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The fuse of the American Civil War was 186 1 * * Republican Lincoln was elected President of the United States in.
The root cause of the American Civil War is the contradiction between the two economic systems. Capitalist industry and commerce are developed in the north, and plantation economy using slave labor is developed in the south. The two sides clashed on raw materials, market, labor and other issues, and finally focused on the preservation or abolition of black slavery. Lincoln's peace party represented the interests of the northern bourgeoisie, so the South used it as an excuse to start a civil war.
The Civil War is a great event in American history. It can be said that I know the Civil War and most of America. It's almost impossible to make it clear. Here, I also try to clear my mind through this question.
For example, the direct cause of the civil war seems to be that Lincoln, a pro-slavery candidate, was elected, and then several southern States declared independence, while several northern States fought such a war of unity and division on the grounds of maintaining federal unity.
Careful observation shows that Lincoln won only 40% of the votes in the general election of 1860. Except Vermont, in most northern States, Lincoln only got 50% to 60% of the votes, while in the south, he didn't appear on the votes at all. That is to say, as a local political party, Hehe Party won the general election, and this victory also confirmed the prediction of former President Martin Van Buren many years ago: If the ruling party fails to gain nationwide support, the country will face division.
So, one question becomes two questions. Do northerners really hate slavery that much? Why are southerners so intransigent that they have no chance to vote? You know, Lincoln was not a radical abolitionist, but a moderate in the party. He is just a moral abolitionist, and he still supports the legal rights of southern slave owners in law. If things are so incompatible, why wait so late? Why didn't it be solved at the beginning of the founding of the people's Republic?
The fact is that the conflict already existed when People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded.
As a generation deeply influenced by the Enlightenment, at that time, many people were already dissatisfied with slavery. Jefferson listed various crimes in Britain in the Declaration of Independence, and one of them accused the British of imposing slavery on us. However, the southern slave owners were quite honest and removed this one. In fact, Jefferson also understood this, so he did not approve of the abolition of slavery. During the War of Independence, the British took measures to abolish slavery and called on slaves to defect. Jefferson angrily condemned the British for being too vicious. Due to the long-term plantation economy, the south relied too much on slavery, and the local political system also showed a strict hierarchical structure. If slavery is forcibly abolished, not only can these planters not accept the economic losses, but some political bureaus will also be brought into too much uncertainty by these newly liberated freemen.
This is also the dilemma that the United States has faced since it came up. Therefore, abolitionists chose to allow slavery to exist, just trying to limit its development. Their calculation is that because there are not many jobs suitable for slaves, with the increase of slave population, as long as slavery is restricted by the region, the efficiency will inevitably decline, so that slavery will naturally die out and everyone can move towards a new era in a friendly way.
However, contrary to expectations, cotton gin appeared soon, so cotton planting became a very profitable industry. Commercial cotton can now be planted on most land in the south. Moreover, compared with other crops, cotton flower planting has low labor intensity and can be done by men, women and children. In this way, the sex ratio of slaves in the plantation is relatively balanced, and the mortality rate is very low, which can maintain the integrity of slave families and maintain the steady growth of population. So on the eve of the civil war, the total number of slaves in the south reached four million, and the price of slaves soared to $65,438+0,800 (thanks to @ Wang Jinsong for pointing out the mistake), which was equivalent to the salary of an ordinary skilled worker for three years. Therefore, although slaves can be raised in the south, most of them can't afford them, and most of them and the wealth that comes with them are in the hands of a few people. Although the total number of slaves is increasing and the production efficiency is improving faster and faster, the profit of cotton planting and production is getting higher and higher, so the planter in the south has become the richest man in the United States. Moreover, due to the huge profits of plantation economy, although the south is getting richer and richer, it has never thought of developing industries and other industries like the north.
In this way, the importance of slavery itself becomes higher and higher, and it is more and more difficult to change. In contrast, many contradictions arising from the economic system with other regions can actually be negotiated. For example, in terms of tariffs, in order to protect national industries, the north has to raise tariffs, while a large number of daily necessities in the south are imported, and of course we hope to lower tariffs. After the abhorrent tariff was passed in 1828, the south could immediately elect andrew jackson as president, and passed a new tax law in 1832, which reduced the tariff to a level acceptable to most states. In essence, tariffs and government power are both quantitative differences. But in slavery, once a slave is liberated, it cannot be recovered, and the loss will be permanent and irreparable. Because this is just like changing private ownership into public ownership, it is a black-and-white problem. If you try it, there is no possibility of changing it back. So for slave-holding states, slavery itself has become a non-negotiable topic.
