Week 1-26 Aug Lecture-For Liberty and Empire: The Civil War, Free Soil, and American Expansion
Shifting Political Orders
Definition and Function of Political Orders
A political order is defined by a dominant political language and a broad ideological agreement that spans across the political spectrum during a given historical era.
Political orders undergo transitions during major national crises, moving from an established system to a new, initially undefined framework.
The American Civil War served as a pivotal transitional boundary between the era of Slave Capitalism and the rise of an Industrial Empire.
Historical Eras of U.S. Political Orders
Slave Capitalism (1820s–1860s): Defined by an economy and political system heavily structured around chattel slavery and agrarian exports.
Crisis causing shift: The American Civil War.
Industrial Empire (1870s–1930s): Characterized by rapid industrialization, national corporate development, territorial consolidation, and overseas expansion.
Crisis causing shift: The Great Depression.
New Deal Order (1930s–1970s): Marked by expanding federal regulatory power, social safety nets, labor accommodations, and Keynesian economics.
Crisis causing shift: Economic stagflation and the Vietnam War.
Global Neoliberalism (1980s–2010s): Defined by deregulation, free-trade globalization, market prioritization, and financialization.
Crisis causing shift: The Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unformed Emerging Order (2020s–Present): A period of ideological realignments following recent systemic disruptions.
A New Birth of Freedom
Free Soil Ideology and Land Ownership
Prior to becoming an explicit movement for Black emancipation, the Civil War was framed in the North around free labor and access to land.
Traditional Ideological Belief: Universal access to land and property was viewed as the foundational prerequisite for personal liberty, economic independence, and political rights.
The Homestead Act of 1862:
Allowed any U.S. citizen (or immigrant who had filed for citizenship) to claim of public land for a nominal fee.
Advocates hailed the legislation as "the greatest democratic measure of all history."
The act was intended to guarantee a society composed permanently of independent, prosperous, working farmers.
Evolution of Lincoln's War Aims
First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861): President Abraham Lincoln explicitly disavowed intent to dismantle slavery where it already existed, stating he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists."
Gettysburg Address (November 1863): Lincoln redefined the conflict as a moral struggle for universal human equality and liberty, declaring:
The nation was "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
The Union must dedicate itself to the "unfinished work" so that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom."
Ideological Shift: The transition from preserving the Union with slavery intact to waging an emancipation war reflects a contested struggle over national identity without initial consensus.
Self-Emancipation and Black Freedom
Enslaved Action as War Catalyst: The conflict shifted toward Black liberation primarily because enslaved people took direct action to escape bondage, forcing federal military policy to adapt.
Summer 1861 Refugee Influx: Thousands of enslaved people escaped plantations and fled into Union military encampments.
This forced the U.S. military, Congress, and Lincoln to confront the legal status and liberty of Black Americans.
Approximately enslaved individuals (roughly of the total enslaved population) self-emancipated during the war.
Boston Blackwell recalled the immediate nature of this transition: "Iffen you could get to the Yankees' camp you was free right now."
Military Mobilization:
Over Black Americans served in the United States Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.).
Enlistment in the military provided Black Americans a direct mechanism to fight for their freedom and claim full citizenship.
Legislative Outcome: The military reality of self-emancipation and the Emancipation Proclamation (issued January 1, 1863, freeing enslaved people exclusively in states "then in rebellion against the United States") created the legal necessity for the passage of the 13th Amendment to permanently abolish slavery nationwide.
Ambition for American Progress
Expansion, Conquest, and Indigenous Displacement
The Paradox of "Free Soil": Western land was not empty or unclaimed; it was systematically taken from Indigenous nations through military force and forced removal.
While the Union fought to end chattel slavery in the South, it simultaneously waged aggressive military campaigns against Indigenous sovereignty in the West.
Scale of Land Seizure: Between 1776 and 1850, the United States federal government seized of Indigenous homelands.
Sand Creek Massacre (December 29, 1864):
Location: Southeastern Colorado.
Commanders: Colonel John Chivington led forces from the Colorado Militia and the U.S. Army against a peaceful village of Cheyenne under Chief Black Kettle.
