Talk:American Civil War

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00:52, 19 March 2006 Melchoir ({{Move to Wikiquote}})
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Hitler quote

This page contains the following quote attributed to Hitler:

"Since the civil war, in which the southern states were conquered, against all historical logic and sound sense, the American people have been in a condition of political and popular decay... The beginnings of a great new social order based on the principle of slavery and inequality were destroyed by that war, and with them also the embryo of a future truly great America that would not have been ruled by a corrupt caste of tradesmen, but by a real Herren-class that would have swept away all the falsities of liberty and equality."

There is no source for this quote within the article, and it is paired next to what I believe to be an image of an Arkansas Confederate battle-flag called Hardee's Moon. While I will admit some ignorance on my part regarding this flag, I do not understand why it is paired with a quote by Hitler, which is not sourced. Harry Sibelius (talk) 05:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

McCarthy quote

Why is the first quote on this page one taken from Kevin McCarthy, the current US Republican house minority leader? It is right above "contemporaries." Why is he placed at the head of the article, before contemporaries and historians? Harry Sibelius (talk) 05:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Surplus

[T]he minimum height for U.S. soldiers was 66 inches early in the nineteenth century and has progressively lowered, with the least stringent requirements (no minimum height standard during part of the Civil War) coinciding with national emergencies when new recruits were in greater demand. ~ Karl E. Fried

I would like to live long enough to see every white man in South Carolina in hell, and the Negroes inheriting their territory. It would not wound my feelings any day to find the dead bodies of rebel sympathizers pierced with bullet holes in every street and alley of Washington. Yes, I would regret this, for I would not like to witness all this waste of powder and lead. I would rather have them hung, and the ropes saved! Let them dangle until their stinking bodies rot and fall to the ground piece by piece. ~ James Lane -- quote not present in article Ficaia (talk) 03:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• For an entire century after 1815, by contrast, there was a remarkable absence of lengthy coalition wars. A strategic equilibrium existed, supported by all of the leading Powers in the Concert of Europe, so that no single nation was either able or willing to make a bid for dominance. The prime concerns of government in these post-1815 decades were with domestic instability and (in the case of Russia and the United States) with further expansion across their continental landmasses. This relatively stable international scene allowed the British Empire to rise to its zenith as a global power, in naval and colonial and commercial terms, and also interacted favorably with its virtual monopoly of steam-driven industrial production. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, industrialization was spreading to certain other regions, and was beginning to tilt the international power balances away from the older leading nations and toward those countries with both the resources and organization to exploit the newer means of production and technology. Already, the few major conflicts of this era—the Crimean War to some degree but more especially the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War—were bringing defeat upon those societies which failed to modernize their military systems, and which lacked the broad-based industrial infrastructure to support the vast armies and much more expensive and complicated weaponry now transforming the nature of war.
  • Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1989)

• We feel a particular horror at civil wars both because they rip apart the bonds that hold societies together and because they are so often marked by unrestrained violence towards the other side. The American Civil War probably had more casualties than all other American wars combined. Some 3 million men fought out of a total population of 30 million and at least 600,000 died and another 500,000 were injured. (The equivalent number of dead today with a much larger American population would be closer to 5 million.) Civilians, perhaps 150,000, died too, as a result of direct violence or starvation and disease. If anything civil wars have been increasing since 1945 as wars between states become rarer. Greece, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Congo, Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia: the list is long and touches much of the world. Establishing the numbers of deaths in such conflicts is difficult if not impossible, partly because often there are no good records. And which deaths are the result of war? Do we count only the combatants or those who support them? Also the deaths as a result of starvation or disease as a result of war? So estimates run from 25 million dead in civil wars since 1945 to far lower but still horrifying figures, and we need also to take account of the millions of refugees fleeing the violence.
  • Margaret MacMillan, War: How Conflict Shapes Us (2020)

