William Tyler
Towards Conflict and Civil War

William Tyler - Towards Conflict and Civil War

- Thanks very much indeed, and hello, everyone. Tonight, we begin a course about modern America. I’m very conscious that I’m British and there will be Americans listening. Bear in mind, the only defence I have is from Robbie Burns. “Give us the grace to see ourselves as others see us.” So, there may be some insights that American listeners may not have, simply because maybe they’ve only been taught American Civil War by Americans, which, of course, is more than reasonable. But you may get a different insight or a different spin, if you like. Now, I’m starting today before the Civil War. What I am not going to do is, like we all did, American, British, Israeli, whatever nationality you are, listening, what I am not going to do is say there are eight causes of the American Civil War. One, two, I’m not doing that. I’m trying to do a broad-brush approach that places the Civil War into an American historical context, and we’ll see whether it works or not. That’s what I’m attempting to do. I’m going to begin with a quotation from the book, “The American Civil War” by Alan Farmer, on my book list, which is on my blog. Farmer begins the book by saying, “In April, 1861, Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter, situated on an island in Charleston Harbour. These were the first shots of the American Civil War.” 85 years. That’s all. That’s all there is between the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and those opening shots of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter in 1861. 85 years is but a blink in historical time. It’s one man, one woman’s lifetime.

85 years only. So, how come that a nation forged in the war with Britain, united against British imperialism, could within 85 years descend into the disunity of a bitter civil war? A civil war which still echoes in the America of the 21st century, so many years further on. So, it’s a key event in American history, and one that we need to be able to understand in order to understand subsequent American history. John Farmer goes on to say this. “Before 1861, the history of the United States had been, in many ways, a remarkable success story.” That’s what makes the disunity of 1861 so extraordinary. It had been a success story. And that’s really a phrase that I want to underline. The foundation of the United States in 1776 had led to a success story. What sort of success story? Well, Farmer says, “The small, predominantly English settlements of the early 17th century had expanded rapidly, so much so that by the end of the 18th century, they’d been able to win independence from Britain. The United States, which in 1776 had controlled only a narrow strip of land along the Atlantic seaboard, expanded westwards, to strip of land along the Atlantic seaboard, expanded and,” sorry. “The United States, which in 1776 had controlled only a narrow strip of land along the Atlantic seaboard, expanded westwards. In 1802, 03, the United States doubled in size when it purchased the Louisiana Territory from France.” Remember, the Louisiana Territory is not the modern state of Louisiana. It’s far, far bigger than that. “By 1860, the original 13 states had increased to 33,” in 85 years, “and the nation extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

By 1860, white Americans enjoyed a better standard of living than any other people on Earth. Prosperity and the rapidly expanding economy attracted large-scale immigration. In 1860, the USA had a population of 31 million, slightly more than Britain’s, 4 million were foreign born. The USA’s political system, Republican, Federal and Democratic, was the pride of most Americans and the envy of most British and European radicals. By the mid-19th century, more Americans considered themselves to be the world’s most civilised and fortunate people.” It is a success story, looked at objectively, and it is a success story in the way that Americans looked at their society, at their state, at their country, but also how Americans looked at themselves. So, how, or rather why, did this success story disintegrate into not just a clash, but a military clash between North and South in 1861? Now, we tend, I think, to look back on history and see that what actually happened was bound to happen. So, that’s a question we have to look at in terms of the American Civil War. Was it bound to happen? Well, Americans themselves, at the time, political Americans didn’t think, in the 1850s, their internal arguments would lead to civil war. In fact, I have a quotation which I will share with you, which goes like this. This is a 19th-century senator from Missouri, called Thomas Benson, and Benson said, quote, “The two halves of the Union were made for each other, as much as Adam and Eve. In the mid-20th century, some historians were convinced that given these similarities, civil war was far from irreparable or inevitable. Some historians blamed a small minority of extremists, abolitionists in the North,” and what are described as fire-eaters in the South.

They blamed them, “for raising tensions in the years before 1861, and blamed blundering politicians for failing to find a solution to the impending crisis.” Well, we all know about blundering politicians, but I don’t entirely buy that argument. I don’t deny it. There is a place for it, but I don’t buy it. I want to dig a little further into it, to be able to judge why this success story of the United States ended in civil war in 1861. It is not something that one could’ve imagined in 1776. It’s not something I think you could’ve imagined in 1800, but by 1861, we look back, or some people look back and say, well, it was inevitable. But was it? That’s something you all have to answer for yourselves at the end of my talk. America would’ve been described by the Puritans, who came from England, the Pilgrim Fathers and others, in the 17th century, as a land of plenty, quoting from the Bible. And indeed, in the 1850s, a decade before the Civil War, America was a land of plenty. It had good, virtually endless agricultural land. It could feed its people, it could export food. It had a great reservoir of minerals, coal, very important to the increasing industrialization of America, at least the North in America. And, of course, it had the Californian Gold Rush. It had boundless virgin forests, and wood is still an important part of life by the mid-19th century across the world. It also had, geographically fortunate, those of you who like to know of links between geography and history, it had very favourable river systems, which could be canalised and joined, and so water transportation was relatively easy as compared to other countries, for example, Britain. But in addition to that, it had begun building railways. By the outbreak of the Civil War, it had 30,000 miles of railways, which is equivalent to all the rest of the railways in the world being added together. And the importance of railways? It was a way to link East and West, as well as North and South. It was a really important thing, as the building of railways by the British and India was important.

