Civil War and Reconstruction

Denmark Vesey

A free black, he led a ill-fated slave rebellion in Charleston in 1822. Betrayed by informers, Vesey and more than 30 followers were hanged.

Nat Turner

A semi-literate, visionary black preacher, he led an uprising that slaughtered about 60 Virginians, mostly women and children.

What were the greatest success and failure of the Freedmen's Bureau?

Abolitionists had long preached that slavery was a degrading institution. Now the emancipators were faced with the brutal reality that the freedmen were overwhelmingly unskilled, unlettered, without property or money, and wit scant knowledge of how ti survive as free people. To cope with this problem throughout the conquered South, congress created the Freedmen's Bureau on March 3, 1865. On paper at least, the bureau was intended to be a kind of primitive welfare agency. It was to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education both to freedmen and to white refugees. The bureau achieved its greatest successes in education. It taught an estimated 200,000 blacks how to read. Many former slaves had a passion for learning =, partly because they wanted to close the gap between themselves and the whites and partly because they longed to read the Word of God. But in other areas, the bureau's accomplishments were meager-or even mischievous. Although the bureau was authorized to settle former slaves on forty-acre tracts confiscated from the Confederates, little land actually made it into blacks' hands. Instead local administrators often collaborated with planters in expelling blacks from towns and cajoling them into signing labor contracts to work for their former masters. Still, the white South resented the bureau as a meddlesome federal interloper that threatened to upset white racial dominance. President Andrew Jonson, who shared the white-supremacist vies of most white Southerners, repeatedly tried to kill it, and it expired in 1872.

What was meant by "cotton is king!"?

as time passed, the Cotton Kingdom developed into a huge agricultural factory. Quick profits drew planters to the virgin bottomlands of the Gulf states; caught up in an economic spiral, the planters bought more slaves and land to grow more cotton, so as to buy more slaves and land. Northern shippers reaped a large part of he profits from the cotton trade. They would ship cotton, sell it Britain, and buy manufactured goods for sale in the the United States. To a large degree, the prosperity of both North and South rested on southern slaves. Cotton accounted for half the value of all American exports after 1840. The South produced more than half o the entire world's supply of cotton- a fact that held foreign nations in partial bondage. Britain's most important single manfacture in the 1850s wascotton cloth, which 1/5 of its population drew its livelihood from. About 75% of its cotton came from the South. This tie between Britain and the South gave Southern leaders a heady sense of power. In their eyes "Cotton was King," the gin was his throme, and the black bondsmen his nenchmen. If war was to break out between the South and North, he North would presumably cut off the trade to Britain. Cotton factories would close their gates, starving mobs would attack the London governemtn to break the blockade, and te South would triumph

Judging from the excerpt from Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address, what might Lincoln's policy of Reconstruction have been if he had lived?

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Lincoln would have most likely focused on improving the South's economy and fixing their problems as much as or more than the North's economy and its problems. He would also make sure the amendments passed by Congress for the African Americans to truly put them on the same field as whites and to give them true citizenship.

Why was abolitionism unpopular in the North?

Abolitionists-especially the extreme Garrisonians-were for a long time unpopular in many parts of the North. Northerners had been brought up to revere the Constitution and to regard the clauses on slavery as a lasting bargain. The ideal of Union, hammered home by the thundering eloquence of Daniel Webster and others, had taken deep root. and Garrison's wild talk of secession grated harshly on northern ears. The North also had a heavy economic stake in Dixieland. By the late 1850s, the southern planters owed northern bankers and other creditors about $300 million, and much of this immense sum would be lost-as, in fact, it later was-should the Union dissolve. New England textile mills were fed with cotton raised by the slaves, and a disrupted labor system might cut off this vital supply and bring unemployment. The Union during these critical years were partly bound together with cotton threads, tied by the lords of the loom in collaboration with the so-called lords of the lash. IT was not surprising that strong hostility developed in the North against the boat-rocking tactics of the radical antislaverites.

Why did Lee invade the North in 1862 and again in 1863?

After Lee won the Second Battle of Bull Run (August 29-30, 1862) and was emboldened by the success, Lee daringly thrust into Maryland. e hoped to strike a blow that would not only encourage foreign intervention but also seduce the still-wavering Border State and its sisters from the Union. Lee would retreat from the battle Antietam. After winning the battle at Chancellorsville, Virginia (May 2-4, 1863), Lee prepared to follow up his stunning victory by invading the North again, this time through Pennsylvania. A decisive blow would add strength to the noisy peace prodders in the North and would also encourage foreign intervention-still a Southern hope. The coming Battle of Gettysburg would be lost by Lee.

What four questions "loomed large" at the end of the War?

After the Civil War, the American people, North and South, now faced the staggering challenges of peace. Four questions loomed large. How would the South, physically devastated by war and socially revolutionized by emancipation, be rebuilt? How would the liberated blacks fare as free men and women? How would the Southern states be reintegrated into the Union? And who would direct the process of Reconstruction-the Southern states themselves, the president, or Congress?

How was the Reconstruction Act moderate?

Against a backdrop of vicious and bloody race riots that erupted in several Southern cities, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act on March 2, 1867. Supplemented by later measures, this drastic legislation divided the South into five military districts, each commanded by a Union general and policed by blue-clad soldiers, about twenty thousand all told. The act also temporarily disfranchised tens of thousands of former Confederates. Congress additionally laid down stringent conditions for readmission of the seceded states. The wayward states were required to ratify the 14th Amendment, giving the former slaves their rights as citizens. The bitterest pill of all to white Southerners was the stipulation that they guarantee in their state constitutions full suffrage for their former adult male slaves. Yet the act, reflecting moderate sentiment, stopped short of giving the freedmen land or education at federal expense. The overriding purpose of the moderates was to create and electorate in Southern states that would vote those states back into the UN ion on acceptable terms and thus free the federal government from direct responsibility for the protection of black rights. As later events would demonstrate, this approach proved woefully inadequate to the cause of justice for the blacks.

What did the Black Codes aim to do?

Among the first acts of the new Southern regimes sanctioned by Johnson was the passage of the iron-toothed Black Codes. These laws were designed to regulate the affairs of emancipated blacks, much as the slaves statutes had done in pre-Civil War days. Some were more harsh then others. Mississippi passed the first such law in November 1865. the Black codes aimed, first of all, to ensure a stable ans subservient labor force. The crushed Cotton Kingdom could not rise from its weds until the fields were once again out under hoe and plow-and many whites wanted make sure that they retained the tight control they had exercised over black field hands and plow drivers in the days of slavery. Dire penalties were therefore imposed by the codes on blacks who "jumped: their labor contracts, which usually committed them to work for the same employer for one year, and generally at pittance wages. Violators could be made to forfeit back wages or could be forcibly dragged back to work by a paid "Negro-catcher." The codes also sought to restore as nearly as possible the pre-emancipation system of race relations. Freedom was legally recognized, as were some other privileges, such as the right to marry. But all the codes forbade a black to serve in a jury; some even barred blacks from renting or leasing land. A black could be punished for "idleness" by sentenced to work on a chain gang. Nowhere were blacks allowed to vote.

What caused the South to "lash back" at abolitionists?

Antislavery sentiment was not unknown in the South, and in the 1820s antislavery societies were more numerous in the South than in the North. But after about 1830, the voice of white southern abolitionism was silenced. In a last gasp of southern questioning of slavery, the Virginia legislature debated and eventually defeated various emancipation proposals in 1831-1832. That debate marked a turning point. Thereafter all the slave states tightened their slave codes and moved to prohibit emancipation of an kind, voluntary or compensated. Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 sent a wave of hysteria sweeping the South, and planters in growing numbers slept with pistols under their pillows. Although Garrison had no demonstrable connection with the Turner conspiracy, his Liberator appeared at about the same time, and he was bitterly condemned as a terrorist and inciter of murder. The nullification crisis of 1832 further implanted haunting fears on white southern minds. conjuring up nightmares of black incendiaries and abolitionist devils. Jailings, whippings, and lynchings now greeted rational efforts to discuss the slavery problem in the South.

Why did the Free Soilers condemn slavery?