• At the time of the Civil War, general regulations specified that the surgeon would ascertain whether a draftee's "limbs are well formed and sufficiently muscular ... his chest is ample and well formed, in due proportion to his height and with power of full expansion ... whether the abdomen is well formed and not too protuberant ..." (Baxter, 1875). Height and chest circumference measurements were to be considered, but only as part of the screening physician's subjective "estimate of the man's physical capacity." These regulations were influenced by standards imposed by European armies, such as the British and French, which involved minimum heights and chest circumferences. However, in those countries, the standards were administered by the recruiting officer in advance of any medical screening.
  Weight was less consistently assessed during the Civil War but if used, it was by a screening physician to evaluate for underweight, not overweight (Ordronaux, 1863). Nevertheless, conscripts with notable obesity, such as one 51-inch man weighing 313 pounds, were exempted (Baxter, 1875). Colonel Jedidiah Baxter (1875) summarized the rationale for physical standards of his time: Weight is not a regulated quality in any code of laws governing the enlistment of recruits. The circumference of chest thought to be indispensable as an accompaniment to certain degrees of stature, is carefully laid down in the English regulations, but weight is not even mentioned. It is presumed that the matter is left to the discretion of the examining surgeon, with whom the decision as to the other qualities named might, it is thought, be also left with advantage. A due proportion in the weight is quite as essential in the soldier as a well-formed chest, and is of greater importance than lofty stature. In former times, when it was necessary to make use of a ramrod in loading a musket, men of a certain height were absolutely necessary for the service; but in these days of breech-loading arms, a man from 5 feet to 5 feet 4 inches in stature, and well proportioned in build and weight is, ceteris paribus, as serviceable a soldier as can be desired.
  Thus, it was a physician's subjective assessment of a recruit's suitability to the demands of military service that determined Civil War selections, and this evaluation emphasized adequate weight, height, and chest size. The first U.S. Army table of weight-for-height was published later, in 1887 (Reed and Love, 1932).
  • Karl E. Fried, “Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services”, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research; Marriott BM, Grumstrup-Scott J, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1990.

• [T]he minimum height for U.S. soldiers was 66 inches early in the nineteenth century and has progressively lowered, with the least stringent requirements (no minimum height standard during part of the Civil War) coinciding with national emergencies when new recruits were in greater demand.
  • Karl E. Fried, “Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services”, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research; Marriott BM, Grumstrup-Scott J, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1990.

Images

I believe that most readers will more deeply appreciate the issue of fugitive slave “contrabands,” the centrality of the slaveholding border states, and the fortuitous series of events that led to the Battle of Antietam and to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, if they first know how racism and the goal of national reconciliation later led to a romanticized view of the antebellum South and an interpretation of the Civil War as a great military Super Bowl contest between Blue and Gray heroes. ~ David Brion Davis

I wish it might be more generally and universally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. ~ Abraham Lincoln

This issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic, or democracy, a government of the people by the same people, can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government. ~ Abraham Lincoln

From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Under his rule, assisted by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds. ~ Frederick Douglass

We made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train, sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the main. Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain! ~ Henry Clay Work

What a splendid cause is this on which we are engaged. I think it is the grandest that ever enlisted the sympathies of man. Nobler even than the Revolution for they fought for their own freedom while we fight for that of another race. I firmly believe that the doom of slavery is fixed. ~ Walter Stone Poor

We are now fighting to destroy the cause of these dangerous diseases, which is slavery. ~ John A. Gillis

I have no heart in this war if the slaves cannot go free. ~ Chauncey Herbert Cooke

War is bad, heaven knows, but slavery is far worse. If the doom of slavery is not sealed by the war, I shall curse the day I entered the Army, or lifted a finger in the preservation of the Union. ~ Walter Stone Poor

The more I see of slavery in all its enormity the more I am satisfied that it is a curse to our country. ~ Walter Q. Gresham

I would like to live long enough to see every white man in South Carolina in hell, and the Negroes inheriting their territory. It would not wound my feelings any day to find the dead bodies of rebel sympathizers pierced with bullet holes in every street and alley of Washington. Yes, I would regret this, for I would not like to witness all this waste of powder and lead. I would rather have them hung, and the ropes saved! Let them dangle until their stinking bodies rot and fall to the ground piece by piece. ~ James Lane

We, on our side, are praying Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, look for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us? ~ Abraham Lincoln

The south began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, et cetera, et cetera, long before Mister Lincoln was installed, and before the south had one jot or tittle of provocation. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

Allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

War comes home to you; you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the government of their inheritance. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

The United States of America fought a horrific civil war that ended slavery. Yes, slavery was the reason for the Civil War. Every southern state that seceded from the United States announced that northern opposition to slavery and to its spread to new states was the primary reason for secession. ~ Dennis Prager

