Why the Civil War Happened And What We Can Learn From It 1 WHAT WE’LL COVER IN THIS COURSE ▪Day One: Setting the stage: - the late 1790s through the 1830s or so ▪Day Two: 1840 through mid-1850s ▪Day Three: Late 1850s-spring of 1861 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 4 4 Really Three Questions ▪Why didn’t the US have a civil war before 1861? ▪Why did the 1861 crisis lead to war? ▪Was it a mistake to make preservation of the union the primary goal of the early 19th century in America? Karen McPherson Fall 2018 13 13 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS 1. Importance of unity among states 2. Dangers of sectionalism 3. Major change through Constitutional amendments 4. Dangers of political parties Karen McPherson Fall 2018 17 17 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS 5. Importance of religion, morality, and education 6. Avoidance of debt 7. Maintenance of neutrality with other nations 8. Importance of free trade Karen McPherson Fall 2018 18 18 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS – SELECTED PORTIONS 1. Importance of unity among states 2. Dangers of sectionalism 3. Dangers of political parties Karen McPherson Fall 2018 19 19 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS – UNITY “These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire.” Karen McPherson Fall 2018 20 20 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS – SECTIONALISM “. discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.” Karen McPherson Fall 2018 21 21 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS – POLITICAL PARTIES “[Factions] are likely . to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” Karen McPherson Fall 2018 22 22 GEORGE WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS – POLITICAL PARTIES “It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and Kareninsurrection.” McPherson Fall 2018 23 23 Founding Era 1789-1815 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 24 24 KARL MARX AND JAMES MADISON HAD IT ABOUT RIGHT C o Limit Eliminate n Freedomχ s Causes (Marx)χ t Equalize i Property is Propertyχ the source t of factions Checks and u Control the t Effects of Balances, i Factions Separation of o Karen McPherson (Madison) Fall 2018 Powers 25 n 25 ECONOMIC CHANGES: INDUSTRIALIZATION YEAR TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT 1793 COTTONGIN 1798 INTERCHANGEABLE PARTS 1800 THE FACTORY SYSTEM 1807 STEAMBOAT 1825 ERIE CANAL Karen McPherson Fall 2018 26 26 INDUSTRIALIZATION (continued) YEAR TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT 1831 McCORMICK REAPER 1837 STEELPLOW 1800-1830 TURNPIKES 1828-1860 RAILROADS 1844-1860 TELEGRAPH Karen McPherson Fall 2018 27 27 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGES: SLAVERY & COTTON 1790 1830 1860 # SLAVES 698,000 2,000,000 4,000,000 # SLAVE STATES 8 13 15 COTTON 4,000 720,000 5 million PRODUCTION bales bales bales Karen McPherson Fall 2018 28 28 SLAVERY “There was never any moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention. “ John Jay Chapman Karen McPherson Fall 2018 29 29 THOMAS JEFFERSON ON SLAVERY •“But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final Karen McPherson Fallsentence.” 2018 30 30 THOMAS JEFFERSON ON SLAVERY •“We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other” Karen McPherson Fall 2018 31 31 • Jefferson never abandoned his belief that the institution was degrading to whites; • His preference was for the deportation of blacks, fearing that to let "the wolf" go (through abolition) would result in interracial war. • In practical terms, this meant that he became enmired in defense of a plantation economy that had to encroach on new land to survive. Karen McPherson Fall 2018 32 32 This examination of Jefferson's political and personal views of slavery finds him an increasing defender of the system's expansion after his efforts in the 1780s to ban it from the western territories. Karen McPherson Fall 2018 33 33 As president, he "opened up a new world" for chattel holders by allowing them to move into the new Louisiana Purchase for economic reasons; and as of 1819- 21, Miller writes, he became an "ardent exponent" of the spread of slavery to Missouri and elsewhere. Karen McPherson Fall 2018 34 34 ECONOMIC CHALLENGES: SLAVERY OR “STATES’ RIGHTS?” ▪ Alexander Stephens (CSA VP) March 1861 “Cornerstone” Speech: ▪ Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its . cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This . government is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great . truth. ▪ Any other historical interpretation is “revisionist” history, Karen McPherson Fall 2018 35 35 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGES Karen McPherson Fall 2018 37 37 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGES Karen McPherson Fall 2018 38 38 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGES Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman Transcendentalism Karen McPherson Fall 2018 39 39 “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...” Henry David Thoreau Walden, 1854 (about his experiences in 1845) Karen McPherson Fall 2018 40 40 “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance, 1844 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 41 41 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 42 42 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 Source: marketwatch.com 43 43 Social and Cultural Changes ▪Westward Expansion Karen McPherson Fall 2018 44 44 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 45 45 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 46 46 LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785 ▪Set the basis for a land survey system that would endure until the 1862 Homestead Act. ▪ Townships, 36 square miles. ▪ Land sold by section, half section, quarter section ▪ Section 16 reserved for public education Karen McPherson Fall 2018 47 47 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 48 48 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 49 49 Logan County Karen McPherson Fall 2018 50 50 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 51 51 Land granted to my Great- grandfather Thomas Calvin Workman, Sr., in 1899. I took this picture In January of 2018 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 52 52 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 53 53 NORTHWEST ORDINANCE OF 1787 ▪Established the process for the creation of new states from the region. ▪Limited form of government after the population of a territory reached 5,000 ▪When the population reaches 60,000 the territory could apply for statehood and would be admitted to the union on an equal Karen McPherson Fall footing2018 with the original thirteen states. 54 54 NORTHWEST ORDINANCE OF 1787 ▪And oh yeah – No slavery Karen McPherson Fall 2018 55 55 Interactive Map Karen McPherson Fall 2018 56 56 WESTWARD EXPANSION 1790 1830 1840 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 57 57 KEY EVENTS IN WESTWARD EXPANSION 1800-1850 ▪1803 – Louisiana Purchase ▪1820 – Missouri Compromise ▪1836 – Texas Revolution & Independence Karen McPherson Fall 2018 58 58 KEY EVENTS IN WESTWARD EXPANSION 1800-1850 ▪1803 – Louisiana Purchase ▪1820 – Missouri Compromise ▪1836 – Texas Revolution & Independence ▪1845-1848 – Mexican War ▪1850 – Compromise of 1850 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 62 62 Significant Political Challenges Faced by the United States Karen McPherson Fall 2018 70 70 branches Karen McPherson Fall 2018 71 71 Constitution Article I, Section 8 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 72 72 Events Connected with these Challenges ▪Balance of Power and Federalism – ▪Alien and Sedition Acts, 1797 ▪Nullification (emerges again in 1828) ▪War of 1812 ▪Slavery Karen McPherson Fall 2018 73 73 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 74 74 Events Connected with these Challenges ▪Financing the Government ▪Hamilton’s Economic Plan 1790s ▪Clay’s “American System” 1815 and beyond ▪Tariff problems – 1828 ▪Nullification Crisis – 1832-33– again ▪Panic of 1837 – rechartering National Bank Karen McPherson Fall 2018 75 75 Karen McPherson Fall 2018 76 76 Events Connected with these Challenges ▪Balance between Slave and Free States ▪Missouri Compromise – 1820 ▪Texas – 1821-1844 ▪Compromise of 1850 ▪Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) Karen McPherson Fall 2018 77 77 Foreign Great Britain Policy France Spain United States Vacant Russia Karen McPherson Fall 2018 78 78 Events Connected with these Challenges ▪International Affairs – Britain, Spain, France, Mexico ▪ XYZ Affair – 1795 (France) ▪ Louisiana Purchase – 1803 (Spain and France) ▪ Embargo – 1807 (Britain) ▪ War of 1812 (Britain) ▪ Westward Expansion (Spain, Britain) ▪ Tensions and ultimate war with Mexico Karen McPherson Fall 2018 79 79 POLITICAL RESPONSES Karen McPherson Fall 2018 80 80 1854-present Democrats vs.