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The slave system. The Civil war and the period of Reconstruction.

Negro slavery had been introduced into the American colonies in 1619 when the Dutch ship brought its cargo of human chattels to Virginia. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as the plantation system came to be an integral part of the Southern economy, slavery as the source of plantation labour seemed more and more identified with the South's economic well-being. There were numbers of Americans, however, who didn't support the slave-holders' rationalizations. Many of them joined the numerous Northern societies dedicated (ïðåäàííûå) to the abolition (àííóëèðîâàíèå, îòìåíà) of slavery. Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 was followed by secession the formation of a Southern Confederacy, and ultimately by Civil War. Six weeks after Lincoln's inauguration Southern bat­teries fired on Fort Summer, and the war came. During the bitter years of sectional conflicts that proceeded secession and war, Southern agrarians had stead­fastly opposed Northern industrialists. On April 9, 1865, in the town of Appomattox1, Court House in Virginia, Robert E. Lee surrendered his armies — and the South­ern policy — to general Ulysses S. Grant. The war was over; the union was preserved. On April 14, 1865, when A. Lincoln was struck down by an assassin's bullet, radical republicans exclaimed that it was "God's will". The Ku Klux Klan and other instruments designed by the Southern whites to terrorize Negroes expressed far more than a simple reaction to political corruption. In adopting their violently oppressive tactics Southern whites were indicating their basic hostility to any free and equal participation in the political progress by the Negroes whom they so recently, and so unwillingly, emancipated.

The Civil War in the USA (1861- 1865) Tension between anti-slavery and pro-slavery, North and South, party lines grew and threatened the Union. The Republican Party in 1860 was a northern rather than a mere anti-slavery party. Abraham Lincoln was nomi­nated as the only candidate. In December, 1860, as Lincoln's election was certain, South Carolina formally seceded from the Union and declared herself an independent nation. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas followed her lead in January, 1861. On February 8, a congress of their delegates for­med the Confederate States of America, with a constitution dif­fering from that of the United States in stressing states' rights and making slavery the corner-stone. The next day Jefferson Davis was chosen president of the Confederacy. On March 4, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated presi­dent of the United States.

In early April, 1861, the Civil War began. There were two necessary roads to victory: constricting the South by blockade, and defeating the Southern armies. Until the end of 1862, Lincoln shared the belief of his people that the capture of Richmond, the Confederate capital, would end the war. In April, 1862, the Northern army began to move on Richmond by the Yorktown Peninsula. Napoleon III was urging the British cabinet to join intervention. Euro­pean liberals and the British working men stood stoutly for the abolition of slavery.



The opposition of the North and the South did not come about overnight. In the north, the abolitionist sentiment grew more and more powerful as new territories were acquired, and they were thought of only in the context of slave-free organization. It was important at that stage because those territories were not yet organized into states. By 1850, slavery in the South was well over 200 years old, and had become an integral part of the basic economy of the region. In 15 southern and border states, the black population was approximately half as large as the white, while in the north it was an insignificant fraction. The owner enjoyed a monopoly on force and violence. The master wielded virtually absolute authority on his plantation. The courts did not recognize the word of slaves. American slaves hated their oppres­sors (óãíåòàòåëü), and contrary to some whites' perception, they were not grateful to their oppressors. The overwhelming practice was one of antagonism and resistance.

The Union in Crisis. The 1850s President Lincoln was unalterably opposed to the extension of slavery to the other territories though he readily acknowledged its rights to exist in the southern states. As the Americans were moving westward the prospect of slaves in the territories broadened, the moral dispute over slavery moved to matters of basic American liberties. The planters also wanted to reopen the African slave trade and to acquire territory in the Caribbean. Fear of the sinister Slave Power transformed the abolitionist impulse into a broader and more influential antislavery movement. In the election of 1860 the Democratic Party split in half. Political leaders in the North and in the South tragically misjudged each other. Lincoln and other prominent Republicans believed that southerners were bluffing when they threatened secession; they expected a pie-Union majority in the society to assert itself. On their side, Southern leaders had become convinced that northerners were not taking them seriously, and that a posture of strength was necessary to win respect for their position. Meanwhile, the Union was being destroyed. On December 20, 1860 South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession3 amid jubilation and cheering. After that they quickly called conventions and passed secession ordinances in six other states: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. By February 1861, these states had joined with South Carolina to form a new government: the Confederate States of America. Choosing Jefferson Davis as their president, they began to function inde­pendently of the United States.

