Empire for Liberty: America in the Long Nineteenth Century

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER VIII: The Politics of the Civil War


War Unionism and Peace “Secessionists”: The Rise and Fall of the Copperheads​

American politics during the Civil War can generally be dichotomized into pro-union (and therefore “pro-war”) and pro-peace (and therefore “pro-secessionist”) politics in the Union. Nominally speaking, as already stated, all three major parties initially promoted a conviction of winning the war in their party platforms in 1860. The resounding sweep of the Republicans in the Union states marked the beginning of a nationalist-union and Protestant moralist ascendency, closely linked with economic industrialization and modernization, in American politics. That said, by the year 1862, there was an increasing reality of a strong challenge from within the Democratic Party.

The first two years of the Civil War was, by any standard, simply a disaster for the Union. The early setbacks in spring of 1860 were marred by another failure at the First Battle of Richmond in August, when Davis ordered 25,000 Union soldiers to capture Richmond in a bid to win the war and ensure an electoral advantage over his rivals. Sedgwick, over confident, sent 6,000 soldiers down the coastline and pushed toward Richmond with rest of the army. The Union army under was routed after 12 hours of brutal fighting, with over 9,000 casualties. The Confederate army was disparate, it was a composition of regiments loosely tied only to their commanding officers. But an experienced colonel, Robert E. Lee, managed to rally the Confederate forces together and offer a stiff resistance after the initial hours of fighting looked to be in favor of Union forces. The defeat at Richmond may, or may not, have influenced the course of Douglas’s election. Whether such a disaster close to the election month altered the minds of voters will never be known, but it certainly didn’t help in at all. Lee, of course, won renowned for “changing the course of the war” and became the immediate commander of the Confederate Army of Virginia after his heroics. Richmond remained the bloodiest battle of the first year of the war, with nearly 16,000 casualties from both sides.

The First Battle of Richmond, August 11, 1860. The Union army marched south relatively unopposed due to Confederate confusion and the non-consolidation of the many regiments and battalions who were loyal to their direct commanders. As the battle developed, a Virginian named Robert E. Lee, a seasoned and experienced officer, took the reins and repulsed the Union attack. It was the worst battle of 1860. At right, a Civil War re-enactment of the battle. Re-enactments of the Civil War are popular in the U.S. This particular re-enactment depicts the First Battle of Richmond as Union forces attempt to repel Lee's counter-attack. It failed, and the Union army subsequently shattered.​

The sporadic fighting that ensued was mostly in the far West. Union forces moved into the badlands of Arizona and Texas. They faced minimal resistance. Due to the nature of the election cycles in both the Union and Confederacy, armies more or less grounded to a standstill and fighting did not resume until spring of 1861. In 1861, the Union attempted a bold campaign following the plans from Secretary of War William Clayton. Clayton argued for a full blockade of Confederate ports with the navy. He also urged a campaign to retake New Orleans that would then push up the Mississippi and another force move south from Missouri down the Mississippi and link up together, cutting the Confederacy in half. This would be aided by the 20,000 soldiers of the Army of California which was sitting in Western Texas. Meanwhile, the Army of the Potomac should remain entrenched and drilling in Washington D.C., close enough to prevent any serious movement of Confederate forces to help the Western Front. The armies of Ohio and Kentucky were consolidated as the new Army of Tennessee and would screen the push along the Mississippi. Confederate forces that could be spared would be directed to Tennessee rather than the Mississippi. It was a bold plan. And a plan that would eventually win the war, but it was poorly executed in 1861.

Although the Army of Tennessee expelled the Confederates from Kentucky, they met immediate setbacks at the Battles of Clinch Mountain and the Cumberland Gap. While Union forces under the recently freed General Coburn retook New Orleans, Coburn slacked and sat in the city, tentative to move out. President Fremont, in response, ordered the Army of the Mississippi to halt in place. This would prove disastrous when Confederate forces pounced on the encamped Union army and routed it near the fields of what is now called Blytheville Arkansas, but remembered in civil war times as the Battle of Crooked Lake for the lake that the battle was fought near.

As such, the gains in New Orleans and the Far West were offset by repeated setbacks in the major engagements in 1861. The impression was the Union did not know how to handle the war. And that would certainly be a fair impression. Secretary Clayton even considered resigning due to the poor leadership of both of Fremont Administration and the chosen officers of the field. Clayton famously remarked in a private letter to then Vice President Lincoln, “I am kept in the dark intentionally. The plans I have conceived to win the war, whilst being implemented, are implemented in such a manner by inept officers and politicians that it needlessly brings greater bloodshed to a republic already anguished by the sufferings of this horrid affair.”

The Rise and Fall of the Copperheads​

While former President Douglas was a staunch supporter of the war, the Democratic Party was fraying because of the conflict. The American Party also frayed, but not because of its pro-peace factions but because many Known Nothings—especially from New England—were ardent abolitionists (as we covered in Chapter V) and were quick to find a home in the Republican Party that had dislodged the Know Nothings from power in all New England states but Connecticut and Maine. Plus, because of the war, there were no serious distinctions between Know Nothings in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York with their Republican allies. Many opportunistic Know Nothings took this chance to swap parties—convinced the American Party would not be able to ever overturn the Republicans, especially if the war was to be won by a Republican Administration.

The Democrats, on the other hand, shattered bitterly along its pro-unionist and anti-war lines. The anti-war Democrats were pilloried Copperheads and secessionists. The Copperheads gained much ground in the rural areas of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and were already entrenched in Illinois due to the Douglas’s win there in 1860 in the party sense; many unnerved Douglas Democrats in the state quickly turned to the Copperheads for support. Clement Vallandigham was one of the great voices and leaders of the Copperheads and the “agrarian way.” Agrarian communities were hit particularly hard from the war. Livestock and grains were more or less forcibly confiscated for the war effort with little compensation to farmers and the farm towns that depended on agriculture for their way of life. Many young men, once the conscription was established in the summer of 1861, were forcibly drafted into the Union army. While many vigorously fought in uniform, their homes were depleted. Resentment between the rural north and urban north fomented. The rich, who lived in the cities, could buy their sons a free ride out of the army. Immigrants and native farmers could not. This resentment didn’t boil down, in part, because of the constant news of terrible defeats. Anxiety swept these communities and families as their very livelihood was being taken from their very hands they had worked so hard to attain.

Democrats, particularly the anti-war Democrats, became their only refuge of hope. And the Democrats knew this well. They branded the Republicans as tyrants and enemies of “the peoples’ way of life.” They often burned effigies of Fremont. Cheap pennypress newspapers flourished, calling an end to the war and that elected Democrats would push for peace and the restoration of the agrarian way of life, full compensation for all the livestock and grains seized at cheap prices to fund the war effort.

