The American Civil War was fought between northern and southern states of the United States of America between 1861 and 1865. The main reason for the fighting was slavery. The South was strongly in favour of slavery, but the North wanted to end it. The southern states withdrew from the United States (Union), and formed their own union called the Confederacy. The Confederate army fought the Civil War to win its independence. But the Union army defeated them.

Union v. Confederacy

In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president. He was known for his opposition to slavery. Almost immediately, seven southern states whose economies depended on slavery (African American slaves worked on the cotton plantations) declared their secession (withdrawal) from the United States. They were followed shortly by four more. These 11 states formed the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy. The other 24 states, known as the Union, supported the US government.

War breaks out

The war began on 12th April 1861, when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The Union responded by seizing control of some Confederate states and setting up a naval blockade: Union ships stopped any goods entering or leaving the Confederacy. But the Confederacy successfully prevented Union forces from capturing its capital, Richmond, Virginia.

Emancipation Proclamation

To begin with, President Lincoln had only wanted peace. His aim was to stop the rebellion of the Confederacy and for the Confederate states to be reunited with the Union. But on 1st January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This declared that all the slaves in territories held by Confederates would now be free. The American Civil War now became a struggle to end slavery.

Within days of the end of the war, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. While attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., the actor John Wilkes Booth shot him. Lincoln died the following morning, 15th April 1865.

In December, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the US, was ratified (approved). The Union victory in the Civil War had given some four million African American slaves their freedom. However, support for slavery still ran high in the South.

Reconstruction

The period between 1865 and 1877 is known as the Reconstruction Era. The US Congress (the federal government) passed laws to protect the rights of all African Americans in the South. Congress also approved the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to former slaves, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed all (male) citizens the right to vote in elections whatever their race or colour.

Many white people in the South were fiercely against these laws. Some of them set out to terrorize African Americans. Southern state governments started passing what were known as “Jim Crow” laws. These prevented black people from having equal rights to white people. They forced people of different races to use separate public facilities. They made it almost impossible for African Americans to have a vote.

​​​​​​​It took nearly another 100 years for these laws to be overturned.