Ardent antislavery men in the North, distrusting both Cass and Taylor, organized the Free Soil party, Aroused by the conspiracy of silence in the Democratic and Whig platforms, the Free-Soilers made no bones about their own stand. They came out foursquare for the Wilmot Proviso and against slavery in the territories. Going beyond other antislavery groups, they broadened their appeal by advocating federal aid for internal improvements and by urging free government homesteads for settlers. the Free-Soilers trotted out wizened former president Van Buren and marched into the fray, shouting. "Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men." These freedoms provided the bedrock on which the Free-Soilers built their party. Free-Soilers condemned slavery not so much for enslaving blacks but for destroying the chance of free white workers to rise up from wage-earning dependence to the esteemed status of self-employment. Free-Soilers argued that only with free soil in the West could a traditional American commitment to upward mobility continue to flourish. If forced to compete with slave labor, more costly wage labor would inevitable y wither away, and with it the chance for the American worker to own property.

What lay at the "root" of the controversy between Johnson and Congress?

As 1866 lengthened, the battle grew between the Congress and the president. The root of the controversy was Johnson's "10%" governments that had passed the most stringent Black Codes. Congress had tried to temper the worst features of the codes by extending the life of the embattled Freedmen's Bureau and passing the Civil Rights Bill. Both measures measures Johnson had vetoed. Now the issue was whether the Reconstruction was to be carried on with or without the 14th Amendment. The Republicans would settle for nothing less.

How did Eli Whitney's cotton gin "scramble" the predictions about the economics of slavery?

At the dawn of the Republic, slavery faced an uncertain future. Touched by Revolutionary idealism, some southern leaders, including Thomas Jefferson, were talking openly of freeing their slaves. Others predicted that the iron logic of economics would eventually expose slavery's unprofitability, speeding its demise. But the introduction of Eli Whitney's cotton gin in 1793 scrambled all those predictions. Whitney's invention made possible the wide-scale cultivation if short-staple cotton. The white fiber rapidly became the dominant southern crop, eclipsing tobacco, rice, and sugar. the explosion of cotton cultivation created and insatiable demand for labor, chaining the slave of the gin, and the planter to the slave. AS the 19th century opened, the reinvigoration of southern slavery carried fateful implications for black and whiter alike-and threatened the survival of the nation itself

What is meant by the "planter aristocracy", and what were its drawbacks?

Before the Civil War, the South was in some respects not so much a democracy as an oligarchy-or a government by the few, in this case the planter aristocracy. in 1850 only 1,773 families owned more than 100 slaves each, and this select group provided the cream of the political and social leadership of the section and nation. The planter aristocrats, enjoyed a lion's share of southern wealth. They could educate their children in the finest schools. Their money provided the leisure for study, reflection, and statecraft. They felt a keen sense of obligation to serve the public. But even in its best light, dominance by the favored aristocracy was basically undemocratic. It widened the gap between rich and poor. It hampered tax-supported public education, because the rich planters could and did send their children to private institutions. Elite Southerners idealized a feudal society, even when many of their economic activities were undeniably capitalistic. The plantation system also shaped the lives of southern woman; slavery strained even the bonds pf womanhood.

Why was the election of 1860 "the most fateful in American history"?

Beyond question the presidential election of 1860 was the most fateful in American history. On it hung the issue of peace or civil war.

What "appalling blunder" did the South commit in 1850?

Beyond question, the Fugitive Slave Law was an appalling blunder on the part of the South. No single irritant of the 1850s was more persistently galling to both sides, and none did more to awaken in the North a spirit of antagonism against the South. The southerners in turn were embittered because the northerners would not in good faith execute the law-the one real and immediate southern "gain" from the Great Compromise. Slave-catchers, with some success, redoubled their efforts.

What may have motivated Douglas to propose the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Douglas's motives in prodding anew the snarling dog of slavery have long puzzled historians. His personal interests have already been mention (an ardent booster for the West, he longed to break the North-South deadlock over westward expansion and stretch a line of settlements across the continent. He had also invested heavily in Chicago real estate and in railway stock and was eager to have the Windy City become the eastern terminus of the proposed Pacific railroad. He would thus endear himself to the voters of Illinois, benefit his section, and enrich his own purse). In addition, his foes accused him of angling for the presidency in 1856. Yet his admirers argued plausibly in his defense that if he had championed the ill-omened bill, someone else would have. The truth seems to be that Douglas acted somewhat impulsively and recklessly. His hear did not bleed over the issue of slavery, and he declared repeatedly that he did not care whether it was voted up or down in the territories. What he failed to perceive was the hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens in the North did feel deeply in this moral issue.

How was the Dred Scott decision a "thunderclap"?

Dred Scott, a black slave, had lived with his master for five years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued fro freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The Supreme Court ruled, not surprisingly, that Dred Scott was a black slave and not a citizen, and hence could not sue in federal courts. The tribunal could then have thrown out the case on these technical grounds alone. Nut a majority decided to go further lead by Chief Justice Taney. A sweeping judgement on the larger issue of slavery in the territories seemed desirable. The prosouthern majority (two free-soil justices opposed) evidently hoped in this way to lay the odious question to rest. Taney's thunderclap rocked the free-soilers back o their heels. A majority of the Court decreed that because a slave was private property, he or she could be taken into any territory and legally held there in slavery. The reasoning was that the Fifth Amendment clearly forbade Congress to deprive people of their property without due process of the law. The Court went further. The Missouri Compromise, banning slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, had been repealed 3 years earlier by the K-N Act. But its spirit was still venerated in the north. Now the Court ruled hat the Compromise of 1820 had been unconstitutional all along: Congress had no power to ban slavery from the territories, regardless even of what the territorial legislatures themselves might want. Southerners were delighted with this unexpected victory. Champions of popular sovereignty were aghast. Another lethal wedge was thus driven between he northern and southern wings of the once-united Democratic party. Foes of slavery extension, especially the Republicans, were infuriated by the Dred Scott setback. Their chief rallying cry had been the banishing of bondage from the territories. They now insisted that the ruling of the Court was merely an opinion, not a decision. Republican defiance of the exalted tribunal was intensified by the awareness that a majority of its members were southerners. Southerners in turn were inflamed by all this defiance. The began to wonder anew ow much longer they could remain joined to a section that refused the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the constitutional compact that had established it.

How did Lincoln and the radicals disagree on Reconstruction?

Even before the shooting war had ended, the political war over Reconstruction had begun. Lincoln believed that the Southern states had never legally withdrawn from the Union. Their formal restoration to the Union would be relatively simple. Accordingly, Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed his "10 percent" Reconstruction plan. IT decreed that a state could be reintegrated into the Union when 10% of its voters in the presidential election had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States and pledged to abide by emancipation. The next step would be formal erection of a state government Lincoln would then recognize the purified regime. Lincoln's proclamation provoked a sharp reaction in Congress, where Republicans feared the restoration of the planter aristocracy to power and the possible re-enslavement of the blacks. Republicans therefore rammed through Congress in 1854 the Wade-Davis Bill. It required that 50 percent of a state's voters take the oath of allegiance and demanded stronger safeguards for emancipation than Lincoln's as the price of readmission. Lincoln "pocket-vetoed" this bill by refusing to sign it after Congress had adjourned. Republicans were outraged. They refused to seat delegates from Louisiana after the state had reorganized its government in accordance with Lincoln's 10% plan in 1864. The controversy surrounding the Wade-Davis Bill had revealed deep differences between the president and Congress. Unlike Lincoln, many in Congress insisted that the seceders had indeed left the Union-had "committed suicide" as republican states-and had therefore forfeited all their rights. They could be readmitted only as "conquered provinces" on such conditions as Congress should decree. This episode further revealed differences among Republicans. Two factions were emerging. the majority moderate group tended to agree with Lincoln that the seceded states should be restored to the Union as simply and swiftly as reasonable-though on Congress's terms, not the president's. The minority radical group believed that the South should atone more painfully for its sins. Before the South should be restored, the radicals wanted its social structure uprooted, the haughty planters punished, and the newly emancipated blacks protected by federal power.

