The Reconstruction Amendment to the Constitution

 The 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are referred to as the “Reconstruction Amendments.” Each amendment addressed specific issues regarding Southern slavery, citizenship, and suffrage. Of the three, the 14^th Amendment is still applied in contemporary cases that violate the “equal protection” clause. All three amendments radically altered the social and political landscape of American society at a time the Civil War was ending. Although the motives of Radical Republicans crafting the amendments were partisan, their efforts paved the way toward a society that was on the path to a democracy that would ultimately provide absolute equality for every citizen.

 

The 13^th Amendment Ends Slavery

 

President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became law January 1, 1863. Yet the document did not end all slavery in the United States. Slaves held in key Border States like Missouri and Maryland were not affected. Only slaves in the South, held in areas not yet occupied by advancing Union troops, were declared free.

 

The 13^th Amendment assured that all slaves were declared free. The amendment used both the terms “slavery” and “involuntary servitude.” The only exception was in cases of “punishment fort crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” This exception allowed for the use of slave labor by the state in regard to prison inmates.

 

In the South after the Civil War, many communities enacted laws that resurrected provisions of former slave codes. Vagrants could be arrested and, upon certain conviction, be forced into involuntary servitude. The same was true for minor infractions. In this sense, the “loophole” in the amendment continued the process of slavery, albeit by another definition.

 

The 14^th Amendment Defines Citizenship and Provides Equal Protection

 

The 1857 Dred Scott Decision denied citizenship to African Americans. The 14^th Amendment overturned that ruling, stating that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Significantly, citizenship was defined in terms of both federal and state jurisdictions. The Scott Decision, as detailed by Chief Justice Roger Taney, differentiated between state and federal citizenship.

 

The contemporary debate on immigration reform has prompted some Republican lawmakers to suggest a revision of the 14^th Amendment’s citizenship clause or even submitting a new amendment that addresses citizenship. But Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment also includes the “equal protection clause,” which has been applied to dozens of cases of discrimination and violation of civil rights. This clause must never be removed.

 

The 15^th Amendment Provides for Universal Male Suffrage

 

Ever since the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, female activists tied their cause of female suffrage to abolition. The passage of the 15^th Amendment shattered that goal. The right to vote could not be denied on the basis of race, color, or “previous condition of servitude.” But the amendment failed to address gender. Not until the 1920 19^th Amendment would gender be addressed.

 

The 15^th Amendment, however, did not stop newly admitted Southern states from placing legal conditions on voting, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. These state laws effectively deprived the very people the amendment targeted from political participation. Future amendments and Civil Rights Acts during the turmoil of the post-World War II Civil Rights movement would resolve those issues.

 

Reconstruction Amendments Represented a Positive Step

 

Ultimately, the Reconstruction amendments attempted to swiftly address the issues that came with Confederate defeat in 1865. They clarified and enhanced Lincoln’s 1863 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. Although loopholes were used to circumvent the intent of the amendments, they helped to forge an American society based on equality, respect for diversity, and guaranteed civil rights for all citizens.

 

Sources:

 

Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 (NY: Francis Parkman Prize Edition, History Book Club, HarperCollins, 2005)

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development, 5^th edition (NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1976)

United States Constitution

Published August 14, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. Copyright continues.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the North and the South in the Civil War

 Although the Civil War was initially viewed by many Northern and Southern observers to be a short conflict, it rapidly devolved into four years of bloody battles. Lincoln’s original “police” action after the fall of Ft. Sumter gradually turned into total war that demanded nothing less than the destruction of the Southern political and social structure. The duration of the war, however, highlighted what was barely evident to those early recruits: Union military strength outlasted the South.

 

When the Civil War Came

 

The shots that forced the surrender of Ft. Sumter may have signaled the beginning of a defensive resistance to the North, but it also encouraged an outpouring of patriotic emotion for the Union in the North. Unlike the initial Northern military buildup, however, Southern military leadership was far better prepared. Many of the front-line commanders were army veterans, having served in the Mexican War as well as manning western garrisons. One third of all U.S. officers that resigned their commissions from the U.S. army to return South in early 1861 were West Point graduates.

 

Southerners were defending their homeland, a prospect driven into their collective consciousness after President Lincoln requested 75,000 men to force Southern compliance. Both North and South initially recruited volunteers. Southern farmers were relentlessly trained by their generals – men with years of military experience. Although the North also had seasoned West Pointers, many high ranking officers were political appointees, like Carl Schurz and Benjamin Butler.

 

Northern Advantages Begin to Erode the Confederate Defense

 

The fiasco of First Bull Run in 1861 represented the first major shift in military policy. The war would not be over within a few months and Southern soldiers demonstrated their skills and determination. By early 1862, Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson began the process of Northern domination in the western theater. In April, New Orleans fell to a Union invasion fleet. After Congress passed legislation allowing for the recruitment of African American soldiers, General Benjamin Butler recruited several black regiments in New Orleans.

 

Northern advantages also included a network of railroads that allowed for faster troop deployments and freighting supplies. An industrial complex far superior to anything found in the South churned out weaponry and munitions. Once General Grant eliminated Vicksburg in July 1863, western food supplies desperately needed by the South, including beef from Texas, were curtailed. Finally, the inability of Southern armies to strike a decisive blow, such as at Antietam in 1862 or Gettysburg in 1863 kept European nations like Britain and France from committing more substantial aid to the South.

