Tag: civil war

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History

The 1828 Tariff Had No Effect on the Civil War

hand holding tariff sign

This is another item that was just not discussed in history class. Indeed, it was barely mentioned.

This tariff was different from previous tariffs because it lacked a common goal, such as paying off war debt. It was also unevenly applied.

The massive tariffs against importation of manufacturing goods and raw materials was blatantly for the protection of New England manufacturing at the expense of the south and, to a lesser extent, the Northwest Territory and its derivative states. Remember, a “union” exists for the common good. That means that at this point in time, the Union was already broken.This tariff’s use as a weapon to transfer southern wealth to the north caused its nickname The Tariff of Abominations.

Also, southern historians date the beginning of the Civil War from this twisting of the use of tariffs. This was the lighting of the fuse, as the tariffs of the colonies lit the fuse of the American Revolution. Like the colonies, the southern states tried to work out a peaceful solution for years, but finally the break came.

 

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History

Immigration of the 1840s and 1850s had Little Effect on the Civil War

19th Century Immigrant Sketch

This lie was perpetrated by omission of information. I was told that immigrants were extremely important to fill soldier ranks during the war. Nothing else was said.

Immigration law in effect in the antebellum and Civil War periods was based on the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the Naturalization Act of 1795. The first limited citizenship to “free white persons of good character.” This excluded Native Americans, indentured white servants, Asians, and blacks. The second required renunciation of allegiance to any other monarch or state.

States, not the federal government, could place restrictions on entry through their ports, but these were concerned with whether the immigrant could support himself and how to track him for taxation purposes.

Swedish immigrants came for religious freedom, if they were not Lutheran, and/or for opportunity in general. They came from an homogenous culture that celebrated community spirit and sharing. The rich were expected to share with the less fortunate, but everyone was expected to work, if able. Also, families were responsible for the well-being of their members.

Because Swedes did not differentiate between the culture of their homogenous homeland and the American culture serving a diverse population, Swedes were susceptible to socialism instead of capitalism.

No Swede had seen a black person. However, they were anti-slavery by principle and would make good Union soldiers, often in an ethnic militia in which Swedish was spoken instead of English.

Germans also came in large numbers for opportunity and/or religious reasons. They were found on both sides of the Civil War, depending on which state they lived in. Some even went to Texas. Germans in the south often owned slaves. Like their American neighbors, they considered slaves legal property and fought for the Confederates.

Germans in the north did not have an easy time, though, because the same extremists who were shouting for abolition of slavery and women’s rights had also extended temperance to eradication of alcoholic beverages and stretched hard liquor such as rum and whiskey to include beer. Now, beer was not only part of the German national heritage, it was also part of their religion because they believed that God himself had given them beer for the enjoyment of life. Thus, northern state Germans were ambivalent about serving the Union cause.

Germans formed another group of ethnic militias speaking their own language, but they were on both sides of the Civil War.

Closer to the Civil War, the massive Irish immigration fled the potato famine. They were easy marks to fill recruitment quotas. How amazing to step off the boat and be offered a job with good pay!

They did not come with racial bias, but soon absorbed the northern attitude and became extremely biased against all blacks. (Yes, I have three sources.) Perhaps some of it was because it was nice to feel that someone had lower class standing than the Irish!

A group of extremely dangerous radicals entered the country in the 1850s. Monarchies in Central Europe were fighting to regain control and even to protect their lives. The monarchs won.

The radicals, including Communists, were evicted or sensibly left on their own.  Some of these people came to the United States. Most of them were from Germanic states and took part in the violent uprising of 1848. The Civil War would give them the opportunity for violence.

But the states, concerned exclusively with finances, did not screen for a history of violence. Obviously, they could not reject people based on personal beliefs. So some radicals slipped in.

The radicals identified with the United States in fighting against slavery, which they saw as a freedom issue similar to what they fought for in Europe. Some outright Communists were not only Union soldiers, but officers.

The three best known Communist officers were August Willich of Prussian nobility who became brigadier general over all (German?) Indiana troops; Joseph Wademeyer (close collaborator with Karl Marx and spokesman for Marxism in the U.S.), colonel of the 41st Missouri regiment; and Fritz Anneke, who commanded the Second Wisconsin Battery of Light Artillery.

These men heavily influenced the U.S. army by providing Prussian discipline and by organizing pro-Union militias in heavily German states such as Missouri, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Along the way, they spread the Marxist message. It was often unnoticed because they were speaking German.

