History of the United States from the Civil War — Fall

We are beginning our 30-week journey into USA history with a look at the whole issue of slavery in the world before it came to the new US nation. First we will discuss the ubiquity of slavery in the ancient and early modern world. And then we will turn to the story of Great Britain and the one bravest man to take on the fight against slavery in all of history. William Wilberforce fought a battle in Great Britain to get it banned by the English Parliament. And he succeeded and it is one of the greatest of all stories of leadership. So we will begin with this story and then move on to the story of slavery in the USA.
Wilberforce was an English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to stop the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming a Member of Parliament for Yorkshire (1784–1812). He was independent of party. In 1785, he became an evangelical Christian, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for social reform and progress. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1787, he came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including  Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one of the leading English abolitionists. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

REQUIRED READING FOR THE WHOLE YEAR OF HISTORY OF THE USA

Wilfred McClay,

Land of Hope,

Encounter Books,

ISBN ‎ 978-1641713771

From the Publisher:
"For too long we’ve lacked a compact, inexpensive, authoritative, and compulsively readable book that offers American readers a clear, informative, and inspiring narrative account of their country. Such a fresh retelling of the American story is especially needed today, to shape and deepen young Americans’ sense of the land they inhabit, help them to understand its roots and share in its memories, all the while equipping them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in American society. The existing texts simply fail to tell that story with energy and conviction. Too often they reflect a fragmented outlook that fails to convey to American readers the grand trajectory of their own history. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative, as an expression of its own self-understanding and its aspirations; and it needs to be able to convey that narrative effectively. Of course, it goes without saying that such a narrative cannot be a fairy tale of the past. It will not be convincing if it is not truthful. But as Land of Hope brilliantly shows, there is no contradiction between a truthful account of the American past and an inspiring one. Readers of Land of Hope will find both in its pages."

REVIEWS

“At a time of severe partisanship that has infected many accounts of our nation’s past, this brilliant new history, Land of Hope, written in lucid and often lyrical prose, is much needed. It is accurate, honest, and free of the unhistorical condescension so often paid to the people of America’s past. This generous but not uncritical story of our nation’s history ought to be read by every American. It explains and justifies the right kind of patriotism.”― Gordon S. Wood, author of Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

“We’ve long needed a readable text that truly tells the American story, neither hiding the serious injustices in our history nor soft-pedaling our nation’s extraordinary achievements. Such a text cannot be a mere compilation of facts, and it certainly could not be written by someone lacking a deep understanding and appreciation of America’s constitutional ideals and institutions. Bringing his impressive skills as a political theorist, historian, and writer to bear, Wilfred McClay has supplied the need.”― Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

“No one has told the story of America with greater balance or better prose than Wilfred McClay. Land of Hope is a history book that you will not be able to put down. From the moment that ‘natives’ first crossed here over the Bering Strait, to the founding of America’s great experiment in republican government, to the horror and triumph of the Civil War...McClay’s account will capture your attention while offering an unforgettable education.”― James W. Ceaser, Professor of Politics, University of Virginia

RECOMMENDED READING

Eric Metaxas,

Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery,

HarperOne,

ISBN 0061173886

Amazing Grace tells the story of the remarkable life of the British abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). This accessible biography chronicles Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament. At the center of this heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833. Metaxas discovers in this unsung hero a man of whom it can truly be said: he changed the world. Before Wilberforce, few thought slavery was wrong. After Wilberforce, most societies in the world came to see it as a great moral wrong.

