If there was one man who you could say laid the foundation for the Civil War more than anyone, it would be Thomas Jefferson. After the Democratic-Republicans demolished the Federalists and became the sole party, the movement split among regional and ethnic lines, particularly between the North, predominantly German and English, and the South, predominantly Scotch and Irish. The North focused on the Declaration of Independence, which stated “all men are created equal”, more than the Constitution itself, which permitted for the existence of slavery in it. This caused a debate over whether the nation was created in 1776, when the Declaration was signed, or in 1789, when the Constitution was created. This debate became even more ridiculous and extended to over whether the Southern colony of Jamestown or the Northern colony of Plymouth founded the country. After all, Jamestown did technically come first, but in the North’s mind, the Pilgrims came to America to worship God, while the Southerners came to profit and introduced slavery into the country. As the Democratic Party became a puppet of the Deep South’s ideals, the North wanted their own party, combining the Federalists’ favoring of a strong central government, Jefferson’s call for equality among all men, and the Whigs’ policies of high tariffs, industrialization, and infrastructure investment. Now, the Whigs actually ended up collapsing in 1854 because of internal divisions between the radicals and moderates over the issue of slavery. A number of smaller parties formed, including the Liberty Party, dedicated to immediate abolition of slavery, the Free-Soil Party, van Buren’s party, dedicated to stopping the expansion of slavery, promoting homesteading, and supporting internal improvements, anti-Nebraska Democrats, the moderates who had been sidelined from the Democratic Party after the Deep South took over, and the anti-immigration Know-Nothing Party. All of these smaller parties and disillusioned Whigs all formed together to create the Republican party, which was a puppet of the North, in the same way that the Democrats were a puppet of the Deep South. That’s right, the Democratic-Republicans had finally split into the Democrats of the South and the Republicans of the North. The Republicans actively campaigned themselves as the party of the North. They framed the Democrats as the party of the South and thus the party of slavery. After all, there were 18 free states to 15 slave states, so if the Republicans could just win all the free states, they could win the election. There was no more reason to compromise with the South, whether on slavery, agrarianism, or states’ rights. The North stood for freedom from slavery, for free markets, for free land in the West if you wanted it, for national infrastructure, and for tariffs. The North had once again taken back the power the South had taken from them in 1800. With such a big majority, it appeared inevitable that the Republicans would win, but in 1856, their candidate, John C. Fremont, didn’t win because he was a Radical Republican (a faction of the party we’ll talk about later), and the Republicans knew they needed to choose wisely in 1860 to win, and they did, picking a former Whig and moderate Republican, Abraham Lincoln, granting them an overwhelming landslide in the election.
Abraham Lincoln Biography
Lincoln grew up in a poor log cabin in Kentucky, but after his family lost most of their land in a legal dispute that they couldn’t afford to change, they moved to Indiana. Tragically, at 9 years old, young Abe lost his mother, but his father then remarried, and his new wife brought over her own children, adding four more people to live in the cramped house. However, his father became sick, and thus Abe worked tirelessly day in and day out just to be able to live an affordable life. Abraham was not a big fan of his father for obvious reasons, and because his possibly illiterate father would punish him for trying to learn how to read and write. Eventually, Abraham finally left the house, and he only visited his father one more time in his life, neither inviting him to his wedding nor going to his funeral. A possible reason why Abraham opposed slavery might have been that he wanted the slaves to leave their difficulties and start anew, just like he did.
Abraham ended up in a small community in Illinois, and he soon became famous as a good and respected man. He taught himself law and became an effective and prominent lawyer. He was a member of the Whig party, and he idolized Speaker of the House Henry Clay. His political beliefs were that of Henry Clay, meaning high tariffs to protect American industry, investment in infrastructure to help modernize transportation, general free market economics, his containment and gradual elimination of slavery, and the relocation of African Americans to a separate colony or reservation to keep them safe from discrimination by whites.
Abraham’s story is one of failure. He failed so many times but felt the need to just keep going, and he eventually got to become President of the United States. See if you can keep up with this: In 1832, he lost his first run for the Illinois state legislator. The following year, he created a small business, a general store, which failed severely and left him deeply in debt. However, in 1834, he ran again for state legislator and won this time. The following year, tragedy struck, as his fiancee died, leaving him in a deep personal depression. It got worse the next year, as he got a nervous breakdown and was bedridden for months, though he eventually recovered. In 1838, he lost his bid to become Speaker of the Illinois House. In 1843, he failed to secure the Whig nomination for Congress. In 1846, he got the nomination and was elected to the House, where he was one of the most vocal opponents of the Mexican-American War. Two years later, he lost the Whig nomination. In 1854, he lost his Senate race because he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and after the Whig party collapsed, he joined and became a prominent leader of the Republican party. In 1856, he failed to win the Republican vice presidential nomination. Two years later, he did extraordinarily well in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, but he lost the Senate race. And finally, in 1860, he was picked by the Republican party as a compromise candidate between the Moderate and Radical Republicans, and he won the election in a landslide, becoming President of the United States. Wow, what a great story!
