6 Politics of the War Democratic Party The Democratic Party played a pivotal role in the lead-up to the Civil War In the South there were no political parties during the war but the Democrats continued their opposition in the North This 1860 cartoon pokes funs at the fighting among the Democrats It shows Stephen A Douglas as a fighting cock who has defeated President James Buchanan for the party’s presidential nomination Since the 1830s the Democratic Party had emerged as one of the two major U S political parties Its specific policies varied between states but they all reflected a common belief in the need to limit federal government’s control over the nation 1861 march january war civil other events JANUARY 2 SOUTH CAROLINA Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor is occupied by Confederate troops JANUARY 5 ALABAMA Alabama troops seize forts Morgan and Gaines giving Confederate forces control of Mobile Bay JANUARY 9 MISSISSIPPI Leaders vote to leave the Union Mississippi is the second state to join the Confederacy JANUARY 10 FLORIDA Florida leaves the Union JANUARY 11 ALABAMA Alabama leaves the Union JANUARY 15 UNITED STATES Engineer Elisha Otis invents the safety elevator January JANUARY 29 UNITED STATES Kansas joins the Union as the 34th state
Democratic Party 7 Political changes In the 1850s the question of slavery brought great political changes A Democratic senator from Illinois Stephen Douglas introduced the Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854 which allowed slavery in the new western states Northern opponents of slavery were so outraged they formed a new party the Republican Party Before the end of the decade the Republicans had become the majority party in the North In the South the Democrats continued to dominate During the presidency of Democrat James Buchanan 1857 1861 however Southern and Northern Democrats split over the issue of slavery The split was confirmed during their national convention of 1860 Abraham Lincoln the Republican candidate in the 1860 presidential election benefited from the Democrats in fighting He won despite having no support in the South His election would bring about the secession crisis and then the Civil War In the South Jefferson Davis a former Democratic senator from Mississippi was elected president of the newly formed Confederate States of America President Abraham Lincoln realizing the need to establish loyalty from his political opponents was quick to appoint Democrats to his cabinet Four members of his original seven-man cabinet were Democrats including Secretary of War Simon Cameron Treasury Secretary Salmon P Chase Navy Secretary Gideon Welles and Postmaster General Montgomery Blair When the war began Stephen Douglas supported the Union cause and President Lincoln JANUARY 19 GEORGIA Georgia votes to leave the Union JANUARY 26 LOUISIANA Louisiana becomes the sixth state to leave the Union FEBRUARY 4 ALABAMA Leaders from the South meet in the state capital Montgomery They choose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as their president and write a constitution for the Confederate States of America FEBRUARY 7 ALABAMA MISSISSIPPI The Choctaw Indian Nation forms an alliance with the South Other Indian tribes follow later FEBRUARY UNITED STATES The first moving picture system is patented February MARCH RUSSIA Czar Alexander II abolishes serfdom a form of slavery March
8 Politics of the War IN THE SOUTH In the Confederacy the government included both former Democrats and former Whigs Opposition parties did not exist in the South After the war the Democrats dominated politics in the South for the next hundred years A ribbon from the 1864 presidential campaign of Democrat George B McClellan Democrats in wartime The Northern Democratic Party remained divided The larger group was described as War Democrats They supported Lincoln’s efforts to keep the Union together by force and to win the war against secession Despite opposition from his own party Lincoln followed appointing Democrats to his cabinet by appointing more Democrats to the Union Army He commissioned Benjamin F Butler Nathaniel P Banks and John A McClernand as senior Union generals The smaller Democratic group in the North were called the Peace Democrats they were also known as Copperheads after a poisonous snake These Democrats opposed Lincoln and the war effort arguing that the Union should make peace with the Confederacy Prominent Copperheads included New York Governor Horatio Seymour and Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham Lincoln was tough on the Copperheads whom APRIL 12 SOUTH CAROLINA Confederates fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in the first shots of the Civil War APRIL 15 THE NORTH President Lincoln calls for 75,000 recruits across the North to fight the South APRIL 19 WASHINGTON D C President Lincoln declares a naval blockade of Southern states APRIL 19 BALTIMORE Mayor George Brown bans Union troops from the city after they are attacked by an angry pro-Confederate mob APRIL EGYPT A search party sets out from Cairo to find the explorers John Speke and James Grant who have gone missing while looking for the source of the Nile River 1861 june april war civil other events April
Democratic Party 9 he accused of helping the South Lincoln had Vallandigham arrested and tried in military court Found guilty of obstructing the war effort he was exiled to the Confederacy The 1864 election Although they were divided Lincoln still saw the Democrats as a threat As the presidential election of 1864 approached he worried that the Democrats might win and make peace with the South There was good reason for his fears In the 1862 Congressional elections the Democrats had shown they were again a force to be reckoned with They won 77 seats in the House of Representatives to the Republicans 103 In 1864 the Democrats chose as their presidential candidate George B McClellan a popular general who had been sacked by Lincoln To counter this Lincoln chose a War Democrat from the South Andrew Johnson of Tennessee as his vice presidential running mate In the event Lincoln was lucky Union armies won some key victories in the run-up to the November election and he was reelected by a landslide Here the Peace Democrats are shown as the deadly Copperhead snakes After the war the Democrats and the Republicans became the two major parties in a two-party system They remain the major parties today PEACE DEMOCRATS The Peace Democrats were given their Copperheads nickname by the New York Tribune newspaper which compared them to a poisonous snake By 1863 the name was commonly used The Copperheads criticized Lincoln’s policies such as conscription the arrest and imprisonment of political opponents and the Emancipation Proclamation which made any compromise with the Confederacy impossible Copperhead feeling was strongest in the border states especially where slavery continued Farmers feared their way of life would be ended by capitalists from the Northeast APRIL 23 VIRGINIA Major General Robert E Lee becomes commander of land and naval forces in Virginia APRIL 27 WASHINGTON D C Abraham Lincoln suspends habeus corpus a law that protects individuals from being arrested for little reason MAY 9 GREAT BRITAIN Britain announces it will remain neutral in the Civil War MAY 20 NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina is the last state to leave the Union JUNE 20 VIRGINIA West Virginia is unhappy at Virginia’s decision to leave the Union It breaks from the Confederacy and is admitted into the Union APRIL AUSTRALIA Robert Burke and William Wills who led the first expedition across Australia narrowly miss a rendezvous with their colleagues Burke and Wills will die in the Outback JUNE UNITED STATES Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe demonstrates his hot-air balloon for President Abraham Lincoln May June