Why was Antietam a "landmark" and the most decisive battle of the War?

Events finally converged in Maryland toward a critical battle at Antietam Creek, Maryland. Lincoln, yielding to popular pressure, hastily restored "Little Mac" to active command of the main Northern army. Fortune shone upon McClellan when two Union soldiers found a copy of Lee's battle plans wrapped around a packet of three cigars dropped by a careless Confederate officer. With this crucial piece of intelligence in hand, McClellan succeeded in halting Lee at Antietam on September 17, 1862, in one of the bitterest and bloodiest days of the war. Vietnam was more or less a draw militarily. But Lee, finding his thrust parried, retired across the Potomac. McClellan, from whom much more had been hoped, was removed from his field command for the second and final time. the landmark Battle of Antietam was one of the decisive of world history-probably the most decisive of the Civil War. Jefferson Davis was perhaps never again so near victory as on that fateful summer day. The British and French governments were on the verge of diplomatic mediation, a form of interference sure to be angrily resented by the North. Am almost certain rebuff by Washington might well have spurred Paris and London into armed collusion with Richmond. But both capitals cooled off when then Union displayed unexpected power at Antietam. Vietnam also provided Lincoln with the long-awaited opportunity to launch his Emancipation Proclamation. The abolitionists were increasingly impatient. Lincoln hesitated to go further while the loyalty of the border states was in doubt, and while the North's military fortunes seemed so uncertain. By the Summer of 1862, Lincoln was ready fro bold action with the wavering states coming into the Union fold. The solid victory of Antietam acted as a springboard which allowed Lincoln to proclaim emancipation from a position of military strength.

How was Johnson a "misfit"?

Few presidents have ever been faced with a more perplexing sea of troubles than that confronting Andrew Johnson. Born to impoverished parents in North Carolina and early orphaned, Johnson never attended school but was apprenticed to a tailor at age ten. He taught himself how to read, and his wife taught him to write and do simple arithmetic. Johnson early became active in politics in Tennessee, where he shone as an impassioned champion of the poor whites against the planter aristocrats, although he himself ultimately owned a few slaves. Elected to Congress, he attracted much favorable attention in the North (but not the South) when he refused to secede with his own state. After Tennessee was partially "redeemed" by Union armies, he was appointed war governor and served courageously in an atmosphere of danger. Political exigency next thrust Johnson into the vice presidency. Lincoln's Union party in 1864 needed to attract support from the War Democrats and other pro-Southern elements, and Jonson, a Democrat, seemed to be the ideal man. Yet them man who raised himself from the tailor's bench to the president;s chair was a misfit. A Southerner who did not understand the North, a Tennessean who had earned the distrust of the South, a Democrat who had never been accepted by the Republicans, a president who had never been elected to the office, he was at home in a republican White House. Hotheaded, contentious, and stubborn, he was the wrong man in the wrong place in the wrong time.

How did Uncle Tom's Cabin help to win the War?

Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. She was determined to awaken the North to the wickedness of slavery by laying bare its terrible inhumanity, especially the cruel splitting of families. Her wildly popular book relied on powerful imagery and touching pathos. It was widely successful (several hundred thousand copies in first year, totals ran into millions). The truth is that Uncle Tom's Cabin did help to start the Civil War-and win it. The South condemned Stowe when it learned that hundreds of thousands of Americans were reading and believing her "unfair" indictment. Mrs. Stowe had never witnessed slavery at first hand in the Deep South, bu she had sen it briefly during a visit to Kentucky. Uncle Tom left a profound impression on the North. Uncounted thousands of readers swore henceforth they would have nothing to do with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. The tale was devoured by millions of impressionable youths in the 1850s, many of whom would fight for the Union. The memory of a beaten and dying Uncle Tom helped sustain them in determination to wipe out the plague of slavery. The novel was immensely popular abroad, especially in Britain and France. When the Civil War began, the people of England cheered for Northern victory to spell the end of the black course. The governments in London and Paris seriously considered intervening on behalf of the South, nut they were sobered by the realization that many of their own people might not support them.

What were the achievements and failure of the Radical regimes?

How well did the radical regimes rule? The radical legislatures passed much desirable legislation and introduced many badly needed reforms. For the first time in Southern history, steps were taken toward establishing adequate public schools. Tax systems were streamlined; public works were launched; and property rights were guaranteed to women. Many welcome reforms were retained by the all-white "Redeemer" governments that later returned to power. Despite these achievements, graft ran rampant in many "radical" governments. This was especially true in South Carolina and Louisiana, where conscienceless promoters and other pocket-padders used politically inexperienced blacks as pawns. The worst "black-and-white" legislatures purchased, as "legislative supplies", such "stationery" as hams, perfumes, suspenders, bonnets, corsets, champagne, and a coffin. One "thrifty" carpetbag governor in a single year "saved" $100,000 from a salary of $8,000. Yet this sort o corruption was by no means confined to the South in these postwar years. The crimes of the Reconstruction governments were no more outrageous than the scams and felonies being perpetrated in the North at the same time, especially in Boss Tweed's New York.

What caused the abolitionist movement to intensify in the 1830s?

In the 1830s the abolitionist movement took on new energy and momentum, mounting to the proportions of a crusade. American abolitionist took heart in 1833 when their British counterparts unchained the slaves in the West Indies. Most important, the religious spirit of the Second Great Awakening now inflamed the hearts of many abolitionists against the sin of slavery.

How were the effects of Harpers Ferry "calamitous"?

John Brown wanted to invade the south and start a kind of black free state as a sanctuary by arming slaves and revolting. Northern abolitionist provided him with several thousand dollars for firearms. He and his twenty some men seized the federal arsenal at Harper Ferry in October 1859; seven innocents were killed and ten or so more were injured. The revolt failed and was stopped by Robert E. Lee. Brown was hanged. The effects of Harpers Ferry were calamitous. In they eyes of the South, already embittered, Brown was a wholesale murderer and an apostle of treason. Many southerners asked how they could possibly remain in the Union while abolitionists were financing armed bands to "Brown" them. Moderate northerners, including Republican leaders, openly deplored this mad exploit. But the South naturally concluded that the violent abolitionist view was shared by the entire North, dominated by the Republicans. Abolitionists and other ardent free-soilers were infuriated with Brown's execution. Many of them were ignorant of his bloody past and his even more bloody purposes, and they were outraged because the Virginians had hanged so earnest a reformer who was working for so righteous a cause. On his execution day, flags were lowered and rallies were held by free-soil centers in the North.

How did Kansas provide "an example of the worst possible workings of popular sovereignty"?

Kansas had been providing an example of the worst possible workings of popular sovereignty, although admittedly under abnormal conditions. Newcomers who venture into Kansas were a motley lot. Most of the northerners were just ordinary westward-moving pioneers in search of richer lands beyond the sunset. But a small part of the inflow was financed by a group of northern abolitionists or free-soilers. The most famous one was the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which sent about 2,00 to forestall the South and make a profit, armed with rifles. Southern spokesmen, now more than ordinarily touchy, raised furious cries of betrayal. They had supported the K-N scheme of Douglass with the unspoken understanding that Kansas would become slave and Nebraska free. the northern "Nebrascals" were not apparently out to "abolitionize" both Kansas and Nebraska. A few southern hotheads attempted to "Assist" small groups of well-armed slaveowners to Kansas. But planting blacks on Kansas soil was a losing game. Slaves were valuable and volatile property, and foolish indeed were the owners who would take them where bullets were flying and where the soil might be voted free under popular sovereignty. Only 2 slaves were found in Kansas, 15 in Nebraska, after a 1860 census. Crisis conditions in Kansas rapidly worsened. When the day came in 1855 to elect members of the first territorial legislature, proslavery "border ruffians" poured in from Missouri to vote early and often. The slavery supporters triumphed and then set up their own puppet government at Shawnee Mission. The free-soilers established an extralegal regime of their own in Topeka. Kansans thus had tow governments to choose-an illegal one and one based in fraud. Tension mounted as settler also feuded over conflicting land claims, precluding the civil war with battles.

How did the Panic of 1857 help the Republicans?