However, the Deep South wasn’t a fan of this Lincoln guy becoming president. Now, LIncoln had said that he didn’t want to get rid of slavery in the states where it existed. That could only be achieved through the amendment process, which Lincoln had no control over. He only wanted to ban it in the new states out west. But the South wasn’t stupid; they knew that their time in the Union was up. They had been betrayed by both the Whigs and the Democrats. They repeatedly made compromises that the North refused to follow. And now, the leader in charge was saying that the South was evil for doing what they had legally been doing for 200 years with no backlash. The North, with all its guts, hated the South, and with Kansas and Nebraska becoming two more free states, it appeared that the North had won. Jefferson had promised the South that they, the agrarian yeoman class, was fit to rule the nation, not the urban elites in the Northeast. In the Revolution of 1800, they had defeated these urban Anglo-German elites and completely demolished the Federalist Party. They were the leader of the Union, and their values of agrarianism, free trade, and states’ rights had flourished during this time. It only stumbled under weak leaders like Martin van Buren, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and others, Northerners who claimed to represent the South. The South had compromised so much to keep their values strong, but again and again, these compromises were violated, and the South would usually try again. But this time, they were done; they were ready to leave. As Lincoln had once said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I do not believe this government can permanently endure, half-slave and half-free.” And he was right.
The first state to secede was South Carolina, the same state that had almost seceded over Andrew Jackson’s tariffs, who proclaimed, “an increasing hostility of the non-slave holding states to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.” Next was Mississippi, who proclaimed, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world.” And 9 more states would leave and form the Confederate States of America, a more decentralized and democratic confederation but one with protections for slavery. In a speech, the Confederate vice president stated that the new government rested upon what he called “the great truth of racial inequality.” Strangely enough, the President at the time, James Buchanan, a Democrat, basically said that while secession was illegal, he couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Abraham Lincoln & The Civil War
On a quick side tangent before we get to the important stuff, before Lincoln’s election, he was told by an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell to grow a beard because it would help him win more votes, especially from women, who might’ve persuaded their husbands to vote for him, and he grew one before the inauguration, so that’s good. Apart from what we know about Lincoln today, a.k.a his handling of the Civil War, Lincoln did do some other cool stuff, including raising tariffs, creating homesteads, providing land to states to establish colleges, and authorizing the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. He also established a temporary federal income tax, unified the banking system, and instituted a military draft, all to help the war effort, and he suspended habeas corpus, the right to due process, to preserve stability and arrest any Confederate sympathizers on the spot. (He even deported a Congressman to the Confederacy.) Okay, now let’s talk about his handling of the Civil War.
To Lincoln and the country, the primary concern was not the abolition of slavery, but the preservation of the Union. Lincoln offered to give forgiveness to the states that seceded from the Union, enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, and pass an amendment to permanently allow slavery in the South. But, again, the Deep South wasn’t stupid, and they knew that once enough free states came, they would have a 3/4ths majority and would repeal the amendment and outlaw slavery in the whole country. So, they refused.
Then, Lincoln told the CSA that while he wouldn’t attack them, he would protect federal assets within the seceded states, including Fort Sumter. The fort was in the harbor of South Carolina, and, from the Confederacy’s perspective, its sole existence threatened the sovereignty and legitimacy of the new country, and so, to show Lincoln they meant business, they attacked it, hoping that Lincoln wouldn’t risk a civil war and would just let them have their way. But instead, Lincoln used the attack on the fort as a justification to initiate war, sending out a call for 75,000 volunteers. Unfortunately for Lincoln, this call would cause four more states to secede, that being Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, while four other states, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware chose to remain with the Union.
Military-wise, Lincoln had a strategy. There was a very brilliant general, Colonel Robert E. Lee, who Lincoln hoped would lead the Union to win a speedy victory. However, Lee, who is actually an indirect descendant of George Washington by the way, lived in Virginia, and despite the fact he personally opposed slavery and considered it evil, he still chose his state over the Union. Without Lee, Lincoln was stuck with General Winfield Scott, who was so fat he had to be mounted on a horse.
