African Americans and the Civil War

1. African Americans and the Civil War

2. African Americans and the Civil War • Who freed the slaves? • Emancipation in Atlantic history • The evolution of an emancipation policy • Black soldiers, freedom, and citizenship

3. African Americans and the Civil War • McPherson v. Berlin • Crittenden Resolution, July 1861 • Gen. George B. McLellan (USA) • Gen. Benjamin Butler (USA) • Fortress Monroe, VA • contrabands • Gen. John C. Fremont (USA) • Gen. David Hunter (USA) • First Confiscation Act (July 1861) • Second Confiscation Act (July 1862) • Militia Act (July 1862) • Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation • Emancipation Proclamation • West Virginia • Thirteenth Amendment (1865) • Clement Vallandingham • New York City Draft Riots (July 1863) • Twenty Negro Law • Mary Chestnut • Spotswood Rice • Andersonville prison

4. 1. Who freed the slaves?

5. James M. McPherson, "Who Freed the Slaves?" in Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 192-207. • Ira Berlin, "Who Freed the Slaves? Emancipation and Its Meaning," in Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction, Michael Perman, ed., 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 288-97. • Which argument did you find more persuasive? Why? What did you like about each approach?

6. The debate • Classically posed historical debate • McPherson: hopes to revise a revision • So what is the “orthodox” or “traditional” view? • The centrality of problem (question)-based history • Is this a real debate? Is McPherson’s opponent just a “straw man”? • History as a rhetorical exercise

7. McPherson • Successful prosecution of the war was the “sine qua non” of emancipation • Lincoln was the sine qua non of a successful war • Thus Lincoln was the sine que non of emancipation

8. McPherson • Should history be written from the “top down” or “bottom up”? Are both possible? Is there a middle ground between the two approaches he identifies?

9. Critiquing McPherson • Indiscriminately melds 2 kinds of causation • Proximate: small-scale triggers of actual events (Lincoln signing the EP when he did) • Ultimate: long-term factors (the fact that Lincoln was elected)

10. Critiquing McPherson • Indiscriminately melds intent and consequence • Consequence: • Lincoln was elected, and this made a difference (regardless of Lincoln’s intents) • The war stalemated, and this made a difference (regardless of Lincoln’s intents) • Intent: Lincoln hadn’t started with the intent to destroy slavery Is there more virtue in effect than in intent? Does it matter that Lincoln wanted emancipation yet would’ve foregone it if necessary? Did the intent of the enslaved matter? McPherson often seems to argue that effect more significant than intent

11. Critiquing McPherson • Only Lincoln could’ve been elected (consequence) • Only Lincoln would’ve waited for just the right moment to pass the EP (intent) Are these assumption right? How could we know? How would we go about testing them?

12. Critiquing McPherson • What is the role of great men in history? • What is the role of great forces? Lincoln stated, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that have events have controlled me."

13. Critiquing McPherson • Berlin: “Had another Republican been in Lincoln’s place, that person doubtless would have done the same.” • Berlin: “Lincoln was a part of history, not above it.” • Berlin: “Both Lincoln and the slaves played their appointed parts in the drama of emancipation.” • Berlin responds with his own vision rather than respond to each point • Which leaves room for us to do so…

14. Critiquing McPherson • McPherson’s case: • Lincoln’s election critical • Lincoln’s commitment to union critical • Lincoln’s timing critical (couldn’t be too early or too late) • The war was essential – only it permitted possibility of Lincoln’s move, and total abolition of slavery • Critical in the war was the fact of stalemate: only stalemate justified escalation of war aims

15. Critiquing McPherson • But what if the war hadn’t stalemated? • McPherson and others wonder if the war had gone on longer. But what if the war had been over more quickly? What would the consequences of an early Union victory have been? • There would’ve been lots and lots of pressure to retain slavery as part of an easy peace • So why/how did the war stalemate? • That’s what we covered last time.

16. Critiquing McPherson • Rael’s sine qua nons: • Slaves who yearn to be free, and who register that desire through action • The war, which creates the possibility of giving their actions meaning • A Union army and government capable of • Understanding how slavery is implicated • Delivering victory, and hence acting on that understanding Lincoln fits somewhere in here

17. Who cares? • How emancipation happened mattered • Emerged through exigencies of war, not through a revolution in racial sentiment • Prewar: both sections suffused with racial prejudice and ideas of white supremacy • War: military need creates emancipation • After the war: the fate of the freedpeople??

18. 2. Emancipation in Atlantic history

19. Ending slavery in the Atlantic

20. North: 1777-1827 U.S. South: 1865 Haiti: 1791-1804 UK West Indies: 1833-1838 French Caribbean: 1848 Danish Caribbean: 1848 Dutch Caribbean: 1863 Cuba: 1880 Latin America: 1823-1831 Brazil: 1888

21. The United State unique • Emancipation happened late in the United States • It took a massive war to end slavery in the United States • Only in the United States did slaves become (for a time) equal citizens (a problem for Reconstruction)

22. Metropolitan “core” in Europe Agricultural “periphery” in New World

23. For the Industrializing North South becomes agricultural “periphery” . . .

24. Ending slavery was about… • Slavery was the labor system of plantation capitalism, in which humans could be defined as property • The values of the liberalism and the industrial revolution (and various associated ideological formations) come to question whether property can be held in man • Ending slavery was about settling this question negatively: it’s not legal to hold property in man

