Coming up next, a conference on the end of the civil war. Historians discussed the postwar political and cultural environment in the north. The virginia secretary organized this event. Our topic is the union cause in the war and in the framework of how americans remembered it from the wartime generation and later. Everybody is awake. Matt, john, and joan are our panel this time around. The first question i want us to talk about is what union meant to the loyal citizenry during the war. About is what union meant to the loyal citizenry during the war. To begin, i would like all of you to discuss what loyal mea nt within the context of the u. S. Effort during the war. Joan i will start. One of the members of the audience came up to me and asked me to make sure there were more jokes in the session. [laughter] i will try. I think at a very basic level, i think these concepts are very tied together, Union Loyalty and sacrifice, patriotism, nationalism. It meant loyalty or country, loyal to the country that was founded in the revolutionary war and was established by the constitution, followed through by George Washington. That is what northerners thought. Keep the union whole. American exceptionalism was popular back then. I think we can look at the speeches of Abraham Lincoln for that. The point is that it was a country that was very well aware of that history and the importance of keeping the country together. John not just the confederacy. I agree. The union is looking back at that as well, the common heritage. I would like to suggest that loyalty probably depends in many respects on your relationship to the coming war. Border states, for example, who might be loyal to the union, but at the same time, feel that perhaps a war against slavery would not be particularly welcome. Gary let me interrupt. It is a misnomer to say there is a war between the north and south because three Southern States remain loyal to the United States. Missouri kentucky, maryland, delaware. John absolutely. We even have northerners who are a few northerners who make statements to suggest that if they are entirely loyal to the nation. They are not necessarily willing to oppose it militarily. Wayward sisters, go in peace. Gideon welles. Loyalty itself, though i think we will use it in the shorthand term, talking about the way the jones talked about it, there are places where it is the union as it was, the union as it might be the union with slavery the union without slavery. It is complicated. Matt i would say at a base level, the actual expectation is really much lower than we might think. To be a loyal citizen in the union is to support the war. When a friend says, if you are in favor of the war, you say yeah. Be honest. Dont cheat. There are multiple ways where you can be dishonest and keep this cheat the system. You cant do that. The last thing, the second half of the war dont whine. A loyal citizen doesnt whine. That is articulated over and over in all sorts of ways. You dont have to do anything, but follow the rules and dont whine. Gary that would mean, dont sell shoddy goods to the government for use in the war effort. Is that something you could do to break the rules . Matt it is fine to profit off the war and sell stuff. It is built upon capitalism. It is not fine to cheat by selling goods that fall apart. It is not fine to sell materials that dont match the contract. It is fine to get filthy rich off the rules. Gary is it fine not to put on a blue uniform . [laughter] i dont want everyone to talk at once. In the first rush to the colors, there is no conscription, of course, on either side. The absolute majority of all men on both sides were true volunteers. They went in before there was conscription. The Confederate States have been established. The nation is raising armies to repress the rebellion. Can you be a loyal male citizen and not offer military service . Joan the answer is yes. I am still thinking about the dont whine. That is a low bar for loyalty. I think things that john and matt brought up occurred during the war because the north was so big, had so many citizens. So many citizens especially in ohio and indiana, and other states with people who settled there before the war. Yes. There were divided loyalties complicated loyalties. If we think about what unified the northern section of the United States after fort sumter we have to think of the amazing level of patriotism, the recognition that this was real. All the stuff that happened in the 1850s, the debate about the union, now it was happening. I think at that moment, people did reflect on what it meant to be an american. They also thought about god and how god would favor the United States because it had so far in the countrys history. I think that perhaps in 1861, more people thought every man should in list. We will see that change over the time because there simply wasnt enough room. Gary i want to build on the theme of getting right with the founders. Both sides believed they were carrying forward the tradition of the founders. The confederacy put George Washington on the great seal. They would argue they were aligned with the founders, and so would people in the United States who are geared or union argued for union. What particularly would unionist have said, this is important and why we cannot let secession go unchallenged . So what if South Carolina secedes . John it is constitutional. The political constitution system. It is very unlikely that many northerners come daily into contact with the federal government. Almost none. Maybe a trip to the post office and there is a flag. On less you are importing or exporting, you will not have much contact. There are no taxes in the sense that we know them. They are excise taxes. Your connection to the nations political. Political participation. I think of bellows, who was responding and saying, of course we are obsessed with politics. Every man in the United States feels himself to be a part of the government. Gary which set them aside from every other society in the western world. Joan the last best hope on earth. If we dont preserve