1.2 Bloody Divide: 1856-1868

The United States has always been (and always will be) full of people with conflicting ideals.

(Hello!? This is Planet Earth; diversity is kind of our thing!)

The most well known example of the United States' internal political war is slavery. 

The United States had always included people on both sides of the political slavery fence, those who wanted to see slavery Abolished, and those who wanted to keep slavery legal. (You will find this true of any political topic.) It was not a new development or sentiment by the 1860’s, but rather, a long overdue volcano that finally exploded like Mount Vesuvius onto Pompeii. The warning signs were there, but the Civil War couldn’t be avoided because each side felt they were fundamentally right and the other side was wrong.

After the last state dropped its property-owner restrictions in 1856, still leaving only Anglo-American men the eligibility to vote, things became progressively direr between the states and the United States. The 1845 coining of the phrase “Manifest Destiny” took root in many of the Southern States, drawing a line of sovereignty between states and the overall governing body of the nation, the United States. 

To the Slave-Owners, the slave industry was a way of life, they believed it was their right to enslave the Africans and African American people, and that the “negros” were so inferior a race, that right could not be challenged. In 2016, we know differently about slavery and the perception of race inferiority, but in the 1850’s, those who knew slavery was wrong, didn’t find the Slave-Owners even willing to consider it.

In one of the smallest, but most brutal Republican/Abolitionist v. Democrat/Slave-Owner battles, Democratic South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks beat Republican Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death with a cane after Senator Sumner's aggressive speech about slavery, attacking slave-owners and the slave industry, in May of 1856 (Caning of Sumner [1856]). 

The incident fired up the nation when the South believed Brooks was a hero, while the North believed Sumner was a martyr. Over a million copies were sold of the speech Sumner gave which lead to his beating. Hundreds of canes were even sent to Senator Sumner in intimidating approval of his beating, one of which is reported to be inscribed "hit him again."

William Cullen Bryant asked at the time, what I'd have liked to ask, in the New York Evening Post: "Has it come to this, that we must speak with bated breath in the presence of our Southern masters?... Are we to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?" 

In confirmation and contrast, the south had publications praising Brooks for beating Sumner, that Sumner should be caned daily, and more colorfully, that the caning was "good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences" because "these vulgar abolitionists in the Senate...have been suffered to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into submission."

Representative Brooks was tried and convicted for his assault on Sumner,which left Sumner in debilitating pain for the rest of his life. Brooks' sentence? A fine of $300 [equivalent to $8,047 in 2016] and no jail time. I am sure if I had been able to dig-up Brook's financial stability at the time, that $300 would have been chump-change and hardly a punishment for his new fame. 

More interestingly, Brooks resigned to give his constituents the freedom to decided whether or not he should serve in the House of Representatives anymore. A special Election was held in July of 1856, and Brooks was re-elected to office in the next term. Before he could serve that term however, he died "a horrid death, and suffered immensely" of coup in 1857. It was one step in the many-runged ladder leading to the Civil War.

1857 also saw the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott v Sandford case favor the continued oppression the African Americans. More specifically, it began years prior when a man named Dred Scott, who was born a slave, got married (though not recognized legally), had a family, changed ownership a couple of times, and worked for his owners directly, or for other free people as a rented slave for labor, tried to earn his freedom.

Back in 1846 (11 years before the Supreme Court Case), Scott tried to purchase his family's freedom from his owners, but was denied. The daughter (and her husband) of his previous ownersassisted Dred Scott in filing a lawsuit for his (and his wife's) emancipation, on the grounds of living in a free-state, and that his wife had been born free (on a steamboat between free territories and free states.) Unfortunately, they lost the trial on a technically of proving he was enslaved.

Let me repeat that more clearly: Dred Scott lost his first trial (1846) because he only had "hearsay" that he was in fact, enslaved by his owner and being rented out as slave labor, therefore, the courts could not emancipate him because there was no "proof" he was a slave.Catch 22, anyone?

Scott appealed the decision and was granted a new trial in 1847, but due to fires, diseases, and the resulting continuances, Scott and his family were detained for 3 years by the Missouri Sheriff's department where he was still rented out as slave labor, the profits of which were held in escrow to be paid to his owner, or him, pending the outcome of the trial. I just want to point out after denying this man his freedom because he cannot prove he is a slave, the legal system treated him like a slave because he was not a free man.

In 1850, Scott finally won his appeal after "proof" was provided during a deposition which confirmed Scott and his family were being rented as slave labor by the wife of the former witness who's testimony had been "hearsay." Unfortunately, it was a short-lived victory.

