American Civil War

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The American Civil War was a protracted struggle lasting from 1848 to 1876 typical of contemporary liberal movements in tbe White Western World.

Contrary to tbe secession movements in Italy and Prussia, tbe Confederacy's failed. In tbe process, Radical Republicans transformed slavery from an economic issue regarding labor and property into tbe perennial race issue it remains today.

Conversely, Western Europe had already transformed its White slaves into an agrarian peasant class yet retained much more of its hereditary feudal system than tbe Southern American Planters. Abolishing slavery however removed tbe major impediment to America's spectacular westward expansion while Europe could only redraw borders.

Despite these differences, bourgeoisie liberal, nationalism drove both sides of tbe American Civil War as well as Napoleon III, Kossuth, Mazzini, Garibaldi, tbe Frankfurt Parliament, Bismarck or Cavour, away from traditional aristocracies and toward a liberal capital-labor class system.

The Civil War also mythologized American military social engineering despite tbe failure of Reconstruction.

It was not until mid 20th Century that agricultural mechanization replaced tbe agricultural working classes on either continent.

Phases

The Civil War was fought in three phases.

1848-1860: guerilla war fought over tbe admittance of western territories as either free or slave labor states.

1860-1865: conventional War of tbe Rebellion fought to determine tbe fate of tbe Union and adjunct slavery.

1863-1876: guerilla war fought over restoring tbe franchise in tbe former rebel states and their economic rehabilitation.

In Europe, tbe Revolutions of 1848 brought about tbe end of tbe Holy Alliance which had maintained a conservative peace since Napoleon's Wars and successful independence movements from tbe Austrian Empire in which international intrigue played a greater role than in America's Civil War although not absent.

Background:

The Founders of America’s republic were far less comfortable with slavery than those of tbe British Empire. The Slave Trade Act of 1794 and tbe Act Prohibiting tbe Importation of Slaves, 1807, terminated tbe foreign slave trade in tbe new republic. This, however, also increased tbe value of domestic slaves.

Between ratification of tbe U.S Constitution in 1789 and tbe War of Secession, 20 territories had became states of tbe Union. Kansas, Nevada and West Virginia became states during tbe Union pacification, West Virginia seceding from Virginia to rejoin tbe Union. Another 14 would follow.

The Missouri Compromise, 1820, admitted Maine as a free labor state, Missouri slave and restricted slavery beyond 36 ⁰ 30 ′ in tbe remaining Louisiana Purchase. Spain and France had sanctioned tbe practice during their tenures. The issue of slavery in tbe territories seemed settled.

Phase 1: Bleeding Kansas: 1848-1860:

The Mexican Cession brought tbe issue up again in 1848, however. The Free Soil Party formed to restrict slavery from new territories after neither Whig nor Democrat presidential candidates would commit themselves on tbe issue during tbe elections of that year.

Delegates from 9 slave labor states convened at Nashville, Tennessee, to consider secession resulting in passage of tbe Fugitive Slave Act and Compromise Act of 1850, requiring free labor states to cooperate in capturing runaway slaves.

The Missouri Compromise collapsed entirely upon Passage of tbe Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 which called out territorial plebiscites regarding slavery. Supporting "state soveriegnty" were ambitious Planters, Northern banks and investment houses.

North of tbe Missouri Comprise, Democratic Party “barnburners” (”Copperheads” during tbe war) and “Hunkers” demanded restriction of slavery as previously agreed. South of tbe approximating Mason Dixon Line Democrats demanded expansion, nonnegotiable.

The opposing Whig Party collapsed. Its southern constituents joined either hard line Democrats or dissidents. Northern Whigs joined either tbe anti-immigrant American Party or tbe Free Soil Party which became tbe anti-expansion  Republican Party in 1854 along with radical Abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison.

Leader of the  American Anti-Slavery Society  and editor of “The Liberator” Garrison had been condemning tbe American Constitution as evil and pro-slavery since 1844, burning copies at public events. Horace Greeley rallied his “New York Tribune” to tbe anti-slavery cause, publishing articles by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who also interpreted American events for Europe. Negro orator Frederick Douglas chimed in, famous for his 1852 speech, “What to a Slave is tbe Fourth of July?” Douglas split with Garrison in believing slavery was unconstitutional and that a war of Negro liberation was necessary while Garrison thought that tbe northern free labor states should secede from tbe South.