However, it takes two hands to make a sound. Southerners are determined to fight for their own slavery, but the north should also have a heart that would rather die than surrender. From the perspective of economic interests alone, there is no need to die with the South. For example, it is mainly industry that needs commercial protection. But the financial industry has always opposed big government regulation. Another example is the exporters, fleets and ports in the north, which depend largely on the import and export in the south. Of course, these people also supported slavery in the South. New immigrants from the north don't want to see millions of cheap labor suddenly appear and compete with them for jobs. And for ordinary people, low tariffs can lower prices, which is not all a bad thing.
Well, it is necessary to mention1the second awakening at the beginning of the 9th century.
The great awakening of Christianity is a manifestation of the irregular religious fanaticism in the Christian country of the United States. It is not regular, because it is prompted by changes in the social environment. This period is the time when many social factors began to impact traditional social concepts. A large number of immigrants began to flood in, industrialization just showed signs, the gap between the rich and the poor began to appear, and the economic crisis followed. The political system under the almost one-party dictatorship of the Democratic Party is full of uncertainties, and people begin to face the collision of new social order and different ideas. At this time, the principle of separation of church and state made the church face a crisis: without the support of the government, the church relied more on the support of the congregation, but the church could not win the congregation through the government. The church realizes that it is becoming more and more difficult to directly change or influence society itself. It is better to enter the inner spiritual world to change every believer's heart than to go to the outside world to sort it out with the concept of the church. Therefore, the northern church began to actively develop its own congregation, which was the second great awakening.
There was a second time, and there was a first time. The first great awakening took place in the first half of the eighteenth century, when priests were influenced by European religious trends, especially John? Influenced by Wesley and his Methodist Sect, he walked out of the church and preached to the congregation in the parish. By the second awakening, the preacher even went out of his parish to preach to all the people, and encountered various problems in social, economic, cultural and political life, and the number of congregation absorbed into the church began to grow rapidly. Therefore, missionary work has become a large-scale social activity. At each event, a large number of believers rushed to the designated place from all directions for friendship, collective acceptance of religious experience and personal redemption.
If this great awakening was just a mass sermon, it would not have such a huge impact. The profound influence of the Second Great Awakening on the United States lies in that it changed some basic religious concepts of the Puritans in North America. In Puritanism, the most puzzling thing is the conclusion of fate that everyone is guilty. Although everyone wants to seek salvation, whether they can be saved or not is doomed by previous lives and cannot be changed. In this way, many things are not left undone, nor are they left undone. For example, wealth may be God's affirmation of you, or it may be a sign that you are insatiable and unpunished. Honesty is respectable, but it can't change your sin. However, in this second great awakening, more and more Christians accepted the new idea that sin is incarnate in this world, that is, whether a person is guilty or not can be expressed through external evil behavior. Therefore, as long as we can get rid of crime voluntarily, we can complete the process of getting rid of crime. This theory has great practical initiative. It can be said that after this great awakening, the Puritans in America have gradually converged with the basic ideas of Protestants.
Under the second great awakening, people began to actively face those so-called social crimes. Slavery, for example, is a typical crime committed by people, and the abolition of slavery has become an important symbol of social self-salvation. This kind of crime, of course, is from the Calvinist point of view. Therefore, those ideas that contradict Protestant teachings were first taken out as crimes to be solved. For example, German and Irish immigrants love drinking, which is a crime and should be eliminated. For example, Catholicism is a top-down organizational structure headed by the Pope, which is contrary to the axiomatic style of Protestantism. Therefore, in order to show contempt for Catholics attaching their heads to the Pope, the pursuit of personal freedom and independence was also significantly put forward, and Emerson and Thoreau became popular at this time. On the other hand, such a large-scale sermon has to enter all aspects of life, and the church has begun to accept the role of women in missionary work. As a result, the feminist movement began to rise, and women began to actively participate in social activities such as prohibition of alcohol and abolition of slavery. For example, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, whose father is a famous Presbyterian minister Lyman Beecher.
With a large congregation, the church naturally becomes an important political force. However, to enter political life and realize their political aspirations, they need to go through political parties. 1829, with the aforementioned andrew jackson coming to power, American politics began a new era. Andrew jackson's Democratic Party supports the rights of states, which is actually the right of southern states to maintain slavery. At the same time, in the face of the economic crisis, the Democratic Party continued its attitude of supporting the rights and interests of immigrants, regardless of Catholicism or Protestantism, and became the lowest protector of society. Naturally, the northern church could not agree with the Democratic Party's position of emphasizing moral self-determination.
At this time, the Whigs appeared in the north. Whigs emphasized that elite rule opposed Jackson's democratic revolution and protected the development of national industry with the power of the government. The development of the industry needs the market, and the good operation of the market also needs moral standards. Therefore, the Whigs hit it off and formed an alliance on the idea of unifying the moral standards of the northern church.
But by this time, the question of abolishing slavery is still just how to limit the development of slavery.
