Civil War Slaves

The Civil War's lesson on secession

In July, we commemorate the birth of America, the founding of Utah and, this year, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Its first major clash was fought on July 21st, 1861, and a re-enactment was staged at Bull Run just a few weeks ago. It created a good amount of review and commentary about the war.

That is a good thing because history is important. It defines us. Unfortunately, most Americans know little or nothing about the Civil War, even though it was a major pivot point in American history.

It was caused by slavery. Some historians offer other reasons for it — economic, regional and philosophical ones, each of which was a factor — but I have always appreciated what my history professor at the University of Utah said: "Lincoln said slavery was the cause, and he knew more about it than anybody else, so I say slavery was the cause too."

In the beginning of our history, slavery was accepted everywhere. At one time there were more slaves in New York than in many southern states. It survived in the South because of its importance to the production of cotton but died out in the North as it became a moral issue.

The political issue tied to it was secession — did states, once they had entered the Union, have the right to leave? With weak presidents in the White House during many of those years, the political disputations over the twin issues of slavery and secession took place primarily in the Senate, with the "Great Triumvirate" of Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and Henry Clay of Kentucky holding center stage.

Webster was solidly for "Union," — states could not secede. Calhoun was solidly for "Nullification," — states could not only leave, but also nullify, or ignore, such Federal laws as they disliked if they stayed. "The Great Compromiser," Clay, kept devising ways to keep the South mollified and the Union together, but after he died, there was war.

It was the bloodiest in our history. It killed more men than any other we have fought. Its consequences are very much with us today.

It changed the way we think about ourselves. Before the Civil War, when speaking of the country, Americans used the plural — "The United States are doing this or that." After the war, it became singular — "The United States is doing this or that." We went from a collection of states to one nation — "indivisible."

It changed the Constitution. I urge people who read the Constitution to read all of it. "Don't stop at the 10th Amendment." The 13th Amendment freed the slaves, the 14th made them citizens (and prohibited states from denying them — or anyone else, such as the Mormons in Missouri — life, liberty and property) and the 15th gave them the right to vote.

Becoming the Party of Freedom - NYTimes.com

Republicans began the Civil War as the party of Union, not the party of Freedom. They did not become the celebrated destroyers of slavery until almost two years into the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation, issued Jan. 1, 1863. But during the summer of 1861 the direction of change was unmistakable, as Republicans took the first, crucial steps in a mounting attack on the South’s “peculiar institution.” Long-held beliefs about the immorality of slavery combined with the challenges posed by an escalating conflict, explain the evolving outlook of the Republicans.

Along with a strong commitment to expanding the Northern economy, the Republican Party had always emphasized its opposition to slavery: both the 1856 and 1860 platforms cited the Declaration of Independence with its ringing affirmation of liberty for all. Many of the individuals leading the new party had long denounced bondage. Representative Owen Lovejoy, whose abolitionist brother had been killed by a pro-slavery mob, labeled the institution “the sum of all villainy”; Abraham Lincoln remarked that he favored free soil “because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself.” Most mainstream Republicans shared this outlook.

And yet that cauldron of antislavery sentiment bubbled alongside the carefully restrained policies the party enunciated. Republicans promised to respect slavery where it existed. They agreed to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Seeking to rule a nation of property owners, the new party eschewed lawless actions, even those committed in opposition to slavery. Indeed, before 1861 the only step the Republicans advocated to speed the demise of slavery was restricting its spread into the territories. But, free soil was not abolition, and Republicans recognized that barring slavery from the West would lead to its ultimate extinction only far in the future.

Had the Civil War been brief, the Republicans’ reverence for property rights — rather than their profound antislavery convictions — would have prevailed, and Southern institutions would likely have emerged unscathed. During April and May 1861 federal forces captured and returned the hundreds of African Americans who rushed to the Union troops in Maryland or crossed the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania. A Maryland editorialist remarked that more fugitives had been recovered since Lincoln took office “than during the whole of Mr. Buchanan’s presidential term.”

But as the clash continued, new circumstances gradually led the Republicans to rethink their cautious policies. The beginnings of change came toward the end of May, when Gen. Benjamin Butler accepted three fugitives at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Butler wrote to the War Department for advice, leading Lincoln to discuss the matter with his cabinet. Many in Washington, like General in Chief Winfield Scott (who chortled at “Butler’s fugitive slave law”), expected a simple reaffirmation of the administration’s commitment to returning slaves.

The Civil War

Slavery and the Civil War

Slavery, Civil War, and salvation, African American slaves and Christianity, 1830-1870

Half slave and half free, the roots of civil war

Civil War and Reconstruction