Late in 1857 a panic burst about Buchanan's harassed head. The storm was not so bad economically as the panic of 1837, but psychologically it was probably the worst of the 19th century. Inpouring California gold played its part in causing the crash by helping to inflate the currency. The demands of the Crimean War had over-stimulated the growing if grain, while frenzied speculation in land and railroads had further ripped the economic fabric. When the collapse came, over five thousand businesses failed within a year. Unemployment, accompanied by hunger meetings in urban areas, was widespread. The North, including its grain growers, was hardest hit. The South rode out the storm in flying color by enjoying favorable cotton prices. Panic conditions seemed further proof that cotton was king and that its economic kingdom was stronger than that of the North. This fatal delusion helped drive the overconfident southerners to the Civil War. Financial distress in the North, especially in agriculture, gave a new vigor to the demand for free farms of 160 acres from the public domain. For several decades interested groups had been urging the federal government to abandon its ancient policy of selling the land for revenue. Instead, acreage should be given outright to the sturdy pioneers as a reward for risking health and life to develop it. (This part answers the question). A scheme to make outright gifts of homesteads encountered two-pronged opposition. Eastern industrialists had long been unfriendly to free land; some of them feared that their underpaid workers would be drained off to the West. This South was even more bitterly opposed, partly because gang-labor slavery could not flourish on a mere 160 acres. Free farms would merely fill up the territories more rapidly with free-soilers and further tip the political balance against the South. In 1860, Congress finally passed a homestead act-one that made public land available at a nominal fee. IT was killed off by President Buchanan however. The panic of 1857 also created a clamor for higher tariff rates. Several months before the crash, Congress, embarrassed by a large Treasury surplus, had enacted the Tariff of 1857. The new law reduced duties to about 20 percent on dutiable goods-the lowest point since the War of 1812. Hardly had the revised rates been placed on the books when financial misery descended. Northern manufactures, many of them Republicans, noisily blamed their misfortunes on the low tariff. AS the surplus melted away in the Treasury, industrialists in the North pointed to the need for higher duties. But what really concerned them was their desire for increased protection. Thus the panic of 1857 gave the Republicans two surefire economic issues for the election of 1860: protection for the unprotected and farms for the farmless.

Why is the Gettysburg Address so important?

Later in that dreary autumn of 1863, Lincoln journeyed to Gettysburg to dedicate the cemetery. His Gettysburg address was two-minutes long. His noble remarks were by the London Times as "ludicrous" and by Democratic editors as "dishwatery" and "silly." The address attracted relatively little attention at the time, bu the president was speaking for the ages. It has long been recognized as a foundational document of the American political system, as weighty a statement of the national purpose as the Declaration of Independence (which it deliberately echoes in its statement that all men are created equal) or even the Constitution itself. In the address, Lincoln explains that the Union fought to maintain the Declaration of Independence (all men are created equal, including blacks) as well as maintaining the Union. This second part changes everything.

How did the battle of Bull Run bear "significant psychological and political consequences"?

Lincoln envisioned the 75,000 militiamen would only serve for 90 days. The press and and public clamored for action by Lincoln with his ill prepared soldiers. Lincoln concluded that an attack on a smaller Confederate force at Bull Run, some 30 miles southwest of Washington, might be worth a try. If successful, it would demonstrate the superiority of Union arms. It might even lead to the capture of the confederate capital at Richmond. IF Richmond fell, secession would be thoroughly discredited, and the Union would be restored. The Union soldiers followed my Congressmen and spectators, went to Bull Run like it was some fun event. But Stonewall Jackson's men stood their ground, and Confederate reinforcements arrived unexpectedly. Panic seized the green Union troops, many of whom fled in shameful confusion. The Confederates, themselves too exhausted or disorganized, stayed. The "military picnic" at Bull Run, though not decisive militarily, bore significant psychological and political consequences, many of them paradoxical. Victory was worse than defeat for the South, because it insulated an already dangerous overconfidence. Many of the Southern soldiers promptly deserted, some boastfully to display their trophies, others feeling that the war was now surely over. Southern enlistments fell off sharply, and preparations for a protracted conflict slackened. Defeat was better than victory for the Union, because it dispelled all allusions of a one-punch war and caused the Northerners to buckle down to the staggering task at hand. It also set the stage for a war that would be waged not merely for the cause of Union but also, eventually, for the abolitionist ideal of emancipation.

In what ways did the federal government extend its authority over the individual?

Lincoln swore a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution, then proceeded to tear a few holes in it by sheer necessity. But such infractions were not, in general, sweeping. congress, as is often true in times of crisis, generally accepted or confirmed the president's questionable acts. Lincoln did not believe his ironhanded authority would continue once the Union was preserved. Congress was not session when war erupted, so Lincoln gathered the reins into his own hands. Brushing aside legal objections, he boldly proclaimed a blockade, upheld by the Supreme Court. He arbitrarily increased the size of the Federal army-something that only Congress could do under the Constitution, which Congress later approved. Lincoln directed the secretary of the Treasury to advance $2 million without approbation or security to three private citizens for military purposes-a grave irregularity contrary to the Constitution. He suspended the precious privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, so that anti-Unionists might be summarily arrested. Lincoln's regime was guilty og many other high-handed acts. For example, it arranged for "supervised" voting in the Border states by forcing citizens to march with their votes openly between two lines pf armed troops. The federal officials also ordered the suspension of certain newspapers and the arrest of their editors on grounds of obstructing the war. The South did not exercise such federal power, since local rights were more important to them. The North also passed conscription for soldiers, which were grossly unfair to the poor.

What was Lincoln's immediate goal with the Emancipation Proclamation, and how did it fundamentally change the nature of the War?

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 23, 1862, and it announced that in January 1, 1863, the president would issue a final proclamation. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared "forever free" the slaves in those Confederate states still in rebellion. Bondsmen in the loyal Border Stats were not affected, nor were those in specific conquered areas in the South-all told, about 800,000. The tone of the document was dull and legalistic, but if Lincoln stopped short of a clarion call for a holy war to achieve freedom, he pointedly concluded his historic document by declaring that the Proclamation was "an act of justice" and calling for "the considerate judgement of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." Lincoln's immediate goal was not only to liberate the slaves but also to strength the moral cause of the Union at home and abroad. This he succeeded in doing. At the same time, Lincoln's proclamation clearly foreshadowed the ultimate doom of slavery. This was legally achieved by the action of the individual states and by their ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation also fundamentally changed the nature of the war because it effectively removed any chance of a negotiate settlement. Both sides now knew the war would be a fight to he finish. The Civil War also became more of a moral crusade as the fate of slavery and the South it had sustained was sealed.

What "profound truth" did Lincoln recognize?

Lincoln's inaugural speech said that there would be no conflict unless the South provoked it. Secession was wholly impractical because "physically speaking, we cannot separate." Here Lincoln recognized a profound truth. The North and South were Siamese twins, bound inseparably together. Uncontested secession would create new controversies. What share of the national debt should the South be forced to take with it? What portion of the jointly held federal territories, if any, should the Confederate sates be allotted- areas so largely won with southern blood? How would the fugitive-slave issue be resolved? The Underground Railroad would certainly redouble its activity, and it would have to transport its passengers only across the Ohio River, not to Canada. Could these problems be resolved without armed clashes? The united United States had hither been the paramount republic in the Western Hemisphere. If this democracy should break into two hostile parts, the European nations would be delighted, delightfully transport to America the concept of balance of power. Colonies of Europe would be safer form the US, and they could also incite one part of the US against the other.

How did the War affect Lincoln's reelection?

Lincoln's reelection was at first gravely in doubt. the war was going badly, and Lincoln himself gave way to despondency, fearing that political defeat was imminent. The anti-Lincoln Republicans, taking heart, started a new movement to "dump" Lincoln in favor of someone else. But the atmosphere of gloom was changed electrically, as balloting day neared, by a succession of Northern victories. Admiral Farragut captured Mobile, Alabama. General Sherman seized Atlanta. General Sheridan laid waste the verdant Shenandoah Valley of Virginia thoroughly. The president pulled through, but nothing more was left o chance. At election time many Northern soldiers were furloughed home to support Lincoln at the polls. One Pennsylvania veteran voted forty-nine times-once for himself and once for each absent member of his company. Other Northern soldiers were permitted to cast their ballots at the front.