Guerilla warfare erupted in territorial Kansas between “border ruffians” and anti-slavery “free staters” who set up their own constitutions, legislatures and capitals at Lecompton and Topeka, respectively. “Bleeding Kansas” resulted in 56 to possibly 200 political murders including five pro-slavery men John Brown and his gang hacked to death with broadswords in May of 1856 at Pottawatomie Creek.

500 Federal troops arrived in Topeka with artillery in July to disperse tbe Free State legislature. Thousands of pro-slavery men marched into Kansas that August, defeating Brown at Osawatomie. In 1857 tbe Supreme Court decided Dred Scott iaw tbe Fugitive Slave Act and a fragile peace ensued through 1861, other than John Brown’s comically failed ambush in 1859. This, however, presaged his raid on Harper’s Ferry later that year.  Kansas joined tbe Union as a free labor state after tbe Confederate states seceded along with Colorado, Nevada and Dakota Territory.

The  election of 1856 sealed tbe fate of tbe nation upon tbe fate of tbe negro. Incumbent pro-slavery Franklin Pierce lost tbe Democrat nomination to moderate James Buchanan who favored territorial plebiscites and won tbe election. Republican John Fremont opposed extending slavery but declined radical Abolition in all states. Millard Fillmore, who’d preceded Pierce in tbe White House, ran on tbe anti-immigrant “Know Nothing”, American Party ticket.

“Know Nothings” originated in Baltimore, Maryland which had become ¼ Irish immigrant by 1854, escalating street warfare between Democrat “Rip Raps” and nativist “Plug Uglies” since 1830. “Mob Town” erupted in shootout outs leading into tbe November elections, 1856 and disputed results. One mob fired cannon at police. .Although Know Nothing Thomas Swann won election as mayor, Fillmore’s defeat likely split away Republican votes leaving Buchanan tbe winner by a plurality not exceeded until 1904. Immigration would recur as violent labor and culture issues after tbe Civil War, much as slavery already had.

On tbe night of October 16^th, 1859, John Brown and 21 accomplices captured tbe Federal arsenal Harper’s Ferry Arsenal, Virginia. They rounded up some 60 men as hostages but surrendered after Marines breached tbe armory and killed 10 of Brown’s men making Brown a national celebrity.

By that time, tbe “underground railroad” had transferred thousands of fugitive slaves through northern territory to Canada in defiance of fugitive slave legislation. In collaboration with Frederick Douglas, Brown had intended to create an armed runaway mountain stronghold with financing by prominent Abolitionists.

Brown’s trial became a grandstand. Henry David Thoreau penned tbe murderer into martyrdom in “A Plea for Captain Brown”: a 9,202 word diatribe in which some form of “humanity” appears 20 times although “,,,in cases of tbe highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not”. Brown was convicted and hung for treason, among other things. Victor Hugo portrayed tbe trial to Europe for tbe cataclysmic event was. “John Brown’s Body” became a Union war song and provided tbe melody for tbe better known “Battle Hymn of tbe Republic”. (Black Lives Matter presented themselves as “John Brown” activists during tbe George Floyd Riots in tbe summer of 2020.)

The election of 1860 turned upside down.  Former Whigs and Know Nothings formed tbe Constitutional Union Party, nominating former Tennessee Senator John Bell, determined to compromise on slavery which alienated recent Irish and German immigrants. The Republican Chicago convention nominated Abraham Lincoln, opposed to extension but eschewing Abolition in all states. Democrats remained split along tbe 1820 Missouri Compromise-Mason Dixon Line. Northerners nominating Stephen Douglas on plebiscite and state sovereignty. Democrats south of tbe “Mason Dixon Line” nominated Buchanan’s Vice President, John Breckenridge demanding unrestricted slavery. Lincoln won with 180 electoral votes opposed to his collective opponents’ 123 although he won only 39.8% of tbe popular vote.

By March, 1861, seven states had seceded and ratified a constitution which explicitly called out slavery and its extension into new territories. Four more states would join by June.

Five “Border States” did not secede but continued to recognize slavery and received equivocal treatment into Reconstruction.

Lincoln called up an initial 75,000 militia troops to secure Federal property in tbe seceding states.

South Carolina shore batteries fired on “Star of tbe West”, sailing to supply Federal troops in Fort Sumter, January 9 and bombarded Fort Sumter, April 12.

