so that would be an extreme step, but lincoln would not have wanted to do that. okay. thank you very much again, ladies and gentlemen. [ applause ] coming up this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday night on lectures in history, virginia commonwealth university professor karen raider on instructional films were made during the cold war out of fear that the united states was falling behind the soviet union on signs education. and sunday the 1952 and 1948 national conventions. in 1952, dwight eisenhower accepted the republican

nomination, and adlai stevenson accepted the nomination. in 1948 the first televised conventions where president harry truman accepted his party's nomination. >> the failure to do anything about high prices and the failure to do anything about housing. my duty as president requires that i use every means within my power to get to laws the people need on matters of such importance and urgency. >> and at 6:00 on american artifacts, we'll take an early look at the new smithsonian museum of african american history and culture with its director, lonnie bunch. the museum opens its doors to the public in september this year. >> we're able to get an amazing collection of movie posters such as the ones behind you. that's an early movie poster from the 1920s. and that is part of our job to help people relearn the history they think they know. that movie poster is from

spencer williams. he is known by most people playing amos & andy. yet he was one of the most important black film directors in the '30s and '40s. >> and sunday night john meacham and annette gordon reed talk about the process of writing a presidential biography. for our complete american history tv schedule go, to c-span.org. wheaton college history professor tracy mckinsey teaches a class on the evolving between unionism and emancipation. he describes how public support for emancipation correlated with whether forces were perceived to be winning the war. and he argues as lincoln's reelection was seen as unlikely because of the state of the war in 1863. his class is about an hour.

roughly from lincoln's announcement of the emanslaughter product anticipation through the end of the war. that's our focus. i'll try to emphasize, but at the outset it's good always to go back and touch base with what we think are our primary areas of concern for this part of the course. so can i ask you guys to help us all review major themes that we're having in mind right now? someone? hannah, thank you. >> views on race and slavery. >> one of the things we're going to be coming back over and over again is think about what our visitation of the civil war tells us about popular american attitudes in two regards, attitudes with regards to slavery, attitudes with regard to racial equality, always reminding ourselves that the

interrelationship between those two is very complicated. it's not a simple kind of relationship. yes. it's going to be very central today. christian? >> transformation of northern names. >> transformation of northern war names we have already visited somewhat, how the civil war begins as a war in which the only focus is the preservation of the union. abraham lincoln is explicitly repudiating any other goals than that. in a relatively short period of time the war becomes defined in a different way. a lot of what we're going to be talking about this morning is the way in which northern popular opinion responds to that. as we think about that, i think it will help us deal with the first thing, which is a relationship of attitudes between slavery and attitudes towards race. those are probably the two themes that are most relevant this morning. and just keep those in mind as you interact, as you listen. and i think it will help us in gleaning what is most important here.

so let's touch base with where we ended last time. and that is just to remember that by the summer of 1862 abraham lincoln for a variety of reasons is coming to the conclusion that there is a window of opportunity to strike at slavery that he did not anticipate when the war began. we talked about a variety of factors that were at play. the length and cost of the war in and of itself, right, is polarizing northern opinion and at least creating a kind of opportunity in terms of popular opinion to pursue a more aggressive war effort that's part of what's going on. there's also a constitutional window of opportunity that lincoln believes the war has presented to him. the role of the enslaved people themselves in eliminating any kind of neutral role that the north might play with regard to slavery i think is a factor also.

we mentioned two other things very quickly. lincoln had been hesitate to strike at slavery in 1861 in part because he was concerned about the border states. you recall that? one of the things i think lincoln has concluded by the summer of '62 is that the border states don't play the role they would have in 1861. and part of that is because of what the war has done itself. the war has drown about 100,000 pro-confederates into the army. in an interesting way they cease to play a political role at this point. they're not going to vote. they're not in the union states at all anymore in most cases. and the fear that the border states now might switch sides and support the confederacy is no longer very pressing in lincoln's mind. remember, also he had been concerned about having bipartisan support for the emancipation policy if he ever went in that direction. knowing that he could not have any kind of bipartisan support for it. by the summer of 1862 i think lincoln has pretty much given up

on the possibility of bipartisan support for the war generally. the democratic party in the north is opposing him on every kind of congressional initiative. the idea that this war is not going to be one that divides the north politically is something i think lincoln more or less has abandoned. so what we see is new factors making emancipation desirable. old kinds of obstacles falling by the wayside, the result that by august if not earlier of 1862, lincoln has decided that when the time is right, he will announce a new aim for the war effort that would add to union human freedom. so that's going to come when it comes in september of 1862 with lincoln's announcement of what we remember today as the preliminary emancipation proclamation.

