The Federal Union at midcentury. Expansion and Federalism ; Growth and sectionalism ; The parties and unity ; War and party strains
Compromise and party strains. The Comprise of 1850 ; The Comprise and consensus ; Prosperity, consensus, and the election of 1852 ; Corruption, immigrants, and know-nothings ; Mexico, Cuba, and Kansas-Nebraska
Sectionalism and a new party system. Republicans versus know-nothings ; "Bleeding Kansas" and the election of 1856 ; The ill-fated Buchanan presidency ; A financial panic and slaveholders' panic ; The election of 1860
The old South and secession. Slavery and the roots of secession ; Secession in the lower South ; Stalemate in the upper South ; The Fort Sumter crisis
The stalemated war. The nature of the war ; The border South and First Bull Run ; Port Royal and the Trent Affair ; The union offensive through the spring of 1862 ; A new war and Confederate counterattacks: the summer and fall of 1862
The Revolutionary War. Breaking the stalemate: emancipation and the arming of Blacks ; Gearing up for total war: the winter and spring of 1863 ; The war turns: the campaigns of 1863 ; The union offensives of 1864 and the end of the Confederacy
The shaping of Reconstruction. The defeated South and presidential reconstruction ; The endangered Republican Party ; The victorious North and Congressional reconstruction ; The conservative reaction and the Grant Republicans
The unwinding of Reconstruction. The Fifteenth Amendment and the eight-hour day ; Radical Reconstruction in the South ; The failure of the radical promise ; The Grant Republicans and the politics of money ; The Liberal Republicans
America at the Centennial. The panic of 1873 ; The end of Reconstruction ; The Centennial election ; The reconstructed nation.
