Politics of the Civil War by Jennifer Thompson

1. Quill and Musket Lecturer Series Politics of the Civil Warby Jennifer Thompson

2. Elections • During election times, political candidates spent a lot of time attacking each other rather than focusing on winning the war. Candidates disputed the national government’s war powers, presidential autonomy, and the widening views regarding conciliation or destruction of the Rebels. During the 1862 elections, Republican Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa complained, “We are going to destruction as fast as imbecility, corruption, and the wheels of time can carry us.” (Jackson, 143) • During the 1863 elections, General in Chief Henry Halleck complained, “Party Politics! Party Politics! ...I sometimes fear they will utterly ruin the country.” (Jackson, 142)

3. Although women could not vote, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin urged them to persuade their men to vote for him. “The loyal women in every community have exerted a vast influence in sustaining the war and the government….The sick and wounded soldiers everywhere bless our noble women. They will bestow upon them additional blessings if they aid in electing the soldier’s truest friend, Andrew G. Curtin.” (Gallman, 366)

4. Amnesty & Reconstruction • On December 8, 1863, Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. The next day in his State of the Union address, he emphasized its importance. “The man is only promised a pardon in case he voluntarily takes the oath….It is also preferred that is in any of the States named a State Government shall be recognized and guaranteed by the United States, and that under it the State shall, on the constitutional conditions, be protected against invasion and domestic violence….Those laws and proclamations were enacted and put forth for the purpose of aiding in the suppression of the rebellion.” (Donald and Holzer, 193-194) • When Longstreet visited Lincoln in the White House requesting amnesty, Lincoln replied, “There are three persons of the South, who can never receive amnesty: Mr. Davis, General Lee, and yourself. You have given the Union cause too much trouble.” (Wright, 279)

5. Politics • Lincoln continued to pursue his goal of preserving the Union. Charles Dana felt “Lincoln was a supreme politician. He understood politics because he understood human nature….in the spring of 1864. The administration had decided that the Constitution of the United States should be amended so that slavery should be prohibited….In order thus to amend the Constitution, it was necessary first to have the proposed amendment approved by three fourths of the States….the issue was seen to be so close that one State more was necessary. The State of Nevada was organized and admitted into the Union to answer that purpose….Well, these men voted that Nevada be allowed to form a State government, and thus they helped secure the vote which was required. The next October the President signed the proclamation admitting the State. In the February following Nevada was one of the States which ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, by which slavery was abolished by constitutional prohibition in all of the United States.” (Dana, 174-175, 177)

6. Congress • Congress did not like Lincoln’s policy of amnesty and reconstruction. They felt the seceded states should be readmitted under strict standards set by Congress. This “state suicide” Reconstruction theory was placed into the Wade-Davis Bill by Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade and Maryland Representative Henry Davis. Lincoln’s plan had required 10% of a state’s voters to swear an oath of allegiance; the Wade-Davis Bill required 50% to take the oath. Lincoln refused to take action on the bill before Congress adjourned, which caused a pocket veto.

7. Lincoln explained, “…this bill was placed before me a few minutes before Congress adjourns. It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed in that way….This bill and this position of these gentlemen seems to me to make the fatal admission (in asserting that the insurrectionary states are no longer states in the Union) that states whenever they please may of their own motion dissolve their connection with the Union….I have laboriously endeavored to avoid that question ever since it first began to be mooted & thus to avoid confusion and disturbance in our own counsels. It was to obviate this question that I earnestly favored the movement for an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, which passed the Senate and failed in the House.” (Gallman, 432-433)

8. Freedmen’s Bureau Alfred R. Waud, Library of Congress

9. Robert Hamilton, the editor of the Weekly Anglo-African, on January 17, 1863, reminded northern blacks they would be needed to help the former slaves: “The process of transforming three millions of slaves into citizens requires the aid of intelligent colored men and women. We are, and can be, nearer to them than any other class of persons; we can enter into their feelings and attract their sympathies better than any others can. We can more patiently help and teach, and jealously defend them, than any others can. We are manifestly destined for this work of mercy….And as no work can be carried on efficiently without organization, so all these separate efforts should be combined under one great national organization, which shall have power and authority to do the work thoroughly.” (Ripley, 226-227) • The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established in March 1865 to help freed slaves. Albion Tourgee stated, “the Freedmen’s Bureau acted as the black man’s guardian and friend, looked after his interests in contracts, prohibited the law’s barbarity, and insisted stubbornly that the freedman was a man, and must be treated as such.” (Smith, 624)

10. 1864 Election • The election of 1864 was controversial with McClellan running against Lincoln. Lincoln feared he would not be reelected. Horace Greeley felt, “Mr. Lincoln is already beaten; he cannot be elected and we must have another ticket.” (Jackson, 154) • He soon changed his mind and declared “we must reelect him, and, God helping us, we will.” (Jackson, 158) • The London Daily News correspondent remarked that, “His logic and his English, his jokes, his plain common sense, his shrewdness, his unbounded reliance on their honesty and straight-forwardness, go right to their hearts.” (Jackson, 158)

11. A supporter remembered the rallies: “Night and day, without cessation, young men like myself, in halls, upon street corners and from cart tails, were haranguing, pleading, sermonizing, orating and extolling our cause and our candidate, and denouncing our opponents.” (Jackson, 158) • Lincoln was very thankful when the election results guaranteed his victory: “I give thanks to the Almighty,…for this evidence of the people’s resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.” (Jackson, 161)

12. Elected Lincoln taking the oath at his second inauguration, March 4, 1865 Library of Congress

13. Sources: • Dana, Charles A. Recollections of the Civil War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996. • Donald, David Herbert and Harold Holzer, eds. Lincoln in the Times: The Life of Abraham Lincoln as Originally Reported in the New York Times. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. • Gallman, Matthew, ed. The Civil War Chronicle. New York: Gramercy Books, 2000. • Jackson, Donald Dale. Twenty Million Yankees: The Northern Home Front. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1985.

14. Ripley, C. Peter. Witness for Freedom. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. • Smith, Page. Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Volume Five. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982. • Wright, John D. The Oxford Dictionary of Civil War Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.