From: Michele Willmunder
Date: 4/20/00
Time: 12:22:21 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.229.135
What advantages and disadvantages did the North and the South bring with them into the Civil War? Both the North and the South experienced advantages and disadvantages at the time of the Civil War. The North had a great advantage over the South with its higher population, railroads, and industrial production. Because of the North’s strong economy, there were more than enough provisions for the Union troops, and it did not severely effect the way of living for the citizens of the North. Whereas the South was using defective rifles, feeble horses, and wore poor-quality uniforms. Also, with a greater naval advantage, the North was able to create a blockade that restricted the Confederacy of the shipping of goods to European nations that depended on southern cotton. With Lincoln leading the North, they were ultimately in better standing than the South. With his plan of applying coercion and searching for weakness, the North was able to take superiority. Even though the North had many advantages, the South was not completely defenseless. They too also had advantages during the Civil War. The South was able to define their cause of war as a defense against the invading North. They were able to choose their place and time of battle and were able to do this on familiar territory. Southerners were also seen as better fighters than northerners. If more help was needed to fight against the North, the South could call on powers such as England and France because of the ties they held with the exporting of cotton.
What was the significance of Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860? The are a few factors that play into the importance of Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. First off, his election provoked southern secession and in doing so, immersed the American nation into one of the greatest turning points of all time. Since Lincoln had little experience as a member in office, his election created some uncertainty in the sense of whether or not he would be able to handle the responsibilities he was about to face. But his political skills he gained as a politician would become intensely important since the Republican Party was about to be the “main vehicle for mobilizing and maintaining devotion to the Union” during the Civil War. Lincoln was able to hold the party together by persuasion, encouragement, and policymaking, and in turn this became fundamental to his success in unifying the nation by force. Secondly, since Lincoln identified genially with the north’s cause for the war, he was able to urge others to fight and make sacrifices for it. As Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address, “the only cause great enough to justify the enormous sacrifice of life on the battlefields was the struggle to preserve and extend the democratic ideal, or to ensure that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.” Finally, Lincoln’s election irritated the secession of seven states of the Deep South, even though it did not lead it to immediate armed battle.
What was the impact of the Civil War on the role of the federal government in American life? The Civil War impacted the federal government by deciding that it was supreme over states and that it had authority on matters that affected “the general warfare.” The United States was finally on its way to having a sufficient central government. Although states had rights taken away from them, they still had responsibility over most of the functions of the government. One of the greatest impacts that the war had on the government was economic policy. The Republicans gave a new direction to America’s economic development. The nation was now under a program of support for business and agriculture. Congress passed high protective tariffs, provided free land to the settlers, gave huge amounts of land to railroad companies for the transcontinental railroad, and gave states land foe agricultural purposes. Congress also set up a banking system that required banks to keep ample reserves and to put percentages of their money into government securities. The Republicans, at this time, made the nation economically industrious. The goal was to encourage an “organizational revolution.”