Emancipation Proclamation Essays (Examples)

Emancipation Proclamation is one of the United States of America's most important documents, which aimed to bring the Civil War closer to an end. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. In September 1862, Lincoln announced that he intended to declare the order within 100 days and did so on January 1, 1863.[footnoteRef:1] [1: "Lincoln Issues Emancipation Proclamation," Date accessed 11 September 2012, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-issues-emancipation-proclamation]

President Lincoln's intended audience was not only those slaveholders in the Union, whom he assured would not be affected by the executive order, but also slaves and slaveholders in the Confederacy. One of the reasons that the Emancipation Proclamation was written was to free slaves in states that were in rebellion with the Union. Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation sought to make abolition a goal of the war, create more social unrest in the South, and…

Emancipation Proclamation

Since issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, politicians and historians have debated its Constitutionality and Lincoln's approach to emancipation in general. Allen Guelzo, a noted historian, supports both the Constitutionality and Lincoln's approach. Guelzo believes that Lincoln was determined to abolish slavery from the first day of his Presidential term and that emancipation was constitutionally accomplished by Lincoln's "war powers."

Allen Guelzo's View of the Constitutionality of the Emancipation Proclamation

An executive order issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863,[footnoteRef:1] the Emancipation Proclamation "announced the extinction of slavery."[footnoteRef:2] Contrary to historians who believe that Lincoln grew into his conviction against slavery, Guelzo believes that Lincoln knew from the beginning of his Presidency that slavery would end during his administration.[footnoteRef:3] In Guelzo's view, Lincoln was "enlightened,"[footnoteRef:4] ably preserving the central idea of America -- freedom - by using vaguely defined presidential authority known as "war powers."[footnoteRef:5] In Guelzo's estimation, the…

Douglas on the other hand accused Lincoln of double speech between the North and the South. He puts him to task on how he would vote if a state like New Mexico would want to join the Union yet they were ready to recognize the Union with or without necessarily recognizing and endorsing slavery, and commented that Lincoln would not be committal to such issues.

On his part, Douglas believes that each state had a right just like the nation to manage it domestic affairs without external influence and one of these is the issue of slavery, that each state must be given the chance to decide whether slavery is good for their state or not, actually he advocated for the autonomy of each state to decide their internal matters independently without external influences, he said "We have enough objects of charity at home, and it is our duty to…

Emancipation Proclamation

The author of this report is to offer a discussion response to several questions relating to the Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, this was the declaration by President Abraham Lincoln that the slaves were being freed and that slavery itself was being abolished. Indeed, the South did not take kindly to that and it completely changed the tone of the Civil War. The questions that will be answered in this post will include the factors that led to its implementation, how it changed the nature of the Civil War, to what degree did the proclamation instigate emancipation, to what degree did it affirm a process that the slaves had already begun and whether the Union could have won the war without the Emancipation Proclamation having happened. While it is easy to nitpick things after the fact, the Emancipation Proclamation did indeed continue an already-started process but it also helped…

NAACP

he Emancipation Proclamation and the fourteenth amendment freed the slaves in the 19th century, but prejudice and open malice towards America's black population continued and even grew worse fifty years after Abraham Lincoln's death. he National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was the first grass-roots civil campaign built in reaction to the constant harassment and lynching which still took place regularly in the early 1900s. he United States would undergo many progressive transformations as a result of the newfound pressure of the NAACP and its guided purpose to the elimination of continued oppression against America's former slave population.

he NAACP was formed in 1908 by a group of four well-known Americans who saw grave injustices in their country. he Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, IL, Abraham Lincoln's hometown, led to the necessity of an organization to represent colored people who were being mistreated. he foremost Black…

Underground ailroad- Function and Significance

The title "Underground ailroad" is a powerful figure of speech that was first utilized in the year 1834. The term described the escape of slaves from southern slaveholding States to northern free states. The slaves neither used railroads nor were their activities underground, instead the term refers to the numerous other routes that were used by fleeing slaves to escape from the slaveholding states, and the help they received from individuals they encountered along the way. It was the slaves' bold actions to unshackle themselves from the chains of their masters that really elicited helpful responses from both free whites and blacks along the way. As one of the slaves put it, the term "underground railroad" was used since the slaves who embarked on the route disappeared completely and could not be traced (Durham 1).

Involvement in moving slaves from slaveholding states in the south…

" Without a fundamental leg of the Southern structure taken out from underneath the Confederacy, Lincoln gained a strategic advantage. He did so using complete military preconceptions in order to carefully avoid breaking the peacetime rules and regulations set forth by the American Constitution.

