Saturday, January 14, 2023

Key Moments Leading to the Civil War

 Key Moments Leading to the Civil War, 1776-1859

1776: The Declaration of Independence, final version, fails to include a strong condemnation of slavery.  Jefferson had written in his original draft: “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”  South Carolina and Georgia objected, and the Congress omitted the passage.

 

1787: The Northwest Ordinance

Article 6, “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

 

1787: The U.S. Constitution implicitly allows slavery with:

·       The fugitive slave clause

·       Slaves counting as 3/5 persons

·       The possibility of ending the international slave trade as early as January 1, 1808

 

1819-1820: The Missouri Compromise

·       Missouri would enter as a slave state, but no state north of the southern Missouri line in the Louisiana Purchase could be admitted as a slave state.  The new line became latitude 36 degrees, 30 inches, replacing the old line, the Mason-Dixon line which separated Pennsylvania from Maryland.

·       In addition, Maine, which had been under the control of Massachusetts, was admitted as a free state.  So balance again: 12 to 12.

 

1828-1833: The Nullification Crisis

Andrew Jackson, a nationalist, declared: “The power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, [is] incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”

·       Congress passed the Compromise Tariff, which very slowly lowered the duties–reducing them by 20% over 9 years. 

·       But, Congress also passed a “Force Bill,” giving President Jackson federal power to enforce compliance with the tariff, if South Carolina refused to federal sovereignty in the matter.

 

1846-1848: Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War

The Democratic Review stated in 1838: “The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness.  It its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles: to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High—the Sacred and the True.  Its floor shall be a hemisphere—its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens—and its congregation the Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling and owning no man master, but governed by God’s natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood—of ‘peace and goodwill among men.’”   By 1845, writers were being even more blunt.  One congressman noted: “This continent was intended by Providence as a vast theater on which to work out the grand experiment of Republican Government, under the auspices of the Anglo-Saxon race.’”

 

1850: Compromise of 1850; the Fugitive Slave Law

Frederick Douglass said that “the only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make dead a dozen or more dead kidnapers. . . . After all, he concluded: most blacks “would hew their way to Liberty, despite the pale and puny opposition of their oppressors”

 

1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act; formation of the Republican Party

Popular Sovereignty: “All questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and in the new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the people residing therein, though their appropriate representatives.”

 

1856-1865: Bleeding Kansas

William Seward: “Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of the cause of freedom.  We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers and is in right.”

 

1859: John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry

“I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with blood.”

 

November 1860: Election of Abraham Lincoln

 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Final Civil War Study Guide, 2013

Final 2013 study guide; Civil War; Birzer

N.B. The final is worth 40% of your course grade.  To earn anything above a “C”, you must employ—to a significant extent—the readings you were assigned.

Section I: Essay.  One of these will appear on the final.  Worth 30% of your final.
1.  Consider Lincoln’s relationships with other politicians, cabinet members, generals, and the America people.  What kind of president and person was he?
2.  Explain the evolution of northern war aims, strategies, and tactics, 1861-1865.
3.  Explain both Union and Confederate motivations/justifications for beginning as well as continuing the war, 1861-1865.  Be sure to include the views of the leaders, the average soldiers, and the general public of each section.
4.  Explain the evolution of Lincoln’s thought/understanding regarding secession and the purpose of the war, 1861-1865.
5.  Explain the role of the Yankee Leviathan and Confederate War Socialism in the waging of the CIvil War (should include "Total War.")

Section II: I.D.s/Definitions;. Definitions will be worth ten points each.  Four total; worth 40% of your final.

13th Amendment
14th Amendment
15th Amendment
54th Massachusetts
American System
Ambrose Burnside
Anaconda Plan
Antietam
Bleeding Kansas
Compromise of 1850
copperheads
“Cotton is King”
Eastern Theater
Emancipation Proclamation
Exodusters
Field Order #120
First Bull Run
Fort Sumter
Fredericksburg
G.B. McClellan
George Meade
Gettysburg
Henry Clay
Homesteading Act
James Buchanan
James Longstreet
Jefferson Davis
John C. Calhoun
Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War
Joshua Chamberlain
KKK
Knights of the Golden Circle
Manifest Destiny
Meditation on the Divine Will
Missouri Compromise
New York Draft Riots
Peninsular Campaign
Petersburg Siege
Popular sovereignty
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
Radical Republicans
River Queen Doctrine
Robert Anderson
Robert E. Lee
Secret Six
Shiloh
Special Field Order #15
Springfield Rifle
Stonewall Jackson
Total War
Trans-Mississippi Theater
U.S. Grant
Vicksburg
Wade-Davis Bill
Western Theater
Wilderness Campaign
Wilmot Proviso
William H. L. Wallace
William Seward
William T. Sherman
Western Theater
Yankee Leviathan


Section III: Short answers.  Worth 30% of your final grade.  

