Download Chapter 20 - Unabridged

Unit 3: Testing the New Nation
1820-1877
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Chapter 16: The South and the Slavery Controversy, 1793-1860
Chapter 17: Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy, 1841-1848
Chapter 18: Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854
Chapter 19: Drifting Toward Disunion, 1854-1861
• Exam: Chapters 16-19 – December 9th
• Chapter 20: Girding for War – The North and the South, 1861-1865
• Chapter 21: The Furnace of the Civil War, 1861-1865
• Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865-1877
• Exam: Chapters 20-22 – December 23rd
• NO UNIT ESSAY
Chapter 20
Girding for War: The North and
the South, 1861-1865
“I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon
us, of proving that popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle
this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to
break up the government whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to
prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1861
I. The Menace of Secession
• Lincoln’s inaugural address: there would be
no conflict unless provoked by the South.
• Concession would create new controversies:
• What share of the federal debt should the South
be forced to take with it?
• What portion of the jointly held federal territories
should the Confederate states be allotted?
• How would the fugitive slave issue be resolved?
• If the U.S. broke into two hostile parts, European
powers could play “divided and conquer.”
The inauguration of President Lincoln, 1861
Lincoln can be seen 84th from the left.
II. South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
• Violence would break out over a vital issue:
federal property.
• Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston harbor
• Lincoln notified South Carolinians that an expedition
would be sent to provision the garrison, not to
reinforce it.
• April 12, 1861: South opened fire.
• The fort was lost, but the attack caused many
northerners to want a fight.
• Lincoln’s “Aggression”
• Lincoln (April 15) issued a call to the states for 75,000
militiamen and thousands volunteered.
• Lincoln blockaded the south.
• Four states joined the original Confederacy (11 total
states seceded).
• Southern capital was moved to Richmond, VA
Bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina,
April 1861 At 4:30 the morning of April 12, a
Confederate battery at Fort Johnson opened
fire on the Union Forces at Fort Sumter in
Charleston Harbor.
III. Brothers’ Blood and Border Blood
• Border states: the only slave states left were Missouri,
Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and later West Virginia.
• They contained manufacturing, supplies, high population, Ohio
River.
• Lincoln needed those states, so he:
• Declared martial law in Maryland
• Deployed Union troops to western Virginia and Missouri
• Declared he was not fighting to free blacks (appeal to Butternut
Region)
• Meanwhile, in the West:
• Many Native American territories and tribes sided with
Confederacy – a new beginning?
• Some Cherokees—mostly Plain Indians—sided with the Union,
and were rewarded with further persecution.
Frenemies - The man on the right
is George Armstrong Custer. The
man on the left is a Southern
soldier and prisoner of war. He
and Custer had
been classmates at West Point.
Seceding States
(with dates and order of
secession)
IV. The Balance of Forces
• Southern Advantages:
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•
•
•
•
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Could fight defensively while the North had to invade and conquer
All the South needed was a draw
South fought for self-determination and preservation – high morale
Militarily the South had the most talented officers, especially Lee & Jackson
Ordinary Southerners were bred to fight
South had few factories, but was able to secure enough weaponry
• Southern Drawbacks:
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•
•
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Shortages of shoes, uniforms, and blankets
Economics: the North was both a farm and factory
Economics: North held the wealth and the railways
North controlled the seas (naval blockade)
The North’s population dwarfed that of the south (22:9, 22:12 w/slaves)
IV. The Balance of Forces(cont.)
• The “might-have-beens”:
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If the Border States had seceded
If the Butternut Region had turned against the Union
If a wave of Northern defeatism had demanded an armistice
If Britain and/or France had broken the Union’s naval blockade of Southern
ports
V. Dethroning King Cotton
• The South needed foreign intervention.
• Europe’s ruling classes were openly sympathetic to the
Confederate cause because it would end the American
experiment in democracy.
• South predicted intervention because Britain needed
cotton.
• British workers sided with the North.
• They had read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and saw the wage slavery
connection.
• The British textile mills depended on the American South
for 75% of their cotton supplies.
• Why did King Cotton fail the South?
• Britain had stores of cotton from the 1850s.
• Britain looked elsewhere (Egypt, India).
• King Corn and King Wheat couldn’t be ignored by
Europeans.
Don’t mess with King Corn.
Seriously. He’s in everything today.
EVERYTHING.
VI. The Decisiveness of Diplomacy
• Foreign powers wanted to take advantage of the U.S. during its time of
weakness, but what was the best way to do so?