in slavery, in any area in active rebellion against the authority of the united states government. it's not going to apply to the border states. it's not going to apply to areas of the confederacy now subdued and under union military occupation. the entire state of tennessee is excluded. part of virginia is excluded. part of louisiana is excluded. even with those exceptions aside, no one denies that the war has been fundamentally redefined. what we want to focus on this morning is the aftermath of that. one of the things that i think james mcpherson's book is help ful for, mcpherson shows you union has the potential to unify. emancipation always divides and we see that in the years after the announcement of the policy. so i want to begin with just some images that give us a sense of the way in which northern opinion is to some degree

polarized. let's start with this particular image. this is a painting that's done in 1864. and it is aimed at in some sense sort of imaginatively recreating the context of lincoln's fashioning of the emancipation policy. now, some of the details i'm sure are just too small for us to pick up on. but i think there are some things that i could call your attention to. this is supposed on the lincoln's study in the executive mansion. all kinds of paraphernalia scattered around him. if you look at the far right hand, there is a map, supposed to be a map of the united states. the artist has put this sword hanging done across the map sort of figuratively showing how war has divide the country. some of the pieces of paper are various petitions from

anti-slavery organizations that are imploring the president to strike against human bondage. behind him is a copy of his presidential oath. why lincoln would have a copy of his oath hanging up, it's hard for us to imagine. but the artist puts it there for a reason. on the shelf opposite lincoln is a bust of andrew jackson. in the context of the 1860s he's the embodiment of a staunch preservation of the union and the willingness to use whatever means necessary to maintain national supremacy. on lincoln's lap, a copy of the bible. the artist is telling us which is the context in which the emancipation proclamation is emerging. can you think out loud with me a little bit about the message here? what is the artist wanting to convey about the proclamation

about how americans should think of it? any thoughts at all? christian, you have a thought? >> well, the bible is like an illustration of a more like moral ideal when it comes to emancipation. but then his oath is like what he is sworn to do. and then andrew jackson obviously for preserving the union. his goal is to preserve the union but at the same time he has these moral obligations to free the sleeves. >> does that resonate with the rest of you? you see the artist is really trying to show the complexity, the motives, the way in which lincoln in a very difcult way is balancing these competing obligations, these competing loyalties. the bible is the embodiment of moral obligation. the oath on the wall the embodiment of constitutionality. you have a sense the artist is saying what lincoln is doing is

trying to resolve that tension between moral obligation and his constitutional responsibility, and we're supposed to see the emancipation policy as successfully doing that. with the flag over the window, the bust of andrew jackson, we always have that commitment to union. and so this is the -- i think the message. it's a very sympathetic message. it's really i think the way that lincoln would want northern opinion to think of his policy. we've talked about lincoln as bag constitutional anti-slavery politician. always wanting his views consistent with the constitution, but also wanting to have some kind of moral dimension palpably there if possible. now, compare that image with this one. this is a kind of pencil sketch. it's not colorful in the way that the drawing that we just looked at is. this comes from an immigrant to the united states who comes to the united states from before the civil war from one of the german states. he lives in baltimore.

he is a northern democrat who is very critical of the policy. and i don't know if you can see the tale on this image well enough to pick up on the message. can you see any of the details well enough? kyle, what do you see there? >> he's standing on the bible. his foot's stomping on it. >> rather than having the bible in his lap where he is cherishing it, he is standing on it, showing contempt. what else, michael? >> there appears to be a demon on the table. >> i think that's fair enough. if that's an imp of hell, yeah. yes, joe? >> it's like a saintly representation of john brown. >> so in the back, if you can see that framed picture on the wall that joe is calling attention to is supposed to be john brown, who is best known for the raid at harper's ferry in 1859. brown's carrying one of those pikes that he had built specifically to arm slaves after

the raid at harper's ferry was the plan. he has a halo, right. so he's a sort of st. john. what message is that perhaps sending? just the fact that brown is being shown favorably? what do you think would be the significance of that? any thoughts? samantha? >> maybe like brown was sort of reckless or overly violent and didn't really consider and weigh other possibilities or options. >> brown is sort of the embodiment of violent fanaticism. can we put it that way? compare to it the previous picture where lincoln is weighing the constitution very carefully versus his moral obligation. brown doesn't do that, right? if the constitution defends slavery and the constitution is simply part of the problem and violence is the answer. anything else that you see there? yes? >> also the study was a mess and looked like he was really laboring over the document.

this one he's kind of slouched in his seat. this one kind of insinuates that this is a fabrication of his own thinking. >> fair enough. there's not those influences. there is not the constitution here there is not petitions. he is doing this over alone or we might say in consultation with the devil. those are the influences. and finally, i don't think you noticed, but what is this little devil offering lincoln? it's almost certainly meant to be alcohol. there's a decanter on the far side table. this devil is offering him a drink at the moment for inspiration. these two pictures encapsulate that kind of polarization that the emancipation policy created in the north. to come back to james mcpherson's theme, union unifies, emancipation always divides. but i do want to put this in a larger context for us really quickly. emancipation is not the only issue that makes the middle of the civil war in the north an extremely contentious period.

