Unit 5 Princeton Review Pt. 2 Flashcards
(30 cards)
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Scott, a former enslaved person whose master had taken him to territories where slavery was illegal, declared himself a free man and sued for his freedom.
Scott won the case but lost the appeal, and the case finally wound up in the Supreme Court where Scott lost.
At a time when many wanted to ignore the big questions surrounding slavery, Chief Justice Roger Taney (who wrote the majority decision) chose to attack them head-on.
Taney’s one-sided, proslavery decision declared that enslaved people were property, not citizens, and further, that no Black person could ever be a citizen of the United States.
Because Black people were not citizens, Taney argued, they could not sue in federal courts, as Scott had done.
Moreover, he ruled that Congress could not regulate slavery in the territories, as it had done in passing the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 under the Articles of Confederation government and again in 1820 with the Missouri Compromise.
This part of the decision not only nullified the now obsolete Missouri Compromise but also the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and it ruled out any hope of reviving the Wilmot Proviso, which was still championed by many Northerners and abolitionists.
Impact/Northern Reaction to Dred Scott
not only nullified the now obsolete Missouri Compromise but also the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and it ruled out any hope of reviving the Wilmot Proviso, which was still championed by many Northerners and abolitionists.
In exercising judicial review and declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, Taney and the Court were in essence saying that slavery could go anywhere; the Republicans’ goal of preventing the spread of slavery into the new territories was destroyed by the Court’s ruling.
The Dred Scott decision was thus a major victory for Southerners and a turning point in the “decade of crisis.”
In the North, the Supreme Court decision was viciously denounced.
Even those who lacked strong abolitionist sentiments feared that the decision tilted the balance of power too far in the South’s favor.
Many, including the press, regarded the decision as further proof of a Slave Power that, if left unchecked, would soon dominate the entire country, perhaps even forcing slavery on those states that did not want it.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party was dividing along regional lines, raising the possibility that the Republicans might soon control the national government.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
1858 was an off-year election, and it was in this politically charged atmosphere that the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates took place.
Students often think the debates were for the presidential election, but they weren’t.
Douglas faced stiff competition for his Illinois Senate seat from Abraham Lincoln, a rising star in the newly formed Republican Party.
The race for Illinois’s Senate seat gained national attention in part because of the railroad and telegraph.
Stephen Douglas was viewed as the leading Democrat in the United States Senate, while Lincoln had gained his reputation as a Whig opposed to the Mexican War and Kansas-Nebraska Act.
In many ways, the Lincoln-Douglas debates gave voice to the issues and concerns that divided a nation heading for civil war.
It was in this campaign that Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech (“this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free”), while Douglas destroyed his political career in his attempt to defend popular sovereignty in what became known as the Freeport Doctrine.
Freeport Doctrine
Douglas tried to depict Lincoln as an abolitionist, but Lincoln skillfully backed Douglas into a corner when he pushed him to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision.
Douglas suggested that slavery could not exist where local laws did not protect it.
In essence, he contended, voters and residents of a territory could exclude slavery simply by not protecting a man’s “property.”
Douglas alienated both northern and southern voters by his ambiguous stance on popular sovereignty and effectively destroyed any chance he might have had for winning the presidency in 1860.
John Brown‘s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859
Adding fuel to the secessionist fire was John Brown‘s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859.
Brown hoped to spark a slave revolt but failed.
After his execution, news spread that Brown had received financial backing from northern abolitionist organizations.
Brown became a martyr for the cause, celebrated throughout the North.
Democrats split, election of 1860
When it came time for the Democrats to choose their 1860 presidential candidate, their convention split.
Northern Democrats backed Douglas; Southerners backed John Breckinridge.
The election showed that the nation itself was on the brink of fracture.
In the North, the contest was between Douglas and Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln.
In the South, Breckinridge faced off against Constitutional Union Party nominee John Bell; Lincoln didn’t even appear on southern ballots.
But the North held the majority of the electoral votes, so when Lincoln achieved a clean sweep there, he won the election.
The response in southern legislatures was to propose bills of secession.
Immediately after the election, southern leaders who wanted to maintain the Union tried to negotiate and came up with the Crittenden Compromise.
All hope of resolution died, however, when Lincoln refused to soften the Republican demand that slavery not be extended to the territories.
Lincoln probably had no other political option, as to do otherwise would have been to abandon the principles of those who had supported his election.
Lincoln and other northern leaders were banking on the hope that the South was bluffing and would not secede.
Start of Southern Secession, Start of Civil War
In December 1860, three months before Lincoln’s inauguration, South Carolina seceded from the Union.
Within months, six other states had joined South Carolina to form the Confederate States of America; the states chose Jefferson Davis to lead the Confederacy.