The ownership of the Scott's was transferred [though no records were ever found of it] to the brother-in-law, Sanford, of his owner in the first two trials, and an appeal to the Scott's victory was put to the courts once more. By 1852, the victory was overturned and the Scott's were named as slaves who had no right to the escrow money, or their freedom. 

By 1853, the Scott's owner's lived in yet another state, and opened the next appeal to be made in the federal Supreme Court as Dred Scott v. Sandford [1853-1857]. The case was tried for over four years, and as it neared it's end, U.S. President Elect (as in, he was elected but not sworn in yet) Democrat James Buchanan corresponded with the Justices on the case to determine whether or not their verdict would arrive before he was sworn in; more importantly, he urged the ruling to be a broad judgement on the matter of slaves in free states and territories. 

(If you think this kind of behavior doesn't exist in 21st Century U.S. Politics, you haven't been paying attention, but I will outline in later chapters.)

Ultimately, the decision came two days after Buchanan was sworn in, March of 1857:

The Supreme Court ruled that "negro" people born of parents imported or born as slaves, whether they were free or slave themselves, could not be U.S. Citizens, and therefore, couldn't sue in court; too, that the U.S. Government (by interpretation of the Constitution) had no right to regulate slavery issues in territories "acquired" after the creation of the United States. In effect, this upheld the original ruling in the favor of the Scott's being slaves to their owners, and established they had no right to appeal because they weren't, and "would never be" U.S. Citizens so, they held no rights to be heard by the Courts.

Following the trial, however, the Scott's family were transferred to the ownership of his first owner's daughter and husband, those who'd helped him in the trials (though, again, no records have surfaced of the transfer), and the family was given their papers of manumission. Dred Scott lived 18 months as a free man before he died, while his wife lived long enough to see slavery shifted from ownership to post-civil war "freedom" under segregation and oppression. I will be mentioning this case gain in Part 2 so don't forget about Dred Scott!

By 1859, an Anglo-American man by the name of John Brown was settled into Maryland, across the river from a U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, under an alias of Isaac Smith, for the purpose of inciting a nation-wide slave revolt he expected to be a success with limited and minimal casualties. Despite believing in the cause, believing success wasn’t just possible but inevitable, having notable support from Abolitionist, free African Americans, Freed Slaves, and escaped slaves, having arms of their own, minimal training, and actually gaining a foothold in Harpers Ferry, the rebellion was a failure just as Frederick Douglass had predicted when he refused to be a part of it.

Douglass was a sharp minded escaped slave, and he, unlike Brown, knew from history that any perceived attack (and taking over a U.S. arsenal was more than a perceived attack) against the U.S. would endure the wrath of the U.S. Military. Douglas, despite the generally accepted notion that African Americans were an inferior race, was able to deduce the outcome of John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry [1859] with better accuracy than John Brown himself.

Also of interest, on the day of Brown’s execution for the raid (along with 4 others), he wrote, “I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.” It became known as “John Brown’s last Prophecy” [1859] and he wasn’t wrong about that, or the first to proclaim it.

It should not be overshadowed by John Brown’s last speech in which he also stated: "...had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment." Which in 21st century terms, is still the case, but I’ll get to those details in later chapters.

By 1860, a year before the Civil War began; Slave Owners had enough clout in their State governance, they pushed for each state to secede from the United States, starting with South Carolina on December 20th, 1860. Mississippi followed January 9th, 1861, Florida on January 10th, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th, Louisiana on the 26th, Texas on February 1st, Virginia on April 17th, Arkansas on May 6th, North Carolina on May 20th, and Tennessee on June 8th, 1861 to form the “Confederate States of America [1861-1865].”

At the same time [December 1860- March 1861], the 36th Congress received over 200 resolutions that pertained to slavery, and at least 57 of them requested constitutional amendments. One of these resolutions requesting a constitutional amendment was considered for the unique wording suggested:

“No amendment of this Constitution, having for its object any interference within the States with the relations between their citizens and those described in second section of the first article of the Constitution as "all other persons," shall originate with any State that does not recognize that relation within its own limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every one of the States composing the Union.”

The amendment was accepted by Congress in March of 1861, and pushed into the ratification process as the “Corwin Amendment [1861]” but was never successful in becoming a law; perhaps because it failed to convince or entice the border states and Confederate States to rejoin or stay in the Union. 

It is important to realize how close it came to becoming a law, and if it had, it was basically giving the states the right to conduct their business (including slavery) without the intervention of the U.S. Government to tell them no or to make laws that interfered with the State’s affairs without the approval of those within the state, and all the other states in the Union.

