Optional Websites: www.getnet.com/~1stbooks/confed.htm

http://docsouth.unc.edu/velazquez/velazquez.html

Civil War as a "Constitutional Crisis" & the Mexican Connection

I. Civil War Causes

1. Economics

2. Social

3. State Rights

4. Territorial Expansion

5. Slavery

II. Constitutional Crisis

1. Constitutional Crisis defined

2. Era of Congressional Polarization

3. Supreme Court Polarized

4. A Presidency Polarized

III. Reconstruction: Presidential vs. Congressional

IV. The Mexican Connection

1. Strategic Value of the Southwest: minerals, federal forts, coastal outlet, bolster Southern

prestige

2. Factors supporting a Southern Victory

a. Mexican loyalty: pro-state rights, anti-Union, peonage system, statehood, secessionist tradition, loyalty to Union questioned, property class, New Mexico's Slave Code of 1855

b. Mormon population: Federal invasion of Utah, persecuted by public, loyalty to Union questioned

3. Loyalist by any other name: California Column, New Mexico Volunteers: Battle of Glorieta, Battle of Valverde

Reasons in support of the Union:

1. political expediency

2. Peonage

3. Benito Juarez