American Civil War Alec Rey February 14, 2018 The American Civil War No war in American history has devastated our entire economy, threatened our national existence and taken more human lives than the American Civil War. Around 620,000 people lost their lives due to combat, diseases, starvation, and accidents. Certainly the system of slavery was a shame, but it was an economic precondition for the prosperity of the South. Even though human chattel slavery was a defining problem, the central issue of the war was federal authority (power) on the states. It was a confrontation of two economic and political ideologies. The economy for the north was more industrialized while the south relied on farming and agriculture, which used slave labor, hence …show more content…
The differing economic interests of the North and South pushed them into political conflict along a wide front. The southern economy produced an abundance of food to feed its citizens and its draft animals. Agriculture using slave labor was sustainable, no loans from banks were needed and according to Engerman and Fogel, it was 35% more efficient than the free agriculture. Slavery defined the south, it was a very complex and varied society. One of the South’s persistent complaints was that northern states would not vigorously cooperate in the return of fugitive slaves and also that the free-states allowed antislavery organizations to flourish. In April 1860, the Democratic convention was held in Charleston, South Carolina. The northern Democrats supported Douglas for President, but the southern Democrats withheld support for him because they demanded a federal territorial slave code. The Douglas supporters pointed out that doing that would drive the northern Democrats into the Republican Party. The southern delegates walked out of the convention and nominated their own candidate, John C. Breckinridge of …show more content…
On Election Day, the results did not endorse extremism of either sort. Lincoln won a clear Electoral College majority over his combined opponents, carrying every free-state except New Jersey where Douglass won. When the South Carolina legislature saw the election outcome, it declared secession from the Union. In the next few weeks, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana vetoed secession. In early February of 1861, delegates of the six seceded states met in Alabama to organize a new confederacy, adopting a frame of government for the Confederate States of America, choosing Jefferson Davis as president. The confederate constitution declared slavery everywhere protected by law and forbade protective tariffs. At this point the two different regions had been separated and the only way to unite them was by a war. Lincoln and his party members disagreed on the public policy for slavery. Lincoln did not want slavery to spread anywhere else in the Union. Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri could secede from the Union if nothing was done. Designed to achieve political goals, the Emancipation Proclamation meant to secure Lincoln’s reelection in 1864 and keep those key states in the
It is found that although Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery into new territories, he denied any intention of interfering with the institution in those states where it already existed. After his election to the Presidency in 1860 precipitated Southern secession and civil war, Lincoln declared that he was leading a struggle only to preserve the Union and not to destroy slavery. It seems that his initial thought was not to end slavery and eliminate racial inequality. Two years later, Lincoln changed his position and eventually proclaimed the emancipation of those slaves held within rebel territory. He justified that action solely as a matter of military necessity. After the Civil war began, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to win
The election of Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession.[74] Efforts at compromise, including the "Corwin Amendment" and the "Crittenden Compromise", failed. Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Before Lincoln took office in March 1861, seven slave states had declared their secession and joined together to form the Confederacy.
Before the Civil War began, the United States had two distinct economies. Although farming was a staple throughout the United States, from an economic standpoint the Northern and Southern farmers were fundamentally diverse from each other. Unfree labor and staple crops were an essential part of Southern life. While their counterparts to the North comprised of an economy that contained finance, a wide range of industries, and commerce; wage earners and small business owners. The Civil War drastically changed this way of life for both the North and South. The South after the war was left in decimated, while the Northern economy boomed. Southern farmers between 1859-1860 were harvesting a record number of cotton crops. Cotton was America’s most
Democrats), John Breckinridge (S. Democrat), John Bell (Constitutional Union Party), Abraham Lincoln (Republicans). The election showed just how fragmented the nation had become. Lincoln won all the free states, Breckinridge won all slave states except four, Bell won Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, and Douglas won Missouri. This can seem in Document D, showing the popular votes earned by the candidates. Though it was a close race with popular votes, Lincoln managed to get enough electoral votes to win the election. This shocked many southerners, letting them believe they had no voice in the national government. So the South threatened to secede from the union. And just had Lincoln predicted ”I do expect it will cease to be divided” (Document c, From "Speech to the Republican Convention" by Abraham Lincoln, 1858). The first seceding states were South Carolina, and later six other states, forming the Confederate States of America. Along with leaving the Union, the seceding states took over federals property within their border. One of the property was Fort Sumter, which lead to the beginning of the Civil
When the Civil War began in 1861, the issue of slavery was not the central focus of the war effort on the side of the Union. While it was still important to many in the North, the main war aim of the Union side was to preserve the Union and make sure it remained intact. As the war dragged on and more soldiers died on both sides, Lincoln realized he would need to entirely cripple the already weak Confederate economy, and he did this by making the Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective January 1, 1863. This executive order stated that all slaves in states currently in open rebellion against the United States were free from slavery. By doing this, he caused African Americans in slave states to cross into Union territory and into
Davis opposed secession for his home state of Mississippi. But Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus and other state leaders were for secession after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln surprisingly won, even though he was not on some ballots. The South did not like him because they thought he was going to abolish slavery. After that he ran for President of the Confederacy. He ran unopposed and was elected for a six year term as President of the Confederate States.
