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The Treaty of Paris
This Treaty marked the official end of the Seven Year War, and established new borderlines between the French, Indians, and the Colonists. Though initially the Indians rebelled with Pontiac's Rebellion (1763-1766), they were soon quieted down. The difference of opinion between the British and the Colonists however on what role they had played in the war and what they had sacrificed added to the tension already forming between them. -
The Quartering Act of 1765
Instituted after the Sugar Act of 1764, The Quartering Act took away the colonists privacy in that they had to let the British soldiers stay in their homes. They had to provide for them room & board, and with the soldier always listening, their sense of privacy and freedom was invaded upon. Haunted by this Act, the colonists later made sure that their privacy could never be infringed upon again, after the Stamp Act of 1765, this is seen later as it becomes a legal right in the Bill of Rights. -
The Boston Massacre
On King Street, Boston, a deadly riot occurred when what began as a street brawl between American colonists and a British soldier turned into a massacre when a snowball was thrown that had ice in it. Five American soldiers were shot and died by five British soldiers. This conflict energized the anti-British sentiment and took the colonists one step further to their Revolution. Paul Revere drew a picture of the events, and this caused outrage and rallied support against the British. -
The Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty met at the Green Dragon (their tree house), dressed as Indians, and face paint, and taking off their shirts ran down the street, screaming and screeching, in broad daylight. They boarded the Dartmouth in Boston Harbor and dumped the tea onboard in protest to the high tea tax, 340 chests of tea were destroyed, this political and mercantile protests was one of the key events in the lead up to the American Revolutionary War, and American Independence. -
The Battle of Lexington
The famous ride of Paul Revere,(and two others)the famous 'shot heard 'round the world', no one knows which side shot it, when the two armies were lined up facing each other it was obv. that the colonists were outnumbered, they made to leave but a shot rang the air, the fighting started.
The brief skirmish resulted in several casualties set the stage for further hostilities between the British the colonists. Politically disastrous for the British persuaded many colonists to join the fight. -
The Deceleration Of Independence
A formal doc. in which Congress representing the thirteen American colonies detailed their reasons for breaking political bonds with Great Britain. The doc. was drafted by Thomas Jefferson, and was greatly influenced by the works of the 17th-century philosopher John Locke. The people banded together to become an independent country with freedom as its main value. Has had profound/enduring effects on social movements throughout U.S. history, women's rights/ideas that all men are created equal. -
The Articles of Confederation
The first American Constitution that established the U.S. as a loose confederation of stats under a weak national Congress,which was not granted the power to regulate commerce or collect taxes, overall very limited powers. This decision was most likely a direct result of the fear the American people still felt when they remembered how Britain/King George had taxed them without representation, in trying to make sure that never happened again, they overcompensated, leading to a weak central gov. -
The Treaty of Paris
This treaty was signed by U.S. and British Representatives, ending the War of the American Revolution and established the United States as an independent nation. Based on the 1782 preliminary treaty, the agreement recognized U.S. Independence and granted the U.S. significant western territory., and resolved the issues of fishing rights on the Newfoundland banks and prewar debts owed British creditors, promised restitution of property lost during the war, shaping the young country's future. -
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President George Washington's term
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The Second Great Awakening
It was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to 19th century, that spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. It led to social reform and an emphasis on salvation by institutions. One of the main messages was that God offered salvation for all who chose to embrace it if you accepted God's grace. As a result, the Baptist, Methodist, and Catholic denominations grew and expanded while creating great religious diversity. -
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President John Adams' Term
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Revolution of 1800
Pres.tial elections, the Dem./Repub. Candidate, V. Pres.Thomas Jefferson, defeated the Fed. candidate/incumbent, Pres.John Adams. It produced the first orderly transfer of power from one party to another - without violence. Unheard of. America passed its trial other nations, seeing as it didn't implode like they thought it would, started investing in the nation. It set the stage for future political developments: increased voter participation, the eventual emergence of new political parties. -
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Thomas Jefferson's Term
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The Louisiana Purchase
This transaction with France, the U.S. purchased 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million.U.S. subsequently doubled its size, expanding the nation westward.Thomas Jefferson, before deciding to purchase the land, struggled and questioned his executive authority to purchase the Territory, since the Constitution didn't explicitly grant him authority to acquire new land.He put aside his own morals/beliefs for the greater good of America though, and bought the land. -