Without railways, India would’ve fragmented. Without railways, America would have divided, at least East and West. Railways made the difference. But as we’ve said just now, America’s population was expanding, thanks to European immigration and the promise, of course, that this was a land where anyone, we all know, anyone could become president. Not entirely true, is that, especially today, but it was a land of opportunity, a land of plenty is the way the Puritans would’ve described it. The immigrants in the early 19th century would’ve said, a land of opportunity. And that’s especially important as numbers increase. In 1840, just two decades before the Civil War, the population stood at 17 million. At the time of the Civil War, it stood at 31 million. That’s an extraordinary increase. It did not, of course, have linked to it the problems that Britain faced in an overcrowded island, leading to slums and the rest of the story. This was a land of opportunity. Get on the train, get in a waggon train. Head west, young man. Go west, being the phrase that was used. Go west and make your fortune. And many, many individuals and families and groups of families coming from Europe did precisely that, going west. There’s land for all in America in the 19th century, because the West was opening up and the West promised economic prosperity. And after they found gold in California, I mean, there’s a huge rush, as we know, to go to California and make your fortune. With just a tiny piece of gold, you could live your life, as it were, the rest of your life in luxury. So, the opening up of the West was important, not just for the individual, but the nation as a whole. So, all of this is success with a capital S. And in the North, America had followed Britain in instigating an industrial revolution. It is in other places as well, and by 1850, it isn’t as advanced as Britain, but it doesn’t matter. The industrial revolution has begun and there’s no stopping it.

There’s no stopping it. Americans, if I may use that term of those who came from England in the 17th century, thought of themselves as a people blessed. A chosen people. Again, referring back to their Bible. They had an enormous sense that they would not and could not fail. In the case of these early English settlers, both political and religious oppression they had faced at home meant that they could never return. And if they returned, they would be considered by the communities they returned to as a failure. You made all this fuss, you would make a new life, build a new Jerusalem across the Atlantic, and here you are with your tail between your legs. But worse still for the Puritans, it wasn’t that they had failed their God, but publish it not in the streets, what happened if people said God had failed them? They couldn’t bear it. So, they dig in. These are not passing people like the French in Canada, making their money in Canada and going home. These are people who are there forever, because God has selected them and because God has found this plentiful land for them to live in. You can describe this mindset of the 17th-century Puritans as pioneering. That’s one way of putting it. In 1845, the editor of “The New York Post”, a man called John O'Sullivan, coined a new phrase, manifest destiny. And that, above all, defines America, especially in the 19th century. Here is a definition from, I don’t like the title of the book, but it’s by the wonderful American historian, Alan Axelrod, on American history, it’s called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide”. I think it’s got a better title in the States, but I’m a huge fan of Axelrod. And he writes in this way, he gives us a definition.

He says this. “O'Sullivan wrote in the New York Post, 1845, ‘It is our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole continent which providence has given us for the development of a great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.’” An experiment in liberty and federated government, 1845. In less than 20 years, providence has failed America as America heads into civil war, but I want to give the impression now, from all I’ve said, with a broad brush, America is successful, and if we take 1850 as a sort of date out of the air, if you like, since 1776, there seemed no reason whatsoever, with increased populations, increased industrialization, increased railway network and increased resources, that America couldn’t simply go on a huge ride in the graph upwards. So, why was this hiccup in 1861 with civil war? Why? Only 85 years on from the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Now, as everybody knows, and as that last quote I gave said, the United States Constitution was established on federal lines. They did not want a monarchy, so they want a republic. But because the colonies were so disparate in sense of distance travel, but also disparate in terms of the reasons for their foundation and the way that they had developed since the 17th century, because despite this sort of caricaturing of Britain as a heavy hand on America, in fact, the colonies, which themselves were British, were developing in their own and separate ways, and there was no way you could establish one country, because it isn’t like bringing parts together and saying this is now one country, like Saxon England was brought together as one country, like France was brought together, like Germany and Italy were brought together, both of them, in the 19th century, America’s story is not that. America’s story is how independently minded, never forget they’re British, so they’re bloody minded is the phrase, and they don’t want to be told by anyone what to do.