Some believe it would have made the later 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments impossible to pass, while other suggest the “Reconstruction” Amendments would have repealed the Corwin Amendment, and the truth is, we’ll never know; but we do know both the leaving U.S. President Buchanan, and the incoming President Lincoln both publicly supported the Corwin Amendment in the early 1860s. Of course, by then, it was already too late, and the first battle of the Civil War began shortly thereafter on April 12th 1861 when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter.

While the Confederacy was busy in the Civil War, the U.S. Congress finally got the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Morrill Act of 1862 passed and ratified. The Homestead Act act offered an average of 160 acres to any male U.S. Citizen 21 years of age or older (or the head of a household), who (specifically) had never taken up arms against the United States, IF they promised to live on and farm said land for five years, and IF they could provide evidence of “improving” the land with at least a  12' x 14' home and crops. 

 While this was a victory in keeping slave-owners from monopolizing the best land and leaving independent farmers with whatever was left over, it was also an attempt to convince southern men not yet fighting for the Confederacy to head west, and an effort on the part of the United States to ensure domestic crop sources not dependent on the slaver-owners plantations should the civil war take even longer, or be unsuccessful for the Union. There were over five hundred claims in the first year, and by the early 1900’s, over one and a half million.

The Morrill Act offered any State not “in a condition of rebellion or insurrection against the government of the United States” thirty thousand acre’s (or the profit of its sale at $1.25 an acre if reported annually by the State’s Governor) per State Representative based on the 1860 Census, to establish and fund universities for education in sciences, mechanical arts, agriculture, with other educations not excluded, and a Reserve Officers Training Corp program required.

The Act did stipulate that funds couldn’t be used to repair buildings, that each State was responsible for all fees so that the entire sum of any sale could be used for the sole purpose outlined, which included investing in U.S. or State specific stocks, and making up any differences, to ensure funding continued beyond the Morrill Act. Too, the institutions funded or created by the Morrill Act were then required to report their progress not just to the Secretary of Interior, but every other institution on the list. 

States had two years to accept or have the offer rescinded, and five years from accepting to have their Institution running, or the required programs in an established University, often as additional A&M ( Agriculture and Mechanics) colleges. In total, over seventeen million acres were granted; that’s over twenty-seven thousand square miles, and it (again) expressly excluded the Confederate States.

Not surprisingly, the Confederacy began drafting soldiers in 1862, and required three years of service from men selected between 18 and 35 years old. In the following years, the draft was extended to any male between 17 and 50 years old.

Note: In 1863 work began on the Transcontinental Railroad and continued until 1869, but I will cover it in a later chapter, just realize the pattern of self-sufficient and industrial focus in the middle of a civil war on the part of the U.S. Government; it's strategic.

Also in 1863, during the middle of the Civil War,and despite his first Inaugural Speech not to, 16th U.S. President Lincoln announced theEmancipation Proclamation [1863], and every child in the U.S. since, learns about it in High-School history. 

What is often not found in school text books, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederate States, and refused freedom to slaves still owned in the Union States; purposefully excluding the states not in rebellion and still, the Proclamation affected an estimated 3 to 4 million slaves in ten states. 

Furthermore, Lincoln announced plans for the Emancipation Proclamation a year before it became a legal act which could be used in confederate regions occupied or taken over by the Union, as a threat to the rebellious Confederate States. It did not intimidate them enough to back down, but caused many slaves to escape their ownership to fight for the Union in the hopes of being protected and securing their freedom.

The Draft Act of 1863is the first draft in U.S. history. Any male citizen, including immigrants who had declared their intent to become a Citizen, between the ages of 20 and 45 were on notice of being a potential selectee for the draft. Unmarried men had to be drafted before Married men, but if a man should hire another man to take his place, or paid $300 [equivalent to $5,085 in 2016], he could evade the draft. Obviously, the lower classes resented this, as they could neither afford to hire a substitute, nor pay such a fee, and worse (to them), African Americans were excluded because they were not Citizens.

Shortly after, in July of 1863, New Yorkers took to the streets to protest and express their rage at the draft, but it quickly turned into a race riot that lasted three days [New York City draft riots 1863]. African Americans were hunted down and killed by the rioting mob of Anglo-American men, a large number reported to be Irish immigrants. Over a hundred people were killed and over two thousand injured. Churches, Businesses, Homes of Abolitionists, African Americans, and sympathizers were destroyed, including the complete burning down of a colored orphanage.

It’s important to realize that not only was New York exporting for the plantation owners, mostly cotton, but they also feared competing with freed slaves for jobs. The riot was as much about being drafted for the war, as it was about the perceived economic threat to their livelihood with the freeing of so many African Americans. 

