HST 201 Module #13
Module Thirteen: The American Civil War Part One
Welcome to HST 201 Module Thirteen! This is the first part of our in depth look at the American Civil War.
The following rule of history will be a battle of semantics: History can be exceptional but not virtuous. Before you write me off as a zealot or Marxist (depending on whatever end of the political spectrum you find yourself), hear me out. The careful wording of exceptionalism seems to befuddle many scholars, myself included. Merriam Webster has two definitions for the word. The first is "the condition of being different from the norm." The second definition" is a theory expounding the exceptionalism, especially of a nation or region.
I believe you can be the first, but not the second.
Let's start with the prominent case study of the United States. American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Its proponents argue that the US's values, political system, and historical development are unique in human history, often implying that the country is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage. There were and still are many examples of how America's past makes it unique in its formation. I take issue with the entitlement that comes along with it.
Where does this line of thinking begin? One can trace the origins of American exceptionalism to the American Revolution. The US emerged as "the first new nation" with a distinct body of ideas. This ideology is based on liberty, equality before the law, individual responsibility, republicanism, representative democracy, and laissez-faire economics; these principles are sometimes collectively referred to as "American exceptionalism" and entail the US being perceived both domestically and internationally as superior to other nations or having a unique mission to transform the world.
The theory of exceptionalism in the US developed over time and can be traced to many sources. French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" following his travels in 1831. The earliest documented use of the specific term "American exceptionalism" is American communists in intra-communist disputes in the late 1920s. The thing is, the idea of a unique microcosm of creation does have some merit.
The United States did not form like most of the western powers. Colonial America lacked feudal traditions, such as established churches, landed estates, and a hereditary nobility. As a result, American politics developed around a tradition of liberalism. Although some European practices of feudal origin, such as the right of succession belonging to the firstborn child, were transmitted to America, their abolition during the American Revolution only confirmed the US' liberalism. Our beliefs in liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and ordinary people's well-being came from the Revolutionary era. So too did our idea that we Americans are a unique people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty and democracy. Those sentiments laid the intellectual foundations for the revolutionary concept of American exceptionalism. These sentiments are closely tied to republicanism, believing that sovereignty belonged to the people, not a hereditary ruling class.
Economic and social mobility (though lacking its full extent, as we have seen in recent years) is unparalleled. For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to the early-20th centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity" and in that sense prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background. The American frontier allowed individualism to flourish as pioneers adopted democracy and equality and shed centuries-old European institutions such as royalty, standing armies, established churches, and a landed gentry that owned most of the land.
The problem with all of this talk of exceptionalism is the next step is to assume that this entitles us to act as peerless interlopers that do not need to question their moral scruples. During the George W. Bush administration, the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context. Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein particular political interests view the United States as being "above" or an "exception" to the law, specifically the law of nations. In the context of former US President Barack Obama's comment about American exceptionalism during his September 10, 2013, talk to the American people while considering military action on Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Obama.
It is perilous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. American history is so morally flawed because of slavery, civil rights, and social welfare issues that it cannot exemplify virtue. Zinn argues that American exceptionalism cannot be of divine origin because it was not benign, especially in dealing with Native Americans. State fantasies cannot altogether conceal the inconsistencies they mask, showing how such events as the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the exposure of government incompetence after Hurricane Katrina opened fissures in the myth of exceptionalism. Though the United States has been remarkably democratic, politically stable, and free of war on its soil compared to most European countries, there have been significant exceptions, most notably the American Civil War. Even after the abolition of slavery, the federal government ignored the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause concerning African-Americans during the Jim Crow era and concerning women's suffrage until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. The United States has also sometimes supported the overthrow of democratically elected governments to pursue other objectives, typical economic and anti-communist.
Luckily, our history is still being written. The path we take next does not need to lead to bloodshed or heartbreak. It can be a road to continued growth and prosperity and not at the expense of others.
Welcome to HST 201 Module Thirteen! This is the first part of our in depth look at the American Civil War.
The following rule of history will be a battle of semantics: History can be exceptional but not virtuous. Before you write me off as a zealot or Marxist (depending on whatever end of the political spectrum you find yourself), hear me out. The careful wording of exceptionalism seems to befuddle many scholars, myself included. Merriam Webster has two definitions for the word. The first is "the condition of being different from the norm." The second definition" is a theory expounding the exceptionalism, especially of a nation or region.