The economies of the North and South were vastly different leading up to the Civil War. Money was equivalent to power in both regions. For the North, the economy was based on industry as they were more modern and self-aware. They realized that industrialization was progress and it could help rid the country of slave labor as it was wrong. The North’s population had a class system but citizens could move within the system, provided they made the money that would allow them to move up in class. The class system was not as rigid as it was in the South. By comparison, the South wanted to hold on to its economic policy. In doing so, the practice of slavery kept the social order firmly in place. The economic factors, social issues and a growing
When elected, President Lincoln vowed to prevent the extension of slavery. As a result, the Southerners chose secession, while Northerners believed that the collapse of Union would destroy the possibility of a democratic republican government. This resulted in the Civil War, which lead to the end of slavery in the United States. Throughout the war, there was much debate over whether or not the Civil War was about slavery or the Union. Lincoln first rejected the end of slavery as a goal of the war, but slave escapes in the South bothered Lincoln. The Union’s fate was at stake and Lincoln’s major goal of the war was to save the Union. Lincoln finally surrendered to the pressure of antislavery republicans, making the Civil War mainly about slavery, and seeing slave abolition as a way to end the rebellion and protect the Union. Abraham Lincoln created the proclamation of emancipation in July 1862, which called for an end to slavery. The proclamation was issued on September 22, basing its legal authority on his responsibility to suppress the rebellion and was signed by Lincoln on January 1, 1863. After the war, abolitionists were concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation would be forgotten about, so they pressured the congress to pass a law that would finally abominate slavery. In January 1865 the Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment to ending slavery, and sent it to the states
By declaring the freedom of slaves in the Confederate states, “All persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” (From the Emancipation Proclamation) Lincoln incited the detest of the enslaved population by giving them the liberty and the right to live for themselves, depriving the South of the basic labor force necessary for supporting their armies. On this side, the moral has taken down its covers, marking the motive of the Emancipation Proclamation as a tool to win the war, It proved the strength to preserve the Union, but not the blow of liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation, while a powerful symbol of liberty, did not instantly free all slaves. The document specifically targeted the Confederate states, excluding those border states loyal to the Union.
After the events that took place of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, tensions rose just before the election of 1860. The presidential candidates were Abraham Lincoln from the Republican Party, Stephen Douglas a northern Democrat, John C. Breckinridge of the southern Democrats, and John Bell from the Constitutional Union Party. The main issues of the election was slavery and popular sovereignty-- the people in the state or territory would chose if slavery would be allowed or prohibited.
The secession of the South right after Abraham Lincoln’s election asserted that the South would not have slavery abolished (Corrick 21). Differences in views on slavery caused several states in the South to threaten to secede (Ushistory). The South supported slavery and held pro-slavery movements in several states, while the North believed that slavery was not constitutional and should be abolished (Civilwar.org; Cavendish). However, the North did not make any laws proclaiming the legality of slavery, but pushed the abolishment of slavery across the United States even further. Due to the secession of the southern states, tensions inevitably increased between the North and the South, thus leading to the start of the Civil War.
The costs of the Civil War were enormous. The total number of military causalities on both sides exceeded 1 million. More men died in the Civil War than in all other American wars combined until Vietnam. However, the Civil War impacted the United States well beyond just deaths. The Civil war brought fundamental alterations in the life of the nation, changing the economy, the political landscape, as well as ways of life.
South Carolina also accused the Northern states of instigating “a war [that would] be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States,” (South Carolina) through the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. In Georgia’s declaration of secession, the reasons for secession are cited as “numerous and serious causes of complaint” (Georgia) against the non-slave holding states that were centered on “the subject of African slavery” (Georgia). In Mississippi, the consensus in the same; Mississippi’s position in the issue “[was] thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery” (Mississippi) and goes to list many reasons pertaining to slavery for its secession, most notably 1) The North “has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation” (Mississippi), 2) “has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union” (Mississippi), and 3) “advocates negro equality” (Mississippi). For these as well as other reasons all pertaining to slavery, the Confederate States seceded from the Union. In the Southern States, as seen through the declarations of secession from the Confederate States, the people, along with the governments of those states all supported secession based on issues arising from the conflict over slavery.
On January 1, 1963, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in Confederate controlled areas liberated. The document contained specific details regarding freedom for slaves. Lincoln was quoted saying to the Secretary of State, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some slaves, I would also do that.” The latter is what was attained. While it declared slaves free in most Southern states, some select areas were exempted whilst others were not mentioned at all. Lincoln feared that these “border states”, where slavery was legal, would likewise join the Confederacy if they were included in the proclamation. The “border states” had decided to stay in the Union when other southern states seceded in 1861.
In November, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected U.S. President with only 40 per cent of the popular vote. South Carolina had threatened to secede from the Union if Lincoln won the election. The state made good their threat by seceding from the Union on December 20, 1860. Mississippi and Florida followed in early January, 1861. The Alabama State Legislature directed Governor A. B. Moore to call a state convention in Montgomery on January 7, 1861, to debate the question of secession from the Union. On January 11, after four days of hot debate, an ordinance of secession was adopted by a vote of 61-39 and Alabama became the fourth state to secede from the Union. The two delegates from Lauderdale County voted against secession as did most of the delegates from North Alabama.