The effect was not unheard. California and Minnesota, both Union states, had gubernatorial elections that year. The sitting Republican governor, Alexander Ramsey was defeated in a razor thin election 50.1 to 49.9 by Henry Welles, a nominally Copperhead Democrat. In California the same thing played out. “Pro-Southern” Copperhead John R. McConnell defeated the joint Unionist ticket of the Republican-American party, 47% to 46%, and all but left the alternative Democrat, John Currey, in the dust with just 7% of the vote.

Due to the nature of Congressional elections at the time, which were often month long affairs, several states did not hold their elections until after the Presidential election in 1860. California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island all had elections in 1861. The Democratic Party gained Copperhead victories in California (2), Connecticut (2), Maryland (2), and New Hampshire (1). By the end of 1861, the resurgent Democratic Party was resurgent in its Copperhead department. The pro-war Democrats were quickly being squeezed out of the picture. The Republicans and Know Nothings had, more or less, united in a unionist agreement where Republicans would not challenge American Party officials and vice-versa. The rift was purely in the Democratic Party between anti-war Copperheads and pro-war Unionists.

An anti-Copperhead propaganda cartoon. Columbia, wielding a shield that has the word: Union on it, fights violent Copperhead snakes. The Copperheads generally represented rural and agrarian interests during the war, which were increasingly put under pressure due to the nature of the war and fighting. Many farmers and rural communities found an open home with anti-war Democrats, especially in the Midwest and Pennsylvania. The loyalty was longstanding, especially in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania where rural communities split between Republican and Democratic factions that remained well into the 20th century.​

Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham became the public face of the Copperhead movement in Congress. He routinely opposed the war in speeches, and attempted to force votes on the continuation of the war. He opposed the confiscation of Ohio farmers’ livestock and grains. He was immensely popular, and announced his intentions that he would run for Governor of Ohio. Ohio, such an important state to the Union war effort, could not afford such an ardent Copperhead in its midst. Fremont knew this.

On May 13, 1862, the “Vallandigham Affair” broke out that would cripple Fremont’s prestige as President. The sitting Congressman was arrested on charges of treason for opposing the war.[1] Vallandigham was brought before a military tribunal and convicted of treason. He forfeited his Congressional seat, and was sent into exile in a prison in Quebec. He later managed to escape, and ran for governor in exile in Canada. However, in 1863, the war had turned for the better, and was promptly and resoundingly defeated.

Timing is everything, and timing indeed pulled the steam out of the sails of the Copperhead movement. Although Copperheads gained 33 seats in the U.S. Congressional elections of 1862, and also won New Jersey’s gubernatorial election in a hotly contested three-way between a split Democratic Party, and the joint Unionist ticket. Again, the pro-war Democratic faction, led Joel Parker, tanked in comparison to Copperhead Edwin Wright. Wright defeated the Republican candidate, Marcus Ward, by 37 votes.

That said the vast majority of gubernatorial elections were scheduled for 1863. But by then, the war had clearly turned in favor of the Union. Union victories at Valley Pike in August of 1862 was the turning point of the war in Virginia. And on July 4, 1862, a fitting celebration for Independence Day, the newly re-invigorated army of the Mississippi under Ulysses Grant finally seized Vicksburg after 8 months of brutal campaigning down the Mississippi, linking up with General Nathaniel Banks’s army by the end of the month.

With that, the rise and fall of the Copperheads was complete. However, the Vallandigham Affair caused even greater controversy. In what is still remembered by all Americans as the Immortal Impeachment, the U.S. Congress turned against Fremont and brought him up on charges of executive overreach of authority. In principle, the arrest of Vallandigham was a suspension of habeas corpus. Congress charged Fremont for having violated this. However, Fremont and his lawyers responded by pointing out the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” The Civil War was seen as a rebellion, and thus, in relation to his constant “support for the rebellion,” Vallandigham’s trial and expulsion was justified.[2] Nevertheless, Fremont would not recover from this. And the Republican Party was petrified over the ramifications. As such, even though the war had ended, Fremont stepped down in 1864 and Lincoln was nominated, who would then proceed to oversee Reconstruction.

The arrest of Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham. A sitting Congressman, he was arrested by Union soldiers and hauled before a military tribunal and charged with treason. Many felt that President Fremont overplayed his hand in what became known as the "Vallandigham Affair." It ultimately broke the back of Fremont's presidency, and Republicans determined he was not the right man to lead the country into Reconstruction and was replaced by Vice President Lincoln in the 1864 election. Lincoln won in a landslide.​

The rise and fall of the Copperheads was one of the more lively and contested moments in American politics. Indeed, many Copperheads, and their supporters, felt betrayed. Utterly betrayed by their own government, and therefore, country. Furthermore, the rifts that developed because of the war had a long lasting effect on the overall development of American cultural politics.

Explicitly so, the Copperheads stylized themselves as defenders of civil liberties and the local and agrarian rural town against the intrusiveness and abusiveness of “Fremont’s Leviathan.” Even more ironically, the Copperheads, not the Confederate secessionists, began articulating a formalized doctrine of states’ rights around the 10th Amendment in opposition of the suspension of habeas corpus and the seizing of livestock and grain to fund the war effort. The anti-war sentiment, especially as emanating in the rural and agrarian Midwest, established what many historians and scholars believe to be the “isolationist” and “anti-war” attitude of “Middle-America.”


[1] This happened in real life, though a year later in our timeline. Vallandigham was arrested and tried in military tribunal, then was offered a chance to form a new country in the Midwest by Confederate politicians, and ran for governor from Canada. He lost.

[2] Libertarian revisionists in America like to claim that Lincoln acted "unconstitutionally" during the Civil War. This is false. The Constitution stipulates through the Suspension Clause when Habeas Corpus can be suspended. The Union understood this whole affair as a rebellion, hence, the suspension was deemed constitutional.

SUGGESTED READING

William Blair, With Malice toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era

Edward Hale’s 1863 essay, “The Man Without a Country” in The Atlantic, which is based on Vallandingham’s arrest, trial, and expulsion.

Jennifer Weber, Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North​

 

[Idhrendur]

Good update, as always. I'm looking forward to when you write about reconstruction.

 

[stnylan]

Though Taney would disagree with your last point, as I recall.

Another goldmine of detail.

 

[volksmarschall]

Good update, as always. I'm looking forward to when you write about reconstruction.

We still have a lot of war to fight before we even get there though! Yes, Reconstruction, touchy topic for some people even almost 150 years later...

Though Taney would disagree with your last point, as I recall.

Another goldmine of detail.

The next update will be even another goldmine of detail I think. One, perhaps, of even greater tragedy than this.

(I think our Supreme Court often disagrees with itself if you give it enough time. )

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER VIII: The Politics of the Civil War


The Confederate Refugee Crisis​

Having examined aspects of politics in the Union, it is time to turn our attention to the politics of the Confederacy. As already mentioned, the Confederacy split between two official parties. The Democrats, the continuation of the Democratic Party in the American South, and the Whigs, who took their name in homage to the American revolutionaries during the War of Independence. The Democratic Party, on the whole, was united behind Davis, Breckinridge, Stephens, and the whole central administration. The Whigs, likewise, were staunch Confederate patriots and fighters. The difference, however, was that the Democrats came to represent the coastal and urban centers of the Confederacy. Wealthy, centralized, and advocating for modernization and centralization in order to fight the war. The Whigs, on the other hand, were scattered.

