Lesson 3: Division and the Outbreak of War

Question 1

Border State Definition

Answer 1

a slave state that remained in the Union during the Civil War

Question 2

Jefferson Davis Definition

Answer 2

a Mississippi planter who became president of the Confederate States of America

Question 3

Martial Law Definition

Answer 3

rule by the military instead of an elected government

Question 4

Robert E. Lee Definition

Answer 4

a Virginian general who led the Confederate Army

Question 5

Unamendable Definition

Answer 5

unable to be changed

Question 6

Where did the Democrats hold their convention to elect a candidate that would run in the Election of 1860? What happened? Why was the Constitutional Union Party formed and who was its candidate? Who did Stephen Douglass know would win? What did he do as a result? What were the results of the Election of 1860?

Answer 6

The Republican National Convention for the presidential election of 1860 took place in Chicago, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln faced William Seward for the nomination. Lincoln, whose fame had increased during the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, won the nomination. The Democrats held their convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Lack of unity proved costly for the Democratic party. Southerners wanted the party to call for slavery in all new territories. However, northern Democrats refused to do so. In the end, the party split in two. Northern Democrats chose Stephen Douglas to run for President. Southern Democrats picked John Breckinridge of Kentucky. Some Americans tried to heal the split between the North and the South by forming a new party. The Constitutional Union party chose John Bell of Tennessee to run for President. Bell was a moderate who wanted to keep the Union together. He got support only in a few southern states that were still seeking a compromise. Douglas was sure that Lincoln would win. However, he believed that Democrats “must try to save the Union.” He urged southerners to stay with the Union, no matter who was elected. When the votes were counted, Lincoln had carried the North and won the election. He was able to take advantage of divisions in the Democratic party. Also, southern votes did not affect the outcome at all. Lincoln’s name was not even on the ballot in 10 southern states. Northerners outnumbered southerners and outvoted them. The stage for civil war had been set.

Question 7

How did Mary Boykin Chesnut describe the strong reactions that stemmed from Lincoln’s election in the South?

Answer 7

Lincoln’s election brought a strong reaction in the South. A South Carolina woman described how the news was received:

“The excitement was very great. Everybody was talking at the same time. One … more moved than the others, stood up saying … ‘No more vain regrets—sad forebodings are useless. The stake is life or death.’”

—Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary From Dixie, 1860

Question 8

What did Lincoln’s Election mean to most Southerners?

Answer 8

To many southerners, Lincoln’s election meant that the South no longer had a voice in national government. They believed that the President and Congress were now set against their interests—especially slavery. Even before the election, South Carolina’s governor had written to other southern governors. If Lincoln won, he wrote, it would be their duty to leave the Union. This sentiment revealed the strong currents of sectionalism running through the country. Many in the South felt stronger ties to their region than to the nation.

Question 9

What was the last attempt made by Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky to keep the nation together? Why did it lack support?

Answer 9

Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky made a last effort to save the Union. In December 1860, he introduced a bill to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific. Crittenden also proposed an amendment to the Constitution that was unamendable, one that could not be changed. Such an amendment would guarantee forever the right to hold enslaved African Americans in states south of the compromise line. The compromise bill received little support. Slavery in the West was no longer the issue. Many southerners believed that the North had put an abolitionist in the White House. They felt that secession was their only choice. Most Republicans also were unwilling to surrender what they had won in the national election.

Question 10

Who was the first state to secede on December 20, 1860? Which sates secede after February 1861? Who was elected the president of the Confederacy?

Answer 10

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede. By late February 1861, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas had also seceded. At a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, the seven states formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi became the first president of the Confederacy.

Question 11

Causes Leading to War: What was the debate on whether it was constitutional for the South to secede from the nation? How was this influenced by sectionalism (cause)?

