Attorney Nolan offers a different view of General Lee and his accomplishments and undoing’s on the battlefield. I believe it was clear from the start that the South did not have the manpower or the resources to make the battle equally weighted on both sides. General Lee believed he could win the battle if they could pursue a strategic offensive against the North. However it became clear to him that the “superior numbers of the enemy” was a big concern. If he was a great leader why fight a battle you know you can’t win and lose so many lives, especially since Lee knew he would be eventually defeated.
The war was triggered by the victory of Abraham Lincoln in the elections of 1860. FACTORS THAT MADE THE CIVIL WAR IRREPRESSIBLE In these elections. The Republican Party led by Lincoln won, beating three other candidates. The southerners did not vote for him so his victory was seen as a northern affair. His speech, given in 1858, stated that, a divided house cannot stand and visualized that America can not endure a “half-slave and half-free.” This clearly showed that he was a moderate and was therefore not up to task, in the views of the southerners, to be able to tackle the abolitionist they perceived as a threat.
The following essay will discuss these issues in detail plus other factors such as the leaderships on both sides and the aid of foreign support. The leadership of both parties is an important factor to consider why the civil war turned out the way it did. Many historians argue that Abraham Lincoln was a far better leader than his opposite counterpart Jefferson Davis. The Vice president of the Confederate, Alexander Stephens, had described Jefferson as being ‘weak, timid, petulant, peerish and obstinate’[1]. He also blamed Davis for ‘all that went wrong’ [2]during the war.
The North with all the industrial business had a total different way of life and can see how they totally disagreed with the way slaves were being used and treated. As said in political objective section Lincoln wanted a military victory prior to announcing the emancipation proclamation because he knew it would cause many more problems. Lincoln’s impatience and no military experience did render him from making better decisions which could have ended the war earlier and with less deaths and injuries. With the north controlling most of the railroads and weapons they had a huge advantage over the south, if he could have been a little more patient and trained his men properly could also have ended this much earlier. With the number of personnel the rebels had vs union was little to none, they held off the north by smart tactics of well-trained officers.
How important was the issue of slavery in causing the American Civil war? Due to slavery America was divided into two halves, the North and the South, both had very different and in some cases radical views. Firstly the more industrialised North generally was through and through against slavery as many felt it was immoral but also realised that if you paid your workforce you would increase your means of production and efficiency which helped them become more industrialised. However the south was reluctant to give up their slaves and felt that they were doing the slaves a favour in keeping them, housing them and feeding them. They were like children and would not survive by themselves.
Given the circumstances, I would say unfortunately, yes, this war was inevitable given the circumstances under which it came. The three main causes, infringement on civil liberties, infringement on states' rights, and the collapse of the two-party system, made the conflict between North and South almost impossible to resolve. When Abraham Lincoln was elected into presidency, it was implied in his inauguration speech that he was one who would abide more by Northern interests. First North Carolina, then other Southerners responded by doing what they had the *right* to do if they felt the government had become too oppressive: they filed a declaration of secession from the Union. Unfortunately, Lincoln called this secession a Rebellion instead of what it was.
Often lost is the fact that a majority of white southerners steadfastly supported their nascent republic, and that confederate arms more than once almost persuaded the North that the price of subduing the rebellious states would be too high.”[iv] The idea that Southern cause faced inevitable defeat is full of assumptions, while we may never know if they truly could have won their battle for secession. To assume that the South could not win the war, and their loss to the North was inevitable would have been a display of gross arrogance by Southern military and political leaders, which for the most part had not been apparent before or after the war. Shelby Foote during the Ken Burns documentary said regarding the possibility of Southern success, “…the North fought the War with one hand behind its back… (If necessary) the North would have
While there was no absolute even ground in the fairness of taxation in the rebellious states, Northerners realized their faults in tax legislation, thus developing a more lenient system capable of allowing the southern economy to strengthen and flourish. Until the Civil War in 1861, the United States federal government was financed by tariffs. There were continuing complaints from the rural states that the tariffs were helping protect the industries of the Northeast. Tariffs were reduced in 1846 and again in 1857, but raised once more in 1860. The solution to tariffs was obviously unconstitutional federal taxation of personal incomes, corporate income and inheritances; in addition to excises on manufactures, alcohol and tobacco, and creation of the Internal Revenue Service to commence collections in 1863 .
Many troops were not committed to their duty in Vietnam and did not always see why they were actually putting their lives on the line. Not only were the VC more committed to the war, they were also greatly underestimated by the US and were not expected to have the advanced tunnel systems and weaponry they used. In summary, Americans simply believed their enemies were technologically inferior peasants, when in reality the VC were well aware of Vietnamese terrain, quick to improvise and extremely dedicated to their cause. Before Ia Drang the US had already commenced Operation Rolling Thunder, the strategic bombing of North Vietnam. Despite
On the other hand, the left might have wanted more control at the centre and more equality throughout France, but not the rural based leveling of Babeuf. In other words, there seemed to be no grey area, and no scope of reaching a compromise between any interest group to make the constitution work. Furthermore, the Electorate had a part to play as well due to its mounting cautiousness regarding the regime of the Directory. The electorate was ignored, despite the holding of annual elections. Them being left unheard and ignored contributed to the failure of the Directory because they did not recognise and acknowledge the voice of an important Republican body, the electorate.