Cautiously, Lincoln decided to maintain control of federal forts in the South while waiting for the Confederacy to make a move.
On April 12, 1861, it did, attacking and capturing Fort Sumter. No one died in this first battle of America’s bloodiest war, the Civil War.
Ideology behind Civil War
For many people of the era, the Civil War was not solely (or even explicitly) about slavery.
It is worth noting that Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, the Border States, were slave states that fought for the Union.
Except for active abolitionists, most Northerners believed they were fighting to preserve the Union.
Most Southerners described their cause as fighting for their states’ rights to govern themselves.
But slavery was the issue that had caused the argument over states’ rights to escalate to war.
Lincoln’s views on slavery evolved throughout the 1850s and the Civil War, but as late as 1862, Lincoln stated, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save the union by freeing all the slaves I would do it…. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.”
The Battle of Antietam,
fought in September 1862, was the first battle fought in the East where the Union wasn’t completely defeated.
By forcing the Confederacy to retreat, the Union claimed the battle was a victory.
This “victory” gave Lincoln the platform he needed to announce the Emancipation Proclamation.
It was also important to show Britain and France that the Union wasn’t a lost cause, and put off those countries possibly helping the Confederacy.
The Battle of Gettysburg
was fought in southern Pennsylvania.
It was the most northern point the Confederacy had reached at the time.
Lee’s troops suffered massive casualties and were forced to retreat.
This served as a massive confidence boost for the Union.
Gettysburg Address
Four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln delivered his most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address
In only two minutes, the Address helped to redefine the War as not only a struggle to preserve the Union, but also as a struggle for human equality..
Confederacy Government
Ironically, as the southern states fought to maintain the right to govern themselves locally, the Confederate government brought them under greater central control than they had ever experienced.
Jefferson Davis understood the North’s considerable advantages in population, transportation, and economics, and he knew that the weak, poorly organized state governments of the South could not mount an effective defense.
Davis took control of the southern economy, imposing taxes and using the revenues to spur industrial and urban growth; he took control of the railroads and commercial shipping; and he created a large government bureaucracy to oversee economic developments.
Davis, in short, forced the South to compensate quickly for what it had lost when it cut itself off from northern commerce.
When Southerners opposed his moves, he declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a traditional protection against improper imprisonment, in order to maintain control.
Lincoln was upsetting Northerners with some of the exact same steps, but the use of the presidential power chafed especially badly in the Confederacy, where many believed they had seceded precisely to avoid the federal government commanding too much power.
Confederacy Economy
Davis had some success in modernizing the southern economy, but the Confederacy lagged too far behind in industrialization to catch up to the Union.
Rapid economic growth, furthermore, brought with it rapid inflation.
Prices rose so quickly that paychecks and payments for crops became worthless almost as soon as they were made, plunging many Southerners into poverty.
Class Inequality, Class Tension, Desertions
In 1862, the Confederacy imposed conscription (a military draft), requiring many small farmers to serve in the Confederate Army.
This act caused even greater poverty in the country, as many families could not adequately tend their farms without their men.
Confederate conscription also created class conflict.
The government allowed the wealthy to hire surrogates to perform military service in their place and exempted anyone who owned more than 20 enslaved people from military service (on the grounds that the large plantations these men ran fed the Confederacy and its army).
In effect, the wealthy did not have to serve, while the poor had no choice.
As a result, class tensions increased, leading ultimately to widespread desertions from the Confederate Army.
Toward the end of the war, it also led many Southerners in small towns to ignore the government and try to carry on as if there was no war.
Many resisted when asked to feed, clothe, or house passing troops.
Northern Economy
The northern economy received a boost from the war as the demand for war-related goods, such as uniforms and weapons, spurred manufacturing.
The loss of southern markets harmed the economy at first, but soon the war economy brought about a boom period.
A number of entrepreneurs became extremely wealthy; many succumbed to the temptations of greed, overcharging the government for services and products (war profiteering).
Some sold the Union government worthless, shoddy food and clothing, while government bureaucrats looked the other way for the price of a bribe.
Corruption was fairly widespread, eventually prompting a yearlong congressional investigation.
Like the South, the North experienced a period of accelerated inflation, although northern inflation was nowhere as extreme as its southern counterpart.
Issues for workers and unions
Northern Economy: Issues for workers and unions
Workers, worried about job security in the face of mechanization and the decreasing value of their wages, formed unions.
Businesses, in return, blacklisted union members, forced new employees to sign contracts in which they promised not to join unions, and used violence to break strikes.
The Republican Party, then (as now) believing that government should help businesses but regulate them as little as possible, supported business in its opposition to unions.
The North: Increase of central gov power
Lincoln, like Davis, oversaw a tremendous increase in the power of the central government during the war.
