Settling the Northern Colonies

1. 
   If the constitution was passed “without slavery,” then those slaveholders already in the state would still be protected.
   
2. 
   Angry free soilers boycotted the polls and Kansas approved the constitution with slavery.
   

1. 
   “Bleeding Kansas” was an issue that spilled into Congress: Senator Charles Sumner was a vocal antislaveryite, and his blistering speeches condemned all slavery supporters.
   
2. 
   Congressman Preston S. Brooks decided that since he couldn’t challenge Sumner to a duel, he’d beat the senator with a cane like a dog, which is just what he did until his cane broke; nearby senators did nothing but watched, and Brooks was cheered on by the South.
   
3. 
   However, the incident touched off fireworks, as Sumner’s “The Crime Against Kansas” speech was reprinted by the thousands, and it put Brooks and the South in the wrong.
   

1. 
   In 1856, the Democrats had chosen James Buchanan, someone untainted by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and a person with lots of political experience, to be their nomination for presidency against Republican John C. Fremont, a fighter in the Mexican-American War.
   
2. 
   Another party, the American Party, also called the “Know-Nothing Party” because of its secrecy, was organized by “nativists,” old-stock Protestants, who nominated Millard Fillmore.
   
   1. 
      These people were anti-Catholic and anti-foreign and also included old Whigs.
      
3. 
   The campaign was full of mudslinging, which allegations of scandal and conspiracy.
   
4. 
   Fremont was hurt by the rumor that he was a Roman-Catholic.
   

1. 
   Buchanan won because there were doubts about Fremont’s honesty, capacity, and sound judgment.
   
2. 
   Perhaps it was better that Buchanan won, since Fremont was not as strong as Lincoln, and in 1856, many people were still apathetic about slavery, and the South could have seceded more easily.
   

1. 
   On March 6, 1857, the Dred Scot decision was handed down by the Supreme Court.
   
   1. 
      Dred Scot had been a slave whose master had taken him north into free territory, where he had lived for many years. After his master’s death, he sued for his freedom from his new master, claiming that he had been in free territory. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed, freeing him, but his new master appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overruled the decision.
      
2. 
   Chief Justice Taney said that no slave could be a citizen of the U.S. in his justification
   
3. 
   The case inflamed millions of abolitionists against slavery and even though who didn’t care against it.
   
   1. 
      In effect, he ruled that the Missouri Compromise had been unconstitutional: Congress had no right to ban slavery from the territories.
      
4. 
   Northerners complained; Southerners were inflamed by northern defiance, and more tension built.
   

1. 
   Psychologically, the Panic of 1857 was the worst of the 19^th century, though it really wasn’t as bad as the Panic of 1837.
   
2. 
   The panic was caused by inflation and overgrowth of grain and nowhere to export it.
   
3. 
   The North was especially hard hit, but the South rode it out with flying colors, seemingly proving that cotton was king and raising their egos.
   
4. 
   Also, in 1860, Congress passed a homestead act that would provide 160 acres of land at a cheap price for those who were less fortunate, but it was vetoed by Buchanan.
   
   1. 
      This plan, though, was opposed by the northeast, which had long been unfriendly to extension of land and had feared that it would drain its population even more, and the south, which knew that it would provide an easy way for more free soilers to fill the territories.
      
5. 
   The panic also brought calls for a higher tariff rate, which had been lowered to about 20% only months before.
   

1. 
   In 1858, Senator Stephen Douglas’ term was about to expire, and against him was Republican Abraham Lincoln, an ugly fellow who had risen up the political ladder slowly but was a good lawyer and a pretty decent debater.
   

1. 
   Lincoln rashly challenged Douglas, the nation’s most devastating debater, to a series of seven debates, which the senator accepted, and despite expectations of failure, Lincoln held his own.
   
2. 
   The most famous debate came at Freeport, Illinois, where Lincoln brought this scenario: if the people had a territory voted slavery down, would they be right, despite the Supreme Court saying that they could not do so?
   