Thanks to the free labor of the slaves, the South had more than enough white men willing to fight. Tons of able-bodied young men enlisted and left home, but the economy was not drastically affected due to the fact that there were still laborers available to support the war effort. Therefore, freeing the slaves in the rebellious States, Lincoln was encouraging a mass escape which would strike a crucial blow in the infrastructure of the Confederacy. Unlike other wars both before and after the Civil War, America had rarely shown the man power of a nation in war such as the South had done. The economy…

However, they "were too few in number to provide adequate protection and were not always themselves fully committed to ensuring justice for freed blacks" (Cary Royce 67). The American public wanted reform to happen but few people were actually willing to risk their position in society by supporting black people. As a consequence, former slaves were provided with little support and were practically forced to maintain many of their attributes as slaves despite the fact that they were free.

orks cited:

Berlin, Ira, et al. "The Terrain of Freedom: The Struggle over the Meaning of Free Labor in the U.S. South." History orkshop Journal 22 (1986)

Cary Royce, Edward, the origins of southern sharecropping, (Temple University Press, 1993)

Fast, Howard, Freedom Road (Armonk, NY M.E. Sharpe, 1995)

An Interdisciplinary Bibliography, 1865-1980 an Interdisciplinary Bibliography, 1865-1980, vol. 1 (estport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982)

Lanza, Michael, L. Agrarianism and Reconstruction Politics: The…

1): Thus, Lincoln's motives for issuing the proclamation were apparently more politically-based rather than an expression of his hatred for slavery and his desire to abolish it in the U.S.

CHAPTER ONE -- "FOUR WAYS TO FREEDOM":

Lincoln's election "was the first sign in the eyes of Southerners that slavery's national political power was slipping."

From the day of Lincoln's election, "wildfire stories had been spreading that the slaves would be freed on that very day." slaveholding planter in Tennessee remarked that "a servile rebellion is more to be feared now than it was in the days of the revolution... "

This fear of "servile insurrection" was even greater in the national capital, only thirty miles downriver from Harper's Ferry and the specter of John Brown."

William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, declared in 1858 that "slavery and freedom were locked in an irrepressible conflict" which served as a prediction…

Slaves No More

The issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately end the institution of slavery in America, it took the enforcement of that proclamation by Union troops. The period of time at the end of the Civil War, when freedom from bondage was being imposed by the advancing Union armies, was a tenuous time for the former slaves. Many White Southerners refused to accept the freedom of their former "property," and took actions to re-impose their authority. But after the official surrender of the South, many were forced to begrudgingly accept the freedom of their former slaves. Leon Litwack's article entitled "Slaves No More" examines this period of time and how the presence of Union soldiers was often the determining factor in how free the former slaves were allowed to be.

Most Americans learn that slavery ended in the United States when Abraham Lincoln issued the "Emancipation Proclamation"…

It might be said that, had Lincoln not been elected, the war might have been put off by a few years, and then a solution might perhaps have been reached. However, as has been demonstrated, the country was moving inexorably toward war and no other solution would work. If the war had been put off by a few years, the result would more than likely have been even more terrible and bloody than it was. General Grant was of the opinion that the war was inevitable. "The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war," he wrote in his Personal Memoirs, in accord with his belief that the Mexican-American War was the result of the South's attempts to extend slavery into Mexican-controlled Texas, "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war in modern times." Grant would then…

This person proved to be an honest and God-loving individual who is actually concerned about my well-being and the well-being of other slaves. He brought me a pair of glasses and a book called "Uncle's Tom Cabin" yesterday. I could never understand why many white people in the South can't abandon slavery in spite of the fact that they know that it's wrong, but I am satisfied knowing that they treat their slaves well. I could not stop reading the book ever since I laid eyes on it. I have been awake for almost two days now and I am infuriated with the institution of slavery in general, even with the fact that I did not experience the suffering it provoked from a first-hand perspective.

Some friends of my master visited today and had a fiery conversation as a result of Abraham Lincoln's reelection. My abolitionist friend seemed to agree…

Stillness at Appomattox

The Civil ar ended quickly after Lee's surrender at Appomattox: hy?

One reason for the swift demise of the Confederacy after Lee's surrender at Appomattox was the strategy of illiam Tecumseh Sherman called 'total war.' Sherman had depleted the Confederacy economically as well as military, and starvation and privation were rampant. "Sherman was a believer in total war. He said that the Northern military was 'not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.' Sherman realized that the Southern civilian population provided most of the supplies that Confederate forces needed to wage war against the North.[footnoteRef:1]" Sherman did not bring many supplies on his infamous March to the Sea, deliberately encouraging his men to use the land to sustain themselves and to wage war on the Confederate infrastructure as well as upon…

close was Confederate victory in the summer of 1864?

The so-called 'Myth of the Lost Cause' suggests that it was impossible for the South to have won the war, given the superiority of Northern military might and the North's superior numbers. In the words of one Virginian: "They never whipped us, Sir, unless they were four to one. If we had had anything like a fair chance, or less disparity of numbers, we should have won our cause and established our independence.[footnoteRef:1]" However, many wars of independence were won under similar odds. After all, the obstacles faced by the Confederacy were actually less onerous than those faced by the North: the Confederacy did not have to destroy the North; it merely had to engage in a "strategically defensive war to protect from conquest territory it already controlled and to preserve its armies from annihilation...it needed only to hold out long…

Government Changes post-Revolution ar vs. post-Civil ar

Close examination of the reasons for and the results of the Revolutionary ar and the Civil ar forces me to disagree with McPherson's position that more radical change in government occurred due to the Civil ar than the Revolutionary ar. In order to understand how this is true, one must look at several issues, such as the causes of each of the wars, the purposes and intentions, and the ultimate results.