The Whig Party formed in 1861 to represent the predominately rural and agrarian interests of the Confederacy. They should not be seen as the revival of the defunct Whig Party of the South, though a good number of “Old Whigs” became “New Whigs” when the party formed. This also gave the party a pro-war and pro-Davis faction, centered primarily in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. The pro-agrarian Whigs, however, found greater success in Texas and the Mississippi River Basin, and also grew among the more war-weary populations in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and especially Kentucky—often displacing the pro-Davis Whigs. Nominally speaking, many of the Confederate Whigs won in areas where the Old Whig Party had won. The Whigs were soon divided over their relationship between support for centralization and modernization, and their continued defense of local autonomy. The Whigs were also put into a bind over the Conscription Act, their relationship with Southern plantation owners, and their general inability to stop the seizure of grain, cloth, and livestock from poor southern farmers.

Like the Copperheads in the north who ended up defending the agrarian interests of poor and working class yeoman, the same could be said of the Whigs in certain Confederate states. While Democrats also did the same, the Whigs became better known for their relationship with ruralized farmer who were suffering from the war. The Second Conscription Act crippled the Confederacy. The War Act, better known as the “Impressment Act,” passed in 1861, was the catalyst for the rise of the Whigs and anti-Davisonian Democrats. With the war in full force, Confederate forces needed the supplies to sustain themselves. The Union blockade, while not perfect, hamstrung the Confederate ability to run guns, munitions, grains, livestock, and other important war supplies into the country to fight the conflict. As such, the Confederacy turned to “impressment” of its own population.

Confederate farmers were the hardest hit. With many of the men already off fighting and dying, the younger men and boys, and their mothers, were left to tend the farms. Farming in the South was hard, just as farming is anyway. But the summer heat swells were particularly brutal in 1861 and 1862. After Grant’s victory at Corinth on November 7, 1861, the Confederacy was fearing the West might be lost. The Second Conscription Act was passed. Young boys on the farms were conscripted on sight into the Confederate armies to stop Grant. This left women and young girls to run the farms. With the collapse of male presence, the abuses of the War Act became well known. Confederate cavalry and supply units, tasked with collecting grains and cloth for the war, tended to ravage the farms instead. Women were taken advantage of, farms depleted, and this caused a migration crisis in the Deep South: women, with their husbands and sons dead or away, were forced out of their farms and toward the more urban centers. This clogged roads and railroads, and swelled the populations of cities like Birmingham, Richmond, Charlottesville, and Vicksburg. Others, who turned on their support for the Confederacy, fled south to Union occupied New Orleans in hopes for protection and a better life. In what was the greatest migration until the freedmen’s migration to the north, close to two-hundred thousand southern women and children, mostly, but sometimes aging men, took to the fields and roads and fled their depleted and devastating farmsteads. The swelling of the population of Richmond, along with the policy to send food to the soldiers, eventually caused the Richmond Bread Riot. In a humane and tragic moment, President Davis, witnessing the events, cried out to the poor, wretched, and starving women, to take the money he had.

A depiction of the Richmond Bread Riot. Bread Riots exploded in many Confederate cities, especially the ones hit by the flood of Confederate refugees. Mostly poor women and children, the toll of the war hit women and children especially hard. The Confederate Refugee and Bread crises were not just because of the Union. Many refugees were forced into exile from their homes because of Confederate policies and actions.​

Sometimes referred to as “The Migration of the Southern Hagars,” these southern refugees were often an eclectic bunch. Some were fleeing the Union gains being made by late 1861 and into 1862. Others were migrated because of their destroyed and depleted farmsteads, death from starvation being what fate awaited those who did not leave. The populations of Richmond and Charlottesville exploded, Richmond doubling in size from 40,000 to over 80,000 because of the migrants. Charlottesville tripled in size. Birmingham doubled. Even in New Orleans, Union officers were stunned by the flood of “secessionist women and children” seeking refuge and asylum in the city. General Banks wrote to President Fremont over the situation, requested greater food and clothing supply to help the women and children. As is the case with such events, thousands of women and children died during these migrations, largely due to the actions of the Confederate government in driving them from their homes in the first place.

Banks, the commanding officer after replacing Coburn, was generally seen in a more positive manner by the city and its populace than the general who was first fired upon and captured at the start of the war, and subsequently sought retribution after re-capturing the city. Banks’s shortcoming as a military commander was offset by his skills as administrator and politician. Having lifted martial law, and supplying the refugees with amble food, clothing, and ordering Union soldiers to construct temporary “shelter homes” for the people, Banks became one of the unsung heroes during the refugee crisis that swept the South. Those southerners who felt it was wiser to flee to Union occupied territory found a home in New Orleans. Some historians, however, argue that Banks’s concern for the city’s migrant population and repairing relations with the city itself as having cost the Union dearly in the war. But as one New Orleans woman wrote of him in a private diary, “If God hath sent us an angel, his name is General Banks.” Additionally, Banks was criticized for his "accommodating" and "moderate" approach to what was essentially war reconstruction. He was not without flaws, and often held elaborate banquets with his wife and senior Union commanders during his time in the city. That said, he was far removed from "The Beast Coburn" who was utterly despised by the city's inhabitants.

Left to Right: Confederate refugees fleeing after Confederate supply organizers seized most of their crops and livestock. It was common during "Impressment" that Confederate soldiers took the majority of southern farmers's crops and livestock, living the farmers and their families with little to sustain themselves. Many of the refugees traveled with all that was left to them. Right, General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks. Banks was the commanding general of the Army of the South and headquartered in New Orleans for much of the war. A below average field general, he was an exceptional administrator and friend to President Fremont. Despite his poor battlefield record, his tenure as "military governor" of New Orleans was excellent. He won the affection of the city, and aided greatly in New Orleans's refugee crisis and the rebuilding and repairing of relations between the city and its Union garrison. He immediately gave orders to end pillaging and rescinded orders that deliberately targeted women which pressed them into brothels when Coburn was commander of the army and military administrator. After the war, the newly elected Abraham Lincoln gave Banks the responsibility of being a model Reconstruction governor in Louisiana.​

The Forgotten Loyalists: “Tories” and “Unionists” in the Confederacy​

In the midst of this, with the Whigs and anti-Davisonian Democrats powerless to do anything emerged the presence of southern conservative unionists who were derided as “Tories.” It is often popular to imagine the Confederacy as a unified bloc in support of secession. This was not the case. There were strong pockets of “Tory Unionism” in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Kentucky.[1] The name Tory is from English politics, the conservative faction of English politicals during the English Civil War days. It was first used in America to as an epithet for those American colonials who stayed loyal to Britain during the Revolutionary War. The name was now being used by Confederates for all those southerners who “remained loyal to the Union.”