How did Lincoln benefit and Douglas suffer from their Senate campaign debates?

Lincoln, as Republican nominee for the Senate Seat, challenged Douglas to a series of joint debates. Douglas, probably the nation's most devastating debater, accepted, and seven meetings were arranged from August to October of 1858. The most famous debate came at Freeport, Illinois, where Lincoln nearly impaled Douglas on the horns of a dilemma. Suppose, he asked, the people of a territory should vote down slavery? The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had decreed that they could not. Who would prevail, the Court or the people? Douglas met the issue head on, honestly and consistently. His reply to Lincoln became known as the "Freeport Doctrine." No matter how the Supreme Court ruled, Douglas argued, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down. Laws to protect slavery would have to be passed by the territorial legislatures. These would not be forthcoming in the absence of popular approval, and black bondage would soon disappear. The upshot was that Douglas defeated Lincoln for the Senate seat. Yet thanks to inequitable apportionment, the districts carried by the Douglas supporters represented a smaller population than those carried by Lincoln supporters; Lincoln won the moral victory. Lincoln possibly was playing for larger stakes than just the senatorship. Although defeated, he had shambled into the national limelight in company with the most prominent northern politicians. Newspapers in the East published detailed accounts of the debates, and Lincoln began to emerge as a potential Republican nominee for president. But Douglas, in winning Illinois, hurt his own chances of winning the presidency, while further splitting his splintering party. After his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas and his further defiance of the Supreme Court at Freeport, southern Democrats were determined to break up the party (and the Union) rather than accept him.

What is the "irony" about the Peninsula Campaign?

McClellan was the commander of the Union army, now called the Army of the Potomac. After cautiously waiting to attack, McClellan at last decided upon a waterborne approach to Richmond, which lies at the western base of a narrow peninsula formed by the James and York Rivers. He inched toward Richmond in spring of 1862, and after taking a month to capture Yorktown, came to the visible limit of Richmond. However, Lincoln diverted McClellan's anticipated reinforcements to chase Stonewall Jackson whose lightning feints in the Shenandoah Valley seemed to put DC in jeopardy. Stalled in front of Richmond, McClellan was soon discovered, and General Lee launched a devastating counterattack, forcing McClellan's troop back to the sea. It was a costly defeat for both sides. Lee had achieved a brilliant triumph, yet the ironies of his accomplishment are striking. If McClellan had succeeded in taking Richmond and ending the war in mid-1862, the Union would probably have been restored with minimal disruption to the "peculiar institution". Slavery would have survived, at least for a time. By his successful defense of Richmond and defeat of McClellan, Lee has in effect ensured that the war would endure until slavery was uprooted and the Old south thoroughly destroyed. Lincoln himself, who had earlier professed his unwillingness to tamper with slavery where it already existed, now declared that the rebels "cannot experiment for ten years trying yo destroy the government and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt." He began ti draft an emancipation proclamation.

Describe the following schools of thought in the causes of the Civil War: Nationalist, Progressive, Repressible, Neonationalist

Nationalist: From the late 19th century, this school of thought claimed that slavery caused the Civil War. Defending the necessity and inevitability of the war, these northermn-oriented historians credited the conflict with ending slavey and preserving the Union. Progressive: From the early twentieth, led by Charles and Mary Beard, this school of though presented a more skeptical interpretation. The Beards argued that the war was not fought over slavery per se, but rather was a deeply rooted economic struggle between an industrial North and an agricultural South. Anointing the Civil War the "Second American Revolution," the Beards claimed that the war precipitated vast changes in American class relations and shifted the political balance of power by magnifying the influence of business magnates and industrialists while destroying the plantation aristocracy if the South. Repressible: Shaken by the disappointing results of World War 1, this school argued that the Civil War had actually been a big mistake. Rejecting the nationalist interpretation that the clash was inevitable, this school asserted that the war had been a "repressible conflict." Neither slavery nor the economic differences between North and South were sufficient causes for war. Instead craven and the others attributed the bloody confrontation to the breakdown of political institutions, the passion of overzealous reformers, and the ineptitude o a blundering generation of political leaders. Neonationalist: Following the SEcond World War, however, a neon atonality view gained authority, echoing the earlier views of Rhode (nationalist) in depicting the Civil War as an unavoidable conflict between two societies, one slave and one free. For Allan Nevins and DAvid Potter, irreconcilable differences in morality, politics, culture, social values, and economics increasingly eroded the tries between the he sections and inexorably set the United States on the road to the Civil War.

Explain each of the following schools of thought on Reconstruction: Original, Revisionist, Orthodox.

Original: Scholarly argument goes back to a Columbia University historian, William A> Dunning, whose students, in the early 1900s, published a series of histories of the Reconstruction South. Dunning and his disciples were influenced by the turn-of-the-century spirit of sectional conciliation as well as by current theories about black racial inferiority. Sympathizing with the white South, they wrote about the Reconstruction period as a kind of national disgrace, foisted upon a prostrate region by vindictive and self-seeking radical Republican politicians. IF the South had wrong the North by seceding, the North wronged the South by reconstruction Revisionist: A second cycle of scholarship in the 1920s was impelled by a widespread suspicion that the Civil War itself had been a tragic and unnecessary blunder. Attention now shifted to Northern politicians. Scholars like Howard Beale further questioned the motives of the radical Republicans. To Beale and others, the radicals had masked a ruthless desire to exploit Southern labor and resources behind a false front of "concern" for the freed slaves. Moreover, Northern advocacy of black voting rights was merely a calculated attempt to ensure a republican political presence in the defeated South. The unfortunate Andrew Johnson, in this view, had valiantly tried to uphold constitutional principles in the face of this cynical Northern onslaught. Orthodox: Following WWII, Kenneth Stampp, among others, turned this view on its head. Influenced by the modern civil rights movement, he argued that Reconstruction had been a noble attempt to extend American principles of equity and justice. The radical Republicans and the carpetbaggers were now heroes, whereas Andre Johnson was castigated for his obstinate racism. By the early 1970s, this view had become orthodoxy, and it generally holds today. Yet some scholars, such as Michael Benedict and Leon Litwack, disillusioned with the inability to achieve full racial justice in the 1960s, began once more to scrutinize the motives of Northern politicians immediately after the Civil War. They claimed to discover that Reconstruction had never been very radical and that the Freedmens' Bureau and other agencies had ,merely allowed the white planters to maintain their dominance over local politics as well as over the local economy.

Explain the schools of thought on the nature of slavery in each of the following historians: Phillips, Elkins, Genovese.

Philips: Philips validated the romantic vision of the Old South conveyed though popular literature, myth, and , increasingly, scholarship. Philips made three key arguments. First, he claimed that slavery was a ding economic institution, unprofitable to the slaveowner and an obstacle to the economic development of the South as a whole. Second, he contended that slavery was a rather benign institution and that the planters, contrary ti abolitionist charges of ruthless exploitation, treated their chattels with kindly paternalism. Third, he reflected the dominant racial attitudes of his time in his belief that blacks were inferior and submissive by nature and did not abhor the institution that enslaved them. Elkins: Beginning in the late 1950s, historians came increasingly to emphasize the harshness of the slave system. Elkins went so far as to compare the "peculiar institution" to the Nazi concentration camps. Both were "total institutions," Elkins contended, which "infantilezed" their victims. Elkins accepted Phillip's portrait of the slave as a childlike "Sambo" but saw it as a consequence of slavery rather than a congenital attribute of African-Americans. Genoverse: He has moved beyond debating whether slavery was kind or cruel. Without diminishing the deprivations and pains of slavery, Genoverse has conceded that slavery embraced a strange form of paternalism, a system that reflected not the benevolence of southern slaveholders, but their need to control and coax work out of their reluctant and often recalcitrant "investments." Furthermore, within this paternalist system, black slaves were able to make reciprocal demands of their white owners and to protect a "cultural space" of their own in which family and religion could particularly flourish. The crowing paradox of slaveholder paternalism was that in treating their property more humanely, slaveowners implicitly recognized the humanity of their slaves and thereby subverted the racist underpinnings upon which their slave society existed.