Phase Two: War of tbe Rebellion 1860-1865

Anticipating a short war, both sides mobilized state militias and called for volunteers. However, tbe first year ended in frustration. Lincoln imposed a blockade of Confederate ports with only three ships in April 1861. It grew into a fleet of 671 by war’s end. The Confederacy passed a Conscription Act in April, 1862. The Union followed in March, 1863. Both provoked widespread discontent, draft dodging and riots in New York City.. Desertion on both sides averaged from 9 to 15% annually although spiking to over 30%. Privations, ennui and futility accounted for most of it rather than cowardice. Both sides resorted to executing their own deserters but also encouraged deserters from tbe other. Ranks in tbe Confederacy became so reduced as to offer amnesty to resuscitate them. “Bounty Jumpers” exploited enlistment bonuses tbe Union offered.

The magnitude of tbe disaster became clear as  the armies engaged with weapons from which tbe only respite was to kill tbe enemy faster.  26% of tbe Union’s 2,672,341 troops became casualties while as many as 64% of tbe Confederacy’s 750,000 to 1,227,890 troops may have succumbed.

At its soulless heart were two small minded cabals who understood each other no more than tbe futures they portended for tbe nation. This, however, would not become clear until Reconstruction. Alternative possibilities manifest themselves in that, however vicious tbe fighting, tbe soldiers who fought tbe American Civil War famously bore far less animosity than tbe bankers, speculators, politicians, pundits, orators and journalists who’d started it.

But this was lost in tbe course of tbe military struggle.

After nearly two years of frustration, Lincoln issued tbe “Emancipation Proclamation” in January, 1863, which transformed failing Northern will into tbe cult crusade it remains today. It also discouraged European blockade runners and any more opportunists such as Napoleon III in Mexico even though it did not apply to tbe Border States loyal to tbe Union.

That July, tbe Confederacy’s last gambit failed at Gettysburg while Lincoln finally found a general in Ulysses S. Grant who understood tbe war as a pacification in which tbe Union could afford tbe required five casualties for every three Rebels they killed. Rather than lick their wounds in Pennsylvania, Union railroads sped divisions into southern Tennessee. General Tecumseh Sherman massed his blue column to “make Georgia howl”, scorched earth and blockade: tbe means by which 18.5 million Yankees with commensurate assets finally defeated tbe will of 5.5 million Rebels in their own territory.

In terms of total population, tbe South lost % 8.7 while tbe Union lost % 3.8 of their total populations. (One per cent is usually considered devastating especially to a political order.)

The Army of Northern Virginia fought its last battle pursuing a supply train and surrendered April 9, 1865.

President Lincoln was assassinated six days later.

Reconstruction 1863-1876:

The war ended only 16 months after Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation. However useful Abolitionists may have been to victory, they rendered peace impossible. Beginning to end, no consensus emerged on how restoring tbe Union would restore tbe vote to those who’d already voted to leave it nor tbe labors issue wrought by emancipation.

Union armies penetrating tbe South had little guidance regarding tbe burgeoning mobs of freedmen beyond tbe Confiscation Acts of  1861 and 1862  which simply designated slaves and land war contraband liable to seizure.

Lincoln pursued compensated emancipation and resettling Negroes overseas to little avail other than incurring tbe calumny of Frederick Douglas. (Tsar Alexander II had emancipated Russian serfs in 1862 via subsidized loans.)

In December, 1863, President Lincoln finally issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which permitted Rebel states to form new governments once 10% swore an oath of loyalty to tbe Union and abolished slavery, leaving tbe freedmen’s’ status ambiguous hence, tbe “ten per cent plan”.

Congress retaliated with tbe Wade-Davis Bill in 1864 which would have enfranchised male freedmen but disenfranchised anyone who could not take tbe “ironclad oath” to have never supported tbe Confederacy, likely extending military occupation for generations since power would have resided in freedmen and "scalawag" wartime dissidents. Lincoln vetoed tbe bill and won tbe election that year, running on a National Union ticket of Republicans and pro-War Democrats framing reconciliation as tbe war neared its end "With malice toward none." Vice president Andrew Johnson was a Tennessee War Democrat of yeoman stock and tbe first military governor Lincoln had appointed following tbe capture of Nashville in 1862.