If you kept up with Lincoln’s life story, see if you can keep up with this. The first two major battles, the Battle of Manassas and the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, were both losses for the Union. Winflied Scott was way too old, so he just decided to retire. He was replaced by George B. McClellan, who was a brilliant organizer and a pretty good commander but was criticized for being overly cautious and was removed from command. John Pope was the next commander and was replaced by George McClellan after he lost the Second Battle of Manassas. General Lee decided to invade the Union and capture D.C., but his plans were leaked to the Union, allowing McClellan to masterfully defeat Lee at the Battle of Antietam, but Lincoln fired him again because he refused to pursue Lee. The next general was Ambrose Burnside, who was fired after he lost the Battle of Fredericksburg and was replaced with Joseph Hooker, who was fired after he lost the Battle of Chancellorsville despite the fact that he had more men than Lee. He was replaced by George Meade, who managed to win the Battle of Gettysburg and turn the tides of the war. Wow, that’s a lot of generals!
Eventually, however, Lincoln appointed General Ulysses S. Grant as General-in-Chief. Grant was a different type of commander than others. He was especially ruthless, ordering his soldiers to commit acts that, today, would be considered war crimes, such as burning entire cities to the ground and turning a blind eye to looting and rape. He would often throw his men at Southern armies, which, while it would cause mass casualties for his men, would work because by this point, the South was beginning to run out of resources. The North could replenish these losses; the South couldn’t. It was reckless, but it worked. Now, obviously, many Northerners weren’t too happy at this, and many criticized Lincoln for appointing Grant, whom they called the “Butcher”, to his position, but from Lincoln’s perspective, he would do anything to end the war so quickly. He began to ask why God was taking so long to decide the victor. Grant’s justification for all of this bloodshed was that it was revenge for the Mexican-American War? (Yeah, I know it’s kind of a weird justification.) In his mind, the war was solely for the pursuit of expanding the evil institution of slavery, which it was. To Lincoln, if the war was to continue in the pace it was without Grant’s brutal tactics, it would be an essential attrition war to reconquer the South. Even if they managed to do it, the Southerners would not forgive this, and they would rebel again if they had the ability to do so. Lincoln’s decision was to inflict a harsh blow to the South, but to personally help them recover to remind them that they are still welcome in the Union.
Lee officially surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and while many of Lee’s men wanted him to continue fighting, Lee didn’t want to see any more destruction to either the North or the South. Since the Eastern theater was the main one in the war, the conflict was effectively over. Lincoln, who had just won re-election in November 1864 against disgraced General George McClellan, the first president to do so since Andrew Jackson, was optimistic and ready to lead the country, both North and South, to a speedy recovery. With the war over, Lincoln felt that he didn’t have to follow through on his promise to the South to not end slavery, and so he officially ended the evil practice through the 13th Amendment. Lincoln’s criteria for the Southern states to reenter the Union was that they must ratify the new amendment and that 10% of each state’s population must pledge an oath of loyalty to the country.
Competing Plans For Reconstruction
Immediately after the war, Lincoln would place the Southern states under military rule, but once these states were reintegrated into the Union, everything would return back to normal. Lincoln personally helped rebuild the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, and all three of these reconstructions went very well, and a majority of these states’ populations were happy with it. With the exception of upper leadership, most Confederates were granted total amnesty as long as they pledged loyalty to the Union.
However, there was a small but growing faction – the Radical Republicans, who criticized Lincoln as a moderate, demanded more privileges and securities for the Freedmen, and wanted to punish the South harshly. Throughout the Civil War, the Radicals in Congress, led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner in the Senate did everything they could to bypass the authority of LIncoln and the courts through independent committees like the Joint Committee On The Conduct of War, which was found to investigate any Confederate sympathizers, and in the Radicals’ mind, “Confederate sympathizer” meant anyone who ordered a tactical retreat or basically anything other than a reckless Grant-style charge at the enemy. This led to the firing of skilled officers who graduated from West Point and the replacement of them with incompetent or corrupt officers, which, in the end, led to greater casualties on the Union side. The Radicals did everything they could to interfere with the war and especially post-war Reconstruction, including, for example, passing a bill to require stricter loyalty oaths from Southern states, which Lincoln pocket-vetoed. They were the Deep North if there ever was one. They saw America not as a Union but of two entities, the North and South, one of which was dragging the other down with it. The Radicals believed that the South and its population was lesser than them, and it should be brutally colonized and reorganized at the North’s will. They believed that the South should be stripped of their statehood, all white Southerners, including ones that didn’t own slaves, should be deprived of all of their rights, including the right to vote, the Freedmen should be given greater political power than whites, and new populations from the North should remove and replace the old one, and only after all of these things happened should the South be reintegrated into the Union as states.