So, how do you resolve that while establishing a country? There’s only one way, and that is to have a federal state. Now, if I quote from Alan Axelrod again, just so that we’ve got a brief definition, if you like, of, oh, no, wrong book. I might quote from John Farmer’s book. I’ll read this, because it’s just a simple way of reminding us exactly, particularly for those who aren’t American, “Federal is a government in which several states, while largely independent in home affairs, combine for national purposes.” And that’s where you get a problem with federal states. Largely independent. So, if I’m a senator in Virginia, in the Virginian Senate, I have a view about Virginia and what independence means to the state of Virginia, but maybe I’m a senator from wherever, Connecticut, and I’m in Washington and I’m saying, no, no, no, Virginia can’t do that, ‘cause the rest of us want to do this. You immediately have clashes. And it’s difficult to resolve those clashes. Oh, yes, you can have legal systems, political systems, but in the end, in 1861, no one was prepared anymore to find a solution. Maybe we are back to these politicians who are not up to the game and couldn’t find a way through. And I think that’s probably, and as I said before, there is some truth in that. And so, a federal system, by definition, is difficult. And a confederate system is equally difficult, because it’s the tension between the centre, the national picture and the regional, or in America’s, the United States’ case, in the states, it’s a tension. Now, tensions can be good things, politically, but they can also, as the American Civil War demonstrates, be the opposite of good. It can set up tensions.

And I suppose, like all constitutions that are written, they need to be got back to and brought up to date. And in Britain, our unwritten constitution is very much under attack now, saying it isn’t any longer fit for purpose. And so, maybe all democracies, whether they are central states like Britain, or they’re federal states like the United States, or they’re confederate states like Canada, then you have got to revisit the form to see that it still works. Democracy is a difficult concept to put into hard, practical terms. It seems easy, but we’re no longer living in Athens, when all the men entitled to vote can simply turn up in Agora, in the square, and vote. We can’t do that. Although, some think we can do it by pressing a button on a keyboard. God save us from that. So, we have to revisit these questions. And the American Civil War poses this question in quite a major way, and the consequences of the American Civil War, politically, right across the United States, which, as I say, reverberate today, are again issues of the Constitution. The first crisis for the American Federal State came very early in 1787, and Reynolds, in one of the best one-volume histories of America I know, simply called “America, Empire of Liberty” by David Reynolds, again, it’s on my book list on my blog, you can look it up. And David Reynolds writes this. “As the 1780s,” the first decade of independence, “As the 1780s progressed, the crisis of governance became acute. American credit was exhausted. The Dutch and the French kept lending only at extortionate levels of interest. Trade could help balance the books. But power to,” this is the key.

“But power to negotiate trade agreements remained with the states.” Sounds odd, doesn’t it? Sounds odd to us. We would think that treaties over trade would be national, but in the 1780s in America, they were state-controlled. Let me read on. “Trade could help balance the books, but power to negotiate trade conditions remained with the states and they were now waging a commercial war among themselves. Connecticut was levying higher tariffs on goods from neighbouring Massachusetts than on imports from Britain.” Connecticut was levying charges on the importation of goods from Massachusetts at a higher rate than goods arriving from Britain. And this is a country that broke with Britain. So, we’re always back, aren’t we? Wherever we go in history, we’re back to Clinton’s famous comment. “It’s the economy, stupid.” And here, it was the economy that first threatened the Federal State. And they couldn’t go on and they met in 1787, in the May of 1787, to work out a way of solving this problem. They met in Philadelphia, no surprise there. Every state went, except Rhode Island. Rhode Island wouldn’t go, because it had such a independent view of itself that it wouldn’t even discuss it. So, the political structure established by the Constitution was simply not working as it should. So, they met in Philadelphia. And what did they do in Philadelphia? Well, they put George Washington in the chair and they had 55 white men from all the states save Rhode Island. No women. No Black Americans. They spent four months arguing. Many of them were lawyers, many others were landowners, but the overwhelming majority were conservative.

In British terms, a small C, conservative. There were huge rows. But also keep remembering, in these early days, they are British, and so they seek compromise, a very British way forward, they sought a compromise. And the man pushing for compromise was the representative from Virginia, the famous James Madison. But it was two representatives from the state of Connecticut, Sherman and Johnston, who proposed the compromise. This is Robert Allison’s book, “The American Revolution”. Again, all these books are on my book list. And he writes this. “The house of the legislature would represent states in proportion to their population, and in the other, each state would have an equal vote.” In other words, the structure of today, the House of Representatives, based on population, and the Senate, based on, simply, a state. And that system is the one that works, Americans must say what they think about that, works today. They found out that this was a way, this was a compromise. But there’s always a problem with a compromise. Compromises work, usually, to paper over cracks. Political compromises, particularly. And we all know why, because what are politicians concerned about? Being elected at the next election. And so, if the compromise, we’ve had our roof done where I live in these flats and we’re told it should last 40 years, and most of us are a certain age and said, oh, well, that’s fine, it’ll see us out. And so it was, we compromised this. Well, if it fails in 20 years’ time, I won’t be here to bother about it. And so, there’s problems with a compromise. But this compromise seems to have been one of the better ones. Let me stop there. Just recap. I’ve been talking about how all of this began as a reaction that that, all of this being the political structure in the United States as a reaction against England.

