Abraham Lincoln

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Third Year in Office

After Fredericksburg, Lincoln replaced Burnside with Major General Joseph Hooker, who was promptly defeated at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia. The soldiers fought bravely, but once again their generals failed them. Now Lee turned his army north to invade Pennsylvania. Lincoln replaced Hooker with Major General George G. Meade.

The two armies met at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania during the first days of July 1863. Meade chose to stay on the defensive, and for three days his Army of the Potomac repulsed Lee's assaults. On July 5, Lee retreated. His army had been beaten badly. Meade's troops had also suffered heavy casualties, and he let Lee get away. On the day Lee withdrew, Lincoln received word that General Grant had captured Vicksburg, Mississippi, the key Confederate fort on the Mississippi River (see Vicksburg, Campaign of). In November, Grant won a resounding victory at the Battle of Chattanooga, in Tennessee. Here at last was a general who would fight.

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The Draft

In 1862 the Confederacy issued a draft (conscription) call for all men between the ages of 18 and 45. In March 1863 the North passed a conscription act of its own. By its terms all men between the ages of 20 and 45 were liable to military service. However, any man who was called for the draft could avoid it by hiring a substitute or paying $300 to the government.

Prior to the draft the Union depended on the states to fill assigned quotas with volunteers. By offering sizable bounties, this system had worked well. Because of the bounty and a desire “to see this thing through,” many volunteers reenlisted for the duration of the war. These veterans formed the nucleus of the Union Army. Out of an army of 1.8 million, only 46,347 were draftees. Another 73,607 were substitutes for men who had been called for the draft. This was only 6 percent of the Union forces. In the South, the draft system provided 20 percent of the forces: 120,000 draftees and 70,000 substitutes.

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Many groups rightfully denounced the conscription act as a rich man's law. Indeed, many wealthy men were able to bribe poorer men to take their place in the army. Violent opposition from workingmen and immigrants flared in many places. Draft riots broke out for five days in New York City, and troops returning from Gettysburg had to be called in to quell the disturbance. Although Lincoln was upset by these riots, he dared not suspend the draft.

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Reconstruction

Lincoln gave frequent consideration to the problem of reconstructing the governments of the rebel states and restoring them to their rightful place in the Union. Whenever Union armies gained control in a rebellious area, he encouraged the local people to form a government loyal to the Union. On December 8, 1863, Lincoln offered his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction to the Southern people. This pronouncement is often called Lincoln's 10 percent plan of Reconstruction after one of its provisions.

In this document, Lincoln offered a full pardon, or amnesty, to any Southerner, with the exception of certain leaders, who would take an oath to support “the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder.” Furthermore, those who took the oath in each state could vote to form a new state government. Lincoln promised to recognize the new government if two conditions were met: the new government accepted the elimination of slavery as required by the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863; and the number of those voting for the new government was at least 10 percent of those who had voted in the 1860 presidential election.

Lincoln was convinced that Reconstruction, or restoration, as he preferred to call it, was for the president to carry out. Congressional leaders thought otherwise. The Jacobins had a plan of reconstruction all their own, expressed in the Wade-Davis bill of July 1864. It was designed to punish the South for past transgressions and to make it subservient to the Republican Party of the North. The bill limited voting on new state constitutions to those who had never joined the rebel cause, required a loyalty oath by the majority of a state's citizens, and permanently deprived former rebel leaders of the right to vote. Lincoln killed the bill by using his pocket veto, and as long as he lived this plan made little headway.

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Financing the War

The Union was faced with the problem of raising huge sums of money to fight the war. New federal taxes were levied on legal documents, inheritances, and personal income, and the tariff was raised. The federal government also began printing paper money, which people called greenbacks because of the color of the ink. By 1863, $450 million worth of greenbacks were in use. The greenbacks' value was based only on the government's declaration of value. By contrast, the national bank notes that were also in circulation could be exchanged for their face value in gold. The value of a greenback varied and was usually lower than that of gold. At one point, $1.00 in gold was worth $2.85 in greenbacks. The increase in the money supply also caused prices to rise.

Bonds were another way to raise money. In February 1863, Lincoln signed the National Banking Act to make it easier to sell government bonds. The act also provided for a system of federally chartered, privately owned national banks that could issue notes (the national bank notes) backed by government bonds. The credit extended by the national banks increased the money supply while the conditions imposed by their charters created a safe, uniform national currency. Each bank was required by its charter to maintain adequate cash reserves, redeem notes issued by any other national bank, and stay within credit limits set by a federal official, the comptroller of the currency.

As revised the next year, this act was the basis of the American banking system until the Federal Reserve System began in 1913. It ended the era when state-chartered banks issued their own currency, which had been the system since President Andrew Jackson closed the government's central bank, the Second Bank of the United States, in 1836. However, instead of returning to a central bank, the nation now had private banks that were centrally regulated from Washington.

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Gettysburg Address

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln was called upon to deliver a “few appropriate remarks” at the ceremony dedicating a military cemetery at the Gettysburg battle site. The distinguished orator Edward Everett made the main address. It lasted two hours. Then Lincoln spoke. Although his speech was brief, it was a masterpiece. In it he rededicated the war effort to the principles of democracy. (For the text of this great speech, see Gettysburg Address).

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