The Tories never constituted a majority of the southern population, but they were a notable minority presence in particular states. Moreover, the Whig Party, by 1863, was being derided as “The Tory Party” for its growing opposition to conscription and impressment. Many Whigs had their political careers ruined. Those former Confederates who regained political offices after the war were almost all Democrats. The “Whig Tories” retired quietly into the night in the so-called “New South.”

The presence of the Tories also made the war effort increasingly difficult. Tories were notorious for defending their homestead against Confederate soldiers and officials who were attempting to seize grains, clothing, and livestock for the war. Shootouts on farms were common. Some Tories banded together as renegades, fighting a shadow war in the Confederacy against Confederate soldiers and their sympathizers. What we might call “class warfare” today was also a prominent trope among the Tories. The Tories tended to be poor yeoman farmers who resented the rich Planation owners. Like the wealthy Brahmin of the Union, the rich plantation owners of the Confederacy were able to avoid conscription for themselves and their sons. The burden, as always, was placed on the poor and gritty. There is no romance in war. Especially not the Civil War. Tories, late in the war, began burning plantations down.

Even more shocking, some Tories rallied together to form their own military units, and sought enlistment into the Union army. When the South initially seceded, close to 40% of all officers from Virginia remained with the Union. Indeed, a handful of men from the Confederate states answered Fremont’s call and fled into the Union and formed “exile regiments” to fight for the Union. By 1862, new waves of volunteers were joining the Union cause. All of them Tories. Over 125,000 southerners joined the Union armies during the war. The vast majority coming from Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The song “Marching Through Georgia” recounts the companionship of these “Tory Unionists” in the Union armies:

Yes and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.

A picture of North Carolina volunteers serving in the Union Army. These men were "Tories," Southern Unionists. When German Sherman marched from Norfolk to Savannah, in his infamous "March Down the Sea," many Tories from Virginia and North Carolina joined his forces, swelling its number, and providing valuable detail and information about Confederate logistics and troop locations. Sherman's capture of Charleston was the high-point of the campaign, and when he captured Savannah, Georgia on December 3, 1863, the war was almost over.​

As Grant moved on Vicksburg, many of these southern unionists joined Grant’s army. This gave Grant important reinforces and experienced trackers and scouts to aid in the Vicksburg Campaign. These men helped contribute greatly to Grant’s victory in the brutal 8 month campaign. The Loyalist Cause during the Confederacy was not a minor movement. It was a huge, swelling, and very visible movement. All Confederate states, with the exception of South Carolina, formed at least one regiment in exile for the Union. Furthermore, tens of thousands of Tories joined the Union armies as they began marching through the heart of the Southland. In the Mississippi Campaign, they proved extremely valuable. In 1863, during Sherman’s “March Down the Sea” from Virginia to Georgia, tens of thousands more joined him. Their knowledge of the terrain and countryside was of equal importance.

While it would be an overstatement to say the Tories broke the back of the Confederacy, they nevertheless played an indispensable role in aiding the Union armies. Furthermore, the presence of growing pro-peace factions, especially among the Confederate Whig Party, also undermined Confederate efforts. When Kentucky had been fully re-taken by the Union, the Kentucky delegation in Richmond became vocal advocates for peace. The entire Kentucky delegation was branded “Tories” by the war parties in Richmond.

The phenomenon of the Tories was not something that should be unexpected. The toll of the war, Confederate conscription and impressment, all piled up. Many Tories were, initially, “passive Unionists.” In other words, people who kept their heads low while the war began. They complied, nominally, with the grain and cloth tax established by the Confederacy, but otherwise were uninterested in fighting the war themselves. However, come the Second Conscription Act and “Impressment Act,” the Tories took a more militant stand for their beliefs. When Confederate soldiers began abusing and destroying the rural farmstead livelihoods of many southerners, the Tories were the ones who took their stand. In another fitting irony of the American Civil War, it was the Tory Unionists, not the secessionists, who truly stood up and fought for the local, agrarian, and decentralized ideals of Old Dixie. The Tories were yeoman farmers, not rich Plantation owners. They strongly opposed the increasingly centralized and authoritarian role of the Confederate government. They were adamant defenders of property rights, arguing, not only from Constitutional rights, but from Holy Scripture, “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

Among the confusing dynamics of the politics of the Civil War, the “Tory Unionists” stand out as a truly forgotten force and movement, even though they were radically prominent and visible during the war. In some way, the Tories can be seen as the radicalized outgrowth of what the Whig Party attempted to preserve: the agrarian and decentralized ideal of the Old South that was increasingly coming under pressure because of the war. Unlike the “pro-peace” or anti-Davisonian Whigs and Democrats, who still refused compliance with the Union, the Tories took the final step: actual solidarity with the Union. General Grant, in particular, had this to say about these loyal Unionists of the South, “We had many regiments of brave and loyal men who volunteered under great difficulty from the twelve million belonging to the South.” War-time politics, as one should know, is often complex and brutal.


[1] In our timeline, Kentucky’s unionist presence was so strong it prevented the state from seceding. In this timeline, Kentucky seceded and became part of the Confederacy in game. The new write-up reflects this in game change.

SUGGESTED READING

Daniel Croft, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis

Richard Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy

William Freehling, The South Vs. The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War

Ulysses Grant, Personal Memoirs

Barton Myers, Rebels against the Confederacy: North Carolina's Unionists

David Silkenet, Driven from Home: North Carolina’s Civil War Refugee Crisis​

 

[Specialist290]

Interesting to see Banks rise to the limelight in New Orleans; makes me wonder what happened to Benjamin "Beast" Butler in this timeline.

I appreciate the focus on Southern Unionists in this chapter; it really is a dreadfully overlooked aspect of the period. My own native East Tennessee was a hotbed of pro-Union "Nickajacks" and actually tried to counter-secede much like West Virginia did (though that ended up falling through). If you haven't already, take some time to investigate the"bridge burners" and the Great Locomotive Chase; fascinating stuff.

 

[volksmarschall]

Interesting to see Banks rise to the limelight in New Orleans; makes me wonder what happened to Benjamin "Beast" Butler in this timeline.

I appreciate the focus on Southern Unionists in this chapter; it really is a dreadfully overlooked aspect of the period. My own native East Tennessee was a hotbed of pro-Union "Nickajacks" and actually tried to counter-secede much like West Virginia did (though that ended up falling through). If you haven't already, take some time to investigate the"bridge burners" and the Great Locomotive Chase; fascinating stuff.

I figured you would be appreciative of the highlight of the Tory Unionists. I agree, it is a massively underrepresented study even though its presence, by all primary documents, is well-attested. Although I made TN one of the Original Eight, I do believe TN sent the most volunteers to serve in the Union Army.

