Abraham Lincoln And The Second American Revolution Analysis

In Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, James McPherson discusses not only the many changes wrought upon the United States because of the Civil War, but also the ways in which President Abraham Lincoln was instrumental in the carrying out of these changes. When Lincoln gave his inaugural address, he spoke only of the Union, but by the time he gave his infamous Gettysburg address, he spoke only of a united nation (McPherson, viii). A nation he united through “revolution”—a complete “overthrow of the existing social and political order by internal violence” (McPherson, 16). The Civil War was revolutionary in that it led to “the liberation of four million slaves”, and that it was a triumph of “industrialism over agriculture”, and “the bourgeoisie over the plantation gentry” (McPherson, 6, 9). The Civil War freed the slaves, thus leading to a drastic shift in the social structure of America. No longer could an African American legally be considered property—after the war, African Americans were free to move about as they pleased, and males could vote. In fact, by the year 1868, “blacks were a majority of registered voters in several ex-Confederate states” (McPherson, 19). In addition, the freeing of the slaves led …show more content…
Yet, it was the later 14th and 15th amendments that could be considered a “constitutional revolution”. These amendments “transferred the primary definition and enforcement of citizenship rights from the states to the national government” (McPherson, 141). Unfortunately, many counterrevolutionary Supreme Court decisions were made in the 1870s, such as the New Orleans butchers indictment, that revived the concept of “negative liberty” that Lincoln had worked so hard to change (McPherson,