Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the Study of the
Modern "American Civil War"
The American Civil War, widely known
in the United States as simply the Civil War as well as other sectional names,
was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the Union
or independence for the Confederacy. Among the 34 states in January 1861, seven
Southern slave states individually declared their secession
from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, often simply called the South, grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the Union or the North. The war had its origin in the factious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of combat, which had left around 750,000 Americans, Union and Confederate, dead and had destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished. Then began the Reconstruction and the processes of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves.
from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, often simply called the South, grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the Union or the North. The war had its origin in the factious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of combat, which had left around 750,000 Americans, Union and Confederate, dead and had destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished. Then began the Reconstruction and the processes of restoring national unity and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves.
In the 1860 presidential election,
Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, supported banning slavery in all the U.S.
territories, something the Southern states viewed as a violation of their
constitutional rights and as being part of a plan to eventually abolish
slavery. The Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a majority of the
electoral votes, and Lincoln was elected the first Republican president, but
before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed
the Confederacy. The first six to secede had the highest proportions of slaves
in their populations, a total of 48.8 percent. Eight remaining slave states
continued to reject calls for secession. Outgoing Democratic President James
Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln's
March 4, 1861 inaugural address declared his administration would not initiate
civil war. Speaking directly to "the Southern States," he reaffirmed,
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Confederate
forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the
Confederacy. Efforts at compromise failed, and both sides prepared for war. The
Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King
Cotton" that they would intervene; none did, and none recognized the new
Confederate States of America.
Hostilities began on April 12, 1861,
when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater
the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, battle was
inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland
and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention. Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. Slavery was
the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican
Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern
leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the
1860 election. After Lincoln won without carrying a single Southern state, many
Southern whites felt that disunion had become their only option, because they
thought that they were losing representation, which would hamper their ability
to promote pro-slavery acts and policies.
Root causes
Slavery
Contemporary actors, the Union and
Confederate leadership and fighting soldiers on both sides believed that
slavery caused the Civil War. Union men mainly believed the war was to
emancipate the slaves. Confederates fought to protect southern society, and
slavery as an integral part of it. From the anti-slavery perspective, the issue
was primarily about whether the system of slavery was an anachronistic evil
that was incompatible with Republicanism in the United States. The strategy of
the anti-slavery forces was containment to stop the expansion and thus put
slavery on a path to gradual extinction. The slave-holding interests in the
South denounced this strategy as infringing upon their Constitutional rights.
Southern whites believed that the emancipation of slaves would destroy the
South's economy because of the alleged laziness of blacks under free labor.
Slavery was illegal in the North. It
was fading in the Border States and in Southern cities, but was expanding in
the highly profitable cotton districts of the South and Southwest. Subsequent
writers on the American Civil War looked to several factors explaining the
geographic divide, including sectionalism, protectionism and state's rights.
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