RECOMMENDED READING

Milton Meltzer,

Slavery: A World History,

Da Capo Press,

ISBN 978-0306805363

Slavery is not and has never been a "peculiar institution," but one that is deeply rooted in the history and economy of most countries. Although it has flourished in some periods and declined in others, human bondage for profit has never been eradicated completely. In Slavery: A World History renowned author Milton Meltzer traces slavery from its origins in prehistoric hunting societies; through the boom in slave trading that reached its peak in the United States with a pre-Civil War slave population of 4,000,000; through the forced labor under the Nazi regime and in the Soviet gulags; and finally to its widespread practice in many countries today, such as the debt bondage that miners endure in Brazil or the prostitution into which women are sold in Thailand.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

People who knew Lincoln, wrote J. G. Holland, an early biographer who interviewed dozens of associates and intimates in the months after his death, said that "he was one of the saddest men that ever lived, and that he was one of the jolliest men that ever lived; that he was very religious, but that he was not a Christian; … that he was the most cunning man in America, and that he had not a particle of cunning in him; that he had the strongest personal attachments, and that he had no personal attachments at all; … that he was a tyrant, and that he was the softest-hearted, most brotherly man that ever lived; … that he was a leader of the people, and that he was led by the people; that he was cool and impassive, and that he was susceptible of the strongest passions." It's of course a cliché to say that some great figure in our history was "a bundle of contradictions." But the fact that so many people held such different and indeed contradictory opinions about him is already suggestive of the complexity of his character

It is hardly a news flash to say that Abraham Lincoln was our greatest President. But what do we mean by "greatness"? It's a term that historians, who spend much of their time debunking reputations, are reluctant to use, because it lacks precision. But let's begin by acknowledging that Lincoln, like Churchill in the following century, (1) changed the course of history by saving a beleaguered democracy; (2) that in the dire circumstances in which he found himself in 1861, only he could have done this (again, like Churchill in 1940); and (3) that his extraordinary character as a leader depended not simply on excellence in one sphere of activity but in multiple roles, including the ability to articulate unforgettably the meaning of the struggle in which he and his people were engaged. Here, too, in his mastery of all the resources of the English language, Churchill resembled him. But there was a difference: Churchill was an aristocrat, born in a palace; Lincoln, as everybody knows, was born in a log cabin and almost entirely self-taught.
PROF. BRUCE THOMPSON

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES

The most famous debates in American political history focused almost exclusively on the issue that divided Americans most bitterly and threatened the very integrity of their nation: slavery. Douglas defended his doctrine of popular sovereignty: he endorsed the decision of the citizens of Illinois to abolish slavery in their own state, but argued that what the people of other states and territories decided to do about slavery was their own business. He accused Lincoln, no longer a Whig, of being a "black Republican" who placed the interests of black slaves and his own political aspirations above the integrity of the Union. He backed Lincoln into a corner and forced him to declare himself in some respects at least a white supremacist. Lincoln fought back by attacking not only Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty but also the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision of the previous year, which stated that no black person could be a citizen, that owning slaves was an inviolable right of property, and that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against taking property without due process. If slave ownership was a constitutionally protected property right, how could territorial settlers legally exclude slavery? The Court, he said, had watered down Douglas's popular sovereignty doctrine until it was "as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death." Douglas replied that the people of a territory could override the Supreme Court by refusing to pass a slave code, but Lincoln pointed out that if this "lawless" doctrine were accepted then abolitionists by the same logic could refuse to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. Lincoln, in other words, showed that Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty and Chief Justice Taney's decision that the Constitution endorsed slavery as an inviolable right of property, were logically incompatible with each other. But Lincoln went further, and deeper. Did Douglas deny that black slaves were human beings? Did he maintain that they had no rights at all? Lincoln famously argued that although all men were not created equal in every respect, they were equal in at least one respect: that they were entitled to a share in the fruits of their own labor. Conceding that the African American was "perhaps" not the equal of the white American in some respects, he insisted that in the right to put into his mouth the bread that he had earned with his own hands, he is the equal of every other man.
PROF. BRUCE THOMPSON

