War Aims

Lincoln Strategy 23 July

Blockade more effective

Maryland to be held

Gentle, firm and certain hand

Union troops in Va.

Reinforced

Thoroughly trained

Prepared for renewed invasion

Patterson replaced by Nathaniel Banks

In the West attention to Missouri

War Aims

MG John C. Fremont

VS MG Sterling Price

Battle of Wilson’s Creek 20 August 1861

Loss of Springfield

Loss of Lexington

30 August

Martial law

Death penalty to all guerillas

Loss of all property

Freed all slaves of Confederate activists

War Aims

Lincoln “requests” retraction

Southern unionists

Worried about Kentucky

Asks Fremont to conform with congressional act of 6 August

Confiscation of property used directly in war effort

Fremont refuses

Border states respond

“Do not allow us by the foolish action of a military popinjay to be driven from our present active loyalty.” Joshua Speed

War Aims

Lincoln orders Fremont to rescind the order

Removes Fremont

Slavery

Crittenden-Johnson

Republicans

Abolitionists

“A rebellion aided by slavery, in defense of slavery could only be suppressed by moving against slavery.” J.M. McPherson

War Aims

Abolitionist Argument

Anti-racist/constitutional argument of no avail

Military necessity

Slavery as a war resource

Workforce

Freeing up more fighting men

“To fight against slaveholders, without fighting against slavery, is but a half-hearted business and paralyzes the hands engaged in it…War for the destruction of liberty must be met with war for the destruction of slavery.” F. Douglass

War Aims

But but but

Official war aims described by Critteden-Johnson

“…maintain supremacy of the constitution…”

According to several upper/supreme court pronouncements slavery was constitutional

So how can you take away someone’s property?

War Aims

Confiscation

Since the blockade Southern states=belligerents

State of war

In war confiscation of enemy property is legal

MG Benjamin Butler

Fortress Monroe

Escaped slaves

Owner (Confederate Colonel) seeks enforcement of Fugitive Slave Law

Butler’s response

Contraband of war

War Aims

Administration approves

Questions

Are “contrabands” free?

Has the war changed their status?

If they are property, are they now the property of USA?

USA will not do so

“Has all proprietary relation ceased?”

War Aims

Crittenden

Congress has no more right to legislate against slavery during war than it had in peace.

Republicans

But…Congress can punish treason by forfeiture of property

August 6

Contrabands no longer slaves if employed directly by rebel armed forces

Were they then free?

Law was silent

War Aims

Border legislators upset

All but 3 voted against bill

All but 6 Republicans voted for it

First breach in bipartisan war support

Taken as a warning that any attempt to make emancipation a war aim would make this a Republican war

Last thing Lincoln wanted

Hold together coalition

Hold the border-states

War Aims

Lincoln:

Action such as Fremont’s “not within the range of military law, or necessity”

Approved Butler’s action, but could not “fix their permanent future condition.”

Fremont’s action was “the surrender of government.”

A Kentucky unit threw down their arms and disbanded when they heard of Fremont’s action

“I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”

War Aims

Lincoln 3 Dec. 1861

I have been anxious and careful” not to let the war “degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.”

Thaddeus Stevens (Vermont)

“Free every slave, slay every traitor, burn every rebel mansion, if these things be necessary to preserve this temple of freedom.”

War Aims

Stevens didn’t know it

Lincoln didn’t know it

Clausewitz, had he been alive, would have known it

A new sort of war was being stirred up