Government Policy & Westward Expansion (OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project)): Revision Note

Summary

The Civil War divided the northern and southern states of America, but it also provided the opportunity to join the East and the West.

The southern states had blocked attempts to build a railroad joining the states in the east with those in the west. When the southern states seceded from the Union, Congress was able to pass acts that led to both the construction of a transcontinental railway and hundreds of thousands of people moving west and building farms on the plains.

These acts were the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railroad Act, both of which were passed in 1862.

Impact of the Civil War on National Unity

• In the decades leading up to the Civil War, there was a great division between the northern states and the southern states over many issues, including the future of the US

  • The northern states wanted to expand west and create new states filled with small, family-owned farms known as homesteads

  • The southern states wanted to expand west and create states filled with enormous plantations worked by enslaved people

• Both north and south could see how the building of a railroad or railway that stretched from the east coast to the west coast would help speed the process of expansion up

  • However, neither side could agree on the route the railroad should take

    • The northern states wanted it to run from their states

    • The southern states believed it should run from theirs

• The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 split the nation in two

  • It also allowed President Abraham Lincoln to build a railroad that linked the east and west coasts and to settle the Great Plains with thousands of homesteads

Lincoln's motives

• Once the southern states seceded from the Union in 1861, they were unable to block any attempts to build a railroad or populate the plains

• Lincoln moved quickly to do both:

• Lincoln aimed to create a cohesive, integrated and connected nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean

The Homestead Act, 1862

• Lincoln believed that offering cheap land to settlers could encourage people to move westward

  • He believed this would help establish a strong presence in the West for the Union rather than the Confederacy or Mexico

• It would also improve the food supply

  • The Homestead Act had specific terms that rewarded the cultivation of the land

What was a homestead?

• Homesteads were 160 acres, enough for a house and land to support the family

  • It cost just $10 to claim a homestead plot or 'file a claim'

Who could become a homesteader?

• Almost all people were eligible to file a claim for a homestead

• These included:

  • Heads of families

  • Single men over the age of 21

  • Men younger than 21 who were ex-soldiers

  • Former enslaved people and women

• The only people specifically forbidden from being able to file claims were indigenous peoples

The Pacific Railroad Act, 1862

• The Pacific Railroad Act aimed to:

  • Construct a transcontinental railroad between the East and the West

    • The North had an extensive rail network, but it only reached as far west as Missouri

    • The railroad would have to navigate through the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains

• In 1862, the US government chose a route that connected California to Omaha, Nebraska

• The US government committed to:

  • 'Extinguish' the land rights that the Indigenous people had on the proposed route

  • Giving each railway company $16,000 for every mile of track

  • Granting public land for the railway companies to sell

  • Creating the first transcontinental electric telegraph to run along the railroad

• Construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad began in 1863

  • The Union Pacific Railway started from East to West

  • The Central Pacific Railway was constructed from West to East

  • They aimed to join the two railroads together

    • On 10th May 1869, the two railroads connected at Promontory Summit, Utah