this nation cannot exist, half slave half free

Let sleeping dogs lie...

In the early 1800’s, particularly in the 1830’s, the United States experienced a wave of religious revivals called the 2^nd Great Awakening. It is important to remember that the nation was changing at a tremendous rate with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the gap between the different sections of the country and the different social classes was widening. The Awakening was an attempt to establish a commonality across all people and cure the ills of a developing society. In the north, the awakening quickly transformed itself into a reform movement, and the “wedding” between the religious revival and social reform became known as the Benevolent Empire.

Reformers began to work for temperance (anti-alcohol) and eventually abolition. Early white abolitionists included William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator) and Theodore Weld and Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin). Freed slaves such as Frederick Douglass (The North Star) and Harriet Tubman (Underground Railroad) became active in the movement.

Transcendentalists

One result of this humanitarian trend was a school of writers called the transcendentalists. The doctrine of self- reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God. Transcendentalism was intimately connected with Concord, just west of Boston. Surrounded by forest, it was a peaceful town close enough to Boston's lectures, bookstores, and colleges to be intensely cultivated, but far enough away to be serene. Concord was the first rural artist's colony, and the first place to offer a spiritual and cultural alternative to American materialism. It was a place of high-minded conversation and simple living (Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau both had vegetable gardens). Emerson and Thoreau are most closely associated with the town, but the town also attracted the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the feminist writer Margaret Fuller, the educator (and father of novelist Louisa May Alcott) Bronson Alcott. A number of Transcendentalists were abolitionists.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was the most popular American book of the 19th century. Its passionate appeal for an end to slavery in the United States inflamed the debate that, within a decade, led to the Civil War. Reasons for the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin are obvious. It reflected the idea that slavery in the United States, the nation that purportedly embodied democracy and equality for all, was an injustice of colossal proportions.

Stowe was herself of old New England Puritan stock. Her father, brother, and husband all were well- known Protestant clergymen and reformers. Stowe conceived the idea of the novel -- in a vision of an old, ragged slave being beaten -- as she participated in a church service. Later, she said that the novel was inspired and "written by God." Her motive was the religious passion to reform life by making it more godly. The Romantic period had ushered in an era of feeling: The virtues of family and love reigned supreme. Stowe's novel attacked slavery precisely because it violated domestic values.

Uncle Tom, the slave and central character, is a martyr who labors to convert his kind master, St. Clare, prays for St. Clare's soul as he dies, and is killed defending slave women. Slavery is depicted as evil because it divides families and destroys normal parental love. The most touching scenes show an agonized slave mother unable to help her screaming child and a father sold away from his family.

Stowe's novel was not originally intended as an attack on the South; in fact, Stowe had visited the South, liked southerners, and portrayed them kindly. Southern slave owners are good masters and treat Tom well. St. Clare personally abhors slavery and intends to free all of his slaves. The evil master Simon Legree, on the other hand, is a northerner and the villain. Ironically, the novel was meant to reconcile the North and South, which were drifting toward the Civil War a decade away.

Frederick Douglass

The most famous black American anti-slavery leader and orator of the era, Frederick Douglass was born a slave on a Maryland plantation. It was his good fortune to be sent to relatively liberal Baltimore as a young man, where he learned to read and write. Escaping to Massachusetts in 1838, at age 21, Douglass was helped by abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison and began to lecture for anti-slavery societies.

In 1845, he published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. The search for identity, anger against discrimination, and sense of living an invisible, hunted, underground life unacknowledged by the white majority have recurred in the works of such 20th- century black American authors as Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison.

Homework Assignment #14

1. Discuss the 2^nd Great Awakening.

2. Discuss the Benevolent Empire.

3. Discuss Transcendentalism.

4. Discuss the work of Henry David Thoreau.

5. Discuss the work of the Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

6. Discuss the work of Frederic Douglass and Sojourner Truth.

7. Discuss why Abraham Lincoln said, “so this is the little lady who started to Civil War” (when speaking to Harriet Beecher Stowe.)

Slavery caused all of this?

