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The United States Constitution is ratified; slaves are counted as three-fifths of a person and enjoy no rights of citizenship.
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The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States.
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William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of a radical abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.
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Fifty-five whites are killed in a Virginia slave revolt led by Nat Turner.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe's international best seller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, exposes the evils of slavery.
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act allows incoming settlers to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery.
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Anti-slavery northerners found the Republican Party.
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The Supreme Court decides that a slave, Dred Scott, has no rights a white man is bound to respect.
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Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate issues in the campaign for Illinois United States Senate seat.
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John Brown is executed for treason against the state of Virginia after his unsuccessful attempt to incite a slave uprising at Harpers Ferry.
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Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States.
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The Confederate States of America is formed, with Jefferson Davis sworn in as president.
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Confederates fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
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The Battle of First Manassas (Bull Run) in Virginia; 4,878 casualties.
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The Battle of the Ironclads, the Confederate Merrimac vs. the Union Monitor, Hampton Roads, Virginia.
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The Battle of Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland; 23,000 casualties in the bloodiest day of combat in American history.
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Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus for individuals deemed guilty of "discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting military drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice offering comfort to Rebels."
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Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.
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The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania; 51,000 casualties.
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50,000 people (mostly Irish) riot in New York City in opposition to the draft, attacking and beating blacks.
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Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address dedicates a battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg Pennsylvania.
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Ulysses S. Grant is named general-in-chief of the Union armies.
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Abraham Lincoln is re-elected to a second term winning more than 55 percent of the popular vote.
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Sherman captures Savannah, Georgia.
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Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery
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The KKK is founded in Tennessee.
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The Union Congress creates the Freedmen’s Bureau.
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Jefferson Davis flees Richmond, hoping to escape to the South; Abraham Lincoln arrives in the city.
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Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
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Abraham Lincoln is assassinated.
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The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees American citizens equal protection under the law
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Former Union General Ulysses S. Grant becomes president. Although allied with the Radical Republicans in Congress he does not provide strong leadership for Reconstruction.
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The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave the vote to all male citizens regardless of color or previous condition of servitude.
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Jim Crow Laws enforced racial segregation in the South after Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Act of 1964
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Last federal troops leave South Carolina effectively ending the Federal government's presence in the South.
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In 1915 the film The Birth of a Nation was released, mythologizing and glorifying the first Klan and its endeavors. Its growth was based on a new anti-immigrant, Anti-Catholic, prohibitionist and anti-Semitic agenda, which reflected contemporary social tensions, particularly recent immigration. The new organization and chapters adopted regalia featured in The Birth of a Nation; membership was kept secret by wearing masks in public.
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Ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.