Answer 11

Now a new issue emerged: whether southern states were allowed to secede under the Constitution. Most southerners believed that they had every right to secede. After all, the Declaration of Independence said that “it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish” a government that denies the rights of its citizens. Lincoln, they believed, would deny white southerners the right to own African Americans as slaves. For many southerners, secession was an issue of states’ rights and sovereignty, or independent control of an area. Many in the southern states believed that states had the sovereign right to secede. According to this view, states had the authority to make decisions without interference from the federal government, and the Constitution created a Union made up of states that could decide to leave the Union at any point. Those states also had the sovereign right to join together to form a new government, such as the Confederacy. Lincoln disagreed. He maintained that the Constitution allowed for shared powers between national and state governments, but did not give states sovereignty that would allow them to secede. The causes of the looming Civil War thus included sectionalism, disagreement over the extension of slavery, claims of states’ rights, and disagreement over the constitutionality of those claims.

Question 12

What tough situation was Lincoln in when he took his oath of office on May 4, 1861?

Answer 12

When Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, he faced a dangerous situation. Seven southern states had seceded from the United States and had joined together to form the Confederacy.

Question 13

What was stated in Lincoln’s first inaugural address, after he took office?

Answer 13

When he took office, Lincoln delivered an inaugural address. In his inaugural address, Lincoln warned that “no state … can lawfully get out of the Union.” Still, he pledged that there would be no war unless the South started it:

“In YOUR hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in MINE, is the momentous issue of civil war. … We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

— Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

Question 14

What did Lincoln state in his First Inaugural Address? What values did he speak upon?

Answer 14

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address expressed ideas about union, liberty, equality, and government. Regarding union, Lincoln emphasized that the Constitution set limits on the actions of states, and that there was no provision in the Constitution for secession. That is, the Constitution required that the Union be preserved. On liberty, again, Lincoln emphasized that the states’ liberty was constrained by their acceptance of the Constitution and did not include a right to secede. Lincoln also addressed another aspect of liberty. He stated his willingness to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, but only if the liberty of free African Americans from kidnapping and enslavement could be ensured. Regarding equality, Lincoln assured Americans that he would provide government services and enforce federal law equally in all states, whether they were slave or free states. Finally, on government, Lincoln stated that government required acquiescence, or the willingness to accept laws whether or not a person agreed with those laws. The unwillingness of the South to accept his legal election under the Constitution, he implied, was a threat to government.

Question 15

What did Jefferson Davis state in his First Inaugural Address?

Answer 15

By the time Lincoln gave his address, the Confederate States of America had already sworn in Jefferson Davis as President. Davis had a role similar to that of the American President, being chief executive of the Confederate government. In his inaugural address, he said the Confederacy would adopt the same Constitution as the United States for its government. However, Davis’s inaugural speech was very different from Lincoln’s. Whereas Lincoln pledged to keep the Union together, Davis explained why the South had decided to secede from the Union. Davis said secession was based on “the desire to preserve our own rights and promote our own welfare.” He also said, “It is joyous, in the midst of perilous times, to look around upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole—where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty and equality.”

Question 16

What were the difference between the views expressed in Lincoln’s and Davis’s Inaugural Addresses?

Answer 16

Lincoln, in contrast, described secession as “the essence of anarchy.” He believed secession countered the principles of liberty and equality on which the nation was founded and its government was based. For Davis, liberty and equality existed only between white men. In a later speech, Lincoln would extend the idea of equality to all Americans. Davis emphasized that government exists only with the consent of the governed. Since southerners could no longer consent to a government they considered opposed to their interests, they had to break away and form a government to which they could consent. This was in contrast to Lincoln’s argument that government sometimes requires citizens to acquiesce to, or obey, laws with which they disagree. Davis also argued that, under the U.S. Constitution, states had the right to reclaim powers that they had given to the federal government by seceding. Lincoln took the opposite view, that states had no such right.

Question 17

What tough decision was Lincoln faced with when the Confederacy started destroying federal forts and property in the South?

Answer 17

Lincoln said in his inaugural address that he did not want war, but Jefferson Davis had already ordered Confederate forces to begin seizing federal forts in the South. Lincoln faced a difficult decision. Should he let the Confederates take over federal property? If he did, he would seem to be admitting that states had the right to leave the Union. On the other hand, if he sent troops to hold the forts, he might start a civil war. He might also lose the support of the eight slave states that had not seceded from the Union. In April, the Confederacy forced Lincoln to make up his mind. By then, Confederate troops controlled nearly all forts, post offices, and other federal buildings in the South. The Union held only three forts off the Florida coast and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Fort Sumter was important to the Confederacy because it guarded Charleston Harbor.

