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In the summer of 1861, the United States embarked on its first widespread use of paper money: the Demand Notes of 1861. Although their convertibility into gold ended at the end of that year, they remained acceptable for tariff payment at a par with gold coin while they were gradually replaced with paper money that did not share this provision, the Greenbacks. We present daily observations of exchange rates between the Notes, Greenbacks, and gold for the extended period during which they simultaneously circulated. These exchange rates substantiate our revisionist notion that the Notes were replaced because the tariff provision prevented them from generating sufficient seigniorage for wartime needs. ( JEL E42, N12, N22) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1862 and 1878, the view of the United States government towards the nation's money was transformed. Early in the Civil War, the government got into the bank note printing business out of necessity, printing and issuing the first-ever federal currency. Over the following years, debates raged whether the national currency should be printed privately or by the government's bank note printer, the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). Matters came to a head in 1878 when Congress debated the future of the BEP. That year, in a radical departure from the past, Congress gave the Bureau of Engraving and Printing a monopoly on the production of currency, forever changing the role of the government in the nation's economy. Money, be it in the form of coin or currency, was now the exclusive province of the government – not private banks or bank note companies. This change was the result of a rare consensus between Democrats and Republicans and between the forces of the antimonopoly tradition, Greenbackism, and hard money. For various reasons, they were unanimous in believing that the government, especially Congress, should be in control of those matters affecting the monetary affairs of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses printed ephemera produced during the U.S. Civil War for the consumption of women and children. Particular focus is given to the collection of ephemera belonging to 19th-century antiquarian John A. McAllister, housed at Pennsylvania's Library Company of Philadelphia. According to the author, materials such as stationery and paper toys and novelties reflected significant influences and changes in the lives of women and children during the Civil War. Topics discussed include the tension between women's public and domestic roles in the absence of men, increases in correspondence during the Civil War, and personal advertisements.

The article discusses the records of Union army contract surgeon Dr. S. Wier Mitchell of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to the article, Mitchell and his colleagues undertook groundbreaking studies during the U.S. Civil War in examining diseases and wounds on the nerves of Union army soldiers at temporary Philadelphia hospitals at Turner's Lane. The article states that Mitchell's colleagues were Dr. William W. Keen and Dr. George R. Morehouse. The article states that Mitchell published a study of peripheral nerve injuries in 1864 entitled "Gunshot Wounds and Other Injuries of Nerves." According to the article, Mitchell's records are housed at the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Focuses on the supposed necessity of the issue of legal tender notes during the U.S. civil war of 1861-1865. Views of member of Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. Samuel Hooper on the issue of legal tender notes; Passage of the Legal Tender Act in the U.S. Congress in February 1862; Arguments in favor of Legal Tender Act over the plan offered by the minority of the U.S. Ways and Means ommittee.

Starting a newspaper in the nineteenth century was a risky business, and this was especially true in the Civil War South where invading armies, spiraling inflation, and conscription laws were constant threats to physical facilities, financial success, and manpower Despite this, North Carolina Governor Zebulon B. Vance and the state's Conservative political party found the money and the will to establish a new daily to support the his re-election bid in 1864. Campaign papers were common in the 1800s, but while most shut down following an election, the Conservative continued to publish after Vance won. Records and archives document how it was financed, equipped, and staffed, providing an unprecedented glimpse into what it took to start a newspaper not only in the nineteenth century but during America's bloodiest war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologies of internment present unique challenges and benefits. Myriad aspects of human behaviour that stretch over temporal scales of generations and centuries at other archaeological sites are visible in ephemeral traces of short-term occupation at sites of internment such as prisoner of war (POW)camps; resistance, domination, the structure and scaffolds of authority, agency and identity are created, cast, and discarded into the soil. The paper examines some of these stories from the earth through military prisons of the American Civil War, and the ephemeral archaeology of selected case studies: Camp Lawton, Andersonville, and Johnson's Island. Themes explored are globalization and the intersection of the global at the local in prison camps, resistance, its forms, and function within POW camps; and how resistance intersecting with systems of structural violence within internment camps spurred the development of a masculinity in the 19th century during, and after the American Civil War, different from societal norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Roman Catholic newspapers and their alleged influence on the opinions of Catholics in Pennsylvania during the U.S. Civil War. The article focuses upon the weekly newspapers the "Catholic Herald and Visitor" and the "Catholic." The article argues that the newspapers are good sources for Civil War historians and provide perspective on the differences and similarities between Catholics and Protestants during the war, as well as among Northern Catholics alone. According to the author, both newspapers celebrated Union military victories and supported the administration of former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, but were ambivalent and sometimes hostile toward the idea of the emancipation of African American slaves and what is termed radical abolitionism.