I say England because all those early settlers were predominantly English. It was a reaction against that, but the reaction was not a solution without its problems. The federal structure was a problem. The Republicanism was never a problem. It was never likely to be a problem, it wasn’t a problem. But Republicanism being not a problem left Federalism as the problem. Could these disparate states, with different cultural backgrounds, different employment opportunities, different food very often, just different, emphasise the differences rather than the similarities? That’s what federalism tends to do. It emphasises the distinctiveness of the local, regional governments, in America’s case, the states, as against that of the national government. Now, that, I know, it’s no good, me comparing it to Britain, because we all know that the size of the country made all the difference. The size of America was enormous. It’s only because of the developing infrastructure of transportation that enabled America to come together and to hold together. If America had been founded in the 14th century, it would’ve split. Without a shadow of a doubt, it would’ve split, because you simply couldn’t get from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But it was at that moment in time when you could bind it all together. And yet, in 1861, that binding fell apart. Now, let me, as it were, say end of act one, scene one. Act one, scene two, the curtains have closed in the theatre, they now open again, and now we don’t see a view of Washington and Congress. We still instead see a plantation in the South. A slave plantation or plantation run by slaves. But the Declaration of Independence says all men were born equal. Not so in 1861. Heather Williams, in her book, “American Slavery”, writes in this way.

“White elites developed a vast range of mechanisms to gain and maintain control over enslaved people, including violence, legislation, slave patrols, religion, paternalistic, demeaning behaviour and racist, pro-slavery ideology. And enslaved people drew from a reservoir of strategies that included literacy, religion, escape, malingering and rebellion to resist enslavement and its attendant hardships.” Slavery. Slavery abolished, right? The British Empire in 1833. A point not lost on abolitionists in the North, who, of course, with access to newspapers, know precisely what’s going on in Britain, they know precisely the arguments that have been trailed through the House of Commons in Britain that led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. And this issue of slavery, particularly, I think, post-1833, could really not be ignored. Why? Because there’s a rift between the North and the South. Reynolds writes this. He quotes a speech made in 1860. In other words, one year before the war began. And it goes like this. A speech made in 1860. “Carl Schurz, a Northern apologist,” or if you like, a Northern abolitionist would be my way of expressing it, “asked America’s slave holders,” slave owners, “almost incredulously, quote, ‘Are you really in earnest when you speak of perpetuating slavery? Shall it never cease? Never? Stop and consider where you are and in what day you live. This is the world of the 19th century. You stand against a hopeful world, alone against a great century, fighting your hopeless fight against the onward march of civilization.’”

And so, by 1860, somewhat crudely put, there is a division between Northern progress and what many in the North regarded as Southern decadence, or if you prefer, between the future epitomised by the North without slaves, and the South with slaves. The South is out of touch, say the North, with history. They also morally attack it with all the same arguments that had been used in Britain. But in Britain, we didn’t have, in Britain itself, a slave population, that had long since been got rid of by the courts, in saying as soon as a slave set foot in Britain, they were free. It’s 1833 when we extend that to the whole empire, which more readily replicates the American South situation, in as much as British economy, imperial economy, depended upon slaves in the same way that the Southern economy depended on slaves, or so they thought. By 1861, there’s 4 million slaves, out of a population of 31 and a half million. Southern states held onto slavery until the end of the American Civil War and the passing of the legislation during the course of the war by Lincoln. It was a very odd situation, because Delaware had slaves, but voted to fight with the North, whereas Maryland had, well, 50% of Blacks in Maryland were already free, but they fought with the South. So, there are states in the middle who are undecided, but it is not unfair or twisting of the historical truth to say that this was the North against the South. Were the North better educated than the South? No, not really. That’s not so. It is a different way of life, and the North had always had far fewer slaves than the South for very obvious economic reasons, and as early as 1777, Vermont, in its state statutes, banned slavery. That was the first. And by 1860, virtually the whole of the North has banned slavery.

But in the South, where the majority of slaves live and are seen as crucial to the economy, there is a different view. Now, in the woke age in which we live, we can be totally disparaging of slavery. And, of course, we’re right. It was never morally acceptable. The Black slaves were not thought of as being equal to white men and women, but whatever it said in the Declaration of Independence and so on, it simply didn’t wash in the South, but you’ve got to take the South in context. No one is saying that slavery isn’t wholly bad, and Britain has accepted that in 1833. But if you don’t understand where the South is coming from, then I don’t think you have a way of understanding this war. It isn’t set that the North is more religious than the South. That also isn’t true. It isn’t that the North is Protestant or the South, none of that’s true. It is simply a different view of the world, and if you like, an old view in the South and the modern view in the North that slavery is morally unacceptable in the North, economically necessary in the South. The Americans, at the time, talked to free states, those in which the state legislature said slavery was banned, and the slave states, which allowed slavery. Note, in the Federal system, this has been, up until, up until the middle of the Civil War, not a question for national government, but a question for state governments.