For Lincoln, as for most Republicans, antislavery action meant not attacking slavery where it was but working to prevent slavery's westward expansion. Lincoln, however, did talk about a future without slavery. The aim of the Republican Party, he insisted, was to put the institution on the road to 'ultimate extinction', a phrase he borrowed from Henry Clay. Ultimate extinction could take a long time. Lincoln once said that slavery might survive for another hundred years. But to the south, Lincoln seemed as dangerous as an abolitionist, because he was committed to the eventual end of slavery. This was why his election in 1860 led inexorably to secession and civil war. ~ Eric Foner

Secessionists advocated separation and independence to protect slavery from the threat posed by Lincoln's election and the long term implications of the Republican triumph in 1860. ~ Brooks D. Simpson

Anti-slavery sentiment was a large factor in the development of the war. As well as preserving the Union, many soldiers enlisted in response to slave-power and slavery itself. ~ Adam Thomas

We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation’s life and those who struck to save it, those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice. I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would not repel the repentant; but may my 'right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth', if I forget the difference between the parties to that terrible, protracted, and bloody conflict. ~ Frederick Douglass

War is war, and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in! ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant! Let us, the children of the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty days, let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected; that the suffering and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured; for in the end the slave was freed. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The south had $2,000,000,000 invested in slaves. It was very natural, that they should desire to protect, and not lose this amount of property. Their action in this effort, resulted in war. ~ Sterling Cockrill

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

We ask you to join us, in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States. ~ Address of South Carolina to the Slaveholding States

Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue. ~ Abraham Lincoln

By arming the negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers and taking them from the enemy weaken him in the same proportion they strengthen us. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The dark and vengeful spirit of slavery, always ambitious, preferring to rule in hell than to serve in heaven, fired the southern heart and stirred all the malign elements of discord... The armies of a gigantic rebellion came forth with broad blades and bloody hands to destroy the very foundations of American society... ~ Frederick Douglass

There is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They knew, they were expressly notified, that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more... ~ Abraham Lincoln

Let us die, to make men free. ~ Julia Ward Howe

We think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Success to the old fashioned doctrine, that men are created all free! ~ "Lincoln and Liberty"

I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. ~ Abraham Lincoln

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life... This is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied... Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it can't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The government owes to all men employed in its armies, without regard to distinction of color, the full protection of the laws of war. ~ Republican Party Platform of 1864

Oh, give us a flag, all free without a slave! We'll fight to defend it, as our fathers did so brave. ~ "Give Us A Flag"

He did not say a monument to what, but he meant, I am sure, to leave it as a monument to the loyalty of our soldiers, who would bear all the horrors of Libby sooner than desert their flag and cause. ~ David Dixon Porter

Hurrah, hurrah! For equal rights, hurrah! Hurrah for the dear old flag with every stripe and star. ~ "The Bonnie Flag With the Stripes and Stars"

Not a man shall be a slave! ~ George Frederick Root

Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free! ~ "Marching Through Georgia"

There are only two sides to this question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots and traitors. ~ Stephen Arnold Douglas

Freedom and peace enjoyed by all, as never was known before, our Spangled Banner wave on high! ~ "Union Reply to The Bonnie Blue Flag".

There were Union men who wept with joyful tears, when they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years! Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers, while we were marching through Georgia. ~ Henry Clay Work

As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Slaves are human beings. Men, not property... The Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us... This charter of freedom applies to the slave as well as to ourselves... Arguments put forward to batter down that idea, are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I know there is a God, and that he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it. If he has a place and work for me, and I think he has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It may well be questioned whether the negro does not understand the nature of our institutions better than the equally ignorant foreigner. He was intelligent enough to understand from the beginning of the war that the destiny of his race was involved in it. He was intelligent enough to be true to that Union which his educated and traitorous master was endeavoring to destroy. He came to us in the hour of our sorest need, and by his aid, under God, the Republic was saved. ~ James Abram Garfield

There have been men who have proposed to me to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee to their masters to conciliate the south. I should be damned in time and in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters 'U.S.'; let him get an edge on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship. ~ Frederick Douglass

Many had the idea that the entire negro race are vastly their inferiors; a few weeks of calm unprejudiced life here would disabuse them I think. I have a more elevated opinion of their abilities than I ever had before. I know that many of them are vastly the superiors of those, many of those, who would condemn them to a life of brutal degradation. ~ Charles Augustus Hill

