The Beginning Of The Civil War - 1289 Words

Juan Moreno U.S. History 102 Mr. Anderson Period 6 February 4, 2015 Blight Revised At the beginning of the Civil War the reasoning was nothing but clear. It can’t be ignored that the Civil War was in fact about slavery and that slavery was an issue â€Å"resolved† by the Civil War. Yes the war was initially about race and how the country â€Å"needed† to free slaves, David W. Blight states it, â€Å"The emancipationist vision, embodied in African Americans’ complex remembrance of their own freedom, their politics of radical Reconstruction, and in conceptions of the war as the reinvention of the republic and the liberation of blacks to citizenship and Constitutional equality† (Blight, 2). The writer of this book, Race and Reunion, saw that the war†¦show more content†¦The sentimental part of the changing was because of all the lives lost in the war. Everyone could relate and relay with that specific kind of pain. No matter if you were a Confederate or stayed with the Union, you lost someone in the war so the sentimental is sue was easy for everyone to stand behind, and it worked. It is evident in the class textbook that the sentimental reasoning worked, â€Å"Republicans whipped up enthusiasm for Grant by energetically â€Å"waving the bloody shirt†Ã¢â‚¬â€that is, reviving gory memories of the Civil War—which became for the first time a prominent feature of a presidential campaign† (Bailey, 503). Even though in this instance the Republicans are benefiting from the death of Americans, it was easier to get people to rally behind this issue than it was to get them to rally behind the issue of slavery. Thus, the change in the meaning of the war, it was easier for everyone to connect to the loss of their loved ones that it was for them to connect to the issues of slavery. It made it even harder because half of the country still believed that slavery was â€Å"okay† and â€Å"necessary† to their way of life. These ideals made it even harder for the U.S. government to ta ke real action towards the issue of slavery. This is can be seen in The American Pageant, â€Å"Despite good intentions by Republicans, the Old South was in many ways more