英語流行話題閱讀:語境識詞4500 78 The American Civil War

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Unit 78

The American Civil War

The American Civil War, the greatest war in American history as well as the only war fought on American soil by Americans, in which 3 million fought and 600,000 died. It was fought in the United States from 1861 until 1865 between the northern states, popularly referred to as "the US," "the Union," "the North," or "the Yankees"; and the seceding southern states, commonly referred to as "the Confederate States of America," "the CSA," "the Confederacy," "the South," or "the Rebels."

Before the Civil War, the United States was a nation divided into 4 distinct regions: the Northeast, with a growing industrial and commercial economy and an increasing density of population; the Northwest, a rapidly expanding region of free farmers; the Upper South, with a settled plantation system and declining economic fortunes; and the Southwest, a booming frontier-like region with expanding cotton economy. The economic and social changes across the nation's geographical regions -- based on wage labor in the North and on slavery in the South -- underlay distinct visions of society that had emerged by the mid-nineteenth century in the North and in the South.

For many years, compromises had been made to balance the number of "free states" and "slave states" so that there would be a balance in the Senate. The rise of mass democracy in the industrializing North, and increasingly hostile sectional ideologies in the 1850s made it highly unlikely, if not impossible, to bring about the gentlemanly compromises of the past necessary to avoid crisis. The United States Republican Party was established in 1854. The new party opposed the expansion of slavery in the Western territories. Meanwhile, the profitability of cotton solidified the South's dependence on the plantation system and its foundation: slave labor. A small class of slave barons, especially cotton planters, dominated the politics and society of the South.

Lincoln was a moderate in his opposition to slavery. He pledged to do all he could to oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories; but he also said the federal government did not have the power to abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed, and that he would enforce Fugitive Slave Laws. The southern states expected increasing hostility to their "peculiar institution"; not trusting Lincoln, and mindful that many other Republicans were intent on complete abolition of slavery. Seven states seceded shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. They were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These Deep South States, where slavery and cotton plantation agriculture were most dominant, formed the Confederate States of America February 4, 1861, with Jefferson Davis as President of the rebel government. The Civil War began when Confederate General Pierre Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.

Why the Union won the Civil War has been the subject of extensive debate. Advantages widely believed to have contributed to the Union's success include: the North's strong, industrial economy, the North's strong compatible railroad links, the North's larger population and greater immigration, the North's moral cause (the Emancipation Proclamation) given to the war by Abraham Lincoln mid-way during the war, the recruitment of blacks into the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation was approved. Towards the end of the war, the Confederacy relented and began to allow Blacks to enter the Confederate Army, but this action was only a token effort.