The American Revolution of the mid 1800s
             In the midst of a civil upheaval during the 1860s and 1870s the United States underwent changes which were little short of revolutionary. Being one of the most complex and controversial periods in American history, it was during this time that many political and social reforms took place. Through the secession of the Southern States, the blood shedding of the Civil War, and the post-war Reconstruction period came many political and social issues that transformed the United States from what it was in the 1860s to what it is today.
             The secession of South Carolina in 1860 paved the way for the other states to follow and a revolution to begin. The belief that states had more power than the national government popular at the time led the way for the southern states to declare that the constitutional infidgements on their rights as states allowed them to secede. (Doc. A) Northerners and the national government did not agree. They believed in the necessary and proper clause that gave the national government the power to do what it deemed necessary to protect the country from both, foreigners and itself. With this in mind the Civil War began to reunite the country, for the only way they believed the country would be able to prosper was united with nationalism. (Doc. B)
             The Reconstruction period came after the Civil War and lasted till 1877. The political, social, and economic conditions after the Civil War changed life in the South for both blacks and whites, forever. At this time the Congress was divided politically on issues that grew out of the Civil War: Black equality, rebuilding the South, readmitting Southern states to Union, and deciding who would control government. Socially, the South was in chaos. Newly emancipated slaves wandered the South after having left their former masters, and the White population was spiritually devastated, uneasy about what lay ahead. Emancipated slaves petit...