RECOMMENDED READING

David Herbert Donald,

Lincoln,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

Destined to become a classic in American history and biography, David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln is a masterly account of how one man’s extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality. This fully rounded biography of America’s sixteenth President is the product of Donald’s half-century of study of Lincoln and his times. In preparing it, Donald has drawn more extensively than any previous writer on Lincoln’s personal papers and those of his contemporaries, and he has taken full advantage of the voluminous newly discovered records of Lincoln’s legal practice. He presents his findings with the same literary skill and psychological understanding exhibited in his previous biographies, which have received two Pulitzer Prizes. Donald brilliantly traces Lincoln’s rise from humble origins in Kentucky to prominent positions in legal and political circles in Illinois, and then to the pinnacle of the presidency. He shows how, in all these roles, Lincoln repeatedly demonstrated his enormous capacity for growth, which enabled one of the least experienced and most poorly prepared men ever elected to high office to become a giant in the annals of American politics. Much more than a political biography, Donald’s Lincoln reveals the development of the future President’s character and shows how his private life helped to shape his public career.

RECOMMENDED READING

Michael Burlingame,

Abraham Lincoln: A Life,

Johns Hopkins University Press; Abridged edition (October 10, 2023),

ISBN 978-1421445557

(For best deal, OK to purchase used hardcover from Amazon)

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the American Civil War". Stowe, a Connecticut-born woman of English descent, was part of the religious Beecher family and an active abolitionist. She wrote the sentimental novel to depict the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love could overcome slavery. The novel focuses on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of the other characters revolve. In the United States, Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel in the 19th century, except for the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s.The influence attributed to the book was so great that a story arose of Abraham Lincoln meeting Stowe at the start of the Civil War and declaring, "So this is the little lady who started this great war."

 

RECOMMENDED READING

Harriet Beecher Stowe,

Uncle Tom's Cabin,

Penguin Classics,

ISBN 978-0140390032

It is hardly a news flash to say that Abraham Lincoln was our greatest President.  But what do we mean by "greatness"?  It's a term that historians, who spend much of their time debunking reputations, are reluctant to use, because it lacks precision.  But let's begin by acknowledging that Lincoln, like Churchill in the following century, (1) changed the course of history by saving a beleaguered democracy; (2) that in the dire circumstances in which he found himself in 1861, only he could have done this (again, like Churchill in 1940); and (3) that his extraordinary character as a leader depended not simply on excellence in one sphere of activity but in multiple roles, including the ability to articulate unforgettably the meaning of the struggle in which he and his people were engaged.  Here, too, in his mastery of all the resources of the English language, Churchill resembled him.  But there was a difference: Churchill was an aristocrat, born in a palace; Lincoln, as everybody knows, was born in a log cabin and almost entirely self-taught. As Christopher Hitchens remarked in an essay about Lincoln, the other great American presidents—Washington, the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison, the two Roosevelts—were all members of the existing governing class.  Lincoln alone came from "the very bone and marrow of the country." Every individual is, of course, unique, and something of a mystery, even to himself.  His contemporaries testified to an aura of mystery about Lincoln:  "he was the most reticent, secretive man I ever saw—or expect to see" (Judge David Davis). "He never opened his whole soul to any man: he never touched the history or quality of his own nature in the presence of friends" (William Herndon).  He left no diary or memoirs, and never sustained an intimate correspondence for very long with one person. "During neither his frequent attacks of melancholy nor his moments of gaiety, when he became a delightful companion, did he expose the secret recesses of his mind." (Don Fehrenbacher). Also remember that it was not only his remarkable character that enabled him to achieve greatness, it was also his intellect. He was almost entirely self-educated, but he must have been one of the most intelligent men ever to occupy the White House. Jefferson may be his only rival in this respect. But Jefferson had the best education the eighteenth century could offer, while Lincoln had barely two years of schooling. Yet Lincoln, as we shall see, read omnivorously, taught himself the principles of rhetoric and argument, became a distinguished lawyer without ever having gone to law school, made an intensive study of Euclidean geometry to develop his powers of logical analysis, meditated deeply on philosophical and theological issues, and, starting from scratch, read his way into the vast literature of military strategy in order to fulfill his responsibilities as Commander in Chief.  And as everyone knows, he became the greatest writer among American presidents, surpassing even the author of the Declaration of Independence, the document that was the key to his own political thought.

Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

David Herbert Donald,

Lincoln,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

Destined to become a classic in American history and biography, David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln is a masterly account of how one man’s extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality. This fully rounded biography of America’s sixteenth President is the product of Donald’s half-century of study of Lincoln and his times. In preparing it, Donald has drawn more extensively than any previous writer on Lincoln’s personal papers and those of his contemporaries, and he has taken full advantage of the voluminous newly discovered records of Lincoln’s legal practice. He presents his findings with the same literary skill and psychological understanding exhibited in his previous biographies, which have received two Pulitzer Prizes. Donald brilliantly traces Lincoln’s rise from humble origins in Kentucky to prominent positions in legal and political circles in Illinois, and then to the pinnacle of the presidency. He shows how, in all these roles, Lincoln repeatedly demonstrated his enormous capacity for growth, which enabled one of the least experienced and most poorly prepared men ever elected to high office to become a giant in the annals of American politics. Much more than a political biography, Donald’s Lincoln reveals the development of the future President’s character and shows how his private life helped to shape his public career.

RECOMMENDED READING

James M. McPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

"Immediately takes its place as the best one-volume history of the coming of the American Civil War and the war itself. It is a superb narrative history, elegantly written."--Philadelphia Inquirer
"Matchless....The book's political and economic discussions are as engrossing as the descriptions of military campaigns and personalities."--Library Journal
"McPherson cements his reputation as one of the finest Civil War historians....Should become a standard general history of the Civil War period--it's one that will stand up for years to come."--Kirkus Reviews
"The best one-volume treatment of [the Civil War era] I have ever come across. It may actually be the best ever published....I was swept away, feeling as if I had never heard the saga before....Omitting nothing important, whether military, political, or economic, he yet manages to make everything he touches drive the narrative forward. This is historical writing of the highest order."--Hugh Brogan, New York Times Book Review

RECOMMENDED READING

Doris Kearns Goodwin,

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,

Simon & Schuster (September 26, 2006),

ISBN 978-0743270755

Jefferson F. Davis, 1808 – 1889 was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War. He was the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857. Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in Fairview, Kentucky, but spent most of his childhood in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. His eldest brother Joseph Emory Davis secured the younger Davis's appointment to the United States Military Academy. Upon graduating, he served six years as a lieutenant in the United States Army. After leaving the army in 1835, Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor. Sarah died from malaria three months after the wedding. Davis became a cotton planter, building Brierfield Plantation in Mississippi on his brother Joseph's land and eventually owning as many as 113 slaves. In 1845, Davis married Varina Howell. During the same year, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving for one year. From 1846 to 1847, he fought in the Mexican–American War as the colonel of a volunteer regiment. He was appointed to the United States Senate in 1847, resigning to unsuccessfully run as governor of Mississippi. In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Secretary of War. After Pierce's administration ended in 1857, Davis returned to the Senate. He resigned in 1861 when Mississippi seceded from the United States. During the Civil War, Davis guided the Confederacy's policies and served as its commander in chief. (Wikipedia)

RECOMMENDED READING

James M. McPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to the war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the nation's western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head when Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 U.S. presidential election. Seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over both North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more southern states seceded after the war began and, led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy asserted control over about a third of the U.S. population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.

RECOMMENDED READING

James M. McPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

David Von Drehle,

Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year,

Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition (October 30, 2012),

ISBN 978-0805079708

The Battle of Gettysburg was a three-day battle in the American Civil War fought between Union and Confederate forces between July 1 and July 3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle, which was won by the Union, is widely considered the Civil War's turning point, ending the Confederacy's aspirations to establish an independent nation. It was the Civil War's bloodiest battle, claiming over 50,000 combined casualties over three days. In the Battle of Gettysburg, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee's invasion of the north and forcing his retreat.

