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56Publication date: December 8, 2018
Historical Sciences
CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: REASONS AND FEATURES
1 0 Grishchenko, Marina Aleksandrovna1, Melikhova, Maria Andreevna2
1 Bachelor, Voronezh State Technical University,
Street 20 years of October, 84, Voronezh, Russia, E-mail: marino-grishenko46@mail.ru
2 Bachelor, Voronezh State Technical University,
Street 20 years of October, 84, Voronezh, Russia, E-mail: melichowa1712@gmail.com
Abstract:
The article is devoted to the analysis of the economic causes of the American Civil War. The subject of the research was an unusually complex set of relations between the North and the South. The article deals with the reasons for the development of separatism and its consequences. Since slavery in the southern states was not the only cause of the Civil War, other major economic reasons are explored.
The article deals with the economic benefits and disadvantages of slavery, the depression of 1861, changes in agricultural production and problems of social activity in the northern states. The focus is also on the financing of armies and the economic results of the war.
Keywords: Civil war, propaganda, USA, Confederate States of America, propaganda history, informational confrontation.
I. INTRODUCTION
The main cause of the Civil War (1861-1865) was the serious disagreement between different socioeconomic systems that existed in one state — the bourgeois north and the slave-owning south. In 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln became the president of the United States. His victory for the slaveholders of the south was a signal of danger and led to secession - the withdrawal of the southern states from the Union. South Carolina was the first to leave the United States at the end of December 1860, followed by the Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas in January 1861, and Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina in April-May. These 11 states formed the Confederate States of America (Confederation), adopted their constitution and elected the former Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis as their president.
The capital of the Confederation was the city of Richmond (Virginia). The retired states occupied 40% of the entire US territory with a population of 9.1 million people, including over 3.6 million blacks. In the Union left 23 states. The population of the northern states exceeded 22 million people; almost all of the country's industry was located on its territory, 70% of railways, 81% of bank deposits.
Humanities & Social
II. METHODOLOGY
The article is based on a systematic approach. Its use in considering the problem allowed the author to investigate the relationship of general trends in relations between the North and the South of the United States.
The principles of historicism and complexity were also used.
Based on the principle of historicism, the author comprehensively assessed the facts and documents of the past, taking into account the peculiarities of the period under study. Following the principle of complexity, it was possible to obtain scientific knowledge about the general trends in the development of the conflict between the North and the South.
III. RESULTS
The civil war was the hardest shock for the United States: the country lost 623 thousand people killed, 471 thousand people were injured (with a population of 30 million people) and suffered huge financial losses estimated at over $ 9 billion - more than three times the maximum value of all slaves in the country in the best years. This amount of losses was made up of $ 4.1 billion in direct military spending by the national government during the war and post-war periods up to 1869, as well as direct and indirect losses of the Union and the Confederation in the amount of $ 4.8 billion. In addition, a large number of injured and crippled injured during the conflict - pensions to participants of the Civil War, which continued to pay for many more decades, amounted to 8.2 billion dollars by 1951 [6, p. 508].
Although slavery was abolished, the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the reconstruction of the South could not fully solve the racial question in the United States. In 19 of 24 states, the black population was not allowed to take part in the elections. By 1900, all southern states had legalized in their new constitutions the infringement of civil rights and the segregation of blacks. This happened despite the fact that in 1865 the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed, outlawing slavery, in 1868 the 14th Amendment, which recognized the citizens of the country of all born or naturalized in the USA, and finally 1870. The 15th amendment prohibiting the denial or restriction of the voting rights of US citizens on the basis of race [13, with. 53]. The economic situation of the former slaves did not become stable either. They were released without land and were forced to turn into agricultural workers. Their pay was extremely low - about $ 0.5 a day. A new form of continuation of the previous relationship was the frequent non-payment of wages to former slaves for the work done. It was quite difficult for a Negro to acquire land or rent it, given the competition from better-off farmers, former landlords and land speculators. To the planters, the winners showed much greater generosity, returning to them after the war a significant part of the lands and property confiscated during the war, totaling $ 2 billion [8, p. 467]. At the same time, these actions fully answered this, with success the main task of the Civil War was solved - preservation of the territorial integrity of the United States, overcoming separatism, ensuring free entry of capital both to the west and south of the country.