And so, we’re back to this argument about Federalism. One of the things that affected those in the North was the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. That played an enormous role in changing people’s opinions. It is interesting how books can change opinions. We now live in a less book world. I don’t know what that says. Are there things like documentary films that might turn our view? We always quote in Britain, “Cathy Come Home”, about housing, but yet our housing crisis is worse now than when the film was made decades ago and shown on television. And no one watches television. And not everyone switches the same programme on at the same time, same week, and so on and so forth, so I’m not sure that this is not a phenomenon which we may not see again, of a book that can change a whole nation, in terms of the North view of where they are. Frederick Douglass is one of the most famous of slaves who was a freed man, and when he was freed, he escaped and went to the North, when he was freed, he became a spokesperson, giving speeches about abolition and writing about abolition. He himself had a white father and a Black mother. And surprise, surprise, the white father slave-owned the slave mother. And the boy, Frederick, was brought up with his mother as a slave. The abuse of Black women by white slave owners is, and it’s not an American phenomenon only, it is not a great one, to put it mildly.

Anyhow, this is something that Douglass said, and Reynolds quotes, which I will now quote. “In an Independence Day oration in 1852, Douglass asked,” and this is Douglass speaking at this meeting, “‘What to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham. Your boasted liberty an unholy licence. Your national greatness, swelling vanity. Your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence.’ Douglass went on to say, ‘A nation on the Earth, guilty of practises more shocking and bloody than are those of the United States at this very hour.’” Feelings on both sides began to rise to a dangerous level. So, where is compromise? Where is the voice of reason? Where is someone that says stop, because if we don’t stop, we go to war? And yet, no one really thought it would come to war. Surely, we can resolve this. And, of course, they made various attempts to resolve it. Before we go on, let me just remind you that the divisions between North and South are not only slavery, but back to Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid!” And this is Farmer, reminding us of the economic divisions between the two parts of America by 1861. And he writes this. “Historians once claimed that the Civil War was a conflict between a backward, agrarian, planter-dominated South and a modern, industrialised and egalitarian North. This view is far too sweeping. In reality, there was not one, but many Souths, encompassing several distinct geographical regions. There were also many Norths.

Moreover, in many respects, those Norths were not dissimilar economically to the Souths. The North was industrialising, not industrialised. Nor was the South economically backward. Many Southerners grew tobacco, sugar and particularly cotton. By the mid-19th century, cotton sales made up at least 50% of the USA’s total exports. Trading cotton ensured that white Southern society was prosperous and enterprising, and that most Southerners had an economic interest in a good railway and telegraph network, nor was the South totally lacking in industry.” So, on one level then, economically, the argument that the North and South was divided economically is no longer accepted by American historians. It is inevitably more complex than that. So, in that more complex situation, one might have thought that there was a way of finding compromise. So, the context then of the American Civil War is, if I recap, the original issue at the core of the American Constitution of Federalism are the clashes between the centre and the periphery. Then, there is the increasing division between free and slave states, particularly following Britain’s abolition of slavery in 1833. And all those arguments are being redone in America. But also, remember something I said earlier. There’s not only a South and North, there’s also a West. And that becomes a problem by 1850 and 60. If territories in the West, the territory in the, this is what an area of America is called, legally, before it becomes a state, a territory, if territories in the West become states, then they can choose to be free or slave. And that would tip the North feel. That would tip the balance towards slave-owning states, ‘cause the West is after cheap, or actually free labour. And so, there is a concern that the North, maybe the best word to describe the North is very Europeanized North, is petrified of what they regard as the archaic South and what they might well regard as the barbaric West, the Wild West.

And so, something has to be done. And in 1850, Frederick Douglass, whom we’ve already mentioned, carves out a compromise. And Reynolds says of this compromise, simply this. “In the end, after the compromise had been fixed, the North could glory in the admission of California,” which was the big issue, “as a free state, but the Fugitive Slave Law introduced gave the South some assurance that its interest would be respected in the Union.” What that means is California, which would’ve put the balance towards slavery, California becomes free. But at the same time, the Southern states under this legislation, the Fugitive Slave Law, is allowed, owners are allowed to go into the free states and recover their slaves. Something that was impossible in England from the 18th century, when, as I said before, once a slave has set foot on English soil, he or she was free. Here, although they’ve gone to, say, New York, they are not free. They can be picked up and returned to wherever. To South Carolina, if you like. “The rest of the West was shelved for the moment. It would, in fact, be nearly 50 years before Utah became a state.” So, again, it’s politicians. We’ve solved the question of California, and so we needn’t worry anymore. And maybe someone said yes, but Utah, oh, forget about Utah, that’s not going to be a state for decades. And they were right. So, it’s another plaster put on this problem, and that’s what compromises are. Lastly. We’re still left then with the question, that was 1850, why in 1861 did the question of slave and free states figure so dominantly?