When Lincoln was elected the second time, Karl Marx sent him a letter of congratulations and commended him for fighting for the oppressed slaves. It is not known if Lincoln actually read the letter.

 

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History

Southern States Were Poorer Than Northern States before the Civil War

coins stacked

This is another lie that was implied rather than told: the southern states were considerably poorer than northern states with the exception of plantation owners.

This is an extremely skewed statement.

First, “wealth” must be defined in the terms of pre-Civil War years, not by today’s standards. That’s a basic historical rule.

Slaves were legally defined as a kind of property and therefore valuable and easily turned into cash. Both north and south had slaves. The Northwest Territory states were created slave-free and there were several northern states in the process of emancipation with each state determining its own path. Overall, however, there was greater wealth due to slaves in the south, centered in the plantations.

Farming, in general, was more efficient in the south, despite that after initial outlay, farming machinery was more efficient than slaves, because slaves required continued expenditure until dead or sold—unlike factory workers of the north. Machines didn’t. Also, slaves, like horses used in most farming, reproduced and contributed to further wealth.

Manufacturing wealth was decidedly in the north’s favor. There was some manufacturing in the south, but not nearly to the extent of the north. However, the northern manufacturing was often not self-sufficient. The buyers were limited because Europe had its own Industrial Revolution and the southern states were interested but not frequent buyers of manufacturing.

States with more plantations were more self-sufficient. Beside the cash crops of tobacco and cotton, plantations grew their own food and livestock feed. Extra food and feed were sold to local people. This meant that the general public was eating more healthily than in the northern cities, where there were shortages of fresh, healthy foods.

Considering all of this, the average per capita income of the southern states was double that of northern states.

Another source of wealth that I have not seen in the data was the first gold rush. It was in Virginia! Although discovered earlier, commercial extraction of gold began in 1804 at a rate of $500,000 per year! That is not usually figured into the per capita income.

Please recall that before the Civil War, the United States followed the constitution, which included that “state” meant a separate political entity. That’s still the dictionary definition. I looked.

Therefore, all of the gold belonged not to the United States, but to the state of Virginia.

No, the southern states were not poor. They were comparatively wealthy. And avarice bloomed in the northern states. They wanted that wealth!

According to southern historians, that greed was the root cause of the Civil War.

Follow the money!

 

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History

The USA Had Never Supported Secession before the Civil War

 

USA Flag Ripped In Half

Actually, every educated person at the time of the Civil War understood that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution supported secession. Since a union is built on voluntary cooperation for the pursuit of common goals, a member can also leave (secede) from the group if its needs are not being met, if it feels manipulated, if terms of the contract have been broken by the other party, or if the contract no longer serves the needs of the seceding member.

Texas declared the right to secede from Mexico because the contract between them had been broken by Mexico. Independence was declared on March 2, 1836. People in the United States approved. Texas must have felt confused when seceding from the United States during the Civil War for the same reason was harshly denounced!

Oh, well, but that was seceding from Mexico. Did anyone secede from the United States before the Civil War? No, but some New England states threatened to secede in 1803 and 1814.

And then there was secession within a state. During the Civil War, New York City seriously considered seceding from the United States to establish a separate State from New York. It would then declare neutrality and trade with both the USA and CSA!

Also, the United States didn’t object to West Virginia seceding from Virginia during the Civil War because that was to the advantage of the U.S.A. In fact, it was planned by the Lincoln administration.

When I was a child, we said the Pledge of Allegiance daily. Remember the word “indivisible?” Have you ever thought about that?

 

 

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History

The South Wasn’t Serious about Emancipating Their Slaves

 

Combine: developed from the McCormick Reaper
Combine: developed from the McCormick Reaper

This was a point of view that was represented without data.

Here are the facts:

  1. The South had led early emancipation efforts, especially in Virginia.
  2. The South’s money crops were cotton and tobacco.
  3. Crop rotation was known and practiced at least to a limited extent because plantations were self-sufficient, growing food for people and livestock.
  4. The cotton gin made slaves’s lives easier, and fewer were required.
  5. Now, in 1831, the first practical reaper was invented by Cyrus McCormick, who was born in Virginia. This cut time and slave effort for standing crops, such as wheat.
  6. Few people owned slaves.
  7. The South was markedly less racist than the north, as noted by many travelers, both foreign and domestic, throughout the years.