Thus, the main consequences of the Civil War were:
- the preservation of the United States as a single country, the weakening of separatist tendencies through the destruction of the economic structure of the southern states;
- the creation of favorable conditions for the rapid development of the capitalist industry of the northern states on the basis of the predatory exploitation of the resources of the South under the protection of the continued protectionist policies;
- creation of conditions for the rapid development of farming, which strengthened its position through the adoption of the Homestead Act; the elimination of plantation slavery practically did not have a significant impact on this process.
Summing up, it can be argued that the abolition of slavery was not the main cause of the American Civil War, the contradictions between the South and the North lay in the realm of fundamental differences in their understanding of their strategic economic interests and were clearly financial in nature. Under these conditions, the abolition of slavery was most likely the reason for the pressure of the North on the southern states: the
elimination of the slave-owning system by itself could not lead to the expansionist aspirations of the industrial circles of the northern states. In real history, during the war, the North won, and its economic system became widespread both in the southern states and subsequently in the territories attached to the country. Across the North began a noisy festival in honor of victory. All caution towards the defeated enemy was forgotten. On April 14, 5 days after Lee's surrender, a loyal son of the American people Lincoln was killed in a box during a ceremonial performance in Washington. He was killed by one actor, the employer of the slave owners of the South.
In the struggle for power that continued after the death of Abraham Lincoln, the big bourgeoisie, which established its dictatorship, won out.
After the northerners had withdrawn troops from the South, yesterday's slave owners stopped recognizing the authorities appointed by the Union government, and began to restore the slavery of blacks. There was a threat that the South would again secede from the Union.
Then Congress decided to re-occupy the South with the troops of the northerners, dividing the South into five districts, led by military generals of the civil war. The congress adopted amendments to the constitution, for which the blacks were granted the same civil and political rights as the whites. Now in the representative institutions of South Carolina there are 76 Negro delegates and 43 white, Louisiana - 49 blacks and 49 white. But in no state could Negroes occupy a leading position.
The bourgeoisie of the North used Negroes to complete the political defeat of the former slave owners, but they did not give the land to the blacks, but left it to yesterday's slave owners. The bourgeoisie of the North, seeing the strengthening of the revolutionary movement of the Negro masses, made a new deal with the former slave owners of the South. Little by little in the South, former slave owners restored the terrorist regime against the Negroes, staged a series of bloody Negro riots and returned to power. Negros with arms resisted former slave owners, but were defeated.
By 1876, former slaveholders in alliance with the bourgeoisie dominated everywhere in the South. The negroes actually lost their political rights again and became subject to racial discrimination.
The capitulation of the remaining units of the Confederation army continued until the end of June. The last of the CSA generals capitulated Stand Ueiti with their Indian units. It happened on June 23rd.
Some confederate naval forces also continued to operate after the official surrender. The CSS cruiser Shenandoa, operating in the Pacific, caused significant damage to the northerly whaling fleets before the captain found out that the war was over. In the Atlantic, the French battleship CSS "Stonewall Jackson" built in France crossed the ocean and arrived in Havana just a few days after the war ended.
One of the consequences of the war was the death of President Lincoln. April 14, 1865 a supporter of southerners committed an assassination attempt on him; Lincoln was mortally wounded and, without regaining consciousness, died the next morning.
The prohibition of slavery was enshrined in the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which entered into force on December 18, 1865 (slavery in the rebel states was abolished as early as 1863 by presidential decree proclaiming emancipation).
Conditions were created in the country for the accelerated development of industrial and agricultural production, the development of western lands, and the strengthening of the domestic market. The war did not solve all the problems facing the country. Some of them found a solution during the Reconstruction of the South, which lasted until 1877. Others, including giving the black population equal rights with whites, remained unresolved for many decades.
The civil war remained the most bloody in US history (on all fronts of the Second World War, despite its worldwide scale and destructive weapons of the 20th century, Americans lost 200,000 people less) [18].
