Lincoln, the draft riots, and the Civil War

Lincoln in NYC 1859 and the Draft Riots 1863: a) What have you learned that you had not known before? b) How has this new material changed the way you will teach the section called Civil War?

Previously, I had always believed that Abraham Lincoln was passionately anti-slavery on moral grounds. While he did make statements to that effect later, in 1859, he devoted almost his entire New York City campaign speech to the questions about whether thirty-nine "fathers" from among the constitutional Framers had expressed positions supporting or opposing the introduction of slavery into the Northwest Territories and the Western Frontier. It was surprising to read that Lincoln seemed much more concerned with whether the constitutional (Convention) history was consistent or inconsistent with permitting slavery to continue (or to grow), and that Lincoln seemed willing to allow the South to retain their slaves to the extent those states were willing to participate in the building of a unified nation without promoting the growth of slavery.

Prior to this course, I was unaware that New York City has been such a dangerous and unhealthy place. At the time, it suffered the highest rate of death from disease and illness of any modern city in the world. Most of the problem was cause by the unsanitary design and maintenance of the city's sewer system and water supply system, both of which contributed to high rates of cholera and dysentery, among other deadly illnesses. I was unaware of the extent to which the economic class divide also meant the difference between access to safe drinking water or having no choice but to rely on the diseases-infested city wells. Nevertheless, New York City (and State) complied with the 1863 Enrollment and Conscription Act more than the rest of the northern states.

When I teach this material in the future, I will question the degree to which moral philosophy provided the basis for Lincoln's position on slavery; and I will ask what his position might have been had the South been willing to co-exist peacefully with the North. Finally, I will also teach the importance of the fact that the New York Militia had been sent to Maryland and Pennsylvania in response to the Confederate attacks there as reasons that the NYC Riot of 1863 was so bad.

Between the Revolution and the Civil War: How will you teach about the 3 to 4 generations that lived between 1776 and 1861 differently? In other words, how have you come to understand this time period better than you did before?

Like most Americans, I had previously been under the general impression that the generations in between the War of Independence and the Civil War worked steadily to incorporate the fundamental liberties and values that the original Colonists pursued in seeking emancipation from the British royal crown in the first place. In particular, we have always learned that religious freedom and the right to practice religion freely and without fear of government intervention or persecution were fundamental tenets of the early American people. Similarly, the contemporary historical narrative dramatically downplays the degree to which the white Americans and the federal government exploited the Native Americans unfairly, in many respects, even committing genocide against them throughout the 19th century, all while supposing to represent the "land of the free and the home of the brave" as well as the Christian ideals promoted in American churches.