History
Post University
Abstract
Although the Civil War ended over 150 years ago, its scars can still be felt in the modern American landscape today. This is especially true in our current political climate, as the last time America was as polarized was in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Much like today, the country was at a moral, political and power crossroads. Were we a nation for all men, or just white men? Were we a nation for all people, or some people? Who decided what was and was not a person? These questions tore at the American consciousness until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. The decade proceeding the Civil War, and the century after have shaped the world in which we live. Today, we have some clear answers with some clear progress–and we also have some dark and foggy paths that have led to more troubling questions.
Civil War and American Society
Although the Civil War ended over 150 years ago, its scars can still be felt in the modern American landscape today. This is especially true in our current political climate, as the last time America was as polarized was in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Much like today, the country was at a moral, political and power crossroads. Were we a nation for all men, or just white men? Were we a nation for all people, or some people? Who decided what was and was not a person? These questions tore at the American consciousness until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. Today, we have some clear answers with some clear progress–and we also have some dark and foggy paths that have led to more troubling questions.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, many Americans were split over the idea of slavery. That isn’t to say that slavery alone was the cause of the Civil War, any more than the Reformation and the printing press were the cause of the enlightenment—however, the two are inextricably linked, and without one the other may not have happened. The Civil War was fought for a variety of reasons, including state’s rights vs. the federal government, how the central authority of the federal government operated and the rights of the federal government itself. As the Civil War Trust writes, “Southerners felt threatened by these northern “abolitionists” and claimed that the common government had no power to end slavery against the wishes of the states.”
Slavery was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, both common American and of the various branches of government. A lithograph created 1850 displays an image of somewhat deadly satire, dramatizing, “…the moment during the heated debate in the Senate over the admission of California as a free state when Mississippi senator Henry S. Foote drew a pistol on Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri.” Remember, this was in 1850—11 years before the official start of the Civil War. American’s were at a boiling point, though the boil would be long and slow over the next decade. The difference between the industrialized North and more rural South was more than a problem for the common man—many of the representatives in the legislature were concerned about the balance of power between the North and South in Congress. In hindsight, there was no practical way to keep letting in one slave and one free state to the Union—and if the Senate and House couldn’t handle this without violence how would the rest of the country?
The cartoon goes on to describe how, “…Benton (center) throws open his coat and defiantly states, “Get out of the way, and let the assassin fire! let the scoundrel use his weapon! I have no arm’s! I did not come here to assassinate!” Foote, restrained from behind by South Carolina’s Andrew Pickens Butler and calmed by Daniel Stevens Dickinson of New York…still aims his weapon at Benton saying, “I only meant to defend myself!””
It is important to note that the Civil War itself was the bloodiest conflict in American history. Historian James McPherson writes in an article for the National Archives, “At least 620,000 soldiers lost their lives in the war, 2 percent of the American population in 1861. If the same percentage of Americans were to be killed in a war fought today, the number of American war dead would exceed 6 million. The number of casualties suffered in a single day at the battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, was four times the number of Americans killed and wounded at the Normandy beaches on D day, June 6, 1944. More Americans were killed in action that September day near Sharpsburg, Maryland, than died in combat in all the other wars fought by the United States in the 19th century combined.”
In 1852, President Abraham Lincoln wrote in his final remarks to Congress that, “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this.” Three years later, his words proved prophetic when the Union won the Civil War. General Lee surrendered at Appotomax Courthouse, and the war was over—the Union preserved.
What does this mean for us over 150 years later?
Robert Hicks, a noted historian, wrote in The New York Times, that “If the line to immigrate into this country is longer than those in every other country on earth, it is because of the Civil War…the Civil War sealed us as a nation. The novelist and historian Shelby Foote said that before the war our representatives abroad referred to us as “these” United States, but after we became “the” United States. Somehow, as divided as we were, even as the war ended, we have become more than New Yorkers and Tennesseans, Texans and Californians.” This unification of the country is what led to the Civil Rights movement, the Voting Rights act, and the eventual election of our nation’s first black president, Barack Obama.
John Blake, a CNN reporter, writes in a 2011 article, “If you think the culture wars are heated now, check out mid-19th century America. Blake goes on to quote author David Goldfield, author of “America Aflame,” writing that Goldfield said, “By transforming political issues into moral causes, you raise the stakes of the conflict and you tend to demonize your opponents…Contemporary political rhetoric is filled with similar rhetoric. The erosion of the center in contemporary American politics is the most striking parallel between today and the time just before the Civil War.” It is this ‘sealing’ of the United States as one nation—as opposed to multiple states in the same geographic area—that we have seen erode today. The rise of the ‘alt-right,’ the secessionist motions in California, and the election of a man not fit for the Presidency have all eroded the fabric of our unity—a unity over a million American’s died for during the Civil War.