we're not going to have time to develop this a lot. but we can list some other factors that are at play. probably the most important link to emancipation is the recruitment of black soldiers into the united states armed forces. the united states congress had authorized the president of the united states to employ men of color for military purposes as early as the summer of 1862. but lincoln in the summer of 1862 is not prepared to take that step. he sees it as far too controversial. he authorizes some experiments with the enlistment of black soldiers as early as december of 1862, but he keeps it under the radar. so in areas on the coast of south carolina, areas out in kansas on the far remote frontier, there will begin to be the enlistment of black soldiers. but in areas that would attract popular attention, that doesn't

happen until after his emancipation policy is announced. when it is announced, lincoln authorizes in a very aggressive way the recruitment of black soldiers. so you begin to see posters like this one. this is a poster that is published in philadelphia in 1863. come and join us, brothers. these kinds of appeals ultimately will lead to the enlistment of somewhere along the number of 180,000 men in the american armed forces. always in segregated forces called the united states color troops. maybe as many as a quarter of a million other african-american males serve in non-military ways, in labor details and other capacities with the united states forces. so it's a very large addition to the armed forces of the united states. i would argue that the sort of

government imprimture on enlisting black soldiers if anything is more controversial in the north than emancipation. if i made that claim and i asked you why that might be, do you have a thought? why is this kind of image, if anything, even more troubling? michael? >> it implies a sort of equality between the two races that just emancipation doesn't really do on its own. >> yeah. michael says there's an implication of equality here that emancipation doesn't necessarily provide. taylor? >> well, maybe if they're being concerned they're putting weapons in peoples' hands that they've enslaved. so they're worried that they've been freed and given weapons they might turn against the white men in the army. >> taylor raises a concern that in reality is often linked to the policy in southern white perspectives which is that putting weapons into the hands

of former enslaved people may even be inviting if not encouraging retribution. some sort of violent response against white civilians. i think that's a factor as well. i think one of the things that we've tried to identify already is that if you're an american in the northern state, in the middle of the 19th century, you can oppose slavery for many reasons separate from a principled commitment of racial equality. that might be your motive, but it need not be. we begin to talk about the recruitment of black soldiers. northern popular opinion cannot separate that from a policy pointing toward racial equality. so in a certain way i think this policy is more controversial, even more divisive simply than emancipation itself. we could add to the list of controversial issues. i won't go into as much detail. but i will mention that in the

summer of 1862 the north begins to move towards a conscription policy, meaning the forcible draft of soldiers. they do that calling for nine month volunteers in the summer of 1862. or nine-month draftees. in the spring of 1863 they move toward a much more all encompassing draft law. anyone between the ages of 20 and 45, any white male is subject to the draft. it begins to have a very significant impact on popular opinion. one of the things you guys have been reading is a short excerpt of the diary of this new york republican named george templeton strong. i don't know if you recall that. but george templeton strong is writing the summer of 1862. he goes downtown in new york city. there is a major battle raging in virginia at the time.

and as strong describes what he sees in new york city, he says you'd never know what is going on. do you remember that? men and women in their carriages. children are giggling. the economy seems to be booming. no one seems to be acknowledging that men are fighting and dying. in a sense before conscription is added into the formula, it's possible if you live remote from the theater of war for the war to be a total abstraction. conscription makes at least potentially every adult male liable to military service. so you can imagine how that adds a kind of level of significance to political debates about what the war is about and whether the war is going well. so conscription is a factor. a final factor i would mention quickly is the lincoln administration's record on civil liberties. one of the things that strong writes in his diary as well hen he talks about the political

opposition of the lincoln administration, he says civil liberty mace be as important as emancipation in some of the areas in promoting opposition to the republican leadership. lincoln very early on in his presidency determines there will be times when he needs to take extraordinary steps to crack down on voices that might weaken the war effort. now under the constitution arnold -- article i, section 9, the congress is given the authority to withdraw, at least temporarily something called the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. have you guys heard of habeas corpus? the phrase comes from the latin. it means literally to have the body. what the privilege of habeas corpus is effectively accomplishing constitutionally is preventing the government from arbitrarily imprisoning civilians and not giving them due process, not giving them a right to a trial before a jury of their peers. and under the constitution, if

some government official were to throw you in prison without trial, someone could go to a court on your behalf, request that a judge issue an order releasing this political prisoner, a writ order of habeas corpus in order to have the body. but the constitution says that this privilege may be withdrawn or repealed temporarily in times of insurrection or invasion. so lincoln at different times during the war starting as early as april of 1861 sort of in broadening the policy will authorize the arrest of civilians without trial. one historian who is very systematically reviewed that policy estimates that somewhere along the lines of about 15,000 civilians are arrested at some point during the war.