Casualties: women and children and men were murdered.
Motivation: Chivington acted in service of Union territorial expansion to secure land for free-soil settlement, causing an escalation of Great Plains warfare.
Perspectives on Liberty:
Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé articulated the Indigenous struggle for equality and autonomy: "Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief… [and I should be] free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think, and act for myself."
General William Tecumseh Sherman described federal operations in the West as "a continuous warfare" aimed at subjugating Native populations.
Postwar Military Power: The Civil War organized, expanded, and strengthened federal military command structures, which were immediately redirected west after 1865 for a sustained campaign against Native nations.
Technological Infrastructure and Modernization
Pacific Railroad Act of 1862: Provided massive federal public land grants directly to private railroad companies to incentivize transcontinental construction.
Transcontinental Railroad Completion: Marked on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah Territory.
Economic and Federal Impact of Railroads:
Expanded the direct administrative reach, authority, and military presence of the federal government.
Accelerated white civilian settlement of western territories.
Created a resource pipeline linking Western raw materials directly to expanding industrial infrastructure in the East.
Private railroad companies engaged in aggressive marketing campaigns (offering land on 10-year credit schemes at interest) to sell land-grant acreage to incoming domestic and European settlers.
Land-Grant Universities and Institutional Integration
The Morrill Act of 1862 (Passed July 2, 1862):
Donated millions of acres of federal public land (issued via land scrip certificates) to states.
States sold this land to raise endowment funds to establish public colleges and universities.
Example: Land Scrip No. 1189 granted land access to fund institutions such as Cornell University in New York; Fort Collins hosted The State Agricultural College in Colorado.
Role of Public Universities:
Democratized access to higher education for working classes.
Focused curriculum design on practical fields: agriculture, engineering, chemistry, and military tactics, alongside liberal arts.
Supported national industrial modernization, scientific farming, and long-term economic expansion.
Served as a institutional mechanism to integrate western territories into the growing American nation-state.
Historiographical Framework of American Freedom
Contested Nature of Freedom (Eric Foner):
The concept of freedom is foundational to American personal and national identity, yet no stable historical consensus exists regarding its precise definition or who is entitled to it.
American history represents a continuous struggle to define freedom across intellectual, social, economic, cultural, and political dimensions.
Freedom is not a static set of timeless categories or an inevitable march toward a preordained goal, but an ongoing sequence of debates, disagreements, and structural conflicts.
Dual Objectives of Union Warfare:
The Northern war effort during the Civil War was waged simultaneously for two distinct imperatives: Liberty (emancipation and free labor) and Empire (continental consolidation, economic expansion, and Indigenous displacement).
The post-Civil War period marked an abrupt realignment from an order based on Slave Capitalism to an emerging Industrial Empire.
Primary Sources on Civil War Ideology and Disunion
The Confederate Ideology of Subordination: Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone Speech" (March 21, 1861):
Historical Context: Delivered in Savannah, Georgia, less than three weeks after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration by Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.).
Secession Basis: Following Lincoln's 1860 election, seven states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) seceded and established the C.S.A., citing the preservation of African slavery as their primary justification.
Rejection of the U.S. Constitution: Stephens asserted that the 1789 U.S. Constitution was fundamentally flawed because it rested upon the "error" and "sandy foundation" of racial equality (referencing Matthew 7:24–27).
The "Cornerstone" Thesis:
Stephens claimed the C.S.A. was the first government in world history founded upon the "great physical, philosophical, and moral truth" that racial equality is a fallacy.
The explicit foundation of the Confederate state was the assertion that "the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."
Subordination was declared to be in strict conformity with nature's laws and the "ordination of Providence."
Legal Equality for Whites: The Confederate Constitution preserved Magna Charta principles and guaranteed that "all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law."
View on Anti-Slavery Movement: Stephens categorized Northern abolitionists as "fanatics" suffering from a "species of insanity" and mental aberration, logicizing correct conclusions from false egalitarian premises.
The Union Ideology of Renewal: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863):
Source Document: The "Hay Draft" of the Gettysburg Address
Occasion: Dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg (fought July 1–3, 1863).