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

2013 Midterm Study Guide


Midterm 2013 Study Guide; Sectionalism and Civil War 
Instructor, grader, and would-be arbitrary tyrant: Bradley J. Birzer the Pitt Elder

N.B.  Please feel free to study in pairs or groups.  Of course, you will have to take the exam individually.

Section 1: Essay.  “Explain the causes of the Civil War.” 
To cover the topic fully, you should include the issues discussed over the past six weeks: slavery, nationalism, republican thought, economics, religion, demographics, the constitution and politics, etc.  Please remember that you are making an argument and must support it with appropriate evidence—from lectures as well as from the assigned readings in the course.  
Worth sixty percent of your midterm grade.

Section 2: I.D.s.  I will give you four terms, and you will need to define four (4) of them.  To answer correctly, you must address the how, what, who, where, when, and why of each. 
Possible I.D.s:
“Bleeding Kansas”
“Manifest Destiny”
“popular sovereignty”
1850 Fugitive Slave Law
American Party
Border Ruffians
Compromise of 1850
Conscience Whigs
Constitutional Union Party
Crackers
Daniel Webster
Force Bill
Free Soil Party
Henry Clay
James Buchanan
Jayhawkers
Jefferson Davis
John Brown
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Knights of the Golden Circle
Lecompton Swindle
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Missouri Compromise of 1820
Platte County Self-Defense Association
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
Robert Anderson
Secret Six
Stephen Douglas
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
William Walker
William H. Seward
Wilmot Proviso

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Terms, Potter, Final


Key Terms, Potter, Chapter 10 to end
Free Soil
Pope Day
Know Nothing
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk
Dred Scot
LeCompton
Robert J. Walker
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Freeport Question/Doctrine
John Brown
Secret Six
Harper’s Ferry
Helper/THE IMPENDING CRISIS
“Congressional Party”
Baltimore Convention
Charleston Convention
John J. Crittendon
John Bell
Cooper Union Speech (Lincoln)
Salmon P. Chase
Knights of the Golden Circle
Theory of Race
De Bow’s Review
Committee of Thirteen
Jeremiah S. Black
Robert Anderson/Sumter
Star of the West
Peace Conference

Monday, January 28, 2013

John Brown Painting: Topeka State House


Terms: Potter, Impending Crisis, Chapters 1-9


Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, nationalism, David Wilmot, Slave Power, Negrophobia, antislavery men, conciliationists, Lewis Cass, popular sovereignty, free soilers, Nicholson Letter, Barnburners, Hunkers, Conscience Whigs, Liberty Party, little magician, holocaust of blood, Legend of 1850, Calhoun March 4 speech, Daniel Webster March 7 speech, William Seward, Higher Law, Clay’s Omnibus, Fugitive Slave Law, Finality, Constitutional Unionist, Georgia Platform, personal liberty laws, Pacific Railroad, little giant, Appeal of the Independent Democrats, Kansas Nebraska Act, Know Nothingism, William Walker, James Gadsden, Greytown, John A. Quitman, Ostend Manifesto, The War in Nicaragua, The Knights of the Golden Circle, Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, Platte County Self-Defensive Association, Bleeding Kansas, Pukes, Lecompton, Topeka, Charles Robison, Jefferson Buford, Sack of Lawrence, The Crime Against Kansas, Preston Brooks, Charles Sumner, John Brown, Army of the North.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Locke and Slavery, 1669

For my HC students, H105 and H303: the darker side of John Locke--from his (he was co-author) Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas, 1669:

107. “Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man's civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves, and be of what church or profession any of them shall think best, and, therefore, be as fully members as any freeman. But yet no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the same state and condition he was in before.”

110. “Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.”