Question 18

What task did President Lincoln want to accomplish at Fort Sumter? Why did the Confederacy attack? What did this attack eventually lead to?

Answer 18

President Lincoln learned that food supplies at Fort Sumter were running low. He notified the governor of South Carolina that he was going to ship food to the fort. Lincoln promised not to send troops or weapons. The Confederates, however, felt that they could not leave the fort in Union hands. On April 11, 1861, they demanded that Fort Sumter surrender. Major Robert Anderson, the Union commander, refused to give in until he had run out of food or was ordered to surrender by the United States government. Confederate guns then opened fire. The Union troops quickly ran out of ammunition. On April 13, Anderson surrendered the fort. When Confederate troops shelled Fort Sumter, people in Charleston gathered on their rooftops to watch. To many, it was like a fireworks show. No one knew that the fireworks marked the start of the Civil War, which would last four terrible years, from 1861 to 1865. This deadly part of the Civil War era would have devastating effects to lives, property, and national unity.

Question 19

How did the North and the South justify their reasoning for War?

Answer 19

When the war began, each side was convinced that its cause was just. Southerners believed in states’ rights, so they believed that states had the right to leave the Union. In fact, they called the conflict the War for Southern Independence. White southerners wanted independence so that they could keep their traditional way of life—including the institution of slavery. They also believed the North had caused the war. Many southerners, therefore, also called it the War of Northern Aggression. Northerners, meanwhile, believed that they had to fight to save the Union. At the outset of the war, abolishing slavery was not an official goal of the North. In fact, many northerners, guided by feelings of racism, approved of slavery. Racism is the belief that one race is by nature superior to another.

Question 20

What difficult decision were the 8 slaves states that were still in the Union faced with in April 1861? What were their choices? Why was Maryland an essential border state?

Answer 20

In April 1861, eight slave states were still in the Union. As the war began, they had to make the difficult decision of which side to join. Their decision would greatly affect the outcome of the war. These states had more than half of the South’s population and food crops. In addition, many of the South’s factories were in these states. Four of these states—Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas—quickly joined the Confederacy. However, after some wavering between the North and South, the four border states— Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware—decided to remain in the Union. Maryland was especially critical to the Union cause since it bordered the nation’s capital at Washington, D.C.

Question 21

What did supporters of the South in border states do in April 1861, that led to President Lincoln establishing martial law? What did this lead to? How did sectionalism play a big factor in the war?

Answer 21

Still, there were some citizens of the border states who supported the South. In April 1861, pro-Confederate mobs attacked Union troops in Baltimore, Maryland. In response, President Lincoln declared martial law, or rule by the army instead of the elected government. Many people who sided with the South were arrested. Sectionalism had led Americans to feel connected to their region, rather than to the country overall. Now they not only identified as northerners or southerners, they had also officially split into two governments with military forces.

Question 22

How fighting a defensive war an advantage to the South?

Answer 22

Both sides during the Civil War had strengths and weaknesses as the war began. The South had the strong advantage of fighting a defensive war. “We seek no conquest,” said Confederate President Jefferson Davis. “All we ask is to be let alone.” If the North did not move its forces into the South, the Confederacy would remain a separate country.

Question 23

What were some strengths and weaknesses of the South coming into the war?

Answer 23

White southerners believed that they were fighting a war for independence, similar to the American Revolution. Defending their homeland and their way of life gave them a strong reason to fight. “Our men must prevail in combat,” one Confederate said, “or they will lose their property, country, freedom—in short, everything.” Confederate soldiers also enjoyed an advantage because they knew the southern countryside better. Friendly civilians often guided soldiers along obscure roads that did not appear on maps. Much of the South was wooded, too. Confederate forces used the woods for cover as they defended themselves against invading Union troops. The South, however, had serious economic weaknesses. These weaknesses were the effects of economic differences between the North and the South. The South had few factories to produce weapons and other vital supplies. It also had few railroads to move troops and supplies. The railroads that it did have often did not connect to one another. Tracks simply ran between two points and then stopped. The South also had political problems. The Confederate constitution favored states’ rights and limited the authority of the central government. As a result, the Confederate government often found it difficult to get things done. On one occasion, for example, the governor of Georgia insisted that only Georgian officers should command Georgian troops. Finally, the South had a small population. Only about 9 million people lived in the Confederacy, compared with 22 million in the Union. More than one third of the southern population were enslaved African Americans. As a result, the South did not have enough people to serve as soldiers and to support the war effort.

