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were indentured servants? 6. What was it like to be a slave on a large plantation in the South? 7. What rights did slaves have under the law? 8. Why do you think little children were taken from their mothers at auctions? 9. Who were the abolitionists? What did they call for? 10. What was “the Underground Railroad”?
Chapter 8 Civil War: a House Divided
Slavery had become both a moral issue and a question of political power. The election of 1860 showed clearly that the United States was a divided nation. President James Buchanan wanted to hold the Union together and keep the southern states from seceding, but was unable to do so.
Abraham Lincoln, America’s Moral Leader
(1809-1865) Term: 1861-1865 Party: Republican
Here was a man to hold against the world, A man to match the mountains and the sea.
From “Lincoln, the Man of the People” by Edwin Markham
Lincoln became a virtual symbol of the American dream whereby an ordinary person from humble beginnings could reach the pinnacle of society as president of the country. He spent difficult years of his childhood in the frontier of Indiana which set the course for his character and motivation later in life. In 1837, he was elected to the House of Representatives and began studying to become a lawyer. He was vehemently against slavery and took stands on other controversial issues. He was not elected for the second term, so he returned to his law practice. A few years later, Lincoln joined the Republicans, a new political party that was opposed to slavery. The Republicans nominated him for the U.S. Senate in his acceptance speech, he said, “a House divided against itself cannot stand… This government cannot endure, permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect it will dissolved, do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” Abraham Lincoln’s oratorical powers brought him to the attention of the nation. Nominated by the Republican Party in 1860 as its candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Lincoln won by small margin. But with his election, the country began the process of “dividing against itself”- splitting of the nation into two parts.
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Although its origins are complex, the immediate cause of the Civil War (18611865) was not the practice of slavery in the South, but the attempt of the Southern States to secede from the Union. “The South will never submit to such humiliation and degradation as the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln,” one Atlanta newspaper declared.
On December 20, 1861, South Carolina proved the prediction accurate by seceding from the Union, an action soon taken by ten other Southern states. Together they formed the Confederate States of America – their own nation with Jefferson Davis as their President – to preserve the slavery that Lincoln opposed, to protect states rights, and to ensure freedom from domination by the North. The North and South were divided and on April 12, 1861, the Civil War began. It was a war between people of the same nation: Confederacy ( the eleven Southern states including South and North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia) against the Union. A war in which brother fought against brother, the American Civil War cost the lives of more American soldiers than any other war the nation has fought. It was hugely murderous. In 1860 the US had 31.5 million people. In the next five years 364,511 union soldiers and sailors died; Confederate deaths (including those in prison camps) totaled at least 159,821. As a share of population, the Civil War was more than five times as deadly as World War II.
White southerners were fighting to preserve their way of life. For them the Civil War was a second war for independence. 9 million southerners believed they had the right to secede from the Union, just as the colonies had the right to secede from Great Britain. 23 million northerners were inspired to preserve the undivided nation. From the outset, President Davis faced overwhelming problems. Southern nationalists blamed him for not creating the strong central government the South needed to win the war, while most governors jealously guarded states’ rights. Some would not even allow their men to fight in the states other than in their own. Lack of money was an even bigger problem. The Confederacy had to resort to increasingly unpopular measures, printing paper money unbacked by gold and sending soldiers to seize crops and livestock, paying for the goods with worthless scrip. One farmer said he would “prefer seeing Yankees to our Cavalry,” and many others began hiding their produce and animals. The Confederate troops were led by Robert E. Lee, probably the greatest soldier of the Civil War. Since 1864, the Union armies were under the command of Ulysses S. Grant, a remarkable general who could led the Union to victory. In both the South and the North, groups of women formed women’s aid societies making uniforms, flags and bandages, collecting money to buy food and other supplies, organizing nursing services for the sick and wounded. As the war dragged on and enthusiasm wanted, the Confederate Congress
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instituted the first draft in American history. But by exempting men who owned at least 20 slaves, it prompted cries of “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.” The Governors of
Georgia and North Carolina ignored the draft.
The bloodiest Battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) in July 1863 was the largest battle ever fought on American soil - more than 50.000 Americans were killed or wounded. It was the turning point of the War, the Confederacy suffered one defeat after another. The Confederate armies finally lost by attrition, their cause torn by internal dissension and drained of resources. After that epic struggle, a national cemetery was established on the battlefield.
On April 9, 1865, with Lee’s surrender, the Civil War was over. The Confederacy was dissolved and its member states were gradually re-admitted into the Union. No work about the Civil War has attained the place of Gone With the Wind. It first won praise as the novel by Margaret Mitchell. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Mitchell grew up among relatives who had first-hand memories of the war and the 1864 invasion that burned their city to the ground. Published in 1936, the novel became an instant publishing phenomenon. It sold 50,000 copies in one day, a million within six months. In 1937, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Even before the book was released there was a feverish fight for the movie rights. Mitchell refused to write a script. Making of the film version, which took more than three years, was an epic in itself. Shooting began before the script was even complete. Gone With the Wind premiered in Atlanta on December 15, 1939. The film became an even bigger success than the book and won nine! Oscars.