 

The Role of Manpower

 

In the course of the war, the North was able to muster 2,046 regiments, of which 1,696 were infantry. The South, however, only raised approximately 1,000 regiments. Although the South had more armies than the North (23 to 16), its divisions were 2,500 men stronger than Northern divisions. Unlike the North, there was no on-going immigration in the South. Northern immigration patterns allowed the Northeast to replace workers later drafted into the army and in some cases new immigrants went right from their ships to the Civil War front lines.

 

Although many Northern generals were promoted for political reasons, ethnic promotions helped to recruit ethnic regiments as well as instill pride within the urban ethnic communities of the North. Black soldiers also provided the North with fresh recruits, of which the 54^th Massachusetts under the command of Robert Shaw was the most distinguished.

 

The Duration of the Civil War most Benefitted Union Military Victory

 

As the battlefields became conflicts of attrition, the North was able to replenish troops with greater ease than the South. Even at the start of the war, white Southern population was dwarfed by the teeming millions in the North. The inability to supply troops – a key factor in Lee’s surrender, helped end the war in 1865. The Union’s utter destruction of the agricultural base, such as Sheridan’s foray in the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas, further exacerbated the problems of supply.

 

References:

 

Gabor S. Boritt, Lincoln the War President (Oxford University Press, 1992)

David Detzer, Dissonance: The Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc., 2006)

Gerald A. Patterson, Rebels from West Point (Stackpole Books, 2002)

Page Smith, Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982)

T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (Alfred A. Knopf, 1952)

First published November 14, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. Under copyright

The Union Takes New Orleans Early in the War

 

When President Lincoln ordered a blockade of all key Southern ports after the first battle of Bull Run, New Orleans was the most prosperous city in the South and had the largest population. Its roots tied it to France, yet the valuable cotton crop flowed to Britain from the port, bringing in much needed revenue to fight the war. In mid-November 1861, naval commander David Porter approached Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles with a proposal to take New Orleans. Porter’s plan proved a success when Union forces took the city in April 1862.

 

Planning the Union Attack and Defending the Confederate Port

 

Although the Union blockade was modestly successful, over 800 ships managed to evade Union warships during the first year of the war. Additionally, as the war progressed, the Confederate government embarked on the development of crude ironclads to sink blockading vessels and purchased formidable “blockade runners” like the CSS Alabama from Britain. It was in the best interests of Lincoln to take New Orleans and thereby effectively end this lifeline to Europe.

 

Eighteen Union warships, commanded by sixty-year old Admiral David Farragut, would be supported by General Benjamin Butler’s 18,000 troops. The operation took months of planning and was shrouded in secrecy. New Orleans’ commander, Major General Mansfield Lovell, a West Pointer, believed that the rumors of a large Union fleet were planning to attack Mobile, Pensacola, or some other target.

 

New Orleans was a poorly defended city. Defending troops had been withdrawn to points further up the Mississippi. The city relied on Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which guarded the approaches to New Orleans, 75 miles upriver. Recent successes by New Orleans’ gunboats forcing Union blockaders to withdraw lulled the populace into a false sense of security.

 

Farragut Arrives at the Mississippi Delta

 

The primary goals of the New Orleans operation were to close the Mississippi to trade and to end Southern cotton exports to Europe. Southerners, however, burned their cotton even before the city was taken, destroying a quarter of a million bales.

 

Forts Jackson and St. Philip sustained days of bombardment, beginning on Good Friday, April 1862. During the night, Union soldiers dislodged the heavy chain that had been placed in the river to stop the warships from proceeding on to the city. Running the forts, the fleet sailed on to New Orleans, described by one diarist as “silent, grim, and terrible.”

 

General Lovell had withdrawn his troops when it became obvious that the city leaders were not willing to risk the destruction of the city. Butler’s troops marched into the city and the South lost one of its most prized possessions. After occupying the city, Farragut and Butler continued upriver, capturing Baton Rouge and Natchez. Only Vicksburg eluded their efforts.

 

The Aftermath of the New Orleans Campaign

 

Historian Page Smith states that, “the entire operation was a model of careful planning and bold action…” Several historians point out that Napoleon III of France shelved his decision to officially recognize the Confederacy after the fall of New Orleans. It was also noteworthy that Butler only commanded 18,000 men (some historians use the figure 15,000); General McClellan, who had been consulted during the initial planning, suggested the operation would need 50,000 men.

 

The inability of the Confederacy to properly defend was also evident in the lack of industrial capacity: the CSS Mississippi, perhaps the most formidable ironclad yet constructed, was burned because vital metal parts could not be delivered in time. The fate of the Mississippi became a focal point of the Confederate investigation into why New Orleans fell. New Orleans provided the opening to attempt a similar action in Charleston. That attempt, however, failed.

