Changes

The Union and Confederacy launched the first seagoing [[ironclad]] warships during the course of the war.  With the possible exception of the [[Prussia]]ns and [[Great Britain|British]], it is unlikely that any country of comparable population and technology in the 1860s could have resisted the Union onslaught for as long as the Confederacy did{{fact}}.  Upon the Confederate defeat, General Lee on April 9, 1865 ruled out continuing to fight as [[insurgents]]; although it can be argued that this only delayed the inevitable failure of [[Reconstruction]]{{fact}}, it also made physical rebuilding possible in a way it would not be in the latter stages of civil wars in other countries in the [[20th century]].

The Union and Confederacy launched the first seagoing [[ironclad]] warships during the course of the war.  With the possible exception of the [[Prussia]]ns and [[Great Britain|British]], it is unlikely that any country of comparable population and technology in the 1860s could have resisted the Union onslaught for as long as the Confederacy did{{fact}}.  Upon the Confederate defeat, General Lee on April 9, 1865 ruled out continuing to fight as [[insurgents]]; although it can be argued that this only delayed the inevitable failure of [[Reconstruction]]{{fact}}, it also made physical rebuilding possible in a way it would not be in the latter stages of civil wars in other countries in the [[20th century]].

== Legacy - Political/Ideological ==

== Legacy ==

Given [[Article Five]] of the [[U. S. Constitution]], it would have been difficult to abolish slavery via Constitutional Amendment prior to the Civil War.  The [[Thirteenth Amendment]] was ratified by a 26-state [[Union]] containing only four slave states.

Slavery was abolished in the Confederacy by Lincoln's [[Emancipation Proclamation]], as enforced by the U.S. Army, and by the [[Thirteenth Amendment]], which became law in late 1865.  

After the war and subsequent reconstruction, [[Radical Republicans]] were forced in the [[Compromise of 1877]] to concede the failure of Reconstruction and withdraw the U. S. Army from the South, or at least from its mission of guaranteeing the rights of African-Americans.  In a process known as [[Redemption]], the rights of former slaves were crushed out of existence across the South by a system which came to be known as [[Jim Crow]].  

The seceding states all rescinded their ordinances of secession, and were admitted one-by-one back to the Union by the process of [[Reconstruction]].  Reconstruction began during the war and ended in 1877.  

The association of the [[Democratic Party]] with the South grew in strength after the Civil War. However, only with the election of [[Woodrow Wilson]] in 1912 was a Southerner able to return to the [[White House]]. Whenever Democrats held a majority of either house of [[Congress]], Southerners would immediately become the chairmen of all committees, giving that region a disproportionate influence on national politics.  Because of their [[Thomas Jefferson|Jeffersonian]] roots, Southern Democrats were a party of [[small government]] and lower [[taxes]] (radically cutting back spending on [[public schools]] among other things during [[Redemption]]), and were hostile to organized labor. Many of these qualities are considered [[Republican]] characteristics today, illustrating the shifting winds of national politics.

There was never an effort to revive the Confederacy, but nostalgia for the Lost Cause, and poisoned relations from the war and Reconstruction soured North-South relations until the 1890s. Some Southerners denied that slavery was the cause for their secession, but at the same time insisted on white supremacy.

[[American politics]] have been defined in part by the conflict between the [[Alexander Hamilton|Hamiltonian]] and Jeffersonian schools of the role of government, particularly the [[Federal government]].  The Confederacy can be seen as the [[last stand]] of the Jeffersonians, who favored a system in which state policy and sovereignty would trump that of the Federal government.  To this way of thinking, subsequent American politics have actually been a competition between more and less radical Hamiltonians. The Confederacy can also be seen as the [[last stand]] of an outdated economic system that rested on an immoral foundation ([[slavery]]), and its failure as evidence that the true spirit of the American Revolution was at last realized, and all men were recognized as [[Declaration of Independence | equal]].

After Reconstruction, the [[Redeemers]] (white Democrats) took full control and slowly removed the voting rights and some of the legal rights of the Freedmen, installing a system of segregation known as [[Jim Crow]].  The region became a [[Democratic Party]] stronghold for a century.

 

Economically the South was badly damaged and fell far behind the North in terms of prosperity; it 100 years to catch up.

== See also ==

== See also ==