The South and the North in the War Lincoln's call for troops to put down the Confederate insurrection stimulated an outpouring of loyalty that unified the classes. And in the South a half-million men volunteered to fight; there were so many would-be soldiers that the government could not arm them all. As 1861 faded into 1862 the North undertook a massive buildup of troops in northern Virginia following a few military failures. The North also moved to blockade southern ports in order to choke off the Confederacy's avenues of commerce and supply.

Both soldiers and civilians were beginning to recognize the enormous costs of this war. As the spring of 1862 approached, southern officials, worried about the strength of their armies, instituted a draft. It was the first conscription law in American history.

As the war developed the southern armies moved into heavier fighting. Most of the combat centered in Virginia. Meanwhile the southern economy was developing along new lines. A large bureaucracy sprang up to administer the military and economic operations. Over 70,000 civilians were needed to run the Confederate war machine. The mushrooming bureaucracy expanded the cities. New housing construction was stimulated. The traditionally agricultural South was also developing its industries in order to supply the army. Mass poverty descended on the South. Inflation became a major problem as prices rose by almost 7,000%

People saw that the wealthy curtailed only their luxuries, while many poor families went without necessities. They saw that the government favored the upper class. Until last year of the war, for example, prosperous southerners could avoid military service by furnishing a hired substitute. Anger at such discrimination exploded when in October 1862 the Confederate Congress exempted from military duty anyone who was supervising at least 20 slaves. The so-called "twenty nigger law" became notorious. Immediately, pro­tests arose from every corner of the Confederacy. Dissention (ðàñêîë) spread as growing numbers of citizens concluded that the struggle was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight".

Meanwhile war production promoted the development of heavy industry and business in the North. At the highest level of government there was lack of clarity about the purpose of the war. Through the first several months of struggle Davis and Lincoln studiously avoided references to slavery, the crux of the matter. Not wishing to antagonize non-slaveholders, Davis told southerners that they were fighting for constitutional liberty. Lincoln, hoping that a pro-Union majority would assert itself in the South, recognized that mention of slavery would end any chance of coaxing the states which had seceded, back into the Union. Moreover, many Republicans were not vitally interested in the slavery issue. An early presidential stand making the abolition of slavery and not the preservation of the Union the war's objective would have split the party.

In August 1861 Congress passed its first confiscation act. The law confiscated all property used for ''insurrectionary purposes". A second confiscation act — July 1862 — was much more drastic; it confiscated the property of all those who supported the rebellion, even those who merely resided in the South and paid Confederate taxes. Their slaves were "forever free of their servitude, and not again to be held as slaves". Lincoln took a stronger stand on slavery in 1864. He proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution for "abolishing and prohibiting slavery forever" which went to the States for ratification. In 1865 Lincoln was re-elected and considered allowing the defeated southern states to re-enter the Union. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation stimulated a vital infusion of manpower into the Union armies. Beginning in 1863, blacks shouldered arms for freedom and the Union. Their participation was crucial to the Northern victory. After many victories and defeats on both sides the end finally came in April 1865. Lincoln did not live to see the last victory. On the evening of April 14, he went to Ford's theatre in Washington, where an assassin named John Booth shot him at point-blank range. Lincoln died the next day. The Union lost its wartime leader. The costs of the Civil War were enormous. Yet one crucial question remained unanswered: what was the place of black men and women in American life? They awaited an answer which would have to be found during Reconstruction. Two important amendments were passed: the 14th — 1868 and the 15th — 1870 which guaranteed basic rights to freed men.