RECOMMENDED READING

James M. McPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

"The end of the Confederacy was pitiful. On April 1, 1865, Davis sent his wife Varina away from Richmond, giving her a small Colt and fifty rounds of ammunition. The next day he had to get out of Richmond himself. He went to Danville, to plan guerrilla warfare. By this point General Lee was already in communication with General Grant about a possible armistice, and had indeed privately used the word ‘surrender,’ but he continued to fight fiercely with his army, using it with his customary skills. He dismissed pressure from junior officers to negotiate, and as late as April 8 he took severe disciplinary action against three general officers who, in his opinion, were not fighting in earnest or had deserted their posts. But by the next morning Lee’s army was virtually surrounded. He dressed in his best uniform, wearing, unusually for him, a red silk sash and sword. Having heard the latest news of the position of his troops, and the Union forces, he said: ‘Then there is nothing left me but to go and see General Grant and I would rather die a thousand deaths.’129 The two generals met at Appomattox Court House, Grant dressed in ‘rough garb,’ spattered with mud. Both men were, in fact, carefully dressed for the occasion, as they wished to appear for posterity. The terms were easily agreed, Grant allowing that Southern officers could keep their sidearms and horses. Lee pointed out that, in the South, the enlisted men in the cavalry and artillery also owned their horses. Grant allowed those to be kept too. After Lee’s surrender on April 9, Davis hurried to Greensboro to rendezvous with General Johnston’s army. But in the meantime Johnston had reached an agreement with General Sherman which, in effect, dissolved the Confederacy. Davis gave the terms to his Cabinet, saying he wanted to reject them, but the Cabinet accepted them. Washington, however, did not, and the South had to be content, in the end, with a simple laying down of arms.130 By this time Lincoln was dead. He had summoned Grant to hear his account of the surrender at Appomattox, and he beamed with pleasure when the general told him that the terms had extended not just to the officers but to the men: ‘I told them to go back to their homes and their families and that they would not be molested, if they did nothing more.’ Lincoln expected Sherman to report a similar surrender and he told Grant he expected good news as he had just had one of his dreams which portended such. Grant said he described how ‘he seemed to be in some singular, indescribable vessel and…he was moving with great rapidity to an indefinite shore.’131 Lincoln told his wife (April 14), who said to him, ‘Dear husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness,’ ‘And well may I feel so, Mary. I consider this day, the war has come to a close'."
Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People (pp. 494-495). HarperCollins.

RECOMMENDED READING

James M. McPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359

Bruce Thompson on the Second Inaugural:

Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address on Saturday, March 4, 1865, about a month short of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox. Weeks of blustery storms had left Pennsylvania Avenue thick with mud, but the sun appeared just as Lincoln stood up to speak, under the recently completed Capitol dome. This time there were many hundreds of free black people, including the great abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, as well as black soldiers in uniform, in the audience. The address, at four paragraphs, 26 sentences, 703 words, is longer than the Gettysburg Address, but shorter than any other inaugural address, except for the first one, by George Washington.

Lincoln:
"Fellow-Countrymen:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured."

Surely this is a modest opening: no biblical "four score and seven years ago," but rather "this second appearing." Not "my second appearing," for Lincoln once again has chosen to suppress the first person singular pronoun: there is one use of "myself" and one of "I" in this paragraph ("I trust"), but everywhere else in the speech he uses the inclusive plural. He begins, modestly, by telling us what he will not do in the speech: he will not render an account of the North's great victories on the battlefields ("little that is new could be presented"). Nor will he celebrate his own achievements, or even predict the final outcome of the war ("no prediction in regard to it is ventured"). Notice how he shifts to the passive voice to avoid the first person singular pronoun.

RECOMMENDED READING

James M. McPherson,

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 978-0684825359