   1. 
      Douglas replied with his “Freeport Doctrine,” which said that no matter how the Supreme Court ruled, slavery would stay down if the people voted it down; the people had the power.
      
3. 
   Douglas won, but more people voted for Abe, so he won the moral victory.
   

1. 
   John Brown now had a plan to invade the South, seize its arms, call up on the slaves to rise up and revolt, and take over the South and free it of slaves, but in his raid of Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the slaves didn’t revolt, and he was captured and convicted of treason and sentenced to death.
   
2. 
   Brown, though insane, was not stupid, and he portrayed himself as a martyr against slavery, and when he was hung, he instantly became a martyr for abolitionists; northerners rallied around his memory.
   
3. 
   The South was happy, but abolitionists were infuriated by his execution (they conveniently forgot about his violent past)
   

1. 
   After failing to nominate a candidate in Charleston, South Carolina, the Democrats split into North and South, and at Baltimore, the Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas for president while the Southern Democrats chose John C. Breckinridge.
   
2. 
   Meanwhile, the “Know-Nothings” chose John Bell of Tennessee.
   

1. 
   The Republicans, sensing victory against their split opponents, nominating Abraham Lincoln, not William Seward.
   
2. 
   Their platform had an appeal to every important non-southern group: for free soilers it proposed non-extension of slavery; for northern manufacturers, a protective tariff; for the immigrants, no abridgement of rights; for the West, internal improvements at federal expense; and for the farmers, free homesteads.
   
3. 
   Southerners threatened that Lincolns election would result in Southern secession.
   
4. 
   Lincoln wasn’t an outright abolitionist, since as late as February 1865, he had still favored cash compensation for free slaves.
   
5. 
   Abe Lincoln won despite not even being on the ballot in the South.
   

1. 
   Lincoln won with only 40% of the popular vote, and had the Democratic Party been more organized and energetic, they might have won.
   
2. 
   The Republicans did not control the House or the Senate, and the South still had a five to four majority in the Supreme Court, but the South still decided to secede.
   

1. 
   South Carolina had threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected president, and now it went good on its word, seceding in December of 1860.
   
   1. 
      Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed in the next six weeks.
      
2. 
   The seven seceders met in Montgomery, Alabama in February of 1861 and created the Confederate States of America, and they chose Jefferson Davis as president.
   
3. 
   President Buchanan did nothing to force the confederacy back into the Union, partly because the Union troops were needed in the West and because the North was still apathetic toward secession; they felt that it was better that the South had seceded.
   

1. 
   In an attempt at compromise (again), James Henry Crittenden of Kentucky proposed the Crittenden amendments, which would ban slavery north of the 36°30’ line and would leave the issue in territories south of the line up to the people; also, existing slavery south of the line would be protected.
   
2. 
   Lincoln opposed the compromise, which might have worked, because his party had preached against the extension of slavery, and he had to stick to principle.
   
3. 
   It also seems that Buchanan couldn’t have saved the Union no matter what he could have done.
   

1. 
   The seceding states did so because they feared that their rights as a slaveholding minority were being threatened, and were alarmed at the growing power of the Republicans, plus, they believed that they would be unopposed despite what the Northerners claimed.
   
2. 
   The South also hoped to develop its own banking and shipping, and to prosper.
   
3. 
   Besides, in 1776, the 13 colonies had seceded from Britain and had won; now the South could do the same thing.
   

Chapter 21: “Girding for War: The North and South”

1. 
   President of the Disunited States of America
   
   1. 
      On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president, having slipped into Washington D.C. to thwart assassins, and in his inaugural address, he stated that there would be no conflict unless the South provoked it.
      
      1. 
         He stated that geographically, the United States could not be split (true).
         
   2. 
      A split U.S. brought up questions about the sharing of the national debt and the allocation of federal territories.
      
   3. 
      A split U.S. also pleased the European countries, since the U.S. was the only major display of democracy in the Western Hemisphere, and with a split U.S. the Monroe Doctrine could be broken as well.
      