Reconstruction. 1865—1877 Reconstruction of the Union held many promises. Black men and women in the South could move to their new home in Florida. Black refugees (áåæåíöû) quickly poured into these lands. By 1865, 40,000 freedmen were living in their new home. But the opposition to the Reconstruction in the South steadily grew. In 1869 Ku-Klux-Klan added organized violence to the whites resistance. Despite federal efforts to protect them, black people were intimidated at the polls, robbed of their earnings, beaten, or murdered. By the early 1870s the failure of the Reconstruction was apparent. The Military Reconstruc­tion Act of 1867 called for new governments in the South; it barred from political office those Confederate leaders who were listed in the Fourteenth Amendment. But the law required no redistribution of land and guaranteed no basic changes in southern social standards.

Terrorism against blacks was widening. Nighttime visits, whippings, beatings, and murder became common. In time, however, the Klan's purpose became not only economic (to keep the slaves) but also openly political and social. Klansmen also attacked white Republicans and school teachers who were aiding the freedmen. No one who helped to raise the status of the blacks was safe. Then in 1871 the actions of Ku-Klux-Klan moved Congress to pass two acts directed against the K.K.K’ violence. These acts permitted the use of martial law, but they were unsuccessful in combatting the Klan's activities.

The Klan's tenor frightened many voters and weakened local party organization, but it did not stop Reconstruction. Throughout the South conventions met and drafted new constitutions. New governments were set up, and Republicans won majorities nearly everywhere. But they failed to break down the social structure or the distribution of wealth and of power. Freedmen were exploited during the Reconstruction as well. Without land of their own, they were dependent on white landowners. Then the retreat from Reconstruction began. The rights of black citizens were insecure (íåíàäåæíûå). Under the new interpretation of the 15th Amendment blacks were actually denied suffrage (ïðàâî ãîëîñà) on the grounds that they lacked education, property or a grandfather who had been qualified to vote before the Reconstruction Act. In 1872 an Amnesty Act was adopted which pardoned the rebels. After 1877 thousands of blacks gathered up their possessions and migrated to Kansas. They were disappointed people who were searching for their share in the American dream.

Thus the nation ended over 15 years of bloody civil war without establishing full freedom for black Americans.

The Democratic Party — organized during the electoral campaigns in 1828 and got it's contemporary name in the 30's of the 19th century. The symbol of the party is the donkey.

Republicans — stands for members of the Republican Party. The party was established in 1854 as a union of big capitalists of the North with the farmers who lived outside the Southern States and average bourgeois of small towns.

An ordinance of secession — (secession of Southern States from the Union) a treaty or enactment of statutory principal of withdrawal from a political organization or alliance. As exemplified by the Southern States which broke away from the United States in 1861, causing the great Civil War.

Jefferson Davis (1808—1889) — President of the Confederation of the Southern slavery states (the Confederacy)

The Confederate Congress (1861—1865) — formed by the original six states which seceded from the Union (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Louisiana), which elected Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander Stevens as Vice President. The Congress later added the states of Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina. The capital was Richmond, Va. The congress acted in similar fashion to that of the United States in its legislative and judicial bodies.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin". It was a book that spoke out against slavery. At the time she wrote her novel there were over 3.5 million slaves in the US. Stowe was determined to make people understand that slavery was evil. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published in 1852. Over 300,000 copies were sold in a year. Uncle Sam symbolizes the US government He is a tall, thin man with white hair and a white beard. He wears a tall hat, a bow tie, and the stars and stripes of the American flag. During the War of 1812, the US government hired meat packers to provide meat to the army. One of these meat packers was Samuel Wilson. He stamped the boxes of meat for the army with a large "U.S. " for the U S. A government inspector came to look over Sam's company. He asked a worker what the U.S. on the boxes stood for. As a joke, the worker answered that these letters stood for the name of his boss, Uncle Sam. The joke spread, and soldiers began saying that their food came from Uncle Sam. Before long, people called all things that came from the government "Uncle Sams". "Uncle Sam" became a nickname for the U.S. government.


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 3309


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