Period 5: 1844-1877

Period 5 (1844-1877) follows how expansion turned the slavery question into a national crisis. Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War added huge territories, and every attempt to settle slavery there (Wilmot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott) made sectional conflict worse. Know why Lincoln's election triggered secession, the advantages that let the Union win, and how emancipation changed the war's purpose. Reconstruction brought the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and real but short-lived gains for freedpeople before Southern resistance and Northern retreat ended it in 1877.