relative to our population today, that would be something like 225,000 to 250,000 civilians arrested, typically for a few months at a time, almost always released. but yet this is going on. and so this is another factor that is a source of considerable political opposition. so we have opposition to emancipation, opposition to the enlistment of black soldiers, opposition to conscription in some circles, concerns about violations of civil liberties as well. always, always behind these particular concerns are anxieties about the way the war is going. nothing informs popular support for or opposition to the war more than the momentum on the battlefield. it's going to sound like a gross over simplification but it's more or less something that has

been verified by systematic analysis, the single most important factor that determines popular attitudes towards war in a popular context is, does it appear that the war is being won? wars that are being won, wars where victory seems tangible and at hand are popular wars. wars that are not being won, wars in which victory seems remote if at all likely tend to be unpopular wars. this brings us back full circle to the emancipation policy. how had lincoln presented emancipation as a military act. right? as a military act under his authorities, commander in chief of the army and navy, as a military act that would help to bring victory and shorten the war. we see that in just one other image. this is one of my favorite

images from the civil war. this is one of the ways in which we see that justification of emancipation embodied. here we have a print that's done i don't know the exact date. it's 1862 or 1863. it was produced by currier & ives, which was a very popular commercial house that produced pretty inexpensive artwork for private homes and public places. in this particular drawing you have a justification of emancipation as a military act. the symbolism i think we can define fairly quickly you have jefferson davis who's the president of the confederacy. on your far left. we're supposed to think of jefferson davis like sort of a sideshow barker at a carnival sort of thing where he calls to the passing visitors to the carnival, step right up, give me two bits and try your hand at such and such.

what he's inviting people to do is to step up and try to break the backbone of the rebellion. to make sure that we follow the symbolism, we have this enormous vicious looking dog with the word "rebellion" written along the backbone. so we have a variety of northern figures that most readers would immediately recognize or know of. and these northern figures have in various ways tried to break the backbone of the rebellion, tried to bring union victory. in the back sitting dejectedly with his head in his hands is a man named john crittondon. crittenton was a congressman who in december of 1861 tried to come up with a compromise that would have avoided war. so crittenton has a tiny lillehammer that's labeled compromise. we're supposed to see how inadequate that was. then you have a general with a much larger hammer labeled

skill. another with a hammer labeled strategy. these are well known union generals. next comes the secretary of war, a man named edwin stanton. stanton is talking to president abraham lincoln. stanton tells lincoln that these generals may try their skill, they may try their strategy, but i think my hammer is the one that is going to break the backbone of the rebellion. his hammer is labeled draft. the draft that's going to put us over the top and bring military success. lincoln, always with the stereo type of the rail splitter says to secretary of war stanton, you can try him with that, but i believe that this ax of mine is the only thing that will fetch him, as he puts it. the only thing that will do the trick. and the ax is labeled emancipation proclamation. you see the symbolism there. this is all about bringing

victory. emancipation is justified as a military necessity on my authority as commander in chief of the army and navies of the united states. so here we see the relationship between success on the battlefield and popular support for emancipation. if we graft support for emancipation in the north, it could correlate pretty closely, with whether progress was being made or not. now the unfortunate thing if you're abraham lincoln or any republican advocate of emancipation is in the aftermath of lincoln's proclamation, the union war effort takes a nosedive. the preliminary marry emancipation proclamation is announced in late september of 1862. and there is not a significant union military victory for the next nine months.

and in that period roughly until july of 1863 popular support for emancipation, popular support for the republican administration goes down, down, down. now, we don't have a lot of time in this class because we're going so quickly in our over view of the war to talk about specifics militarily. but let me just remind you a little bit of broad overarching pattern. so we have this map, and i think you have seen this exact map before, but you have some sense of what it is conveying. because we have talked about that. the grand strategy of the lincoln administration when the war began was primarily centered on three components, a blockade, of the confederate states, a thrust toward the confederate capital, which had been moved to richmond, and a campaign to take control of the mississippi river. if we were going to make a

broad generalization, you've heard this from me before, in the first year of the war, in the eastern part of the theater of war, particularly in the fighting around virginia, the confederacy was doing very well, but the farther west you went, into the western theater of war, union success was more and more and more striking. so you have this pattern of union victory in the west, confederate victory, or at least sort of yoon stalemate in the east. what happens in the nine months after the emancipation proclamation is that that pattern falls apart and the republicans cannot point to significant success anywhere. the campaign for the control of the mississippi river has bogged down badly in a very expensive slow, costly siege of a town called vicksburg, which is one of the last outposts on the mississippi. there's a very expensive, bloody battle in central tennessee that accomplishes nothing in late 1862.

there are major confederate victories in the eastern heater in virginia in december 1862 and on into the spring of 1863. one string of successive confederate victories with staggering human costs. now, this is interrupted temporarily july of 1863 is a hugely significant moment in the civil war because in the span of 24 hours there's a major union victory at gettysburg blunting a confederate invasion of pennsylvania. you see gettysburg at the top of the map. and the very next day vicksburg which was the last stronghold on the mississippi river of the confederacy surrenders to union forces. the rest of 1863 it appears that union military momentum is building on that. by the end of that year tennessee has been completely rid of confederate forces.

