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aegilman · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 17

Please read the first two "sections" in ch 4 and post thoughtfully on our forum.

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aegilman · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 17

Why were the secession states unwilling to return to the union? Considering that Lincoln said that he "has no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists."

The book states that the Confederacy "claimed to fight for states' rights to independence" but in my opinion the states held a fair amount of power and the federal government didn't interfere too much with their "sovereignty" as a state. That could be the reason but I feel like there must be more answers to this question.

Also, I'm interested to hear about the Confederate soliders b/c the book doesn't mention them much. The Confederate Army must comprise of mostly working class whites but what sort of jobs did working class whites have in the South? Also, if there job isn't somehow dependent on slavery, what is there incentive to fight for the Confederacy. Of course there is the fear of freedpeople competing for their same jobs but are there any other motives?

An interesting happening in the reading was how the purpose of the Union in fighting the Civil War was originally to "Save the Union," and it only shifted b/c Lincoln/The Republicans realized the only path to victory was by taking the main source of profit from the South, slavery. Only then did the Union decide to shift there purpose to emancipation. Here is my final question:

Do you think if the North was able to win the war without the help of slaves, would it have still abolished slavery?

wquinn · Joined: 24 Nov 2009 Posts: 15 Location: undisclosed, MA.

I took an entire class on this last mod, so i'll try to answer some of alex's questions:

The secessionist states wouldn't return to the union because the Republican's had the presidency and had power over them... Sure, Lincoln said he "has no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists."... But the debate over slavery centered around the places where it didn't exist: whether new states admitted would be slave states or free states. As the southerners put it, "Slavery must expand or die." If there were more free states then slave states, slave-owners would lose power in the government and eventually the economy would collapse because of soil exhaustion. if i were a democrat, i wouldn't believe Lincoln for a second.

Confederate working class fought for the south because they loved the south! They felt attached to their state much more then the federal government. You say the federal government didn't oppose their state sovereignty... well, i think it at least was trying to!

Honestly, this reading villianizes the south all too much. Notice how it said "South Carolina answered Lincoln by bombarding the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston's Harbor". any civil war buff could tell you that the union provoked that attack so that they could say that they "didn't start it". what i mean is, they put the south in a situation where they would have to either attack or let the north win. they didn't negotiate with the secessionists before that. In my opinion, the North declared war.

And to answer you're last question, here's Lincoln saying: "If I could win the war by freeing all the slaves, I will do it, if I could win the war and not free a single slave, I would do that too." ... so no. i don't think they would have abolished slavery. at least not for a while longer.

jcho · Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 22

I will also try to answer Alex's question, since I talked about this during US Civil War class like a year ago. What Will said pretty much sums up everything that was covered in Civil War class. The secessionist states feared the potential the Republican's held with the president indirectly pushing their backs. As soon as Lincoln was elected, the secessionist states knew that the balance of power was tipped. Their way of life was under threat. The quote "Slavery must expand or die" explains the desperate situation the southern plantation owners were in. With the new states debating whether to be free or slave states, and with the hint towards the loss of power of the southern states, the south had no choice but to secede. The reason for why many text puts a bad image towards the south, as mentioned in Will's post, is partially because the winners write the history books; as well as the fact that (as mentioned in class how we weren't taught much about slavery during our elementary education) the United States try to avoid teaching of their mistakes.

canderson · Joined: 07 Apr 2010 Posts: 23

I think Will and Alex raise an interesting point in regards to the character of the south; how much do we really know about the South at this time? I think the majority of sources I've read in grade school and here paint a picture of wealthy plantation owners who own hundreds of slaves. Obviously, this is only a fraction of a vaster social system, but I realize I know next to nothing about that system. The poor whites who did most of the fighting in the Civil War for the Confederates: were any of them servants or laborers? It must have been very hard to get a job in the South, with so much free labor around you. Also, did any of them sympathize with the slaves? We seem to picture (or I know I do) the abolitionists as being Northerners, and some of them were, but wasn't the Underground Railroad also run by Southern whites? And the cross-racial cooperation exhibited by the union members up North at various times seems to indicate that poor people of all backgrounds can find similar ground... I wonder whether the foot-soldiers who fought the Union were just fighting for their states, or for slavery? What did they have to gain from the rich profiting from competing labor?

rzayas · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 14

Did Martha mean the first two sections in ch. 5? cos we defidently read ch 4 last night....

jpark · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 17

i think martha is telling us to read pg85 to pg92

we did read ch4 last night but we didnt read the first two sections of the chapter..