 

Sources:

 

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative Fort Sumter to Perryville (Vintage Books, Division of Random House, 1986)

Dean B. Mahin, One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the American Civil War (Washington D.C.: Brassey’s, 2000)

Page Smith, Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982)

First published August 11, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Importance of the Gosport/Norfolk Naval Yard in the Early Civil War Period

Confederate success in throwing back the Union army at Bull Run in 1861 owed much to the gun power used in the engagement, seized by the Confederates months earlier with the occupation of Gosport Naval Yard. On the heels of the capture of Harpers Ferry, Gosport represented a tremendous early loss for Abraham Lincoln. Despite attempts to destroy the yard, vessels, and munitions, the South salvaged most of the yard and its many armaments. Historians still debate who deserves the greatest blame for its loss to the South.

 

The Importance of Gosport Naval Yard

 

As the Civil War began, Gosport was one of the most important naval installations along the Atlantic coast. Its dry dock was the largest in the hemisphere and the facility contained almost 1000 naval guns and other artillery. Located on the James River, Gosport was in Virginia, a state that had not yet left the Union after Lincoln’s inauguration but was under intense pressure to do so by late April.

 

Besides the obvious tangible benefits that came with control of the yard such as munitions and vessels, use of the naval facility would enable the South to hinder any Northern naval blockage, put pressure on merchant shipping that might ultimately goad Maryland into joining the South, and possibly even threaten Washington on the Potomac River. Control of Gosport and the Norfolk area meant control of the Chesapeake Bay.

 

Several naval ships, in fact one quarter of the fleet, were in Gosport, although several ships were not seaworthy and repairs were being completed on most of them. The USS Merrimack was also awaiting repairs, her engines in desperate need of a major overhaul. Although sunk and set ablaze by Union defenders, she would be raised, repaired, refitted with iron casing, and renamed the CSS Virginia.

 

The Merrimack sank too quickly. This saved her hull and engines from the fire that was set as she began to founder. A boon to the South, she would earn the distinction, after her duel with the Northern Monitor in the spring of 1862, of forever changing naval warfare and ensuring that all wooden navies were obsolete.

 

Defending and Destroying Gosport

 

Historians differ as to who should receive the ultimate blame for the loss of Gosport. David Detzer demonstrates that several poor decisions were made by men in varying capacities yet ultimately blames Abraham Lincoln for waiting too long in an effort to appease Virginia. Page Smith, however, states that Naval Secretary Gideon Welles was blocked from implemented earlier actions by Secretary of State William Henry Seward.

 

Gosport was commanded by the seventy-eight year old Charles McCauley, a man whose immediate background may not have prepared him for the severity of the crisis in March-April 1861. Further, McCauley’s instructions were often ambiguous, almost contradictory, and indecisive. Lacking men or resources, he was fully aware that forces were being raised against his facility across the James River.

 

By the time reinforcements arrived under the command of Captain Hiram Paulding, McCauley had already destroyed parts of the facility and was in the process of evacuating. Paulding, reinforced with Marines as well as Massachusetts men from nearby Fortress Monroe, merely continued the process of destruction. Keeping the facility out of enemy hands was part of his orders, even if it meant destruction.

 

Critics point out that with the munitions at the yard and a reinforced garrison, the facility might have withstood a siege until further reinforcements arrived. Weeks earlier, when Welles asked General Winfield Scott for men to hold the yard, he was told that they simply were not available. President Lincoln concurred in this. But by the mid to end of April Union troop strength was growing steadily and necessary reinforcements might have made the difference.

 

Sources:

 

David Detzer, Dissonance: the Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc., 2006)

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (Vintage Books – Random House, 1986)

Page Smith, Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982)

First published May 2, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich.copyright

Civil War Emancipation

 Although the U.S. Civil War started as an attempt to preserve the Union, the issue of slavery was always the pivotal cause of the conflict. Southerners feared that Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 was the first step in dismantling the peculiar institution of the South. They believed that Republican claims limiting slavery and opposing its expansion into the new western territories were merely the prelude to abolitionist goals. Northern war aims, however, gradually changed as emancipation became part of the slow transformation of life in the South with the advance of Union armies.

 

Early Steps toward Slave Emancipation

 

The first hint of emancipation took place at Fort Monroe in 1861 when several slaves left Confederate lines and sought asylum from Union general Benjamin Butler. Confederate officers, under a flag of truce, demanded the return of the slaves, citing the Fugitive Slave Law. Butler, a lawyer in private life, replied that the runaway slaves were “contraband of war.” The now freed slaves were given the opportunity to work for the Union army, with pay, and fully emancipated.

 

Butler’s precedent encouraged other slaves to cross over battle lines and seek freedom in Union occupied territory. In March 1862, Congress passed a law that prohibited the military from returning fugitive slaves. The Second Confiscation Act emancipated any slaves within the confines of Union occupied territory.

 

The Seeds of General Emancipation in 1862

 

Union policies allowing for gradual emancipation were tempered by fears that any move toward a general emancipation of Southern slaves would alienate pro-Union sympathizers in the South. Lincoln had not forgotten that the Election of 1860 revealed pro-Unionist attitudes in the South, identified with the Constitutional-Unionist Party.

 

Additionally, Lincoln researched colonization possibilities. Options included transporting freed slaves to Central America or the Caribbean. Some 5,000 former U.S. slaves were sent to Haiti but most of them soon left. Another option included a compensated emancipation, perhaps based on the Russian model of 1861.

