Role of Presidents and other Political
leaders
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Abraham Lincoln US President
• Republican Illinois Elected1860
• Refuse to negotiate with Conf
• 'Commander in Chief‘
▫ Bad initial choices in leaders
▫ Put in more suitable leaders later in War(Grant,
Sherman)
• Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation
▫ improved mindset and morale of Union People and
troops
• Primary objective too Unite Nation
▫ Secondary ending of slavery
• Increased War Powers
▫ Ordered blockades
▫ Gave money prior to congress
▫ Ended Habeus corpus
• Considered Great War Time Pres
Jefferson Davis Confederate 1861
• Democrat Mississippi (senate)
▫ Against secession( went with
majority opinion)
• Sent Initial peace treaty Lincoln
Refused
▫ South pay for Federal lands and any
southern Debt
• Diplomatic failure getting
European Support (Cotton
Diplomacy)
▫ NO support NO cotton
• 'Commander in Chief‘
▫ Too Controlling of the war effort
▫ Out of touch with Common People
▫ Mistake fighting too North PA
• Considered a weaker War Leader
• Arrested for Treason later released
US Congress
• With out slave states in Union Legislation easy
to Pass
• 13th amendment- ending slavery
▫ IN Slave holding Border states
Effects and results of Civil war
End Agreement of the War
• Slaves were freed as Union troops
entered areas
• Appomattox Court House Lee
surrenders to Grant April 9th 1865.
• Troops to return home if they gave
up all weapons
▫ Some confederate officers put on trial
for war crimes
• All Other Confederate generals
agreed to similar terms in surrender
• Reunite the Country and completely
end slavery via Reconstruction
Reconstruction 1863-1877
• Divided the 11 confederate states into 5 military
districts
▫ Military commanders can register voters and hold
elections
• Write new state constitutions which included
▫ suffrage
• Ratify 14th amendment
• Abolish peonage( paying debt in labor)
• Program to reintegrate 11 confed states in the US with
a citizen black population
▫ Reconstruction affected political, social,
cultural, and economics of the US
Political Repercussions of
the War->Reconstruction
• Debate role Fed gov play in south &
steps in bringing back Confed States
Republicans Control the South
• Blacks were given right to vote Majority invoted Republican(Only majority 3 states)
• Former confederate leaders could not run for
office
• (Carpet Baggers)- Northerners in South who
gained political power (rep)
Reconstruction
Amendments
• 1865 13th-Ended
Slavery
• 1866 14th- All people
born in US Citizens
 Deny former
confederate officials
right hold office
• 1869 15th- Prohibit
denial of suffrage
based on race, color,
or from being former
slave
How did the War and reconstruction
change society?
• Casualties
▫ Over 600,000 deaths
▫ More died of diseases
• Southern Whites
▫ Southern White male population was
devastated 18 % population(13-45)
▫ Remained Angry with Reconstruction
changes and elevation of Blacks
▫ Created a sense of White Unity Against
Blacks
▫ Many poor whites were equally bad
economic conditions
Changes in African American Society
North increased sense of unity to country
▫ Role as veterans and citizen status
▫ Large migration of southern Blacks
South enter as US citizens
▫ Able to reunite family members
▫ vote and elect Black officials
 Later denied this right
 First African American Senators and
congressmen
▫ Majority still lived in Povertyuneducated former slaves
Changes in African American Society
cont
• Schools for Blacks
▫ segregated
▫ Ran by abolitionist or
Educated Northern Blacks
• Creation of Black Churches
▫ Longest lasting effect
▫ Center of Black
community-
Post war Economies
• Southern lost massive amounts of wealth
• Prosperous farm land was destroyed
• Wealthy Plantation Owners lost wealth when Slaves
(property of Value)became free
• Cotton becomes King Again
▫ Share Cropping- 2/3 were Black 1/3 poor Whites
• North massive economic Industrial Boom.
▫ Industrial Revolution fueled by European
immigrants and Migrant Southern Blacks
▫ Massive source of cheap labor
The Reconstruction Backlash
• angry Southern Whites
• Black Codes- laws denying black s
rights
• Refusal of Seeing blacks as equals
• Formed KKK 1866
▫ Former Confederate troops
▫ attack Blacks and Liberal Republicans
▫ So much fear in opposition blacks
would not vote or demand rights
• Force the Federal Gov to send More
troops regain order
Post Reconstructions
• Federal support for reconstruction
Ended
• Troops pulled out 1877 under
President Hayes
▫ Federal support for reconstruction Ended
Southern whites regain political and
Economic Control
• Jim Crow Laws- local and state laws
segregation and inequality of Blacks and
whites
▫ Blacks were denied basic rights
• South stayed deeply divided and unequal
until civil rights movement of the 1960’s
Reconstruction
Good
Bad
• America was United
•
• All southern states drafted
new constitutions
• ratified the amendments 13-15 •
• Civil Rights act of 1866- all
born are equal citizens
• Civil War and Reconstruction
settled the states’ rights vs.