The Invention of the Cotton Gin
Invented by Eli Whitney, this machine allowed for an easier and much more efficient way to harvest cotton, making it much more profitable. Cotton harvesting boomed and along with it slavery which had been dying out but started to revive along with farmer's hopes of getting rich off cotton. The South became a major player in world trade, especially to Great Britain and to the growing textile industry in the northeastern states of America. -
The Embargo Act
It was passed over Federalist opposition by President Thomas Jefferson, prohibited U.S. vessels from trading with European nations during the Napoleonic War, in response to the Europe and British impressment of American seamen into the Royal Navy. This embargo stopped exports from American ports. It was unpopular, a costly failure. It hurt the American economy far more than the European ones, resulted in widespread smuggling. Farm prices fell sharply. However it spurred domestic manufacturing. -
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President James Madison's Term
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The Treaty of Ghent
This treaty ends the War of 1812 which was fought between the U.S. and Britain, primarily the impressment of American sailors by the British Navy, as well as disagreements over trade, western expansion, and Native American policy. The War is considered status quo ante bellum, everything went back to the way it was before the war. It took time for the news to spread, so people heard about the Battle of N.O. first then this news reached them, they contributed that battle to the end of the war. -
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The Benevolent Empire
Network of Protestant reform societies that were prominent in the united states, these organizations existed to spread Christianity and promote social reform. -
The Battle of New Orleans
American forces are led by General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 whose army inflicts great casualties on the British army(2,042 British, 71 American). The British army was virtually mauled by American forces hiding behind earthworks cannons. Jackson devised a brilliant plan that involved a ten foot ditch, a 20 foot ditch, and the end result like rows of shark teeth. Andrew Jackson is associated with winning the War, and people assume that this victory is responsible for ending the War. -
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President James Monroe's Term
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The Rise of Domesticity
It was a prevailing value system among the upper middle classes that governed gender roles.Women should exist in the private, domestic sphere of influence of the home shouldn't go into the public sphere for work like men, was the ideology; "privatized" women's education, work, for voicing opinions, or for supporting reform.These arguments of biological inferiority led to pronouncements that women were incapable of effectively participating in society. Fuel for the women's suffrage movement. -
The Missouri Compromise
Congress admitted Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, thus maintaining an equal number of slave and free states, especially important so that neither side got an upperhand in representatives. Set a precedent for how Congress would handle issues of slavery in new territories, illustrated limitations of compromise, idea proposed by Henry Clay. Prohibited slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri. It promoted economic equality. -
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The Ideology of Domesticity
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The Erie Canal
Built between the cities Albany and Buffalo in New York, allowed western farmers to ship surplus crops to sell in the North and gave northern manufacturers access to sell in the West. The canal was considered a marvel of their modern the time......... -
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President John Quincy Adams' term
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The Tariff of Abominations
A tariff that raised the duties significantly on raw materials, textiles, and iron goods. While the Northeast and Midwest benefited, the South, which had no industries that needed protection, were enraged as this raised the price of manufactures, and in turn the cost of imported goods. Subsequently this lowered support for John Q. Adams and he would certainly feel the ripples of this enactment in the next election. -
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President Andrew Jackson' term
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The Indian Removal Act of 1830
This act received protests from Christians, men and women, and barely managed to be passed through the House of Representatives. It created the Indian Territory on national lands acquired in the LP, and promised money and reserved land for the Native American people who would give up their ancestral holdings east of the Mississippi River. This was met with resistance from the Indians and they had to be forced there. Eventually only the Seminoles in Florida remained in the Southeast. -
The Birth of Transcendentalism
Transcendentalists saw physical and spiritual phenomena as part of a dynamic process rather than discrete entities.It was one of the first philosophical currents that emerged in the U.S., was a movement of writers/philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of creation,the innate goodness of humanity, the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. -
