Transcript AP Chapter_20 - SocialStudiesWhitecotton

We Must Settle This Question Now, Whether In A Free Government
The Minority Have The Right To Break Up The Government Whenever
They Choose. If We Fail It Will Go Far To Prove The Incapability Of The
People To Govern Themselves…….A. Lincoln May 7, 1861
The Menace of Secession
 On March 4, 1861, Abraham
16th
Lincoln was inaugurated the
President. In his inaugural
address, he stated that there
would be no conflict unless the
South provoked one.
 He marked restoration of the
union as his top goal.
Lincoln stated that
geographically, the United
States could not be split.
How would national debt
and the allocation of
federal territories be
decided?
A split U.S. would also please
the European countries,
since the U.S. was the only
major display of democracy
in the Western
Hemisphere.
South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
 Most of the forts in the South had
relinquished their power to the
Confederacy, but Fort Sumter was
among the two that had not. Its
supplies were running out against a
besieging South Carolinian army.
What would Lincoln do?
 Lincoln wisely chose to send
supplies to the fort, and he told
the
South Carolinian governor that
the ship to the fort only held
provisions, not reinforcements.
 However, to the South, provisions
were reinforcements, and on April
12, 1861, cannons were fired onto
the fort; after 34 hours of
non-lethal firing, the fort
surrendered.
Aftermath of firing
on Fort Sumter
Northerners were inflamed by the
South’s actions, and Lincoln
now called on 75,000 volunteers to
prepare for war.
On April 19 and 27, Lincoln also called
a naval blockade on the South that was
leaky at first but soon clamped down
tight.
The Deep South (which had already
seceded), felt that Lincoln was
now waging an aggressive war, and was
joined by four more Southern
states: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee,
and North Carolina.
The capital of the Confederacy was
moved from Montgomery, AL to
Richmond, VA.
The Boarder States
 The boarder states were
Missouri, Kentucky,
Maryland and Delaware
(later West Virginia when
46 counties seceded from
Virginia)
 Lincoln kept boarder states
in Union by declaring
martial law, military
occupation and not
initially making Civil War a
war of abolition
The Balance of Forces
 The South, at the beginning of the war had some advantages
 It only had to fight to a draw to win, since all it had to do was
keep the North from invading and taking over all of its territory.
 It had the most talented officers, including Robert E. Lee and
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and most of the Southerners had
been trained in a military-style upbringing and education since they
were children, as opposed to the tame Northerners. Many top Southern
young men attended military schools like West Point, The Citadel, or
VMI.
 However, the South was handicapped by a shortage of factories and
manufacturing plants, but during the war, those developed in the South.
 Still, as the war dragged on, the South found itself with a
shortage of shoes, uniforms, blankets, clothing, and food, which
didn’t reach soldiers due to supply problems.
 However, the North had a huge economy, many more men available to
fight, and it controlled the sea, though its officers weren’t as
well-trained as some in the South.
 As the war dragged on, Northern strengths beat Southern advantages.
Dethroning King Cotton
 Southern strategy was to hope England would join their side because of
a shortage of cotton. However, the North sent cotton and King Grain to
England and Uncle Tom’s Cabin had impacted the English people
greatly. England also got cotton from Egypt and India.
The Trent Affair
 On November 8, 1861, the USS
Jacinto, flouting international laws,
stopped the British mail packet the
Trent sailing from Havana to
England and arrested two
Confederate diplomats and their
secretaries who were on a
diplomatic mission to England.
They were imprisoned in Boston.
The British government demanded
their release.
 The affair caused a "profound
sensation" in British North
America as the Maritimes and
Canada realized that they could
become a battlefield in a
potential Anglo-Northern war.
The militia was called up.
London announced that it
would defend its colonies with
all its power and sent 14,000
officers and men as
reinforcements.
 On Christmas Day the prisoners
were released and tension
relaxed for the moment.
The Alabama Claims
 The controversy began when
Confederate agents contracted for
warships from British boatyards.
Disguised as merchant vessels during
their construction in order to circumvent
British neutrality laws, the craft were
actually intended as commerce raiders.
The most successful of these cruisers was
the Alabama, which was launched on
July 29, 1862. It captured 58 Northern
merchant ships before it was sunk in
June 1864 by a U.S. warship off the coast
of France. In addition to the Alabama,
other British-built ships in the
Confederate Navy included the Florida,
Georgia, Rappahannock, and
Shenandoah.
 Together, they sank more than 150
Northern ships and impelled much of
the U.S. merchant marine to adopt
foreign registry. The damage to Northern
shipping would have been even worse
had not fervent protests from the U.S.
Government persuaded British and
French officials to seize additional ships
intended for the Confederacy. Most
famously, on September 3, 1863, the
British Government impounded two
ironclad, steam-driven “Laird rams”
that Confederate agent James D.
Bulloch had surreptitiously arranged
to be built at a shipyard in Liverpool.
Minister to England Charles Francis
Adams negotiated this with England.
The Alabama Claims

