American History

Introduction

The Civil War marked one of the great defining moments in U.S. history. Long-simmering sectional tensions reached a critical stage in 1860-61 when 11 slaveholding states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. Political disagreement gave way to war in April 1861, as Confederates insisted on their right to leave the Union and the loyal states refused to allow them to go. Nothing in the nation's history had prepared Americans for the scale of military fury and social disruption that ensued. Four years of fighting claimed more than 1 million military casualties (of whom at least 620,000 died), directly affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and freed 4 million enslaved African Americans. The social and economic system based on chattel slavery that the seceding states had sought to protect lay in ruins. The Union had been preserved, and the supremacy of the national government over the individual states had been confirmed. In the longer term, the North's victory made possible the American economic and political colossus that figured so prominently in 20th-century history.

Discussion

Also, known as the "War of the Rebellion," "War Between the States," "War for Southern Independence," and "brothers' war," the conflict continues to fascinate professional historians, novelists, filmmakers, and millions of Americans interested in history. The drama and tragedy of many Civil War battles have been commemorated in a number of national military parks, such as the ones at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Antietam, Maryland; and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Many of the major issues of the era—slavery, states' rights, racial equality, the duties and rights of citizenship, and the limits of national authority continue to provoke debate and dissension (Linderman, 77).

Before the sectional disruption, the American republic had survived diplomatic and military crises and internal stresses. It weathered tensions with France in the late 1790s, a second war with Britain in 1812-15, and disputes regarding international boundaries. Political debates over economic issues such as the tariff, a national bank, and government-supported public works provoked dissension but posed no serious threat to the integrity of the Union. Despite divisions along ethnic and class lines, the majority of Americans had much in common. They were white, Christian, spoke English, and celebrated a shared heritage forged in the crucible of the Revolutionary War.

Questions relating to the institution of slavery led to the sectional strife that eventually erupted in war. Most men and women at the time, would have agreed with Abraham Lincoln's assertion in his second inaugural address that slavery "was, somehow, the cause of the war." Earlier, Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederacy's vice president, had proclaimed that slavery "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and the present revolution" to establish Southern independence. The framers of the U.S. Constitution had compromised regarding slavery, creating a democratic republic that sought to ensure its citizenry's freedoms while also reassuring the South that individual states would have the power to maintain and regulate slavery within their boundaries. The paradox of white liberty that rested in part on a foundation ...