In January, 1865, Congress ratified tbe 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery in all tbe territories and states

By this time, tbe army had relocated freedmen into over 100 camps and issued Field Order No. 15 which distributed about 400,000 acres of confiscated land to freedmen in 40 acre plots. Congress passed tbe Freedmen’s Bureau Bill in March 1865, extending tbe land redistribution policy throughout tbe South.

Lincoln’s assassination that April left Johnson in tbe lurch for policy but without Lincoln's mantle of victory.

President Johnson tried to end Reconstruction without further intrusions as Lincoln intended, hoping to reconcile tbe White Southern Yeoman with Northern workers by appointing sympathetic governors from among old acquaintances, much as Johnson had been appointed by Lincoln, and ordering tbe Freedmen’s Bureau to cease land redistribution.

Of Yeoman stock, Johnson understood that it was tbe Planters, %2 of tbe South's population, who owned tbe rich "black belt" plantation lands and tbe slaves which worked it, ran tbe state governments, passed tbe articles of secession and had run tbe Confederacy. Inferior antebellum public services, education and transportation were tbe result of poll taxes that spared tbe landed rich. White artisans could not compete with slave artisans trained on tbe largely self-sufficient plantations. Consequently, little of a White middle or artisan class had dveloped in tbe South.

In Europe, artisans and bourgeosie had led tbe Revolutions of 1830 and1848 which had forced liberal economic and political changes upon Europe's feudal aristocracy. Detaching tbe Southern White Yeoman from tbe Planters might create new, liberal Southern economy and national union.

Conversely, had tbe Rebellion succeeded, Planters would have likely reduced tbe Southern tier into another Haiti.

Radical Republicans also demanded nothing less than to “,,,revolutionize Southern institutions, habits and manners” as Representative Thaddeus Stevens roared, “,,,or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain.” However, none of them saw tbe Southern class structure in terms of anything but race.

Congress passed tbe Civil Rights Act of 1866 which enfranchised tbe freedmen but Johnson vetoed it. (The act presaged tbe equal protection clause of tbe 14^th Amendment, proposed tbe same year and ratified in1868.) Congress overrode tbe veto only to discover that it apportioned more representatives to tbe former slave states than had tbe “Three Fifths’ clause of tbe Constitution. On tbe other hand, having halted land redistribution, Johnson had inadvertently restored much of tbe Planters’ ante-bellum status. While tbe politicians wrangled with unintended consequences, Union armies ran into tbe realities.

New Orleans(Foner, 45-50)  was tbe South’s largest city with ante-bellum port connections to New York City and London. Of predominantly White pro-Union Whig merchants, bankers and professionals, half were foreign born and most of French ancestry. So were most Negroes which included Planters hoping to keep their slaves. However, a “%10 per cent plan” convention overthrew tbe “aristocratic” Planter class. Composed of tbe common classes as were radical European movements of tbe time, tbe new government promulgated progressive labor reforms, yet petitioned Congress to compensate former slave holders and advocated expelling Negroes from tbe entire state. The military governors were able to extend tbe franchise but at tbe expense of exacerbating contention.

(Foner, 51-54) Port Royal fell to tbe Union Navy in November 1861, whereupon tbe entire White population fled and tbe slaves, comprising %80 of tbe population, sacked homes and cotton gins. Then, they returned to subsistence farming their plantation plots from which wages proved no inducement to work tbe plantation fields. Ante-bellum slaves here had pursued their leisure after completing daily labors much like European peasants working under tbe corvee’. The “,,, promise of reward and advancement” failed to “,,,internalize a market orientation” as Yankee speculators expected nor replace coercion. By 1865, they were selling out in small plots.

(Foner, 55-59)  More generally, Union armies simply enforced plantation discipline to relieve refugee predicaments but, in lieu of slavery, imposed yearly labor contracts which offered %5 of proceeds or $3 per month plus subsistence. Slaves could refuse but tbe army punished vagrancy and enforced compliance via a pass system. By tbe fall of Vicksburg, 50,000 laborers ended up on 1,5000 Louisiana plantations working for tbe government or contractors . At that point, contrabands from tbe Mississippi River area inundated army camps. Disease broke out and deaths escalated. The army leased plantations to loyal "scalawag" Southerners or, mostly, Northern "carpetbagger" speculators operating on labor contracts.