 

The Emancipation Proclamation

 

By the end of 1862, Lincoln had finished the Emancipation Proclamation. The document freed all slaves within the rebel territories at the time of signing. It did not free slaves in Border States. Lincoln publicized the proclamation months before signing it, using it as an ultimatum against the Confederacy. In essence, if the South returned to the Union, Lincoln would not sign the document.

 

But the South kept fighting. Lincoln’s first official act in 1863 was signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Southerners saw this as confirmation of their initial fears regarding Lincoln and the Republicans. Northern Democrats criticized Lincoln for deviating from the original war aims. What they failed to see was that the Proclamation was not motivated by abolitionist concerns. The document was as much a part of the strategy of war as any military action.

 

Facing the Realities of Emancipation

 

The Emancipation Proclamation opened the door to hitherto radical notions regarding former slaves. These questions included a Constitutional definition of citizenship, extending the franchise to black men, and increasing the use of blacks in the military. 180,000 blacks served in the Union army with great distinction.

 

Civil War emancipation was gradual, but by the end of the conflict a transformation in the South had radically altered the social landscape. Although it would take over 100 years for African Americans to fully experience the social and political fruits of emancipation, the events that began in 1861 began the long overdue process.

 

Sources:

 

Gabor S. Boritt, Lincoln the War President (Oxford University Press, 1992)

William K. Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation 1861-1865 (Viking Penguin 2001)

Page Smith, Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Volume 5 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982)

Published first November 26, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. Copyright

President Lincoln and the South

 By the time Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4^th, 1860, the Confederacy had already been born, giving visible evidence to the many threats of secession resulting from the 1860 election. Lincoln, however, in deference to the sitting President James Buchanan, never revealed any policies toward the South other than to repeat that he was not in favor of war and that “there need be no bloodshed…there is no necessity for it.” (Philadelphia, February 22, 1861)

 

Constitutional Differences between North and South

 

Lincoln’s supporters attempted to persuade the South that the newly elected Republican President would not tamper with slavery in the South. Harper’s Weekly of December 1, 1860, quotes Illinois Senator Trumbull from a speech delivered in Springfield stating that, “When inaugurated he [Lincoln] will be the President of the whole country…” and would protect and defend the laws of the nation.

 

Lincoln had written Stephen Douglas shortly after the election, asking Douglas to assure the South that the Republicans had no intention to “interfere with the slaves, or with them [the South], about their slaves.” Douglas replied that the Union could never be preserved without force and conveyed to Lincoln the moral arguments held by the South regarding slavery, something historian Page Smith refers to as the “religion” of the South.

 

Southern views, however, held that the Union was a confederation, in which the individual states were sovereign and exercised rights not encumbered by the notion of federalism. This idea can be traced back to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and the decades-long debates over nullification.

 

In defending the Union and denying the Southern position, Lincoln studied the early Supreme Court opinions of John Marshall, notably such cases as McColloch v. Maryland that stressed national supremacy. Justifying his use of war powers to the July 1861 Congress, Lincoln stated that, “no choice was left but to call out the war power…and so to resist force employed for its destruction, by force for its preservation.”

 

Preparing for the Coming War

 

In December 1860, many Southern state legislatures authorized the formation of militias and other military units in anticipation of the conflict that would surely result from eventual secession. On December 1^st, North Carolina’s governor recommended the “enrollment of all men between eighteen and forty-five years” to comprise a corps of ten thousand men.

 

In the North it was NY Senator William Henry Seward and General Winfield Scott who began to implement war plans, Scott moving his headquarters from New York City to Washington in December and beginning the process of building a volunteer militia, numbering 3,500 by inauguration day. Lincoln, however, remained silent on such matters. His first military order would be the night of the inauguration: a message to Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter reassuring support.

 

Lincoln’s Position as President-Elect

 

It is wrong to suggest that Lincoln could have stopped South Carolina from leaving the Union, followed shortly thereafter by other Deep South states. It is also wrong to conclude that Lincoln caused the secession of Southern states. Stephen Douglas, who more than most men saw Lincoln as an implacable adversary, stated in a letter that, “…the mere election of any man to the Presidency…does not of itself furnish any just cause or reasonable ground for dissolving the Federal Union.”

 

Following the formation of the Confederacy and prior to the inauguration, Lincoln, on February 21^st, used the backdrop of Trenton, NJ to compare the patriot’s struggles at that famous battle with the struggles facing the nation in 1861. He never intimated war and even after the surrender of Fort Sumter called the action “insurrection,” ironically, the same term used by the South for slave rebellions.

 

Sources:

 

David Detzer, Dissonance: the Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc, 2006)

Harper’s Weekly, Vol. IV, No. 205, December 1, 1860, p.759.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “War and the Constitution: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt,” Lincoln the War President (Oxford University Press, 1992)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years (McGraw Hill Book Company, 1981)

Published first April 30, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Lincoln's Proclamation Combating Southern Secession

 On April 15^th, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation that called for 75,000 men from the various states “in order to suppress said combinations…” The Proclamation followed the surrender of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina after P.T. Beauregard’s bombardment. The South had fired the first shot, outraging the North. Excepting the Border States, Lincoln’s Proclamation was well-received but it would be weeks before the mostly untrained militia arrived in the nation’s capital.

