Lecture 8

Plan
1. The US Constitution.
2. Abraham Lincoln.
3. The Civil War.
1. The US Constitution
After the states won independence in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), they
faced all the problems of peacetime government. The states had to enforce law and
order, collect taxes, pay a large public debt, and regulate trade among themselves.
They also had to deal with Indian tribes and negotiate with other governments.
Leading statesmen, such as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, began
to discuss the need to create a strong national government under a new constitution.
So in May 1787 delegates from every state except Rhode Island met in
Philadelphia's Independence Hall to consider revisions to the Articles of
Confederation. The smallest state, Rhode Island, had refused to send delegates
because it didn't want the national government to interfere with Rhode Island's
affairs. The Rhode Island General Assembly took 101 years to ratify the U.S.
constitution’s 17th amendment.
The delegates wanted to revise the Articles, but they wrote a completely new
document, the Constitution, which after much argument, debate, and compromise
was finished in the same year.
Of the 55 delegates, 39 signed the US Constitution on September 17, 1787. They
were mostly men of wealth and status, and they were relatively young, with an
average age of forty-two.
George Washington served as president of Conversion. The most prominent
delegates were Benjamin Franklin, at the age of 81 (Representative of
Pennsylvania), Alexander Hamilton represented New York.
James Madison of Virginia received the title of “Father of the Constitution”.
Madison told the delegates they were considering a plan that would “decide forever
the fate of republican government”.
This meeting became known as the Constitutional Conversion. The US
Constitution was officially adopted in 1789.
The first US Constitution was very brief and contained only 7 articles covering
the three powers: The President, the Congress, the Judicial branch.
 Dates the 13 states ratified the Constitution

In 1791, under public pressure, the first ten amendments, or additions, were
made to it. Together they are called the Bill of Rights.
The reason for the Bill of Rights was that the original Constitution had said
nothing about the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. The Bill of Rights
altered this. All the amendments, agreed in 1791, give Americans rights which are
now considered basic, but which were unusual at that time.
The First Amendment promises freedom of religion, free speech, freedom of
the press.
The Second Amendment, which gives people the right to own guns, is now the
subject of much debate.
The Fourth Amendment says that people cannot be arrested and their houses
may not be searched, unless the police have a good reason for doing so. Other
amendments give rights to people who are accused of a crime.
Since the Bill of Rights was adopted other amendments have been added to the
Constitution.
The 12th amendment (1804) changed the method of electing the President. The
13th (1865) prohibited slavery throughout the US.
The 15th (1870) Amendment extended the right to vote to men of all races. So
only in 1870 Indians and Negroes got the right to vote. The 19th (1920) guaranteed
women's right to vote. The 22nd amendment (1951) limited the President to 2
elective terms.
The US Constitution consists of a preamble, 7 articles and 27 amendments. It
establishes the form of the national government and defines the rights and liberties of
the American people.
After the war of independence with the adoption of the Constitution in 1788
George Washington was elected the 1st President of the US.
In the 19th century the US was divided into the North where slavery had been
outlawed and the South where the slave system was still strong and slaves were
cruelly exploited on plantations. From early times there had been Negro slaves, men,
women and children taken from Africa by force or trick, and brought to America.
Here in the South they worked on tobacco and cotton plantation. They were often
beaten, sold and separated. There were many revolts of the slaves but they came to
nothing.
1. Abraham Lincoln
The election of 1860 reflected the nation's division. The Democratic Party split
into the Northern and Southern wings, with each wing slating its own candidate for
President. The Whig Party, weakened by desertions, disbanded before the election.
Only the Republicans remained united. They nominated Abraham Lincoln, an
Illinois lawyer, for the 16th President of the US. The Republican unity helped
Lincoln win the election on November 6, 1860. In office March 4, 1861 – April 15,
1865.
Lincoln had earned a reputation as an opponent of slavery, and his election was
unacceptable to the South. Southerners feared the new President would restrict or end
slavery.
Alarmed by this prospect, South Carolina seceded from the Union on December
20, 1860. Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi seceded in Georgia, January
1861.