democracy now, it is lost. Gary europe was going the other way in the wake of the revolution of the 1840s. They did have a sense of that, a sense of economic possibility. Matt i would agree with all that. The constitution creates a government. The union constitutes the embodiment of this government. Secession has broken the nation but it has challenged the solidarity. We get ahead of ourselves there. John on the same sentiment of not getting ahead of ourselves this is the transgression of secession. You are no longer following the laws. You are no longer under the constitution. Sherman is communicating with hood outside atlanta and that is what he is saying. If you want us to go away, return and follow the laws. That is a pervasive connection. Gary the problem with the constitution as it did not clearly say you can or cannot withdraw from the union constitutionally. That is what they would argue. John true. It does provide for conventions of states to occasionally unamended correct the constitution. That was not the avenue chosen the option chosen, guide the by the confederacy. Joan an election that was held legally and resulted in the election of a republican president , largely due because of the split of the Democratic Party, is no reason to secede northern people would argue. Gary can we agree that initially in the war, it is a war to restore there is no question there are issues related to slavery that brought on secession and by extension trigger the war but in terms of motivation of citizenry, is it a war for the union to begin . Joan i agree. Matt when we analyze historic accuracy, we need to keep in mind that they frequently misconstrue that which they are seeing. I think most of these rank and file northerners in favor of the union dont see the seceding states as acting in this way. They see them as being led astray by a fairly small number of crazy slaveocracy types. Therefore, the enemy is not a bunch of Southern States, but rather a much smaller body of antidemocratic types. Gary if it begins as a war for the union, does it turn into Something Else . Does the conception of union turn into Something Else . Two parts. A could take us off in any direction. Matt the obvious answer, with the emancipation proclamation, some aspect of the global aims changed. The army of emancipation. I think that trumps the prior and ongoing commitment to union. That is the addon. It is less significant to the rank and file northerners. Joan the unintended consequences of great wars that you alluded to in the earlier Panel Addresses this issue directly. As the war proceeded in 1861, slaves were coming behind union army lines. The first occurred in virginia. Benjamin butler eventually declared them contraband. It was already unraveling. It brought the United States into a situation where they had to figure out a way to legalize this movement. That didnt necessarily change the aim of the war to preserve the union. At that point, it meant to the means were going to be a little bit different and unanticipated. Until 1862, i would say the majority of northern people expected the union to be restored as it was. John i would agree with that. 1862 becomes a pivotal year almost by default. The secession and the removal of political opposition in congress. A lot of the law was having to do with the abolition of slavery in the district of columbia, the territories, the employment of black men for military services. There is actual legislation written. The window of opportunity has presented itself. Republicans and some democrats jump in in that opportunity. Lincoln also seize that opportunity. Gary he did not wanted to degenerate into a remorseless revolutionary struggle. He changes his mind in the early summer of 1862. Why . What changes in the early summer . Joan george b mcclellan. [laughter] you know what i am saying . Gary i do know what you are saying. Yes. Joan his failure to take richmond. The seven days in the summer of 1862. It played a big role in hastening the process by which lincoln decided that we need to think about emancipation. Gary the United States was absolutely winning the war to that point. You are smiling, john. It is a symphony of catastrophe in the west. John winning the war, coming hot on the heels of mcclellan. Gary you need mcclellan, but you also need Joseph Johnstone for that to work. We dont like counterfactuals, but if he had not been wounded i cant imagine joan if only we would have won the war. John if johnstone is not wounded and mcclellan is johnstone woke up every day and said, what a great day to retreat. Matt the sevenday signals that it will be a longer war. Gary the sevenday signals that it will be a longer war. You will have to do things you did not do before. Joan the chronology is important. Ive been researching for donaldson, which occurred in february of 1862. The follow for donaldson, the first big Union Victory engineered by u. S. Grant. What the aftermath to that also showed was how difficult this war was going to be to bring to a close the union as it was because right away, the slaves demanded attention. The slaves came to the union army in tennessee and in terms of the overall occupation policies had to be developed for them. Slavery was diminishing at that point. Gary thousands of black refugees present the u. S. Government with a topic they had to deal with. John having derived the system of thinking about fugitive slaves as contraband, property, using the laws of property against the confederacy in the context of war, combined with mcclellan, allows lincoln to think about the emancipation proclamation being an act of war rather than an act of social or racial policy. Gary talk about the Democratic Party a little bit and how you have this onedimensional view of the party in many ways. Can you complicate that view of the peace of the electric that made up 45 of the voting public in the United States . Matt in the first two years, the federal government talks about legislation. Much of that is barely tied to the war effort. It is tied to antebellum republican platforms. It seems pretty clear that