HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The American Civil War

The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness.
While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War
of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be. The war resolved
two fundamental questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the
United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or
an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this
nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to
liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slave holding country in the
world.

Causes of the war

1. Economic and social differences between the North and the South.
With Eli Whitneys invention of cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine
was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton.
However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other
crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the
southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on
slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than
agriculture. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into
finished goods. This disparity between the two set up a major difference in economic attitudes.
The South was based on the plantation system while the North was focused on city life.
2. The election of Abraham Lincoln

Even though things were already coming to a head, when Lincoln was elected in 1860, South
Carolina issued its "Declaration of the Causes of Secession." They believed that Lincoln was
anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests. Before Lincoln was even president, seven states
had seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,

and Texas.

3.States versus federal rights.

Since the time of the Revolution, two camps emerged: those arguing for greater states rights
and those arguing that the federal government needed to have more control. The first
organized government in the US after the American Revolution was under the Articles of
Confederation. The thirteen states formed a loose confederation with a very weak federal
government. However, when problems arose, the weaknesses of the Articles caused the
leaders of the time to come together at the Constitutional Convention and create, in secret, the
US Constitution. Strong proponents of States rights like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry
were not present at this meeting. Many felt that the new constitution ignored the rights of states
to continue to act independently. They felt that the states should still have the right to decide if
they were willing to accept certain federal acts. This resulted in the idea of nullification, where
by the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional.

The war
The Civil war broke out in 1861 and lasted four years, ending in 1865 with the abolition of
slavery , sanctioned by the thirteenth amendment of the Constitution. This did not grant the
blacks equality and economic security. They were free but penniless and homeless; some
migrated to the industrial cities in the North, others remained with their old masters in the
South. A wave of resentment and violence, embodied by the racist movement called Ku Klux
Klan", frightened the blacks and their families. the real fighting began in 1862. Huge battles
like Shiloh in Tennessee, GainesMill, Second Manassas, and Fredericksburg in Virginia, and
Anitetam in Maryland foreshadowed even bigger campaigns and battles in subsequent years,
from Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to Vicksburg on the Mississippi to Chickamauga and
Atlanta in Georgia. By 1864 the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore the Union had
given way to a new strategy of "total war" to destroy the Old South and its basic institution of
slavery and to give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom," as President Lincoln put it in
his address at gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle there. In
1864-1865 General William Tecumseh Sherman led his army deep into the Confederate
heartland of Georgia and South Carolina, destroying their economic infrastructure while
General George Thomas virtually destroyed the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee at the battle
of Nashville. By the spring of 1865 all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and
when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on
May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended. The long, painful process of rebuilding
a united nation free of slavery began.

The figure of Queen Victoria

People all over the world know the name of Queen Victoria. She is probably the most famous
queen in history ,she was Queen of a vast empire, as well as of Britain. A long period of history is
named after her - the Victorian Age. Victoria was born in 1819. She became Queen in 1837 when
she was 18. Her reign lasted for more than 60 years. Queen Victoria was born early in the

19th century. She lived to see the start of the 20th century, dying in January 1901. Although they
lived in a palace, Princess Victoria and her mother were not very rich. Her uncles King George and
King William did not often visit her. Uncle Leopold, King of Belgium, sent her presents, victoria did
not go to school. Her German govervness gave her lessons, she grew up speaking German as
well as English. Victoria was never left alone but with no friends of her own age, the little princess
was lonely. She played with dolls. Princess Victoria became a dedicated journal-writer at the age of
13, and maintained her journal throughout her long life one of her stories, written at the age of ten,
is titled 'Sophia and Adolphus. She was good at maths, music and drawing. She had a pony
called Rosa and a spaniel dog called Dash. Princess Victoria was a fine water-colourist, a hobby
she indulged throughout her adulthood. She attended the theatre and musical concerts, and these
visits constituted some of the greatest joys she experienced in her youth. After a performance, she
would sometimes paint the costumes and gestures of the dancers and singers she had watched on
stage.In October 1839 cousin Albert came to visit again. Victoria asked him to marry her. Victoria
and Albert were married in February 1840. In 1841 Victoria had a baby, Princess Victoria ('Vicky').
A year later, she had a son, Prince Albert Edward. It was years since children had run about the
royal palaces. The 'royal family' became part of Victorian Britain, the royal family had a seaside
home at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Albert built a beach hut and the Queen had her first
dip in the sea. From 1848 the royal family had a home at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Albert wore
a kilt, went fishing, and hunted deer. Victoria tried Scottish country dancing.