Losses of northerners amounted to almost 360 thousand people killed and dead from wounds and other causes, and more than 275 thousand wounded. The Confederates lost about 258 thousand.
Only US military spending reached $ 3.5 billion. The war demonstrated new capabilities of military equipment and had an impact on the development of military art.
The last veteran of the American Civil War, Albert Henry Woolson, died in 1956 at the age of 106 years.
Now, according to the law, blacks were free, but their financial situation remained the same. And the legal status was also not equal to white. The end of the civil war marked the beginning of a period of segregation in the United States, the echoes of which continue to this day.
IV. DISCUSSION
US Civil War. So, in particular, in the textbook "The Economic History of Foreign Countries", which is very widespread today, edited by T. M. Timoshina, virtually the totality of the causes of the Civil War, among which the real disintegration of the country obviously does not take the last place, is reduced to slavery, "The main knot of contradictions in solving the agrarian question," and the problem of the slave-owning system as such [1, p. 352-354]. Accordingly, when describing the outcome of the Civil War, it is stated: "First of all, the victory of the North allowed to abolish slavery and begin to solve the Negro problem on a national scale" [1]. A similar approach can be observed in the textbook edited by G. B. Polyak and A. N. Markova. Thus, in particular, it states: "The simultaneous availability of a capitalist economy in the North and slavery in the South became the cause of the contradictions between these systems leading to the Civil War" [2, p. 425].
Meanwhile, the question of ensuring the integrity of a state consisting of formally independent states, as well as the fact that a situation has arisen in the US in which a number of states for financial reasons found it more advantageous to leave the Union.
K. Marx and F. Engels investigated the ratio of the economic, moral and military potentials of the warring parties and showed that the North was superior in all respects to its adversary, had a highly developed industry capable of providing the army and navy with perfect weapons and equipment at that time. According to the initial and minimum calculations of Engels, the North could easily and in a short time put under the gun half a million people, while the Southerners could arm no more than 250 thousand people. The North had a great moral and political advantage: from the very beginning of the war, the sympathy and support of the broad masses of the people were on the side of the Lincoln government.
Of great methodological significance are the statements of Marx that, in determining the prospects for a war, one cannot limit oneself to its purely military aspects. In a letter to Engels, who, due to a number of defeats
of northerners, began to doubt the possibility of their victory, Marx noted: "It seems to me that your view is a little too much determined by a purely military view of things." "... History will soon take another turn," wrote Marx to Engels on August 7, 1862. "The North will finally start waging war seriously and resort to revolutionary means, eliminating people from the border slave states from leadership. Even a regiment composed of blacks alone will have a striking effect on the southerners' nerves. "
Marx and Engels comprehensively described the political and military leaders of the southern and northern states, thoroughly analyzed the most important campaigns, battles, battles, giving a remarkable example of the scientific study of hostilities.
For a correct understanding of the nature of the civil war in the United States, the work of V.I. Lenin, in particular his Letter to the American Workers, in which Vladimir Ilyich highly appreciated the feat of the American people and in particular the working class in the struggle against slavery, is important.
Exploring the course of the civil war in the United States, one cannot ignore the statements of a number of Russian revolutionary democrats who are contemporaries of this war. He warmly sympathized with the struggle of the American people against slave-owners N. G. Chernyshevsky. He correctly identified the seemingly seemingly militant activity of the Southerners, showed that it was based on attendant moments, reliance on adventurism, treachery, threats, deception. "And by the way ... - he wrote, - because only on the most desperate arrogance and the possibility of success was founded: in the cotton states themselves, the secessionists would have been thrown into nothingness by the majority, if it were not in a hurry to forge iron while it was hot."
The works by N. Danilov, Episode from the North American War of 1861-1865, and N. Sukhotin, Raids and Search for Cavalry during the American War of 1861-1865, on the combat use of cavalry deserve attention. Particularly reveals the increased importance of mobile forces in the civil war N. Sukhotin. He explores the methods of planning and training cavalry raids on the disruption of enemy communications, on the destruction of communications, railways, and rear bases.