Butler is essentially replaced by the in-game general William Coburn, hence I slapped "The Beast" nickname on him. Since he was the commander, if you look back, at the original Battle of New Orleans, he was also the in-game commander that I had when I took New Orleans back. I eventually got rid of him because his attributes weren't exactly the best. Banks is an interesting character given his status as one of the many "politician generals." Unlike many of them, he survived quite a long while, and then had a prominent role in early Reconstruction. I more or less kept him the same, apparently a fairly competent and moderate manager and administrator who had below average success in field but his political connections and administrative abilities kept him in service longer than his field record probably ought have.

The East Tennessee Bridge Burners, the original guerrillas. I will have to look into the Great Locomotive Chase though. I suppose, for you, this is all stuff of local history and popular history and culture? By now I think you can see what direction I intend to cover the Civil War from. More tales and underrepresented (not necessarily in scholarship, but certainly in popular consciousness) aspects of the ACW. We tend to forget who suffered the most from the war as we tend to glorify and romanticize the battles, generals, other heroes, Emancipation and all.

 

[stnylan]

Always nice to see the underknown get to become better known. So often the South is seen to be monolithic, in olden days as in today, and yet in my own (relatively brief) travels in the south twelve years ago I know that to be far far far from the case. Which should be no surprise, given very few places are truly monolithic.

 

[RossN]

Sadly, no. Only because I don't want to take the time to carve out an election map. Davis, in this writing, ran unopposed in the Confederacy. So he won all states. Douglas won Illinois, while Banks (the American Party since I have scripted them into the game as the nationalist-reactionary party) won CT, Maryland, and Maine. So if you can picture an American map, you can color in accordingly.

Stickler, I know!

I don't understand this sentence. For me election maps are one of the most entertaining things about playing the US. Anyway you'll have to give me a list of the states vs territories and current borders.

On to the updates and a fascinating insight on the 'Tory Unionists', a group I had only been slightly aware of before.

 

[volksmarschall]

Always nice to see the underknown get to become better known. So often the South is seen to be monolithic, in olden days as in today, and yet in my own (relatively brief) travels in the south twelve years ago I know that to be far far far from the case. Which should be no surprise, given very few places are truly monolithic.

Those who control the press, control what comes out. "Free press." I don't think that concept exists in the manner people think that concept exists. For instance, here in America, there has never been a "non-partisan" press like people want or claim. The first newspapers were founded by the supporters of Hamilton and Jefferson for explicitly political purposes. Soon after, all newspapers followed suit, and published in direct affirmation of their political affiliation. That's how it always has been in this country. Insofar that everyone can do that, that is what the "free press" means, to publish lies and propaganda as they seek. It takes an educated reader to sift through the muck and mud to garner anything worthwhile. And I think you and I know how uneducated the masses actually are, even if they "can read" doesn't really mean much.

I don't understand this sentence. For me election maps are one of the most entertaining things about playing the US. Anyway you'll have to give me a list of the states vs territories and current borders.

On to the updates and a fascinating insight on the 'Tory Unionists', a group I had only been slightly aware of before.

1860 (US):
FREMONT/LINCOLN (REPUBLICAN)

California, Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Quebec.

DOUGLAS/PIERCE (DEMOCRAT)

Illinois

BANKS/ALLEN (AMERICAN, aka “KNOW NOTHING”)

Connecticut, Maryland, and Maine.

1860 (CS):

DAVIS/STEPHENS (DEMOCRAT, CSA)

Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and New Leon

Please don't ask for the electoral college numbers that would have to be crafted and changed to reflect a lot of things that have occurred in game.

We have now had Jackson, van Buren, Clay, Polk, King, Douglas, and Fremont all elected, but I don’t believe I have a single map for these elections. I plan on a map for a very important later election to come, the only one I want to do. It’s mostly my laziness of taking 20 minutes to update a map of North America to reflect in-game states and territories, color them in, then have to do the math of electoral votes and popular votes and stuff. I’m just not wanting this to be a typical political-military history AAR. They exist all over the place and we're all too familiar with them.

I prefer, as you have noted in many posts, to bring out a lot of culture and lesser known stuff that is now re-written to reflect the in-game timeline. This is exciting!

And if you, all the way in Ireland, were even slightly aware of the Tory Unionists in the South, that's better than probably half of the U.S.

 

[Idhrendur]

Those who control the press, control what comes out. "Free press." I don't think that concept exists in the manner people think that concept exists. For instance, here in America, there has never been a "non-partisan" press like people want or claim. The first newspapers were founded by the supporters of Hamilton and Jefferson for explicitly political purposes. Soon after, all newspapers followed suit, and published in direct affirmation of their political affiliation. That's how it always has been in this country. Insofar that everyone can do that, that is what the "free press" means, to publish lies and propaganda as they seek. It takes an educated reader to sift through the muck and mud to garner anything worthwhile. And I think you and I know how uneducated the masses actually are, even if they "can read" doesn't really mean much.

Well, even with the partisanship and the bad tendencies to use 'government leaks' without questioning how or why the information is being handed out, it's still a lot better than, say, 19th century Prussia.

 

[volksmarschall]

Well, even with the partisanship and the bad tendencies to use 'government leaks' without questioning how or why the information is being handed out, it's still a lot better than, say, 19th century Prussia.

I don't actually see much a problem with how media, in our country, are the contemporary travesties of Jefferson's and Hamilton's personal squabble over the vision for America, write from a very partisan perspective. I'm more perturbed by the level of intellectual dishonesty and constant lies and misleading essays that run from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New Republic, to Los Angeles Times. The media is, therefore, guilty of perpetuating intellectual philistinism. I see no problem with writing from a perspective of critique or disagreement. The problem is no one presents "the other side" properly...

This is offset by much better publications, like Foreign Affairs, Dissent, First Things, or Mosaic, which, while often writing from a very "partisan" or particular point of view, I nevertheless read and am subscribed to because of the honesty in actually not using constant strawmen and false equivalencies all the time in writing. I mean, if the Huffington Post actually wrote anything worthwhile, instead of constant slander and SJW-pandering, maybe we wouldn't have a bunch of brain dead supposedly "informed" citizens spreading further lies and intellectual barbarism into the broader public. But I guess, then, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Oh, we will have more about the press in this AAR to be sure!

 

[volksmarschall]

CHAPTER VIII: The Politics of the Civil War


The Republican Ascendancy​

In Chapter V we examined the decline and fall of the Second Party System leading up to the Civil War. The American Party, colloquially known as “Know Nothings” by detractors for their response of “I know nothing” concerning the nature of the secret order meetings of the party from the Order of the Star Spangled. That said the future of the Republican Party was in some doubt—especially with the splendid success of the American Party, especially in New England. With the collapse of the Whig Party the ghosts of the Whig Party were manifested, in many ways, with the rise of the American Party (but then channeled through the American Party right into the Republican Party).