File:African-American Monument at Vicksburg National Military Park closer view.jpg

I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the negro is the heaviest blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a great deal about it and profess to be very angry. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive. Even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than our white troops, and I doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought bravely. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Let history record that on the banks of the James 30,000 freemen not only gained their own liberty, but shattered the prejudice of the world, and gave to the land of their birth peace, union and glory. ~ Godfrey Weitzel

Its organization was an experiment which has proven a perfect success. The conduct of its soldiers has been such to draw praise from persons most prejudiced against color, and there is no record which should give the colored race more pride than that left by the 25th Army Corps. ~ Godfrey Weitzel

No human power can subdue this rebellion without using the emancipation lever as I have done. ~ Abraham Lincoln

All commanders will especially exert themselves in carrying out the policy of the administration, not only in organizing colored regiments and rendering them efficient, but also in removing prejudices against them. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

I am anxious to get as many of these Negro regiments as possible, and to have them full, and completely equipped. I am particularly desirous of organizing a regiment of heavy artillery from the negroes. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Oh aid of the slaves' liberation and roll on the liberty ball. We'll finish the temple of freedom, and make it capacious within. That all who seek shelter may find it, whatever the hue of their skin... ~ "Lincoln and Liberty"

The people are everywhere calling, for Lincoln and liberty too! ~ "Lincoln and Liberty"

Forward to Richmond! ~ The New York Tribune

No slave in this State shall be emancipated... ~ Constitution of the State of Alabama (1861)

My poor friends, you are free, free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more. Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as He gave it to others, and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years. But you must try to deserve this priceless boon. Let the world see that you merit it, and are able to maintain it by your good works. Don't let your joy carry you into excesses. Learn the laws and obey them; obey God's commandments and thank Him for giving you liberty, for to Him you owe all things. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy. I am but God's humble instrument; but you may rest assured that as long as I live no one shall put a shackle on your limbs; and you shall have all the rights which God has given to every other free citizen of this republic. ~ Abraham Lincoln

In reference to you, colored people, let me say God has made you free. Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called masters, you are now as free as I am, and if those that claim to be your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword and bayonet and teach them that you are; for God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I am ready to submit to any responsibility which belongs to me as a senator from a slaveholding state. I have heard something said on this and a former occasion about allegiance to the south. I know no south, no north, no east, no west, to which I owe any allegiance. I owe allegiance to two sovereignty, and only two. One is the sovereignty of this Union, and the other is the sovereignty of the state of Kentucky. ~ Henry Clay

The true purpose of all government is to promote the welfare and provide for the protection and security of the governed, and when any form or organization of government proves inadequate for, or subversive of this purpose, it is the right, it is the duty of the latter to alter or abolish it. The Bill of Rights of Virginia, framed in 1776, reaffirmed in 1860, and again in 1851, expressly reserves this right to the majority of her people, and the existing constitution does not confer upon the General Assembly the power to call a Convention to alter its provisions, or to change the relations of the Commonwealth, without the previously expressed consent of such majority. ~ Declaration of the People of Virginia Represented in Convention at Wheeling

The act of the General Assembly, calling the Convention which assembled at Richmond in February last, was therefore a usurpation; and the Convention thus called has not only abused the powers nominally entrusted to it, but, with the connivance and active aid of the executive, has usurped and exercised other powers, to the manifest injury of the people, which, if permitted, will inevitably subject them to a military despotism. ~ Declaration of the People of Virginia Represented in Convention at Wheeling

Unless there had been a separation from the North, slavery would be abolished in Georgia. ~ Henry L. Benning

Confederates openly celebrated the cause of establishing a slaveholding republic and the defense of white supremacy. They embraced it as the foundation of their new nation and as an improvement on the nation from which they left behind. It constituted their understanding of Confederate exceptionalism. ~ Kevin Levin

If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished. By the time the north shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that? ~ Henry L. Benning

Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Painfully convinced of the unutterable wrongs and woes of slavery, profoundly believing that, according to the true spirit of the constitution and the sentiments of the fathers, it can find no place. ~ Charles Sumner

Slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war. ~ Abraham Lincoln

War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

Victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. ~ Frederick Douglass

The end of the war should be the end of slavery, and, as a consequence, of rebellion. ~ P. Densmore Gurley