• Trent affair— Union warship in Cuban waters forced Confederate diplomats
off a British steamer, the Trent (1861)
• Alabama— the not-so-neutral building of commerce-raiders by British for
the South
• Alabama was actually manned by British sailors and helped to disrupt Union trade.
• It was destroyed in 1864.
• American minister Charles Francis Adams convinced Britain that someday this tactic
could be used against them by their enemies.
• Many Americans wanted to invade Canada as a result.
VII. Foreign Flare-ups
• Third and final Anglo-American crisis: Laird rams
• Two Confederate warships being constructed in the
shipyard of John Laird and Sons in Great Britain.
• Designed to destroy Union wooden ships with their
iron rams and large-caliber guns
• GB was warned “this means war”, so they relented.
• Dominion of Canada (1867): organized to
protect Canada from Americans – began a new
Canadian nationalism.
• Emperor Napoleon III sent his army to occupy
Mexico City (1861) under the puppet –
Maximilian.
• Maximilian would be abandoned and eventually
executed following the Civil War.
Napoleon III of
France
Maximilian,
Emperor? of
Mexico
(Insert Facial
Hair Joke Here)
VIII. President Davis Versus President Lincoln
• The Confederate government weakness:
it could not deny secession or states’
rights.
• President Davis wanted a strong central
government, but could not have it.
• President Davis never enjoyed popularity
and was often at odds with his congress.
• President Lincoln had his troubles too.
• More experienced but less flexible than
Davis.
• He developed a genius for interpreting and
leading a public opinion.
President Abraham Lincoln & President Jefferson Davis
IX. Limitations on Wartime Liberties
• Lincoln, during the war, was willing to do
what was necessary.
• Controversy: blockade, increased size of
army, spent money, suspended writ of
habeas corpus
• He did all of this without Congress.
• Davis was less able than Lincoln to exercise
arbitrary power, mainly because of states’
righters.
• Both claimed they would have laid down
these expanded powers after the war.
Are you going to tell him there are limits to
his power??
X. Volunteers and Draftees: North and South
• Northern armies first manned solely by
volunteers
• 1863 Congress passed the first conscription
law
• The provisions were grossly unfair to the poor –
HOW SO?
• Draft Riots did occur, but 90% of the northern
army was volunteers.
• The South too relied mainly on volunteers.
• Less populous, they robbed both “cradle and
grave.”
• There were ways out in the south as well.
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
• Northern economies held most of the wealth.
• For the war, excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol were increased and an income tax was levied for the
first time.
• Congress 1861 passed the Morrill Tariff Act: increased duties 5 to 10 percent.
• Greenbacks: Washington Treasury issued paper money, totaling nearly $450 million at face value
• Bonds: government netted $2,621,916,786 from the sale of bonds through “drives.”
• National Banking System: Authorized by Congress in 1863, lasted until 1913
• Launched as a stimulant to the sale of government bonds
• Also designed to establish a standard bank-note currency
• Banks that joined the National Banking System could buy government bonds and issue sound paper
money backed by them
• Southern financial woes:
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Custom duties were cut off by Union blockade
Confederate bonds sold amounting to $400 million
Increased taxes sharply and imposed a 10% levy on farm produce
The war inflicted a 9,000% inflation rate on the Confederacy, contrasted with 80% for the Union.
XII. The North’s Economic Boom
• New factories, sheltered by the new
protective tariffs, grew quickly.
• Soaring prices pinched the day laborer and the
white-collar worker to some extent
• But the manufacturers and businesspeople
raked in “the fortunes of war” through
continued Industrial Revolution.
• Other industries were booming:
• Discovery of petroleum (1859) in PA
• Pioneers continued to push westward
(Homestead Act of 1862).
• Women expanded into the workplace to
take the jobs of their fathers, husbands,
and brothers.
While most women took to the factories to support the
war, some took to the front lines. To pass as a man,
Union soldier Frances Louisa Clayton, who enlisted with
her husband in 1861 as 'Jack Williams,' took up
gambling, cigar-smoking, and swearing.
XIII. A Crushed Cotton Kingdom
• The South fought invasion to the point of exhaustion.
• Possessing 30% of the national wealth (1860), the South
claimed only 12% in 1870.
• Infrastructure completely collapsed.
• South committed “economic cannibalism” in order to
survive.
• Remarkably, southern spirit remained until the end.
• Women became pillars on which the men supported
themselves.
• Women took pride in denying themselves the silks and
satins worn by the Northerners.
• In the end: Industry conquered the Plantation.
Richmond, VA near the end of the war.