As mentioned, the Whig Party channeled Americans natural aptitude for reform and restlessness for economic industrialization and modernization. This came at the expense of social and political reform. The American Party was much less capitalist and far more populist. As such the American Party channeled the Protestant nationalism and moralism that was always embedded in the Whig Party toward social reform. The American Party’s success in the late 1850s unleashed the greatest level of social and political and economic reforms prior to the election of William Jennings Bryan.

However, the American Party had its own problems. While the national party, especially in the northern states, was largely anti-slavery with some abolitionists, the party lacked standing in the Midwest, though it garnered support in California. Furthermore, the American Party made a mistake in seeing anti-Catholicism, rather than anti-Slavery, as a more pertinent issue in the national mood. While many anti-slavery and abolitionists were equally anti-Catholic due to their Protestant moralism and fanaticism, they saw slavery as the greater issue and emphasized their anti-slavery politics moreover than anti-Catholic politics (which the Republican Party soon embodied). As such, many Know Nothings who were more fervently anti-slavery and abolitionist than anti-Catholic turned to the Republican Party. In a chance blunder that would make Machiavelli proud, the American Party destroyed its opportunity, by pure chance, to be what the Republican Party became: an anti-slavery (first) and anti-Catholic party (second). Instead, the American Party tried to play catch up after the Civil War began, but it was greatly reduced by mass defections in New England. Rural New England remained American, but urban New England turned rapidly to the Republicans.

We also noted the distinction drawn between conservative anti-slavery politics and radical abolitionist politics. Conservatives, in the 1850s and 1860s, were centered on the politics of Unionism and anti-slavery. Anti-slavery portended to stopping the expansion of slavery in accord to sitting law. Thus, anti-slavery conservatism was seen as upholding the Constitution and established Congressional and state law decrees. Radicals were seen in both the abolitionist and pro-slavery expansionist politics. The Radical Republicans were fervent abolitionists calling for changes to the Constitution and state laws. Hence their detractors, both within the Republican Party and Democratic Party, labeled the Radical Republicans as “anarchists” and “fanatics.” Democrats also accused the conservative side of the Republican Party as abetting radicalism, and therefore no better than the Radicals despite what they might otherwise say. And of course, there was the radicalism of the Fire-Eaters seen in the two Nashville Conventions, Filibuster War, and eventual secession of the Confederacy.

The 1860 Unionist Compact with the American Party was logical and intentional. It also dealt another blow to the American Party’s chances for reemergence. The Know Nothings were unable to maneuver toward anti-war politics because of this compact with the Republicans. The Democrats were the beneficiary of the pro-peace movements and anti-Fremont movements that erupted throughout the Union in 1861 and 1862. As such, the American Party was locked into its seats with little room for expansion seeing the Republicans and Democrats were the real parties contesting the Midwest and Border states: six in New York (including three in New York City), five seats in Massachusetts, four in Pennsylvania, two in Maine, two in Maryland, one in New Hampshire, one in Connecticut, one in Quebec, and one in New Jersey (for a total of 23 House seats with two Senate seats: one in Connecticut and the other in Maine).

Representative Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens was a former Whig, who had joined the American Party before joining up with the Republican Party. This was fairly common. A number of Radical Republican abolitionists started their careers in the American Party, including other famous abolitionist names: Simon Cameron, Anthony Ellmaker Roberts, and Henry Wilson. As mentioned, and contrary to popular opinion, the American Party was a fervent social reform party which included strong anti-slavery and abolitionist wings despite the party's strong nativist anti-Catholicism. This was, as we covered in Chapter V, prone to conspiracy with some Know Nothings claiming pro-slavery expansionism was a Catholic plot. Stevens and other abolitionist-oriented Know Nothings joined the Republican Party when the American Party continued to overplay anti-Catholic nativism when they felt anti-slavery and abolitionist politics was the new major focus. As such, the American Party lost its chance to become a full national party instead of a regionalist and nativist party. The defection of New England Know Nothings into the Republican Party was the party's eventual demise from prominence in 19th century politics as many of those who left became major figures in the "Radical Republican" faction of the Grand Old Party.
​

Furthermore, we noted the crisis of the Democratic Party in the late 1850s. The Democratic Party, the party of Jackson, which saw its roots in Jefferson’s Republican Party (e.g. Democratic-Republican Party), achieved its ideological goals: full white male emancipation and greater democratic politics. The Democrats as a populist and reformist party had achieved its primary goals that Jefferson and Jackson had established. While Jefferson and Jackson were Unionists, and Jefferson an ardent anti-slavery politician (in the sense of preventing its expansion), neither Jefferson nor Jackson were abolitionist. And therefore, the Democrats were split between its conservative anti-slavery faction and its radical pro-slavery expansionist faction of “Fire-Eaters.” With the exhaustion of political and social reformism, the Democratic Party imploded over the issue of slavery.

The Democratic Party, as already stated earlier in this chapter, broke between its pro-Douglas (and pro-war Unionist) and anti-war (and softly pro-secessionist or accepting of secessionism) wings. Within the pro-war wing, 11 Democrats (five from Kentucky, three from Illinois, and three from Pennsylvania) joined with the Unionist compact. The five Kentucky members of Congress refused to join the Kentucky secessionist movement, and therefore remained the “proper Kentucky delegation” during the war (by 1862, with all of Kentucky back under Union control, elections resumed, thereby defaulting losses to all members of the formerly elected Kentucky delegation back in 1858-1859 prior the war). In this manner, the Democratic Party was shattered in four wings: Tammany Hall Democrats in New York City (the Democratic Party’s stronghold in the Union), independent pro-war Democrats (the legacy of the Jackson-Douglas wing of the party), Unionists who allied themselves with the Republican Party’s pro-war and unionist cause, and the Copperheads (the growing faction within the Democratic Party until 1863).

The Republican Party was far from unified. However, it was, nominally, the most unified major party. Internal factions: populist and agrarian nationalists, economic nationalists (the old scions of the Federalists and Whigs), anti-slavery nationalists, and abolitionist nationalists, had set aside their current differences in hope to winning the war—though tensions between the anti-slavery and abolitionist wings were fraying with continued pushes by the Radicals for immediate emancipation.

The Republican Party was founded as a nationalistic party, contrary to popular imagination. It was staunchly Protestant and anti-Catholic, and therefore, deeply anti-immigrant. We covered in Chapter V how American democracy and republicanism was seen as a uniquely Protestant virtue. Catholics, loyal to the Papacy as the old canard went, were therefore inimical to American virtues and the democratic process. Most Democrats shared the same sentiment, but the stronger accommodating side of Tammany Hall Democrats was pragmatic rather than idealistic. Catholics were flooding New York and Boston (and Philadelphia). As such, Democrats pragmatically aligned with Catholic immigrants (mostly Irish, but also German and Polish) to break the back of the American, and then Republican, parties who had essentially just filled the hole left by the collapse of the Whig Party. The Republican Ascendancy during the Civil War also led to a new Pan-Protestant Nationalism. The differences between the many Protestant churches became less pronounced and important, and all saw themselves as benefactors and defenders of the same cause: Protestantism, Unionism, social reformism, and anti-slavery and abolitionist moralism. During the Civil War, a universalist Protestant American character formed. The Republicans were the primary benefactors of this.