2. 
   South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
   
   1. 
      Most of the forts in the South had relinquished their power to the Confederacy, but Fort Sumter was among the few that didn’t, and since its supplies were running out against a besieging South Carolinian army, Lincoln had a problem of how to deal with the situation.
      
   2. 
      Lincoln intelligently chose to send supplies to the fort, and he told the South Carolinian governor that the ship to the fort only held provisions, not reinforcements.
      
   3. 
      However, to the South, provisions were reinforcements, and on April 12, 1861, cannons were fired onto the fort; after 34 hours of non-lethal firing, the fort surrendered.
      
   4. 
      Northerners were inflamed by the South’s actions, and Lincoln now called on 75,000 volunteers; so many came that they had to be turned away.
      
   5. 
      On April 19 and 27, Lincoln also called a blockade that was leaky at first but soon clamped down tight.
      
   6. 
      The South, feeling that Lincoln was now waging an aggressive war, was joined by four of the Border States: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
      
   7. 
      The capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery to Richmond.
      
3. 
   Brother’s Blood and Border Blood
   
   1. 
      The remaining Border States were crucial for both sides, as they would have almost doubled the manufacturing capacity of the South and increased its supply of horses and mules by half.
      
   2. 
      Thus, to retain them, Lincoln used moral persuasion…and methods of dubious legality:
      
      1. 
         In Maryland, he declared martial law in order to retain a state that would isolate Washington D.C. within Confederacy territory if it went to the South and also sent troops to western Virginia and Missouri.
         
   3. 
      At the beginning, in order to hold the remaining Border States, Lincoln repeated said that the war was to save the Union, not free the slaves, since a war for the slaves would have lost the Border States
      
   4. 
      Most of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole) sided with the South, although parts of the Cherokee and most of the Plains Indians were pro-North.
      
   5. 
      The war was one of brother vs. brother, with the mountain men of (now) West Virginia sending some 50,000 men to the Union.
      
4. 
   The Balance of Forces
   
   1. 
      The South, at the beginning of the war, did have many advantages:
      
      1. 
         It only had to fight to a draw to win, since all it had to do was keep the North from invading and taking over all of its territory.
         
      2. 
         It had the most talented officers, including Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and most of the Southerners had been trained to fight in the harsh South since they were children, as opposed to the tame Northerners.
         
   2. 
      However, the South was handicapped by a shortage of factories and manufacturing plants, but during the war, those developed in the South.
      
   3. 
      Still, as the war dragged on, the South found itself with a shortage of shoes, uniforms, blankets, clothing, and food, which didn’t reach soldiers due to supply problems.
      
   4. 
      However, the North had a huge economy, much more men available to fight, and it controlled the sea, though its officers weren’t as well trained as some in the South.
      
   5. 
      As the war dragged on, Northern strengths beat Southern advantages.
      
5. 
   Dethroning King Cotton
   
   1. 
      The South was depending on foreign intervention to win the war, but didn’t get it.
      
   2. 
      While the European countries wanted the Union to be split, their people had were pro-North and anti-slavery, and sensing that this was could eliminate slavery once and for all, they would not allow any intervention by their nations on behalf of the South.
      
   3. 
      Still, the war would produce a shortage of cotton, which would draw England et al into the war, right? Wrong.
      
      1. 
         In the pre-war years, cotton production had been immense, and thus, England and France had huge surpluses of cotton.
         
      2. 
         As the North won Southern territory, it sent cotton and food over to Europe.
         
      3. 
         India and Egypt upped their cotton production to offset the hike in the price of cotton.
         
   4. 
      So, King Wheat and King Corn (of the North) beat King Cotton, since Europe needed the food much more than it needed the cotton.
      
6. 
   The Decisiveness of Diplomacy
   
   1. 
      The South still hoped for foreign intervention, and it almost got it on a few occasions.
      
   2. 
      Late in 1861, a Union warship stopped the British mail steamer the Trent and forcibly removed two Confederate diplomats bound for Europe.
      
