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By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 20, 2023 | Original: October 15, 2009

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in 1865. The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and much of the South left in ruin.

Causes of the Civil War

In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions.

In the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, while the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of Black enslaved people to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco.

Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America —and thus the backbone of their economy—was in danger.

Did you know? Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia eight days later.

In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act , which essentially opened all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over congressional edict. Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in “ Bleeding Kansas ,” while opposition to the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party , a new political entity based on the principle of opposing slavery’s extension into the western territories. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry in 1859 convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the destruction of the “peculiar institution” that sustained them. Abraham Lincoln ’s election in November 1860 was the final straw, and within three months seven southern states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas—had seceded from the United States.

Outbreak of the Civil War (1861)

Even as Lincoln took office in March 1861, Confederate forces threatened the federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter, Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War. Sumter’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after less than two days of bombardment, leaving the fort in the hands of Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states—Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee—joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23 states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing (including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation. They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and institutions, chief among these being slavery.

In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, 35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits. In fact, both sides’ initial call for troops had to be widened after it became clear that the war would not be a limited or short conflict.

The Civil War in Virginia (1862)

George B. McClellan —who replaced the aging General Winfield Scott as supreme commander of the Union Army after the first months of the war—was beloved by his troops, but his reluctance to advance frustrated Lincoln. In the spring of 1862, McClellan finally led his Army of the Potomac up the peninsula between the York and James Rivers, capturing Yorktown on May 4. The combined forces of Robert E. Lee and Jackson successfully drove back McClellan’s army in the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), and a cautious McClellan called for yet more reinforcements in order to move against Richmond. Lincoln refused, and instead withdrew the Army of the Potomac to Washington. By mid-1862, McClellan had been replaced as Union general-in-chief by Henry W. Halleck, though he remained in command of the Army of the Potomac.

Lee then moved his troops northwards and split his men, sending Jackson to meet Pope’s forces near Manassas, while Lee himself moved separately with the second half of the army. On August 29, Union troops led by John Pope struck Jackson’s forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). The next day, Lee hit the Federal left flank with a massive assault, driving Pope’s men back towards Washington. On the heels of his victory at Manassas, Lee began the first Confederate invasion of the North. Despite contradictory orders from Lincoln and Halleck, McClellan was able to reorganize his army and strike at Lee on September 14 in Maryland, driving the Confederates back to a defensive position along Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg.

On September 17, the Army of the Potomac hit Lee’s forces (reinforced by Jackson’s) in what became the war’s bloodiest single day of fighting. Total casualties at the Battle of Antietam (also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg) numbered 12,410 of some 69,000 troops on the Union side, and 13,724 of around 52,000 for the Confederates. The Union victory at Antietam would prove decisive, as it halted the Confederate advance in Maryland and forced Lee to retreat into Virginia. Still, McClellan’s failure to pursue his advantage earned him the scorn of Lincoln and Halleck, who removed him from command in favor of Ambrose E. Burnside . Burnside’s assault on Lee’s troops near Fredericksburg on December 13 ended in heavy Union casualties and a Confederate victory; he was promptly replaced by Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker , and both armies settled into winter quarters across the Rappahannock River from each other.

After the Emancipation Proclamation (1863-4)

Lincoln had used the occasion of the Union victory at Antietam to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation , which freed all enslaved people in the rebellious states after January 1, 1863. He justified his decision as a wartime measure, and did not go so far as to free the enslaved people in the border states loyal to the Union. Still, the Emancipation Proclamation deprived the Confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and put international public opinion strongly on the Union side. Some 186,000 Black Civil War soldiers would join the Union Army by the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.

In the spring of 1863, Hooker’s plans for a Union offensive were thwarted by a surprise attack by the bulk of Lee’s forces on May 1, whereupon Hooker pulled his men back to Chancellorsville. The Confederates gained a costly victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville , suffering 13,000 casualties (around 22 percent of their troops); the Union lost 17,000 men (15 percent). Lee launched another invasion of the North in June, attacking Union forces commanded by General George Meade on July 1 near Gettysburg, in southern Pennsylvania. Over three days of fierce fighting, the Confederates were unable to push through the Union center, and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent.

Meade failed to counterattack, however, and Lee’s remaining forces were able to escape into Virginia, ending the last Confederate invasion of the North. Also in July 1863, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg (Mississippi) in the Siege of Vicksburg , a victory that would prove to be the turning point of the war in the western theater. After a Confederate victory at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September, Lincoln expanded Grant’s command, and he led a reinforced Federal army (including two corps from the Army of the Potomac) to victory in the Battle of Chattanooga in late November.