The Revolutionary ar was based on the struggle to become independent from Great Britain and this struggle began due to a series of taxes forced upon the citizens. So "taxation without representation" was the initial call to arms however, it grew to include other freedoms as well.

The Civil ar was utterly a different process of situation. hile claims by the South of freedom it was always an economic issue tightly woven…

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The Aftermath

Uncle Tom characters were common in both white and black productions of the time, yet no director before Micheaux had so much as dared to shine a light on the psychology that ravages such characters. By essentially bowing to the two white men, Micheaux implied that Old Ned was less than a man; an individual whittled down to nothing more than yes-man and wholly deprived of self-worth. At this point in the history of black films, with some of the most flagrant sufferings of blacks exposed to the American public, the only logical path forward that African-Americans could take was to begin making cogent demands to improve their collective social situation.

Slowly, black characters in film took on greater and more significant roles in film. Sidney Poitier was one of the most powerful film stars of the mid twentieth century. In roles like the 1950 film by…

Lincoln's Speech Compared

The Evolution of Lincoln's Thought in His Speeches

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most celebrated and popular Presidents in the history of the United States. Lincoln presided over the Presidency at a difficult time for the country, when the unity of the nation was at stake and the question of slavery deeply polarized the society into two. Lincoln was able to preserve the Union, but at a great cost which made him as controversial as he was popular. But it is uncontroversial among his contemporaries and the readers of his speeches today that the sixteenth President of the United States was a great orator, able to address a broad range of audience: rich and poor, literate and illiterate, freemen and slaves; and he possessed a rare skill of persuasion. Lincoln was able to address a divided nation with great care and measurement. He was reserved when…

Soviet Union brought the missiles into Cuba to rile up the American military establishment precisely so that U.S. nuclear missile installations in Turkey and Italy could be brought on the table. Secondly as an ally, Soviet Union was concerned about the fate of Cuba which held a lot of promise for the Communist experiment internationally.

The American leadership understood that what they faced in Cuba was a catch 22 situation. If they failed to act, they would live under threat and shadow of nuclear war. If they carried out a full fledge invasion of Cuba, the Soviet Union would respond by taking over West Berlin thereby severely denting the credibility of the United States of America in the eyes of its European allies. Able master of political chess that Khrushchev was he played the inexperienced but charismatic President Kennedy like a fiddle. There were of course some in the military…

Instead of continuing the campaign, where he had an advantage, McClellan demanded reinforcements, and the campaign missed a golden opportunity to take the capital. McClellan blamed the mishap on the inability of Union troops to join him on the peninsula to aid in the attack, because they were engaged in the Battle of the Shenandoah Valley in the west, but many doubt this, feeling McClellan was simply afraid to attack.

In the Battle of Seven Pines, McClellan split his army into two positions on either side of the Chickahominy iver. General Johnston's attack could have wiped out at least half the Union forces on one side of the river, but the attack was complicated and confusing, poorly executed, and the Union forces repelled the ebels. The battle also brought about the command of obert E. Lee, who replaced Johnston who was wounded during the battle. This would give the South…

African-Americans and Western Expansion

Prior to the 1960s and 1970s, very little was written about black participation in Western expansion from the colonial period to the 19th Century, much less about black and Native American cooperation against slavery. This history was not so much forbidden or censored as never written at all, or simply ignored when it was written. In reality, blacks participated in all facets of Western expansion, from the fur trade and cattle ranching to mining and agriculture. There were black cowboys and black participants in the Indian Wars -- on both sides, in fact. Indeed, the argument over slavery in the Western territories was one of the key factors in breaking up the Union in the 1850s and leading to the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In the past thirty years, much of the previously unwritten and unrecorded history of the Americas since 1492 has been…

..that the rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor (Greeley 1862).

If the North eventually won the war, and slavery was not abolished as an institution, war would be again inevitable. However, Lincoln's primary duty, as he saw it, was not to save or destroy slavery, regardless of his personal views, but to preserve the idea of the Union. Lincoln believed that it was unlawful for any State to succeed, it simply could not be done -- the Union was the Union, and his role was to bring the errant South back into the fold. Lincoln personally found slavery abhorrent, but his duty was not to destroy it, but to unite the North and South as one nation once again. If letting slavery exist helped united the country, Lincoln would let it be so, or vice versa. "What I…

Second Reconstructions

One of the most dramatic consequences of the Civil ar and Reconstruction was that the South was effectively driven from national power for roughly six decades. Southerners no longer claimed the presidency, wielded much power on the Supreme Court, or made their influence strongly felt in Congress But beginning in the 1930s, the South was able to flex more and more political muscle, and by the 1970s some began to think that American politics and political culture were becoming 'southernized'.u How did this happen and what difference did it make to the development of the South and the United States?