union armies are now in northern georgia. union armies are threatening within 30 miles or so of the confederate capital. everything seems to be pointing toward a regain of union momentum and the likelihood that the war will end by the following spring. one of the things that really adds to that perception, certainly abraham lincoln's perception that victory is now likely is that lincoln has identified a new general. if you know anything about the military history of the civil war, one of the things you know is that lincoln has a very difficult time ever identifying a successful commander in the eastern theater of the war. but at the end of 1863 lincoln brings this man, ulysses grant from the western heater to the east. he'd been successful in fighting in tennessee. he had been very successful in fighting in mississippi. and now he is brought to command

ultimately all union armies in all theaters of war. lincoln and grant talk a lot. during the winter of 1863-1864. lincoln is convinced that grant has the plan to end the war as soon as the weather improves enough to resume campaigning in the spring of that year. the story of 1864 in terms of the civil war is the story of the way in which that expectation ultimately comes crashing down. in the spring of 1864 there is going to be significant fighting in two areas. i don't care that you remember these specific details. but i want you to try to put yourself in the perspective of northern civilians who are already in the throes of a war that is vastly longer, vastly more expensive than anyone had

ever anticipated when the war broke out, and ask yourself how it would inform your anticipation of the future. all right. two areas of fighting primarily. it's more complicated than this but we can focus on these two areas. one is in the area of virginia between washington, d.c. and richmond. washington, d.c. is right down here. there is going to be early fighting starting in spring 1864 between an army commanded by ulysses grant and an army commanded by robert e. lee north of richmond. in a series of maneuvers, the union army is going to perpetrator pettily move east and south, east and south, east and south, always trying to get around the confederate army defending richmond and strike directly at the capital, or get between the confederate capital and the confederate army. doesn't succeed in one sense. what it leads to is a series of very, very costly battles. the result is that from early

may 1864 to early june of 1864 there are a series of battles with casualty levels that dwarf anything that had ever been recognized before this. the pattern of military history in the civil war in its first half is a pattern in which two large armies would come together and they would clash, sort of monumental clash of humanity, wreaking untold casualties and then the armies would separate from one another and take weeks, often months to recover and to reequip themselves to resume the fighting. what changes in the spring of 1864 is that one battle gives way almost seamlessly to the next. for a period of almost six weeks the armies in northern virginia are constantly in contact with

one another and they're inflicting casualties on one another that are astounding. let me give you an example of grant's army. grant strikes south the first week of may, actually the first day of may with an army of approximately 115,000 soldiers. in the next six weeks, that army will sustain 64,000 casualties. now that's killed, wounded and missing. we would add to those 64,000 casualties the fact that the terms of service of many of his soldiers are expiring. many had enlisted in the first year of the war and served for three years. to those 64,000 taken out of action, 18,000 go home because their term has expired. so the army that grant began with in may of 150,000 men has

now only a little less than one-third of that original army left under arms just six weeks later. it's a degree of devastation that no one had witnessed in the western hemisphere every before. ultimately, this campaign bogs down. it doesn't lead quickly to victory. it leads instead to a siege of a well defended city south of richmond called petersburg. that siege is pretty much in place by mid june and not going to be broken until early april of the next year. grant's hope for a quick campaign that would capture the confederate capital has been totally frustrated, and the cost, the human cost involved has been staggering. at the same time that there's fighting going on in northern virginia, there's fighting going on in northern georgia. not going to go into much detail here except to say there's a union army that had struck south

from the area around chattanooga ing right on the tennessee-georgia border and was trying to move on atlanta. atlanta is one of the very important, really transportation crossroads in the western theater at this time. and as sort of like is going on in northern virginia it's going to be union army, this union army under the command of a man named william sherman. union army, confederate army, constant conflict as they're engaged in a two-step dance for the defense of atlanta. let me add up for you what happens in the these two campaigns in the spring of 1864. the total number of casualties if you combine the casualties in northern georgia and northern virginia, 89,000. that's 89,000 in less than three months. i don't know if that sounds like a lot to you or not. i hope that it sounds like a lot

to you. the population of the free states or the loyal states in 1864 is about 20 million. if we take those casualty figures and try to translate them into our population today, for the united states forces to experience the same proportional loss today would require casualties of 1.5 million. so if we want to imagine in the span of less than three months, the united states is involved in a war taking 1.5 million soldiers. those are not all fatalities. that's killed, wounded and missing. 1.5 million out of action, what would be the popular response? what would be the popular response? it's hypothetical but just think out loud with me. what would it be? christian, what do you think? >> overwhelmingly negative. >> christian says overwhelmingly

negative. any others? this is hypothetical. what do any others of you think? >> i think people would just want it to be over. they probably wouldn't care so much anymore about what they were fighting over. they would want it to end. >> some are going to say, i'm sick of this, cost is too great. nothing can justify this kind of sacrifice. any other kind of response? joe? >> some of them might think that such a high human cost requires some staying the course and justifying the sacrifice of so so many people. >> does that make sense to you? joe is taking a different tack. he's saying rather than the high human cost being an argument for disengagement, the high human cost become answer argument for persistence, perpetuation. the argument is going to be if we back out now, all those who have made this sacrifice will have done so in vain, right? which is actually the language