Question 24

What were some strengths and weaknesses of the North coming into War?

Answer 24

The North had almost four times as many free citizens as the South. Thus, it had a large source of volunteers. It also had many people to grow food and to work in factories making supplies. The North’s biggest advantages reflected the effects of economic differences with the South. Industry was the North’s greatest resource. Before the war, northern factories produced more than 90 percent of the nation’s manufactured goods. Once the war began, these factories quickly began making guns, bullets, cannons, boots, uniforms, and other supplies for the Union army. In addition, the North had more than 70 percent of the nation’s rail lines, which it used to transport both troops and supplies. The North benefited from a strong navy and a large fleet of trading ships. With few warships and only a small merchant fleet, the South was unable to compete with the North at sea. Despite these advantages, the North faced a difficult military challenge. To bring the South back into the Union, northern soldiers had to conquer a huge area. Instead of defending their homes, they were invading unfamiliar land. As Union armies marched into the South, their lines of supply would be much longer than those of the Confederates and thus more open to attack.

Question 25

Remember: Leadership was a crucial factor in the Civil War. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy, President Abraham Lincoln of the Union, and military leaders on both sides played key roles in determining the war’s outcome.

Answer 25

Leadership was a crucial factor in the Civil War. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy, President Abraham Lincoln of the Union, and military leaders on both sides played key roles in determining the war’s outcome.

Question 26

How was Jefferson Davis’s military skills?

Answer 26

Before the war, many people thought that Davis was a stronger leader than Lincoln. Davis’s experience prepared him for the position. However, he did not want it. As one observer stated:
“Mr. Davis’s military instincts still predominate, and his eager wish was to have joined the army instead of being elected president.”

—Arthur James Freemantle, from The Freemantle Diary

Davis had attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. He had served as an officer in the Mexican War. Later, he served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Furthermore, Davis was widely respected in the South as President of the Confederacy for his honesty and courage. Davis, however, did not like to turn over to others the details of military planning. As a result, he spent much time worrying about small matters and arguing with his advisers.

Question 27

How was Abraham Lincoln’s leadership ability? What characteristics did people admire him for?

Answer 27

At first, some northerners had doubts about Abraham Lincoln’s ability to lead as President of the United States. He did not have much experience in national politics or military matters. However, Lincoln proved to be a patient but strong leader and a fine war planner. Day by day, Lincoln gained the respect of those around him. Many liked his sense of humor. They noted that Lincoln even accepted criticism with a smile. When Secretary of War Edwin Stanton called Lincoln a fool, Lincoln commented, “Did Stanton say I was a fool? Then I must be one, for Stanton is generally right and he always says what he means.”

Question 28

Remember: At the start of his first term, President Lincoln gained the respect of those around him. He was admired for his leadership as well as his good nature and sense of humor.

Answer 28

At the start of his first term, President Lincoln gained the respect of those around him. He was admired for his leadership as well as his good nature and sense of humor.

Question 29

Why did Robert E. Lee turn down Lincoln’s request to help lead the Union in war?

Answer 29

As the war began, army officers in the South had to decide whether to stay in the Union army and fight against their home states, or join the Confederate forces.
Robert E. Lee of Virginia faced this dilemma when Lincoln asked him to command the Union army. He explained in a letter to a friend:

“If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes …, then I will still follow my native State with my sword and, if need be, with my life.”

—Robert E. Lee, quoted in Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln

Virginia did secede and Lee refused Lincoln’s offer. Later, Lee became commander of the Confederate army. Many of the prewar United States Army’s best officers served the Confederacy. As a result, President Lincoln had trouble finding generals to match those of the South.