The six seceded states formed the Confederate States of America in February
with Jefferson Davis as its president and its capital in Richmond, Virginia. Later in
1861, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia seceded and joined
the Confederacy.
Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. The new President insisted on the
preservation of the Union. He considered that the seceded states were still part of the
United States and he still hoped for reconciliation. But a little more than a month
later, the North and South were at war. At that moment the Confederate States of
America consisted of eleven Confederate states.
3. The Civil War
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when the Southern troops fired on
Sumter Ford (South California). Both sides quickly prepared for battle after the Fort
Sumter clash.
Some people found it difficult and painful to decide which side to support. The
decision sometimes split families.
The son of the commander of the Confederate navy was killed fighting in a
Union ship. Two brothers became generals- but on the opposite sides. And three of
President Lincoln's own brothers-in-law died fighting for the Confederacy.
The north had superior financial and industrial strength and a larger population
than the South.
It had a population of 22 million people.
The South had only 9 million and 3.5 million of them were slaves.
The North grew more food crops than the South.
The South suffered starvation toward the end of the war. Large wheat crops
were exchanged in England for war material. Besides control of the navy gave the
North a great advantage by enabling it to maintain a blockade of Southern ports.
The advantages of the South:
1) Britain and French cotton mills depended upon Southern cotton. So both
countries did give help to the Confederacy;
2) The superior training of Southern men in the military arts;
3) Southern military leaders were more able than the Northern, because many of
the best officers in the pre-war army of the United States were southerners;
4) Confederates fought on their native land. This often made them fight with
more spirit than the Union soldiers.
Southerners denied that they were fighting mainly to preserve slavery. Most
were poor farmers who owned no slaves. The South was fighting for its independence
from the North, they said, just as their grandfathers had fought for independence from
Britain almost a century earlier.
The South gained the upper hand at first, but the North gradually turned the tide.
A turning point came in June 1863 at the battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania).
In this battle the southern forces were under General Robert E. Lee and the US
soldiers were led by General George Mead. Over 40000 men on both sides were
killed or wounded, and the battle ended as a major victory for the North.
After the battle, President Lincoln gave one of the most famous speeches in
American History: The Gettysburg Address about democracy.
 In his short speech President Lincoln said that "this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom" and that "government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth".
The same year he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which made slavery
illegal, but only in the Confederacy. It had no actual power to make them free, but
people talk about Lincoln 'freeing the slaves' because of this proclamation.
It helped the North in the Civil War by allowing black people to serve in the
army and navy, and by changing the war into a fight against slavery.
In 1863 the Union Armies suffered a lot of defeats which can be also explained
by the fact that among the leaders of the confederate army were two men of great
military talent - General Jackson and Robert E. Lee.
While the Northerners lacked at first such brilliant officers. In 1864 Lincoln
finally found a general who could lead the Union armies to victory. It was Ulysses S.
Grand who later became the 18th President of the US. (In office March 4, 1869-
March 4, 1877)
Union soldiers led by Ulysses S. Grant won a major victory at Vicksburg and
Grant was made Supreme Commander of the Union Army. He attacked the
Confederate army on several fronts. The Union navy had control of the sea and
prevented all supplies reaching the South. In 1864, General Sherman led 60000
troops through Georgia, destroying everything in their path including Atlanta, which
was set on fire.
In 1865Abraham Lincoln was again elected as President. It was at the end of
the Civil War. On April 9, 1865, when the South could fight no more, General Robert
E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
Five days later, on April 14, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a
Virginia actor, who supported the South. It happened in the presidential box at Ford's
Theatre in Washington while the President with his family and friends were watching
the play "Our American Cousin". He died the next day
The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars in history. No other war
in history has taken so many lives (635000 people). More Americans died in this war
than in any other, before or since.
The long and difficult period that followed was called Reconstruction. Although
the industrial North had been made rich by the Civil War, the South land the southern
way of life had been destroyed. Most of the large plantations were broken up, many
cities, towns, factories and railroads lay in ruin.
The Civil War gave final answers to two questions that had divided the United
States ever since became an independent nation. It put an end to slavery. In 1865 this
everywhere in the US by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And it decided
finally that the United States was one nation, whose parts could not be separated. was
abolished