Toward a Union Victory (1864-65)

In March 1864, Lincoln put Grant in supreme command of the Union armies, replacing Halleck. Leaving William Tecumseh Sherman in control in the West, Grant headed to Washington, where he led the Army of the Potomac towards Lee’s troops in northern Virginia. Despite heavy Union casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania (both May 1864), at Cold Harbor (early June) and the key rail center of Petersburg (June), Grant pursued a strategy of attrition, putting Petersburg under siege for the next nine months.

Sherman outmaneuvered Confederate forces to take Atlanta by September, after which he and some 60,000 Union troops began the famous “March to the Sea,” devastating Georgia on the way to capturing Savannah on December 21. Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, fell to Sherman’s men by mid-February, and Jefferson Davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to Lee, with the Confederate war effort on its last legs. Sherman pressed on through North Carolina, capturing Fayetteville, Bentonville, Goldsboro and Raleigh by mid-April.

Meanwhile, exhausted by the Union siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee’s forces made a last attempt at resistance, attacking and captured the Federal-controlled Fort Stedman on March 25. An immediate counterattack reversed the victory, however, and on the night of April 2-3 Lee’s forces evacuated Richmond. For most of the next week, Grant and Meade pursued the Confederates along the Appomattox River, finally exhausting their possibilities for escape. Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. On the eve of victory, the Union lost its great leader: The actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14. Sherman received Johnston’s surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina on April 26, effectively ending the Civil War.

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A Brief Overview of the American Civil War

The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world.

Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the country from its beginning. But these achievements came at the cost of 625,000 lives--nearly as many American soldiers as died in all the other wars in which this country has fought combined. The American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.

The event that triggered war came at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861. Claiming this United States fort as their own, the Confederate army on that day opened fire on the federal garrison and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender. Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this "insurrection." Four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy. By the end of 1861 nearly a million armed men confronted each other along a line stretching 1200 miles from Virginia to Missouri. Several battles had already taken place--near Manassas Junction in Virginia, in the mountains of western Virginia where Union victories paved the way for creation of the new state of West Virginia, at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and at Port Royal in South Carolina where the Union navy established a base for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy's access to the outside world.

But the real fighting began in 1862. Huge battles like Shiloh in Tennessee, Gaines' Mill , Second Manassas , and Fredericksburg in Virginia, and Antietam in Maryland foreshadowed even bigger campaigns and battles in subsequent years, from Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to Vicksburg on the Mississippi to Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia. By 1864 the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore the Union had given way to a new strategy of "total war" to destroy the Old South and its basic institution of slavery and to give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom," as President Lincoln put it in his address at Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle there.

For three long years, from 1862 to 1865, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia staved off invasions and attacks by the Union Army of the Potomac commanded by a series of ineffective generals until Ulysses S. Grant came to Virginia from the Western theater to become general in chief of all Union armies in 1864. After bloody battles at places with names like The Wilderness , Spotsylvania , Cold Harbor , and Petersburg , Grant finally brought Lee to bay at Appomattox in April 1865. In the meantime Union armies and river fleets in the theater of war comprising the slave states west of the Appalachian Mountain chain won a long series of victories over Confederate armies commanded by hapless or unlucky Confederate generals. In 1864-1865 General William Tecumseh Sherman led his army deep into the Confederate heartland of Georgia and South Carolina, destroying their economic infrastructure while General George Thomas virtually destroyed the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee at the battle of Nashville . By the spring of 1865 all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended. The long, painful process of rebuilding a united nation free of slavery began.

Learn More:  This Day in the Civil War

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Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation and Freedom

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Civil War, 1861-1865

Jonathan Karp, Harvard University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, PhD Candidate, American Studies

The story of the Civil War is often told as a triumph of freedom over slavery, using little more than a timeline of battles and a thin pile of legislation as plot points. Among those acts and skirmishes, addresses and battles, the Emancipation Proclamation is key: with a stroke of Abraham Lincoln’s pen, the story goes, slaves were freed and the goodness of the United States was confirmed. This narrative implies a kind of clarity that is not present in the historical record. What did emancipation actually mean? What did freedom mean? How would ideas of citizenship accommodate Black subjects? The everyday impact of these words—the way they might be lived in everyday life—were the subject of intense debates and investigations, which marshalled emerging scientific discourses and a rapidly expanding bureaucratic state. All the while, Black people kept emancipating themselves, showing by their very actions how freedom might be lived.

Self-Emancipation

The Emancipation Proclamation, in 1863, and the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, abolished slavery in the secessionist Confederate states and the United States, respectively, but it is important to remember that enslaved people were liberating themselves through all manners of fugitivity for as long as slavery has existed in the Americas. Notices from enslavers seeking self-emancipated Black people were common in newspapers throughout the Americas, as seen in this 1854 copy of the Baltimore Sun .