What were the "cancers in the bosom of the South"?

Plantation agriculture was wasteful, largely because Cotton King and his-money hungry subjects despoiled the good earth. Quick profits led to excessive cultivation, or "land butchery," which in turn caused a heavy leakage of population to the West and Northwest. The economic structure of the South became increasingly monopolistic. As the land wore thin, many small farmers sold their holdings to more prosperous neighbors and went north or west. The big got bigger and the small smaller. Another cancer in the bosom of the South was the financial instability of the plantation system. The temptation to overspeculate in land and slaves caused many planters to plunge in beyond their depth. Dominance by King Cotton likewise led to a dangerous dependence on a one-crop economy, whose price level was at the mercy of world conditions. The whole system discouraged a healthy diversification of agriculture and particularly of manufacturing.Southern planter resented watching the North grow fat at their expense. They were pained by the heavy outward flow of commission and interest to northern middlemen, bankers, agents, and shippers. The Cotton Kingdom also repelled large-scale European immigration, which added so richly to the manpower and wealth of the North.

Why did popular sovereignty have a "persuasive appeal"?

Popular sovereignty had a persuasive appeal. The public liked it because it accorded with the democratic tradition of self-determination. Politicians liked it because it seemed a comfortable compromise between the abolitionist bid for a ban on slavery in the territories and southern demands that Congress protect slavery in the territories. Popular sovereignty tossed the slavery problem into the laps of the people in the various territories. Advocates of the principle thus hoped to dissolve the most stubborn national issue of the day in a series of local issues. Yet popular sovereignty had one fatal defect: it might serve to spread the blight of slavery.

Liberia

Properly called Republic of Liberia, it was established in 1822 on the fever-stricken West African coast for former slaves who were transported from the US back to Africa. Its capital was named Monrovia (after President Monroe). Some 15,000 free blacks were transported there over the next 4 decades.

What factors "shaped the outcome" of impeachment?

Radicals in Congress had been sharpening their hatchets for President Johnson. Annoyed by the obstruction of Johnson the White House, they falsely accused him of maintaining there a harem of "dissolute women." Not content with curbing his authority, they decided to remove altogether by constitutional process. Under existing law the president pro tempore of the Senate, radical "Bluff Ben" Wade of Ohio, would then become president. As an initial step, Congress on 1867 passed the Tenure of Office Act-as usual, over Jonson's veto. The new law required the president to secure the consent of the Senate before he could remove his appointees once they had been approved by that body. One purpose was to keep in Cabinet the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, who was a spy and informer for the radicals. Johnson provided the radicals with a pretext to begin impeachment proceedings when he abruptly dismissed Stanton early in 1868. The House of Representatives immediately voted 126 to 47 to impeach Johnson for "high crimes and misdemeanors," charging him with various violations of the Tenure of Office Act. The radical Senate now sat as a court to try Johnson on the dubious impeachment charges. The House conducted the prosecution. Johnson's attorneys argued that the president, convinced that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional, had fired Stanton merely to put a test case before the Supreme Court. On May 16, 1868, by a margin of only one vote, the radicals failed t muster the two-thirds majority for Johnson's removal. several factors shaped the outcome. Fears of creating a destabilizing precedent played a role, as did principled opposition to abusing the constitution mechanics of checks and balances. Political considerations also figured conspicuously. As the vice presidency remained vacant under Johnson, his successor would have been the radical Republican Ben Wade, the president pro tempore of the Senate. Wade was disliked by many members of the business community for his high-tariff, soft-money, pro-labor views, and distrusted by moderate Republicans. Meanwhile, Johnson indicated through his attorney that he would stop obstructing Republican policies in return for remaining in office. The nation thus narrowly avoided a dangerous precedent that would have gravely weakened one of the three branches of the federal government. From the standpoint of the radicals, Johnson's greatest crime (others include bad speeches, judgment, and temper) had been to stand inflexibly in their path.

How did sectionalism affect the South's decision to secede?

Secessionists who parted company with their sister states left for a number of reasons, mostly relating in some way to slavery. They were alarmed by the inexorable tipping of the political balance against them. Southerners were also dismayed by the triumph of the new sectional republican party, which seemed to threaten their rights as slaveholding minority. They were weary of the abolitionists movement as a whole, from the Underground railroad to John Brown's raid. Myna southerners supported secession because they felt sure their departure would be unopposed. They were confident the North would not or could not fight. They believed that northern manufactures and bankers, so heavily dependent on southern cotton and markets, would not destroy their economies for the Union. But should the war come, the South could repudiate their immense debt to the North. Southern leaders regarded secession as a golden opportunity to cast aside their generations of "vassalage" to the North and develop its own banking and shipping and trade directly with Europe. The low Tariff of 1857, passed largely by southern votes, was not menacing in itself. Worldwide impulses of nationalism were fermenting on the South. The area, with its distincitve culture, was more of a subnation than section. It didn't want to be lorded over by a hostile nation of northerners. The principles of self-determination-of the Declaration of Independence-seemed to many southerners to apply perfectly to them.

Why did delaying the Civil War another decade help the North?

Should the shooting showdown (Civil War) have come in 1850? From the standpoint of the secessionists, yes; from the standpoint of the Unionists, no. Time was fighting for the North. With every passing decade, this huge section was forging further ahead in population and wealth-in crops, factories, foundries, ships, and railroads. Delay also added immensely to the moral strength of the North-to its will to fight for the Union. In 1850 countless thousands of northern moderates were unwilling to pin the South to the rest of the nation with bayonets. But the inflammatory events of the 1850s did much to bolster the Yankee will to resist secession, whatever the cost. This one feverish decade gave the North time to accumulate the material ad the moral strength that provided the margin of victory. Thus the Compromise of 1850, from one point of view, won the Civil War for the Union

What advantages did each side enjoy?

South- The Confederacy could fight defensively behind interior lines. In fact, the South did not to have to win the war in order to win its independence. If it merely fought the invaders to a draw and stood firm, Confederate independence would be won. Fighting on their own soil for self-determination and preservation of their way of life, Southerners at first enjoyed an advantage in morale as well. Militarily, the South fro the opening volleys of the war had the most talented officers. Most conspicuous among them was General Robert E. Lee, whose knightly bearing and chilvaric sense of honor embodied he Southern ideal. Lincoln offered him command of Northern army, but Lee felt obligated to help his home state of Virginia. Lee's chief lieutenant for much of the war was Thomas J Stonewall Jackson. Ordinary Southerners were also bred to fight. Accustomed to managing horses and bearing arms from boyhood, they made excellent cavalrymen and foot soldiers, who made high pitched rebel yells to terrorize Northern soldiers. Yet by the South seizing enough federal weapons, running Union blockades, and developing their ironworks , Southerners managed to obtain sufficient weaponry. (Disadvantages: South was handicapped by a lack of factories, they had supply problems/hunger cause by breakdown of South's transportation system, and a weak economy). North-Its greatest advantage was its economy. The North was not only a huge farm but a sprawling factory as well. Yankees boasted about three-fourths of the nations wealth, including three fourths of the 30,000 miles of railroad. The North also controlled the sea with a vastly superior navy that soon choked off Southern supplies and eventually shattered Southern morale. Its sea power also enabled the North to exchange grain for munitions and supplies with Europe, adding the output form the factories of Europe to its own. The Union also enjoyed a much larger reserve of manpower. The North had a population of some 22 million, the South had 9 million people, including about 3.5 slaves. Adding to the North's supply of soldiers were immigrants form Europe, who continued to pour in during the war. Altogether about 1/5 of the union forces were foreign born. (Disadvantages: ordinary Northern boys were much less prepared for war, North was much less fortunate in its higher commanders until Ulysses Grant who would crunch his way to victory.)

How did the radicals and the moderates disagree on Reconstruction regarding the federal and state governments?