Under segregation most blacks in the U.S. still lived in the South and were employed as sharecroppers, laborers and domestic servants, but the system of segregation and discrimination was also found everywhere in other sections of the country. Certainly virtually nothing was done for civil rights during the…

Sanford case was taken to the Federal courts and ruled in favor of Sanford. Following this decision to decide in favor of Sanford in the case, Dred Scott appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1857, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case. In his ruling, Taney revealed that seven of the nine judges who heard the case had agreed that Scott should continue to be a slave. Furthermore, Taney stated that Scott was not an American citizen and had no right to bring any lawsuit in the Federal courts. Taney also declared that Scott and his family had never been free since slaves were personal property. hile he declared that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, he also stated that the Federal Government had no right to forbid slavery in new…

Slavery pattern in North America took a funny trend since initially the blacks had some social positions and had a voice in the running of the community. his however later changed and the North also started to own slaves at a higher rate. here are several factors that led to this change in events in the north that made it to fancy slavery just as much as the South was with its plantations.

It is worth noting the background of the slavery trend in order to fully comprehend the drastic shift in slavery from the class servitude to racial slavery which was predominantly in the late 17th century and early 18th century. he black laborers and white laborers from the working class used to work on the same level and the Europeans used to be allowed to have slaves from the non-Christians population regardless of the color. he class determined…

The Civil War was one of the most defining events in the nation’s history, and at the time was the most important event since the American Revolution. Whereas the Revolution embodied the ideals, values, and principles of the new nation, setting it apart from the British Crown and forever altering the geopolitical landscape, the Civil War revealed the persistent hypocrisy that continues to plague American society. Unresolved conflicts left brewing in the American psyche led to built-up tensions, exposing fissures in the society along the lines of culture, ethnicity, religion, race, gender, and socioeconomic class. The causes of the Civil War can be traced in fact to the inability of the original framers to take a firm stance on slavery, and to divest too much of the federal government’s power to the states. At the same time, protecting states’ rights was critical in the late eighteenth century when the nation…

There were a lot of white people around, and many of them were angry that the blacks had been freed. Some of them were actually hostile toward the blacks and their newfound freedom, so the blacks learned quickly that they had to be careful. They needed to settle a little bit away from the hostile whites and do their best not to make waves or cause trouble, in the hopes that they might one day be accepted (Reconstruction, 2002).

During the first few years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the subsequent freedom of all blacks in the United States, many blacks began working very hard to educate themselves. In there minds, education meant the ability to negotiate with whites over land, earn a fair wage to pay for it, and take care of their families. lack families were often large, so many of the members could work to help support…

Civil ar

After the last shots of Civil ar were heard, and following the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln, the South had been humiliated and devastated. The repercussions of war included loss of life, land, and livelihood. Patriarchy and racism remained entrenched, but the emancipation of slaves significantly transformed the social landscape of the South. Liberated slaves started from scratch without access to cultural or social capital, and many eventually migrated North. African-American culture was able to emerge, and in many cases, to flourish. Meanwhile, the white power structures in the South resigned themselves to ignorance, causing the South to remain the most backwards, uneducated, and poor region of the United States for over a century. Far from inspiring the South to transform its social, cultural, economic, and political institutions, the entrenched plantation society and Confederate identity took deep root there. Jim Crow symbolizes the extent to…

History Questions/Chap14

Senator Douglas created the Kansas and Nebraska territories as a way to appease both sides of the slavery issue, but this action resulted in increased tensions and hostility. Do you think the problems that resulted from creating these territories could have been prevented? If so, how? If not, why not?

The problems that resulted from the creation of the Kansas and Nebraska territories could not have been prevented because by 1854, the nation was already divided by the slavery question and tensions were high. There was more at stake than merely the question of whether or not blacks should be free and in fact for most people, on either side of the debate, personal and business interests were what really mattered, not the morality of making slaves out of fellow human beings.

As the United States expanded westward, controversy swirled as citizens debated whether new territories should be…

Some of the slaves remained where they were and went to work for the masters that they had previously slaved under. They were paid wages instead of working for free, but they remained because they had gotten along well with their masters and knew that if they remained there they would be able to work and eventually buy land so that they and their family could have their own place to live. Sometimes the masters would even give the freed individuals that they actually liked a small piece of their land so that they could build something. This was one of the other ways that they were able to acquire land from Caucasians

Land grants from the government also gave them a chance to build churches and other buildings as they were still not allowed to share any of these with Caucasians. Many people believe that the Emancipation Proclamation work…

Despite over 23,000 casualties of the nearly 100,000 engaged, both armies stubbornly held their ground as the sun set on the devastated landscape."

This point is made time in again among the accounts of the battle, where historians laud General Lee's relentless fighting spirit even in the face of growing losses of precious men and materiel. For example, despite his enormous losses, General Lee continued to prosecute the battle in an opportunistic fashion throughout the daylong battle in hopes of ultimately turning the tide. In this regard, Jamieson advises that, "Even [after sustaining devastating losses], Lee conceded the initiative grudgingly and during the day-long battle he made division-sized counterattacks, exhausted all of his reserves, and looked for opportunities to seize the offensive."