And part of the reason, we have to go to Washington. America had adopted, like Britain, and also like Britain, by accident rather than by design, a two-party state. That is to say, Democrats and, Old English word, Whigs. Democrats and Whigs. The Whigs were the more progressive than the Democrats, but the Whig Party declined to the point of collapse and was replaced by the Republican Party. Now, in the days of Democrats and Whigs, whether a particular part of America voted Democrat or voted Whig was, in a sense, up in the air. That is to say, Democrats had seats both in the North and South, Whigs had seats both in the South and North, it was much like Britain was in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Once the Republicans come in, there is a shift. The Democratic vote is in the South and the Republican vote in the North, because the Republicans back abolition of slavery. In a book that, again, is on my list, called “The Story of the American Civil War”, it’s in this magazine series, I wanted to read, if I may, this. “This rivalry, slave and free, began to coalesce, and in 1854, Southern politicians challenged the Northern states over the issue of slavery, seeking repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This led to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which admitted both states, Kansas and Nebraska, with the former, Kansas, accepting slavery, and Nebraska refusing. This paved the way for growing conflict within what became known as Bloody Kansas.”

Because not only was there state against state, there’s abolitionists against slave supporters within a state, as in Kansas, leading to, really, a state of almost, you could describe it as civil war within the state of Kansas. I read on. “Ideological differences hardened between North and South, and in the words of a leading writer on the Civil War, 'By 1860, most Southerners agreed that they had an incredibly short period of time, developed a distinct civilization and were culturally different from other Americans.’” So, the cultural divide, the word I used earlier, between North and South is, by 1861, fairly clear. Now, I’ve got just about time to do some conclusions. And I wanted to use two quotations, one from the period and one from a historian. And the first conclusion comes from Farmer’s book, from Alan Farmer’s book, where he writes this. He says, he’s rounding up the story, up to 1861, the American story, and he writes, “By the mid-19th century, there were significant differences between North and South. Differences that were growing as the North’s industrial development outstripped that of the South. The North was changing. The South resisted change. By 1850, Southerners were conscious of their distinct Southernness.” Cultural difference. “North and South might speak the same language, but by the mid-19th century, they were increasingly using this language to revile each other. Even the shared commitment of Protestantism had become a divisive rather than a unifying factor, with most of the major denominations splitting into hostile Southern and Northern branches over the question on slavery.”

Well, that isn’t a particularly American phenomenon, because on the Isle of Portland in Dorset in Britain, the Methodist Church there split into two in the 18th century, one pro-slavery, one anti-slavery. Both were Christian churches, both were Methodist churches, the followers of John and Charles Wesley. And the same thing here is being said about America. There were Christians on both sides of the argument, and not one church against another church, not Catholic against Protestant or anything like that. Within churches, there’s difference of opinion. And that tended to be based upon South and North. And today in America, we use the terminology, Southern Baptists. “The fact that there was a widening disparity in numbers between North and South concerned Southerners. By 17,” sorry, “In 1719, the population of the Northern and Southern states had been about equal. By 1850, Northerners outnumbered Southerners by a ratio of more than three to two. Given that Northern states had more seats in the House of Representatives,” remember the change, “Southerners were determined to maintain position of equality in the Senate. This meant that westward expansion was a crucial issue.” Why? Because if the states allowed in in the West became free, it would mean that the Senate would be entirely free, would have senators from free states. So, the Constitution is, again, an issue and the cultural questions are wider than simply slavery.

Now, I didn’t know how to end today, and that was one, and those who know me well know I always have about five endings. That was one of my endings until I thought, I’m not happy about that as an ending to today. It doesn’t lead us on particularly to next week, when we go into the war itself, beginning with Fort Sumter. And then, I remembered that there is a quotation of Lincoln, and I’m going to read you the quotation from Lincoln. This is Lincoln in a speech three years before the war began, in 1858. It was during a political campaign. And Lincoln said this, so these are Lincoln’s words, precisely Lincoln’s words. “I believe this government,” and remember, Lincoln is a Republican, he’s an abolitionist, “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved.” In other words, in 1858, three years before war actually breaks out, Lincoln is saying, no, no, we won’t split. It would be unthinkable. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? “I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either we shall all become free,” which is what Lincoln expects, “or we shall all become slave. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction,” so what Lincoln is saying there is, look, we won’t allow it to spread, and in the end, people like me believe it will simply die out on its own, without any interference by us. In other words, it’s the archetypal compromise. We’ll bear with the South and it’s slavery, because in the end, they’re on the wrong side of history and slavery will simply disappear. It’s somewhat naive, one has to say.

