Unit 11: Civil War

• Causes of the Civil War


  • 3/5 Compromise (1787)
  • Cotton gin (1793/1794 patent)
  • Missouri Compromise
  • The Compromise of 1850
  • Fugitive Slave Act
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act
  • "Bleeding Kansas"
  • Caning of Charles Sumner
  • LeCompton Constitution
  • Dred Scott v. Sanford Case
  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates
  • John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
  • Election of 1860
• The southern states that would constitute the Confederacy seceded in two stages. The states of the Lower South seceded before Lincoln took office. Arkansas and three states of the Upper South—Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee—waited until after the South fired on Fort Sumter. And four border slave states—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri—chose not to secede.
• Every Southern state (except South Carolina) was divided on the issue of secession, generally along up-country–low-country lines. In Virginia, this division was so extreme, that West Virginia split off to become a separate nonslave state and was admitted to the Union in 1863.
• Union


  Northern states that remained in the Union
• Confederate


  Southern states that seceded and formed the Confederacy
• Border


  Slave states that did not secede
• Some unsuccessfully tried to find some compromise that would satisfy all sides
• Some were willing to allow the South to go in peace
• Lincoln believed that the idea of free government would be threatened if the South was permitted to leave
• Southerners established the Confederate States of America
• Jefferson Davis


  Moderate, chosen as president of the Confederacy
• Davis tried to portray secession as a legal, peaceful step
• Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis initially wanted peace
• Conflict was brewing at Fort Sumter in South Carolina
• War was greeted enthusiastically by communities on both sides
• Men enlisted and women prepared supplies
• Union advantages


  • Greater population and industrial capacity (22 million vs. 9 million)
  • Seemed able to feed, clothe, and arm as many soldiers as necessary
  • Established army and navy
  • Strong beliefs against slavery
• Confederate advantages


  • They would be fighting a defensive war while North would have to fight a war of conquest with untrained troops
  • Had strong military leadership (southern military colleges)
  • Had strong belief in self-government
  • Believed cotton would gain foreign support
• Four strategically important border states did not secede: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware.
• These border states could have added 40% to the white population and military manpower of the Confederacy as well as 80% to its manufacturing capacity
• This hurt the Confederate argument that the southern states were forced to secede in order to protect their right to own slaves
• In Maryland, Lincoln cracked down on dissent by declaring martial law and arresting pro-Confederate leaders
• In Missouri, guerilla warfare broke out
• Kentucky also remained in the Union but sent troops to both sides
• Approximately 275,000 will fight for Union as compared to 71,000 who fought as Confederates
• Lincoln faced tasks of gaining support from his own party (and dealing with Democrats= Copperheads)
• Lincoln quickly took on extra-legal power: expanding the budget, calling up state militias, taking other actions without congressional sanction
• Lincoln was the first president to act as commander-in-chief, directing military policy, all with the intention of North-South reconciliation
• The greatest expansion of government: War Department


  • Raising funds through bond sales in small amounts, new taxes, printing paper money
  • Democrats protested economic centralization
  • Republicans enacted their economic programs including a doubling of the tariff, chartering companies to build a transcontinental railroad, a Homestead Act, the establishment of land grant colleges
  • Federal government permanently strengthened
• Lincoln was further challenged by the potential foreign recognition of the Confederacy
• South and King Cotton
• North worked to insure that England and France refused to support the South
• Nonbelligerence helped keep Great Britain and France neutral, including accepting a temporary French incursion into Mexico that violated the Monroe Doctrine
• President Davis needed to forge a nation out of eleven states, but he lacked Lincoln's political astuteness and skill
• Davis tended to "micro-manage" the war and lost the public confidence needed to build support for the sacrifices required by war
• In diplomacy, southern hopes for foreign recognition failed because Great Britain and France did not recognize the Confederate government
• The Confederate economy faltered as finances were in disarray with runaway inflation
• In the military, after the initial blush of enthusiasm, the Confederacy turned to a draft that exempted wealthy slaveholders
• Loyalty was a problem because most southern whites felt a loyalty to their states, lacked a sense of loyalty to the Confederate nation, and feared that centralization would destroy the very identity they sought to preserve
• The contrast between the hope and valor of these young southern volunteer soldiers, photographed shortly before the first battle of Bull Run, and the later advertisements for substitutes (at right), is marked