After 12 hours, it would seem reasonable to suggest that both sides would have had enough and would have been exhausted to the point where they could fight…

Th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (13 Amendment, Article 1, "U.S. Constitution")

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 "Emancipation Proclamation" stated "that all person's held as slaves' within the rebellious states 'are, and henceforward shall be free.'" ("Featured Documents") Many claim that Lincoln's real motivation in freeing the slaves was to politically outmaneuver the south internationally; to make the war about slavery thus keeping the Europeans from supporting the South. However, Lincoln's support of, and the adoption of the 13th amendment in 1865, seems to prove this wrong; Lincoln's real motivation was the end of slavery in the United States. But Lincoln issued his "Emancipation Proclamation" in the middle of a war, using his emergency war powers, and it was limited…

The Battle decimated the troops, but it also affected their morale and their own belief they could win the war. It was a decisive battle for both sides, and when the South lost, it was another element that would lead to their defeat. Union victories in the West (Vicksburg and Port Hudson) simply added to the South's woes as they retreated from Gettysburg.

Finally, the third important factor in the South's defeat was President Lincoln's reelection. The Democrats made the war a major part of their platform, especially the freeing of the slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation, and their candidate, had he won, might have recalled the petition and changed the tide of the war. However, Lincoln's reelection showed a majority of the country supported the president and his policies, and that included his staunch position on the war. The Democrats wanted peace at any cost, but their nominee (General…

Certainly, Lincoln was extremely upset with the notion that while some Americans were free to pursue their own personal agendas, others were not free in any respect whatsoever, these being African-American slaves. Thus, in order to end this situation, Lincoln dedicated his life to seeing the institution of slavery eradicated from the face of the earth which he accomplished in some small measure in 1863 with his Emancipation Proclamation.

Furthermore, in 1860, the editor for the Charleston Mercury, a staunch advocate of slavery, wrote an editorial called "The Terrors of Submission," a reference to the South falling under the control of the abolitionists who wished to see slavery destroyed and the slaves given their freedom. This unidentified editor points out that if Abraham Lincoln becomes President in 1861, then an "immediate danger will be brought to slavery. . . all slave property will be weakened. . . And all the…

Robert E. Lee was a significant figure in history and his actions impacted history in many ways. Lee is considered to be among other things, a great solider. He was also an ideal strategist and his decisions did lead to implications that can be seen today. Perhaps the most significant of his actions was choosing to support the Confederates. For example, had he decided to side with the North, the Civil ar might have lasted less than a year. In addition, Lee's actions had a ripple effect on the Emancipation Proclamation as well as the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. His life is a constant reminder of how individuals can shape history.

Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807 in Virginia. Lee wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and serve in the military and due to financial reasons, ended up joining est Point in 1825. There he proved…

There are approximately 60 million Americans of Irish descent, and most of their ancestors arrived in America as refugees from an Ireland colonized and exploited in the harshest ways by the then-contemporary government of Britain. Should Americans of Irish descent (or Irish people still living in Ireland for that matter) demand reparations for the hardships suffered by their ancestors at the hands of colonial British "masters?"

Irish immigrants to the United States during the 1800s faced apartheid-like discrimination by the majority groups at the time - mostly people of English and German descent. An oft-observed sign at factories and construction sites was "Help Wanted - Irish Need Not Apply." Should modern Irish-Americans demand reparations for the discrimination suffered by their immigrant ancestors upon arrival here?

Should Armenians demand reparations for the suffering of their ancestors at the hands of the Ottoman Turks prior to the First World War? Should the…

inning the Civil ar

The American Civil ar is considered the most costly of all the wars fought by this nation in terms of the human lives that were lost and the casualties which left young men mutilated, amputated, and barely able to carry on. Approximately 750,000 young men died by the war's end either from wounds inflicted in battle or from infection and lack of sanitation in hospitals.[footnoteRef:1] At the end, to warring sides were once again united as a single nation rather than two countries torn apart by ideological differences. Four years of bloodshed and violence officially ended at Appomattox Court House in Northern Virginia when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. It is believed that the Union won the war because the nation was reunified; however this assumption is based on the belief that there can ever be a winner in…

)

Slavery was one, but not the only, cause of the Civil War. In fact, the institution of slavery represents a combination of social, political, and economic forces at play throughout the United States. For one, Westward expansion and the principle of Manifest Destiny gave rise to the important issue of whether to allow slavery in new territories or to leave the question of slavery up to the residents in the new territory or state. he Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, the formation of the new Republican party and the election of Lincoln, the Nat urner rebellion, the introduction of Uncle om's Cabin into popular culture, and especially Westward expansion were among the most important events that led up to the outbreak of the Civil War.

he Compromise of 1850 was disastrous in that it accomplished nothing to promote human rights…