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Trail of Tears
The round up of 14,000 Cherokees and marched a 1,200 mile arduous journey which nearly a quarter of them died along as they traveled to present-day Oklahoma from their lands in Georgia. -
The Liberator
Was the most widely circulated anti-slavery newspaper during the antebellum period throughout the Civil War.It was established, published edited in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison, a leading white abolitionist founder of the influential American Anti-Slavery Society.People destroyed the newspaper three times, but Garrison kept rebuilding it. Liberator denounced all people acts that would prolong slavery, including the Constitution which would later lead to a split w/ Fredrick Douglass. -
The Underground Railroad
The resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War - refers to the efforts if enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage. Operated mostly by abolitionists and others who sympathized with their cause. but it also involved a few former slaves. It intensified sectional conflict by challenging the institution of slavery and igniting passionate responses from both abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates. Guides were known as conductors. -
Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner's rebellion was one of the largest slave rebellions to take place in the U.S., it played an important role in the development of antebellum slave society. Turner led more than fifty followers in a bloody revolt in Southampton, VA, killing nearly 60 white people, mostly women and children, stopped by local authorities by dawn the next day. He believed he was receiving signs from God, and his actions led the state legislature of VA to a policy that said no one could question slavery. -
Worcester v. Georgia
Series of cases the Court invalidated Georgia laws that regulated U.S. citizens access to Cherokee land. The court struck down Georgia's extension laws. In the majority opinion Marshall wrote that the Indian nations were "distinct, independent political communities retaining their og. natural rights" that the U.S. had acknowledged as much in several treaties with the Cherokee. Aimed to protect Indians, largely ignored by state/federal authorities, leading to the forced removal of the Cherokee. -
The Female Moral Reform Society
Founded by Lydia Finney, wife of revivalist Charles Finney, as its pres.. Rejecting sexual double standard, demanded chaste behavior by men.Employing only women as agents, society members provided moral guidance for young female factory operatives, seamstresses, servants.They visited brothels to sing hymns, searched for runaway girls, pointedly recorded names of clients. Later,founded homes of refuge for prostitutes' in New York and Massachusetts won passage of law that made seduction a crime. -
The Closing of the Second National Bank of the United States
The bank's cautious monetary policy worried expansion-minded bankers who demanded an end to central oversight. Americans worried that the bank would force weaker ones to close and leave them with worthless paper notes. Though Clay and Webster tried to get the bank an early extension on the bank's charter, Jackson vetoed it using constitutional arguments, saying that Congress had no constitutional authority to charter a national bank. Therefore the bank closed in 1836 when the charter expired. -
The Massacre of Alamo
The conflict, sparked by tensions over issues like slavery, land rights, cultural differences b/w Anglo settlers the Mexican gov. The Mexican army defeated the Texas garrison defending the Alamo in San Antonio. Newspapers urged Americans to "Remember the Alamo", American adventurers, lured by offers of land grants, flock to Texas to join the rebel forces. Helped to unite Texan settlers contributed to their eventual victory at San Jacinto, which secured Texas's independence from Mexico. -
The Panic of 1837
This was the start of an economic downturn in the United States that lasted for several years and led to high unemployment, disappearance of local unions. Prior to this financial crisis, unregulated banks gave too many loans and printed excessive amounts of their own money. The Bank of England in an attempt to boost their own their failing economy sharply curtailed the flow of money to southern planters. This crisis led to declined support for the Democrats and set the Whigs up for success. -
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The Depression of 1837-1843
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President Martin Van Buren's Term
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President William Henry Harrison's Term
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President John Tyler's Term
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President James K. Polk's Term
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The Seneca Falls Convention
Run by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott, it issued a rousing manifesto extending to women the egalitarian republican ideology of the Declaration of Independence. It denounced overture and asserted that no man had the right to tell a woman what her "sphere" should be. The Declaration called for women's higher education, property rights, access to professions, the opportunity to divorce,and an end to the sexual double standard. They called Americans to work for gender equality. -
The Gold Rush
After gold was discovered in California, a discriminatory tax in the California Territory in 1850 was established, that forced Chinese miners and Latin American immigrant miners to pay high taxes for the right to look/dig for gold. This tax effectively drove these miners from the goldfields. Many Americans flooded to California, (especially single men), and this transformed the state's landscape and population. Resulted in the expansion of manufacturing and the service industries. -