      1. 
         Britain was outraged at the upstart Americans and threatened war, but luckily, Lincoln released the prisoners and tensions cool. “One war at a time,” he said.
         
      2. 
         British-build sea vessels that went to the Confederacy were also a problem.
         
         1. 
            In 1862, the Alabama escaped to the Portuguese Azores, took on weapons and crew from Britain, but never sailed into a Confederate base, thus using a loophole to help the South.
            
   3. 
      Charles Francis Adams persuaded Britain not to build any more ships for the Confederacy, since they might someday be used against England.
      
7. 
   Foreign Flare-Ups
   
   1. 
      Britain also had two Laird rams—two Confederate warships that could destroy wooden Union ships and wreck havoc on the North, but after the threat of war by the U.S., Britain backed down and used those ships for its Royal Navy.
      
   2. 
      Near Canada, Confederate agents plotted (and sometimes succeeded) to burn down American cities, and as a result, there were several mini-armies (raised mostly by British-hating Irish-Americans) sent to Canada.
      
   3. 
      Napoleon III of France also installed a puppet government in Mexico City, putting in the Austrian Archduke Maximilian as emperor of Mexico, but after the war, the U.S. threatened violence, and Napoleon left Maximilian to doom at the hands of the Mexican firing squad.
      
8. 
   President Davis versus President Lincoln
   
   1. 
      The Problem with the South was that it gave states the ability to secede in the future, and getting Southern states to send troops to help other states was always difficult to do.
      
   2. 
      Jefferson Davis was never really popular and overworked himself.
      
   3. 
      Lincoln, though with his problems, had the benefit of leading an established government and grew patient and relaxed as the war dragged on.
      
9. 
   Limitations on Wartime Liberties
   
   1. 
      Abe Lincoln did do some tyrannical acts during his term as president, such as illegally proclaiming a blockade, proclaiming acts without Congressional consent, and sending in troops to the Border States, but he justified his actions by saying that such acts weren’t permanent, and he had to do those things in order to preserve the Union.
      
   2. 
      Such actions included the advancement of $2 million to three private citizens for war purposes, the suspension of habeas corpus so that anti-Unionists could be arrested, and the intimidation of voters in the Border States.
      
   3. 
      The Confederacy’s states’ refusal to sacrifice some states’ rights led to the handicapping of the South, and perhaps to its ultimate downfall.
      
10. 
    Volunteers and Draftees: North and South
    
    1. 
       At first, there were a lot of volunteers, but after enthusiasm slacked off, Congress passed its first conscription law ever (the draft), one that angered the poor because rich men could hire a substitute instead of entering the war just by paying $300 to Congress.
       
       1. 
          As a result, many riots broke out, such as one in New York City.
          
    2. 
       Volunteers manned more than 90% of the Union army, and as volunteers became scarce, money was offered to them in return for service; still, there were many deserters.
       
    3. 
       The South had to resort to a draft nearly a year before the North, and it also had its privileges for the rich, since those who owned or oversaw 20 slaves or more were exempt from the draft.
       
11. 
    The Economic Stresses of War
    
    1. 
       The North passed the Morril Tariff Act, increasing tariff rates by about 5 to 10%, but war soon drove those rates even higher.
       
    2. 
       The Washington Treasury also issued green-backed paper money totaling nearly $450 million, but this money was very unstable and sank to as low as 39 cents per gold dollar.
       
    3. 
       The federal Treasury also netted $2,621,916,786 in the sale of bonds.
       
    4. 
       The National Banking System was a landmark of the war, created to establish a standard bank-note currency, and banks that joined the National Banking System could buy government bonds and issue sound paper money.
       
       1. 
          The National Banking Act was the first step toward a unified national banking network since 1836, when the Bank of the United States (BUS) was killed by Andrew Jackson.
          
    5. 
       In the South, runaway inflation plagued the Confederates, and overall, in the South inflation went up to 9000%, as opposed to just 80% in the North.
       