Many see slavery as the cause of the Civil ar but like with many other wars, it simply is not that simple. ars are never simple and rarely are they clear-cut. Slavery is a black eye on the history of the United States but within that turmoil, there is much to glean about a nation and a people. hile slavery is not unique to America, it is connected to the Civil ar. The struggle up until that time demonstrates how society and culture influence behavior and beliefs. Slavery was painful and freedom was not a perfect answer for those who suddenly found themselves free with nowhere to go. The pain of the Civil ar lead to the birth of Civil Rights and from such pain, individuals find release through perseverance. Unfortunately, slavery is a part of the history of man and while we read the pages of history, it is…

Southern culture was reconfigured by blues, jazz, gospel, and country music, the stirring of modern literature, the spread of popular sports and amusements, and the birth of new religious dominations....Things were seldom as simple as they appeared to later generations, for Southerners of every rank confronted the dilemmas brought by new opportunities and constraints. Many kinds of power operated in the South, some built on coercion and others built on persuasion, some consented to and some challenged, some private and some public.

Ayers vii)

In many ways the resolution of the conflict sin southern society, which had been entrenched by fear, based legal actions began their resolution at the beginning of I, when the need for soldiers, of all colors began to make both black and white question foundational issues of character and ability. I also began a trend of employing blacks in jobs they had not previously done, by…

Constitutional Amendments

Effective strategies after the 13th and 14th amendments

The 13th amendment to the constitution was widely welcome by many Americans and the world at large as it gave the surety of freedom from slavery in the legal standing of it. The most famous and important section of the Declaration of Independence read that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable ights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This was an assurance that the freedom of each person living in America would be guaranteed and that no person will live under the command or control of another person due to the race or color. Further, the 14th amendment came into place to entrench and ensure the equality among the Americans (Hole ., 2001). It was one of the…

They other group that faced quiet a bit of resistance was that of the colored women. In a work by Watkins Harper, Colored Women of America, the plight of colored women during this era was discussed in detail. The white and black women during this time period were constantly aggravated by the lack of backing for reprieve, land transformation, and compensations that they believed as just. This radical position was thwarted by a male biased society that dishonored female restructuring and tried to stop black reliance on the federal government. The women's visualization of liberty, turned out to be very different from that of the men's.

Black women played a vital role in econstruction. In numerous manners these militant women had further in common with their white equals than the freed women whose agony they wanted to alleviate. All through the Civil War, abolitionist and ex- slave Harriet Jacobs toiled…

The first Great Awakening in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries became a harbinger of the later, more vocal and radical abolitionist movements. The Maryland Abolition Society was another early abolitionist group. Some abolitionist movements espoused violent means to obtain full freedom for slaves, and John Brown is one of the most notorious advocates of radical means.

In 1817, a group of wealthy white males founded the American Colonization Society (ACS). The ACS had an abolitionist platform but a fundamentally racist agenda. hile the main objective of the ACS was to eventually free the slaves, members also wanted to deport all blacks to an African colony. Called Liberia after the Latin word for "free," the colony was created by the ACS for the express purpose of creating a second exodus of freed slaves, many of whom were born on American soil. Some members of the ACS might have been…

Abolitionist Movement

Black Africans helped the Portuguese and the Spanish when they were on their exploration of the America. During the 16th century, some of the explorers who were of black origin went ahead to settle within the Valley of Mississippi as well as in areas that came to be known as New Mexico and South Carolina. However, Esteban was the most celebrated black explorer of the, who followed the Southwest route in the 1530s. Blacks in the United State and their uninterrupted history can be traced from 1619; this was after 20 Africans were landed within the English colony of Virginia. Though these blacks were by then not slaves, they served as servants who were bound to an employer for a limited number of years as it was to most of the white settlers. By 1660s bigger numbers of Africans were taken to the English colonies. By 1790, the…

I had no idea that black people were brutally assaulted for just sitting on the wrong bench or that the police were part of the problem at that time.

The new appreciation for the factual understanding of what the American civil rights era was about scared me in some ways because it reminded me that human beings have a certain natural capacity for illogical group loyalties and prejudices. It is something that I also recognize in my country of origin and also between different Asian races of people as well. The course also changed my view of the way that white and black Americans may view one another. Even in today's era of civil rights, racial equality, and appreciation for cultural diversity, there must be some resentment remaining in many black Americans, especially those who remember life in the U.S. before the 1960s.

2.

To be perfectly honest, I think…

The war and the years that preceded it led to the creation of social classes in our country. These classes consisted of the rich upper-class down to the poor immigrants; and each class had its own rules and regulations by which it lived. To this day, a large part of our society is based on classes. Socially, the war divided races and started what would lead to racism, bigotry, and the separation of black and whites. The war had served as a pathway to change but it would be several decades before the racial views of whites would change and allow for blacks to be treated fairly. Another thing that changed shortly after the war was women's rights. This movement paved the way for women to be considered equal and treated fairly (Ferland, 2009).

Ever since the Civil ar ended there has been great discussion over whether or not the…

As the vast majority of African-Americans do not know where their ancestors came from, it is difficult to trace one's roots back to the African continent. At the same time, the United States, while certainly the nation that nearly every African-American would consider to be home, has hardly been hospitable to African-Americans throughout history. Even today, nearly a quarter of all African-American families in the United States live below the poverty line.

