Introduction Flashcards
The United States in 1865: the unfinished nation
In 1865 the United States was already a growing power in the world. Independence had been achieved. There was a strong sense of national identity. A strong political system had been founded, with a written constitution that was a model of its kind. Americans believed they were a fortunate, exceptional people, living in the Land of the Free. And yet this was an unfinished nation. It had taken a destructive Civil War to save the nation from splitting apart. Continuing social, regional and ethnic divisions threatened to undermine the American future:
- divisions between North and South
- divisions between rural and urban America
- division between white people and African Americans
- division between the states and the federal government
What questions were there over America’s future?
- There were questions over how well the Industrial North could be reconciled with the defeated and resentful South
- There were questions about the opening of the vast spaces of the American West
- There were questions about the place of the United States in the wider world: how would its growing industrial power affect the traditional isolationism of an American nation, founded on the belief that foreign entanglements should be avoided?
The American Civil War:
The American Civil War was fought to save the Union: to prevent the Southern states from breaking away to form a new independent nation, the Confederacy. After years of tension between the North and the South, fighting broke out in 1861. The Southern armies finally surrendered in 1865 and the states of the Confederacy were brought back into the Union
Isolationism:
The American Revolution created a small nation in a vast land. The Founding Fathers of American independence were anxious to preserve the new nation from outside interference and ‘foreign entanglements’. This desire to live in isolation from the ‘Old World’ was a deep-rooted theme in American politics
The price of unity:
Victory in the Civil War ensured that the United States of America had maintained the Union, but this was achieved at a terrible price. 700,000 Americans had been killed. Families and friendships had been divided. Vast areas of the country had been devastated, especially the South. Within days of General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Abraham Lincoln, president since 1860 and architect of the victory of the North, was assassinated. With Lincoln gone, the problems of Reconstruction, of rebuilding the South and reconciling the warring factions who had fought the Civil War, became even more difficult
The South
The South was deeply scarred by defeat in the Civil War. The states of the Old South, with its plantation society and its belief in segregation, were now forcibly reintegrated into a nation that was dominated by the fast-developing industrial economy of the North
The divergence between the economic models of North and South, and Southern fears of the consequences of economic modernisation, had helped to cause the Civil War. The strength of the North’s economy was a major factor in deciding its outcome. Now the South faced ‘Reconstruction’: an economic revolution imposed upon the South by the victors. The society of the Old South was about more than slavery, but ‘King Cotton’ and its dependence on the institution of slavery had been the foundation of the Southern economy: to replace it with another viable economic model was very difficult
Slavery had also moulded the social and racial attitudes of the South. These attitudes were reflected in religion, politics and business. The South was not ‘backward’ but it was indeed different. White society was diverse and democratic, balancing the interests of large plantation owners, small slave-holders, and independent farmers. In 1865 all of these groups had reason to be resentful and fearful of the future
The North
In the years before 1865, there was rapid economic modernisation in the North: booming East Coast seaports such as Boston and New York, and the growth of railroads and canals enabling rapid industrial development in the Great Lakes region, especially after the Erie Canal was completed in 1825. This rapid growth drew in large numbers of immigrants from northern Europe. Ten times as many of these migrants settled in the North as in the South. The rapid economic expansion of the North meant widening social and cultural divergence from the South. This social and cultural divide was reflected in the abolitionist movement
The West
In 1865, westward expansion beyond the Mississippi river was more future dream than present reality. For the most part, the Great Plains, the Mountain West and the Pacific West still belonged to the Indian nations and the vast herds of buffalo that roamed the plains. Yet it was clear that westward expansion would indeed happen
A wagon route across the continent, the Oregon Trail, had been estabished in the 1840s. American settlers and prospectors had been a pulled westwards by the 1849 California Gold Rush. Huge territories in the South and West had been acquired after victory in the Mexican War. Already, there were pioneer settlements in Kansas and Nebraska; and the Homestead act of 1862 showed the determination of the federal government to accelerate westward expansion
The idea of the West was at the core of American history and myth. From the first colonial settlements, there was always a moving frontier pushing westwards. Disputes between Britain and the American colonists over the opening of the West were a cause of the American Revolution. Disputes between the Northern states and the slave states had been a cause of the Civil War. Temporarily, these disputes slowed down westward expansion, but the end of the Civil War in 1865 was rather like a starting gun for the race to open the West
Huge social forces pushed into the West: land-hungry immigrants, ranchers, mining companies, and railroad builders. Binding them together was Manifest Destiny, the idea of Americas mission to be a continental nation
California Gold Rush:
The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California, 1848 led to a full-scale gold rush in 1849; this intensified interest in the West, and led to new routes across the lands west of the Mississippi, and San Francisco, California, rapidly developed into a major seaport city
The Mexican War
The war between the United States and Mexico was fought between April 1846 and February 1848. A US victory led to vast new territories in the South and West: California, Nevada, New Mexico, and parts of Texas were incorporated into the United States. The war strengthened ideas of America’s ‘Manifest Destiny’ to become a continental nation
The Political System
American democracy rested on strong foundations. The federal constitution hammered out in the great debates of the 1770s and the 1780s, established the separation of powers between the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court; it also provided checks and balances to ensure no single arm of government could gain undue dominance. The Constitution itself came into effect in 1789 and was protected by the Supreme Court (the judiciary) which could not be controlled by either the President or Congress
In 1865 the main political parties were still taking shape. The Democratic Party, founded around 1828, was based on factions within the Jeffersonian party that had competed against the Federalists. The Republican Party was out formed in 1856, to address the issues of slavery and states’ rights. Before 1861 there was a string of smaller parties and shifting alliances, such as the Anti-Masons, the Whigs, and the American, or Know-Nothing, Party. It was only after the Civil War that America settled into the stable rhythms of two-party
Land of the Free
The history and ideology of the United States was built on the idea of freedom.
Americans saw themselves as free: from political or religious persecution; from the constraints of Old Europe; from the British rule they had thrown off in the American Revolution. Freedom was built into the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Americans were free to own land, free to bear arms, and free to speak their minds. This idea of the ‘land of the free’ was a major reason why so many immigrants were pulled towards a new life in the New World
Declaration of Independence:
The Declaration of Independence was issued on 4 July 1776, during the Revolutionary War; it was a manifesto to justify revolution against British rule and to define the democratic ideals on which the new nation was to be founded
The Legacy of Slavery
The American ideal of freedom had a blind spot regarding African-Americans. The institution of slavery not only made slaves into legal chattels (private property) with inferior legal and human rights: it also fostered deeply-held racist attitudes. To abolish slavery was a matter of political decisions and constitutional amendments carried through in the 1860s, but to eliminate racial inequality would be a never-ending struggle over many generations
The Moving Frontier
From the beginnings of colonial North America until 1890, there was a moving frontier. This involved successive conflicts against Native Americans; the first Indian war was in 1637. It set a pattern for future conflicts against the indigenous (native to a particular place) inhabitants. This came to a brutal climax in the years between 1865 and 1890. The moving frontier moulded the attitudes and patterns of white society: self-help and rugged individualism, being ‘neighbourly’, feeling superior to ‘soft’ Easterners, and denouncing the federal government far away in Washington
