Posted on 07/25/2012 9:50:49 AM PDT by BO Stinkss
On this day in 1861, the U.S. Congress passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, declaring that the war is being waged for the reunion of the states and not to interfere with the institutions of the South, namely slavery. The measure was important in keeping the pivotal states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland in the Union.
This resolution is not to be confused with an earlier plan, the Crittenden Compromise, which proposed protecting slavery as an enticement to keep Southern states from seceding; the plan was defeated in Congress. Many Northerners initially supported a war to keep the Union together, but had no interest in advancing the cause of abolition. The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed in 1861 to distinguish the issue of emancipation from the war's purpose.
The common denominator of the two plans was Senator John Crittenden from Kentucky. Crittenden carried the torch of compromise borne so ably by another Kentucky senator, Henry Clay, who brokered such important deals as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 to keep the nation together. Clay died in 1852, but Crittenden carried on the spirit befitting the representative of a state deeply divided over the issue of slavery.
Although the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed in Congress, it meant little when, just two weeks later, President Abraham Lincoln signed a confiscation act, allowing for the seizure of property—including slaves—from rebellious citizens. Still, for the first year and a half of the Civil War, reunification of the United States was the official goal of the North. It was not until Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862 that slavery became a goal.
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
What? I was taught that it was the war of Southern Aggression.
Slavery was a major cause of the war.
However, abolition did not become a major reason to conduct the war until the Emancipation Proclamation.
There you go!
The Union did not engage in the war to end slavery. They fought to preserve the Union. But they would not have needed to fight to preserve the Union, if the seceding states hadn’t left to over their desire to preserve slavery. This is why slavery is said to be the root cause of the war. Meanwhile, it’s useful to note that, while the goal was preserve the Union, it was clearly understood that conflict over slavery led to secession. Indeed, this is exactly why the Corwin amendment was recommended in the first place - to assure the secessionists that slavery was not threatened, and thus, avoid disunion and war.
The side that fired first was not the Union.
(2) It was clear from the very beginning that the Union's chief motivation in responding to that Southern-initiated aggression was to preserve the Union.
The Confederacy was fighting a war for the expansion of slave territory, the Union was fighting for the Union.
People on opposite sides in wars often have different motives and views of the war. For example, Hitler believed that he was waging war primarily against the Jews, not Britain, the US, and USSR.
The preservation of slavery was clearly the motive for secession. Many Unionists, however, were not much or at all against slavery and were only interested in preserving the Union. If the Civil War had ended within a year or two, it is very possible that slavery might have been preserved for some time.
When the South wouldn’t roll over and play dead and the Irish conscripts were running low, Lincoln “emancipated” the blacks to fill the ranks and throw at the Army of Northern Virginia.
The unionists were against expansion of slavery in the territories for racist reasons, to "keep it pure for free whites".
The Norther industrialists were against expansion of slavery, because slaves did not buy much in the way of Northern factory products.
Lincoln never expected the Confederate interests to "roll over and play dead" - he expected a fierce fight, unlike some Northern journalists.
The Union armies had many Irish volunteers and not very many Irish conscripts - as the draft riots proved, conscription was not a very reliable source of manpower.
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued largely to prevent the United Kingdom from assisting the Confederacy.
The first experimental black regiments were not even formed in the Union until months after the Proclamation, and they did not add significant manpower to the Union forces.
If that was the case, such an opinion was not publicly expressed by very many voices in the North.
Your statement is more invented propaganda than historical fact.
That makes no sense, How can slavery be a cause of the war if it as not at issue until long after the war started?
From the southern perspective the war was about preserving their freshly declared independence.
From the northern perspective as this act clearly demonstrates the war was about forcing the south under a corrupt union it no longer consented to.
Where is the slavery issue when the first shots are fired?
Face it, Mr. Lincoln’s war was very unpopular throughout the conflict until the fall of Atlanta. Then things flipped, the war became somewhat popular in the North and the once wildly popular war became decidedly unpopular below the Mason-Dixon.
Lincoln and his party were billed as “the only white man’s party in the country.”
Lee invaded MD with an infantry brigade still in Harper’s Ferry, several hours march away from the front. That wasn’t to swift either.
It was initially popular, became unpopular in 1862 and its popularity was renewed after the double victories of Gettysburg/Vicksburg.
McClellan's electoral defeat demonstrates that Lincoln had popular backing before Atlanta fell.
the once wildly popular war became decidedly unpopular below the Mason-Dixon
The war became quite unpopular in the South earlier than Atlanta's fall - as evidenced by the bread riots in Richmond and elsewhere months before Gettysburg. Northern Alabama and North Carolina/Northern Georgia basically quit sending new troops to the Confederate armies in the fall of 1862.
Oh, and the Confederacy fell back on conscription before the Union did.
Which begs the question: by whom, where, and when?
McClellan had all the men and materiel and advantage he needed to encircle and crush the ANV - but he lacked the nerve that made Lee such a brilliant captain.
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