Much discussion has occurred through history as to the causes of the Civil War. At the top of this list is the role of slavery. Did slavery cause the war? Some say no - it was the variety of economic differences between the North and the South that brought it on - slavery being just one of those. Of course it did say others - there really was no other issue! This matter will not be decided for certain except for two very important distinctions. First of all, though there were many issues that served to divide the North and South, no single issue brought on so much emotional energy and proved impossible to solve. Second, from the very beginning with the Declaration of Independence right through the Jackson Presidency in the 1830's, slavery was always put on the backburner in order for the two regions to be able to compromise on their differences. For whatever reason, from the 1840's on through the 1850's, it was an issue that would not go away and could not be put into the background.

How ‘bout you do your thing and I’ll do mine...

As the nation developed throughout the early 1800’s, the differences between the sections (sectionalism) became progressively greater. Inventor Eli Whitney is a good example of the widening split between the North and South. His invention of interchangeable parts for gun manufacture eventually would lead to the factory system in the industrializing north, while his cotton gin made cotton a lucrative proposition in the Deep South. This led to the entrenchment of “King Cotton,” a cash crop economy firmly invested in the institution of slavery. The North continued to develop transportation between states (canals, roads, railroads) and trade relationships with each other, while the South became more and more dependent on the exportation of cotton and tobacco to England, France and the North.

Can’t we just work this out?

The issues that divided the North and South led to a series of compromise attempts, as new states came into the union and continually changed the voting balance in Congress. Between 1790 and 1820, the tendency was to bring in new states in alternating fashion (N/S) until the Union was complete to the Mississippi River. In 1820, Missouri was ready to join the Union as a slave state, so Henry Clay from Kentucky (The Great Compromiser) worked the Missouri Compromise.

§ Missouri came in as a slave state, Maine came in as a free state, and the southern boundary of Missouri (36-30 line) was extended to the edge of the Louisiana Territory to separate slave and free areas.

“There are a lot of trees and I have a lot of rope...”

The Tariffs of 1828 (Tariff of Abominations) and 1832 led to a crisis for the Union as South Carolina threatened to declare them null and void (John C. Calhoun - Expressions and Expositions of South Carolina). Daniel Webster debated in the Senate on the need to preserve the Union (Hayne-Webster Debates) and Andrew Jackson threatened to use force if South Carolina followed through on their plans (“there are a lot of trees in S. Carolina and I have a lot of rope…”). Eventually, Henry Clay negotiated a compromise tariff.

Why don’t you all decide?

After the War with Mexico (1846-8), the annexation of the Mexican Cession and the discovery of gold in California in 1848 led to the flood of miners (49ers) to the west. In 1850 California was ready to apply for admission to the Union as a free state, though there was no slave area ready to balance out Congress. Henry Clay again came to the rescue, with the Compromise of 1850. This included:

§ a stronger Fugitive Slave Law to satisfy the South, allowing slave owners more power in attempting to reclaim escaped slaves.

§ For the rest of the Mexican Cession (New Mexico and Utah territories), the concept of popular sovereignty was introduced by Stephen Douglass (Illinois). This would allow the people of the territory to choose slave or free status.

In 1854, the Kansas- Nebraska Act would apply this concept to the territories of Kansas and Nebraska when they applied for statehood. This led to a tremendous wave of both pro and anti-slave settlers into Kansas and increased violence as they tried to decide their fate (Bleeding Kansas).

Are you serious, Roger?

In 1857, the Dred Scott case was decided in the Supreme Court. Dred Scott was slave from Missouri who moved to Illinois with his master and became free. When they moved back to Missouri he was re-enslaved and appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom as a citizen. Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that his rights as a citizen were secondary to his master’s right to own private property, since the public did not believe that blacks were equal to whites. In 1859, the white abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, in an attempt to provoke a slave revolt in Virginia. He was caught, tried for treason and murder, and hung. He thus became a martyr for the abolition cause (John Brown’s body).

The Last Moments of John Brown – Thomas Hovenden

Anybody but that guy!