Nation plays a more prominent role in Hispanic-American communities, as these communities tend to organize themselves around national heritage. For example, the Puerto ican community in the United States is distinct from the Mexican-American community.

It should be kept in mind, however, that both Hispanic-Americans and African-Americans tend to identify their national heritage with the United States of America - despite their troublesome relationship with their home country over the centuries.

Institutional Networks

Institutional networks continue to play…

Hitler is an easy enemy; Saddam was an apt nemesis. Drawing attention away from slavery allows Americans to feel smugly superior. Nothing like that could happen in the land of the free, home of the brave. Americans are deluded into thinking that nothing evil has happened on our time. A slavery museum will force Americans to take responsibility for a slave trade it perpetuated and for a plantation economy it profited from. Remembering slavery is therefore a frightening and controversial prospect for many Americans. It is easier to point the fingers where others went wrong than it is to face the darkness within our own past.

The memory museum reminds visitors that slavery was not limited to the plantation; it was a way of thinking that in many ways persists till this day. For instance, exploiting human beings for economic expediency appears to be a capitalistic norm in our country.…

Reconstruction

Regarding the report of the joint committee on reconstruction -- can it be considered the first major event after reconstruction? The answer is yes, this report was the first major event and in fact it led to the reentry of the Confederate States back into the Union of the United States with certain requirements prior to that reentry. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation is thought of in terms of what happened first, in fact the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered by President Lincoln before the war had officially ended. Hence, it would seem fair to contend that this committee report the first major event in the era of reconstruction.

hat does this report ask the nation to do in terms of the task of reconstruction of the former confederacy? The report from the fifteen elected officials (nine members from the House of Representatives and six United States Senators) asked that…

paradoxical that none of the American movies has ever done a good job at representing the American democracy. However Lincoln the movie is one among the many movies that have tried to demonstrate a great democratic art form. Lincoln (2012) is an American drama that was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie is centered on the United States sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln and covers the four final months of Lincoln's life, focus being on the efforts made by the president in January 1865 of having the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States House of representative that would see the abolishment of slavery in the country. He tried to scare up votes to ensure that he could get enough votes to pass the bill in congress. This movie concentrates on tumultuous period between January 1865 and the end of the civil war on April 9th and finally the assassination…

Interestingly enough, part of the economic conflict between the north and the south stemmed from the fact that the South could export its crops directly overseas and receive remuneration without involving the northern seaports. Thus, from this perspective, the slave-based economy of the south and the northern industry-based economy was mutually exclusive of one another, and therefore grounds for warfare. The social ramifications of the institution of chattel slavery in the south were no less vital than its economic ones, although the two were intrinsically related to one another. The plantation-based lifestyle upon which the South thrived required slaves for the simple fact that large landowners owned huge tracts of land without any means of effectively controlling it -- except through the use of slave labor. Plantations, then, regardless of their economic significance, would not be able to literally exist without slaves to actually populate them. So the south needed…

Abolitionism

Within the context of American history, abolitionism refers to the movement to end slavery. Slavery persisted until 1864, when the Civil War ended and President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation was followed by a series of Constitutional Amendments, revealing the extensive impact the movement had on contemporary American life (Walters, 1984). Brown (2006) notes that the American abolitionist movement had an even broader and more global effect because it influenced British domestic policy regarding the morality of slavery. Whereas slavery was primarily viewed for its economic benefits in the United States, slavery lacked this core dimension in the Old World and thus it became easier to promote abolitionism there from a purely moral standpoint (Brown, 2006). In the United States, it would require a bloody Civil War and the imposition of enlightened moral values on the bigoted South. Although abolitionism did make substantial and measurable progress…

Art can come in many shapes, sizes, and mediums, yet one thing that all art has in common is its ability to connect to individuals and enable them to experience catharsis, that is illicit an emotional response. Some of the most awe-inspiring works of art are architectural such as the Lincoln Memorial, which bookmarks the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Lincoln Memorial is impressive and its sheer magnitude and size was unexpected. Walking up to the memorial, I realized that it was much larger than I had anticipated and that much like a temple, the actual memorial is located at the top of a series of steps. It was nothing like looking at the back of a penny or a five-dollar bill. The Lincoln Memorial successfully combining the concepts of form and function through its structure (Pearson Publication, Inc., 2009, p. 164). The memorial itself was designed by Henry…

Manassas -- How the Skirmish at lackburn's Ford Shaped the attle

The Skirmish at lackburn's Ford shaped the attle of First Manassas by discouraging the Union Army, altering the Union Army's battle plans and encouraging the Confederate Army.