The President disagreed. A kind and forgiving man, Lincoln believed that the Southerners didn’t deserve these conditions, and that they would rise up and rebel if these policies were implemented. Remember, I can’t stress this enough: Lincoln’s goal throughout his entire presidency was to ensure the Union survived. This meant forgiving the South now that slavery was done away with. This meant the North should welcome the South back in with open arms, not seek to subjugate, conquer, and eventually erase them.
Of course, there was also a very big question: What was the Freedmen’s role in America? He was now as free as his master, but was it possible for him to do this in the same nation that had held him and his family in brutal slavery for 2 centuries? Should he be equal to whites or should he be a second-class citizen bound by a system of racial discrimination and segregation? Should this be up to the states to answer these questions? Will this whole debate end in another civil war once again?
Lincoln was deeply concerned and troubled. He knew that the Freedmen had been through so much, and the masters would not just let their slaves walk untouched. He feared mass discrimination, segregation, and violence against the 4 million African Americans in the South. He feared that these African Americans would not be able to find a job, become unemployed and homeless, and ultimately be a drain on the economy.
However, Lincoln had a solution, the same as his role model Henry Clay: colonization, the establishment of an exclusive reservation where African Americans would be free to create a society where they were free to govern themselves, pursue their self-sufficiency, and do as they please beyond the threat of racial discrimination, segregation, and violence. It’s kind of like Jackson’s Native American reservation, only it would be somewhere outside of the United States and movement to the colony would be voluntary, not required, and if they chose to stay they could become subject to any segregation or discrimination laws in that state.
Okay, so Lincoln had his plan, but the next question was where would this colony be located? Lincoln ordered investigations into Central America, South America, Africa, and the Caribbean, but the Civil War was still going on at the time, so nothing came of this. There is an interesting theory that prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglas, who believed the Freedmen should remain in America and be integrated into American society, talked Lincoln out of colonization, but this would only be true if Lincoln never mentioned about colonization after the meeting, but this is wrong, as right before the Civil War ended, Lincoln and his cabinet members began establishing colonization plans. The likely explanation for Lincoln not talking to his cabinet members about colonization is because, at the time, he was losing the war and faced prospects of a loss in the 1864 election, but since there was a victory right before the election, Lincoln ended up winning it in a landslide, winning every state except Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey.
Pretty much all of the country, including pretty much all moderates and Democrats, supported this colonization proposal. Most Southerners supported this plan because they didn’t want to have to find work for all 4 million Freedmen, while Northerners supported this plan because they didn’t want African Americans to migrate en masse to the North and either put low-skilled white labourers out of a job or not be able to find a job themselves and ultimately become a drain on the economy (which is what actually happened.) Lincoln put these concerns to rest with his brilliant plan that, if implemented, could have possibly spared the African American population from 100 years of racial violence, institutionalized racism, and segregation. Only the Radicals on both sides, the Radical Republicans who wanted full integration, and the Radical Deep Southerners who wanted slavery to come back, were unhappy with this proposal. In the end, the Radicals got their way.
On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln attended the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater with his wife and two friends. At 10:15 p.m., John Wilkes Booth, a radical Confederate sympathizer, went into the presidential box and shot Lincoln with a .44 caliber Derringer pistol, leaped onto the stage, yelling “Sic semper tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants), broke his leg in the fall, got onto the horse, and fled. Lincoln was carried across the street to the Peterson House, where he died the next morning. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton solemnly declared, “Now he belongs to the ages.” Lincoln’s funeral traveled across the East Coast until it reached his home town in Springfield, Illinois, with massive crowds along the way marking one of the most somber events in American history. Booth was captured in a barn 12 days later. The soldiers set his barn on fire, sending Booth running out, where he was shot. Several of his co-conspirators, who were supposed to assassinate the Vice President and Secretary of State but failed, were tried and executed for their crimes.
And with that, the Age of Lincoln was over as quickly as it had begun. Despite his undenied greatness, he was never a peacetime president, and he could not shape the future in his image. While Lincoln was elected as a Republican, in truth, he was a Whig. He was the last and greatest Whig president, carrying out pretty much all of their political policies through, though he did so during wartime. And with that, the quite possibly greatest president of all time was dead, and the Radical Republicans betrayed his legacy to cease power for themselves through corruption and, in the process, ruined the country forever.
History Explained 