Against the facts were these issues:

  1. Although the South was less racist, it was difficult for free blacks to make a living. This had to do with paying blacks less for equal work and certain work not being available to blacks—just as in the North. Southerners felt responsible for the slaves and knew that they lacked the understanding of the enormity of the task of complete self-care. They needed to be taught these things and to be allowed to increase self-care gradually—as was being done by Northern states even into the Civil War.
  2. The plantations, where almost all slaves lived, looked rich, but the wealth was not in cash: it was in land, livestock, and slaves. Many struggled with cash flow, even taking severe economies when not extending hospitality (when it didn’t show). The plantations would not continue to exist with simultaneous loss of slave wealth plus wages required for replacing them—even with the former slaves. In that case, everyone was out of a job. Where would they go to make a living?

The answer, of course, was mechanization. But this was a slow evolution.

  1. The planter had to find money to buy a cotton gin—impossible on plantations that were already mortgaged.
  2. The workforce had to be carefully reduced. The slaves knew the hard times of free blacks. Many, especially house slaves, prided themselves on the plantation to which they belonged. So, after eliminating some positions with the cotton gin (unless the owner bought more land), it would be field hands who were sold. The positions could also be eliminated by the natural attrition of deaths.
  3. The reaper would vacate fewer positions because those crops were grown on fewer acres, but there would be some sales.
  4. But the final emancipations would need to be slaves who paid for their own freedom but chose to stay as paid employees.

That was the only way the plantations would survive. The South was willing, but it wanted to do it its own way and in its own timing—just as Northern states were doing.

All the South wanted was the state independence already allowed to the North.

 

 

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History

Darwin Had Nothing to Do with the Civil War

evolution illustration

Darwin sailed on the Beagle in 1831. He subsequently would organize his findings into the Evolutionary Theory in 1838. Publication of The Origin of Species in 1858 was immediately sold out, indicating that there was enormous interest and discussion around it. Plus, it was condemned by the Christian church, both Protestant and Catholic.

The vaunted (and overstated) closeness between man and ape in Darwin’s theory was immediately used to “prove” the “scientific basis” for slavery.

It was argued that because everything—including humans—continued to evolve, it was logical that the three races (oriental, occidental, and negroid) occupied different points on the evolutionary journey.

It was further argued that by simple observation, it was obvious that the order of evolution was occidental (white) as the most evolved, then the oriental race. The negroid race was clearly the least developed and in need of direction and supervision until it was ready to “join the human race.”

Realize that this was the belief of the great majority of Americans, north and south. The blacks were not yet quite human. They were closer to apes than to white people.

Thus, science was added to the Bible, whose note that “Ham shall serve his brothers” was interpreted as a command instead of a statement of fact, to build a case for slavery of the black population.

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History

The Civil War Began at Fort Sumter

Trade: Deal / War

This is one of many lies by omission. True historians admit that there are many candidates for the title, depending on what is meant by “began the Civil War.”

Here are the biggest three: Northerners often blamed it on the secession of South Carolina, arguing that without the secession, the re-supply of Fort Sumter would not have been an issue.

The Lincoln Administration pushed the CSA firing on Fort Sumter as the beginning of the war.

But the South has a longer memory. It point to the beginning of abuse of the Constitution by what it called the Treaty of Abominations.

Realize that in 1828, the south controlled the majority of imports and exports because they grew crops valued by the world: tobacco and, first and foremost, cotton. The north struggled with imports and exports, especially after the law against the slave trade. Their lands were not optimal for growing those prize crops.

Another factor is the enormous influence of New Englanders with their wealth and their connections socially, industrially, and politically.

So what’s in the 1828 Treaty of Abominations, and why did it upset southerners?

It’s actually called the Treaty of 1828. It was the South that called it the Treaty of Abominations. The new country had imposed tariffs previously to pay down the national debt of the Revolutionary War. But there were three important differences in this treaty:

1. There was no stated common purpose for the tariff.

2. The amount of this tariff went as high as 50% to protect New England’s industries.

3. The tariff did not benefit all of the states. The federal government represented all of the states. Its policies should have been good for all. But this treaty was good for the New England and Mid-Atlantic states at the expense of the Southern economy.

The South had direct economic ties to Great Britain. Tobacco and cotton were extremely popular products. However, as the prices went up with the Tariff of 1828, demand dropped.

Also, the south was trying to increase mechanization. Machines were bought from Britain because New England could not compete in free trade. It was easier for the South to trade tobacco and cotton directly with Britain for machinery and other manufactured goods.