Foundational Premise: Traced the nation's origin back "Four score and seven years ago" (1776) to a republic "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
National Test: Framed the Civil War as a test of "whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Imperative for the Living: Declared that the living must be dedicated to the "unfinished work" and "great task remaining before us" to ensure that the dead "shall not have died in vain."
Democratic Legacy: Concluded with the commitment that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Indigenous Resistance and Settler Colonialism in the West
Territorial Expansion and Anti-Indigenous Warfare: Rocky Mountain News Editorial (August 10, 1864):
Regional Dynamics: White settlers in Colorado Territory embraced "free soil, free labor" principles to expand mining and agriculture without slave labor competition, but this expansion depended directly upon dispossessing Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Ute populations.
Militia Mobilization: Published in Denver, the editorial backed Territorial Governor John Evans' call to create Union-affiliated volunteer militia companies to combat a general Native uprising spanning from New Mexico to British America.
Incentives for Violence:
Governor Evans authorized private parties of men to organize under militia law.
Officers received authority and ammunition to "attack, disperse and kill hostile Indians wherever they can be found."
Volunteers were granted full legal ownership of all captured property (including horses) and promised federal back-pay, creating a profit incentive for anti-Indigenous warfare.
Exterminationist Rhetoric: Dismissed Eastern humanitarians raising a "terrible howl" over Indian rights, stating "it is no time to split hairs" and advocating "a few months of active extermination against the red devils" as the sole means to secure quiet.
Governor's Direct Stance: In a documented dialogue with a mountain settler ("Mr. A."), Governor Evans explicitly stated: "I would be but too glad to see every hostile Indian killed."
Tragic Outcome: This institutional framework directly produced the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29, 1864, where Colonel John Chivington's forces slaughtered approximately people (predominantly women, children, and elderly), after which troops committed atrocities on the dead and received a parade in Denver.
Nez Percé Diplomacy and Universal Rights: Chief Joseph's Washington D.C. Address (1879):
Speaker & Context: Delivered at Lincoln Hall in Washington, D.C., before an audience including President Rutherford B. Hayes, by Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (Chief Joseph / "Thunder Traveling Over the Mountains").
Historical Background: Following the 1877 Nez Percé War (occurring one year after the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn), Chief Joseph led his people on a retreat through Yellowstone toward Canada before surrendering short of the border due to cold, starvation, and exhaustion.
Rejection of Settler Paternalism:
Refuted white perceptions of Indigenous people as wild animals, asserting their full humanity.
Recounted how gold discoveries led white settlers to violate boundaries despite earlier Nez Percé land concessions made in pursuit of peace.
Confrontation with Federal Authority:
Challenged General O.O. Howard (Civil War veteran and former head of the Freedmen's Bureau) who commanded the Nez Percé to move to a reservation under threat of military force.
Denounced empty federal rhetoric: "Words do not pay for my dead people… Good words will not give my people a home where they can live in peace… I am tired of talk that comes to nothing."
Philosophical Arguments on Liberty:
Employed vivid analogies regarding forced confinement: "You might as well expect all rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented penned up… If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat?"
Demanded equal protection under the law: "If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also."
Formulated a comprehensive definition of liberty: "Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty."
Visualizing National Expansion and Progress
John Gast's American Progress (1872):
Production Context: Painted in 1872 by Prussian-born, Brooklyn-based artist John Gast under commission from publisher George Crofutt as the cover illustration for a guidebook celebrating the Transcontinental Railroad.
Symbolic Allegory:
Central Figure: A female figure representing Columbia/Liberty floating westward through the air, wearing the "Star of Empire" on her forehead.
Education: In her right hand, she carries a "common school" textbook, symbolizing national enlightenment and secular education.
Technology: With her left hand, she unrolls telegraph wires that string along behind railroad locomotives, symbolizing the rapid transmission of intelligence and administrative control across the continent.
Cultural Impact: Replicated widely as print lithographs across American homes, serving as a defining visual artifact of Westward expansion, technological optimism, and the racialized narrative of manifest destiny.