The question of how formerly enslaved people would be regarded by and assimilated into the state as subjects was most obviously worked out through the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was meant to support newly freed people across the South. Two years before the Bureau was established, however, there was the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission. Authorized by the Secretary of War in March 1863, the Inquiry Commission was called in part as a response to the ever-increasing number of refugees—who were still referred to at the time as “contraband”—appearing at Union camps. The three appointed commissioners—Samuel Gridley Howe, James McKaye, and Robert Dale Owen—were charged with investigating the condition and capacity of freedpeople.

Historians are still working to understand the scale of refugees’ movements during the Civil War. Abigail Cooper estimates that by 1865 there were around 600,000 freedpeople in 250 refugee camps. Many of the camps were overseen by the Union, while others were established and run by freedpeople themselves. Conditions in the camps could be brutal. In 1863, the Inquiry Commission heard that 3,000 freedmen had fortified the fort in Nashville for fifteen months without pay. Rations were slim. In spite of these conditions, the camps were also sites where Black people profoundly restructured the South by their very movement and relationships.

Port Royal Experiment

During the Civil War, the U.S. government began an experiment in the Sea Islands of South Carolina. Plantation owning enslavers had abandoned their lands, leaving behind over 10,000 formerly enslaved Black people. With the help of abolitionist charities from the North, these Black farmers cultivated cotton for wages in the same places they had formerly been held in bondage. Their work was so successful that it inspired international calls for support, like this letter published in Manchester, England. The short-lived success of this experiment was largely ended at the government's hands, when the lands were returned to White ownership.

The Inquiry Commission, a large portion of whose records are held at Harvard, focused many of their efforts on the camps. It was not clear how, exactly, they should go about their work. The Commission was established before the field of sociology emerged with its institutionalized tools for the supposedly scientific study of populations. A federal body had never before been responsible studying people who were or had been enslaved. The commissioners travelled across the American South and Canada, observing and interviewing freedmen. They sent elaborate surveys to military leaders, clergy, and other White people who interfaced with large numbers of people who had escaped slavery. Through this work, the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission made Black people into subjects of the United States’ scientific gaze. Their records are an invaluable record of life under slavery; they also reinscribed underlying racial logics.

Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, and Freedom has a collection of 189 objects related to the Commission’s inquiry . The vast majority of them are responses to their survey, written by White people the Commission identified as having special knowledge of freedmen. The view of slavery from this vantage point is limited. Most if not all of the respondents recount conversations with people who were or had been enslaved, but these accounts are all mediated by their authors and the Commissioners. There’s no telling what the quoted enslaved people would or wouldn’t have shared with these people, or why. If some shape of life under slavery emerges from reading these survey responses, it is a necessarily distorted one. The American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission is emblematic of a style of scientific discourse that set its sights on Black people and the cultural meanings of race without concern for the views of Black people. In this field, Whiteness was necessary for expertise.

The surveys are most revealing as records of how these agents of the federal government conceived of the question of freedom—what they called, “one of the gravest social problems ever presented a government.” What kinds of questions did they ask? The forms had forty-two questions. Some asked for geographic and population data. Others asked for information about life before emancipation: did freedmen carry signs of previous abuse (they did) and did their masters have an effect on enslaved peoples’ families (they invariably did)? The vast majority of the questions, however, asked for the respondent’s opinions and general observations of the formerly enslaved refugees. The Commission wanted to know about these peoples’ strength, endurance, intellectual capacity, attachments to place, as well as their religious devotion, their general disposition, work ethic, and ways of domestic life. The list ended with the most important question, which the previous ones had apparently prepared the respondent to answer to the best of their abilities: “In your judgement are the freedmen in your department considered as a whole fit to take their place in society with a fair prospect of self-support and progress or do they need preparatory training and guardianship? If so of what nature and to what extent?”

Slow Stretching Emancipation

The Emancipation Proclamation was widely celebrated by enemies of slavery, though it did not emancipate all enslaved Black peoples. Celebrations were held in Northern cities like Philadelphia and Boston . News of emancipation was slow moving, even in areas that were covered by the proclamation. In areas under Union control, like Port Royal, Black people were informed of their new legal status on January 1st, but in areas under Confederate control the proclamation was often kept secret from enslaved people or entirely ignored. In his memoir, Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington described his experience learning of the proclamation:

After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see. Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography, pg. 21

From the questions the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission asked, it is clear that they imagined the freemen’s “fitness” to hinge on their ability to work for wages, own land, and maintain standard familial structures. The surveys asked whether freedmen “seemed disposed to continue their domestic relations or form new ones.” They asked whether, under slavery, enslaved children were taught to respect their parents. Commissioners wished to know if family names were common, and, if so, how they travelled through generations. The question about laboring for wages, which appeared towards the end of the questionnaire, was deeply connected to the question of what should come after slavery. If wages would not be successful in turning freedmen into laborers, a system of apprenticeship might be considered. The commissioners’ fixation on land was a result of the longstanding connection in the United States between citizenship and landowning. It was also a response to fears of Black migration. In all, the surveys show that the question of freedmen’s fitness was one of their assimilation into the intertwined relations of the capitalist wage and the family, as recognized by the state and church.

