Essay on The Civil War in the United States in 1861-1865 part 2
Essay on The Civil War in the United States in 1861-1865 part 1
South was lack of basic necessities. Its small industry worked for the war effort, and sea blockade prevented export of cotton to Europe and getting food and medication. Although the human and material resources of the South were at the limit, its military power has not yet been broken.
In the spring of 1863, under the command of Lee, southerners again dealt a severe blow to the federal army on the Virginia portion, but it was the last major victory of the rebels. Human resources of the North were huge, former slaves appeared to be good soldiers. Industry of the North, which ended the industrial revolution, worked at full capacity, farmers expanded supply of agricultural products (they purchased cotton in England or replaced with wool), thousands of immigrants came to the states.
The army of Lee was stopped at Gettysburg (PA) and dropped back to Virginia in July 1863, and the Grant troops took Confederate stronghold on the river Mississippi. This marked a turning point in the war. In the spring of 1864, federal troops began an offensive in the west in the heart of the Confederacy – Georgia. In the fall, General William Sherman took the largest industrial center of the South, Atlanta, and began famous “march to the sea.” On April 9, 28,000 army of Lee was surrendered, as well as troops of the other generals of the South (175 thousand people). Thus ended the civil war, which killed over 600 thousand people from both sides (Mousseau, 2012).
- Lincoln’s death
On April 14, 1865, in the theater Lincoln was shot by the actor Booth, fanatic killers. It was the revenge of the slaveholders. Lincoln’s death plunged America into mourning. He gained respect and love of people of different political views and beliefs. Consistently following the universal values in politics and in life, unselfish and friendly, a great American, was one of the few political figures of his time, who impressed even the supporters of revolutionary class struggle.
Lincoln did not sought to the dictatorship in relation to the South. He wanted to restore the US on the same, equal to all states constitutional basis, with the only condition – the recognition of the abolition of slavery. He considered magnanimity to the defeated, restoration of their political rights the most appropriate course of promoting civil peace. Life has shown, however, that solving problems of post-war reconstruction of the South was not so easy, and events have gone in a different direction than Lincoln relied.
- Reconstruction Era (1865–1877)
Slavery was abolished in the country irrevocably by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which was approved in April by the Senate, and by 3/4 of the states in December, 1865. There remained unresolved specific questions of the further existence of the South – the conditions of admission of the former Confederate states into the Union, position of former slave owners and freed slaves, device power and others. In the US, there was no consensus in ruling circles in this respect. A group of influential congressional Republicans headed by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner insisted on a military dictatorship over the South, deprivation of active participants of the rebellion of civil rights and providing them to blacks.
After the death of Lincoln, disagreement between the President and Congress worsened. The new President Andrew Johnson, a former vice president, continued Lincoln’s course. He had neither fame nor the authority of his predecessor, and the practical results of the first peacekeeping policy turned against him. He adopted the decree of amnesty in May 1865, which restored the planters in civil, political and proprietary rights (except the right to have slaves).
Confiscated during the war plantations were returned to former owners, who forced and threatened black population to work for former owner. There branched terrorist organizations, including the famous Ku Klux Klan. Having power, they adopted “black codes” – laws that deprived former slaves land property rights, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, assembly and meetings, right to marry whites, and so on (Harvey, 2012).
In July 1866, Congress passed the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. It deprived the leaders of the Confederation of the right to hold public office, and equalized the rights of blacks with whites. Radical Reconstruction meant the forced democratization of life in the South, with the support of the army, which entered southern states, but without unleashing terror and dictatorship.
The agrarian question was decided by a resolution to buy property. By 1880, almost total illiteracy among blacks reduced to 70%. By the end of the 60s, in the southern states they actively used their political rights and were elected even to Congress. Constitution of the southern states was revised, which was a decisive factor in its acceptance to union on a new basis.
A booming capitalism in a natural, evolutionary way leveled the differences between the North and the South, and in the 70s Radical Reconstruction gradually diminished. As the Democratic Party stepped up its mass base, including the expense of the farmers and poor whites of the South, the Republican lost its former influence over the masses. In 1876, presidential candidate of the Democrats, Samuel J. Tilden (NY) received more votes than Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. However, the election results were reviewed and majority was given to Hayes. Leaders of both parties made a deal: the US president was a Republican in exchange for a commitment to withdraw federal troops from the territory of the South.
- Meaning of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era
Both events were a single entity, and went far beyond the military victory of the North over the South. Conflict of free enterprise and plantation slavery can be seen as a conflict between two forms of ownership and diametrically opposed types of work organization of capital: slavery excludes wage labor, and vice versa.
The main outcome of the Civil War was the abolishment of slavery. The remaining components of the US economy – industry, commerce, agriculture farm developed before the war. In the northeast United States, the industrial revolution ended before the 60s. The Civil War temporarily reduced the rate of economic growth, but ultimately it prepared the development of capitalism on a much broader basis. Adopted in 1862 Homestead Act was the most progressive solution of the agrarian question, and the Republican Party, staying in power from 1861 to 1884, held a series of activities for the benefit of entrepreneurs.
As for the South, after the Civil War it still was behind the North and West of the USA. Part of plantations were transferred to new owners, a part was divided into small plots and leased. Still mostly blacks worked on plantations, but as farm laborers or tenant sharecroppers, giving part of the harvest to the owner.
The abolition of slavery created a crucial prerequisite for the formation of the labor market in the South, but it was not fully formed even in the years of radical Reconstruction. The main obstacle was the fact of racial discrimination – black Americans usually could get only the most difficult and dirty work. Black people in general remained at the position of “lower class”, although a small portion of them became educated people, owners and even entrepreneurs.
Reconstruction could not solve all the problems of turning the South into the same region of the US, as free north and west. However, it pushed the events follow the evolutionary path.
Conclusion
It took almost a century the struggle of black Americans for their civil rights to culminate in the actual, real success. This occurred not only under the influence of their own struggle, which took sometimes violent forms, but also because of the evolution of American society on the way of recognition of human values and respect for human rights, which for the first time were proclaimed in America in 1776. The first step in this direction was made by the great document abolishing slavery, signed by Abraham Lincoln.
The civil war between northern and southern states was the inevitable consequence of the contradictions between the two social systems in the country. The question of slavery, which was entirely determined by the economic and political interests of the planters, was the key issue. “Maximum program” of the most aggressive circles of the South was turning the US into a single slave power, but they were quite satisfied with separation from the Union as an independent state (Carroll, 2011).
In the winter-spring 1861, Confederation of 11 southern states was formed. On April 13, southerners unleashed hostilities with shelling federal Fort Sumter in Charleston bay (South Carolina), whose small garrison capitulated and lowered the American flag. Thus began a four-year Civil War – the most bloody and destructive of all that took place on the territory of the United States. The turning point in the war in favor of the free states was achieved through conducting it “in a revolutionary way.” Homestead Acts from May 20, and the act of freeing the slaves from September 22, 1862 had a crucial meaning. While South was lack of basic necessities, the north finished industrial revolution. On April 9, 1864 the victory was taken by the north and there started Reconstruction Era (1865-1877). The main outcome of the Civil War was the abolishment of slavery.
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