Hate is defined by an intense feeling or passionate dislike for someone; feeling of hate and revenge. During the war of 1861-1865 the Northern Soldiers had a passionate dislike for the South and when the North fought, they fought with revenge. In a letter, a Wisconsin soldier wrote to his fiancée, “When there is no officer with us, we take no prisoners… We want revenge… We tell them that is what we want. We want to kill them all off and cleanse the country.” (40). This is just one script of many that describe how the soldiers felt during the war, it describes how much hate a soldier has to want to “cleanse” the country with them as if the south were unhuman. The hate towards the black was so immense, that they could not even imagine how it …show more content…
The white did not want the blacks to have the same rights as them; they did not want to be equal. A lieutenant from Mississippi wrote to his wife that he was willing to fight so the slaves won’t be freed since they were needed for labor, “This country without slave labor would be completely worthless…If the negroes are freed the country…is not worth fighting for…I am willing to continue to fight to the last.” (48) After the Emancipation Proclamation, slave prices in the South raised, as the Author James McPherson states, “Slave Prices in the South rose even faster…A number of soldiers wrote home advising relatives to invest in slaves.” (49) As the confederate soldiers continued fighting against slavery, their value kept increasing, so the North continued buying slaves because they expected for slaves to be worth more than what they were purchasing them for, “Now is the time… to buy some negro women and children… slaves will be worth a 1000 times more than now.” (49). The confederate soldiers continued to fight because they preferred to fight for freedom or die trying rather than to be sold to the
What was the reason behind the Civil War? According to Carter G. Woodson and Charles H. Wesley, when the Civil War started, Lincoln, in order to stay on the good side of supporters who had voted him into office, publicly stated that he did not want to interfere with the slavery in the South (“The Negro in the Civil War” 361). Contrary to claims that he did not approve of slavery, Lincoln clearly compromised the rights of slaves to be free in order to appease supporters of slavery by evading the subject of slavery in the South. D’Souza also asserts that Lincoln stated in correspondence to Andrew Stephens, the former vice president of the Confederacy, that “while we think it is wrong, and ought to be restricted, it was not his intention to get
Throughout American history, the south and the north have consistently held different beliefs on how to handle some subjects. Whether it ranged from slavery, to taxing, or to business, southerners and northerners often seemed to be on opposite sides of the spectrum. It was not any different back in the 1800’s. Though intensely different, they were still part of the same country. One of the biggest issues that made the north and the south so distinct from one another was their view and perspective on slavery. The north, who was considered mostly republican, saw slavery as something that needed to be abolished for it was a great sin committed by mankind; while the south, who were mostly considered democrats, viewed it as a necessity for they considered African-Americans a race that needed to be controlled because they were less intelligent than the white man but very violent and because they were “built” for the hard labor. Over the 1800’s they had been a tension built between the two sides of the country. The tension rose to a boiling point when the 1860 election rolled around. After the elections occurred, a chain of events followed which would leave a lasting impact on the current United States. In the heart of these events was the civil war. To this day, it is very debatable that the war started because of the unsure future of slavery under new leadership.
This angered the Union, consequently making the issue bigger. Those in the North who had never seen a slave and didn’t particularly care about the topic, educated themselves more because of such tension over whether the Confederates were allowed to even leave or not. Many got their arguments in order; slaveholding was regressive when compared to the advances the North was making. Essentially, slavery was inefficient and made little sense. Another argument was that slavery was a sin; this view would be the reason why many joined the Civil War. Though it was overall agreeable for Northerners during the Civil War that slavery was an immoral practice. It degraded humans to animals that could be bought and sold for a price, it tore families apart, forced people, even children, to work all day and whenever called upon while living in poor conditions. But perhaps the most important bit to this argument, was that in the Declaration of Independence, it was clearly written, “all men are created equal”. If all men are equal, then why did the white man own the black man? When did the very piece of paper that gave America a meaning to patriotism suddenly become irrelevant when talking about the issues that made us a free country? Ignorance is bliss, but at this time in history, it was bliss no
The first side that gets addressed is the Confederate side. While there are many different reasons that the soldiers fought in this civil war, the one of the main causes was for the use of slavery. Many soldiers had the mindset to fight for “a free white man’s government instead of living under a black republican government” (53). This will to uphold the racial inequality was seen in the way the South fought with passion and hatred against the change of their lives (19). Confederate soldiers were mostly bought into the war, due to the plantation owners sending someone else in their names. Soldiers
The tensions of the Civil War are very much still alive in the Southern United States one hundred and fifty years after the Confederacy surrendered to Union forces to end the war. While the tensions may have mitigated away from full-fledged war between North and South, there still remain tensions along racial and cultural lines well beyond the war. In Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic these long standing tensions left over from the war are delved into by Horwitz as he makes his way across the south to see how the old Confederacy is viewed in the modern world of the United States. What Horwitz found was a dualistic society differing views on the Confederacy and the events of the Civil War. Dualities left from the war in aspects such as racial tensions, the meaning of the Confederate flag even between North and South entirely. Those living in the South can be seen holding a resonating connection to the Civil War. It becomes clear in Confederates in the Attic the Civil War not only became the catalyst of such dualities in Southern society, but still further shape and perpetuate these dualities long after the Civil Wars conclusion.
