The Civil War

The Election of 1860

 The Democratic party is divided

 Stephen Douglas – Northern Democrat
 John Breckinridge – Southern Democrat
 Constitutional Union Party: John Bell
 Republican Party: Abraham Lincoln
 Sectional campaigning, Lincoln not on the ballot in 10 states
 He won 39.9% of popular vote, but 180 electoral votes against the combined total of
123 of his opponents

“there is nothing civil about war”

 Causes of the war:

Slavery controversy
Failure of compromises: 3/5th, Slave-trade, 1855, Mississippi
Lack of strong presidential leadership, James Buchanan
Differing development of regions

James Buchanan
 Democrat, life-long bachelor
 Ten-cent Jimmy – a workman can live on 10 cents a day?
 As president enforced the Fugitive Slave Act
 Ineffective, inconsistent: supported pro-slavery side in Kansas
 Denounced secession, but could not do anything against it
 Economic crisis of 1857, Dredd Scott Case

America at the Eve of the Civil War

 North: more people, railroads, iron, money, soldiers

 Strategy: blockade ports, take Mississippi River, take Richmond, confederate capital
 South: defend their own land, fighting spirit, just war,
Better generals: Robert E. Lee, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, educated at West Point
Less population, less iron, railroads
 Strategy: war of attrition, hoping for French or British, invasion of the North
 Mason – Dixon Line  Dixie – Dixie Land

Last Effort at Compromise

 Early examples of secession: 1790, 1819 (Missouri crisis), 1830s: Nullification crisis
 Crittenden Resolution: expansion of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific
  Republican response: “Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the
extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labor is lost,
and sooner or later must be done over … The tug has to come and better now than
later.”

Lincoln’s response to Secession

 Inaugural address: Lincoln promised that he would “not interfere with the institution
of slavery where it exists.”
 he would use “the power of confided to me…to hold, occupy, and posses the
property and places belonging to the Government.”
 he assured Southerners “there would be no invasion, no using of force against or
among the people anywhere.”

Fort Sumter

 Federal military installation at Charleston Harbor

 Confederate forces surround it, no supply ships are allowed to approach the fort
 April 12, 1861: Confederates attack the fort.
 Lincoln’s response: the Confederacy established a blockade
 Declaration of war

Military Political Developments

 Lincoln: calls for 75,000 volunteers, announces blockade of Southern ports

 1861 July 21 Bull Run : going through picnickers
 1862 September: Antietam  U S Grant will be a general
 1863: Vicksburg, Gettysburg  Turning point  by the Mississippi River
 Cutting half South
Battle of Gettysburg  Biggest war; Cemetery Ridge
Lincoln at Gettysburg  sacred document  Gettysburg Address

 Referencing to Declaration of Independence, connecting the Civil War to

Revolutionary War (Civil War as the 2nd Revolutionary War), consensual
government
 “Fourscore and seven years ago, dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal, government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
perish from this earth”
 1864: Sherman’s march to the sea  Burning of Atlanta in M. Mitchell’s Gone With
the Wild
 1865: Appomatox
 Lee surrenders to Grant
The First Modern War

 Over 620,000 dead 1.5 million wounded, frequent amputation of wounded

 -total war, impacting the home front
 not armis but whole societies were figting against each other
 utilizing contemporary developments of technology (submarine, railroad, telegraph,
armed trains)
 Institution of the draft,
 Confederates first to adopt conscription
 substitutes, “ Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”
 1863 New York Draft Riots

Impact on Slavery

 Emancipation Proclamation:
Lincoln’s aim: keeping the Union together with or without slavery –
Issued on 9-22-1862
 “As of January 1, 1863 all slaves in Confederate states or areas still under active
rebellion would be thenceforward and forever free”
 Reasons:
Military: eliminations of potential armed forces
Economic: depriving the South from its labor forces
Diplomatic: isolation of the South, Britain freed slaves in 1833

Impact on Native Americans

 1861: Five Civilized Tribes(Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Creeks)
join the Confederacy
 Punishment: lands taken away, forced sales, railroad lines cut across the tribal land
 1862: Sioux uprising in Minnesota, Lincoln puts it down, 37 tribal leaders executed
 1864: Sand Creek Massacre, killing of 150 Cheyenne men, women, children after the
discovery of gold

Impact on the Presidency

 Lincoln: constitutional dictatorship

 Basis: presidential oath, power as commander in chief
 Violation of the Constitution, in order to protect it
-calling for volunteers – declares war
- suspension of habeas corpus, (protection against unlawful arrests)
- military courts take over civilian courts Ex parte Milligan – Martial law
Impact on U.S. History
 A watershed, a dividing line
 End of slavery Thirteenth Amendment,
 End of the states’ rights movement
 Test for the Union, expression of the unity, “the United States is”
 Test for the Constitution
 The beginning of modern America

The Second American Revolution

 1862: Homestead Act: provision of public land

 1862: Morrill Act: establishment of agricultural colleges
 Continuation of the Transcontinental Railroad
 1863: The National Bank Act, the issuance of paper money, greenbacks