Anti-Slavery and Abolitionist Politics
(The Roots of Classism in the Republican Party)​

Francis Preston Blair, one of the founders of the Republican Party, was a member of the conservative anti-slavery side of the Republican Party’s founding. Blair was formerly a member of the Unionist wing of the Democratic Party who grew increasingly disenchanted with the rise of the Fire-Eaters, which prompted him to help form the Republican Party. The “original fathers” of the Republican Party were an eclectic bunch of anti-slavery Democrats and Free Soil Whigs and Democrats. Quick to join were the economic nationalists of the old Whig Party. The party never, initially, envisioned itself as the seat of abolitionism. But this quickly changed because of the party’s strong anti-slavery stance. The more radical abolitionists, some of whom were members of the American Party (like Thaddeus Stevens) joined the party because the abolitionists in the American Party were disappointed with the party’s continued promotion of anti-Catholicism over anti-slavery.

This created tensions between these two wings of the Republican Party. By now you should know that anti-slavery was not synonymous with abolitionist. In fact, while we may see the two as close compatriots, if not the same, the reality of politics in the 1850s and 1860s was the opposite. There was great animosity and tension between anti-slavery “pro-law” ‘conservatives’ (the anti-slavery Republicans were the first to begin to adopt the term “conservative” to describe themselves) and the “radical” ‘fanatics’ who were the abolitionists.

A photograph of Preston Blair Sr., one of the chief founders of the Republican Party and a prominent figure in the anti-slavery wing of the party. Blair's anti-slavery republicanism often clashed with the influx of abolitionist radicals leaving the American Party (primarily from Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts) and joining the Republican Party. The early Republican Party was divided along "machine" lines, with Republicans known to be loyal to the wishes of their bosses. Blair was one such boss.​

Nevertheless, the prominence of anti-slavery politics was an ironic curse and blessing all the same. Most anti-slavery people, and all abolitionists, saw themselves as having a home in the Republican Party and therefore joined the party. As did most Protestant nationalists. In this sense, the Republican Party was a big tent party of disparate factions with their own priorities, but had no other party to join. This was the curse and blessing. The Republicans took in all disaffected remnants of decaying or now defunct parties: Anti-Masonic, Liberty, Free Soil, Whig, and even anti-slavery Democrats, politicos. This established the eclectic and disparate body of Republicans. This was soothed over by the other thing that all Republicans had in common: their Protestantism.

Regardless, the tensions over the question of slavery and war loomed over the party throughout the war. This was even reflected in their 1860 nomination: John Fremont represented the Radical side of the Republican Party, and Abraham Lincoln represented the anti-slavery side. The Cabinet equally reflected this composition. However, as the war progressed, Lincoln grew in power. As many said, by 1862, “It was Mr. Lincoln’s War now.” And it was soon known, not just in the Union and its armies, but also in the Confederacy. Vice President Stephens even said, “If we seek a peace, we seek it with Mr. Lincoln, not Mr. Fremont, who has had his seat usurped by him [Lincoln].”

Another undercurrent between the anti-slavery and abolitionist divide in the Republican Party was economic. The Radicals were fervently anti-capitalist, pro-labor, and promoted agrarian interests. The anti-slavery faction of the Republican Party was dominated by old Federalists and Whigs, who were interested in economic modernization and industrialization. Many were former “Cotton Whigs” who saw slavery as an integral cog in America’s economic modernization. If slavery could be controlled, and the Union saved, then they saw no reason to abolish what many New England industries depended upon: cheap cotton and other goods from the American South. This battle would almost tear the Republican Party apart in the 1870s and 1880s. And, in many ways, is still with us between the “Main Street” and “Wall Street” dichotomy that is sometimes used to describe the (ignorance) of mainstream Republicans who vote for officials who are thoroughly within the pocket of Wall Street moneyed interests, the very business core that Alexander Hamilton had envisioned his original Federalist Party as being the embodiment of.

The economic sides, plural, of the Republican Party also manifested itself in the Homestead Act of 1861.[1] The Act, which opened the west to farmer migrations—up to 160 acres of cheap land—was the very embodiment of the agrarian Jeffersonian-Jacksonian ideal that was equally present in the agrarian-populist strand of Radical Republicanism and Free Soil ideology. The measure found broad bipartisan support, though a few “Plantation Democrats” and “Bank Republicans” withheld support for obvious economic reasons. Overtime, the deepening divisions between agrarian, laborite, and populist Republicanism and its “Eastern Establishment” became a major point of contention within the party. This rift was not a result of development, but at the very genus of the party. And it finds its roots in the Anti-slavery-Abolitionist split. Therefore the deep classism that we seem to be a phenomenon in the present really goes back to the 19th century foundation of the party itself. In a sense, there is nothing new under the sun.

A picture of a family moving westward because of the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act also aided the flight of tens of thousands of farmers, mostly from the Midwest, who had their farms desolated during the Civil War. The Homestead Act, bringing with it the progressive and populist oriented farmers and agrarians, would later shape the politics of the American West for almost a century. We shall endeavor to look at these ramifications in Part IV of this history.​

Yet, in this, we again see the big tent blessing and curse of the Republican Party. Populists and capitalists, pro-labor and pro-capitalist, anti-slavery and abolitionist, all saw a home in the GOP. Taken as a whole, this represented the Republican Ascendancy. The Republican Party controlled the Presidency for an astonishing 24 years until Allen Thurman defeated President Sherman in 1884. And it wasn’t until the election of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the culmination of the populist and agrarian revolution, that the Democrats finally re-achieved full control of the Presidency, House of Representatives, and Senate at the same time. The Civil War laid the foundation of the Republican Party, it also marked the Republican Ascendancy, to which it took two generations before the Democrats finally recovered.


[1] Same as the Homestead Act of 1862.

SUGGESTED READING

George Dangerfield, The Awakening of American Nationalism

Heather Richardson, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party

David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872​

Author’s Note: As some readers already know, I will be spending the rest of this month, beginning on Friday, in Jerusalem for a three week seminar and conference on philosophy and political philosophy that is topical to my studies at Yale. As such, do not expect any formal updates during this duration, though I shall endeavor, if time permits, to be responsive during this time. When I'm back on a functioning schedule, we shall move into the politics of the Union Army.

 

[AvatarOfKhaine]

What kind of things are you in Jerusalem to teach/learn if I might ask?

Have a good time there regardless.

 

[stnylan]

Lincoln's shadow is shown to grow.

Enjoy Jerusalem.

 

[volksmarschall]

What kind of things are you in Jerusalem to teach/learn if I might ask?

Have a good time there regardless.