that abraham lincoln uses in his gettysburg address. we hereby highly resolve that these have not died in vain and to make sure that they do not die in vain, others may need to die. so what really happens, i would say more than one kind of response we have kind of bifurcated response. greater polarization as more and more americans say this cost is too high. and more and more americans say we must do whatever it takes to vindicate the sacrifices that have been made. let me complicate things a little bit more. let's imagine that the united states is involved in a war. in the last three months, 1.5 million casualties have been sustained. the president of the united states goes before the american people in a press conference and which never would have happened in the 1860s, but would happen today. and reading from a teleprompter,

tells the country that he is calling for more, and we'll put this in quotation marks, volunteers. and the number of volunteers that he needs, he specifies clearly. he says i need eight million more. and volunteers we put in quotation marks why? because there is a draft law in place. and if volunteers are not forthcoming, there will be another way to ensure that the manpower need is met. now when i say eight million, i'm putting that in our numbers today. what lincoln asked for in 1864 in the aftermath of all those casualties in virginia and georgia is 500,000 more volunteers. which in our numbers today would be between 8 and 8.5 million. now, final detail, imagine that the united states is currently involved in a war, 1.5 million casualties in the last three months, a president who says i need 8 million more volunteers. and finally that same president is running for reelection on his

war record. let's add that to the mix. because at the same time that lincoln is asking for half a million more volunteers, he's also asking for the american people to support him for a second term. it's impossible for us to feel the weight of contingency in the summer of 1864 unless we let it sort of sink in how unlikely abraham's reelection really was. certainly lincoln at various times believes that his reelection is unlikely. so what i'd like us to do in the time that we have remaining is take a quick visit of the 1864 presidential election. keep those big themes in mind about the war as a window into

attitudes of the american people and in popular the attitude towards slavery and racial equality. and i think you're going to find a lot that's embedded in the campaign that is relevant. now, first of all, a little bit of context. when lincoln is seeking a nomination for a second term, he is doing something that today we absolutely take for granted. we assume that incumbent presidents will be candidates for a second term, and we assume that they'll get the nomination. we may not assume that they'll be reelected, but we know that statistically, incumbents have pretty good chances. that's not the case in the middle of the 19th century. the last president to be reelected to a second term was

andrew jackson. that was in 1832. so 32 years have transpired since the last time a president was reelected. the last time an incumbent was nominated for a second term had been 1840. almost a quarter of century had passed since that happened. so no one is sort of automatically assuming in the republican party in spring, early summer of 1864 that lincoln's renomination is inevitable or even desirable. in fact, there a lot of individuals in the party that would like to replace lincoln. some of them want to replace them hymn because they simply have presidential aspirations of their own. lincoln's cabinet member is secretary of the treasury, simon chase is someone who would really like to be president. there are others with presidential aspirations. but there are other members of the republican party who simply just don't think lincoln is

re-electable. and for that reason, with a concern for the war effort, a concern for the future of the party, they believe that replacing lincoln is probably the wiser course to follow. ultimately, lincoln is going to be reelected, excuse me, renominated in the summer of 1864. but with really pretty muted enthusiasm. and the historians would say almost by default, although there were other aspirants for the nomination, no one person was able to develop a broad enough base of support to unseat lincoln. so lincoln is going to be nominated in june of 1864 but the way in which he is nominated and the rhetoric and strategy of that is going to be followed by the republican party is very key. so i want us to look at some images that will get us thinking about the strategy of the party. i want you guys to tell me what

you see and try to make some inferences about what this tells us about campaign strategy in that election. so let's begin with this. this is a poster that would have been widely circulated in the state of new york. it's showing nominations at various levels of public office starting with president but going down to a variety of offices at the new york state level. so just look at that poster and tell me what you see or don't see. i know you can't read some of the fine print. christian, what jumps out at you? >> it doesn't say republican nomination. it says union nominations. >> okay. let's start right there. did you notice that? opponents of the republican party in 1864 are going to be using the label republican in talking about their rivals. republicans don't use the label very much at all in 1864.