12. 
    The North’s Economic Boom
    
    1. 
       The North actually emerged from the Civil War more prosperous than before, since new factories had been formed; a millionaire class was born for the first time in history.
       
    2. 
       However, many Union suppliers used shoddy equipment in their supplies, such as using cardboard as the soles of shoes, etc…
       
    3. 
       Sizes for clothing were invented, and the reaper helped feed millions.
       
    4. 
       In 1859, a discovery of petroleum oil sent people to Pennsylvania.
       
    5. 
       Women gained new advances in the war, taking the jobs left behind by men going off to battle, and other women posed as men and became soldiers with their husbands.
       
    6. 
       Clara Burton and Dorothea Dix helped transform nursing from a lowly service to a respected profession, and in the South, Sally Tompkins ran a Richmond infirmary for wounded Confederate soldiers and was awarded the rank of Captain by Jefferson Davis.
       
13. 
    A Crushed Cotton Kingdom
    
    1. 
       The South was ruined by the war, as transportation collapsed and supplies of everything became scarce, and by the end of the war, the South claimed only 12% of the national wealth as opposed to 30% before the war, and it’s per capita income was now 2/5 that of Northerners, as opposed to 2/3 of Northerners before the war.
       
    2. 
       Still, many women were resourceful and spirited, but the South just couldn’t win.
       

Chapter 22: “The Furnace of the Civil War”

1. 
   Bull Run Ends the “Ninety-Day War”
   
   1. 
      When President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen on April 15, 1861, he and just about everyone else in the North expected a swift war lasting about 90 days, with a quick suppression of the South to prove the North’s superiority and end this foolishness.
      
   2. 
      On July 21, 1861, ill-trained Yankee recruits swaggered out toward Bull Run to engage a smaller Confederate unit.
      
      1. 
         The atmosphere was like that of a sporting event, as Congressmen gathered in picnics.
         
      2. 
         However, after initial success by the Union, Confederate reinforcements arrived and, coupled with Stonewall Jackson’s line holding, sent the Union soldiers into disarray.
         
   3. 
      The Battle of Bull Run showed both sides that this would not be a short, easy war.
      
2. 
   “Tardy George” McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign
   
   1. 
      Later in 1861, command of the Army of the Potomac (name of the Union army) was given to 34 year old General George B. McClellan, an excellent drillmaster and organizer of troops but also a perfectionist who constantly believed that he was outnumbered, never took risks, and held the army without moving for months before finally ordered by Lincoln to advance.
      
   2. 
      Finally, he decided upon a water-borne approach to Richmond, called the Peninsula Campaign, taking about a month to capture Yorktown before coming to the Richmond.
      
      1. 
         At this moment, President Lincoln took McClellan’s expected reinforcements and sent them chasing Stonewall Jackson, and after “Jeb” Stuart’s Confederate cavalry rode completely around McClellan’s army, Southern General Robert E. Lee launched a devastating counterattack—the Seven Days’ Battles—on June 26 to July 2 of 1862.
         
      2. 
         The victory at Bull Run ensured that the South, if it lost, would lose slavery as well, and it was after this battle that Lincoln began to draft an emancipation proclamation.
         
   3. 
      The Union strategy now turned to total war:
      
      1. 
         Suffocate the South through an oceanic blockade.
         
      2. 
         Free the slaves to undermine the South’s very economic foundations.
         
      3. 
         Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River.
         
      4. 
         Chop the Confederacy to pieces by marching through Georgia and the Carolinas.
         
      5. 
         Capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia.
         
      6. 
         Try everywhere to engage the enemy’s main strength and grind it to submission.
         
3. 
   The War at Sea
   
   1. 
      The Union blockade started leakily at first, but it clamped down later.
      
   2. 
      Britain, who would ordinarily protest such interference in the seas that she “owned,” recognized the blockade as binding, since Britain herself often used blockades in her wars.
      
   3. 
      
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