This is because the party wants to solve problems, not create them. To solve the problem, we must win the general election, and to win the general election, we must have the support of the people. Therefore, opinions such as opposing slavery can only be in attitude, not in the party's program. In order to win the support of the south, the Whig Party continued to play the elite card to win over the upper class in the south, and many planters supported the Whig Party for the support of the northern exporters.
On the other hand, the abolition of slavery is only one of the many topics mentioned above, not all or even the most crucial. Because there was no slavery in the north at that time, the continuous influx of Catholic immigrants was a common problem in people's lives. Southerners are worried that if slavery is abolished, a large number of free blacks will impact the traditional political balance, while the North has begun to face the continuous influx of Catholics. Especially after 1820, the States gradually lifted the property requirements for voters, and everyone could vote. These Irish immigrants quickly entered politics, elected their own local candidates, and attacked the dominance of Anglo-Saxons. As a result, the nativist movement against Catholics in the north became more vigorous, and several riots against Catholics broke out one after another. The problem of opposing slavery is largely an attitude problem, and ordinary people rarely need to make substantive statements. Only a few radicals will take risks in secret activities such as the underground railway.
Therefore, in the twenty years after 1830, the conflict between the north and the south on the issue of slavery continued the traditional solution, that is, the two major political parties tried to mediate in legislation through Congress. The main conflict, how to limit slavery, is about how to integrate into the new country. Whether a state accepts slavery is also a black-and-white process. The first outbreak of contradiction was the Missouri compromise case of 1820. In this compromise, the two sides agreed to divide slave-holding States and free States with 36.3 degrees north latitude as the boundary.
But this compromise can't solve the dynamic balance. The Democratic Party adheres to the line of agricultural empire and will continue to expand westward on the territory, and the south can also provide space for the development of slavery. This practice is of course very popular with farmers, because what farmers need most is cheap land. The development of northern industry needs to concentrate resources, not expand. As a result, the new territory is dominated by agriculture and animal husbandry production, forming a new political region in the north, that is, the west, which makes the American political situation present a tripartite game pattern between the north and the south and the west. As a new country, the western region has a more democratic system, which has impacted the northern political tradition. Therefore, there is a sharp contrast between the active westward advancement of the south and the hesitation of the north. The vigorous expansion of the South will naturally require more seats in Congress and more slave-holding states, which will also make the restrictive strategy of abolitionists empty talk.
The focus of the contradiction is in Texas. 1836, Texas became independent with the support of the United States and merged into the United States in 45 years, which led to the outbreak of the US-Mexico War. As expected, the Whigs continued to oppose the territorial expansion war, but the ordinary people in the country were ecstatic. As a result, the United States won a great victory and gained a large area of land from Texas to the west to the Pacific Ocean. The Whig Party was severely weakened in this struggle, the internal situation began to loosen, and the political situation in the north changed. More and more abolitionists began to think that this matter may not be solved under the existing political system, and the solutions outside the system such as "underground railway" began to be more and more affirmed, and political parties that openly supported abolitionism began to appear.
However, the land won by the US-Mexico War still needs to be resolved, so there was a 1850 compromise. In this compromise, California joined the United States as a free state, and the South got a slave escape bill against the underground railway.
For the first time, the Slave Escaping Act explicitly requires the police in the north to have the responsibility to catch the escaped slaves, otherwise they will be severely punished. This bill seems to be beneficial to the south, but politically, it is a fatal mistake. It can be said that if there is any fuse in the Civil War, this is the first matchlock. Prior to this, slavery was only a problem of northerners outside the state, but this provision of the Slave Escape Act was equivalent to expanding the problem of slavery in the south to the north. Such a result is unacceptable to Protestants who oppose slavery: they originally restricted the development of slavery, but ended up limiting themselves for half a day. As a result, slavery suddenly replaced other social problems and became an unavoidable top priority. Two years later, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which represented the abolitionist position, was born and sold well, while the Whigs lost all credibility on this issue and fell apart in the general election. Therefore, through the mediation of political parties in Congress, it can be said that it has reached a dead end.
After the Whig Party disintegrated, there was a political vacuum in the north, and of course, new political parties came out to fill this gap. This is the ignorant party. Surprisingly, the Ignorant Party did not appear because of the abolition of slavery, but a nativist party centered on opposing new immigrants, especially Catholic immigrants. It can take advantage of this opportunity, largely because of its organizational structure. Strictly speaking, the Ignorant Party is not a political party, but an anti-immigration secret association? ) secret association organization, because it is secret, all participants' answers have nothing to do with the party, hence the name. Because it is a secret association, the ignorant party has no open party program and can intervene in local political affairs in a quite flexible way. When the voice against the fugitive slave act broke out in Massachusetts, the ignorant party appeared in the image of opposing slavery, which was the Anthony Burns case of 1854.