Our great and necessary domestic institution of slavery shall be preserved. ~ Southern Punch

Union soldiers fought to preserve the Union, but also to end human bondage. ~ Joseph Morrison Skelly

The Confederacy sought to overthrow our constitutional government. When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, they were not merely firing at 'Federals' or the Union army. They were firing at the United States Army and the U.S. flag. ~ Frank Scaturro

Slavery was the primary motivation for secession. It was a direct reaction to the election, for the first time in the nation's history, of a Republican administration that opposed expansion of slavery into the territories. The national debate leading up to the war focused on slavery, as did last-minute attempts to avert war in 1861. Slavery permeates Lincoln's first inaugural address and also the official declarations of five of the seceding states explaining their secession from the Union. ~ Frank Scaturro

Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. ~ Abraham Lincoln

People can claim the civil war was 'not about slavery' as much as they want, but the fact remains that anyone who fought for the Confederacy was fighting for a country in which a universal right to own slaves was one of the most entrenched laws of the land. ~ Jim McCullough

Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Statesmen who led the secession movement were unashamed to explicitly cite the defense of slavery as their prime motive. ~ John Coski

Acknowledging the centrality of slavery to the Confederacy is essential. ~ John Coski

The south would carry out its threat to secede and set up a separate government, the corner-stone of which should be, protection to the 'divine' institution of slavery. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

The issue before the country is the extinction of slavery. ~ Charleston Mercury

No man of common sense, who has observed the progress of events, and is not prepared to surrender the institution... The time for action has come. ~ Charleston Mercury

The existence of slavery is at stake. ~ Charleston Mercury

The Confederate States of America came into existence to preserve African American slavery and white supremacy. After slavery's legal abolition, the defenders of white supremacy quite logically looked back upon the slaveholders' republic as their true forebears. ~ Bruce Levine

The south determined to fight for her property right in slaves. ~ Ed Baxter

The Confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity. That the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. ~ Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede

A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. ~ Declaration of the Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of Mississippi

Southern slaveholders believed that African slavery was one of the great organizing institutions in world history, superior to the 'free society' of the north. ~ T.N. Coates

We have dissolved the late Union chiefly because of the negro quarrel. ~ Robert H. Smith

Slavery is to stand before the world as it is, and on its own merits. We have now placed our domestic institution, and secured its rights unmistakably, in the Constitution. We have sought by no euphony to hide its name. We have called our negroes 'slaves', and we have recognized. ~ Robert H. Smith

What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. ~ Henry L. Benning

We of the south contend that slavery is right. ~ Laurence M. Keitt

We, of South Carolina, hope soon to greet you in a Southern Confederacy, where white men shall rule our destinies, and from which we may transmit to our posterity the rights, privileges, and honor left us by our ancestors. ~ John McQueen

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. ~ Alexander H. Stephens

The destiny of the Southern master and his African slave is accomplished. That destiny does not stop short of the banks of the Amazon. The world of wonders in the animal and vegetable kingdom, of riches incalculable in the vast domain, watered by that gigantic stream, is the natural heritage of the Southron and his domestic slave. ~ George William Bagby

As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race. ~ William T. Thompson

The proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. It is to me a source of deep mortification and regret. ~ Howell Cobb

Use all the negroes you can get, for all the purposes for which you need them, but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. ~ Howell Cobb

The raison d'être of the Confederacy was the defense of slavery. It follows that, as the paramount symbol of the Confederate nation and as the flag of the armies that kept the nation alive, the St. Andrew's cross is inherently associated with slavery. This conclusion is valid. ~ John Coski

A flag that is as much a symbol of resistance to civil rights and equality as it was a symbol for soldiers whose performance on the battlefield might have secured the independence of a republic founded upon the cornerstone of white supremacy and inequality. ~ Brooks D. Simpson

I hates the Constitution, this 'Great Republic', too! I hates the Yankee nation and everything they do. I hates the Declaration of Independence, too! ~ Innes Randolph

Bury him in the common trench with the niggers. ~ Johnson Hagood

Rioters were mostly Irish Catholic immigrants and their children. They mainly attacked the members of New York's small black population. For a year, Democratic leaders had been telling their Irish-American constituents that the wicked Black Republicans were waging the war to free the slaves who would come north and take away the jobs of Irish workers. ~ James M. McPherson

That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That will be the last speech he will ever make. ~ John Wilkes Booth

