{"id":833,"date":"2015-06-23T18:43:31","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/americanyawp\/?post_type=chapter&p=833"},"modified":"2015-06-23T18:43:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:43:31","slug":"confederate-nationalism-and-union-war-aims","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-forsythtech-americanhistory1\/chapter\/confederate-nationalism-and-union-war-aims\/","title":{"raw":"Confederate Nationalism and Union War Aims","rendered":"Confederate Nationalism and Union War Aims"},"content":{"raw":"Elite southerners began conceiving of the South as distinct from the rest of the United States long before secession. Elite antebellum southerners feared that abolitionism would threaten slavery, leading southern politicians to advance the position of states\u2019 rights. They argued that the ultimate power rested in the states rather than in the federal government.\u00a0 Cultural theories followed politics, as southern intellectuals developed the myth of the cavalier, which claimed that elite southerners, unlike northerners, descended from aristocratic Englishmen, and thus northerners and southerners were distinct and separate peoples.\u00a0 Although most antebellum southerners\u2019 loyalty was still to the U.S., as early as 1850, radical secessionists known as fire-eaters called for a separate southern nation. The majority of southerners remained loyal to the Union until the fall of 1860, when Abraham Lincoln, representing the new antislavery Republican Party, was elected president.\r\n\r\nNew Confederates quickly shed their American identity and adopted a new southern nationalism.\u00a0 Confederate nationalism was based on several ideals.\u00a0 Foremost among these was slavery.\u00a0 As Confederate Vice President Andrew Stephens stated in his \u201cCornerstone Speech,\u201d the Confederacy\u2019s \u201cfoundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery\u2026 is his natural and normal condition.\u201d\r\n
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_759\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1000\"]\"The<\/a> The emblems of nationalism on this currency reveal much about the ideology underpinning the Confederacy: George Washington standing stately in a Roman toga indicates the belief in the South\u2019s honorable and aristocratic past; John C. Calhoun\u2019s portrait emphasizes the Confederate argument of the importance of states\u2019 rights; and, most importantly, the image of African Americans working in fields demonstrates slavery\u2019s position as foundational to the Confederacy. A five and one hundred dollar Confederate States of America interest bearing banknote, c. 1861 and 1862. Wikimedia<\/a>.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nThe election of Lincoln in 1860 demonstrated that the South\u2019s was politically overwhelmed. Slavery was omnipresent in the pre-war South, and it served as the most common frame of reference for unequal power.\u00a0 To a Southern man, there was no fate more terrifying than the thought of being reduced to the level of a slave.\u00a0 Religion likewise shaped Confederate nationalism and identity, as southerners believed that the Confederacy was fulfilling God\u2019s will. The Confederacy even veered from the American constitution by explicitly invoking Christianity in their founding document.\r\n\r\nIt is a common misconception that Civil War soldiers enlisted and fought for largely personal reasons such as camaraderie rather than for more abstract notions such as honor, patriotism, or their rights.\u00a0 However, to Americans during the mid-nineteenth century, these were not abstract concepts.\u00a0 This was an age of romanticism in literature and philosophy, and ideas like honor and duty held great sway.\u00a0 The men who fought in the Union and Confederate placed as much value on fighting and possibly dying for the cause as they did on unit cohesion and comradeship.\r\n\r\nThe heritage of the American Revolution provided an additional source of southern nationalism.\u00a0 Confederates claimed that northerners had betrayed the original intent of the Founding Fathers.\u00a0 The Confederacy was thus supposedly the true heir of the American Revolution, a belief that was made visibly apparent by the inclusion of an image of George Washington on the Great Seal of the Confederacy.\r\n\r\nOn March 4, 1861, when newly-elected President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office, he directly addressed the southern portion of his splintering constituency:\r\n
\u201cWe are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\nIn the process of preserving the Union, friendship and diplomacy gave way to war. Like Lincoln, most northerners in the late-1850s and 1860s viewed the Union\u2014that is, the constitutional compact between the states to form a federal government\u2014as permanent. As such, the vast majority of men that answered President Lincoln\u2019s call for troops did so with the fervent belief that they were taking up arms to save the Union. By saving the Union, these northern soldiers also viewed themselves as direct descendants of the Founding Fathers and protectors of their Revolutionary legacy.\r\n\r\nFor Union soldiers, the need to preserve the Union was paramount.\u00a0 The Revolution had purchased something truly unique with dear blood; a representative democracy. They feared that if a minority could dissolve part of the country whenever they lost a fair and open election, then this great experiment would collapse. By splitting over the 1860 election, the fear was a precedent would be established, and soon there would be another split, and another, until nothing remained of the United States but a series of small, warring factions.\u00a0 So many social commentators in Europe would be proven right and the Founders would have been proven wrong; a democratic people could not govern themselves.\u00a0 Additionally, Union soldiers viewed themselves as guardians of law and order.\u00a0 A rebellion and attempted secession against a properly elected government was treason.\r\n\r\nNot all southerners participated in Confederate nationalism.\u00a0 Unionist southerners, most common in the upcountry, retained their loyalty to the Union, joining the Union army and working to defeat the Confederacy.\u00a0 Although sacrifice could enhance devotion to the Confederacy for some southerners, the suffering of war, combined with unpopular measures such as the draft, also weakened morale.\u00a0 Black southerners, most of whom were slaves, overwhelmingly supported the Union, often running away from plantations to follow the Union army.\u00a0 The weakening of southern nationalism, along with southern support for the Union, ultimately aided the eventual Union victory.\r\n\r\nCut off from their southern brethren, the northern branches of the Democratic Party divided. War Democrats largely stood behind President Lincoln and their support was necessary for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. \u201cPeace Democrats\u201d\u2014also known as \u201cCopperheads\u201d\u2014clashed frequently with both War Democrats and Republicans. Copperheads were sympathetic to the Confederacy; they exploited public anti-war sentiment (often the result of a lost battle or mounting casualties) and tried to push President Lincoln to negotiate an immediate peace, regardless of political leverage or bargaining power. Had the Copperheads succeeded in bringing about immediate peace, the Union would have been forced to recognize the Confederacy as a separate and legitimate government while the institution of slavery would have remained intact. With a Union victory in sight following General William T. Sherman\u2019s successful Atlanta Campaign in 1864, Copperhead support largely evaporated.","rendered":"

