Unit 4

Harper’s Ferry

• John Brown - a radical abolitionist who is known for being violent and inciting the Harper’s Ferry riot

• John Brown decided to invade the state of Virginia by raiding an armory called Harper’s Ferry and rallying slaves to rebel against their owners, use guns from the armory, and live in a small town in the mountains where the army couldn’t get them

• Effects of Harper’s Ferry - For inciting the riot, John Brown is tried for treason against the state of Virginia, found guilty, sentenced to death, and becomes a martyr for the abolitionist cause. Meanwhile, Southerners grow increasingly paranoid about the abolitionist cause, making it harder for moderate Republicans to gain a good reputation

Abraham Lincoln

• Born in Kentucky into a humble background, his father is a farmer, moves to Indiana at age 7, and then to Illinois at 21, where he starts several failed businesses and eventually goes into law

  • he was self-educated, reading books such as fables and the Bible, then studying geometry when he was older to help with practicing law

• Early political and law career - he becomes an apprentice to a lawyer and then gains enough experience to become a lawyer and has a one-term stint as a Whig representative for Illinois in the House of Representatives

  • Whig Party - an old party against the Democrats and Andrew Jackson

• Later political and law career - after his stint as a representative, he went back into private practice for several years, but when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed into law, he joined the newly formed republican party to run as a senator in Illinois

• 1858 Campaign - between Democrat Stephen Douglas, the current Senator, and Republican Abraham Lincoln, Douglas won the Senate seat again, but the election made Lincoln more popular across the nation

Cooper Union Address

• After 1858, Lincoln was invited to speak in NYC about whether or not slavery should be regulated in the federal territories

• The founder’s intent on slavery in the territories - the Northwest Territory is ordained to be slavery-free not to spread slavery, countering the claim by Douglas and other Democrats that the founders never intended to regulate slavery

• GW’s advice - Lincoln says that the Democrats aren’t following GW’s advice to not divide into sections and are increasingly sowing a divide between Americans

• Lincoln denounces the actions of John Brown to reach more moderates and calm the divisions between the Democrats and Republicans, but the Southerners still believe all the Republicans to be radicals like Brown

• Southerners have also said that Republicans are inciting slave rebellions, but Lincoln says slave rebellions have been happening long before the Republican party, meaning people actually want to be free

1860 Campaign

• 4 Candidates - Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, John Breckinridge, and John Bell

• Lincoln - was actually not the first choice for the Republican Party, it was the abolitionist William Seward, former NY governor and Senator, who was more popular and would help win the East Coast, but Lincoln was chosen because he could win both the progressive East Coast and moderate Midwest, which is considered critical

• Constitutional Union Party - a one-time party based on keeping the country together and following both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, actually won three states in the upper South and was popular among millionaires because they benefitted from slavery and didn’t want a civil war to hurt their businesses

• 2 Democratic Candidates - the democratic party splits over who to nominate because of slavery, the Northern South candidate is more relaxed about slavery, while the Deep South is all for slavery

• Results - some Southern states took Lincoln off their ballots, but he still won because he had support in the North with a larger population. However, he only won 40% of the popular vote, and he remembers that 60% of the population didn’t vote for him while preparing to be inaugurated

  • California - they voted for everyone because they were most focused on getting a trans-continental railroad, which every party was promising

Secession Declarations

• Winter of Secession - several southern states seceded when they heard that Lincoln won the presidential election because they believed a Republican administration would destroy the country

• Southerners saw slavery as “critical to civilization”, and they believed Lincoln to be an abolitionist, although he wasn’t yet because he was trying to keep the Union together

• Lincoln as President-Elect - while incumbent president Buchannan is doing nothing, Lincoln is in Springfield until he has to travel to DC, which he does so in secret because the district is right next to Virginia, a slave state, and many slave owners are ready to harm him

South Carolina

• the first state to secede because it’s already tried once

• cites the right to revolution if the government doesn’t protect rights and liberty

• conveniently rejects “all men are created equal” because they don’t believe in it

• compact theory is important, they believe if a state can enter the Union, it can leave just as easily, despite that being unconstitutional

Lincoln’s Inaugural Address

1. Lincoln says that if war begins, it will started by the South because the North has no intent on starting a conflict

2. Lincoln values the presidential oath a lot because it is swearing to protect the Constitution and the Union, which he remembers throughout his term