We cursed the war, we cursed Bragg, we cursed the Southern Confederacy. All our pride and valor had gone, and we were sick of war and the Southern Confederacy. ~ Sam R. Watkins

A law was made by the Confederate States Congress about this time allowing every person who owned twenty negroes to go home. It gave us the blues; we wanted twenty negroes. Negro property suddenly became very valuable, and there was raised the howl of 'rich man's war, poor man's fight'. The glory of the war, the glory of the South, the glory and the pride of our volunteers had no charms for the conscript. ~ Sam R. Watkins

We are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race. ~ William Thompson

We cannot treat negroes taken in arms as prisoners of war without a destruction of the social system for which we contend. ~ John Eakin

The Confederate experience is dotted with episodes that are not particularly admirable. ~ William C. Davis

If we cannot justify the south in the act of secession, we will go down in history solely as a brave, impulsive, but rash people who attempted in an illegal manner to overthrow the Union of our country. ~ Clement A. Evans

On their way to and from Gettysburg, Lee's troops seized scores of free black people in Maryland and Pennsylvania and sent them south into slavery. This was in keeping with Confederate national policy, which virtually re-enslaved free people of color into work gangs on earthworks throughout the south. ~ James W. Loewen

That infuriates some people; they want me to tell them these were horrible traitors that deserved to be killed. But traitors to what? They were actually loyal to the country they had been raised in all their lives. ~ Richard McCaslin

Many persons believed, or pretended to believe, and confidently asserted, that freed slaves would not make good soldiers; they would lack courage, and could not be subjected to military discipline. Facts have shown how groundless were these apprehensions. ~ Edwin M. Stanton

The slave has proved his manhood and his capacity as an infantry soldier. ~ Edwin M. Stanton

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. ~ Declaration of the Secession of Mississippi

There had to be an end of slavery. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

African slavery as it exists amongst us; the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. ~ Alexander H. Stephens

Where cotton's king and men are chattels, Union boys will win the battles. ~ "Union Dixie"

As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Southerners tried to view the constitution as a contract. Unfortunately, that viewpoint breaks down when viewed as a lawyer views a contract. There are very few ways to legally break a contract unilaterally. ~ William C. Davis

The south went to war on account of slavery. South Carolina went to war, as she said in her secession proclamation, because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln. South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding. The truth is the modern Virginians departed from the teachings of the Father's. ~ John S. Mosby

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed. ~ Constitution of the Confederate States of America

The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves. ~ 1861 Constitution of the State of Florida

The idea of arming and freeing the slaves was repugnant because the protection of slavery had been and still remained the central core of Confederate purpose... Slavery was the basis of the planter class's wealth, power, and position in society. The South's leading men had built their world upon slavery and the idea of voluntarily destroying that world, even in the ultimate crisis, was almost unthinkable to them. ~ Paul Escott

Because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy. ~ Woodrow Wilson

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

There will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause which they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Southern gentlemen who led in the late rebellion have not parted with their convictions at this point, any more than at any other. They want to be independent of the Negro. They believed in slavery and they believe in it still... ~ Frederick Douglass

At all times we were fully aware that you Federals were using balloons to examine our positions and we watched with envious eyes their beautiful observations as they floated high in the air, well out of range of our guns. While we were longing for balloons that poverty denied us, a genius arose and suggested that we send out and get every silk dress in the Confederacy to make a balloon. ~ James Longstreet

During the whole period of my employment, I have directed all my mental and physical energies to secure the success of our forces. I have never shrunk from the discharge of my duty, however hazardous, and holding no commission I have often been perplexed and put to inconvenience in doing the business of the Aeronautical Department which properly belonged to a commissioned officer. But for want of one acquainted with the business I was compelled to do it myself, I have also at all times been exposed to the danger of being treated as a spy had I fallen into the hands of the enemy. ~ Thaddeus S. C. Lowe

Submarines have a long history, but the Alligator was the U. S. Navy's first.
The government contracted with Villeroi, who designed a bigger, 47-foot submarine. The initial design had oars, which looked like little legs and led to the sub's name, "Alligator." Later, the clumsy oars were replaced by a screw propeller turned by hand. The Alligator boasted many technological innovations. It had a device to clean the air of carbon dioxide, and a diver lockout chamber so that someone could exit the submarine under water and return. Unfortunately, it was lost at sea during a storm in 1863, before it ever got to see combat. The Alligator has been long forgotten and overshadowed by other submarines, like the Confederate CSS H. L. Hunley, which was built two years later. ~ Nell Grennfield Boyce