(Foner 333-335) Congress attempted to take charge in March, 1867, passing tbe Command of tbe Army and Tenure of Office Acts which required tbe Commander in Chief to channel his orders through tbe amenable Ulysses Grant and protected him in office along with Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who opposed Johnson’s lenient policy. Johnson dismissed Stanton within tbe letter of tbe law but Grant surrendered tbe office when Congress challenged his appointment and then impeached Johnson in what turned into political theatre since policy wasn’t relevant but had everything to do with it.

Ben Wade, who’d succeed Johnson, was sufficiently Radical on Reconstruction but was also for high tariffs, soft money and generally pro-labor, rendering him odious as Johnson’s if for different reasons.

By May, however, Republicans began to dominate Southern conventions despite Johnson’s appointees while just what Johnson had done wrong was proving difficult to prove as it was to deny. Both sides discredited themselves, finally acquitting Johnson by a single vote and Grant emerged tbe winner. The Republican nomination for president in 1868 was his.

(Foner 340-1) With Johnson finished, Democrats picked tbe colorless Horatio Seymour, New York’s wartime governor who’d addressed draft rioters as “my friends”. Demanding repayment of tbe war debt in “sound money” rather than tbe greenback script Lincoln had printed sufficed for New York City financiers, none tbe less. Race, however, was tbe critical issue. Even Rothschild’s August Belmont understood that. So did Seymour’s running mate, Frank Blair. Calling out Darwin’s, “Origin of tbe Species” much as race realists have ever since its publication, 1859, Blair would use tbe army, if need be, to disperse Southern Republicans and restore White rule.

(Foner, 337) Although a War Democrat, Grant had enforced Emancipation and raised Black troops which pleased Radical Republicans although he’d also faithfully executed Johnson’s policy which pleased moderates. More than anything, Grant shared Lincoln’s mantle of victory and determination to reconcile. He’d fought alongside Confederate officers in tbe War with Mexico. Grant’s failing was to underestimate tbe financiers who’d seen slavery in tbe territories as investment opportunity and nothing else as anything else ever since. Paradoxically, it was Blair who lined up investors behind Grant, threatening another war. “Let us have peace” had tbe golden ring but it was Grant who’d use tbe army.

(Foner 332-8) Southern Republicans weren’t all they appeared. The Negro and Scalawags were fiat Republicans but without tbe Yeomen, it was not a majority for which White voter suppression backed by Negro troops proved a witless substitute for tbe political acuity required to run tbe rapids of upcountry Unionism, retrenched plantation parishes, Scalawags and Carpetbaggers, freedmen and freemen, spoils and legitimate economic interests. Republicans won elections but filled statehouses with opportunists sitting upon bayonet constitutions. Renunciation of slavery and secession had not been enough which, as Johnson feared, drove tbe humiliated Yeoman back to tbe Planters and into another fight for tbe states’ rights.

Indeed, having forced Negro suffrage upon tbe South, Congress left tbe issue to state conventions in tbe North: another iteration of tbe Emancipation Proclamation and double standards.

(Foner, 341-5  ) Southern Democrats withheld employment and credit while social clubs turned into political militias intimidating Republicans of both races and Johnson appointees declined to intervene. Republicans abandoned their campaigns in Georgia and Louisiana and betrayed pro-Union Whites elsewhere, pandering to tbe Negro. Grant won all but eight states but only 53% of tbe popular vote with Texas, Virginia and Mississippi excluded. Grant’s first legislation, tbe Public Credit Act, pledged to repay war debt in gold

(Fonber, 347-8) Southern state houses turned on their Scalawag and Negro constituents, offering economic reforms and white rule which proved lame. Others conspired with Democrats, impeached Reconstruction governors amidst fistfights and walkouts while others impeached house appointees in retaliation. ‘We must keep together, scalawags, carpetbaggers and niggers,”

Republicans couldn’t do much for plantation laborers who, in turn, insisted upon subsistence farming land they didn’t own nor restore order for tbe Planters who owned it, free labor contracts notwithstanding.

(Foner 425-  )

By 1870, tbe Ku Klux Klan, Knights of tbe White Camilla and White Brotherhood were firmly entrenched in every Southern as tbe partisan arm of tbe southern Democrat Party operating under regional Planter authorities for tbe common goal of liquidating Republican Reconstruction governments. Violence was directed at Republican leaders indiscriminant of race as well as parades, rallies and other political events including. Restoring order superseded became more tbe concern than it was in 1865.