The Confederacy's chances of successfully seceding from the Union were initially poor, as the Union had the obvious upper hand: the Union Army was considerably larger and better equipped; their commander was George McClellan, whose abilities were undoubted; the Union had the international advantage of being a recognized nation; finally, the Union had the lion's share of factories that could steadily mass produce ordnance for the Union forces. In sharp contrast, the Confederacy: was an agrarian society with far fewer people, fewer factories and considerable resentment at being reduced to "economic vassalage" by the North's industrialization; much of the Confederacy's fortune involved cotton and the reliance of foreign markets on that cotton;…

American President

Biography

Generally considered to be the greatest president of the United States, who freed four million slaves and saved the nation after leading the Union to victory in the Civil War of 1861-65, Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky in 1809 to a pioneer family on what was then the western frontier of the United States. His family then moved to southern Indiana in 1816 and southern Illinois three years later, although Lincoln by all accounts never intended to follow the same social and economic path as these poor white farmers. Even as a young man, though, he picked up their strongly antislavery views and the common belief that poor whites had little opportunity to better their social and economic circumstances in the slave states. Given the lack of schools and universities on the frontier, almost all of Lincoln's education was really self-education, and he learned his writing…

Civil ar

The ar

Economic and social differences between the North and the South, states' rights verses federal rights, the fight between the proponents of slavery and abolitionists, and the election of Abraham Lincoln all contributed to the Civil ar. However, all of these causes can trace their roots in the institution of slavery. The major reason the southern states succeed was to maintain slavery, the conflict over western lands was about slavery, Lincoln couldn't maintain the union because of slavery, and the production of cotton demanded slavery.

Ultimately, though both sides claimed to want to achieve their objectives peacefully, the South viewed the North as a threat to its way of life, while the North preferred war rather than let the nation perish.

Slavery

It seems incredible today that the institution of slavery was only abolished less than a century and a half ago. The idea that one person…

Political or Social Problem

Racism has been a major social problem in American history going back to the colonial period of the 17th and 18th Centuries, and by no means only in the former slave states of the South. In fact, the condition of blacks in the United States has always been a central social, political and economic problem that resulted in the nation's most destructive war in 1861-65 and in its most important civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. As the moral and spiritual leader of the latter, Martin Luther King's place in American history is well-known: this was the central preoccupation of his life from 1955-68, and he died as a martyr to this cause. Karl Marx was merely a foreign observer of the U.S. Civil ar, but he understood the issues of slavery and racism very well and was an enthusiastic abolitionist and supporter of…

Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War Book eview

This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War is a book written by James McPherson, a distinguished and well renowned historian of the Civil War. This text consists of sixteen chapters, each of which clearly outlines and examines a fundamental and critical aspect that is associated with the war (McPherson, 2007).

The book is one of the best historical books on the topic, offering a detailed account of the many issues that came about with regards to the Civil War. The book is a free flowing narrative that addresses some of the crucial questions regarding the Civil War, ranging from why it started, why the South lost, various aspects that steered and motivated the soldiers on both sides, to the manner in which we assess the well renowned leaders on both sides, such as Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. The authors…

S. Supreme Court. As to religion, slaves were allowed to worship in segregated sections of white churches, but with the advent of Reconstruction around 1867, freed slaves left the white churches and formed their own aptist and Methodist congregations.

The governments which were set up by the North during the Reconstruction period often mandated that segregation remain in place which affected the ability of freed slaves to attend and seek assistance in many local and state-level social institutions, such as colleges, hospitals and welfare facilities. For example, in the state of Georgia, there was no existing system for the care of disenfranchised former slaves and those who suffered from diseases and many physical ailments until the early 1880's. Also during this time, former slaves were forced to live in very inadequate housing, especially in southern cities like Atlanta, Richmond and Charleston. efore the Civil War, black American slaves had it…

In some ways, the Civil War was the analogue of the Terror for Americans: It was the bloodthirsty incestuous violence that allowed the nation to move onward to a full embrace of democracy, joining itself to Europe as the world began to tip toward democratic ideas and ideals.

White Supremacy

Stephen Kantrowitz's biography of Benjamin Tillman demonstrates how he can be seen as a symbol for an entire cohort of Southerners of his generation, people (mostly but not exclusively men) who could neither understand nor tolerate the new order that had formally instituted itself after Emancipation. They could not understand a world in which black men were suddenly their legal equals. Tillman, and others like him, lived in a world that told them that blacks had to be treated like equals even though many white Southerners did not see their black compatriots as even being fully human.

This set up…

" (Fredrickson, p562)

In his view, the disadvantages (still) faced by many African-Americans is the result of some degree of institutionalized and unacknowledged racial and ethnic hierarchies.

Meanwhile, many minority groups that have achieved relative success have done so through one-way assimilation while accepting the price of cultural erosion. Fredrickson's vision of the best scenario is very much in-line with public policies and stated goals of American society:

"Of the four models of American ethnic relations, the one that I believe offers the best hope for a just and cohesive society is a cultural pluralism that is fully inclusive and based on the free choices of individuals to con-struct or reconstruct their own ethnic identities." (Fredrickson, p572)

Conceptual Complications:

The views advanced by Fredrickson, though benevolently motivated, may suffer from the conceptual incompatibility of two underlying elements. Specifically, the contemporary mainstream public position on race relations and cultural diversity proposes…