I believe you can be the first, but not the second.
Let's start with the prominent case study of the United States. American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Its proponents argue that the US's values, political system, and historical development are unique in human history, often implying that the country is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage. There were and still are many examples of how America's past makes it unique in its formation. I take issue with the entitlement that comes along with it.
Where does this line of thinking begin? One can trace the origins of American exceptionalism to the American Revolution. The US emerged as "the first new nation" with a distinct body of ideas. This ideology is based on liberty, equality before the law, individual responsibility, republicanism, representative democracy, and laissez-faire economics; these principles are sometimes collectively referred to as "American exceptionalism" and entail the US being perceived both domestically and internationally as superior to other nations or having a unique mission to transform the world.
The theory of exceptionalism in the US developed over time and can be traced to many sources. French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" following his travels in 1831. The earliest documented use of the specific term "American exceptionalism" is American communists in intra-communist disputes in the late 1920s. The thing is, the idea of a unique microcosm of creation does have some merit.
The United States did not form like most of the western powers. Colonial America lacked feudal traditions, such as established churches, landed estates, and a hereditary nobility. As a result, American politics developed around a tradition of liberalism. Although some European practices of feudal origin, such as the right of succession belonging to the firstborn child, were transmitted to America, their abolition during the American Revolution only confirmed the US' liberalism. Our beliefs in liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and ordinary people's well-being came from the Revolutionary era. So too did our idea that we Americans are a unique people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty and democracy. Those sentiments laid the intellectual foundations for the revolutionary concept of American exceptionalism. These sentiments are closely tied to republicanism, believing that sovereignty belonged to the people, not a hereditary ruling class.
Economic and social mobility (though lacking its full extent, as we have seen in recent years) is unparalleled. For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to the early-20th centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity" and in that sense prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background. The American frontier allowed individualism to flourish as pioneers adopted democracy and equality and shed centuries-old European institutions such as royalty, standing armies, established churches, and a landed gentry that owned most of the land.
The problem with all of this talk of exceptionalism is the next step is to assume that this entitles us to act as peerless interlopers that do not need to question their moral scruples. During the George W. Bush administration, the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context. Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein particular political interests view the United States as being "above" or an "exception" to the law, specifically the law of nations. In the context of former US President Barack Obama's comment about American exceptionalism during his September 10, 2013, talk to the American people while considering military action on Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Obama.
It is perilous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. American history is so morally flawed because of slavery, civil rights, and social welfare issues that it cannot exemplify virtue. Zinn argues that American exceptionalism cannot be of divine origin because it was not benign, especially in dealing with Native Americans. State fantasies cannot altogether conceal the inconsistencies they mask, showing how such events as the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the exposure of government incompetence after Hurricane Katrina opened fissures in the myth of exceptionalism. Though the United States has been remarkably democratic, politically stable, and free of war on its soil compared to most European countries, there have been significant exceptions, most notably the American Civil War. Even after the abolition of slavery, the federal government ignored the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause concerning African-Americans during the Jim Crow era and concerning women's suffrage until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. The United States has also sometimes supported the overthrow of democratically elected governments to pursue other objectives, typical economic and anti-communist.
Luckily, our history is still being written. The path we take next does not need to lead to bloodshed or heartbreak. It can be a road to continued growth and prosperity and not at the expense of others.
HIGHLIGHTS
READING
My classes utilize both Howard Zinn's Patriot's History of the United States and Larry Schweikart's Patriot's History of the United States, mostly in excerpts posted to the modules. You can access the full text of People's History or Patriot's History by clicking on the links.
- Carnes Chapter 13 “The Coming of the Civil War”
My classes utilize both Howard Zinn's Patriot's History of the United States and Larry Schweikart's Patriot's History of the United States, mostly in excerpts posted to the modules. You can access the full text of People's History or Patriot's History by clicking on the links.
Zinn Chapter 10: The Other Civil War
...Class-consciousness was overwhelmed during the Civil War, both North and South, by military and political unity in the crisis of war. That unity was weaned by rhetoric and enforced by arms. It was a war proclaimed as a war for liberty, but working people would be attacked by soldiers if they dared to strike, Indians would be massacred in Colorado by the U.S. army, and those daring to criticize Lincoln's policies would be put in jail without trial-perhaps thirty thousand political prisoners.