Why fight secession? This paper is a case study on this question, asking why the North chose to fight the South in the American Civil War. It tests a theoretical prediction that economic motivations were important, using county-level presidential election data. If economic interests like manufacturing wished to keep the Union together, they should have generated votes to do so. That prediction is borne out by the data, and explanations other than Northern economic concerns about Southern secession appear unable to explain the results, suggesting that economic motivations were important to support for fighting the South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of the U.S. Civil War collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. According to the author, the society began approving plans to collect and preserve Civil War memorabilia shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 in conjunction with the Executive Committee of Gettysburg. The article states that the society also began collecting materials including photographs of battlefield plans and relics from the field at Gettysburg. Comments from Richard Eddy, the librarian of the society in 1865, are offered. The article also discusses various collections that are housed at the society including patriotic cartoons, poems, and personal diaries and journals reflecting social and political conditions in Pennsylvania during the war.

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Union General John C. Fremont excited considerable controversy during the Civil War, and not just due to his dubious military competence and early advocacy of emancipation. Many republican-influenced citizens suspected Fremont of the corrupt misuse of power, and undermining the essential moral basis of the republic. While ultimately his ineffectual generalship might have reassured Northerners that “the Pathfinder” was hardly likely to succeed in his suspected schemes, it is striking that even during the war for national survival, citizens remained deeply concerned with the possible threat of power (particularly in the hands of corrupt, designing men) to liberty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an exploration into the social-religious perspectives of northern U.S. civilians during the Civil War era on death. The article asserts that a religious understanding of death enabled northern Americans to handle the grief caused by the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War through focusing their attention on the hope of eternal reunion in the afterlife. Discussion is given contrasting several constructions on death, citing the non-religious fatalistic view in opposition to the religious faith in a sovereign God.

Fifty years after the Confederate assault on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg, the widow of the General after whom the assault is named, George Pickett, published letters purportedly written to her by her husband, many of them from the field of battle itself, during the four‐year‐long American Civil War. These letters fit into the ‘Lost Cause’ literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are, however, anachronisms and other factual problems in the published letters, and they have been questioned, at least in part, by writers and historians of the Civil War. Other historians believe them to be essentially genuine. This paper conducts a stylometric investigation of the Pickett Letters as a complement to traditional historical research. Our investigation strongly suggests that Pickett's widow, LaSalle Corbell Pickett, did compose the published letters. Eleven handwritten letters are, however, thought to be from George's hand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the ongoing culture war related to representations of the Confederacy and those who fought for white supremacy since the end of the Civil War. Throughout the United States, and particularly in the southern states, there are physical reminders of the Confederacy on public land that take many forms, including monuments and the names of schools. The author shares two in-depth examples of community response grappling with this history and suggests Critical Race Theory as a lens through which to unpack the political nature of the built environment. Through studying the work of contemporary artists who challenge symbols of the Confederacy, students can engage in ongoing dialogues with regional and national implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the genres of visual communication in mass media during the American Civil War. Emergence of pictorial representation as a regular part of journalism; Portraiture in the illustrated press; Depictions of fighting and the importance of antietam.

The article focuses on how the United States (U.S.) Civil War impacted the women's suffrage movement. The author discusses how suffrage rights often expand during times of war, compares the fight for suffrage for both Blacks and women, and analyzes how Back women worked to obtain southern support for suffrage.

The article describes how the Earl Gregg Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) chose to use open source technology Archon for its online collections, including digitizing their archives of university materials, the Warren E. Burger Collection, and manuscripts. The author describes digitizing the library's American Civil War collection, including letters from slaves, diaries and ledgers from plantations and soldiers, and records from churches and private societies.

The article discusses the 1863 marriage of circus performers General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, focusing on how the wedding helped negotiate white supremacy and political division in the Northern U.S. during the Civil War. Other topics include the linking of the Tom Thumb wedding with the Emancipation Proclamation by newspapers, information on Thumb and Warren's performances in freak shows, and how Thumb and Warren's small bodies reflect the bodies of those killed and maimed in battle.