Still opposed to rapid restoration of the Southern states, the radicals wanted to keep them out as long as possible and apply federal power to bring about a drastic social and economic transformation in the South. But moderate Republicans, more attuned to time-honored principles of states' rights and self-government, recoiled from the full implications of the radical program. The preferred poliices that restrained the states from abridging citizens' rights, rather then the policies that directly involved the federal government in individual lives. The actual policies adopted by Congress showed the influence of both these schools of thought, though the moderates, as the majority faction, had the upper hand. And on thing both groups had come to agreed on by 1867 was the necessity to enfranchise black voters, even if it took federal troops to do it.

What effect did the Black Codes have on the North?

The Black Codes made an ugly impression in the north. I the former slaves were being re-enslaved, people asked one another, had not the Boys in Blue spilled their blood in vain? Had the North really won the war?

What "hell of a storm" did the Kansas-Nebraska Act ignite?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act-a curtain raiser to a terrible drama-was one of the most momentous measures ever ot pass Congress. Antislavery northerners were angered by what the y condemned as an act of bad faith by the "Nebrascals" and their "Nebrascality." All future compromise with the South would be immeasurably more difficult, and without compromise there was bound to be conflict. Henceforth the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, previously enforced in the North inly halfheartedly, was a dead letter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act wrecked two compromises:that of 1820, which it repealed specifically, and that of 1850, which northern opinion repealed indirectly. Northern abolitionist and southern "fire-eaters" alike saw less and less they could live with. The growing legion of antislaveryites gained numerous recruits, who resented the grasping move by the "slavocracy" for Kansas. The southerners, in turn, became inflamed when the free-soilers tried to control Kansas, contrary to the presumed "deal." The proud Democrats were shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They elected a president in 1856, but hey wouldn't elect anther for 28 years. Undoubtedly the most durable offspring of the K-N blunder was the new Republican party. It sprang spontaneously in the Middle West as a mighty moral protest against the gains of slavery. Gathering together dissatisfied elements, it soon included disgruntled Whigs, Democrats, Free Soilers, Know-nothings, and other foes of the K-N Act. Th party spread eastward quickly and strongly. Never really a third-party movement, it erupted with such force as to become almost overnight the second major political party-and a purely sectional one at that.

Contrast the "Old Guard" with the "New Guard".

The Old Guard was made up of the dying generation of statesmen. The New Guard were the young gladiators (statesmen). The Young Guard was more North-associated. They had not grown up in the Union unlike the Old Guard. The New Guard was more interested in purging and purifying the slavery issue than in patching and preserving it.

How did the Republican platform of 1860 appeal to many groups?

The Republican platform had a seductive appeal for just about every importation nonsouthern group: for the free-soilers, nonextension of slavery; for the northern manufacturers, a protective tariff; for the immigrants, no abridgment of rights; for the Northwest, a pacific railroad; for the West, internal improvements at federal expense; and or the farmers, free homsesteads from the public domain.

What is meant by the statement, "the Northern Captains of Industry conquered the Southern Lords of the Manor"?

The South fought to the point of exhaustion. The suffocation cause by the blockade as well as the destruction took a terrible toll. The South in 1860 claimed 20% of the nations wealth; in 1870, 12%. The average per capita income of Southerners was 2/3 of that of Northerners; the Civil War squeezed that figure to 2/5, which remained at that level for the rest of the century. Transportation collapsed, and the South was even driven to economic cannibalism of pulling up rails from less-used routes, among other acts. At war's end the Northern Captains of Industry had conquered the Southern Lords of the Manor. A crippled South left the capitalistic North free to work its own way, with high tariffs and other benefits. The manufacturing moguls of the North, ushering in the full-fledged Industrial Evolution, were destined for increased dominance over American economic and political life. Hitherto the agrarian "slavocracy" of the South had partially checked the ambitions of the rising plutocracy of the North. Now cotton capitalism had lost out to industrial capitalism. The south of 1865 was to be rich in little but amputees, war heroes, ruins, and memories.

Why did King Cotton fail?

The South needed foreign intervention in order to win, but they did not get it. Even though Europe's ruling class were openly sympathetic to the Confederate cause, the masses of workingpeople in Britain and France were pulling for the North. Since they were hostile to and intervention with the South, the governments couldn't do anything. Southerners counted on hard economic need of cotton to bring their aid. King Cotton failed in part because he'd been so lavishly productive in the immediate prewar years of 1857-1860. Enormous exports of cotton in those years had piled up surpluses in British warehouses. When the war began 1861, British manufacturers had on hand a hefty supply of fiber. The real pinch didn't come until a year and half into the war. By this time, Lincoln declared his slave-emancipation policy, so "wage slaves" of Britain wouldn't demand a war for defending the slaver owners of the South. The cotton famine and its dire effects in Britain were relieved in several ways. Kindhearted Americans sent over several cargoes of foodstuffs to the starving unemployed in Britain. AS Union armies penetrated the South, the took the supplies of cotton they captured and sent it to Britain. Egypt and India boost their cotton output. Finally, the booming war industry in England, which supplied both the North and South, relieved unemployment. King Wheat and King Corn-the monarchs of Northern agriculture-proved to be more potent than King Cotton. During the war years, the North produced a great harvest while Britain produced a poor harvest. Brattain was thus forced to import huge quantities of grain for the North. If the British broke the Union blockade to gain cotton, they would have provoked the North to war and would have lost their precious granary.

How was the political significance of the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg "monumental"?

The Union victory at Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) came the day after the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg. The political significance of these back-to-back military successes was monumental. Reopening he Mississippi helped ti quell the Northern peace agitation in the "Butternut" area of the Ohio River valley. Confederate control of the Mississippi had cut off that region's usual trade routes down the Ohio-Mississippi River system to New Orleans, thus adding economic pain to that border section's already shaky support for the "abolition war." The twin victories also conclusively tipped the diplomatic scales in favor of the North, as Britain stopped delivery of the Laird rams (naval ships) to the Confederates and as France killed a deal for the sale of six naval vessels to the Richmond government. By the end of 1863, all Confederate hopes for foreign help were irrevocably lost.

What was the religious impact of emancipation on African-Americans?

The church became the focus of black community life in the years following emancipation. AS slaves, blacks had worshiped alongside whites, but now they formed their own churches pastored by their own minsters. The black churches grew robustly. The 150,000-member black Baptist Church of 1850 reached 500,000 by 1870, while the African Methodist Episcopal Church quadrupled in size from 100,000 to 400,000 in he first decade after emancipation. These churches formed the bedrock of black community life, and they soon gave rise to other benevolent, fraternal, and mutual aid societies. All these organizations helped blacks protect their newly won freedoms.

What have historians said about the constitutional and modernizational consequences of the War?

The constitutional impact of the terms of the Union victory created some of the most far-reaching transformations. the first twelve amendments to the Constitution, ratified before the War, had all served to limit government power. In contrast, the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery, and the revolutionary 14th amendment, which conferred citizenship and guaranteed civil rights to all those born in the United States, marked unprecedented. expansions of federal power. The Civil War expanded the federal powers of taxation. It encouraged the government to develop the National Banking System, print currency, and conscript an army. It made the federal courts more influential. And through the Freedmen's Bureau, which aided former slaves in the South, it instituted the first federal social welfare agency. With each of these actions, that nation moved toward a more powerful federal government, invested with the authority to protect civil rights, aid its citizens, and enforce laws in an aggressive manner that superseded state powers. The argument that the Civil War launched a modern America remains convincing. The lives of Americans, white and black, North and South, were transformed by the war experience. Industry entered a period of unprecedented growth, having been stoked by the transportation and military needs of the Union army. The emergence of new, national legal and governmental institutions marked the birth of the modern American state.

How was the election of 1852 "fraught with frightening significance"?

The election of 1852 was fraught with frightening significance, though it may have seemed tame at this time. It marked the effective end of the disorganized Whig party and, within a few years, its complete death. The Whigs' demise augured the eclipse of national parties and the worrisome rise of purely sectional political alignments. The Whigs were governed at times by the crassest opportunism, and they won only tow presidential elections (1840, 1848) in their colorful career, both with war heroes. They finally choked to death trying to swallow the distasteful Fugitive Slave Law. But their great contribution-and a noteworthy one indeed-was to help uphold the ideal of the Union through their electoral strength in the South and through the eloquence of leaders like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Both of these statesmen, by unhappy coincidence, died during the 1852 campaign. But the good they had done lived after them and contributed powerfully to the eventual preservation of a united United States

What great "constitutional decision of the century" did the War make?

