Confederate States of America in the context of "United States of America"

The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is a conservative and right-wing political party in the United States. It emerged as the main rival of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, and the two parties have dominated American politics since then.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists opposing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories. It rapidly gained support in the North, drawing in former Whigs and Free Soilers. Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 led to the secession of Southern states and the outbreak of the American Civil War. Under Lincoln and a Republican-controlled Congress, the party led efforts to preserve the Union, defeat the Confederacy, and abolish slavery. During the Reconstruction era, Republicans sought to extend civil rights protections to freedmen, but by the late 1870s the party shifted its focus toward business interests and industrial expansion. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it dominated national politics, promoting protective tariffs, infrastructure development, and laissez-faire economic policies, while navigating internal divisions between progressive and conservative factions. The party's support declined during the Great Depression, as the New Deal coalition reshaped American politics. Republicans returned to national power with the 1952 election of Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose moderate conservatism reflected a pragmatic acceptance of many New Deal-era programs.

The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's third-largest land area and third-largest population, exceeding 340 million.

Paleo-Indians first migrated from North Asia to North America over 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations. Spanish colonization established Spanish Florida in 1513, the first European colony in what is now the continental United States. British colonization followed with the 1607 settlement of Virginia, the first of the Thirteen Colonies. Enslavement of Africans was practiced in all colonies by 1770 and supplied most of the labor for the Southern Colonies' plantation economy. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and lack of parliamentary representation sparked the American Revolution, leading to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international recognition of U.S. sovereignty and fueled westward expansion, dispossessing native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–South division over slavery led the Confederate States of America to attempt secession and fight the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the United States' victory and reunification, slavery was abolished nationally. By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement in World War I. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers, competing for ideological dominance and international influence during the Cold War. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the U.S. as the world's sole superpower.

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and the naval warfare force of the United States. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, one undergoing trials, two new carriers under construction, and six other carriers planned as of 2024. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the U.S. Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 299 deployable combat vessels and about 4,012 operational aircraft as of 18 July 2023. The U.S. Navy is a part of the United States Department of Defense and is one of six armed forces of the United States and one of eight uniformed services of the United States.

The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. After suffering significant loss of goods and personnel at the hands of the Barbary pirates from Algiers, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 for the construction of six heavy frigates, the first ships of the Navy. The United States Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers. It played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The United States Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world, succeeding the British Navy. The modern United States Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. It is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and rapidly respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in American foreign and military policy.

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating the Confederate States and playing a major role in the abolition of slavery.

Lincoln was born into poverty in Kentucky and raised on the frontier. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. representative. Angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the territories to slavery, he became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, prompting a majority of slave states to begin to secede and form the Confederate States. A month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve African American slavery, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North.

Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets within its borders. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy asserted control over a third of the US population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.

The Union is a term used to refer to the central government and loyal states of the United States during the American Civil War. Its military forces and civilian population resisted the purported secession of the slave states that formed the Confederate States of America following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Lincoln's administration asserted the permanency of the federal government and the continuity of the United States Constitution, and it refused to recognize the Confederate government.

Nineteenth-century Americans commonly used the term Union to mean either the federal government of the United States or the unity of the states within the federal constitutional framework. The Union can also refer to the people or territory of the states that remained loyal to the national government during the war. The loyal U.S states located mostly above the Mason–Dixon line were also known as the North, although four southern border states and the future state of West Virginia remained loyal to the Union, and Black Southerners and many Southern Unionists opposed secession and supported the Union war effort.

The Reconstruction era was a period in US history that followed the American Civil War (1861–1865) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the abolition of slavery and reintegration of the former Confederate States into the United States. Three amendments were added to the United States Constitution to grant citizenship and equal civil rights to the newly freed slaves. To circumvent these, former Confederate states imposed poll taxes and literacy tests and engaged in terrorism to intimidate and control African Americans and discourage or prevent them from voting.

Throughout the war, the Union was confronted with the issue of how to administer captured areas and handle slaves escaping to Union lines. The United States Army played a vital role in establishing a free labor economy in the South, protecting freedmen's rights, and creating educational and religious institutions. Despite its reluctance to interfere with slavery, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts to seize Confederates' slaves, providing a precedent for President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Congress established a Freedmen's Bureau to provide much-needed food and shelter to the newly freed slaves. As it became clear the Union would win, Congress debated the process for readmission of seceded states. Radical and moderate Republicans disagreed over the nature of secession, conditions for readmission, and desirability of social reforms. Lincoln favored the "ten percent plan" and vetoed the Wade–Davis Bill, which proposed strict conditions for readmission. Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, just as fighting was drawing to a close. He was replaced by Andrew Johnson, who vetoed Radical Republican bills, pardoned Confederate leaders, and allowed Southern states to enact draconian Black Codes that restricted the rights of freedmen. His actions outraged many Northerners and stoked fears the Southern elite would regain power. Radical Republicans swept to power in the 1866 midterm elections, gaining majorities in both houses of Congress.