Lincoln goes on to say, “Or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all states, old as well as new, North as well as South.” So, Lincoln is saying, either we stay as we are and slavery will gradually disappear on its own in the South and we shall become all free, or slavery will spread, he’s thinking of the West, slavery will spread and we will all become slave only. And at this point, you see, there’s no suggestion by Lincoln that there should be national legislation. That is brought about by the war. This is a view of, how do you keep the status quo going? How do you keep the compromise going? And with hindsight, we can see that a policy of compromise was never going to work. In the end, something has to give. And what gave are the breakaway states in the South and the emergence of war with the North. It is a depressing story, given we’re not talking about the 18th century or the 14th century, we’re talking about the latter half of the 19th century, when this successful United States, in all economic terms, but also in the terms of living with itself, of every man and woman being free, provided they’re white, then this success story following 1776 is going to blow up. It is extraordinary. Now, Britain might have blown up, but if Britain had blown up, it would’ve been on questions of rich versus poor. But here, in the States, it’s a question of the structure of the government. We’re back to the federal principle. Now, I must stop. And I’m sure there’s lots of Americans who are going to say, you’re wrong. I’m quite prepared for that. Underneath here, you can’t see it, I have a stab vest on, just in case. But I’m happy to be corrected. I’m happy for lots of questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Shelly, “How would you factor in the idea that U.S. started out as 13 separate states with different backgrounds and different religions to the Civil War?”

A: Well, yes, the different backgrounds, I’ve mentioned. Now, you mention religion. Now, I’ve been asked by Lockdown to give an extra lecture on this coming Sunday, under the heading, America: State Religion, question mark. And I’m going to say a lot more about religion and religion in the Civil War on this Sunday talk. But you are right, it is because of the separate states and because of this view from 17th century England that everybody, white men, are entitled for their opinion, and all this breaking away, and we know the story of how Rhode Island broke away, and I’ll come back to all of that on Sunday, but you are right, the whole problem lies with the original immigrants from England into the United States.

“The original governmental system,” says Shelly, “of the U.S. after the Revolutionary War was the Articles of Confederation and more independence for the states.” Yes, it was.

“Williams’s blog.” Thank you, that must be Rita again. Thank you, Rita.

Stan. Oh, that’s very nice of you. I don’t know, Stan, whether you’re American or not. If you thought it was good, I guess you’re not American.

Yonna says, “The seeds of the American Civil War were,” panted, painted, I guess, “at the very beginning with three-fifths compromised, 1787. It was a crack far too broad for any wallpaper to remain covering for long.” Yes, totally agree.

Q: Shelly, “Did you say Maryland fought with the South?”

A: No, I think they fought with the South. It’s Delaware that goes to the North. Oh, sorry, somebody said, who lives in Maryland, they went with the North, my apologies.

Hal, thank you very much indeed.

And Faith says, “Maryland was a border state, i.e., a slave state that fought for the North. There were many Southern sympathisers, but it was pressured by the Federal Government to stick with the Union, so Washington, D.C. would not be surrounded by Confederate forces.”

Q: Will I be talking about W.E.B. Du Bois in your lectures?

A: Monty, I can’t really tell you, because I don’t prepare in advance, I prepare a few days before, so it’s fresh, and I’m never quite sure what I will include and what I will not include. But I will write down W. Du Bois, so that, ooh, I can give more serious consideration to including something if you would like. That’s easy to do. Thanks very much, Monty. We’ll try and do that.

Arlene. “The problem with the Compromise of 1850, which allowed all new states to choose to enter the Union as free or state, is that it negated the legislation of 1820, which said all future states would not be slave states.” True. This is because compromises don’t last.

Q: David. “How do you account that the American South votes primarily Democratic?”

A: That is because the Democrats in the South supported slavery, but that has changed over recent years. One of the things that people find difficult, who are not American, is to get your head around what Democrats and Republicans stand for. Not just then, but now. Well, maybe now is easier, but it is a confusing area of American politics, which I will come to. But at the moment where we are, it’s the Republicans who are abolitionist and it’s the Republicans who put Lincoln into the White House.

Shelly, “Democratic Party fractured into several factions in the 1860 election whereas,” yes, you’re absolutely right and I will come to that. I will come to that in due course next time. You are right. Though, one of the, well, it’s not a problem, one of the things with the American political parties in the 19th century, as the same as with the British parties in the late 18th, very early 19th century, is that they weren’t parties in a modern sense. They were just groups of people who tended to vote with either Democrats or Republicans, or in our case, with Conservatives or Liberals. But people were much more fluid.