Elite southerners began conceiving of the South as distinct from the rest of the United States long before secession. Elite antebellum southerners feared that abolitionism would threaten slavery, leading southern politicians to advance the position of states\u2019 rights. They argued that the ultimate power rested in the states rather than in the federal government.\u00a0 Cultural theories followed politics, as southern intellectuals developed the myth of the cavalier, which claimed that elite southerners, unlike northerners, descended from aristocratic Englishmen, and thus northerners and southerners were distinct and separate peoples.\u00a0 Although most antebellum southerners\u2019 loyalty was still to the U.S., as early as 1850, radical secessionists known as fire-eaters called for a separate southern nation. The majority of southerners remained loyal to the Union until the fall of 1860, when Abraham Lincoln, representing the new antislavery Republican Party, was elected president.<\/p>\n

New Confederates quickly shed their American identity and adopted a new southern nationalism.\u00a0 Confederate nationalism was based on several ideals.\u00a0 Foremost among these was slavery.\u00a0 As Confederate Vice President Andrew Stephens stated in his \u201cCornerstone Speech,\u201d the Confederacy\u2019s \u201cfoundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery\u2026 is his natural and normal condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The emblems of nationalism on this currency reveal much about the ideology underpinning the Confederacy: George Washington standing stately in a Roman toga indicates the belief in the South\u2019s honorable and aristocratic past; John C. Calhoun\u2019s portrait emphasizes the Confederate argument of the importance of states\u2019 rights; and, most importantly, the image of African Americans working in fields demonstrates slavery\u2019s position as foundational to the Confederacy. A five and one hundred dollar Confederate States of America interest bearing banknote, c. 1861 and 1862. Wikimedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The election of Lincoln in 1860 demonstrated that the South\u2019s was politically overwhelmed. Slavery was omnipresent in the pre-war South, and it served as the most common frame of reference for unequal power.\u00a0 To a Southern man, there was no fate more terrifying than the thought of being reduced to the level of a slave.\u00a0 Religion likewise shaped Confederate nationalism and identity, as southerners believed that the Confederacy was fulfilling God\u2019s will. The Confederacy even veered from the American constitution by explicitly invoking Christianity in their founding document.<\/p>\n