Still, there were signs in both sections of dissent from that unity- anger of poor against rich, rebellion against the dominant political and economic forces.
In the North, the war brought high prices for food and the necessities of life. Prices of milk, eggs, cheese were up 60 to 100 percent for families that had not been able to pay the old prices. One historian (Emerson Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War) described the war situation: "Employers were wont to appropriate to themselves all or nearly all of the profits accruing from the higher prices, without being willing to grant to the employees a fair share of these profits through the medium of higher wages."
There were strikes all over the country during the war. The Springfield Republican… said that "the workmen of almost every branch of trade have had their strikes within the last few months," and the San Francisco Evening Bulletin said "striking for higher wages is now the rage among the working people of San Francisco." Unions were being formed as a result of these strikes. Philadelphia shoemakers in 1863 announced that high prices made organization imperative.
The headline in Fincher's Trades' Review of November 21, 1863, "THE REVOLUTION IN NEW YORK," was an exaggeration, but its list of labor activities was impressive evidence of the hidden resentments of the poor during the war:
The upheaval of the laboring masses in New York has startled the capitalists of that city and vicinity…
The machinists are making a hold stand… We publish their appeal in another column.
The City Railroad employees struck for higher wages, and made the whole population, for a few days, "ride on Shank's mare."...
The house painters of Brooklyn have taken steps to counteract the attempt of the bosses to reduce their wages.
The house carpenters, we are informed, are pretty well "out of the woods" and their demands are generally complied with.
The safe-makers have obtained an increase of wages, and are now at work.
The lithographic printers are making efforts to secure better pay for their labor.
The workmen on the iron clads are yet holding out against the contractors. ...
The window shade painters have obtained an advance of 25 percent.
The horse shoers are fortifying themselves against the evils of money and trade fluctuations.
The sash and blind-makers are organized and ask their employers for 25 percent additional.
The sugar packers are remodeling their list of prices.
The glasscutters demand 15 percent to present wages.
Imperfect as we confess our list to be, there is enough to convince the reader that the social revolution now working its way through the land must succeed, if workingmen are only true to each other.
The stage drivers, to the number of 800, are on a strike…
The workingmen of Boston are not behind… in addition to the strike at the Charlestown Navy Yard…
The riggers are on a strike…
At this writing it is rumored, says the Boston Post, that a general strike is contemplated among the workmen in the iron establishments at South Boston, and other parts of the city.
The war brought many women into shops and factories, often over the objections of men who saw them driving wage scales down. In New York City, girls sewed umbrellas from six in the morning to midnight, earning $3 a week, from which employers deducted the cost of needles and thread. Girls who made cotton shirts received twenty-four cents for a twelve-hour day. In late 1863, New York working women held a mass meeting to find a solution to their problems. A Working Women's Protective Union was formed, and there was a strike of women umbrella workers in New York and Brooklyn. In Providence, Rhode Island, a Ladies Cigar Makers Union was organized.
Altogether, by 1864, about 200,000 workers, men and women, were in trade unions, forming national unions in some of the trades, putting out labor newspapers.
Union troops were used to break strikes. Federal soldiers were sent to Cold Springs, New York, to end a strike at a gun works where workers wanted a wage increase. Striking machinists and tailors in St. Louis were forced back to work by the army. In Tennessee, a Union general arrested and sent out of the state two hundred striking mechanics. When engineers on the Reading Railroad struck, troops broke that strike, as they did with miners in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.
White workers of the North were not enthusiastic about a war which seemed to be fought for the black slave, or for the capitalist, for anyone but them. They worked in semi slave conditions themselves. They thought the war was profiting the new class of millionaires. They saw defective guns sold to the army by contractors, sand sold as sugar, rye sold as coffee, shop sweepings made into clothing and blankets, paper-soled shoes produced for soldiers at the front, navy ships made of rotting timbers, soldiers' uniforms that fell apart in the rain.