The United States demanded compensation
from Britain for the damage wrought by the
British-built, Southern-operated commerce
raiders, based upon the argument that the
British Government, by aiding the creation of
a Confederate Navy, had inadequately
followed its neutrality laws. The damages
discussed were enormous. Charles Sumner,
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, argued that British aid to the
Confederacy had prolonged the Civil War by 2
years, and indirectly cost the United States
hundreds of millions, or even billions of
dollars (the figure Sumner suggested was
$2.125 billion). Some Americans adopted this
argument and suggested that Britain should
offer Canada to the United States in
compensation. Such proposals were not taken
seriously by British statesmen, but they convey
the passion with which some Americans
viewed the issue.
Laird Rams
Alabama Claims
 Treaty of Washington
 After years of unsuccessful U.S.
diplomatic initiatives, a Joint High
Commission meeting in Washington,
D.C. during the early part of 1871 arrived
at the basis for a settlement. The British
Government expressed regret for its
contribution to the success of
Confederate commerce raiders. This
agreement, dated May 8, 1871, and
known as the Treaty of Washington, also
established an arbitration commission to
evaluate the merit of U.S. financial
claims on Britain. In addition, the treaty
addressed Anglo-American disputes over
boundaries and fishing rights. The
arbitration commission, which issued its
decision in September 1872, rejected
American claims for indirect damages,
but did order Britain to pay the United
States $15.5 million as compensation for
the Alabama claims.
Foreign Flare Ups
 Near Canada, Confederate agents
plotted (and sometimes succeeded)
to burn down American cities, and
as a result, there were several
mini-armies (raised mostly by
British-hating Irish-Americans) sent
to
Canada.
 Napoleon III of France also installed
a puppet government in Mexico
City, putting in the Austrian
Archduke Maximilian as emperor of
Mexico,
but after the war, the U.S.
threatened violence, and Napoleon
left
Maximilian to doom at the hands of
a Mexican firing squad.
Napoleon III
President Lincoln v. President Davis
 The problem with the South was
that it gave states the ability to
secede in the future, and getting
Southern states to send troops to
help other states was always difficult
to do. By definition in a
confederacy, national power was
weak.
 Jefferson Davis was never really
popular and he overworked himself.
 Lincoln, though with his problems,
had the benefit of leading an
established government and grew
patient and relaxed as the war
dragged on.
Limitations on Wartime Liberties

Abe Lincoln did make some tyrannical acts
during his term as president, such as illegally
proclaiming a blockade, proclaiming acts
without Congressional consent, and sending
in troops to the Border States, but he justified
his actions by saying that such acts
weren’t permanent, and that he had to do
those things in order to preserve the Union.

Such actions included the advancement of $2
million to three private citizens for war
purposes, the suspension of habeas corpus so
that anti-Unionists could be arrested without a
formal charge, and the
intimidation of voters in the Border States.

The Confederate states’ refusal to sacrifice
some states’ rights led to the handicapping of
the South, and perhaps
to its ultimate downfall.
Volunteers and Draftees
 At first, there were numerous
volunteers, but after the
initial enthusiasm slacked off,
Congress passed its first
conscription law ever(the
draft), one that angered the
poor because rich men could
hire a substitute instead of
entering the war just by
paying $300 to Congress.
 As a result, many riots broke
out, such as one in New York
City.
 Bounty jumpers ( three
hundred dollar men)
 Volunteers manned more
than 90% of the Union army,
and as volunteers became
scarce, bonuses were offered
in return for service; still,
there were many deserters.
 The South had to resort to a
draft nearly a year before the
North ,and it also had its
privileges for the rich—those
who owned or oversaw 20
slaves or more were exempt
from the draft.
Northern Draft Day
Financing the Civil War
 The North passed the 1861
Morrill Tariff Act, increasing
tariff rates by about 5 to 10%,
but war soon drove those rates
even higher.
 The Washington Treasury also
issued greenback paper money
totaling
nearly $450 million, but this
money was very unstable and
sank to as
low as 39 cents per gold dollar.
 The federal Treasury also
netted $2.6 billion in the sale
of bonds.
 The National Banking System was a
landmark of the war, created to
establish a standard bank-note
currency, and banks that joined the
National Banking System could buy
government bonds and issue sound
paper money.
 The National Banking Act was
the first step toward a unified
national banking network since
1836, when the Bank of the
United States was killed by
Andrew Jackson.
 In the South, runaway inflation
plagued the Confederates, and
overall, in the South inflation went
up to 9000%, as opposed to
“just” 80% in the North.
The North’s Economic Boom
 The North actually emerged
from the Civil War more
prosperous than before, since
new factories had been formed
and a millionaire class was
born for the first time in history.
 However, many Union suppliers
used shoddy equipment in their
supplies, such as using
cardboard as the soles of shoes.
 Sizes for clothing were invented,
and the reaper helped feed
millions.
 In 1859, a discovery of petroleum
oil sent people to Pennsylvania.
First oil drilling
Women in the War
 Women gained new advances in
the war, taking the jobs left
behind by men going off to
battle, and other women posed
as men and became
soldiers with their husbands.
 Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix
helped transform nursing
from a lowly
service to a respected
profession, and in the South,
Sally Tompkins ran
a Richmond infirmary for
wounded Confederate soldiers
and was awarded
the rank of Captain by
Jefferson Davis.
A Crushed Cotton Kingdom
 The South was ruined by the
war, as transportation collapsed
and
supplies of everything became
scarce, and by the end of the
war, the
South claimed only 12% of the
national wealth as opposed to
30% before
the war, and it’s per capita
income was now 2/5 that of
Northerners, as opposed to 2/3
of Northerners before the war.
 Still, though many Southerners
were resourceful and spirited,
the South just could not win.
