Transcript Civil War - Sky Tallman

Civil War
Results of the 1860 Election
States Rights? – Why SC seceded
A House Divided – advantages of N and S
What is surprising about the electoral vote and the popular vote?
States Rights?
• South Carolina was the first
state to secede on Dec. 20, 1860
• Major Complaints:
– Fugitive Slave Clause
• (Should states in the North enforce these laws? Is it up to
individual states at all?)
• Problem for Southerners who wanted to vacation in the North
and bring house slaves.
– Should states be allowed to grant citizenship to
blacks? (A state right?)
– Attacks on the North for allowing abolitionist societies.
• Is this free speech?
Fugitive Slave laws
• Countered in the North by “Personal Liberty Laws” –
mandated a trial before a slave could be returned in
order to prevent kidnapping.
• Supreme Court decision, Prigg v. Pennsylvania  states
not required to help in hunting or capturing slaves (This
weakened a Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, and led to a new
Act in 1850).
• F.S.A. of 1850: Any federal marshal who did not arrest a
runaway slave could be fined $1000; Slaves not entitled
to a trial – slave owner only needed an afidavit.
– This presented a constitutional problem. It meant the North was
responsible for enforcing slavery.
A right to secede?
• Should states have the right to secede?
• Why not let
states
secede?
Jefferson, 1804
• “Whether we remain in one confederacy or
form into Atlantic and Mississippi
confederations, I believe not very
important to the happiness of either part.”
Lincoln, 1860
• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the union,
and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could
save the union without freeing any slave, I would do it;
and if I could do it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it;
and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others
alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and
the colored race, I do because it helps to save the union;
and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it
would help to save the union…
I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal
wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.
What changed between Jefferson
and Lincoln?
• Why did saving the union go from beingn not
very important to critically important?
• Gold Rush/Western expansion
• RR connecting East and West, and North to
South
• Economic value of the South to the North
• Secession as treason/denial of national destiny
Advantages of North and South
North
• Control of the Navy
(Could blockade the South and
continue trade with Europe)
South
• Better generals (7 of the
8 military colleges were in the
South)
• Gained moral
advantage (also helped with • Defensive war
foreign support) with the
• Hoped for the support
Emancipation
of European
proclamation
countries.
The Incredible advantage of the North
• In 1860, the North manufactured 97 percent of
the country's firearms, 96 percent of its railroad
locomotives, 94 percent of its cloth, 93 percent
of its pig iron, and over 90 percent of its boots
and shoes. The North had twice the density of
railroads per square mile. There was not even
one rifleworks in the entire South.
• All of the principal ingredients of GUNPOWDER
were imported. Since the North controlled the
navy, the seas were in the hands of the Union. A
blockade could suffocate the South.
Fort Sumter. April, 1861
• After Fort Sumter, Lincoln asked Northern
states to provide 75,000 militia to serve for
three months to put down the
insurrection.
• Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and
Tennessee, all refused to send troops and
joined the Confederacy.
– Troops were only asked to serve for three
months. What does that tell you about how
they thought the war would go?
Esprit du Corps
• Which side do you think had more
motivation to fight?
• Do you think this changed over the course
of the war?
– What factors might increase or decrease the
will to fight?
Admitting Blacks into the Army
• ~180,000 Black soldiers enlisted in the
Union army after Sept. 1862. (about half
were former slaves).
• Black soldiers were paid$10 a week ,
while white soldiers got $13 (plus a
clothing allowance, in some cases).
Congress passed a bill authorizing equal
pay for black and white soldiers in 1864.
Blacks in the Confederate Army
• Confederate President, Jefferson Davis,
signed an order allowing slaves to be
conscripted into the Southern Army in
early 1865.
• Should the South celebrate their black
confederate soldiers?
• Why might this be controversial?
Emancipation Proclamation
• Lincoln did not start out with a policy to
free slaves. But as the war went on, he
saw both military and political advantages
to pursuing an abolishionist policy.
• Military: To boost the ranks of the Union
army
• Political: To add a moral argument to the
war. This would help gain support from
European countries that might have
otherwise supported the South.
• “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons
held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State,
the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
free; and the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authority thereof, will
recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and
will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of
them, in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom.”
But it didn’t emancipate all
slaves!
• Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard,
Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension,
Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and
Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi,
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and
Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West
Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac,
Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk,
including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which
excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this
proclamation were not issued.
• And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do
order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said
designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall
be free; and that the Executive government of the United States,
including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize
and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to
abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I
recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor
faithfully for reasonable wages.
Free to join!
• And I further declare and make known, that such persons of
suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the
United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other
places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
Impact of the Proclamation
• Was this a significant move by Lincoln,
given that he only freed slaves in those
areas where he had no jurisdiction?
• Did the proclamation free the slaves, or
did it encourage slaves to free
themselves? (Who gets to take credit for
freeing the slaves?)
"by giving freedom to the slave,
we assure freedom to the free."
• Could the emancipation of the slaves be
seen as a revolutionary act?
• Jefferson Davis called the Emancipation
Proclamation“the most execrable measure
in the history of guilty man” and promised
that black prisoners of war would be
enslaved or executed on the spot.
Sherman’s March
• In November, 1864,
General Sherman
marched with his
troops from Atlanta to
the Atlantic coast with
62,000 troops.
• Finally, on April 18, 1865, the Civil War
ended with the surrender of the
Confederate army. 617,000 Americans
had died in the war, approximately the
same number as in all of America's other
wars combined. Thousands had been
injured. The southern landscape was
devastated.
• the Thirteenth Amendment, passed in
January of 1865, was implemented. It
abolished slavery in the United States, and
now, with the end of the war, four million
African Americans were free.
• The Fourteenth Amendment, passed in
June 1865, granted citizenship to all
people born or naturalized in the United
States.
• The Fifteenth Amendment, passed in
February of 1869, guaranteed that no
American would be denied the right to vote
on the basis of race. For many African
Americans, however, this right would be
short-lived. Following Reconstruction, they
would be denied their legal right to vote in
many states until the Voting Rights Act of
1965.