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The U.S. took control of Mexico's capital during the U.S.-Mexico War, instead of annexing Mexico into America with all of its issues/problems, they signed a treaty. It ceded a vast amount of territory to the U.S: New Mexico, Arizona, etc., but most importantly California, all for the price of $15 million. Historians believe President Polk engineered the U.S.-Mexico war just to get CA which officially made America a bi-coastal nation. Eighteen months later gold was discovered in California. -
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President Zachary Taylor's Term
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The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
A federal law that set up special federal courts to facilitate capture of anyone accused of being a runaway slave. These courts could consider a slave owner's sworn affidavit as proof, but defendants could not testify or receive a jury trial. The controversial law led to armed conflicts between U.S. marshals and abolitionists. For freed or free blacks this meant they could be kidnapped and made slaves, and now nowhere in the U.S could enslaved blacks run to and be free. -
The Compromise Of 1850
Laws passed in 1850 that were meant to resolve the status of slavery in territories acquired in the U.S. Mexico War. Key elements included the admission of CA as a free state and a Fugitive Slave Act.Slave trade (not slavery) stopped in Wash, D.C., .so that slavery would be gone from there in a generation, implement concept of popular sovereignty in the remain territories.Laws made concessions to both free/slave states to try to placate both sides of the slavery debate preserve the union. -
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President Millard Fillmore's Term
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President Franklin Pierce's Term
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Wanting to expand into the Louisiana Territory, Stephen Douglas repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed people to choose whether to be a free or slave state and therefore potentially allowing slavery or freedom to expand westward. It also formed two states, Kansas and Nebraska and Douglas convinced both the North and the South with different reasons as to why it would be a slave state or not. Far from clarifying the status of slavery, this act led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas". -
The Free Soil Movement
FreeSoilParty influenced later political developments, introducing a platform focused on limiting slavery's expansion.Principles were adopted by emerging Republican Party,which sought to unify various factions opposed to slavery.It was a key part of the growing anti-slavery movement that culminated in the Rep. capturing the pres. of 1860. Abolitionists wanted to end slavery thro out the U.S., FSP wanted to end slavery in areas under its possession such as Wash. D.C., and the western territories. -
The Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott, an enslaved man who was taken by his enslaver into a free state and also free federal territory, sued for freedom for himself and his family based on his stay in free territory. Decision that stunned the nation, the Supreme Court upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, therefore could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. -
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President James Buchanan's Term
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President Abraham Lincoln's Term
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The Anaconda Plan
Union General Scott's plan after the Confederate Attack on Fort Sumter, its main goal was to form an Atlantic and Gulf Coast blockade along the Southern ports. Take control of/block the Mississippi River region to cut Confederate forces in half. Named after the snake that slowly crushes its prey to death, this strategy proved ultimately successful although about 90% of Confederate ships were able to break through the blockade in 1861, less than 15% could a year later. -
The Pacific Railway Act of 1862
The plan was to connect the continent, coast to coast with a railroad. An ambitious project of its time funded through set amounts of differing amounts of cash per mile depending on how rough the terrain was, and also paid in land grants. Two companies were paid to construct this, each working from their side of the coast and they competed to get more money and land and so were motivated to finish. The land they gained was close to society and so had greater value, as they could sell it to ppl. -
The Homestead Act of 1862
The east coast was overcrowded with Irish immigrants flooding the nation to escape from the Potato Famine; the cities were overrun with, disease, crime, and poverty. In the west was tons of land uninhabited and so the government devised a plan to incentivize people to move out there. They offered people 160 acres to move out west. Free land. With a few requirements: they had to live on it, they had to improve on it, and they had to engage in agriculture for five years. A lot of people moved. -
The Capture of New Orleans
The Union took control of the Confederacies financial center and largest city, New Orleans and this and other Union victories, had significantly undermined Confederate strength in the Mississippi River Valley. It was a turning point in the war that precipitated the capture of the Mississippi River, which would successfully cut off the Southern supply and communication chains. Having fought past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the Union was unopposed in its capture of the city itself. -