3. Lincoln is trying to keep the Union together like the founders intended it to be because they fought together to create it

4. Lincoln believed that for the country to be “a more perfect union,” it has to be perpetual and everlasting with all states. Otherwise, it would be less perfect

5. As president, Lincoln won’t interfere with slavery and cites his previous speeches

6. some slave states have also not yet seceded, and he's trying to keep them in the Union, saying that if a majority deprived a minority of rights, that justifies a revolution, but It’s something the Union shouldn’t focus on and vows to be more moderate

7. in his eyes, secession is too radical, and Southerners should go by the regular way of electing a different president or passing a constitutional amendment in their favor

Start of the Confederacy

• Alexander Stevens - Vice President of the Confederacy

• Cornerstone Speech - by Stevens, describing the new government and slavery, saying slavery is the cause of the split, which was predicted by the founding fathers who saw it as a moral wrong, so he says the founding fathers are wrong and that the confederacy is instead based on the belief white people are superior to all other races

• Lincoln still sees the Confederate states as part of the Union, therefore, he is bound by oath to bring them back into the Union

Constitution of the Confederacy

• the new constitution for the confederacy

• sovereignty rests in the states, not the people, so Compact Theory is enacted

• explicit references to slaves, declaring them property and giving them no rights

Slavery in the South

• 1 in 3 Southern families own at least one slave, and 1 in 8 own at least twenty

• even though 2/3s of the population didn’t own slaves, they wanted to defend against the “attacking” union and were also just plain racist

• Cotton Exports 1801 vs. 1850 - 9% of total cotton grown is American in 1801, but then grows to 68% in 1850, showing that “cotton is king” and dictates life in the South, meaning they rely on slavery as the foundation of their economy

• Spread of Slavery in the South - There are hotspots of slaves along the Mississippi River, which includes some of the wealthiest counties in the nation, there are lots in port cities, the Cotton Belt, but not in the Appalachian Mountains because people there are less reliant on slavery

The Union

• Actions Lincoln takes - he calls for 75k militia men, a naval blockade, and suspended habeas corpus while Congress is not in session

  • habeas corpus - the right to know what crime you are being tried for, can only be suspended when public safety is endangered

• July 4th, 1861 - Congress is called back into session for a special message by Lincoln concerning the Civil War

• Merryman case - a Marylander was arrested and sued the government because he was not given habeas corpus. The case was brought to the Supreme Court, where Taney declared that only the Legislative Branch can suspend the right, not the Executive Branch because the right is stated in the First Article, the article about the Legislative. However, Lincoln still claims the right because Congress is not in session, and there is a literal civil war going on

Emancipation Proclamations

• Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation - released a few days after Antietam, is like an ultimatum for the South to concede, giving them until the first day of the next year, when Lincoln would declare all slaves in rebelling states free

  • If states concede, they will be reimbursed for property damaged by the Union and for their now-free slaves

  • Abolitionists are upset that not all slaves were freed, but Lincoln needed the slave states in the Union to win the war, so he couldn’t declare all slave states free

• Final Emancipation Proclamation - As Commander in Cheif, Lincoln declared all slaves in rebelling states free as a war measure because it would hinder the South’s war effort, and it changed the war from a war of unity to a war of abolition

  • Black people were also allowed to fight for the Union, leading to 180-200k being able to join the military and gain a possible path to citizenship

  • Great Britain wasn’t able to support the South because they abolished slavery in 1833, so they couldn’t support pro-slavery countries

Civil War

• Republican progressives push Lincoln to be more radical and make the war about abolition, but he decides not to keep the split factions together

• “are” to “is” - the United States is now described as a single entity instead of a coalition of states, implying complete unification and democracy

Battles of the Civil War

• Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) - June 1861, the Union thought they would win, but they lost badly to the Confederacy because they weren’t as determined as the South, and the battle shows the war will be a long one

• Anaconda Plan - a union strategy, a naval blockade from the mostly loyal Navy to destroy the Southern economy, turns out to be somewhat effective

Fort Sumter

• A couple of weeks after his inauguration, Lincoln is told that a federal fort, Fort Sumter, is still under Union control in South Carolina, but is surrounded by Confederate forces and is running out of supplies

• He can surrender the fort but instead, he tells the Confederacy that he will resupply the fort because if they decide to attack the resupply ship, they will be the ones starting a war like he predicted, but if they don’t, peace is kept

