Northern War Aims - Preserve the Union
By the 1860s, the United States had become a much-debated exemplar of the perils and possibilities of political democracy -- "the last best hope" of Lincoln and so many others. For Abraham Lincoln the American union was not just a structure to govern the national interests of American states; it also represented a consensus about the future of freedom in America - a future where slavery would eventually be eliminated and liberty protected as the birthright of every human being. Upon assuming the presidency for the first time, he spoke at length about the nature of union, why secession was antithetical to self-government, and how the federal constitution imposed a duty upon him to defend the union of the states from rebellious citizens. Lincoln thought he had a constitutional obligation as president to preserve the Union from attempts at secession.
Secession would destroy the world's only existing democracy, and prove for all time, to future Americans and to the world, that a government of the people cannot survive. Lincoln may have thought this point was the most important. If you traveled the earth in 1860, and visited every continent and every nation, you would have found many examples of monarchies, dictatorships, and other examples of authoritarian rule. But in the all the world, you would have found only one major democracy: The United States of America. Democracy had been attempted in one other nation in the eighteenth century - France. Unfortunately, that experiment in self-government deteriorated rapidly, as the citizens resorted more to the guillotine than to the ballot box. From the ashes of that experiment in self-government, rose a dictator who, after seizing control in France, attempted to conquer the continent of Europe.
Those who supported monarchies felt vindicated by the French disaster, but the United States experiment in self-government remained a thorn in their side. Those wishing for democracy could always point across the ocean and say, "It works there. Why can't we try it here"? In 1860 however, it appeared that the thorn had been removed. The monarchists were thrilled with the dissolution of the United States, and many even held parties celebrating the end of democracy.
Lincoln understood this well, and when he described his nation as "the world's last best hope," these were not idle words. Lincoln truly believed that if the war were lost, it would not only have been the end of his political career, or that of his party, or even the end of his nation. He believed that if the war were lost, it would have forever ended the hope of people everywhere for a democratic form of government.
In his Message to Congress in Special Session July 4, 1861, Lincoln wrote that the War presented " .... to the whole family of man the question of whether a constitutional republic or democracy -- a government of the people, by the same people -- can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. ... It presents the question whether the discontented individuals ... [can] ... practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?""
Perhaps the most successful case of political and strategic adaptation came in the American Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln addressed a fluid and dynamic situation in which few of the initial assumptions proved accurate. In the largest sense the North’s political objective in the war’s first year remained entirely focused on reestablishing the Union. Only a small group of abolitionists in the northeast argued for freeing the slaves. But the events of 1861 and 1862 clearly indicated the Union assumption that secession had the support of only a small percentage of the Southern population was wrong.
In his memoirs Grant caught much of what that recognition entailed: "Up to the Battle of Shiloh, I, as well as thousands of other citizens, believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse suddenly and soon, if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies. Donelson and Henry were such victories. An army of more than 21,000 men was captured and destroyed. Bowling Green, Columbus and Hickman, Kentucky, fell in consequence, and Clarkesville and Nashville, Tennessee, the last two with an immense amount of stores, also fell into our hands. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers from their mouths to the head of navigation, were secured. But when Confederate armies were collected which not only attempted to hold a line further south, from Memphis to Chattanooga, Knoxville and on to the Atlantic but assumed the offensive and made such a gallant effort to regain what had been lost, then, indeed, I gave up all idea of saving the union except by complete conquest."
By late summer of 1862, the course of the war had convinced Lincoln that he had to extend the North’s grand strategy to include the abolition of slavery. Thus, after the Battle of Antietam, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a step aimed not only at the heart of the South’s culture but at its economic foundation as well. The Emancipation Proclamation was only the opening shot of what was to turn into a strategy of war against the South’s economy and structure.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