the rankandfile democrats that you could be in favor of the union and winning the war. In terms of complication, one of the biggest errors we make, broadly speaking, is thinking of the democrats as being copperhead. I think there is a substantial body of people who are pretty nominally prowar. Their thought is dont whine. There is a substantial body of people who are democrats by tradition, by family, and by ideology who still think the war ought to be won but you can still object to an awful lot of things, even the name of the war, including emancipation and construction conscription. Yeah. I think democrats are going to be in many ways a loyal opposition and not john this takes us back to the original question about loyalty. We have never as a nation had a welldefined policy about what is permissible in terms of defense, especially in times of war and when we think National Security is at risk. A lot of the democrats we think of as copperheads or edging toward some kind of disruptive national behavior actually, most of what he is saying is something most of which some republicans are saying. There are some moments where he transgresses that line. For the most part, what he is talking about is not action. It is not disruptive lets associate for the purposes of destroying. Hes talking about trying to bring the union back in the sense of its own values. Those are the moments of transgression, without necessarily being in favor of the war. That is the one dissent i would have from you. You said loyalty could be determined by your support of the war. I think loyalty to the nation might actually include, if you feel the transgression is late enough great enough, lack of support for the war. Joan i think the Democratic Party has a hard time placing itself in opposition, especially in the early years of the war because they did not want to be considered disloyal. This can be compared to a similar process in the confederacy, where the other side of loyalty issue had to be secured as well. There is a positive way of attaching the citizenry to feelings of nationalism and support for the government and the war, but there is also, what do you do with the people who are not loyal or seem not to be loyal . The democrats had to most of them supported the warped or not all of them, but most of them supported the war in the early years, but were bothered by the lincoln administrations suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The opposition found more resonance. This was especially true with emancipation. That was, and we can go into the draft later, but that gave the democrats it sounds odd to say it, a winning issue against the republicans. Some legitimacy among the electorate, who at this point may be did not maybe did not want to stop the work, but didnt like the direction it was going. Gary conscription and emancipation came together in a toxic way from lincolns point of view, gave the democrats two big issues. The armies are losing at the same time. All of those things together. Lincoln cannot win the war with only republican supporting the war and only republicans in the army. If we track his statements through the whole war, would we see a consist and see and how he uses the union to try to garner the widest possible Political Support for the war . That got no comments. Joan yes. You have studied his messages to congress. Go ahead, john. John no, i wasnt i was agreeing wtih you with you. Matt gary this is not where i wanted it to go, but i think he does have a consistent my point i was hoping you are going to make me agree with [laughter] was going to be that he always uses the union because he knows that well, that is the best chance even as he grows disenchanted with the border states. As late as december of 1864, he says, in a great war, there has to be one thing that basically everyone agrees about. In this war, it is union but one of the means to achieve union at that point was the 13th amendment because the 13th amendment and killing slavery would help defeat the rebels and help save the union. Joan that was one of lincolns great characteristics during the war, as a politician. He thought of himself as president of the whole country. He wanted to appeal to as many different groups as possible in this diverse United States of america. Just the contentiousness and the very nature of the large area made it a difficult task. In the civil war strive for unity wherever you can. That is what he did. In his messages, he did. As the war went on, we are seeing a mystical union, a transcendent unionism that we remember today so well from his speeches. Matt in lincolns writings he articulates his vision of what a good citizen is. When he does, it is very rare. A good citizen is somebody who is engaged in the political discourse. They pay attention. They read the news. They have an opinion. They vote. He writes this wonderful letter to a minister in new england who walks two miles to vote be lincoln writes a letter to him saying, thank you so much for being a good vitis good citizen and voting. He never suggests that citizenship requires sacrifice for the war, other than being not outright treasonous. Gary talk about the special problems that unionists in border states opposed. Posed. How does your war unfold . You decided to stay loyal to the United States and the war unfolds. What are the conditions . John in kentucky, one of the big issues as slaveholders, slaveholders who want to be loyal and stay in the union but at the same time, hold the property. That is problematic. The further you go into the war lincoln is already lincoln has already tried several times to say, lets work out a gradual emancipation system and compensate you for the ownership of slavery. Time after time, they fall act on their border state identity and the border state need to keep slaves. Their economy is built around that. Not to plug for hi, amy. I have a grad student writing a great dissertation. She has a chapter on george, an important figure, a painter, who becomes involved in the military service for a short time. Can you be a loyal citizen wit