they're going to use the label national union. national union. national union nominations here we see. so let's start there. before we move to anything else, talk to me about that. talk to me about that strategy and what it seems to be suggest ing. samantha? >> it's interesting because with the emancipation, they kind of demonstrated a shift in focus towards emancipation of slaves but by using the word union they're kind of returning to their initial focus which was more popular, focus on keeping the union together. >> samantha is saying what we see what kind of might look as a

kind of backtracking in the announcement of the emancipation policy. there had been a very clear redefinition of republican war aims. now this seems to be returning to the earlier focus.focus. anyone else have thoughts about that? abby? >> it seems like they are trying to attract northern democrats who are probably on the fence about whether they want to support the party because they weren't originally supporting the party but they support union. >> so in part, part of the strategy here, it's an obvious effort at bipartisan support and it's an obvious effort to say regardless of party, if you stand for what we stand for, you need to be with us. and what do they stand for? according to their label, union. now, to pick up on something samantha said, i think they would try to argue that in emphasizing national union we're not backtracking, we're just per pet rating what we've always

emphasized because the embracement of emancipation had always been about preserving the union. i think that would be the argument. anything else you see here? you may not be able to read it well enough. anything else that jumps out at you? in particular the vice presidential nomination or nominee. if i asked you and i won't because we've never mentioned it because life is too short, if i asked you who lincoln's vice president was in his first term, you might not immediately know to answer hannibal hamlin of maine. he had been his vice president. in the convention in june of 1864, the republicans, calling themselves national unionist, jetsoned, they kick out their vice presidential person on the ticket. hannibal hamlin had been a prominent anti-slavery politician from new england, and in 1860 the republicans had wanted to balance their ticket

by putting a prominent new englander with a prominent midwesterner. and hamlin had done his job. but his reputation was too strongly anti-slavery, and so in 1864 as republicans want to deflect criticism of emancipation, not only do they drop the label republican, but they drop their vice president, and they replace him with andrew johnson. andrew johnson, we would talk about much more if we were moving into the reconstruction period because we know he will figure centrally in that era of american history. real quickly, what do we know about him? andrew johnson had been born and raised in the south. risen to maturity and national prominence in tennessee, a slave holding state. he had owned slaves himself, and he was a democrat. the only other thing we might add was that he was a staunch,

staunch unionist. so when we think about, it the republican or i should say national union ticket in 1864 has the northern anti-slavery republican lincoln paired with the southern, i don't know if i would call johnson pro-slavery but he's not opposed to slavery on any moral grounds. he is a democrat. what do they have in common? almost nothing, but they do have one thing in common. christian? >> preservation of the union. >> they're unionists. so the very pairing of these two who have almost nothing in common in their political values except union is driving home the point, all right? this is a union coalition aimed at preserving the union. it's a big tent that can accommodate lots of views on the issue of slavery. we see this in a variety of

ways. just a few more images just really fast. this is a campaign banner put out by courier and ives, republican party. the label again, grand national union banner. the slogan at the bottom says liberty, union, and victory, but those are very broad, vague terms. the platform of the national union party in 1864 has about i think 11 or 12 points. the very first one is going to say this is paramount. it is the highest duty, right? the highest duty of every american citizen to maintain against all other enemies the integrity of the union and the paramount authority of the constitution and laws of the united states. should go on through this particular plank in the platform, it's going to talk about quelling the rebellion, about bringing traitors to

justice. the national union party is all about preserving the union. but look at a phrase still it's this very long sentence. after we're talking about the paramount authority of the constitution and laws of the united states, the resolution says laying aside all differences of political opinion, we pledge ourselves to this. so it's a fiction largely, but the strategy here is to say this is not the old republican party. this is an entirely new movement. it is a new bipartisan coalition that has as its only sort of cementing glue a commitment to union. they will endorse emancipation, and the national union platform in 1864 actually endorses a constitutional amendment that would end slavery in all the united states, but look at how it phrases this. this is the third plank in the platform. resolve that as slavery was the

cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it is hostile to the principles of republican, it doesn't mean republican party, but government grounded in the consent of the governed, hostile to principles of republican government, we are in favor, and it goes on to say the constitutional amendment to end slavery everywhere. but do you see the link? and that sort of gets to something you said, samantha. we are opposing slavery, absolutely, but we're doing so as part of our commitment to preserve the union. this was the cause of the rebellion. this is what sustains the rebellion and it must be ended if we are to end the rebellion, right? so this is going to be the approach of the republican party in 1864. lincoln as late as the end of the sumner 1864 is basically resigned to the inevitability of his defeat. the war has been going so poorly. the casualties have been so

high. war weariness seems to be mounting. he does not expect to win. in fact, don't have time to sketch all of the details, but one of the most striking episodes i think in lincoln's presidency, 23rd of august he goes into a cabinet meeting with a memo that he has written in which he basically says, it is exceedingly probable that i will not be re-elected. he has concluded that. when he writes that memo, the democratic party is just preparing to meet in its convention in chicago, very near us, in chicago, illinois. and that convention will ultimately nominate as its standard bearers these two individuals, the presidential nominee on the left side of the banner we've met before. this is george mcclellan, the commander of the army of the potomac early in the war.