While the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission went about their work, freedpeople made their lives in ways that both answered the Commission’s questions and exceeded them. Some people found their way to camps to join the war effort; others went in search of family and still others made homes where they were. Washington Spradling, for example, told the Commission in 1863 how freedpeople in Kentucky pooled resources to pay for funerals and buy their relatives out of slavery, all under the oppression of new police powers. Across the South, as the Civil War raged, Black people brought about emancipation. They could not wait for the state’s commissions and reports. However, shades of their experiments in freedom are visible in the reports of the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission.

Civil War Essays

DRAWN WITH THE SWORD

May/June 1996

by James M. McPherson , Oxford University Press, 272 pages, $25.00. CODE: OUP-13

EACH YEAR, WRITES THE HISTORIAN James M. McPherson, about eight hundred books are published on the Civil War. In all “more than fifty thousand separate books or pamphlets” have appeared “since the guns ceased firing.” The fact that Americans will read insatiably about that awful, transforming conflict is well established. Why then do so many academic historians continue to write just for one another? McPherson does not. He teaches at Princeton; his books (including Battle Cry of Freedom and Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution ) have found wide popularity outside the academy. In this collection of first-rate essays, on such subjects as “The Enduring Lincoln,” “Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism,” the importance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin versus Gone With the Wind , and “Who Freed the Slaves?,” McPherson takes the latest professional thinking on the war and gives it clear and popular shape, a deceptively hard accomplishment. He continues to walk a path between Civil War amateurs, who know their tactical history, and scholars of the “new history,” who focus on the period’s social and industrial forces. (McPherson is the first to point out, in his final essay, that the attempt to reach a wide, intelligent audience for history had earlier prompted the founding of the Society of American Historians and its popular-history magazine, American Heritage .)

“The war of 1861-1865,” McPherson writes in his preface, “resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the war of 1776-1783: whether the United States would endure as one nation, indivisible; and whether slavery would continue to mock the ideals of liberty on which the Republic was founded. Little wonder, then, that popular interest in the Civil War eclipses interest in any other aspect of American history.”

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Lessons from the Civil War for America’s Fractured Present: Part Two

January 28, 2020 | yalepress | American History , Law , Military History , Political Science

Timothy William Waters —

Why Remembering the Civil War Matters: Talking about Belonging in America

How we remember the Civil War matters for thinking about our increasingly fragile union today—how we talk about identity, belonging, and leaving. The war seems to offer an obvious moral model. But that solution dissolves when we remember that how the war ended isn’t how it began—that the Union first fought to preserve itself, not free slaves. And because that Union was a slaveholding power, fighting to preserve itself “as it was” was a more ambiguous proposition than the now-remembered “war against slavery.”

Today, it’s common to conflate the South’s slaving and its secession, calling it treason. But the moral value of treason is different: slavery is an evil absolute; treason is a relational act. Treason can be committed only by someone who belongs to a community and is meaningful only if the thing betrayed has worth. We know the moral value of opposing slavery—but what is the value of union?

You won’t find the answer at the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln’s second inaugural address, condemning slavery on the cusp of the Union’s victory, is carved on its walls. His first, defending both slavery and union, isn’t. It’s a deceptive entanglement, because union requires its own justification. Lincoln’s defense of union for its own sake should remind us of the twin challenges any political community faces: not to treat dis-identity as treason, and not to substitute the existence of the state for its justification. After all, secession wasn’t only a slaveholder’s strategy: before the war, prominent abolitionists proposed secession of free states from slaveholding America. Today we honor them—no one is taking their statues down!—while condemning those who actually seceded not only as immoral slaveholders, but as traitors, not to the Union as it was, but to what we imagine it had been.

If we are indeed to inform present politics with the past, let us remember that past’s full complexity: that in the hour before Fort Sumter was shelled, Fort Sumter was there to be shelled; that the one thing Lincoln did not offer a slavery-maddened South was exit; and that a slaveholding Union went to war to preserve itself, and only along the way did its war become the moral crusade we remember.

We know what we should do if we encountered slavery or its moral equivalent today—and for some, the stakes in our present politics are that high. But if it really came to it, what would be the right response to secession in 2020? We might oppose a new immoral regime. But if the separatists’ reason—their “treason”—were the desire for separation itself, I see no grounds for opposing it. There is no value in union in and of itself.