 

Scope of the Proclamation

 

Lincoln opened the Proclamation by addressing the needs for his actions. The Laws of the United States were opposed and their execution “obstructed.” Lincoln listed the offending states: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. These “combinations” represented a force too powerful to be dealt with through ordinary channels of compliance such as the judiciary and the Federal Marshals.

 

The language of the Proclamation indicates that Lincoln viewed his response as a “police action” designed to “repossess” Federal property, i.e., forts, armories, and other assets. This was not a “Civil War” but an “insurrection.” There was to be no “…devastation…destruction…or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens…” Lincoln was well aware that pro-Union sentiment still existed in the South.

 

Lincoln, in calling a special July session of Congress, referred to unfolding events as “an extraordinary occasion.” As Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln believed that the Constitution supported his call for state militia volunteers to serve in the armies being planned in defense of Washington and the securing of Border States like Kentucky and Missouri.

 

As the Proclamation resulted in an outpouring of support and unity in the North, it extinguished lingering pro-Union sympathies in the South. Governor Jackson of Missouri replied to Lincoln that his request for men was “illegal” and “unconstitutional.” Both sides rushed to enlist men, dooming Lincoln’s “police action.” The April 27^th, 1861 Harper’s Weekly commented that, “Nobody – outside of lunatic asylums – doubts that civil war is an enormous calamity.”

 

Results of the Proclamation

 

Initial plans by the end of April suggested three separate army groups. The first, under the command of General Scott, would defend Washington with 50,000 men. A “New York Army” commanded by General Wood would be held in reserve while General Sumner was to encamp around the Cincinnati area with 75,000 men to protect the river systems, ultimately enabling Union troops to control the Mississippi. (“The War,” Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1861)

 

Most of the soldiers arriving from various Northern states were ill-trained. It took the troops several weeks to reach Washington, facing hostile opposition in Baltimore. Additionally, some of the army’s best officers resigned their commissions and returned to the South, as did Robert E. Lee, for example. The navy, it was predicted, would ensure that all Southern ports would be “hermetically sealed.”

 

In the South in the weeks following the Proclamation, war plans were also being refined. William T. Sherman, who visited Virginia months before these events, had already reported then that the South was preparing for war. General Beauregard wanted to attack Washington with 32,000 men but was overruled by Jefferson Davis on advice from Robert E. Lee. Although the advice was given based on military considerations, Davis did not want to be the aggressor, falling back on his oft repeated phrase, “I hope they leave us alone.”

 

The Proclamation Not a Call to War

 

Lincoln’s purposes were very clear: the Proclamation was not a call to war nor was it a war declaration – only the Congress can declare war. Any such war declaration would have legitimized the Confederate States of America. For Lincoln, the Proclamation was a carefully worded document aimed at recovering Federal property and forcing insurrectionists to comply with Federal law. It was the South that construed the Proclamation as a war declaration and responded accordingly.

 

Sources:

 

Harper’s Weekly, April 27, 1861 (President Lincoln’s Proclamation reprinted, commentary, and daily news)

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (Vintage Books – Random House, 1986)

Published first in Suite101 May 3, 2009 by M.Streich. Copyright.

Surrender of Fort Sumter: Valor and Bravery

 

One of the most defining moments of the Civil War occurred on December 27, 1860, when Major Robert Anderson ordered the flag of the United States be raised over Fort Sumter, the island fortress in Charleston to which he had secretly transferred his command from Fort Moultrie a few hours earlier. Citizens in Charleston were outraged. Anderson’s symbolic action seemed to mock South Carolina’s Resolution seceding from the Union. Preparations were made by South Carolina to capture the fort.

 

On April 16, 1861, The New York Times reported, in an editorial praising Robert Anderson, that when, “…the rebel batteries were opened upon him, he lost no time in replying, nor did he surrender…until he was disabled by smoke and flame…and the exhaustion of his men.” The Civil War had begun.

 

Major Anderson and the Defense of Federal Forts in Charleston

 

Major Anderson arrived in Charleston in the fall of 1860 and would witness the growing anxiety of the local Charleston population after Abraham Lincoln was elected President in November 1860. At fifty-five, Anderson had a long and distinguished career which included valorous action in the Mexican-American War.

 

He was also an expert, perhaps the nation’s foremost, in artillery usage and had trained Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard at West Point, the man who ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861. Anderson had pro-Southern sympathies and was a long time friend of Jefferson Davis. But he was also close to General Winfield Scott, whom he regarded as a father.

 

Unlike fellow West Point graduates, Anderson valued his oath as an officer and refused to put regional loyalties before his principles. This was the man determined to hold the three principle federal military outposts in Charleston: Castle Pinckney, Fort Moultrie (or Moultrie House), and Fort Sumter.

 

Lincoln’s First Action as a President Facing War

 

Historian James M. McPherson writes that, “The first official document that Lincoln saw as President – at one o’clock in the morning when he returned from the inaugural ball – was a letter from Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter stating that unless re-supplied he could hold out only a few more weeks.”

 

Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, had done little to mitigate the deteriorating situation in Charleston. Although the Star of the West had been dispatched with reinforcements and supplies, it was turned back after Charleston shore batteries warned off the ship.

