union army lines during the Civil War.
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