The transition from slavery to freedom in the post-Civil War American South featured the efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau (FB) to help ex-slaves overcome an extremely hostile, racist environment that included the need to articulate new labor relations structures given the demise of the plantation system, to overcome the limitations on equality legislated by the infamous Black Codes, to address the pressing need to educate masses of highly illiterate black children, and the need to provide protection for freedmen from unscrupulous landowners. This paper seeks to measure the degree to which accounting and those performing accounting functions for the FB were able to ameliorate these dire conditions that have caused Reconstruction to be perceived as one of the most negative epochs in the history of American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Identifying groups at increased risk for political violence can support prevention efforts. We determine whether "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) Republicans, as defined, are potentially such a group. Methods: Nationwide survey conducted May 13-June 2, 2022 of adult members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. MAGA Republicans are defined as Republicans who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and deny the results of that election. Principal outcomes are weighted proportions of respondents who endorse political violence, are willing to engage in it, and consider it likely to occur. Findings: The analytic sample (n = 7,255) included 1,128 (15.0%) MAGA Republicans, 640 (8.3%) strong Republicans, 1,571 (21.3%) other Republicans, and 3,916 (55.3%) non-Republicans. MAGA Republicans were substantially more likely than others to agree strongly/very strongly that "in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States" (MAGA Republicans, 30.3%, 95% CI 27.2%, 33.4%; strong Republicans, 7.5%, 95% CI 5.1%, 9.9%; other Republicans, 10.8%, 95% CI 9.0%, 12.6%; non-Republicans, 11.2%, 95% CI 10.0%, 12.3%; p < 0.001) and to consider violence usually/always justified to advance at least 1 of 17 specific political objectives (MAGA Republicans, 58.2%, 95% CI 55.0%, 61.4%; strong Republicans, 38.3%, 95% CI 34.2%, 42.4%; other Republicans, 31.5%, 95% CI 28.9%, 34.0%; non-Republicans, 25.1%, 95% CI 23.6%, 26.7%; p < 0.001). They were not more willing to engage personally in political violence. Interpretation: MAGA Republicans, as defined, are more likely than others to endorse political violence. They are not more willing to engage in such violence themselves; their endorsement may increase the risk that it will occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses the 1863 United States Supreme Court case "Roosevelt v. Meyer," with a particular focus on the judicial modesty of the case's judgment during the U.S. Civil War. An overview of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision regarding to refrain from a judicial review of a state court's decision upholding the 1862 U.S. Legal Tender Act is provided. The role that U.S. Secretary of Treasuring Salmon P. Chase played in the development of the Legal Tender Act is discussed.

During the first months of the American Civil War, an important political debate played out in the U.S. Congress over how to restructure the nations system of public finance and taxation. The fiscal crisis occasioned by the military conflict forced Republican leaders (who dominated our national political institutions) to adopt drastic and controversial measures including the expansion of public borrowing, the issuance of a national paper currency (so-called Greenbacks), and the adoption of a national income tax. To be sure, there was widespread resistance within the Republican Party to all of these proposals -- most particularly, the income tax. Unsurprisingly, conservative Republicans from the Northeast adamantly opposed the impost. Despite this opposition, a majority of Republicans eventually acquiesced to this "odious" tax based on the need to fund the Union war effort. A number of key Republican leaders in Congress preferred this impost over the alternatives (in particular, a national land tax), casting their arguments in favor of the income tax in terms of "equity," "justice," and "fairness." Based on their support, Congress approved a national income tax, signed into law by President Lincoln on August 5, 1861. While the war effort was largely funded by public borrowing and increases to tariff rates, the income tax made a modest contribution to financing the Northern military campaign and emerged as an important component in the reconstituted wartime fiscal system. Although the impost was allowed to expire soon after the resolution of the military conflict, the Civil War income tax served as the model for the modern income tax enacted by Congress more than 40 years later. Likewise, in the debate over our nation's first income tax, we hear the first articulations of arguments resurrected during the debate over the income tax of 1913 as well as in contemporary political discourse over federal tax policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional jurisdiction (states, provinces, counties, etc.) is a crucial part of the governance of a country, and thus one would assume that great care is given to developing an optimal set of jurisdictional boundaries. However, the geometric simplicity of the boundaries of the western United States seems to defy the logic of the region’s human and physical geography, suggesting that other forces have played a role in the production of political space in the West at pivotal times in its history. In particular, the 36th Congress (1859-61) changed the map of the West considerably just before the beginning of the Civil War, when the politics of slavery were at their height. Congressional bills, debates, and votes show that slavery did have a strong influence on the creation of new states and territories, but western geography was also very important. In particular, bills were generally introduced to the 36th Congress at the request of settlers, with boundaries that were motivated by geographic or regional factors. Conversely, votes on those bills tended to fall along the sharp party and sectional divisions that were driving the country apart. This paper analyzes the process of boundary making by governments through a consideration of the complex combination of geopolitical and regional forces that result in a final decision. The study period of the 36th Congress included the creation of three new territories and a new state, as well as myriad intriguing but unsuccessful proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses the legacy of the U.S. Civil War from the point of view of the former Confederates and the way they presented it in the pages of the magazine "Confederate Veteran" from 1893 to 1932. Topics include the term "Lost Cause," the magazine's vision of the truth, and its interpretations in textbooks aiming to protect the upper class of the South. The Southern Historical Society Papers that documented veterans' and eyewitnesses' memories are discussed.