In 1860, the attempts at compromise came apart with the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had debated Stephen Douglas throughout Illinois running for the Senate in 1858. These debates had brought the issue of slavery to the forefront and even though Douglas won in 1858, the slave issue would come back to haunt him when he opposed Lincoln for president in 1860. The Democratic Party divided into factions over the issue and ran several candidates, splitting the vote. This insured Lincoln’s victory.

Homework Assignment #15

1. Discuss the difference of opinion as to the role slavery played in the coming of the Civil

War.

2. Discuss how early inventions contributed to the widening gap between the North and the

South.

3. Discuss the following:

a. Missouri Compromise

b. Tariff Crisis of 1830

c. Compromise of 1850

d. Kansas-Nebraska Act

e. Dred Scott

f. John Brown

4. Discuss the Election of 1860.

A new beginning?

· With the election of Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina saw no option but to secede from the Union. Followed immediately by six more states in the Deep South, the Confederate States of America was formed with Jefferson Davis as President. The lame-duck president, James Buchanon, did nothing to stop this action.

Border States

Upper South

Deep South

· The Upper South states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas) were waiting for the beginning of conflict before deciding what to do. With the opening of conflict at Fort Sumter (Charleston, South Carolina) they were forced to choose and joined the Confederacy.

· The border states (Slave states – Missouri, Kentucky, “West Virginia,” and Maryland) became Lincoln’s immediate concern. He sent troops in to guarantee they would all stay in the Union.

Missouri, Kentucky and the new state of West Virginia (early battles in northwest Virginia led to the splitting away of West Virginia and immediate statehood) provided a buffer between the Ohio/Mississippi River transportation system and the South. This was important to guarantee the ability of the North to transport both supplies and troops east and west. Additionally, Washington D.C. was literally south of the state of Maryland and was in danger of being in the South if Maryland joined the Confederacy. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and threw any southern sympathizers in jail to guarantee Maryland stayed put.

What would Las Vegas say about this?

The North and South each had distinct advantages and disadvantages in fighting the Civil War.

The North had:

· the lion's share of industrial capability (steel and textiles),

· the larger population (the South was unable to use their slaves to fight),

· better transportation (railroads, canals, roads),

· a central government (President Lincoln, an established draft, banks),

· an established army and navy, and

· most of the countries grain and food production.

The South had:

· the better generals (Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson),

· the better cause (fighting for their personal freedom),

· the ability to fight a defensive war, and

· the familiarity of the land as most battles were fought in the South.

Though the South had King Cotton, it was only effective if they could get their crops to England and purchase war materials and food from the British. A naval blockade by the Union will greatly restrict this.

X’s and O’s

General war strategy will have a lot to do with each side's success throughout the war.

· The South was fighting a defensive war, so they were able to use their better generals, soldiers and strategy to achieve many victories early in the war. They planned to defend their land and test the resolve of the North.

· The North strove to control the Mississippi River, blockade the southern ports and take the southern capital of Richmond.

As the war went longer and longer and became a war of attrition and production, the industrial and population advantages of the North began to wear down the South and eventually led to their demise.

Homework Assignment #16

1. Discuss the response of the Deep South to the Election of 1860

2. Discuss the response of the Upper South to secession.

3. Why were the border states so important?

4. How did Lincoln keep the border states in the North?

5. Discuss the advantages of the North.

6. Discuss the advantages of the South.

7. Discuss the general war strategy of the sides in the war.

from The Red Badge of Courage – by Stephen Crane (Chapter 9)

The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was not in sight. Then he started to walk on with the others.

But he was amid wounds. The mob of men was bleeding. Because of the tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could be viewed. He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the men were contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow.

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach. The man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown. His gray, appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd, and men, slowing to his dreary pace, were walking with him. They were discussing his plight, questioning him and giving him advice. In a dogged way he repelled them, signing to them to go on and leave him alone. The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a grave.

Something in the gesture of the man as he waved the bloody and pitying soldiers away made the youth start as if bitten. He yelled in horror. Tottering forward he laid a quivering hand upon the man's arm. As the latter slowly turned his waxlike features toward him the youth screamed:

"Gawd! Jim Conklin!"

The tall soldier made a little commonplace smile. "Hello, Henry," he said.

The youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely. He stuttered and stammered. "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

The tall soldier held out his gory hand. There was a curious red and black combination of new blood and old blood upon it. "Where yeh been, Henry?" he asked. He continued in a monotonous voice, "I thought mebbe yeh got keeled over. There 's been thunder t' pay t'-day. I was worryin' about it a good deal."

The youth still lamented. "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

"Yeh know," said the tall soldier, "I was out there." He made a careful gesture. "An', Lord, what a circus! An', b'jiminey, I got shot--I got shot. Yes, b'jiminey, I got shot." He reiterated this fact in a bewildered way, as if he did not know how it came about.

The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall soldier went firmly as if propelled. Since the youth's arrival as a guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display much interest. They occupied themselves again in dragging their own tragedies toward the rear.

Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be overcome by a tremor. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste. He clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading to be overheard. Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper:

"I tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of, Henry--I'll tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of. I 'm 'fraid I 'll fall down--an' them yeh know - them damned artillery wagons--they like as not 'll run over me. That 's what I 'm 'fraid of--"

The youth cried out to him hysterically: "I 'll take care of yeh, Jim! I 'll take care of yeh! I swear t' Gawd I will!"

"Sure--will yeh, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.

"Yes--yes--I tell yeh--I'll take care of yeh, Jim!" protested the youth. He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings in his throat.

But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way. He now hung babelike to the youth's arm. His eyes rolled in the wildness of his terror. "I was allus a good friend t' yeh, wa'n't I, Henry? I 've allus been a pretty good feller, ain't I? An' it ain't much t' ask, is it? Jest t' pull me along outer th' road? I'd do it fer you, wouldn't I, Henry?"

He paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply.

The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him. He strove to express his loyalty, but he could only make fantastic gestures.

However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier. He went stonily forward. The youth wished his friend to lean upon him, but the other always shook his head and strangely protested. "No--no--no--leave me be--leave me be--"

His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious purpose, and all of the youth's offers he brushed aside. "No--no--leave me be--leave me be--"

The youth had to follow.

Presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulder. Turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier. "Ye'd better take 'im outa th' road, pardner. There's a batt'ry comin' helitywhoop down th' road an' he 'll git runned over. He 's a goner anyhow in about five minutes--yeh kin see that. Ye 'd better take 'im outa th' road. Where th' blazes does hi git his stren'th from?"

"Lord knows!" cried the youth. He was shaking his hands helplessly.

He ran forward presently and grasped the tall soldier by the arm. "Jim! Jim!" he coaxed, "come with me."

The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free. "Huh," he said vacantly. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if dimly comprehending. "Oh! Inteh th' fields? Oh!"

He started blindly through the grass.

The youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns of the battery. He was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from the tattered man.

"Gawd! He's runnin'!"

Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes. His heart seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight. He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit. There was a singular race.

When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the words he could find. "Jim--Jim--what are you doing--what makes you do this way--you'll hurt yerself."

The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in a dulled way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his intentions. "No--no--don't tech me--leave me be--leave me be--"

The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began quaveringly to question him. "Where yeh goin', Jim? What you thinking about? Where you going? Tell me, won't you, Jim?"

The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers. In his eyes there was a great appeal. "Leave me be, can't yeh? Leave me be for a minnit."

The youth recoiled. "Why, Jim," he said, in a dazed way, "what 's the matter with you?"

The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on. The youth and the tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped, feeling unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them. They began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony. There was something rite-like in these movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking, muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing. They were awed and afraid. They hung back lest he have at command a dreadful weapon.

At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless. Hastening up, they perceived that his face wore an expression telling that he had at last found the place for which he had struggled. His spare figure was erect; his bloody hands were quietly at his side. He was waiting with patience for something that he had come to meet. He was at the rendezvous. They paused and stood, expectant.

There was a silence.

Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained motion. It increased in violence until it was as if an animal was within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free. This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him sink wailing to the ground. He raised his voice in a last supreme call.