• Confederates fire on the fort before the resupply ship even arrives and start a 36-hour battle with no severe casualties, but the Union forces at the base eventually surrender

• Consequences of Fort Sumter - four slave states seceded from the Union, while four stayed in the Union despite having Southern sympathies

• Slave states that secede after Fort Sumter (Virginia) - four slave states seceded from the Union, such as Virginia, which hurt the Union as Virginia became the Confederate state with the highest population and was, therefore, able to supply more troops and additionally, several successful Union generals who are from Virginia switch over. Richmond was also a major industrial city, giving the South a much-needed boost as it was mainly agricultural

• Slave states that stayed after Fort Sumter - these states were vital to the Union once the war started but were barely kept in the Union while only a portion of soldiers fought for the Union, others fought for the Confederacy, tearing soldiers apart. Kentucky is especially vital, as it prevents the Confederacy from having the Ohio River as a natural defense and using it for transportation

Battle of Antietam

• Robert E. Lee - a Union officer who switches over to the Confederate side because his home state of Virginia secedes from the Union

• The Confederate Plan - Lee decides to attack Maryland, a Union state, in an attempt to invade the Union

• The Union Plan - some soldiers find the Confederate plans wrapped around a cigar and then develop a counter-attack plan

• one of the deadliest battles of the war, but the Union wins

Battle of Gettysburg

• July 1st-3rd 1863

• Robert E. Lee tried invading Pennsylvania to get a Confederate stronghold in the area, and the battle that ensured was the largest in the Civil War and a turning point for the Union

• Because of the loss, Confederate forces never try to invade the North again

Gettysburg Address

• The November after the battle, Lincoln gives a short speech at the commemoration of the cemetery for the fallen soldiers

• “four score and seven years ago” - Lincoln was referencing the Union was still quite young and vulnerable to falling apart, as they didn’t know if a government by the people could actually survive

• Lincoln says the Union, once it wins the war, will be born again because the United States will truly be based on liberty and connected to the Christian practice of baptism, washing away sins for Christ

• “that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth” - at this time in history, all other countries were based on the idea of royalty and the divine right to rule, and the Union is the only country of its kind and an experiment on whether or not such a type of nation could exist

Election of 1864

• the Democratic candidate George McClellan challenges Lincoln, who is elected to a second term

• George McClellan - one of Lincoln’s former Union generals who was always hesitant, asking for more supplies and delaying plans, so Lincoln fired him

• Lincoln’s re-election campaign - helped by the capturing of Atlanta, he focused on continuing to fight the Confederacy and for complete abolition by a constitutional amendment

• McClellan’s election campaign - promised to end the war quickly under all circumstances necessary

• Second Inaugural Address - a speech looking forward to Reconstruction while more radical Republicans want to try and execute Confederates, but Lincoln chooses his words carefully to reduce tensions, and he doesn’t call rebels Confederates.

  • He also connects to his first Inaugural address about being morally “better” but finally acknowledges slavery as the fundamental issue

  • “More of a sermon than a speech” - Fredrick Douglas calls the second inaugural speech more of a sermon because Lincoln was trying to reunite the country through Christianity

  • The North and South didn’t want to go to war, but they did anyway because of how strongly they believed in slavery as humans are naturally very territorial and resistant to change

  • Lincoln framed the war as a punishment by God, not just against Southern slavery but against American slavery

• The 13th Amendment - passed before Lincoln’s second inaugural address, it abolishes slavery completely but is not ratified until December after the war

March to the Sea

• William Tecumseh Sherman - a Union general who captures Atlanta, a big city in the South with railroads and industry, which he burns to the ground because he believes in total warfare

  • total warfare - war not just against a military but the cities, towns, and farms of the enemy, meant to be psychologically damaging as well

• a campaign by Sherman from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, of total destruction against the Southerners and living off what remained

Appottomax

• facing defeat, Lee decides to surrender to the Union forces at Appottomax

• he meets up with Grant, and they first talk about their days in the Mexican war, but then they eventually get to the point

• they agreed upon Confederate soldiers being able to keep their handguns and horses, and the Union would also provide 25000 rations for the starving Confederate soldiers

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

• shortly after Lincoln is inaugurated, he goes to see a play on Good Friday at Ford’s Theatre with his wife and another couple and is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a son from a famous acting family

• Vice President Andrew Johnson is sworn in as the next president when Lincoln dies