• Beginning with the Union capture of the Confederate capital of Richmond, in April 1865, and with the way that black Union troops freed a bevy of slaves in a Richmond jail, I emphasize the truly “revolutionary” meaning of the Civil War—reinforced by the fact that the Union confiscated without compensation a hitherto legally accepted form of property that was worth an estimated $3.5 billion in 1860 dollars (about $68.4 billion in 2003 dollars). (Most of the other emancipations of slaves in the Western Hemisphere provided slaveholders with some compensation, often in the form of unpaid labor from the “free-born” children of slaves who were required to work until age eighteen or a good bit older, or a period of unpaid apprenticeship for former slaves; even Haiti had to pay France a staggering sum of “compensation” in order to gain diplomatic recognition and the right to trade.) I then move on to the way this revolutionary meaning of the Civil War was repressed and transformed from the 1880s to the late 1950s (before I turn to the story of President Lincoln and slave emancipation). I believe that most readers will more deeply appreciate the issue of fugitive slave “contrabands,” the centrality of the slaveholding border states, and the fortuitous series of events that led to the Battle of Antietam and to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, if they first know how racism and the goal of national reconciliation later led to a romanticized view of the antebellum South and an interpretation of the Civil War as a great military Super Bowl contest between Blue and Gray heroes. As my colleague David Blight has compellingly shown in his prizewinning book Race and Reunion, this was a “memory” in which race and slavery were never mentioned. Fortunately, this tradition of denial never wiped out an “emancipationist” tradition, kept alive by such black writers as W.E.B. Du Bois, which helped inspire the civil rights movement in the 1960s and which transformed at least our academic understanding of the rise and fall of racial slavery. This book, I hope, will join the small shelf of works that have begun to convey our academic understandings to a wider public.
  • David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the Americas (2006)

• Another political pressure mounting on Lincoln was the growing demand by free African Americans to participate in the war. Many northern African Americans saw the war not only as a means of striking down the institution of slavery but as an opportunity to press their demands for full citizenship in a reunited nation. Even in the slavery-free North, African American rights were neither consistent nor secure. Suffrage was restricted to a few New England states, African Americans could not testify in court against a white defendant, and economic rights were not ensured. The justification for such restrictions in the North was that these rights were reserved for citizens of the United States, which free African Americans, not to mention slaves, were not. The conflict with the South, therefore, became a venue where African Americans, by demonstrating their loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of the federal government, could improve their social status or even gain citizenship. Many African American leaders believed blacks should deny their services to the government until offered the reward of citizenship. Frederick Douglass told a Boston crowd, "Nothing short of open recognition of the Negro's manhood, his rights as such to have a country equally with others, would induce me to join the army in any capacity. Many other African Americans, however, eagerly volunteered their services to the federal government after the assault on Fort Sumter.
  • Steven J. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy (2002), p. 34-35

• After the war began, hundreds of African Americans joined loosely organized military formations and presented themselves to the federal government for war service. Lincoln would have none of it. The official policy of the federal government remained, as Secretary Cameron write a group of African Americans volunteering for military service, one of rejecting African American volunteers: "This Department has no intention at present to call into the service of the Government any colored soldiers." Arming African Americans would destroy the president's claim of a war to preserve the Union, drive the border states into the Confederacy, and legitimize Southern propaganda depicting Lincoln as a tool of the radical abolitionists.
  • Steven J. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy (2002), p. 35

• By early 1862, the Lincoln administration's determination to prevent African American enlistment was seriously eroding. The policy would soon be reversed, permitting full African American participation in the army and navy by the end of the year. As battle after battle occurred during the course of the year, the early expectation of a short war soon disappeared. With this discovery came the realization in the North that more manpower than originally estimated would be needed to win the war, manpower that African Americans, earlier rejected, were still willing to contribute. The securing of the border states also freed Lincoln's hands to create policy regarding African Americans. Union military victories in Tennessee and the upper Mississippi Valley and the suppression of pro-Confederate activities in Maryland firmly established the border states in the Union camp, reducing the need to placate local racist sentiment.
  • Steven J. Ramold, Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy (2002), p. 36