He implemented economic development programs without waiting for congressional approval, championed numerous government loans and grants to businesses, and raised tariffs to protect Union trade.
He also suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the border states, to make it easier to arrest secessionists, especially in Maryland.
During the war, Lincoln initiated the printing of a national currency.
Lincoln’s able treasury secretary, Salmon P. Chase, issued greenbacks, government-issued paper money that was a precursor to modern currency.
Emancipation of the Enslaved People
As previously stated, neither the Union nor the Confederacy initially declared the Civil War to be a war about slavery.
The Constitution protected slavery where it already existed, so many opponents (including Republicans) were opposed to the extension of slavery into the new territories.
As a presidential candidate, Lincoln had argued for gradual emancipation, compensation to slaveholders for liberated enslaved people, and the colonization of freed enslaved people somewhere outside the United States, perhaps in Africa.
When the Union dissolved and the South left Congress, Lincoln was faced with a legislature much more progressive in its thoughts on slavery than he was.
The Radical Republican wing of Congress wanted immediate emancipation.
To that end, the radicals introduced the confiscation acts in Congress.
Confiscation Acts
The first (1861) gave the government the right to seize any enslaved people used for “insurrectionary purposes.”
The second (1862) was much wider in scope, allowing the government to liberate any enslaved person owned by someone who supported the rebellion, even if that support was limited to paying taxes to the Confederate government.
The second confiscation act, in effect, gave the Union the right to liberate all enslaved people.
This act had little effect, however, because Lincoln refused to enforce it.
Gradual emancipation
Lincoln’s notion of “gradual emancipation” was inspired by a law in Pennsylvania passed in 1780 which guaranteed that all children born in Pennsylvania were free persons regardless of the condition or race of their parents.
This model of freeing enslaved people in the North was common before the Civil War settled the question of slavery nationwide.
Soon after, however, Lincoln took his first cautious steps toward emancipation.
Reasons for emancipation
The primary reason was pretty simple: enslaved people indirectly supported the southern war effort.
They grew the crops and cooked the meals that kept the rebel troops fed.
Therefore, any strategy the Union army adopted had to include capturing enslaved people as a key element.
But what to do with them once they were captured? Lock them up somewhere and return them to their owners after the war?
They had to be freed, or the government of the United States would become the world’s biggest slaveholder.
And there were other advantages of making the freedom of the enslaved people one of the side effects of Union victory.
One was that it kept Britain and France out of the war.
Jefferson Davis had hoped that these countries would support the Confederacy in order to keep receiving shipments of southern cotton, but once Lincoln made it explicit that Union victory would mean freedom for the enslaved people, European governments dared not attempt to come to the aid of the rebels for fear of being quickly toppled by an outraged public.
Another advantage was that emancipation would provide a new source of troops for the Union side: escaped enslaved African Americans
Emancipation Proclamation
But he dared not make this move until after a northern victory, lest it appear like a desperate response to the defeats skilled southern generals were inflicting upon the Union.
The moment came in September 1862, with the Union victory at Antietam.
In the aftermath of the battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Note that the Emancipation Proclamation, for all intents and purposes, actually freed no enslaved people.
Instead, it stated that on January 1, 1863, the government would liberate all slaves residing in those states still “in rebellion.”
Throughout the war, Lincoln refused to acknowledge secession and insisted on referring to the Confederate states as “those states in rebellion.”
The Proclamation did not liberate the enslaved people in the border states such as Maryland, nor did it liberate enslaved people in southern counties already under the control of the Union Army.
Again, legally, Lincoln had no power to abolish slavery in areas governed by the U.S. Constitution.
Reactions to Emancipation Proclamation,
Abolitionists complained that the Proclamation liberated enslaved people only where the Union had no power to enforce emancipation and maintained slavery precisely where it could liberate the enslaved people.
The Proclamation also allowed southern states to rejoin the Union without giving up slavery.
On the positive side, the Emancipation Proclamation finally declared that the Civil War was, for the Union, a war against slavery, and thus changed the purpose of the war, much as the Declaration of Independence had changed the purpose of the Revolutionary War.
Road to Complete Emancipation
Not until two years after the Emanciaption Proclamation, while campaigning for reelection, did Lincoln give his support to complete emancipation.
Just before the Republican convention, Lincoln lobbied for a party platform that called for a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery; the result was the Thirteenth Amendment.
After his reelection, Lincoln considered allowing defeated southern states to reenter the Union and to vote on the Thirteenth Amendment.
He tried to negotiate a settlement with southern leaders along those lines at the Hampton Roads Conference.
Lincoln also offered a five- year delay on implementing the amendment if it passed, as well as $400 million in compensation to slave owners.
Jefferson Davis’s commitment to complete southern independence scuttled any chance of compromise.