The Irish working people of New York, recent immigrants, poor, looked upon with contempt by native Americans, could hardly find sympathy for the black population of the city who competed with them for jobs as longshoremen, barbers, waiters, domestic servants. Blacks, pushed out of these jobs, often were used to break strikes. Then came the war, the draft, the chance of death. And the Conscription Act of 1863 provided that the rich could avoid military service: they could pay $300 or buy a substitute. In the summer of 1863, a "Song of the Conscripts" was circulated by the thousands in New York and other cities. One stanza:
We're earning, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more We leave our homes and firesides -with bleeding hearts and sore Since poverty has been our crime, we bow to thy decree; We are the poor and have no wealth to purchase liberty.
When recruiting for the army began in July 1863, a mob in New York wrecked the main recruiting station. Then, for three days, crowds of white workers marched through the city, destroying buildings, factories, streetcar lines, homes. The draft riots were complex-anti-black, anti-rich, anti-Republican. From an assault on draft headquarters, the rioters went on to attacks on wealthy homes, then to the murder of blacks. They marched through the streets, forcing factories to close, recruiting more members of the mob. They set the city's colored orphan asylum on fire. They shot, burned, and hanged blacks they found in the streets. Many people were thrown into the rivers to drown.
On the fourth day, Union troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg came into the city and stopped the rioting. Perhaps four hundred people were killed. No exact figures have ever been given, but the number of lives lost was greater than in any other incident of domestic violence in American history…
...Class-consciousness was overwhelmed during the Civil War, both North and South, by military and political unity in the crisis of war. That unity was weaned by rhetoric and enforced by arms. It was a war proclaimed as a war for liberty, but working people would be attacked by soldiers if they dared to strike, Indians would be massacred in Colorado by the U.S. army, and those daring to criticize Lincoln's policies would be put in jail without trial-perhaps thirty thousand political prisoners.
Still, there were signs in both sections of dissent from that unity- anger of poor against rich, rebellion against the dominant political and economic forces.
In the North, the war brought high prices for food and the necessities of life. Prices of milk, eggs, cheese were up 60 to 100 percent for families that had not been able to pay the old prices. One historian (Emerson Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War) described the war situation: "Employers were wont to appropriate to themselves all or nearly all of the profits accruing from the higher prices, without being willing to grant to the employees a fair share of these profits through the medium of higher wages."
There were strikes all over the country during the war. The Springfield Republican… said that "the workmen of almost every branch of trade have had their strikes within the last few months," and the San Francisco Evening Bulletin said "striking for higher wages is now the rage among the working people of San Francisco." Unions were being formed as a result of these strikes. Philadelphia shoemakers in 1863 announced that high prices made organization imperative.
The headline in Fincher's Trades' Review of November 21, 1863, "THE REVOLUTION IN NEW YORK," was an exaggeration, but its list of labor activities was impressive evidence of the hidden resentments of the poor during the war:
The upheaval of the laboring masses in New York has startled the capitalists of that city and vicinity…
The machinists are making a hold stand… We publish their appeal in another column.
The City Railroad employees struck for higher wages, and made the whole population, for a few days, "ride on Shank's mare."...
The house painters of Brooklyn have taken steps to counteract the attempt of the bosses to reduce their wages.
The house carpenters, we are informed, are pretty well "out of the woods" and their demands are generally complied with.
The safe-makers have obtained an increase of wages, and are now at work.
The lithographic printers are making efforts to secure better pay for their labor.
The workmen on the iron clads are yet holding out against the contractors. ...
The window shade painters have obtained an advance of 25 percent.
The horse shoers are fortifying themselves against the evils of money and trade fluctuations.
The sash and blind-makers are organized and ask their employers for 25 percent additional.
The sugar packers are remodeling their list of prices.
The glasscutters demand 15 percent to present wages.
Imperfect as we confess our list to be, there is enough to convince the reader that the social revolution now working its way through the land must succeed, if workingmen are only true to each other.
The stage drivers, to the number of 800, are on a strike…
The workingmen of Boston are not behind… in addition to the strike at the Charlestown Navy Yard…
The riggers are on a strike…
At this writing it is rumored, says the Boston Post, that a general strike is contemplated among the workmen in the iron establishments at South Boston, and other parts of the city.
The war brought many women into shops and factories, often over the objections of men who saw them driving wage scales down. In New York City, girls sewed umbrellas from six in the morning to midnight, earning $3 a week, from which employers deducted the cost of needles and thread. Girls who made cotton shirts received twenty-four cents for a twelve-hour day. In late 1863, New York working women held a mass meeting to find a solution to their problems. A Working Women's Protective Union was formed, and there was a strike of women umbrella workers in New York and Brooklyn. In Providence, Rhode Island, a Ladies Cigar Makers Union was organized.
