The American Civil War was Not a Revolution

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Throughout the following months, six states joined South Carolina in secession. In February of 1861, the Southern states created an organized government in Alabama where Jefferson Davis was named president. The states created the Confederate Constitution, similar to the United States Constitution. On April 12, 1861, the Confederate troops fired on the Union-backed Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, marking the official start of the American Civil War. Over the following four years, the Union troops made their way into the Southern States, destroying communities along the way. Over 600,000 Americans lost their lives fighting on both sides of the conflict. Following the fall of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Southern General Robert. E Lee surrendered to General Ulysses. S Grant on April 9th, 1865 in Appomattox, Virginia. Historical evidence suggests that the American Civil War and Reconstruction were not a revolution because it was a continuation of the issue of slavery plaguing the country since the American Revolution. Additionally, the Civil War and Reconstruction focused on preserving the union, not fundamentally changing the structure of the government. Furthermore, the lack of a revolution allowed the United States government to remain largely intact post-war.

The Civil War was a continuation of the argument of slavery that had bedeviled society since the country’s founding. When the founding fathers neglected to make a concrete decision on the issue of slavery, they set the roots of the Civil War in motion. In its Ordinance of Secession and Declaration of Independence, South Carolina referenced the ongoing battle over slavery as one of the primary reasons for its secession. The document states “For twenty-five years this agitation [the Fugitive Slave Act] has been steadily increasing until it has now secured its aid and the power of the common government.” (FTR 406) The issue of slavery had created a divide between the North and the South since the Constitution’s ratification. The Southern states believed that their country had turned its back on them because the Fugitive Slave Act was not being upheld in the North. Additionally, the South Carolinians thought that with the election of Lincoln, their pro-slavery cause would be destroyed. Slavery, while not the only cause of the Civil War, was a root cause of the Southern secession. Since the signing of the Constitution, Southern states had been concerned about the North’s handling of slavery. South Carolina waited to sign the constitution because they did not believe the right to own slaves would be protected. The country’s official war on slavery was not fought until the 1860s, but a silent conflict had plagued the country since its founding. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass elaborated on the idea of slavery division increasing across the decades. In his The Reasons for Our Troubles, Douglass says that the worst of slavery is “in the character which contact with slavery has developed in every part of the country so that at least there seems to be no truth.” (FTR 413) Douglass acknowledged that slavery had become a bigger issue than imagined. The country had suppressed the problem for too many years prior to the Civil War. When Lincoln took office, he knew that making any changes to slavery would hurt his cause. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln reassured Southern slaveholders that he would not take away their slave-owning rights. He stated, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.” (Lincoln) Lincoln intended to settle fears that had existed since the time of his election. He was the first anti-slavery president, which threatened the Southern States. The fear of a slavery intervention had existed long before Lincoln. Southerners felt that the danger to the institution of slavery had started long before Lincoln came to power. The founding father’s lack of a plan, when it came to the system of slavery, can be directly traced to the start of the war.

The Civil War was focused on preserving the Union, not fundamentally changing the system of government. In a speech to the Illinois Republican State Convention in Springfield in 1858, Lincoln referenced the Union’s need to stay unified, saying “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” (Lincoln) Lincoln realized the country could not hold together as half free and half slave. He desired a unified country, where one issue did not divide a nation. The divided house would only stand when a compromise was made. Lincoln did not expect that the government would fall. He continued in his speech, saying “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall.” (Lincoln) Throughout the war, Lincoln’s primary goal was to keep the Union intact. He did not believe that the war was a revolution because the Southern States had not left the union. Lincoln viewed the country as fractured, not broken. In a letter to Horace Greeley, founding editor of the New York Tribune, Lincoln said of the Civil War on August 22, 1862, “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority is restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” Lincoln believed that restoring the Union was the primary objective of the war. The strong belief that the Civil War was not a revolution, and instead a rebellion, led Lincoln to believe that the country’s reunion was inevitable. Furthermore, he did not think that the South seceded from the union, but instead were rebels that needed control. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Lincoln’s Vice President, sought out similar views of union preservation. He stated in an interview with Major General John A Logan in May 1865, that “there is no such thing as reconstruction. These States have not gone out of the Union, therefore reconstruction is unnecessary.” Johnson viewed the Southerners as a ‘rebellion,’ rather than a revolution. He strongly believed that the idea of reconstruction was unnecessary because the union had never been broken. Johnson thought that the Southerners were never an independent nation like they had claimed. His belief in the preservation of the Union highlighted the forefront of the fighting during the Civil War.

The lack of revolution in the Southern States allowed the government to remain intact during the Civil War and into reconstruction. On December 20, 1860, the Senate established a “Committee of Thirteen” to examine plans to save the fractured union, after South Carolina’s secession. On January 9, 1861, Mississippi seceded. The act prompted Jefferson Davis to address the Senate, urging his fellow representatives to allow a peaceful succession for the South. On January 21, 1861, five senators from Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi left the Senate. The withdrawal of Southern representatives created a constitutional crisis. The remaining senators voted to take away the seats of their Southern colleagues. Despite the crisis in the Senate, Congress continued its legislative work while dealing with the economic consequences of the war. For example, they sponsored bills like the Revenue Act (1861), which established the first federal income tax to provide additional funding for the war effort. Before the end of the Civil War, Congress had prepared for a Union victory. On July 2, 1864, Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill to provide representation to the ‘rebel’ states upon meeting certain conditions, such as giving black men the right to vote. In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, formally establishing the terms of admission and a formal reconstruction. The act stated that each state must write a new constitution and be approved by the majority of their voters, including black men. Each state was also required to ratify the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. On June 22, 1868, the addition of the Confederate states began with Arkansas, formally beginning Reconstruction. The Southern states were able to be admitted because the North viewed the war as a rebellion, not a revolution.