THE LEGACY OF THE Civil WAR

In what ways do you think the Civil War impacted American

society, economics, and politics?

Long-term Causes• Conflict over slavery

• Economic Differences• Conflict over states’

rights

Short-term Causes• Election of Lincoln

• Secession of Southern states

• Firing on Ft. Sumter

Immediate Effects • Abolition of slavery

• Widening gap between N and S economies

• Physical devastation to the South

• Reunification of the country

Short-term Effects• Reconstruction of the

South• Industrial Boom

• Increased federal authority

POLITICAL CHANGES

• Power of federal gov’t is supreme— states don’t have the right to secede

• Extension of Federal Power— more involved in daily lives of Americans– Income taxes first used— eventually 16th amendment

wrote into law– Citizens drafted into service— conscription– Civil liberties suppressed— habeas corpus

suspended

ECONOMIC CHANGES

• Northern Industry grows due to manufacturing and selling war supplies

• Southern economy is destroyed —source of labor gone, physically devastated, war debt, before war owned 30% of nation’s wealth, after war only 12%

• National Bank Act of 1863: new and safer banking system

Costs of War

• Civil War affected nearly every family

• Deaths: Union = 360,000 CSA = 260,000

• ½ million are wounded—maimed veterans become a common sight throughout the country

• Money—roughly 3.3 billion spent (5 times the amount spent in 80 years)

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Lives Change

• 13th amendment: banned slavery everywhere “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” 13th Amendment to the Constitution

• Soldiers return: what now? • Urban population grows• Many begin moving west• Families are destroyed by losses in their families • “I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your

bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom” President Lincoln