 

Anderson and Sumter’s defenders were left to fend for themselves. Buchanan’s response was far more reserved that Andrew Jackson’s had been toward South Carolina during the nullification crisis many years earlier.

 

During his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln, though not referring to Fort Sumter directly, stated that, “The powers confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government.”

 

In his December 3, 1861 Annual Message to Congress and the American people, Lincoln reminded his listeners that, “The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peacefully, expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter…”

 

The Fall of Fort Sumter Begins the Bloody Civil War

 

For the moment, the South was exultant over the fall of Fort Sumter. An April 16, 1861 New York Times story published the response of Jefferson Davis: “Fort Sumter is ours, and nobody is hurt. With mortar, paixhan and petard we tender ‘OLD ABE’ our Beau-regards.”

 

On the day Abraham Lincoln died in 1865, Anderson – now a general, would again raise the Stars and Stripes over Fort Sumter, assisted by Frederick Douglass, the fugitive slave who rose to become a towering figure in the cause of abolition. The Union was preserved after four years of bloody battles. April 12, 1861 still represents an anniversary of decision and courage.

 

Sources:

 

David Detzer, Dissonance: The Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc., 2006)

David Detzer, Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War (Harcourt, Inc., 2001)

The Language of Lincoln: The Political Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Joseph R. Fornieri, editor (Regnery, 2003)

James M. McPherson, “Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender,” Lincoln The War President, Gabor S. Boritt, editor (Oxford University Press, 1992)

Published December 16, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Charles Finney: Great Evangelist in the 19th Century

 The early 19^th century was a period of transition for Americans as the new nation was coming to terms with an expanding political system, a national identity, and the on-going westward movement. It was during this time of change that Charles Grandison Finney gave up his law practice to preach an emotional Christianity that resulted in acute frontier revivalism. Finney’s contribution to the Great Awakening of that early century came to affect not only collective spirituality, but the abolition movement and temperance reform.

 

The Early Life of Charles Finney

 

Finney was born in Connecticut in 1792 to a family that neither prayed nor attended church. Ironically, prayer would eventually become the very tool enabling Finney to confront his own doubts and later use extensively during his frontier ministry. He purchased his first Bible at the age of 29 while working as a lawyer.

 

After leaving Connecticut, Finney’s parents moved to Oneida County in New York. As a young teen, Finney enjoyed the vigorous outdoor work and became particularly fond of hunting, an activity that stayed with him throughout his life. He attended Hamilton College, founded originally as the Hamilton Oneida Institute by Samuel Kirkland who had dedicated his life as a missionary to the Native Americans.

 

The Beginning of Revivalism

 

Charles Finney had no formal theological training, relying only on his own understanding of the Bible and occasional sessions with established ministers. He turned down offers to attend Yale and Princeton. He derived his energy through fasting and prayer, often spending long hours by himself in the forest.

 

As with the first Great Awakening in the 1730’s and 1740’s, Finney took his message outdoors to wherever people would listen, much like George Whitfield and John Wesley had done. Like that earlier time, mainline, established churches refused to open their pulpits to the emotional preaching of the revivalist preacher. Finney pioneered the use of “testifying” by converts that related their conversion experiences during mass meetings. He also promoted impromptu prayer.

 

Traveling throughout the Northeast, Finney spoke to thousands. In his Memoirs, he relates, “I preached out of doors; I preached in barns; I preached in schoolhouses…” The theme of his sermons focused on the individual need for personal salvation and more than once congregations stormed out of meeting houses after being confronted by their own indifference and, according to Finney, “wickedness.” In every case, they later returned and converted, often in very emotional personal experiences.

 

The Professor and Reformer

 

In 1835 Charles Finney became the driving force behind Oberlin College, newly founded to train young men as ministers. Significantly, Oberlin accepted black students at a time this was virtually unthinkable even by many northern institutions. Finney became a vocal advocate of abolition as well as temperance reform, a national problem in the early 19^th century.

 

While teaching theology at Oberlin, Finney continued to preach, notably in New York at the Broadway Tabernacle which had been built years earlier specifically around his preaching. Finney took revivalism to Boston and New York, although vigorously opposed by the staid ministers of established churches.

 

Finney and the Great Awakening

 

The religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening changed the spiritual lives of tens of thousands due to revivalist preachers like Charles Finney and his message of personal salvation and “active Christianity.” According to political scientist James Morone, the movement “pushed religion into the vernacular.”

 

Charles Finney’s eloquence rested in the fact that he preached to people on their level without resorting to the dry homiletics of carefully constructed sermons. His firebrand style of preaching was the very essence of revivalism as it roared through the American frontier communities and later the urban centers of the Northeast.

 

References:

 

Basil Miller, Charles Finney (Dimension Books, 1941)

James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (Yale University Press, 2003)

First published January, 26, 2010 by M.Streich. copyright

Josiah Henson: the Real Life Uncle Tom and the inspiration for the Book that helped start a Civil War

Born in 1789, Josiah Henson spent most of his life in bondage as a slave in the pre-Civil War South. From childhood on, Henson experienced the frequent brutalities of the master-slave relationship. Like Nat Turner, who led the most serious slave uprising of that time in Virginia in August 1831, Henson was a deeply religious man who knew the Bible well. Unlike Turner, Henson refused to use violence – even when given the opportunity to do so, and became the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom.”