Q: “How do you manage to talk non-judgmentally?”

A: This must be Joan. This must be another non-American, because I feel very, I feel that this is quite awkward. I’ve said before, historians try to seek objectivity. I try to seek objectivity. But that isn’t always possible. There’s no objectivity in talking about Stalin or Hitler, but there is objectivity across a broad spectrum. But you have to remember, particularly with this course, I’m British, I’m not American. You also have to remember that I’m a man, not a woman. You have to remember I’m white and not Black. And you have to remember that I’m in my ‘70s and not in my '20s. And somebody with a different profile would do it differently and as objectively, but their objectivity and my objectivity might not be the same. It’s really difficult. I don’t worry, I don’t stay awake at night, worrying about it. I would if I was teaching children or, indeed in this day and age, university undergraduates. I don’t worry, teaching adults. You’re perfectly capable of reading a book, watching a television programme or whatever you do, and coming to your own view, which is not necessarily mine. That’s the important point.

Thank you, Rita, I appreciate that. Oh, that’s nice, Sonny.

“Actually, your endings are golden.” Well, I don’t know they’re golden. I do try and have something at the end, and that’s why I was so pleased that I remembered Lincoln’s speech in 1858, because I think that sort of tells you a lot. It tells you about how out of touch, actually, they were as well, about what was happening until it actually happened.

Oh, crikey. Stuart, that means a lot to me. Stuart says that he majored in, he’s American, he majored in history and he thought I hit all the right points. Well, that is, I find that, I can’t tell you, Stuart, what that means to me, 'cause I inevitably have to miss things out. Like the Dred Scott case and things. There are all sorts of things I missed out, because in an hour, you can’t do that. And as I said at the beginning, I was trying to paint a broad picture, rather than doing what we did at school, learn the seven causes or four causes or whatever of the American Civil War, and you learnt them like a parrot and you put them down on paper and you didn’t understand them and you didn’t understand what was going on. As adults, we can understand the broader picture, and I think the broader picture is helpful.

No, how did the, no, the question, Erica, is, how did the Republicans, who were progressive at this point, change their stance? This is the problem. It hasn’t been a problem in Britain, because the Liberal Party disappeared, replaced by the Labour Party. And the Labour Party has remained pretty well always center-left. The Conservative Party’s remained center-right, although some people might doubt that with the present government. But our parties have remained broadly where they started from. Yours have not. And it’s just how the cookie crumbled. It isn’t anything tremendous in that, but we will look at that and I will talk about that later on.

Yes, “Slavery’s official ending was amending the Constitution,” yes, absolutely right, who’s that?

Hal, “rather than less permanent legislation.” Yes, that’s, of course, a major difference between Britain and America. Although you can change the Constitution in the States if you wanted to, and we can change the law, because as in Britain, Congress is supreme, Parliament is supreme, it can change things.

“Maryland went both ways,” says Susan. Okay.

Q: Rita says, “You mentioned that Lincoln initially did not propose any legislation deal with the process. What do you think might have happened if Lincoln had passed legislation?”

A: Well, A, he wasn’t president, as Joan says. And B, you’re asking him to have the foresight that nobody else had. Yes, if he’d known what was coming, yes, but nobody knew what was coming. But I will talk about the election of 1860, which people have mentioned. I’ll start off with the 1860 election next, let me make a note of that, next week. And that will help maybe clear some doubts and questions.

Yes, Joan, “Mr. Trump likes to say that Lincoln was a Republican,” he was, “and most people don’t actually know the history of the parties.” That’s what I’m saying, it is very complex in America. It’s just different than it is in other countries. It’s different than in Canada, it’s different than in Australia and it’s different than in Britain and it’s different in Israel. It’s just different. And it’s one of the problems that those of us from outside America struggle with. And if we’re talking to Britons, we struggle enormously there, but I now see some Americans struggle with it, so I will try, as we go through chronologically, to keep talking about where the Democrats are, and thank goodness we just have the two parties to talk about in broad terms. I will talk about where the Democrats and Republicans stand on certain issues, where the presidents come from and why and when the policies begin to change. Thanks very much. I think I’ve come to the end of the questions tonight. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much for the questions. Thank you for those who put me right. Thank you for those who felt that it was okay, because I’ve been worrying about that all day. 'Cause what is it? It’s a quarter past six in the evening here. I hope you all have a nice week, but I hope some of you might join me for a rather different sort of look at America, and to look at the place of religion in America, and we shall look again at how all of this derives from the first European immigration from England on religious and political grounds and how that developed so that now in America, we have, well, more religions than I’ve had hot dinners, probably. So, I’ll leave it at that. Hope to see you some on Sunday. I’ll see the rest of you, same time next week when we shall look at the Civil War, so be prepared to face fire next week. See you then. Bye-bye.

• Thank you so much, William. Have a lovely week.