Civil War Northern Attitudes
Politicians of the Northern states pressed to end it, both because it was considered immoral and because white labor could not compete with unpaid black labor. The North demanded for its industrial growth a protective tariff, federal subsidies for shipping and internal improvements, and a sound banking and currency system. The West looked to Congress for free homesteads and federal aid for its roads and waterways. The South, however, regarded such measures as discriminatory, favoring Northern commercial interests, and it found intolerable the rise of antislavery agitation in the North. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president as the candidate of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery. The state of South Carolina had threatened to secede if the Republicans won, and in December 1860 it did so. Other slavery states followed in quick succession, and in February 1861 they formed a confederacy, the Confederate States of America. Delaware was a slaveholding border state with many Confederate sympathizers; Lincoln did not carry the state in 1860. However, Delaware had more economic ties with the North than with the South; by 1860 fewer than 2000 of the almost 22,000 blacks in the state were slaves, and m
When the Civil War began, Massachusetts was the first state to send troops to support the federal government, and when secessionists in Maryland killed several of these men in riots, Massachusetts soldiers became the first to die for the Union. Massachusetts also was the first Northern state to establish a black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. More than 146,000 Massachusetts men served in the Union Army during the war. The 1860 presidential election divided the generally antislavery Northern states from the proslavery Southern states. New York gave its 35 electoral votes to Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party in this crucial election. However, not all New Yorkers favored Lincoln's efforts to save the Union. Mayor Fernando Wood of New York City and many merchants, caring little about slavery, wanted the city to remain neutral so it could maintain its commercial ties with the Southern states, as well as with the North. Poor immigrants also opposed Lincoln's policies, especially his stand against slavery. They feared free blacks would compete with them for jobs and bring them economic ruin. However, most citizens rallied to the Union cause in the American Civil War (1861-1865), which began a month after Lincoln was inaugurated and Southern states had started to secede. One-third of the casualties of the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 were soldiers from New York. But as the war dragged on, enthusiasm declined. In 1863 Congress passed the first military draft law, but allowed exemptions for men who could pay $300 or hire substitutes. This provision, called the "Rich Man's Exemption," caused widespread anger among the poor workingmen of New York City, especially Irish immigrants. When the law took effect in July 1863, a mob burned the draft headquarters, then rampaged through the city, lynching blacks, burning neighborhoods, and looting. Federal troops had to be pulled off the battlefield to end the Draft Riots, in which more than 1000 people were killed and about $2 million in property was damaged. The Civil War strongly affected New York's development. Although some industries boomed, the rate of industrial growth slowed down. Factories making war goods ran extra shifts, but cotton mills cut back to half time. Factory workers suffered a cut in buying power because prices rose faster than wages. On the other hand, rural New York prospered because of rising farm prices. This boom was offset in the long run, however, because the countryside lost thousands of young men to the Army and, after the war, to the cities. ost Delawareans opposed the extension of slavery. There was never any movement in Delaware to secede from the Union, and it remained loyal during the American Civil War (1861-1865) that followed the secessions. More than 13,000 Delawareans, nearly one-tenth of the state's population, served in the Union Army, and several hundred fought for the Confederacy. Fort Delaware, on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, was garrisoned by Union Army soldiers and served as a prison for Confederate prisoners of war. In 1861 Lincoln proposed that Delaware's slaves be freed and the owners compensated. That proposal failed, partly because of party politics on the part of the Delaware Democrats, and in 1865 the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freed the slaves with no compensation. The Democrats controlled the legislature throughout the war and repeatedly railed at the Republicans as the party that had started the war and was going to make blacks equal to whites. In the 1864 presidential election Lincoln again failed to carry Delaware, one of only three states that preferred his opponent, General George B. McClellan. More than 90,000 Michigan men served in the Union Army and Navy during the Civil War, and a woman, Sarah Emma Edmonds, disguised as a man, fought with the Union forces. George Armstrong Custer, whose home was at Monroe, was the state's most famous Union cavalryman. A Michigan regiment captured
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Approximate Word count = 3342
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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