Because remember, the Declaration of Independence advances two theories—oppression, but also consent of the governed. It seems to me that if a sizable group—a people—no longer wishes to share our political community—no longer wishes to be an “us”—then we have to let them go. As long as they don’t propose to do something immoral, we have no cause to compel their staying. (Or they ours—after all, if things get bad enough, it might be you who wants to leave, not “them.”) That’s the lesson of our Revolution, a lesson our Civil War—precisely because it conflated a moral crusade with the preservation of a state—has hidden.

So what lesson for our present politics, whether we stay together or split apart?

Humility, I should think. We must act upon our convictions. But we should do so in the knowledge that we may be in error—after all, the South is there to remind us that even those who are wrong feel wronged. Unless we truly face the modern equivalent of slavery, the better angels of our nature would instead give those wishing to leave reason to stay, drawing them back with shared values, not guns or walls. And if that does not work, letting those with whom we cannot agree or who will not compromise leave is a possible, moral response. You cannot betray that to which you no longer belong, and so we must be free to ask ourselves, and each other, if we still do.

It’s no coincidence that talk of division has arisen at the same time as calls for closing borders: both are about who belongs. Those invoking American greatness too often traffic in exclusivist notions about who constitutes that greatness; but those on the other end of our political divide exhibit their own exclusions, scorning the sanity and moral fitness of those who see, and voted for, a different future for this, our still-shared country.

Talking about belonging can be a good thing—though not, I think, the way too often done now, forgoing the hard work of justification and denying the moral value of others’ consent. The language of treason feeds an easier but darker narrative: it makes disunity cause for fighting, rather than a claim we must answer.

It’s the answer that matters. It’s risky to start talking about division, because taking it seriously makes it more serious. But a necessary risk: we can’t have a conversation about belonging—who we are, what we require of each other, what we are prepared to give—if we close the borders to ourselves.

You can find Part One of this two-part series here .

Timothy William Waters  is professor of law and associate director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at Indiana University. Author of numerous scholarly articles and op-eds on international law and politics, he also edited  The Miloševic Trial: An Autopsy .

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The American Civil War Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: United States , America , Lincoln , Organization , Slavery , Violence , Government , War