"Jim--Jim--Jim--"

The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture. "Leave me be--don't tech me--leave me be--"

There was another silence while he waited.

Suddenly his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a prolonged ague. He stared into space. To the two watchers there was a curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face.

He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him. For a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous hornpipe. His arms beat wildly about his head in expression of implike enthusiasm.

His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight rending sound. Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in the manner of a falling tree. A swift muscular contortion made the left shoulder strike the ground first.

The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth. "God!" said the tattered soldier.

The youth had watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of meeting. His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend.

He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the pastelike face. The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh. As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.

The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield. He shook his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philippic.

"Hell--"

The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.

Sullivan Ballou Letter (The reality of war hits – people die.)

July the 14th, 1861, Washington DC

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more. Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure - and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done.

If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows - when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children - is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me - perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours - always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

Sullivan

In class journal: You ate at the foot of the Vietnam Wall. Leave a letter to you loved one who is on the wall.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth.

In class journal: It is 2005 and you are the Mayor of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. You have been given the job of dedicating both the field and the new memorial for the September 11 victims/heroes on Flight 93. Your speech is to be only 4 minute long. What will you say? Try to connect their actions to a larger cause, which the rest of us can continue (just as Lincoln did in Gettysburg.)

Mathew Brady, along with Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, used the camera as a means of recording a history of the Civil War. The ultimate in Realist literature, there was no hiding the brutality and death in war. Brady eventually sold his picture to the U.S, government, and they are currently house in the Library of Congress.

O’Sullivan – Gettysburg Gardner – Lincoln and McClellan at Antietam

In class journal: What is Winslow Homer saying about the Confederate prisoners and the Union captain in his painting, Prisoners From the Front?

In his painting, Veteran in a Field, Homer shows the difficulty in getting back to life after the Civil War. Look in particular for the images of death that still haunt this northern veteran.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War, lasted from 1865 to 1877. The term refers to the process the government used to readmit the defeated southern states to the Union. Complicating the process was the different ideas about reconstruction held by Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress.

§ Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction called more lenient treatment of the Confederate states. The government would pardon all Confederates, except high ranking officials, who would take an oath of allegiance to the Union. Only the passage of the 13^th amendment abolishing slavery would be expected.

§ The Radical Republicans in Congress felt Lincoln’s plan was too lenient and that they were responsible for implementing reconstruction. They passed the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864, which was much tougher on the South.

So this is the guy before Bill Clinton!

After the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, Andrew Johnson took over as President. In practice he was not as tough on the South as Radical Republicans wanted. Johnson pardoned more than 13,000 former Confederates because he believed that “white men alone should manage the South.” He did not believe in the extension of the vote to black men.

Now we’re in charge!

The Radical Republicans in Congress passed two laws in 1866 to remedy weaknesses in Johnson’s plan. They voted to extend and enlarge the Freedmen’s Bureau, which assisted freed slaves by setting up hospitals, schools, and training institutes. They also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave African-Americans citizenship and forbade states from passing discriminatory laws against blacks (Black Codes). Johnson shocked everybody when he vetoed both bills as unconstitutional.

The Reconstruction Act of 1867 set up Congressional Reconstruction. The Congress refused to recognize all of the states who had been readmitted under Lincoln’s and Johnson’s plans, except for Tennessee who had ratified the 14^th Amendment. The other ten states were divided into 5 military districts, each headed by a Union general. The act required the states to grant suffrage to African American men and passage of the 14^th Amendment. Johnson vetoed the bill, but was overridden. In 1870, the 15^th Amendment was ratified to protect the new gains made for black suffrage.

In 1867, Congress went after President Johnson by impeaching him and put on trial in 1868. The Senate fell just one vote short of the 2/3 majority needed for conviction.

Homework Assignment # 20

1. Discuss Lincoln’s Plan for Reconstruction.

2. Discuss the actions of Andrew Johnson concerning Reconstruction.

3. Discuss the Radical Republicans reaction to the weaknesses in Johnson’s plan.

a.

b.

4. Discuss Congressional Reconstruction.

5. Discuss how the South began to reinstitute a class system.

a.

b.

c.