1. The Civil War

2. Secession Movement Election of 1860
Democratic fear of “Black Republicans”
Fear of interference in states
Fear of forced miscegenation and slavery of white men
Secession a “Constitutional” right
Compact theory of federal union (recall VA/KY resolutions and SC Nullification)

3. Gospel of Disunion
Commissioners sent to each slave state to convince state legislatures or secession conventions to secede.
John Preston in 1861: “The conflict between slavery and non-slavery is a conflict for life and death” and “The South cannot exist without African slavery”
Jabez Curry in 1861: secession meant “deliverance from Abolition domination” and slavery would be “assaulted, humbled, dwarfed, degraded, and finally crushed out.”
Alexander Stephens in1861: The prevailing ideas entertained by...most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution was that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away.... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery--subordination to the superior race--is his natural and normal condition.

5. Gospel of Disunion – after the War
John Preston in 1868: The North “defeated the promised destiny of America” and “Liberty may be dead but the Union is preserved”
Jabez Curry in 1901: “The object in quitting the Union was not to destroy, but to save the principles of the Constitution.”

6. Secession Crisis Timing of Secession Percent Slaves in Population
Percentage of White Families Owning Slaves
Initial states to secede 
South Carolina 
57 
47 
Georgia 
48 
38 
Florida 
44 
35 
Alabama 
45 
Mississippi 
55 
49 
Louisiana 
31 
Texas 
30 
29 
States seceding later 
Virginia 
27 
North Carolina 
33 
Tennessee 
25 
Arkansas 
28 
20 
Remained in Union 
Delaware  2  4 
Maryland 
13 
15 
Kentucky 
24 
Missouri 
10 

7. Secession Crisis

8. Confederate States of America
March 4, 1861
President Jefferson Davis
Constitutional protection of slavery
Superiority of white race
“state’s rights” causes similar problems to the Articles of Confederation
Buchanan does nothing when states secede.

9. First shots Federal troops moved to Fort Sumter
Davis orders fire and Lincoln enlists Army
Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas join Confederacy

10. North’s Three Prong Strategy
“Anaconda”
Pressure Virginia
Blockade South
Split Confederacy

11. Balance Sheet of the War

13. Problems in the Confederacy
Attempts to centralize
Over 100,000 deserters
Secret Union societies in
N. Arkansas, E. Tennessee, etc.
Economic problems
Light tax burden
Lacked bureaucracy
Lacked hard/liquid wealth

15. “A Rich Man’s War and a Poor Man’s Fight”
Union
Mandatory enrollment (20-45)
“commutation fee”
Irish Immigrants
Confederacy
Draft (18-35, 45, 50)
“twenty-negro provision”

17. Turning Points of the War

18. Blacks in the War 200,000 serve in Union military
20 congressional medals of honor
Justification for equality
Navy: equal, Army: segregated
Inequality in pay and rank
Union Captain - "A great many [white people]," he wrote, "have the idea that the entire Negro race are vastly their inferiors. A few weeks of calm unprejudiced life here would disabuse them, I think. I have a more elevated opinion of their abilities than I ever had before. I know that many of them are vastly the superiors of those...who would condemn them to a life of brutal degradation."

19. Bittersweet Endings cont.
Lincoln’s Assassination
Full legal rights for blacks
April 14, 1865

20. Impact of the War

21. Civil Liberties during civil war
Draft
Free speech issues
Use of Military tribunals and detention
Habeas corpus

22. Effects of the Civil War Politics
Lack of Southerners allows North to get things done
Homestead Act
Transcontinental Railroad
Protective Tariff
Land Grant Colleges
Federal encouragement of immigration

23. Effect of the war on Women
Nursing and US Sanitary Commission
Charity organizations
Southern women forced to run plantations
Largely return to pre-war status at the conclusion of the war
Invigorates desire for suffrage

24. Effect of war on Government
Expansion of federal government
New financial system and economic prosperity
Sets the stage for Radical Reconstruction
Forever ends ideas of nullification, secession, and states rights
Supremacy of federal government confirmed

25. The Legacy of the Civil War
David Blight and the Lost Cause narrative
33:40 – 40:30, 42:35 – 45:45