THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR:
The Civil War constitutes one of the most original episode of the American History. The half of all the American losses happened during these four bloody years (630000 against 680000). One American out of thirty die during this war. But above all, and maybe more than the Frontier Myth, it was a moment when the United States identity got more accurately defined, when America really entered a new era. Only the Black Thursday, Pearl Harbor or the September 11th could compete with the seizure Fort Sumter as the most important event in the American History. But how contingent was this war ? Did the economical trends were unavoidably lead to the war, like all the Marxist tradition developed it ?When London acknowledges its defeat and the Independence of the recent born United States of America, the country is really divided and one can feel more New-Yorker or Virginian than "American" a still anachronic notion. The main line of opposition lied between the Northern and the Southern States, approximately between Maryland and Pennsylvania (the Mason-Dixon line), the District of Columbia being like
If the Confederation could not win, it could have not lost. On December the 20th of 1860, South Carolina secedes, on April the 12th of 1861, the artillery of Gal Beauregard bombs Fort Sumter, a few days later Lincoln decides the mobilization of 75 000 volunteers. Thus, the civil war lies between two ages, the formation of several thousands of men, the cavalry charges with drawn swords, the one-shot rifles coexist with the birth of the telegram, the first battle between ironclads (the confederate Merrimack against the Union Monitor), and above all, an entirely new way to use one's industrial potential: arsenals, factories, railways to transport the troops and their supplies. But the victory didn't complete all its objectives, the Blacks remains a secluded minority, who can't exercise its civil rights, partly because of "Stonewall" Jackson's Ku Klux Klan. Thus, Missouri is allowed to have slaves, but, in the same time, Maine is no longer integrated to Massachusetts, or Texas is received as a slaver state in 1845, but a few years later, California is decided to be freed from slavery. But the war did last 4 years and was probably the biggest butchery of the 19th century. The stability between centrifugal and centripetal forces had been acrobatically conserved for several decades, through the Missouri Arrangement for instance, a compromise between North and South about the West: to maintain an equilibrium within the Union, the States south of a line (36'30 N) will be open to slavery. The rebel states come back home and starts to participate to the political life of the Union once more. And slowly, the debate about slavery becomes the most important topic in politics. On the other hand, the northern states, heirs of the puritan settlers and of their ethic who allowed the birth of capitalism, to follow the famous thesis of Max Weber, began to enter the industrial era, with values, like competition, freedom of business. But the wound will be long to cure. The names of Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Petersburg remind a painful history, each of these battle provoking the death of thousands of soldiers ( 51 000 dead for the mere Gettysburg, twice the losses of the Vietnam War). But the stumbling block was obviously the status of slavery.
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Acceptance Essays
