Ch 14- The Civil War
Ch 15 – Reconstruction and the New South
Objectives:
1. The many interpretations of the causes of the Civil War advanced by historians.
2. The ways in which the Confederate States of America compared with the United States in
manpower, natural resources, finances, industry, and public support.
3. The considerations involved in President Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
4. How other nations, particularly England and France, viewed the struggle, and their course
of actions.
5. The differences between the Conservative and Radical views on the reconstruction
process, and the reasons for the eventual Radical domination.
6. The methods used in the South to regain control of its own affairs, and what course of
action it chose thereafter.
7. The ways in which Southerners decided to handle the race question, and the origin of the
system identified with “Jim Crow.”
Main Themes:
1. How both sides mobilized for war, and what that mobilization revealed about the nature
and character of each side.
2. How the North won the Civil War.
3. How radical Republicans changed the South.
4. How the race question continued to dominate Southern life.
Terms:
1. Monitor and Merrimack (Virginia)
2. “King Cotton diplomacy”
3. Conscription
4. Trent Affair
5. First Bull Run
6. Gettysburg
7. Vicksburg
8. Anaconda Plan
9. Solid South
10. 13-14-15 Amendments
11. Carpetbagger
12. Jim Crow Laws
Summary:
Before 1860, references to the nation generally began “these United States are,” but after 1865, it
became more frequently “the United States is.” In that change, one might well see the most
important outcome of the American Civil War. The question of the nature of the Union, which
had been debated since its inception, was settled – the nation was one and indivisible. The cost
had been great, in both human and financial terms, but the war had done more than defeat a
secessionist rebellion. It had set the nation on a new course. States’ rights, as an alternative to
nationalism, had been dealt a fatal blow. Slavery was abolished, free labor was triumphant, and
industrial growth and material progress seemed to lie ahead. The war, therefore, was more than
a victory for the armies of the Union – the real victor had been the Union itself. Never again
would the supremacy of national laws be seriously questioned. The Civil War gave birth to the
modern United States. Indeed, it did end an era and begin another.
The military aspect of the American Civil War lasted less than five years and ended in April
1865, but it would take another dozen years of Reconstruction to determine what the results of
the war would be. The only questions clearly settled by the time Appomattox were that the
nation was indivisible and that slavery must end. The nation faced other issues with far-reaching
implications. What would be the place of the freedmen in Southern society? How would the
rebellious states be brought back into their “proper relationship” with the Union? The victorious
North was in a position to dominate the South, but Northern politicians were not united in either
resolve or purpose. For over two years after the fighting stopped, there was no coherent
Reconstruction policy. Congress and the president struggled with each other, and various
factions in Congress had differing views on politics, race, and union. Congress finally won
control and dominated the Reconstruction process until Southern resistance and Northern
ambivalence led to the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Enormous changes had taken place, but
the era still left a legacy of continuing racism and sectionalism that was revealed when Southern
whites established the Jim Crow system to evade the spirit of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments. Meanwhile the South continued its colonial relationship with the North, and
Southern plain folk, black and white, found themselves trapped by crop liens in circumstances
some felt were almost as bad as slavery.