Too, the newspapers at the time were notorious for painting the African American population as a taint in America, and often blatantly warning against socializing with different races, especially romantically, and absolutely not to marry outside of one’s race. With Police outnumbered, and the Military too far away to be of immediate help, telegraph lines cut to prevent the news from reaching other cities, it was not the first or last riot to end with deaths in the United States.

November 29, 1864 (5 days after the first Thanksgiving had on the Last Thursday in November, set by Presidential Proclamation from President Lincoln that October) several Regiments of Colorado Volunteers attacked Native American villages of Cheyenne and Arapaho in the Big Sandy Creek, Colorado area. The Soldiers camped not far from the village of Black Kettle’s tribe. The day before the attack, Black Kettle’s warriors left to hunt buffalo on the assurance the village would be safe if Black Kettle flew a U.S. flag and a white flag beneath it, from his lodge. Two commanders told their men to hold fire (whether because of the Flags, or the nature of the orders), and refused the order to attack the village filled mostly with women, children, and men too young, injured, or old to hunt.

The number of Native’s killed has been debated, but most seem to agree over a 100 were killed, and only 20 or 30 of which were warriors while the rest were women and children of all ages (including fetuses cut from the womb of their dead mothers). The soldiers were not satisfied with just killing the Natives (men, women and children), but cut off their scalps, noses, genitals, ears, and so on, not only wearing them back to the Camp, but displaying them in Denver’s Apollo Theater and saloons in the area as well. Furthermore, after the smoke cleared, they looted the tipis and bodies, as well as killing wounded still alive. As if the act itself is not horrific and tragic enough, eight of the more prominent Peace-Talker Chiefs were killed in the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, and forever changed Native American and U.S. relations.

Consider this:

The Natives had already agreed to live on the reservation granted to them during the Treaty of Fort Laramie [1851], but in 1858, Pikes Peak saw a gold rush that brought Anglo settlers through and all over the reservation. Instead of asking for permission to mine, or hunt, or harvest the land as needed, the U.S. negotiated with select, bribed Chiefs to sign the Treaty of Fort Wise that reduced the reservation size to less than a 13th of it's original size; the rest of the Tribes denied the Chiefs knew what they were signing, and refused to abide by the treaty. 

So, by 1864, both sides felt they had a claim to the land that the other side kept trespassing on.

During the same time in 1864, and through December, Union General William T. Sherman took his army men through Georgia, from Atlanta to the port of Savannah, and left much of the south obliterated in their wake.Sharman’s March to the Sea [1864] disrupted the Confederate’s supply lines, while having no supply lines of their own. They destroyed businesses, homes, plantations, basic infrastructure, and military targets.

President Lincoln wrote the General after receiving his word (via Christmas gift) of the capture of the Savannah Port:

“Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift – the capture of Savannah. When you were leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that 'nothing risked, nothing gained' I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And taking the work of Gen. Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantage; but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole—Hood's army—it brings those who sat in darkness, to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgements to your whole army, officers and men.”

November of 1864 was busy, too, withthe U.S. Presidential Elections where Lincoln ran again for the Democratic Party, and by a land-slide in the Electoral College, he won. The reconstructed Louisiana and Tennessee were not counted in the vote, and neither were the remaining Confederate States of America. Still, there was a 75% eligible Voter turn out, and three new States [Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada] in the voting process.

The day before President Lincoln was sworn in for the second time as U.S. President, the Freedmen’s Bureau [March 3, 1865] was established. It’s powers were limited, but it was instrumental in not only helping freed slaves learn to read, write, obtain clothing, food, shelter, medical care, “legal marriages,” and to find work, but also connected families of African Americans separated during the Civil War.

Of course, the local and state legislation did everything they could to make the Freedmen’s Bureau duties difficult to achieve successfully, and made conditions for African Americans nearly duplicate to their slavery, for which the Bureau had no power to fight or appeal.

While the Confederacy came to a practical end with General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to the United States Commanding Army General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, on April 9, 1865, those warring in the Bering Sea were late to get the news... 

And while news was traveling of the Confederate Army’s surrender, President Lincoln was watching a play [Our American Cousin] at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, April 14th, 1865 when he was assassinated. The first U.S. President to be assassinated, he was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson the same day. The plan was to kill all three, President, Vice President, and Secretary of State in the same day, but two of the shooters failed and the plot to disrupt the American Government failed with them, shocking the Nation in the process.

The Steam Ship that fired the last shot in the Civil War in June 22, 1865 in the Bering Sea (Alaska) was not only a Confederate ship, but delivered from the "off-hands (neutral)" British via a secret meet off the coast of Africa with the Confederate Navy in 1864.