Words: 1100

Published: 01/02/2020

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The American Civil War

The American civil war was fought from 1861 to 1865 and is believed to have consumed more lives than all other wars combined. The war was anticipated for over 40 years after the American Revolution due to conflicts between the North and south. There were many issues between the two sides, but slavery was the central issue. Another cause was taxation of goods imported from foreign countries. The taxes were called tariffs and the southerners felt oppressed since they imported more goods than the northerners. Goods exported from the south were heavily taxed, which was not applicable to goods of equal value exported from the north. These irregularities existed because the northern and Midwestern states had become very influential and their populations were increasing. Southern states were not very populated, which made them lose their power. This created sectionalism where the states were distinguished by differences in economy, culture, and values (Ford, 2004). The issue of slavery formed the center stage in the conflict leading to the civil war. Slaves provided labor in the plantations and farms owned by the whites. The southerners had more acceptance of slavery since the colonial period than the northerners. People from the north felt that the institution of slavery was uncivilized and should be abolished. Slavery for the southern Americans was protected by both the federal and state laws. The first confrontation occurred in 1819 when Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave state. This upset the balance of power in the senate, which constituted of 11 Free states and 11 slave states. The admission of Missouri increased the number of slave states to twelve. In 1820, Senator Henry Clay proposed the Missouri Compromise that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to keep the balance of power (Glatthaar and Gallagher, 2001). The fugitive slave law passed in 1850 required all Americans to return runaway slaves. In 1857, the Supreme Court failed to grant freedom to Scott Dred who was a slave. This ruling was controversial to the northern anti-slavery leaders. In 1859, John Brown was executed for his attempt to steal weapons from the federal armory. This incident proved that the southern interests were not well represented in the senate, and the southerners wanted to secede from the north. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, who was a republican and anti-slavery activist was viewed as a blow against secession by southern democrats (Ford, 2004). However, South Carolina and six other states managed to secede in 1860 and early 1861 and formed the Confederate States of America. These states attacked Fort Sumter in 1861, which belonged to the Union and was supported by the North. Lincoln called upon 75,000 from 23 states loyal to the Union to quell the rebellion of the south. States loyal to the union and those in the south began raising volunteers to serve in the armies. This marked the beginning of the civil war between the north and south. The war came to an end when three constitutional amendments were passed by congress. The 13th amendment of 1865 abolished the institution of slavery. The 14th amendment of 1868 granted citizenship to freed slaves and the 15th amendment of 1870 gave them the right to vote. The war had changed the political, social, and economic setup of America in less than 10 years. The ruling from the Scott case had concluded that African Americans could not attain partial or full citizenship whether free or slaves. This separated the country along racial lines since Africans were not entitled to constitutional rights enjoyed by the whites (Ford, 2004). The Blacks were considered inferior and could not interact with the whites either socially or politically. The 13th amendment aimed at forestalling the secession but was interfered with by the war and replaced in 1865 with the amendment that abolished slavery. The abolishment of slavery was not a goal of the government since Lincoln raised armies to preserve the Union and not to abolish slavery. Abolishing slavery was eventually assimilated as an aim for the preservation of the union by 1863. The end of the civil war ended the institution of slavery and secession by the southern states. The Confederacy was founded by Alexander to fight for the rights of slaves. The institution of slavery was built on racism, and it was difficult for the confederacy to fight for their rights. Racism continued even in the Reconstruction Era between 1865 and 1877. This undermined the 13th, 14th, and 15th constitutional amendments. The rights of the African Americans eroded in the following decades, and they were marginalized and segregated politically and economically. The white supremacy in the south was still evident after the civil war. Three black Americans could be lynched every week in the south between 1890 and 1920. Black Americans had to pay taxes but were denied the constitutional rights enjoyed by the whites (Glatthaar and Gallagher, 2001). The government had forgotten the rights of slaves in a rush to prevent the secession of the south. The southern philosophers considered slaves to be contented in slavery since they were committed and faithful to their masters. This made the southerners fight for the existence of the institution of slavery, but they were overwhelmed by the military strength of the Union. This ideology of slavery remained among the southerners as the country progressed to the industrial age and the Progressive Era. The south developed the Great Alibi since its defects became virtues of the war and their defeat turned victory long after the war had ended. The northern states considered themselves to be the savior of the nation by instilling morality to the southern states. Slavery continued to dominate the disagreements between the north and the south in the 19th century. The southern states took long to reconstruct due to destruction by the north that was better armed and had bigger troops than the southern forces. The civil war erupted in 1861, but the differences between the two sides began with the Declaration of Independence. The declaration did not address the abolition of slavery effectively, and the African Americans were granted fewer rights than the whites. These rights were still debatable between the abolitionists and the southern masters. The war stopped in 1865, but its legacy still exists in the current society. The war granted freedom to the slaves, and it gave them constitutional rights even though they were fully entitled to these rights several decades after the war.

Ford, C. T. (2004). The American Civil War: An overview. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Glatthaar, J. T., & Gallagher, G. W. (2001). The American Civil War. Oxford: Osprey Military.

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The Conclusion of The Civil War Research Paper

The conclusion of the U.S. Civil War in 1865 provided three major outcomes. The Union was again one, slavery was abolished and the Southern states were physically, economically, and morally devastated. The abolishment of slavery was a good result for the nation. The humanitarian element alone was reason enough to celebrate the demise of this brutal institution. In addition, the contributions of freed slaves and their ancestors to the building of the nation following their emancipation are well-documented and vast. Of course, the after-effects of the war for the South could not in any way be considered a positive result. Their money was no good and their homes, buildings, and infrastructure were demolished. It is estimated that one in four males of military age in the South either died or suffered crippling injuring during the war (“The Civil War”, n.d.). There is no credible argument regarding these two outcomes as to whether they were good or bad for the nation. Though rejoining the country is still today a celebrated event in U.S. history, it ultimately caused a negative outcome. The main reason that the Confederacy succeeded from the Union was the issue of States’ rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution but were almost completely lost following the Civil War.

In most instances, individual states have the primary legal authority to nullify any actions taken by the federal government as described in the U.S. Constitution. This includes many legal rights up to and including the right to succeed. The Founding Fathers drafted this concept into the Constitution. They knew all too well that a decentralized federal government is less likely to become tyrannical because the people are better able to hold it accountable. The Founders’ intent was not necessary to give the states additional powers but to limit the authority of the federal government and to alleviate the fear that it would exercise powers it was not given. This concept was understood by the Founders, the Confederacy, and many of both conservative and liberal ideologies since the earliest beginnings of the nation (Epstein, 2003).

Within Article I, Section Eight of the Constitution is a purposely restricted set of responsibilities allocated to the federal government. It prints the money, regulates commerce, and provides for the common defense, in other words, funds the military. The 1819 U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal government also possessed certain ‘implied powers’ in the McCulloch v. Maryland case. These are powers that are not mentioned specifically by the Constitution but are essential to operate the government effectively. For example, it is implied that the government can establish a bank because of its responsibility to regulate commerce, collect taxes, and print money. It is also implied that states cannot assemble an army or print currency while some powers such as collecting taxes are shared by both entities (“Federalism”, n.d.). These implied powers of the federal government have been stretched ever further since the Civil War era.