The Civil War is something almost everyone has a general idea about. It is more than a huge part of America’s history and is the central event in America 's historical consciousness. This war, unlike the American Revolution which created the first American states, determined what kind of nation it would be. Though there are many reasons for the cause of the American Civil War, one of the main reasons is the different attitudes the North and the South had toward slavery. In January of 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation was
Despite the differences in the primary reasons for Northerners in the war, Gallagher and Manning’s arguments align on certain aspects of slavery: both argue that in order for the Union to successfully win the war, slavery needed to be abolished. Gallagher argues that many northerners realized that in order to end the war and to rid nation of conflict and threat to the Union, slavery would need to be abolished. He argues, “Without slavery and the various issues related to its expansion, most white northerners could envision no serious internal threat to their beloved union.” Similarly, Manning also argues that there was a threat to the union because of slavery, whether Northerners liked it or not: “In 1861, a large and growing number of ordinary soldiers believed that a war endangering the Union had come about because of slavery. White Southerners’ willingness to destroy the Union over slavery made the war about slavery whether an individual Union soldier wanted it that way or not.” Therefore, Manning’s argument states that there is a need for the end of slavery in order to preserve the Union.
They believed that slavery could not co-exist in a country that was founded on the ideology of freedom. However, they eventually found themselves fighting to help free the slaves rather than fighting for each other. The Confederate Army was fighting to maintain its grip on slavery as it was ever so important to their economy and way of life. They depended on it so greatly that they would be willing to risk their lives on order to hold on to it.
If the north was to succeed, they would forever be oppressed by their victory, and slaves of their achievements. The Confederates fought to promote the wellbeing of their family and the protection of their land “from Yankee outrage and atrocity”(Mc.Pherson 20) .
The south was being forced to produce products and raw materials specifically for the north at discounted and heavily taxed rates. The south could make more money selling to foreign countries but they were forced to sell to the north. They were getting no representation in congress to halt the imbalance of power and it forced them into an agricultural/economic depression. Slavery had nothing to do with the start of the war. Remember this... Slavery became an issue in Sept 1862 when Lincoln signed to free the slaves in the south to punish us for continuing to fight. We, as southerners, were fighting for independence from an imbalanced and tyrannical government. States rights and representation were the reasons for the war. Union troops weren't fighting for slaves. They were fighting to preserve the nation and to continue receiving cheap raw materials for their factories. It was economic, not
By escaping to the North, the slaves believed they had more of a chance to find access to their needs. They hoped for freedom and equality. And by having those, they could then get the same high quality health care everyone else has. The slaves would be able to get easy accessibility to health care. This was a necessity that the slaves really needed. But when slaves arrived to the North, finding health care was still a challenge. Just because slavery was banned from the Union side, doesn’t mean that slaves were treated completely equal. The North was still segregated. They were still treated unequally in some ways. They didn’t have much job opportunities and if they did happen to get a job, then they would be paid less than the white men. And their health care was still, once again, limited. It was still a struggle for them. If the (now former) slaves couldn’t find any doctor to help them, then they would just have to try to help themselves with what they knew, which was not much. They did not have much access to health care, but they still escaped to the North because by escaping the Confederates, they would no longer be treated harshly as slaves. They would feel somewhat more accepted into their society because they no longer had to work as laborers in the harsh conditions of the
The white southern people during this time were fighting mainly for states’ rights. Slavery just happened to be one of those rights. Slavery is not the biggest reason for the war that would be states’ rights. Also, some blacks remained slaves even after they were freed, because their masters treated them better then society would.
Whites had trouble accepting this. Many white planters wanted to keep blacks on their plantations as property. They began to try to continue slavery in a new way. They tried to keep black workers tied to plantations legally. Segregation was also put in place dividing blacks from whites. The KKK was a group created by former confederate generals to terrorize blacks as a means of keeping them under control. Basically when white Southerners fought for their “freedom”, they were fighting to preserve their old ways and white supremacy.
The North’s actions of abolishing slavery and enacting tariffs caused the South to fight in hopes of preserving their way of life and economy. Plantations in the South were only successful because of slavery. Without the slaves helping them create the abundance of cotton, the South would have no economy. The country’s economy would be greatly altered if slavery was eliminated both from a consumer and producer perspective. When the North did announce that they wanted to completely eradicate slavery, the South was taken aback due to the fact that the whole country would not function without slavery and the cotton produced. The North wanted the South to industrialize but the South replied “… we must ever continue to be, wholly dependent upon agriculture and commerce (South Caroline Protest Against the Tariff of 1828).” The climate in the South did not allow for the same industrialization to occur as it did in the North. Plantations and their productions of cash crops were booming in the South and the northern frontier was too small of a market, therefore leading them to sell to foreign countries. This caused the North to enact tariffs and in order to prevent the South from being too successful and lose them as a market. The North ended up petrifying the Southerners into fighting a war in order to preserve their way of life and thriving economy.
The South wanted to free the slaves, however, they understood the “negative” political impacts. The North wanted to free the slaves, but they were very divided within themselves. Once ex-slaves gained the right to vote as a full human being (Black Suffrage), the Republican party arose to shape our country. (Roark, 471) With ex-slaves gaining the highly deserved power, the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) was developing to support the democrats and restore “White Supremacy”. (Roark, 471) The political division raised what I would call a second Civil-War within the American government.