so our homework for tonight is to read the first section, "The Civil War" and the second section, "Harriet Tubman"!!!!!!!! Cool

LeoSampaio · Joined: 10 May 2010 Posts: 8

No she meant the part in chapter 4 we skipped. we started from page 90 something last night, and now she wants us to read the beginning we didn't read.

rzayas · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 14

haha okay thanks guys

lilycp · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 20

One of the things that most interested me in this reading was the notion of not taking pay as a form of retaliation. “In protest, many black soldiers refused to take any pay at all”(89). I'm just wondering how that would help them at all. To me it would seem that the union army would be delighted for this to happen since it would supply them a bunch of free soldiers. in pervious retaliations the workers strike and try to hurt the organization they're working for. granted something they did worked as the government granted them equal pay eventually, but still it seems counter intuitive.

I was also wondering about the contradicting stories between the newspaper article’s take on Harriet Tubman’s military acts and her own version. It struck me a funny that recognition of her involvement would trump that of a colonel in a mainstream newspaper. what doth thou think?

asilver · Joined: 20 Nov 2009 Posts: 28

I am tottaly surprised at how lightly every one took the war when it first started. Half of the country susseaded and i feal like people didnt think that much of it. For intance during the first scirmish Abe just asked for a few volentears. and then people cameto watch the battle. I also found the norths ideological progression of slavory realy intresting. It seems to me that the emancipation proc was made origanly for the sole porpose of winning the war, but then eventuly it becaume part of an abolishinist movement.
do you think the south had a chance of winning without the the emancipation proclamation?

rzayas · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 14

In response to Alec's question; I think the south had a good shot at winning the war and the North took note. It seems that the North changed their reason to fight, in order to benefit themselves in the war; so they changed from a war on secession to a war on slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation benefited the North tremendously; "About 186,000 black men entered the US armed forces; they made up nearly 35% of all troops... Of the Black troops about 134,000 (72 percent) had been slaves when the war began." (p.8 Cool

So it seems that the 134,000 black troops that fought in the war probably wouldn't have fought without the Emancipation Proclamation. And without the African American’s fighting for their freedom alongside the white troops, the fight would have failed in the North. So in regards to the question the South could have easily won the war if the blacks were not involved in the fight.

The war on slavery, kind of goes hand in hand with the war on equality. So why weren't African American troops and White troops being paid equally? The whole idea seems completely contradicting.

eraskin · Joined: 11 May 2010 Posts: 15

Lilly mentioned that it seemed counterproductive to not accept the salary of joining the army because it was almost nothing, and so why would they not accept it, why not truly strike it (not join) or get the money. I thought that was actually a noble thing to do. I think it’s pretty clear why they didn’t strike/not join the army, because if they hadn’t, the North wouldn’t have won and the 13th amendment wouldn’t have happened, but it draws attention to their…humanity. They where making a statement to the North that almost put them above the idea of a salary, they where fighting for the cause but that was it. They didn’t even want their money. They just wanted their rights.
Pretty cool. Although mighty bold.
I have a vague memory of reading that the southern plantation owners tried to force their slaves into fighting for the confederates? Am I making that up?

Maxwell A · Joined: 10 May 2010 Posts: 19

Everyone talked about how the civil war changed attitudes about slavery in the North. As the war progressed, the North became more antislavery than in the past. The emancipation proclamation was in part a tactic in the war, when the war was going badly for the union.

Lincoln himself was not as progressive towards blacks as history has portrayed him. He was a political pragmatist who thought that slavery would eventually die out on its own. He had biased attitudes towards blacks himself which some abolitionists criticized.

The reading talked about class differences in the south between poor white farmers and large plantation owners. Class did not really divide the Conferancy as a distinct culture held them together.

My question is what is the legacy of slavery on the lack of the labor movement in the south that continues to the day.

jpark · Joined: 07 May 2010 Posts: 17

In the above, people discussed about how black soldiers were paid less and had harsher conditions than whites. And how blacks were trying to protest by refusing to take any money… I think they themselves knew more than anyone that something had to be done. If they did not show their opinions and take actions, it would be the same thing as just accepting and agreeing to the unfair conditions of the service. And going back to the beginning of the book where it talks about slavery and plantation owner/master, we can see that slaves protested and fought back to gain their rights. I guess Nat Turner can be a good example of this… he and his companions rebelled and used their power to kill whites.
Anyways, because they had their point crossed, later on, they are able to get step closer to gain better opportunity. In the novel, it says “congress finally granted retroactive equal pay to free black recruits…(90). It makes me wonder how a group of people can really make a difference.

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