The dilution of the Constitution and the loss of states’ rights was one of the unhappy consequences of the Civil War. If the states had retained their rights, businesses would be encouraged to locate in states that provided more economic freedoms than others thereby creating competition which would constantly act to stimulate the economy. Given this scenario, “State politicians (could) easily be held accountable for results that fail to measure up to other states” (Epstein, 2003). People would have the flexibility to move to a state that more closely reflects their ideals of society and culture. The freedoms envisioned by the Founding Fathers regarding states’ rights have been whittled away starting with the Civil War and have snowballed since, especially within the past six years.

Works Cited

“(The) Civil War and Emancipation: 1861-1865.” Africans in America Resource Bank. (n.d.). PBS Online. Web.

Epstein, Marcus. “Libertarians and States’ Rights.” (2003). Lew Rockwell. Web.

“Federalism.” Educational Outreach. (n.d.). U.S. Courts. Web.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — Civil War — Causes of the Civil War

Causes of The Civil War

• Categories: Civil War

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Words: 572 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 572 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Economic factors, political factors, social factors, the role of leadership.

• McPherson, J. M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press.
• Goldfield, D. R. (2005). America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation. Bloomsbury Press.

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The Radical Republican Plan: Shaping Reconstruction and Civil Rights

This essay about the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction explores their efforts to reshape Southern society and advance civil liberties for emancipated slaves. Led by figures like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, they advocated for rigorous reforms, including the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Despite facing opposition, their legacy underscores the ongoing struggle for civil liberties and racial equality in America.

How it works

Following the Civil War, a crucial epoch unfolded in American annals, characterized by endeavors to reconcile the nation and assimilate myriad liberated slaves into the socio-political fabric of the land. The Radical Republicans, a contingent within the Republican Party, wielded substantial sway during this juncture with a blueprint aimed at profoundly reshaping Southern society through assertive reforms and stringent oversight. Their approach to Reconstruction was both audacious and contentious, charting a trajectory with enduring repercussions on civil liberties and the dynamics between federal and state authorities.

The post-war milieu was perceived by the Radical Republicans as an auspicious juncture to effect far-reaching transformations pertaining to racial parity and to redefine the nexus between the Southern states and the federal regime. Spearheaded by luminaries such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, this cadre was distinguished by their fervent advocacy for the liberties of emancipated slaves and their endorsement of severe reprisals against the seceded Southern states.

In contradistinction to President Andrew Johnson’s preference for a lenient Reconstruction strategy entailing swift reinstatement of Southern states into the Union with nominal alterations to their antebellum frameworks, the Radical Republicans clamored for more rigorous measures. They contended that the Southern states had abrogated their entitlements and warranted treatment akin to conquered territories. This standpoint precipitated the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867, which subjected Southern states to military governance and mandated the formulation of new constitutions guaranteeing the civil entitlements of emancipated slaves.

Among the seminal accomplishments of the Radical Republican agenda was the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, devised to aid liberated slaves in transitioning from bondage to liberty. The Bureau dispensed sustenance, shelter, medical aid, and legal counsel; it also erected educational institutions, proffering erudition as a conduit to empowerment for the nascently emancipated populace. This constituted a revolutionary stride, given the vehement opposition to black literacy and education in the pre-war South.

Furthermore, the Radical Republicans played a pivotal role in formulating and ratifying the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The 14th Amendment conferred citizenship upon all individuals born or naturalized in the United States, encompassing former slaves, and pledged equal protection under the aegis of the law. The 15th Amendment went a step further by proscribing the abnegation of suffrage predicated on race, hue, or antecedent servitude. These amendments were crafted not only to safeguard the civil prerogatives of black Americans but also to reconfigure the political landscape of the South by ensuring their enfranchisement in electoral processes.

Notwithstanding these achievements, the Radical Republican blueprint encountered vehement opposition. Many Southern Caucasians perceived the reforms as an imposition and retaliated with both institutionalized and violent resistance, including the emergence of white supremacist factions like the Ku Klux Klan. Additionally, the North’s dwindling resolve to enforce Reconstruction policies and the pivot of economic priorities towards industrialization culminated in the Compromise of 1877, signaling the denouement of Reconstruction. This concordat facilitated the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, effectively terminating the enforcement of the Radical Reconstruction policies.

The legacies of the Radical Republican agenda are intricate. On one facet, their exertions laid the groundwork for civil liberties safeguards and underscored the federal government’s obligation to uphold these prerogatives. On the other hand, the precipitous rollback of myriad Reconstruction accomplishments and the ensuing Jim Crow epoch underscored the constraints of these reforms in the face of entrenched racial biases.