The 1850s in the United States were a time of intense social and political division. The sectional crisis between the free labour economy of the Northern states' and the Southern states' entrenched social system of slavery were igniting tensions across the Nation. In the midst of this turmoil, a Northern political party standing on a platform of anti-slavery emerged in 1854. This new Republican Party would in the space of six years go from being a regional party in places like Illinois to claiming the Presidential office under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. How did the Republicans gain so much public support in the Northern states in so short a time? One technique was the use of rhetorical language through which Republicans espoused their interpretation of the true meaning of America's history since the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence. With the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, it is a good time to reinvestigate how Republican leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Charles Sumner were able to convey their Party's message and persuade the vast population of the North to favour an anti-slavery stance. In particular, this paper discusses just how these prominent Republicans interpreted America's history and used it as a weapon to justify calls for containing slavery within the Southern states where it existed at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the case of interest bearing notes in the Confederate States of America which were not legal tender, but which were said to circulate. Like other known episodes, the Confederate experiment does not support the legal restrictions theory of the demand for money. There is no evidence that these instruments circulated readily, and some evidence that their limited circulation fell short of that of competing non interest-bearing notes -- characteristics inconsistent with legal restrictions theory. The episode displays other characteristics inconsistent with or not encompassed by the major competing explanations of why interest-bearing notes do not circulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic Church in the United States remained politically neutral about slavery and abolition in the decades before the Civil War, partly because of the influence of John England, bishop of the diocese of Charleston. In a much publicized defense of slavery, England argued that slavery was a political issue, not a moral one. Clergy and laity, however, wrote repeatedly to Rome and criticized their leaders for neglecting to promote a ministry to free and enslaved African Americans. Roman authorities, particularly those of Propaganda Fide, were reluctant to take a stand on this important issue until near the end of the Civil War. This paper explains why John England defended slavery and why Propaganda did not issue guidance on one of the greatest moral dilemmas in American history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces arguments from Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic¹ to suggest that the Civil War arose ultimately because of class-conflict between on the one hand, Southern slaves and their masters and, on the other, Northern workers and their employers. It does not, however, suggest that either in the North or the South these conflicts were on the point of erupting into revolution. On the contrary, they were relatively easily containable. However, harmony within each section (North and South) could be secured only at the cost of intersectional conflict, conflict which would finally erupt into civil war. The Civil War was a 'bourgeois revolution' not only because it destroyed slavery, an essentially precapitalist system of production, in the United States but also because it resulted in the enthronement of Northern values, with the normalisation of wage-labour at their core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the political and judicial career of former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. It discusses Chase's appointment as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury by former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln following Lincoln's 1861 election. The author discusses Chase's tenure at the Department of the Treasury and states that Lincoln appointed Chase to the Supreme Court on December 6, 1864. The article analyzes Chase's difficulties with his Supreme Court colleagues.

This paper examines the medical histories of a sample of 25,000 Union Army soldiers and veterans to study the determinants of diagnosis, discharge, and mortality from tuberculosis. We find that water and airborne diseases during the war contributed significantly to the presence of tuberculosis. Height and a higher body mass index (BMI) are also associated with protection against TB but these effects are not always robust. As an upper bound, we estimate that the contribution of modern gains in height and in BMI to the mortality decline of tuberculosis ranges from one-fourth to one-half with the rest explained by the decline in the prevalence of water and airborne diseases, especially diarrhea, dysentery, and typhoid played. The paper finds weaker support for alternative hypotheses that rely on occupational influences and exogenous changes in the virulence of tuberculosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of the paper demonstrates the connection between the abolition of slavery and the Industrial Revolution: steam power changed the perception of labour; new techniques facilitated diffusion of pro-abolition pamphlets; fewer threats to basic existence resulting from industrial advances fostered sensibilities and moral standards toward abolitionism; and, through industrial development, the North grasped victory in the American Civil War. The second part presents similarities between societies in the past that have used slave labour and those in the present that use fossil fuels. It argues that slaves and fossil-fuelled machines play(ed) similar economic and social roles: both slave societies and developed countries externalise(d) labour and both slaves and modern machines free(d) their owners from daily chores. Consequently, we are as dependent on fossil fuels as slave societies were dependent on bonded labour. It also suggests that, in differing ways, suffering resulting (directly) from slavery and (indirectly) from the excessive burning of fossil fuels are now morally comparable. When we emit carbon dioxide at a rate that exceeds what the ecosystem can absorb, when we deplete non-renewable resources, we indirectly cause suffering to other human beings. Similarly, cheap oil facilitates imports of goods from countries with little social protection and hence help externalise oppression. The conclusion draws on the lessons which may be learned by Climate Change campaigners from the campaigns to abolish slavery: environmental apathy can be opposed effectively if we learn from what worked in the fight against this inhuman institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]