UNITED STATES HISTORY AND THE CONSTITUTION

1
UNITED STATES HISTORY AND THE CONSTITUTION

• South Carolina
• Standard USHC-3.2

2
Challenge of National Government

• Secession challenged democracy. A minority of
  Americans determined to leave the Union because
  they were dissatisfied with the outcome of the
  1860 election.
• Southerners feared that the new administration
  would force them to grant freedom to their
  slaves.

3
The War Starts

• President Lincoln pledged to preserve the Union
  and democracy.
• Confederates fired on federal troops stationed at
  Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor and the Civil
  War began.

4
Resources of War

• The course and outcome of the Civil War depended
  upon the economic resources of the North and the
  South, the geographic factors that influenced
  strategy and the military and political
  leadership that influenced public support.

5
Industry tips the Balance

• The Union had far greater economic resources
  including industrial capacity, miles of railroad
  tracks, manpower and a navy.
• The South depended on the power of King Cotton
  and their trading relationship with Great Britain
  to provide the manufactured goods and ships that
  they lacked.

6
Starve the South of Trade

• However the Unions strategy to blockade southern
  ports disrupted this trade throughout the war.
• The Norths offensive strategy was based on
  geography and included splitting the South at the
  Mississippi River and taking the capital at
  Richmond Anaconda Plan.

7
Great Britain Help the South?

• The Souths strategy was mainly to seek support
  from Great Britain and defend their region until
  such aid was obtained or the North tired of the
  war effort.

8
Home Advantage

• Confederate forces invaded the North twice in an
  effort to gain foreign support and hasten the end
  of the war but were repulsed at Antietam and
  defeated at Gettysburg.
• Initially the South enjoyed advantages in both
  military leadership and geography.
• They were able to effectively move their men and
  materiel via railroads between battle fronts in
  the east and the west under the effective
  leadership of Robert E. Lee.
• Southerners were also more familiar with their
  home terrain.

9
Confederate States Unity?

• The North, however, had the advantage in
  political leadership.
• Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president
  defending the states rights argument, was not
  able to get the states of the Confederacy to
  effectively work together to pursue the war
  effort

10
Lincoln Unites the Union

• Abraham Lincoln was able to articulate the
  purpose of the war as the preservation of the
  Union and government of the people, by the
  people and for the people and to retain
  sufficient public support to continue the fight
  despite initial military defeats.

11
Emancipation

• Lincoln also demonstrated his political skills by
  his handling of the issue of emancipation of the
  slaves.
• Lincoln initially hesitated to free the slaves
  because he feared this would undermine the unity
  of the North by antagonizing the border states,
  those slave states that did not secede from the
  Union.

12
Emancipation Proclamation

• When emancipation was announced, it was promoted
  as a military measure against the Confederacy.
• However, the Emancipation Proclamation was also a
  diplomatic and political document.

13
Still Trying to Make Peace

• By making a goal of the war the liberation of
  slaves, Lincoln made it impossible for the
  British, whose population was strongly opposed to
  slavery, to continue to support the Southern war
  effort.
• By announcing his intention to issue the
  Emancipation Proclamation in the fall and not
  making it effective until the first of the year,
  Lincoln gave the South a last chance to make
  peace and keep their slaves.

14
Freedom?

• It is important for students to understand that
  the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately
  free the slaves.
• It did not attempt to free slaves in the regions
  under Union control or in the border states.

15
Only Rebellious States

• Only states in rebellion on January 1, 1863 were
  commanded to free their slaves and Confederates
  were not likely to obey the President of the
  United States.
• However as the slave population got wind of
  proposed emancipation, they increasingly ran to
  Union lines and freedom.

16
Thirteenth Amendment

• Slaves were freed as their homeland was captured
  by Union forces Finally, freedom for all slaves
  was formally legalized by the Thirteenth
  Amendment at the end of the war.
• The Emancipation Proclamation allowed African
  Americans to enlist in the United States army as
  a war measure.

17
54th Massachusetts regiment

• With the help of abolitionists, several African
  American units were formed, most notably the 54th
  Massachusetts regiment that led a gallant but
  futile attack on Fort Wagner in Charleston
  Harbor, disproving myths about capability and
  race.
• While African American soldiers served with
  distinction, they served in segregated units
  under the command of white officers.
• They were poorly supplied and paid less than
  white soldiers.

18
Turning Point

• The Emancipation Proclamation was an important
  turning point in the war.
• Students should also know the significance of
  battles at Fort Sumter, Bull Run/Manassas,
  Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg and Atlanta and
  their influence on the final defeat of the
  Confederacy and the attempt at secession.

19
Unconditional Surrender Grant

• President Lincoln effectively exercised his power
  as commander in chief and eventually found the
  right general to win the war.
• Lincoln was frustrated by his generals until he
  named Ulysses S. Grant, who had been successful
  at Vicksburg in cutting the South in half at the
  Mississippi River, as commander of northern
  forces.

20
Total War!

• Grant changed the strategy to total war.
• William Tecumseh Shermans March to the Sea
  and Grants unrelenting attacks and siege at
  Petersburg strained the dwindling economic
  resources and manpower of the South and brought
  surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

21
Liberation and Democracy

• The outcome of the Civil War had a profound
  impact on the course of democracy, preserving the
  Union while at the same time liberating an
  enslaved minority.
• The idea of secession was based on the principle
  that a majority in one region (Southern slave
  owners) could deny rights to a minority (slaves)
  and at the same time claim their minority rights
  would be violated by the decision of the national
  electorate.

22
Secession Null and Void

• While the Union defeated the Confederacy on the
  battlefield and the federal courts ruled
  secession to be null and void, the idea of
  states right upon which secession was based was
  never defeated.
• Indeed the argument of states rights emerged in
  the civil rights era and the Confederacy
  continues to be revered in some segments of
  southern society.