With the tariff, the prices were so high that the South could not purchase the machines it needed, extending the need for slave labor as an economic necessity beyond expectations.

The result of the Treaty of 1828 was an explosion across the South. Although the percentages of the tariffs were lowered in the next tariff act, one following it reintroduced high rates.

Results included South Carolina’s first stab at secession. (She was not the first to do so. Massachusetts and other states had also explored this option for various reasons. No one had been upset about those threats.)

The doctrine of Nullification, propounded by Vice President Calhoun, lit the explosion. The Nullification Doctrine stated that if the federal government could annul state laws that infringed on constitutionally named responsibilities, then states could nullify federal laws that applied to areas not ceded to the federal government by the Constitution.

South Carolina nullified the 1828 treaty and the following one. In 1833, the treaty with lowered tariff rates was passed and also the Force Act empowering the President to collect tariffs by force, if necessary. South Carolina removed the nullification acts on the earlier treaties, since the new rates were now acceptable, then nullified the Force Act.

There is a theory that all wars begin with money, or in a wider sense wealth including land. In the Southern point of view, this was true of the Civil War.

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History

European Revolutions Did Not Affect the Civil War

flyer and ribbon

This is another case of important information that was ignored during my schooling.

Revolutions and calls for independence flamed all across Western Europe. Activists looked at the United States for inspiration, although all they saw was the downtrodden rising. There was a great deal more to the United States’ revolution.

Anyway, war was constant in Europe between 1830 and 1860. For the most part, monarchies retained their rule. Revolutionaries who escaped with their lives were expelled from the kingdoms or decided that it was a wiser to emigrate. They traveled to many places, but a good number of them came to the United States. They brought their ideas of revolution, which were not the same as ours. They also tended to be extremely violent people.

There was no immigration screening as yet and no borders, so they slipped in easily and made lives for themselves. Once settled, they pursued activist causes, which is fine, except they tended to prefer violent courses, believing that only violence could bring the end they wanted.

When the civil war came, many immigrants, including the revolutionaries, joined the army of the United States. There were entire companies of revolutionaries. They, like non-revolutionary immigrants, spoke their native language in the company. There were dozens of officers that were German Marxists. (I have seen two sources that listed the officers’ names, but I have not independently corroborated this yet.)

Some joined, believing they were saving the great republic they admired. Some were tricked into serving, being offered a “job” with housing and a paycheck as soon as they were off the boat from Europe, and some were paid replacements for the Union wealthy who supported the war, but refused to serve in the army.

Although I have not yet found corroborating evidence, I can see these men feeling at home with Sherman, Sheridan, and Butler the Butcher.

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History

The National Road Impacted Business and Settlement

wagon b&w illustration

However, when the National Road reached Indiana in 1829, its impact on that state was enormous culturally.

You see, there was a Black Swamp between northern and central Indiana and Ohio. It was called the Black Swamp because it was so thick that light could not penetrate the canopy of trees. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It also emitted swamp gas that made it dangerous to travel with a flame to light your way.

The result of this swamp was that Ohio residents coming to Indiana had to go north to Lake Michigan or south to the Ohio River to travel easily into Indiana. For this reason, Indiana was almost exclusively a Kentuckian culture and spoken dialect until the National Road came.

The settlers from the east brought their ideas and politics. They clashed with those of Indiana and set up serious violence during the Civil War.

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History

There Were No Slaves in the “Northern States”

American Civil War 1864 Map

By northern states, I mean states loyal to the United States of America during the Civil War. The answer is yes, there were slaves in the North. In fact, there were more than 450,000 in 1860. Eight northern states and Washington DC practiced slavery while the seven confederate states did so.

The reason was that the states each chose their path toward abolition, and each plan progressed at its own rate. It was much easier for many northern states because their land did not lend itself to plantations, and by the time of the Civil War, all tobacco and cotton plantations had moved to the south. The North could deal with the economic effects much easier than the South. Still, even while progressing on a plan, some states, such as Delaware, had not legally declared abolition of their slaves.

The South knew that abolition was coming, but its path was much more difficult economically. Still, the number of plantation owners was quite small compared to the overall population—but those were the people in the legislature.

As the South continued to look for a path out of slavery, the Civil War erupted and slavery was, of necessity, tabled because of the overall need for defense measures.

Meanwhile, the North’s virtue signaling intensified through the Abolitionists who did not take the North-South differences into consideration and demanded immediate abolition everywhere, although the South was elected to play the bogey-man.