It is a common misconception that Civil War soldiers enlisted and fought for largely personal reasons such as camaraderie rather than for more abstract notions such as honor, patriotism, or their rights.\u00a0 However, to Americans during the mid-nineteenth century, these were not abstract concepts.\u00a0 This was an age of romanticism in literature and philosophy, and ideas like honor and duty held great sway.\u00a0 The men who fought in the Union and Confederate placed as much value on fighting and possibly dying for the cause as they did on unit cohesion and comradeship.<\/p>\n

The heritage of the American Revolution provided an additional source of southern nationalism.\u00a0 Confederates claimed that northerners had betrayed the original intent of the Founding Fathers.\u00a0 The Confederacy was thus supposedly the true heir of the American Revolution, a belief that was made visibly apparent by the inclusion of an image of George Washington on the Great Seal of the Confederacy.<\/p>\n

On March 4, 1861, when newly-elected President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office, he directly addressed the southern portion of his splintering constituency:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the process of preserving the Union, friendship and diplomacy gave way to war. Like Lincoln, most northerners in the late-1850s and 1860s viewed the Union\u2014that is, the constitutional compact between the states to form a federal government\u2014as permanent. As such, the vast majority of men that answered President Lincoln\u2019s call for troops did so with the fervent belief that they were taking up arms to save the Union. By saving the Union, these northern soldiers also viewed themselves as direct descendants of the Founding Fathers and protectors of their Revolutionary legacy.<\/p>\n

For Union soldiers, the need to preserve the Union was paramount.\u00a0 The Revolution had purchased something truly unique with dear blood; a representative democracy. They feared that if a minority could dissolve part of the country whenever they lost a fair and open election, then this great experiment would collapse. By splitting over the 1860 election, the fear was a precedent would be established, and soon there would be another split, and another, until nothing remained of the United States but a series of small, warring factions.\u00a0 So many social commentators in Europe would be proven right and the Founders would have been proven wrong; a democratic people could not govern themselves.\u00a0 Additionally, Union soldiers viewed themselves as guardians of law and order.\u00a0 A rebellion and attempted secession against a properly elected government was treason.<\/p>\n

Not all southerners participated in Confederate nationalism.\u00a0 Unionist southerners, most common in the upcountry, retained their loyalty to the Union, joining the Union army and working to defeat the Confederacy.\u00a0 Although sacrifice could enhance devotion to the Confederacy for some southerners, the suffering of war, combined with unpopular measures such as the draft, also weakened morale.\u00a0 Black southerners, most of whom were slaves, overwhelmingly supported the Union, often running away from plantations to follow the Union army.\u00a0 The weakening of southern nationalism, along with southern support for the Union, ultimately aided the eventual Union victory.<\/p>\n

Cut off from their southern brethren, the northern branches of the Democratic Party divided. War Democrats largely stood behind President Lincoln and their support was necessary for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. \u201cPeace Democrats\u201d\u2014also known as \u201cCopperheads\u201d\u2014clashed frequently with both War Democrats and Republicans. Copperheads were sympathetic to the Confederacy; they exploited public anti-war sentiment (often the result of a lost battle or mounting casualties) and tried to push President Lincoln to negotiate an immediate peace, regardless of political leverage or bargaining power. Had the Copperheads succeeded in bringing about immediate peace, the Union would have been forced to recognize the Confederacy as a separate and legitimate government while the institution of slavery would have remained intact. With a Union victory in sight following General William T. Sherman\u2019s successful Atlanta Campaign in 1864, Copperhead support largely evaporated.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div>