In contemplating the Radical Republican agenda, we discern a seminal epoch in American chronicles where the precepts of democracy and parity were vigorously deliberated and scrutinized. Their audacious vision of America’s potential continues to reverberate in discourses concerning justice, race, and parity in the United States. This epoch not only attests to the challenges inherent in effectuating profound societal metamorphoses but also serves as a poignant reminder of the perennial struggle for civil liberties.

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America’s second civil war? It’s already begun | Opinion

D espite the popularity of the recent movie “Civil War,” we’re not on the verge of a second one. But we are separating into so-called “red” and “blue.” And if Trump is reelected president, he’ll hasten the separation.

Since the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade left the issue of abortion to the states, one out of three women of childbearing age now lives in a state that makes it nearly impossible to get an abortion.

And while red states are making it harder than ever to get abortions, they’re making it easier than ever to buy guns.

Red states are also banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in education. Florida’s Board of Education recently prohibited public colleges from using state and federal funds for DEI. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a law to require that all state-funded colleges and universities close their DEI offices.

Red states are suppressing votes. In Florida and Texas, teams of “ election police ” have been created to crack down on the rare crime of voter fraud, another fallout from Trump’s big lie.

They’re banning the teaching of America’s history of racism. They’re requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that reflect their sex at birth.

They’re making it harder to protest. More difficult to qualify for unemployment benefits and other forms of public assistance. Harder than ever to form labor unions.

They’re even passing “ bounty” laws — enforced not by governments but by rewards to private citizens for filing lawsuits — on issues ranging from classroom speech to abortion to vaccination.

Blue states are moving in the opposite direction. Several, including Colorado and Vermont , are codifying a right to abortion. Some are helping cover abortion expenses for out-of-staters.

When Idaho proposed a ban on abortion that empowers relatives to sue anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of patients from other states.

Maryland and Washington have expanded access and legal protections to out-of-state abortion patients. California has expanded access to abortion and protected abortion providers from out-of-state legal action.

After the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children, California enacted a law making the state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.

Blue states are also coordinating more of their policies. During the pandemic, blue states joined together on policies that red states rejected — such as purchasing agreements for personal protective equipment, strategies for reopening businesses as Covid subsided, even on travel from other states with high levels of Covid.

But as blue and red states separate, what will happen to the poor in red states, disproportionately people of color?

“States’ rights” has always been a cover for racial discrimination and segregation. The poor — both white and people of color — are already especially burdened by anti-abortion legislation because they can’t afford travel to a blue state to get an abortion.

They’re also hurt by the failure of red states to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, by red state de facto segregation in public schools, and by red state measures to suppress votes.

One answer is for Democratic administrations and congresses in Washington to prioritize the needs of the red state poor and make extra efforts to protect the civil and political rights of people of color in red states. Yet the failure of the Senate to muster enough votes to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, let alone revive the Voting Rights Act, suggests how difficult this will be.

Blue states could spend additional resources on the needs of red state residents, such as Oregon is now doing for people from outside Oregon who seek abortions. And prohibit state funds from being spent in any state that bans abortions or discriminates on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender.

California already bars anyone on a state payroll (including yours truly, who teaches at Berkeley) from getting reimbursed for travel to states that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.

Where will all this end?

If Trump is elected this November, the separation will become even sharper. When he was president last time, Trump acted as if he was president only of the people who vote for him — overwhelmingly from red states — and not as the president of all of America.

Recall that during his presidency, he supported legislation that hurt voters in blue states — such as his tax law that stopped deductions of state and local taxes from federal income taxes.

More than 4 in 10 voters believe that a second civil war is likely within the next five years, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted April 21-23.

Red zip codes are getting redder and blue zip codes, bluer. Of the nation’s total 3,143 counties, the number of super landslide counties — where a presidential candidate won at least 80 percent of the vote — jumped from 6 percent in 2004 to 22 percent in 2020 .

Surveys show Americans find it increasingly important to live around people who share their political values . Animosity toward those in the opposing party is higher than at any time in living memory. Forty-two percent of registered voters believe Americans in the other party are “downright evil.”

Almost 40 percent would be upset at the prospect of their child marrying someone from the opposite party. Even before the 2020 election, when asked if violence would be justified if the other party won the election, 18.3 percent of Democrats and 13.8 percent of Republicans responded in the affirmative.

We are becoming two Americas — one largely urban, racially and ethnically diverse, and young. The other, largely rural or exurban, white and older.

But rather than civil war, I see a gradual, continuous separation — analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce.

America will still be America. But it is fast becoming two versions of America. The open question is the same as faced by couples who separate: Will the two remain civil toward each other?

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/ .

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