HIS 101 Short Weekly Essay 5: The Civil War as a Second American Revolution

It is in the nature of warfare that wars are easy to begin, but impossible to control.  Different groups might go to war for this or that reason, but once blood is shed, events take over, and the nature of the conflict often changes, especially if the war continues longer than expected (which they usually do).

We saw this with the American Revolution, where a protest against British policy became a war for independence, accompanied by other fundamental changes as well.  In the short video for chapter 15, as well as in the readings, we have seen how the Civil War also changed in nature between 1861 and 1865.  Although slavery was at the core of the conflict, soldiers and civilians in the USA saw the conflict as a war to preserve the Union.  It was not until the Emancipation Proclamation that conflict officially became a war to abolish slavery (which did not happen completely until the 13th Amendment, ratified after the War was over).

We have also seen how a sense of romantic adventure present at the beginning of war soon gave way to reality as the fighting became increasingly brutal, culminating in massacres, mass destruction, and eventually examples of “hard war” such as Sherman’s “march to the sea.”  This assignment requires you to explore yet another aspect of the changing nature of the Civil War, that of the notion of the Civil War as “a second American Revolution.”

It is one of the most significant ironies in the history of this country, that 11 southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery and, some would argue, states’ rights against what secessionists saw as an increasingly overbearing federal government.  Yet, the war that resulted from secession actually abolished slavery, and made the federal government much more powerful than ever before.

In your essay:

• Begin with an introduction where you define in general terms what is meant by the Civil War as a “second American Revolution.”  Since the purpose of the essay is to show the extent to which this is true, make that purpose clear in the introduction.
• In the body of your essay, discuss different specific examples that show what you mean.
• Do not discuss the Gettysburg address, since you have already done that in your primary source assignment.
• The body of your essay will show that the government of the USA was much stronger after the war than it was before the war.  In your conclusion, argue your view (withoutusing the first person “I”…for example: “in this essay, it is clear that etc….”) as to whether or not the stronger federal government after the war was a source of unity for the country, or rather, proof that diversity was stronger than unity in the USA, because only a strong national government was able to hold the country together.

Use the usual format for your essay (arial font 11, double-spaced).  Your essay should be at least two full pages, but no more than two and a half.

This assignment contains a Microsoft Word document.

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