Questions of strategy and tactics during the civil war in the United States found coverage in the Soviet military theoretical literature. B. Shaposhnikov, later Marshal of the Soviet Union, in the capital work "The Cavalry" outlined some aspects of the combat use of cavalry in the struggle of the North and the South. The construction of river flotillas, their strategic and tactical use in the American war were thoroughly investigated by A. Sakovich and D. White.
The Frenchman V. Roussillon, who also took part in the war, studied the problems of the economic support of the war, the experience of using railways, the telegraph, and the problems of strategic leadership. English historian Charles Boyton dedicated his. voluminous work to study the combat operations of the fleets during the years of the civil war.
On the most important events of the war, the principles of leadership it tells, for example, published an extensive document "Report of the Committee on the conduct of war." Analysis of the activities of the civil administration is given in the works "The United States Military Policy", "The American Military Policy, Its Development Since 1775". Great cognitive material about casualties during the civil war contains the study of R. Livermura "The number of troops and losses in the civil war in America." The growth dynamics of the armed forces, the material day of victories and defeats of the parties, the effectiveness of the combat use of various combat forces and assets also allow us to trace the work on the training of officers, the improvement of the command and control system of troops and fleet, etc.
Many bourgeois scientists and publicists of the USA, distorting the truth about the civil war, unfairly attribute all victories in the struggle of the North against the South only to the talent of military leaders, leaving the people in the background. In connection with the general intensification of militaristic propaganda in the USA, certain generals, admirals, and officers of the civil war period are especially widely celebrated in the United States.
V. CONCLUSION
As a result of the Civil War, at the cost of great losses, the unity of the United States was preserved and slavery was eliminated. The prohibition of slavery was enshrined in the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which entered into force on December 18, 1865. Conditions were created in the country for the accelerated
development of industrial and agricultural production, the development of western lands, and the strengthening of the domestic market. The war did not solve all the problems facing the country. Some of them found a solution in the course of the Reconstruction of the South, which lasted until 1877. Others, including the provision of equal rights to whites and whites, remained unresolved for many decades.
If before the civil war, power in the United States belonged to slave owners, now the big bourgeoisie of the North was in power, making a deal with the former slave owners of the South. To the negroes of the southern states, the civil war did not bring real liberation. Plantation slavery, which hampered the development of the whole country, was abolished, the negro-slaves were freed, but they did not receive land and were forced to work on the fields of their former masters as farm laborers or tenants. The old bondage was replaced by a new, capitalist, connected to the remnants of slavery, the racial oppression of the Negroes remained. To this day, the discrimination of the Negroes, which disgraces the country, has survived in the USA - they are paid less for work than whites, they are not allowed to study with whites in the South, go along with whites on the same trams, buses, etc. In the southern states and today there are cases of brutal mob violence — reprisals against blacks fighting for political and domestic equality.
The fate of the Indian tribes remained tragic after the civil war. American troops drove a large tribe of Apaches in the gorge of the Rocky Mountains. There, the Indians defended themselves heroically against American troops for 11 years. The notorious for their cruelty against the Indians were the generals of the civil war — Grant and others.
The victory of the North strengthened the development of capitalism and the exploitation of the workers, but it was of great importance for the development of the labor movement. Now the workers could, first of all, fight not against the planters-slave-owners, but against their direct enemies, the bourgeoisie. During the civil war, the rapid creation of professional organizations took place, and at the end of the war the workers won the first laws on an 8-hour working day in some states.
To farmers, the civil war gave the homesteads law and destroyed the danger of the slave-owners taking over the western lands. The number of farmers has increased in the South, where the bourgeoisie bought up the land of former slave owners and put them on sale in small plots. At the same time, after the civil war, the stratification of farming is intensified: the kulaks stand out and the majority of farmers are ruined, joining the ranks of the farm laborers. Farmers experienced the worst disasters of capitalist exploitation. The laws on homestems were widely used by the bourgeoisie, who bought small plots of land from many farmers or received huge lands for bribes under the guise of homesteads.
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