Anthony Burns, a southern slave who fled to Boston, was found in May 1854 and will be sent back to the south according to law. As a result, the people in New England suddenly became passionate and demanded the release of Burns, and the federal government had to set an example to enforce the law, so abolitionists from all directions came to force the government to send troops to control the form. No one in Boston wanted to do the unfortunate thing of escorting Burns, and in the end it had to be carried out by the Irish mobile police force, which was at odds with the blacks. Ignorant parties that supported the abolition of slavery gained great prestige. In a few months, party member grew from 50,000 to 1 million, and won the election in Massachusetts. But knowing nothing, the party rose quickly and ended quickly. Because it is an organization centered on xenophobia, it can't reach an agreement on the abolition of slavery, and therefore it can't cope with the fact that abolition of slavery has become an urgent task for any political party to face and solve. So, like the Whigs, it soon disintegrated.
The emergence of the Ignorant Party in the form of non-governmental organizations indicates that the exploration of slavery has entered a new stage, that is, let the people solve the problems of slavery and abolition themselves. It was also at this time that Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas (a famous senator who had several historical debates with Lincoln) put forward the way of people's sovereignty, that is, the newly arrived state held a referendum to decide whether to become a slave-holding state, which was the kansas-nebraska act of 1854. In the form of legislation, it declared the complete bankruptcy of the traditional mediation method. In the same year, Kansas held a referendum. As a result, organizations supporting and opposing slavery came from all directions to vote. Kansas, with only 65,438+0,500 registered voters, won more than 6,000 votes. In the following period, the two sides had a large-scale conflict in Kansas and its surrounding land borders, leaving a reputation as "bloody Kansas".
The method of self-determination in bloody Kansas has just begun, and there is no hope. However, there are still a large number of unresolved territories in the west, and the future development is obviously facing greater uncertainty. In 1856, Preston Brooks, a member of the Southern Democratic Party, clubbed Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts senator and a radical abolitionist. This rude behavior won a hero for both the North and the South, but it also announced that Congress could no longer provide a possibility to solve this problem.
The following year, Dred Scott v Stanford made matters worse. Dred Scott, a black slave, sued at 1846 that he should be a free man, on the grounds that he had gone to live with his master in Illinois, a free state, so he should automatically become a free man. Scott didn't invent it himself. For example, Britain, which has abolished slavery, has this provision, which makes slave owners in the south afraid to bring their slaves to Britain from now on. Scott's lawsuit went all the way to the High Court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Tanney, is from Maryland, a slave-holding state. The high court under his leadership ruled that Scott was still a slave, on the grounds that Scott, as a slave, was private property and had no right to initiate this lawsuit at all. Moreover, since it is a private property, how can it be automatically deprived when you go abroad? Tani believes that his wise decision has solved the problem of slavery once and for all, but it has become one of the best absurd judgments in the history of the High Court. Now the efforts of the people in the north are in vain, and all kinds of social uncertainties are more prominent. As a result, the road to the high court was also blocked.
In just a few years, the Congress, the High Court, the referendum and the upper and lower roads were all exhausted.
Next, the person who completely broke hope is called John? John brown.
John? Brown is also a radical abolitionist in the North. In "bloody Kansas", he was one of the abolitionists from the north not far from Wan Li. After that, I continued to work hard and brought about 20 people. 1859, he tried to launch an armed riot in Harpers, Virginia, and was arrested, tried and executed. As a folk grass-roots movement, there is no essential difference between this matter and the underground railway. However, after his arrest, the southern government found that his behavior was supported by six famous abolitionists in the north, and several of them still advocated a peaceful solution to the slavery problem. Now the south is completely desperate for the abolitionists in the north.
Then came the 1860 general election, * * * and the party's victory.
* * * and the party was born in the midwest 1854, stepping on the body of kansas-nebraska act. Lincoln and his party leaders realized that the long-term immigration of a large number of immigrants increased the population of the north by 50% compared with that of the south. By 1860, the number of voters in the north greatly exceeded that in the south. In this way, as long as the north and the west unite, we can win the general election. At the same time, there are more languages in the west and north. Economically speaking, the industry in the north has begun to take shape. Now, they need the west to join the big market created by the north, and the agricultural development in the west also needs the support of infrastructure such as railways and the injection of funds from the east. At this time, the instability of slavery has become a * * * topic in the East and the West. Lincoln's outstanding political insight made him understand that although xenophobia is still an important social problem in the central and western regions, it will make it impossible for * * * and the party to win the North, which is heavily dependent on immigrants. As a result, the * * * and the party played down the xenophobic ideas outside the program and only emphasized the bottom line of opposing slavery, thus establishing a United front to unite the North. At the same time, the Democratic Party split on the issue of slavery, so it put forward two candidates, the North and the South.
Lincoln won.
However, after a series of previous events, the South can no longer trust Lincoln, a moderate who legally recognized slavery in the South.
As a result, division was imminent and civil war broke out.