Altogether, by 1864, about 200,000 workers, men and women, were in trade unions, forming national unions in some of the trades, putting out labor newspapers.
Union troops were used to break strikes. Federal soldiers were sent to Cold Springs, New York, to end a strike at a gun works where workers wanted a wage increase. Striking machinists and tailors in St. Louis were forced back to work by the army. In Tennessee, a Union general arrested and sent out of the state two hundred striking mechanics. When engineers on the Reading Railroad struck, troops broke that strike, as they did with miners in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.
White workers of the North were not enthusiastic about a war which seemed to be fought for the black slave, or for the capitalist, for anyone but them. They worked in semi slave conditions themselves. They thought the war was profiting the new class of millionaires. They saw defective guns sold to the army by contractors, sand sold as sugar, rye sold as coffee, shop sweepings made into clothing and blankets, paper-soled shoes produced for soldiers at the front, navy ships made of rotting timbers, soldiers' uniforms that fell apart in the rain.
The Irish working people of New York, recent immigrants, poor, looked upon with contempt by native Americans, could hardly find sympathy for the black population of the city who competed with them for jobs as longshoremen, barbers, waiters, domestic servants. Blacks, pushed out of these jobs, often were used to break strikes. Then came the war, the draft, the chance of death. And the Conscription Act of 1863 provided that the rich could avoid military service: they could pay $300 or buy a substitute. In the summer of 1863, a "Song of the Conscripts" was circulated by the thousands in New York and other cities. One stanza:
We're earning, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more We leave our homes and firesides -with bleeding hearts and sore Since poverty has been our crime, we bow to thy decree; We are the poor and have no wealth to purchase liberty.
When recruiting for the army began in July 1863, a mob in New York wrecked the main recruiting station. Then, for three days, crowds of white workers marched through the city, destroying buildings, factories, streetcar lines, homes. The draft riots were complex-anti-black, anti-rich, anti-Republican. From an assault on draft headquarters, the rioters went on to attacks on wealthy homes, then to the murder of blacks. They marched through the streets, forcing factories to close, recruiting more members of the mob. They set the city's colored orphan asylum on fire. They shot, burned, and hanged blacks they found in the streets. Many people were thrown into the rivers to drown.
On the fourth day, Union troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg came into the city and stopped the rioting. Perhaps four hundred people were killed. No exact figures have ever been given, but the number of lives lost was greater than in any other incident of domestic violence in American history…
American Progress (1872) by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia, a personification of the United States, is shown leading civilization westward with the American settlers. She is shown bringing light from east to west, stringing telegraph wire, holding a book, and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation.
ASSIGNMENTS
Forum Discussion #14
- Forum Discussion #14
Forum Discussion #14
The "Lost Cause of the Confederacy," or simply the "Lost Cause," is an American historical negationist ideology that holds that despite losing the American Civil War, the cause of the Confederacy was a just and heroic one. The ideology endorses the supposed virtues of the antebellum South, viewing the war as a struggle primarily for the Southern way of life or "states' rights" in the face of overwhelming "northern aggression". At the same time, the Lost Cause minimizes or denies outright the central role of slavery in the outbreak of the war.
Do some research and please answer the following question with a two-paragraph minimum:
From pulling the information from what you have learned about in class, why is the “Lost Cause” a folly way of thinking? Why do many still hold onto the notion of a noble war fought against “northern aggression?”
Need help? Remember the Discussion Board Rubric.
DISCLAIMERS
Do some research and please answer the following question with a two-paragraph minimum:
From pulling the information from what you have learned about in class, why is the “Lost Cause” a folly way of thinking? Why do many still hold onto the notion of a noble war fought against “northern aggression?”
Need help? Remember the Discussion Board Rubric.
DISCLAIMERS
- (This is not professional or legal advice. If it were, the article would be followed with an invoice. Do not expect to win any social media arguments by hyperlinking my articles. Chances are, we are both wrong).
- (Trigger Warning: This article or section, or pages it links to, contains antiquated language referring to people of color which may be triggering to some.)
- (Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is granted, provided that the author (or authors) and www.ryanglancaster.com are appropriately cited.)