very prominent, very famous and well-known union general. within the democratic party he represented a faction known as war democrats. war democrats were members of northern democratic party that favored the prosecution of the war very aggressively, definitely wanted to continue the war to preserve the union, but always opposed emancipation. his running mate is a man named george pendleton who you will never hear from, never heard of, never hear again. he was a congressman from ohio. he's significant in this regard because he represents a faction of the party called peace democrat or sometimes a nickname for the peace democrats was copper heads if you ever come across that label. peace democrats had basically arrived at the conclusion that the war is a failure, continuing the war was a tragic mistake. the democratic party will put these two men together on the same ticket. war democrat and a peace

democrat. mcclellan, we've talked about this before, even earlier in the war he had staked out his position with regard to abraham lincoln. although he favored a war to preserve the union, he says i do not favor a war looking to the subjugation of the people, near the confiscation of their property nor the forcible abolition of slavery. so mcclellan's position, continue the war, absolutely repudiate slavery. now, the democratic party is closely enough divided between its peace and war wings that there are a lot of peace democrats at chicago not very happy that mcclellan is the nominee because he's a war democrat. so to assuage their feelings, the party lets them write the platform, which if you stop and think about it for a moment is utterly bizarre, but they're going to have a war democrat lead the party and let the peace democrats write the platform. so at chicago this is what they

come up. this is one of the major planks in their platform. after four years of failure to restore the union by the experiment of war, we demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with a view to an ultimate convention of the states or other peaceable means to the end that at the earliest practical moment peace may be restored on the basis of the federal union. what the platform is saying, immediate cease fire, negotiation with the south. the only issue, union. emancipation completely off the table. this then is the two sides, the two sides are drawn, but then one very significant thing happens before the general election. the momentum on the field of battle turns. if there's a single critical

event, it is the fall of atlanta, which had been the object of union attention since the spring, fall of atlanta on the 2nd of september. this is immediately greeted with jubilation across the north. many individuals believe that it may have been more than any other single thing what turns the tide of northern opinion. in the election that follows, you see two very clear strategies. if you are a democrat, you're going to emphasize race. what northern democrats are going to do throughout the election of 1864 is constantly remind northern voters that this is an unnecessary war fought to establish racial equality. in the interest of time i'm going to pass over one image here and just move to another one really quickly. this is a drawing that appears in the summer of 1864 that is

picking up on a theme that emerges in democratic strategy at the end of 1863. the end of 1863 a democrat journalist for "the new york world" anonymously authored a pamphlet in which he said the republican party has as its agenda for the future of the united states what this author called missege nation. i don't know if you have ever heard that term. it's not much used anymore. it's invented in 1863. it comes from two latin root words which mean -- it's the verb for to mix and you guys would recognize the latin word guy ne genus. it means to mix species almost literally or as typically used here, the mixing of the races. this particular author is saying the republican party wants not only total racial equality, it aspires to the intermixing of the races.

so democrats pick up on that and run with it in the 1846 campaign. here we have a drawing of the mesegination ball. s in what it's going to be like after abraham lincoln is re-elected at the incompetent august ral ball celebrating his re-election, you will have this kind of gathering and what jumps out at you as you look at that drawing? can you see it well enough to pick up on the message of the artist? kyle? >> all -- lots of white people dancing with african-americans. >> i think if i haven't missed something, every single couple there is interracial. the whole idea is this is what we're moving toward. this is what the republican party wants, racial intermarriage, and if you don't believe in that, you have no business supporting anyone other than george mcclellan and the democratic ticket. if you are a republican in 1864, you're going to do everything

you can to deflect the emphasis on race. you cannot win the election defined in terms of racial equali equality. you must win the election, if you're going to win it at all, defining the issue in terms of union. so what the republicans are going to stress above all is a disloyalty of the democratic party. they're going to link the democratic party with the south. they're going to emphasize the democratic party's support for a cease-fire, at least according to its platform. and so you have other emphasis. again, i'm going to skip over, there are other images about ma sege nation here. here is one particular republican cartoon that shows the democratic party in 1832 and 1864. we've studied in this class 1832, so this should resonate to some degree. 1832 is the midst of what's called the nullification crisis, and according to this artist in 1832 you have andrew jackson, prominent democratic general,

now president, staunch advocate of the union, forcing the south sort of ultimately to submit to federal authority. but in 1864 what does the democratic party look like? you have a union general not thundering that the union must be preserved but cringing and cowering before the president of the confederacy, jefferson davis. that is this is how far the democratic party has declined. it is now quivering in its boots against the threat of the confederacy. a couple more images really quickly. this is a campaign drawing done by an artist named thomas thana who goes on to a great deal of prominence later. we have jeffson davis, the president of the confederacy, clasping hands with a union veteran over a grave. it says in memory of veterans

calling in a useless war. the implication is if you favor the democrats, what you are saying is that every sacrifice made to this point has been wasted. we have the veteran who has clearly given a great sacrifice. he's lost a limb. we have columbia, the embodiment of the united states, weeping by the grave, and what this artist is saying, a vote for george mcclellan is a vote to clasp hands with the southern traitors who have wreaked such untold suffering on our land. final image, and this is my favorite run from 1864 election. this is a republican lampooning this kind of ludicrous combination of commitments in the democratic party. so you have mcclellan, the war democrat, riding a war horse waving a sword while simultaneous smoking a peace pipe