For the grad seminar I was accepted into it's two weeks over the philosophy of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, principally as contained within The History. I am staying on for the contingent conference the following week for a presentation on the concept of moral beauty in the Philosophy of Philo of Alexandria.

At Yale I'm an interdisciplinary grad student studying historical and political theology, philosophy, and Hebrew Bible. As you likely know, I'm a published academic and writer for media publications. When I return I will spend a week in NY for another seminar that I was invited to participate and speak in after the director read an essay on aesthetics published last month. Expense free, so I have no qualms. So everything mostly revolves around my professional work and writings.

You can probably see a certain influence in this AAR to some extent too.

Lincoln's shadow is shown to grow.

Enjoy Jerusalem.

And it will grow more and more, as the next update will cover. Your suspicions were well founded.

 

[Idhrendur]

May you learn much at the seminar, and may you enjoy your time in Jerusalem.

 

[Director]

Hmmmm. There's a paper in, "From Benton to Blair: Missouri Politics on the National Stage", I suspect.

I think most people (especially Southerners) underestimated the popular opinion not necessarily against slavery, but as you say, against its expansion into areas where it had been prohibited. Underestimated it until a Democratic split led an anti-expansion party take power nationally and in many northern and north-western state governments. The very rapid rise of the Republicans was fueled by popular anger over Dred Scott and the like, and as you say by the amalgamation of several minor parties. And it terrified the South, who could not or would not compromise but instead turned up the rhetoric and then sundered the union out of fear.

The key to understanding the fight over slavery is this: Northerners did not (generally) approve of slavery, did not want it extended (especially into their states, which had laws that freed slaves crossing over their borders) and yet bore little or no affection for African-Americans as people. The South frequently raised the question, "If you end slavery, then what is to become of the millions of former slaves?" If there had been a reasonable, attainable answer to that, slavery might have been ended much earlier (though replaced with some sort of wage-garnishing share-cropping which would be scarcely better). This was not a 'modern' society - they wanted an end to slavery and to African-Americans, whether slaves or free, and that is the rub that made Emancipation and the 13th Amendment so very difficult to attain, and what made politicians return again and again to Liberia and African colonization efforts.

I think it is also what made Reconstruction so difficult for the Republicans to sustain...

At least, that's my opinion.

 

[Specialist290]

I cannot let a mention of Thaddeus Stevens go by without mentioning one of my favorite anecdotes about the man:

During a conversation, President Lincoln once tried to solicit Stevens's opinion on the integrity of the aforementioned Simon Cameron, Secretary of War and one of Stevens's perennial political rivals. Stevens is said to have replied: "I believe he would not steal a red-hot stove."

Eventually, of course, the Washington rumor mill brought the remark to the ears of Cameron himself, who, duly offended, demanded a retraction. Stevens obliged with: "I said I did not think Mr. Cameron would steal a red-hot stove. I am now forced to withdraw that statement."

 

[volksmarschall]

May you learn much at the seminar, and may you enjoy your time in Jerusalem.

Well, I think and hope so. It is on a topic that I'm involved in working in anyway so that's the pro.

Hmmmm. There's a paper in, "From Benton to Blair: Missouri Politics on the National Stage", I suspect.

I think most people (especially Southerners) underestimated the popular opinion not necessarily against slavery, but as you say, against its expansion into areas where it had been prohibited. Underestimated it until a Democratic split led an anti-expansion party take power nationally and in many northern and north-western state governments. The very rapid rise of the Republicans was fueled by popular anger over Dred Scott and the like, and as you say by the amalgamation of several minor parties. And it terrified the South, who could not or would not compromise but instead turned up the rhetoric and then sundered the union out of fear.

The key to understanding the fight over slavery is this: Northerners did not (generally) approve of slavery, did not want it extended (especially into their states, which had laws that freed slaves crossing over their borders) and yet bore little or no affection for African-Americans as people. The South frequently raised the question, "If you end slavery, then what is to become of the millions of former slaves?" If there had been a reasonable, attainable answer to that, slavery might have been ended much earlier (though replaced with some sort of wage-garnishing share-cropping which would be scarcely better). This was not a 'modern' society - they wanted an end to slavery and to African-Americans, whether slaves or free, and that is the rub that made Emancipation and the 13th Amendment so very difficult to attain, and what made politicians return again and again to Liberia and African colonization efforts.

I think it is also what made Reconstruction so difficult for the Republicans to sustain...

At least, that's my opinion.

I absolutely agree. And, as you note, I'm really emphasizing the difference between "anti-slavery" and "abolitionist" politics. It's a major dichotomy within Civil War studies, and even McPherson does a good job in trying to highlight the difference. The problem, of course, is how people think of "anti-slavery." I believe I mentioned when we did our antecedent look, Thomas Jefferson was the most "anti-slavery" politician and president prior to Lincoln in real life. Jefferson deliberately stopped slavery from expanding in the Northwest Territories. He outlawed the slave trade. Backed it up with force of arms by establishing a small African Squadron to stop slave smuggling ships and so forth. But not an abolitionist or emancipationist.

Anti-slavery never meant abolition or emancipation. In a sense, it was a deeply conservative movement in the the manner of "conserving" both slavery as it was, but more importantly, maintaining the rule of law and federal decrees that stated slavery wasn't to expand, but wasn't on the cutting block; the radicals on the slavery issue were the abolitionists and expansionists. Anti-slavery cut across all parties, even Democrats. But the connotation, I think, of anti-slavery with abolitionism and emancipationism has to do with the fact that anti-slavery Republicans eventually supported abolition and the Reconstruction amendments. Ergo its modern connotation with abolition. Meanwhile, the anti-slavery Dems who weren't keen on slavery's expansion, weren't interested in abolishing it, and voted against abolition and so on, thereby blurring the lines after the fact.

But yes, I think you're spot on with people underestimating the anti-slavery view in how most scholars use that term. Opposition to slavery's expansion seems like it was definitely the majority view of the country, possibly even in the South--though we may never know--but despite that, only a minority were outright abolitionists. It took the war to finally bring it to an end.

I'm going to have to try and hunt down that paper or monograph when I get back stateside. Seems like another worthwhile recommendation from you!

And don't worry, I have much planned for our favorite general we talked about when you last came up to Yale.

I cannot let a mention of Thaddeus Stevens go by without mentioning one of my favorite anecdotes about the man:

During a conversation, President Lincoln once tried to solicit Stevens's opinion on the integrity of the aforementioned Simon Cameron, Secretary of War and one of Stevens's perennial political rivals. Stevens is said to have replied: "I believe he would not steal a red-hot stove."

Eventually, of course, the Washington rumor mill brought the remark to the ears of Cameron himself, who, duly offended, demanded a retraction. Stevens obliged with: "I said I did not think Mr. Cameron would steal a red-hot stove. I am now forced to withdraw that statement."

I might use this then! We'll be seeing more of Stevens and co. when I get to the relevant chapters. Though he and the politics of the Radical Republicans is also to be discussed at the planned ending post for this "Chapter."