 

Josiah Henson as a Slave

 

As a young child, Henson experienced the painful separation from most of his immediate family, a typical occurrence in the slave south where black families were frequently separated and sold to different plantation owners. He witnessed the brutal beating and humiliation of his father, someone he would never see again after his father was sold to a plantation owner in the Deep South.

 

Josiah Henson was highly intelligent and a leader, a characteristic noticed by his master, and was made an overseer, something rarely done in the case of slaves. After defending his master against another white man, Henson was severely beaten by the assailant, suffering from broken shoulders that never truly healed.

 

As a young man, Henson listened to the sermons of traveling preachers and memorized parts of the scriptures. Eventually, he was ordained a Methodist minister and began to preach himself, earning money he intended to use to buy his freedom and that of his wife and children. His Maryland master, however, had lied to Henson and sent him and his family to a brother’s plantation in Tennessee.

 

Opportunity to Murder and Flee

 

Henson became bitter. Ordered to accompany the master’s son to New Orleans, Henson was certain that he was destined to be sold in the New Orleans slave auctions, never to see his family again. During the voyage on the Mississippi, Henson crept into the son’s room at night with an axe, intending to kill the young man. As he attempted to raise the axe, he was overcome with the horror of his actions and left the room.

 

Upon arriving in New Orleans, the young man became ill and Henson nursed him back to health. Having concluded his business in the city, the son and Henson returned to Tennessee. By this time, Henson knew that he had to flee the South with his family. Late one night, he took his wife and children and fled toward the shores of the Ohio River. Beyond the river was Ohio, a free state.

 

Even after reaching Ohio safely, however, Henson realized that they had to make their way to Canada. Although Ohio was a free state, and most inhabitants opposed slavery, there was no guarantee that southern bounty hunters might not find his family and bring them back to Tennessee in chains. Canada was the only truly secure option.

 

Freedom in Canada

 

Settling as a free man in Canada, Henson developed a community that assisted other fugitive slaves. He was a preacher and a teacher, creating fine furniture from wood. His exceptional life story became the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom in the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in 1852. Stowe’s portrayal of slavery was a pivotal literary argument that helped to further polarize North and South during one of the most significant decades of the 19^th century.

 

Josiah Henson died in 1883. The Civil War had ended 18 years earlier. Ostensibly “free,” southern blacks were re-enslaved by Jim Crow laws and the hated doctrine of “separate but equal.” Henson’s long life, however, was a reminder of perseverance and ultimate delivery.

 

Sources:

 

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (New York: Harper Classic, 1965)

Josiah Henson: The Real Uncle Tom (VHS produced by Day of Discovery, RBC Ministries, 2005)

First Published October 6, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

 

The Charleston Democratic Convention in 1860: 

 The Democratic Party Convention in Charleston, South Carolina in the spring of 1860 foreshadowed the demise of the only national political party to potentially field a presidential candidate in the fall. Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas realized this when he wrote on June 20^th, “there is eminent danger that the Democratic party will be demoralized if not destroyed by the breaking up of the Convention.” Douglas had hoped to receive the nomination, but his supporters were thwarted by Southern fire eaters like William Yancey and even the sitting president, James Buchanan.

 

The Choice of Charleston for the National Convention

 

Every historian writing about the events of 1860 concur that Charleston was a poor choice for the Democratic Convention. Northern Democrats hoped to move the convention site to Baltimore, a more neutral location, but Southerners rejected this. South Carolina had long been in the forefront as a champion of Southern causes; the South’s greatest apologist, John C. Calhoun, had represented the state for decades.

 

It would be in Charleston where the first shots of the Civil War were fired on Ft. Sumter. In the spring of 1860, Charleston memories vividly recalled the late 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry and many Southerners believed John Brown had received help from Northern Republicans. The Charleston Mercury churned out daily propaganda, reminding its readers that the South was rapidly becoming a minority entity in the expanding United States.

 

Stephen Douglas Clings to Popular Sovereignty

 

Although Douglas remained in Washington, recovering from serious illness, he was, according to Damon Wells, “…the only Democrat in 1860 who could unite his party and lead it to victory…” But Douglas advocated popular sovereignty in regard to the expansion of slavery in the western territories acquired in 1848. Seeking to circumvent the 1857 Dred Scott decision, Douglas formulated his Freeport Doctrine which still allowed citizens in a territory to decide the slavery issue.

 

Southerners would have none of it and Deep South delegates vowed to walk out of the convention if popular sovereignty was adopted instead of a plank in the party platform calling for a congressional slave code. Addressing the convention on the final day, Alabama’s extremist William Yancey exhorted his listeners that the North must protect the rights of the South and that failure to do so would lead to secession. The Committee on Resolutions, controlled by Southern extremists, declared in a resolution that it was “the duty of the federal government…to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the territories.” Slaves in the South were property.