The Battle of Antietam
This was the single most bloodiest day in U.S. military history with almost 23,000 casualties, and the first major battle in the Civil War. It ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the North. Lincoln claimed the battle as a victory but privately criticized McClellan for not pursuing Lee to seek a full Confederate surrender. Lincoln dismissed him, began search for more aggressive commanding general, began building a political and legal framework for ending slavery. -
The Emancipation Proclomation
Issued by Abraham Lincoln, declared that slavery would be legally abolished in all states that remained out of the Union on Jan., 1 1863.Everywhere Union was in control, slavery would stay, everywhere else it would remain. Lincoln tells the South that if they admit back to the Union, they could keep their system of slavery. Displays to everyone that Lincoln and the North tried Diplomacy, Lincoln knew the South wouldn't agree to it. The war now one of a moral situation, one to get rid of slavery. -
The Battle of Gettysburg
Gen. Lee goes on the offensive,knows their economy can't last(siege), so he invades the North, to town after town, chaos erupts in the North as for the first time the war is coming to them and being fought near them. The Battle lasted one day, deadliest day in American history, the North won, with a little luck.Too many deaths took a toll on Lee and he was forced to retreat to the South. From that point on he was always on retreat he had lost too many men. Gettysburg Address followed soon after. -
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Reconstruction
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The Surrender of Appomattox
After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate Capital on April 2nd, General Robert E. Lee, the most respected commander of the Confederacy surrendered at the Appomattox Court House only his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee handed his sword to Grant who handed it right back. Grant allowed the Confederates to keep their arms and return home, Lee went southwest to go to New York while Sherman went north. The War was over (besides minor battles), the Union preserved, the slaves were free. -
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President Andrew Johnson's Term
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The 13th Amendment
This amendment, the first of three Reconstruction amendments, officially abolished slavery in the United States, including the territories, except for criminal punishment. Lincoln and other leaders realized amending the Constitution was the only way to officially end slavery, and in addition to this it also outlawed the practice of involuntary servitude and peonage. Now that the blacks were freed, they needed a lot of help and guidance as to what to do now, so the Freedmen's Bureau was created. -
Johnson's Reconstruction
Lincoln's 10% plan, Wade-Davis Bill, both had differing ideas after winning the war/how to reunite the South.After Lincoln's death, Johnson went forward w/ his plan(abolished slavery clauses for state constitutions,forgave war debts)w/ a diff. of taking away political rights from Southerners who were either former leaders of the Confederacy, or owned more than $20000 in taxable property(plantation class).He had powers to pardon individual persons to Southerners that had a massive neg. effect. -
The Fourteenth Amendment
Second of the Reconstruction amendments this one declared that everyone who was born in the U.S. was a citizen and that no one could make or enforce a law that could abridge their privileges or immunities of the citizens. This granted citizenship to the formerly enslaved people. In Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled that Blacks couldn't be citizens and the Radical Republican party overturned that decision with the amendment. This amendment in the future helps bring about women's voting rights. -
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President Ulysses S. Grant's Term
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The Fifteenth Amendment
The third/final amendment of the Reconstruction, granted the right to vote for all male citizens regardless of their race or prior slave status.A huge win for the Blacks and the Radical Republican party who after Grant was elected president and who pushed to ratify it despite Southern opposition. Almost immediately after the ratification,Blacks began to take part in running for office and voting. This amendment along with the 14th eventually led to the election of a Black President years later. -
The Battle of Little Bighorn
Also known as Custer's Last Stand, this is one of the few the last Indian victories in the Indian Wars.Lt.Col.Custer the 7th Cav. Regt. thought to drive the Indians away off the land but even before splitting his troops to try to make a three pronged attack, he was vastly outnumbered against the combined forces of the Lakota Sioux,Northern Cheyenne Arapaho tribes.Custer, all his men were killed it became a rallying point for the U.S. to force Indians onto reservation lands -end the wars. -
The Political Crisis/Compromise of 1877
The Compromise resolved the election crisis by electing Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency, in exchange for federal troops in the Southern states (SA, FL, LA)to be withdrawn. Allowed the Southern Democrats to regain political power which they used to impose racial segregation through Jim Crow laws,the end of federal interference led to widespread disenfranchisement of black voters. The withdrawal ended the era of Reconstruction.This deal settled the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election.