•
federalism debate
• As one historian noted, the
•
United States before the Civil
War were a country, but the •
United States after the war
was a nation.
• Civil Rights Act 1875-end
•
discrimination in social and
in public places (not followed)
swift changes in political power in
the South rendered most of the
legislation passed useless
Removal of federal troops allow
Confed and slave owners to regain
power
▫ return to the policy of the old
South
Southern politicians passed black
codes
voter qualifications laws (poll tax,
reading test)
Sharecropping system to thrived
▫ Keeping the poor indebted to land
owner
northerners tired of Reconstruction
▫ lost interest in supporting black
civil rights
• black civil liberties and racial
equality set aside to put the Union
back together
Resistance Movements
• Soldiers saw themselves as risking their lives for
"rich man's war"
• In both the North and South, money bought
exemption from draft
• Desertion -as high as one in three among Union
two in three among Confederate
North Resistance
• conscientious objectors, pacifists
and anti-draft rioters held back the
war effort
• white men resented that army was
drafting them and excluded blacks.
• Resented fighting to end slavery
(after Emancipation Proclamation)
• Rioted against African Americans,
who they accused of stealing their
jobs.
• Drafts -affected working class
▫ $300 fee exclude from draft
cont
• Civil War Draft Riots 1863 New York City
– attacked blacks and homes of wealthy
over draft
▫ regiments of militia and volunteer troops
to control the city.
▫ at least 120 civilians were killed. At least
eleven black men were lynched
• Many blacks refused to enlist because of
the discriminatory pay$7 vs $13 per
month,
South Resistance
• white southerners also refused to support the Confed
• Draft 1862
▫ Wealthy exempted early on
▫ "20 slave law" exempted owned 20 +slaves
• Anti-Confederate and anti-war organizations,
▫ draft evaders and deserters were organized &
armed
▫ fought -guerrilla warfare, spying for the Union
▫ Three hundred thousand southern whites
joined the Union army
• 1863, food shortage, Riots , inflation, and strikes
▫ Southern women, in bands of hundreds and
thousands, raided, axes in hand, gov depots for food.
• Thousands of slaves escape south support Union
Forces
▫ Slave owners thought slaves would be loyal
Abolition Debate
PRO SLAVERY
• States should choose slave or
free
• ABOLITIONIST
• Abolition was first challenged by
• Compromise o f1850
slaves and free blacks
• Fugitive slave act when
• suggestion of deportation
Southerners began appearing in
• Send them back to Africa ,
Northern states to pursue
• assumed that black were not
fugitives
citizens
• People felt end of slavery was a
• Abolitionism to improve
threat to the freedom of white
American society
Americans.
• David Walker (Black Author) in his
• Slaves would take their jobs
book Appeal
• Abolitionist Cited the Bible and
Declaration of Independence
• believed U.S. was as much
home to black people as it
was to white people
• insisting black people were also
Americans- full rights
• The slavery question g
• Personal liberty
• Political community
• Book Uncle Toms Cabin brought
attention to horrors of slavery
• Abolitionist meetings were
broken up, their presses
destroyed and congress often
refused to receive their petitions
The two sides
• William Lloyd Garrison, a
• Confederate Vice-President
prominent abolitionist, 1854,
Alexander Stephens
he said: I am a believer in
• (Thomas Jefferson's) ideas,
that portion of the
however, were fundamentally
Declaration of American
Independence in which it is
wrong. They rested upon the
set forth, as among selfassumption of the equality of
evident truths, "that all men
races. This was an error.... Our
are created equal; that they
new government is founded upon
are endowed by their Creator
exactly the opposite idea; its
with certain inalienable
foundations are laid, its cornerrights; that among these are
stone rests, upon the great truth
life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness." Hence, I am
that the negro is not equal to the
an abolitionist. Hence, I
white man; that slavery—
cannot but regard
subordination to the superior
oppression in every form—
race—is his natural and normal
and most of all, that which
condition
turns a man into a thing—
with indignation and
abhorrence.
Why was this an issue
• Slavery was usually only a political issue when territorial
problems arose
• Growing fears of labor competition for white workers and
farmers because of the growing number of free blacks
prompted several northern states to adopt Black Codes
• Whether or not slavery would b able to expand westward or
not for this affected the balance of power between the north
and the south
• the whole Missouri wanting to be a state issue