On the fourth Monday of every May, is a Memorial Day on which Americans honor the dead. Originally a day on which flags or flowers were placed on graves of soldiers who died in the Civil War, it has become a day on which the dead of all wars and all other dead are remembered. In many communities special ceremonies are held in the cemeteries or at monuments for the war dead by veterans of military services. Some hold parades and other hold memorial services or special programs in churches, schools or other public meeting places.
Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864. The war ended. The difficult task of national reconstruction lay ahead, but Lincoln would not be the person to lead the country through that difficult period. He was the first President to be assassinated. On April 14, five days after the victory, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln attended a play at the Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. A few minutes past ten o’clock, in the Presidential box, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who disagreed with Lincoln’s political opinions. Lincoln died the following morning. When the shocked nation recovered from the impact of Lincoln’s murder, it cried for vengeance on the conspirators. The trigger man Booth was killed before he could make any public statements. He died, according
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to the general understanding, as a result of being shot to death by a religious fanatic named Boston Corbett, although Corbett’s claim is subject to question. It is important to note that with Booth dead and with the execution of the four co-conspirators from Booth’s boarding house, any higher-ups who might have been involved were reasonably safe from exposure.
There are many unanswered questions in the events that followed the murder of Abraham Lincoln. Why the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, who as well was in charge of Secret Service, refused for hours to identify the killer; why his testimony at the trial was so contradictory; why he refused to let Mr. Lincoln be guarded that fateful night by the man whom the President requested; why he failed to investigate the fact that detailed stories of the assassination were published in two newspapers many hours before the deed! If we knew the answers to these and many other questions, we might know what prompted Robert Todd Lincoln to burn some of his father’s letters. Teddy
Roosevelt, the 26th President, asked why he was burning letters that might have historical significance. Robert Lincoln replied, “It would serve no purpose to make them public. They deal with
a man who played a part in my father’s death, a member of father’s cabinet.”
Of all the presidents in the United States, Abraham Lincoln is probably the one that Americans remember the best and with deepest affection. He brought a new honesty and integrity to the White House. He would always be remembered as “honest Abe.”
Most of all he is associated with the final abolition of slavery. He put forth to the
Emancipation Proclamation, giving freedom to the slaves in the “rebel” states (1863).
The Emancipation Proclamation was a historic political step, but it did not provide a permanent legal basis for elimination of slavery. The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified on December 18, 1865, made all Americans free.
Questions for Discussion
1. Why is Lincoln believed to be a virtual symbol of the American Dream? 2. What party nominated him for the US Senate? 3. What did the presidential election of 180 show? 4. How did the South respond to Lincoln’s inauguration? 5. Which state was the first to secede from the Union? What states followed its example? 6. What did the seceding nations call their new nation? Who was Jefferson Davis? 7. Did Lincoln agree to the division of the United States? Why? 8. Why was it the hugely murderous war? 9. Which side suffered defeats and why? 10. What was the turning point of the Civil War? 11. Where the Confederacy member states re-admitted to the Union after the War? 12. When and how was President assassinated? 13 Can you provide any other examples of
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political leaders’ assassinations? 14. How is Abraham Lincoln remembered in the USA?
14What is the Emancipation Proclamation? Did it provide a legal basis for elimination of slavery? 15. When were blacks made free? Did they get the right to vote?
Talk It Over
1.Jefferson said he was afraid for his country because of slavery. Are there any conditions in your country that you are worried about?
2.As the United States grew, the North and South developed completely different economic and social conditions. Does your country have different economic regions with different economic systems or lifestyles? Do these differences cause any problems? Explain.
3.Has your nation’s history known periods when some regions/republics aspired to secede from the union? Why did it happen? What came of this?
Chapter 9 The Years of Reconstruction (18651877)
THE SOUTH AFTER WAR
President Lincoln had planned for a period of reconstruction after the Civil War. He had thought it necessary to choose new leaders for the South and to restore good relations between the North and the South. Lincoln had hoped that the Reconstruction would go quickly. But after Lincoln’s death Americans fought over how to carry out the
Reconstruction. Though the victory of the North in the American Civil War assured the integrity of the United States as an invisible nation, much was destroyed in the course of the war, and the secondary goal of the war, the abolition of the system of slavery, was only imperfectly achieved.
Much of the South was in ruin. The defeat of the Confederacy left what had been the country’s most fertile agricultural area economically destroyed and its rich culture devastated. More than 250,000 southerners had died in the fighting. With its largest and most important cities in ashes, the South entered a period of Reconstruction. The abolition of slavery created the largest minority group in the nation’s history. In a period of only a few years, millions of ex-slaves entered a world where they virtually were free to compete with all other groups for jobs and other resources. They were greatly handicapped, however by inadequate education, an agrarian background and widely held prejudice among the other ethnic groups in the United States.
Radical Republicans planned to put black southerners on an equal footing with whites and to redistribute old plantation land. White southern leaders resented these efforts.