 

The Role of James Buchanan

 

Douglas and Buchanan had clashed early in the Pennsylvanian’s presidency and the vengeful Buchanan had retaliated by withholding patronage. The 1860 convention contained numerous Buchananite delegations with instructions to stop any nomination of Douglas. According to scholar Damon Wells, Buchanan had promoted Charleston as the convention city, knowing that Douglas could never receive the party’s nod in this Southern capital.

 

The End of the Convention and the End of the Party

 

After the convention rejected the extremist resolutions, Yancey bolted the hall, followed by delegations from other Deep South states. But the two-thirds rule regarding nomination was still in place and was interpreted to include all seated delegates, including those that had bolted. This meant that Stephen Douglas would never achieve nomination.

 

The two-thirds rule was supported, ironically, by Border State delegates as well as those from New York. Historians explain New York’s stance on the basis of commerce with the South: disunion would hurt such trade and harm Northern manufactures. After fifty-seven ballots, the convention was deadlocked and adjourned.

 

Effects of the Charleston Convention

 

The Democratic Party split into three factions, causing party defeat in the Election of 1860. Although Stephen Douglas represented the Northern Democrats, he received the lowest number of electoral votes, yet it was Douglas who most vocally preached the message of federal “non intervention” by Congress “with slavery in the territories” (letter to William A. Richardson, June 20^th, 1860). The Charleston Convention may not have nominated Douglas, but it paved the way for a Lincoln victory.

 

References:

 

The Letters of Stephen Douglas, edited by Robert W. Johannsen (University of Illinois Press, 1961)

Eric H. Walter, The Fire-Eaters (Louisiana State University Press, 1992)

Damon Wells, Stephen Douglas: The Last Years, 1857-1861 (University of Texas Press, 1971)

Published first in Suite101 March 26, 2010 by M.Streich. copyright

John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid

 

Twenty-eight years after the bloody Nat Turner slave uprising, another potential insurrection took place at Harpers Ferry. Led by John Brown, the attack is frequently called the first act of the Civil War. To Southerners, Brown was an abolitionist agent supported by the new Republican Party. In the North, anti-slavery groups and sympathetic writers saw him as a martyr. As historian George M. Fredrickson writes, “No single man did more to heighten the sectional crisis of the late 1850s and increase the probability of civil war.”

 

John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid

 

At the time John Brown was planning the Harpers Ferry raid he was already well known nationally. His actions at Pottawatamie Creek in Kansas, in which five unarmed and innocent men were massacred, forced him to flee to Canada. As events in Kansas pointed to the admittance of the state as another slave state, Brown raided both in Kansas and Missouri.

 

Harpers Ferry, home of a Federal arsenal in Northern Virginia, was the focus of Brown’s attack. His plan was to take the armory, distribute its guns to slaves, and begin an insurrection to end slavery violently. Southerners would accuse him of attempting to ignite a race war. Although his “army” was few in number – 22 men, Brown firmly believed that thousands of slaves would rally to his cause.

 

John Brown was also deeply religious. He was convinced that he was the agent of God’s will by purging the nation of the evils of slavery, even if it meant bloodshed. A typical 19^th Century Protestant, Brown was heavily influenced by the Old Testament in much the same way Nat Turner had been years earlier.

 

Failure of the Harpers Ferry Raid

 

Although managing to secure a part of the armory, the raid was doomed to failure from the beginning. Several of Brown’s men sent to guard one of the bridges fired on a Baltimore & Ohio train passing over the bridge. The alarm was given. Church bells rang – the Southern warning of “insurrection,” and armed mobs formed.

 

Several of Brown’s men, including his sons, were shot. Despite cutting the telegraph lines and holding hostages, Brown and his party were subdued by Federal troops commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee. The October 16^th 1859 raid ended with Brown’s capture.

 

Trial, Execution, and Investigation

 

John Brown was taken to Charles Town for trial. Found guilty and sentenced to hang, Northern abolitions appealed to Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise to commute the sentence on the basis that Brown was insane and should be confined to an asylum. Wise rejected these appeals and John Brown was hung in December 1859.

 

Pro-Abolitionist newspapers, such as Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, painted Brown as a martyr who died in the cause of liberty. Poets and writers like Stephen Vincent Benet and Herman Melville immortalized Brown in verse. Even Henry David Thoreau had fallen under Brown’s spell.

 

Southern leaders like Jefferson Davis believed that Brown was at the center of a conspiracy that involved the North as well as England. Initial Southern newspaper accounts claimed that Brown had received financial support from New York Senator William Henry Seward as well as Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

 

A subsequent Congressional investigation, chaired by Virginia Senator James Mason, found no evidence to support these charges. The committee found that Brown’s planning was so secret, no evidence could be produced from documents or witnesses to implicate Republicans.

 

The Legacy of John Brown

 

October 2009 will mark the 150 year anniversary of the John Brown raid. Countless articles and books have been written about him and his final attempt to end slavery violently, from the bottom up. To the extent that John Brown was either a visionary hero or a terrorist will be up to the interpretations of future historians.

 

Sources:

 

George M. Frederickson, “The Enigma of John Brown, “ American Past & Present, Robert A. Divine Et Al (New York: Pearson Longman, 2007)

Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (HarperCollins, 1997)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: a People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Volume Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Published in Suite101 June 13, 2009 by M.Streich. copyright