It was built to have changeable masts, rigging, and sails, and to raise and lower it’s smoke stacks to disguise it as a transport ship and not a war ship. They named this deceptive war ship,CSS Shenandoah [1863-1865], and the Confederates armed her to win. In twelve months of service [1864-1865], the Shenandoah and it’s Confederate crew are reported to have taken a thousand United States prisoners, and captured or sank thirty-eight ships, all without a single battle death on either side. 

In total, between April 12th 1861 and June 22nd 1865, The Union saw over 2 million service men fight for the United States (easily half of which were volunteer immigrants from Ireland and England primarily), and the Confederates raised an Army, Marines, and Navy half that size. In over 5000 battles, the Four Year Civil War had only estimates of casualties somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million; 50,000 of them are recorded as civilian deaths.

Consider this:

While counted in American History as the deadliest War ever fought, even the high estimate of 1 million deaths during the Civil War is substantially shy of the estimated 40 million to 100 million slaves killed during slavery, and the near genocide of the Native American population. In my honest opinion, The United States had been waging a 300+ year war on entire races of people and their descendants, but it becomes a sad-face cliff note in a History about "America; Land of Opportunity." 

The Civil War wasn’t just about slavery being moral or immoral; it was about economy, life-style, and the fundamental differences in the perceived future of the United States, and both sides fought whole-heartedly to see their version succeed. People died, the land was scorched and bloody, livestock stolen or killed, crops burned, stolen, or battle-trodden, homes destroyed, families scattered, broken, or wounded, and “victory” for United States was bitter-sweet. 

The Union won, slavery in the south was abolished, but the North was still free to own slaves and the U.S. government had to work diligently to catch legislation up with the perception of the Union's Civil War defeat of the Confederacy.

Although the U.S. Constitution's 13th amendment [1865]abolished slavery in the United States following the Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866granted that "all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, ... [are] citizens of the United States," and the 14th Amendment [1868]included African Americans in naturalized U.S. citizenship, there was that persistent Supreme Court Ruling of 1857; Dred Scott v Sandford.

In the United States, legally, the 14th Amendment negates the Supreme Court ruling, but the government failed to remind or enforce the Amendment to the individuals who'd fought for the Supreme Court ruling, and then lost the Civil War. The laws had changed, but the reality of living in the U.S. as a Native American or African American largely didn't.

Think about that for a moment.

After each new law was passed for the African American community, the Anglo-American community legislators, and state legislators, started to pass what later became known as “Jim Crow” laws to segregate the African Americans from the Anglo-American population. The term “Jim Crow” came from an Anglo-American Mistral show actor who painted his face black with melted cork or wax, and portrayed himself as an African American slave who sang a song “Jump Jim Crow” that was very popular entertainment for the Anglo-American society of the 1830’s. The laws gained the name because of the stereotypical way the actor portrayed his African American character, and the notion “that” was what the Anglo-Americans were attempting to keep from tainting their society and way of life with the new freedom of the African American slaves making them "neighbors" instead of "property.".

Many states started with segregating the children, African Americans being banned from Anglo-American schools as early as 1865. By 1866, not only did the Ku Klux Klan become established, but “Black Codes” were established to prevent African Americans from becoming citizens, voting, claiming decent work contracts, and even limited their mobility. Eventually, these laws also included making marriage between African Americans and Anglo-Americans illegal, forcing separate railcars, dining rooms, building entrances, water fountains, etc. 

While records before 1882 are slim and sketchy at best, there were also Lynchings in the 1860's; mobs of “righteous” people seeking “justice” and hanging (sometimes shooting, sometimes both) select people or persons to death, sometimes after first whipping or beating them, and sometimes burning their corpses after their death.

Consider this:

The term “Lynching” is an American made term, believed to be named after one Virginia Justice for Peace, Charles Lynch, who hanged and shot British Loyalists during the American Revolution. Lynch inadvertently invented the “Lynch Mob” as we know it in the 21st century, and from the 1700s to the early 1900s, Lynching was a common form of American sans court “Justice” that also murdered thousands of innocent people, most of them African American, Mexican/Latin American, and Native American.

In a single example of 1868, during the Presidential Election that saw Ulysses S. Grant become the 18th U.S. President, Democratic Anglo-Americans attacked Anglo and African American Republicans, and set off a Massacre of Lynching’s that killed over a thousand voters from Georgia to Arkansas. The Civil War didn’t end African American oppression, subservience, or murder, but it did give a legal foothold for future generations to climb upon and fight for a true democracy, to fight for the unalienable rights the U.S. “founding fathers” wrote of in the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. 

That fight continues into the 21 century, but first, the early 20th century awaits.