America: from new nation to divided union, 1783–1877

This is a breadth study of change, so cover the whole span, not just the start. A recurring weakness: using only early events like Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) and never reaching later crises like the Missouri Compromise (1820) or Dred Scott (1857). The mirror error is drifting into the 20th century, which cannot be credited.

On the "explain two causes" part, marks are lost when supporting knowledge is vague or inaccurate. Weak answers gesture at "the North and South disagreed"; strong ones name and date events — the Missouri Compromise (1820), Dred Scott (1857), Lincoln's election (1860). Precise, dated fact, not narrative bulk, lifts the answer.

Separate the trigger from the deep cause of the Civil War. Lincoln's election in November 1860, opposed to slavery's spread, was the trigger that led Southern states to secede. The deep cause was the long divide over slavery and its westward expansion. Presenting the trigger as the whole explanation, or ignoring it, misjudges causation.

Do not confuse the two. The Missouri Compromise (1820) preserved a balance — Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, with a line across the Louisiana territory. The Dred Scott decision (1857) struck it down, ruling that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories. One held the Union together; the other tore it apart.

Keep the three Reconstruction amendments straight. The 13th (1865) abolished slavery; the 14th (1868) granted citizenship and equal protection; the 15th (1870) gave black men the vote. Attaching the wrong right to the wrong amendment loses precision marks on Reconstruction.

Do not confuse the two. Manifest Destiny was the belief that Americans were destined to expand west across the continent, driving settlement before the Civil War. Reconstruction (1865-77) was the rebuilding of the South and the defining of freedpeople's rights after the war. They belong to different halves of the period.

The Emancipation Proclamation (effective 1 January 1863) did not free all the enslaved. It declared free only those in Confederate areas still in rebellion, not those in the loyal border states. On the day it freed almost no one; its power was as a war measure and moral turning point. Slavery was abolished nationally only by the 13th Amendment (1865).

Neither document abolished slavery. The Missouri Compromise (1820) did not end it — it admitted Missouri (slave) and Maine (free), preserving slavery where it existed. The 1787 Constitution did not abolish it either; it left slavery to the states, counting an enslaved person as three-fifths. Slavery ended only with the 13th Amendment (1865).