25. Ending slavery in the United States • But it was more difficult in the United States, because the “slave power” of the U.S. was particularly powerful • The agricultural periphery could not be easily dominated by the metropolitan core, because the periphery was “hyper-empowered” in the nation • Not colonies, but full-fledged states, with equal rights and full representation in national government • Hyper-empowered by 3/5 clause

26. 3. The evolution of an emancipation policy

27. "War is merely the continuation of policy [politics] by other means.“ Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz "politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed." Mao Zedong

28. Crittenden resolution, adopted by U.S. House of Representatives, 22 July 1861 “the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional Government, and in arms around the capitol; that in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States, unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease”

29. General McClellan to President Lincoln, July 7th, 1862 “It should not be a War looking to the subjugation of the people of any state, in any event. It should not be, at all, a War upon population; but against armed forces and political organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, territorial organization of states or forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment.”

30. A Letter from President Lincoln.; Reply to Horace Greeley, Aug. 22, 1862 “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

31. Technological transformations • Rifled musket with conoidal bullet and percussion cap • Fewer misfires, greater accuracy, longer range • Deepens fire-swept zone, making offensive actions costly • Leads to stalemate on the battlefield • War could not achieve political decision

32. General Ulysses S. Grant, reflecting on military operations after the Battle of Shiloh, TN (April 1862) “I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest. Up to that time it had been the policy of our army, certainly of that portion commanded by me, to protect the property of the citizens whose territory was invaded, without regard to their sentiments, whether Union or Secession. After this, however, I regarded it as humane to both sides to protect the persons of those found at their homes but to consume everything that could be used to support or supply armies.”

33. Union officer at Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Florida (March 1861) “On the morning of the 12th instant four negroes (runaways) came to the fort entertaining the idea that we were placed here to protect them and grant them their freedom. I did what I could to teach them the contrary. In the afternoon I took them to Pensacola and delivered them to the city marshal to be returned to their owners. That same night four more made their appearance. They were also turned over to the authorities next morning.”

35. Commander of the Department of Virginia [General Benjamin Butler] to the General-in-Chief of the Army [Fortress Monroe, Va.]  May 27 /61 “I have therefore determined to employ, as I can do very profitably, the able-bodied persons in the party, issuing proper food for the support of all, and charging against their services the expense of care and sustenance of the non- laborers, keeping a strict and accurate account as well of the services as of the expenditure having the worth of the services and the cost of the expenditure determined by a board of Survey hereafter to be detailed.  I know of no other manner in which to dispose of this subject and the questions connected therewith.  As a matter of property to the insurgents it will be of very great moment, the number that I now have amounting as I am informed to what in good times would be of the value of sixty thousand dollars. ”

37. General John C. Fremont General David Hunter

38. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner: "under the war power the right had come to him [Lincoln] to emancipate the slaves.“ In July 1861, the House resolved that "it is no part of the duty of the soldiers of the United States to capture and return fugitive slaves.“ If war could not pursue politics through other means, perhaps politics could be made to pursue war

39. Moves in Congress • First Confiscation Act (July 1861): masters cannot reclaim slaves used in aid of rebellion • Second Confiscation Act (July 1862): slaves of disloyal citizens “forever free” • Militia Act (July 1862): authorizes Union army use of slaves; formally frees them and their families • Abolition of slavery in District of Columbia and U.S. territories (April 1862)

40. Rejoicing over abolition of slavery in District of Columbia, 1862

41. Lincoln’s approach to slavery • Get slaveholding Union (border) states to relinquish slavery on own • Delaware, 1861: gradual, compensated emancipation offer (rejected) • March 1862: Congress will compensate any border states adopting gradual emancipation (rejected) • May and July offers rejected, too

43. Lincoln on the need for border-state emancipation "the war would now be substantially ended. . . . But you cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have you join them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within your own states. . . . break that lever before their faces" "This government cannot much longer play a game in which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing," the President scolded a New York Democrat who requested leniency for Confederate slaveholders. "Those enemies must understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the government, and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt.“ "a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union. . . . We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued."

44. Preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation September 22, 1862 Warned that emancipation would be declared the following year unless the rebels subsisted Final version goes into effect January 1, 1863

45. The final end of slavery • West Virginia enters union as free state, 1863 • Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware • Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee • Thirteenth Amendment • Intended to guarantee constitutionality of Emancipation Proclamation • January 1865 passes Congress • December 1865 ratified by states

46. Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1865) Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

47. Critics of emancipation "Your anti-slavery crusade adds to the rebel army day after day thousands of soldiers” “a St. Domingo-insurrection“ "the saber, the musket, and the torch in the hands of the enfranchised African” (Ohio Congressman Samuel Cox) "King Lincoln“ "crushing out liberty and erecting a despotism.“

48. Politics in the Union • Clement L. Vallandingham • Ohio Democrat arrested May 1863 for incendiary anti-Union speeches • Sentenced to imprisonment for the duration • Becomes anti-Lincoln cause celebre • Lincoln banishes to Confederate lines; Vallandingham continues his campaign in exile in Canada

50. Cjdraf~1: Anti-Draft Rioters, New York City: The Union draft triggered controversy throughout the North, but nowhere was the tension greater than in New York City. That stronghold of Democratic sentiment erupted into three days of anti-draft rioting in July 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Before Union troops restored order, black homes and institutions were burned, and nearly 100 African Americans were killed in the largest civil insurrection in the nation’s history.