The greatest constitutional decision of the century, in a sense, as written in blood and handed down at Appomattox Courthouse, near which Lee surrendered. The extreme states' righters were crushed. The national government, tested in the fiery furnace of war, emerged unbroken. Nullification and secession, those twin nightmare of previous decades, were laid to rest. Beyond doubt the Civil War-the nightmare of the Republic- was the supreme test of American democracy. It finally answered the question, in the words of Lincoln at Gettysburg, whether a nation dedicated to such principles :can endure long." The preservation of democratic ideals, though not an officially announced war aim, was subconsciously one of the major objectives of the North. Victory for Union arms also provided inspiration to the champions of democracy and liberalism the world over. The great English Reform Bill of 1876, under which Britain became a true political democracy, was passed two years after the Civil War ended. American democracy had proved itself, and its success was an additional argument used by the disfranchised British masses in securing similar blessings for themselves. The shameful cancer of slavery was sliced away by the sword, and African-Americans were at last in a position to claim their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The nation was again united politically, though for many generations still divided spiritually by the passions of the war. Grave dangers were averted by a Union victory, including the indefinite prolongation of the "peculiar institution," the unleashing of the slave power on weak Caribbean neighbors, and the transformation pf the areas from Panama to the Hudson Bay into an armed camp, with several heavily armed and hostile states constantly snarling and sniping at one another.

What dilemma did Fort Sumter provide Lincoln?

The issue of the divided Union came to a head over the matter of federal forts in the South. AS the seceding states left they took the public property of the US in their borders. Only two significant forts owned by the US were left when Abraham entered office, with Fort Sumte, Charleston, being more important. Ominously, the choices presented to Licol by Fort Sumter were all bad. This stronghold had provisions that would last only a few weeks-until the middle of April 1861. If no supplies were forthcoming, its commander would have to surrender without firing a shot. Lincoln, quire understandably, did not feel that such a weak-kneed course squared with his obligation to protect federal property. But if he sent reinforcements, the South Carolinians would undoubtedly fight back; they could not tolerate a federal fort blocking the mouth of their most important Atlantic seaport. Lincoln adopted a middle-of-the-road solution. He told South Carolinians that he was sending a sip of provisions to the fort; however, that meant reinforcements to them. The Union naval force sent was seen as an act of aggression, and on April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter was besieged by cannons for 34 hours until the surrendered.

Why were the Border States important?

The only slave states left were the crucial Border States. This group consisted of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and later West Virginia, which illegally tore itself form Virginia in 1861. If the North fired the first shot, some or all of these doubtful state probably would have seceded, and the South might well have succeeded. The border group actually contained a white population more than half of the entire Confederacy. Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would almost double the manufacturing capacity of the South and would increase by nearly half its supply of horses and mules. The strategic prize of the Ohio River flowed along the northern border of Kentucky and West Virginia. Two of its navigable tributaries, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, penetrated deep into the heart of Dixie, where much of the Confederacy's grain, gunpowder, and iron was produced.

How did Johnson "deeply disturb" Congressional Republicans?

The presence of former Confederate leaders for seating in the expanded/new Congress infuriated the Republicans in Congress. The war had been fought to restore the Union, bu not on these terms. The Republicans didn't want to embrace their former enemies. While the South, which was mostly Democratic, had been "out" from 1861-1865, the Republicans in Congress had enjoyed a relatively free hand, passing legislation that favored the North, such as the Morrill Tariff, the Pacific Railroad Act, and the Homestead Act. Now they would have to give this up. They also realized that the South would be stronger than ever in national politics, since a black now counted as one person instead of 3/5 of a person, giving the South twelve more votes in both Congress and twelve more presidential votes. Republicans had good reason to fear that ultimately they might be elbowed aside. Southerners might joing hands with Democrats in the North and win control of Congress or maybe even the White House. If this happened, they could perpetuate the Black Codes, virtually re-enslaving blacks. They could dismantle the economic program of the Republican party by lowering tariffs, rerouting the transcontinental railroad, and repealing the free-farm homestead Act, possibly even repudiating the national debt. President Johnson thus deeply disturbed the congressional Republicans when he announced on December 6, 1865, that the recently rebellious states had satisfied his conditions and that in his view the Union was now restored.

How did the assault on Fort Sumter save the Union, but make the struggle more difficult?

The shelling of the fort electrified the North, which at once responded with rices to "save the Union." Hitherto countless Northerners had been saying that of the Southerns states wanted to go, they should not be pinned to the rest of the nation with bayonets aka secede with peace. But the assault on Fort Sumter provoked the North to a fighting pith: the fort was lost, but the Union was saved. Lincoln had turned a tactical defeat into a calculated victory. Southerners had fired against the Union, and honor demanded an armed response. Lincoln promptly issued a call to the states for seventy-five thousand militiamen, and volunteers were so enthusiastic that many were turned away-this wouldn't be repeated. On April 19 and 27, the president proclaimed a leaky blockade of Southern seaports. The call for troops, in turn, arouse the South as much as the attack on Fort Sumter arouse the North. Lincoln was now waging war on the Confederacy. Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee, all of which earlier voted down secession, reluctantly joined their embattled sister states, along with North Carolina. Thus the seven states became eleven. Richmond, Virginia, replaced Montgomery, Alabama, as the Confederation capital-too near Washington for strategic comfort on either side.

What was the North's six-point plan for the War?

Union strategy now turned toward total war. AS finally developed, the Northern military plan had six components: first, slowly suffocate the South by blockading its coasts; second, liberate the slaves and hence undermine the very economic foundations of the Old South; third, cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River backbone; fourth, chop the Confederacy to pieces by sending troops through Georgia and the Carolinas; fifth, decapitate it by capturing its capital at Richmond; and sixth (this was Ulysses Grant's idea especially), try everywhere to engage the enemy's main strength and to grind it into submission.

Why did poor whites defend the slave system?

Whites without slaves had no direct stake in the preservation of slavery, yet they were among the most stoutest defenders of the slave system. The carrot on the stick ever dangling before their eyes was the hope of buying a slave or two and of parlaying their paltry holdings into riches-all in accord with the "american dream" of upward social mobility. They also took fierce pride in their presumed racial superiority, which would be watered down if the slaves were freed. Many of the poorer whites were hardly better off economically than the slaves; some, indeed, were not so well-off. But even the most wretched whites could take perverse comfort from the knowledge that they outranked someone in status: the still more wretched American slave. Thus did the logic of economics join with the illogic of racism in buttressing the slave system.

Contrast the methods and attitudes of Garrison and Douglass.

William Garrison published in Boston his first issue of his militantly antislavery newspaper The Liberator. Stern and uncompromising, Garrison nailed his colors to the masthead of his weekly. He proclaimed in strident tones that under no circumstances would he tolerate the poisonous weed of slavery but would stamp it out at once. The greatest of the black abolitionists was Fredrick Douglass. Douglass was as flexibly practical as Garrison was stubbornly principled. Garrison often appeared to be more interested in his own righteousness than in the substance of the slavery evil itself. He repeatedly demanded that the "virtuous" North secede from the "wicked" South. Yet he did not explain how the creation of an independent salve republic would bring an end to the "damning crime" of slavery. Renouncing politics on the 4th of July, he burned a copy of the Constitution as "a covenant wit death and an agreement with hell." critics charged that Garrison was cruelly probing the moral wound in America's underbelly but offering no acceptable balm to ease the pain. Douglass, on the other hand, along with other abolitionists, increasingly looked to politics to end the blight of slavery. These political abolitionists backed the Liberty party in 1840, the Free Soil Party in 1848. and eventually the Republican party in the 1850s. in the end, most abolitionist followed out the logic of their beliefs and supported a frightfully costly fratricidal was as the price of emancipation.