Klein Prize Waldo G. Marraro Prize George L. Mosse Prize John E. Palmegiano Prize James A. Schmitt Grant J. Beveridge Award Recipients Albert J. Corey Prize Recipients Raymond J. Cunningham Prize Recipients John H. Fagg Prize Recipients John K. Franklin Jameson Award Recipients J. Marraro Prize Recipients George L.
Palmegiano Prize Recipients James A. Daily Chicago Times , May 6, Much speculation has been indulged in as to the probable course of the Border States in the present struggle. And it was a region that sought a unique middle position in wartime, slave-holding states remaining with the free states of the Union.
Yet, any hope that this pursuit of the middle ground would bring peace to border state residents was quickly dashed in wartime. Angry confrontations, including some of the most violent guerrilla warfare in American history, became an everyday fact of life in this region, as the two sides lived side-by-side and confronted one another on a daily basis. The border states were both compromising in peacetime and antagonistic in war, two seemingly contradictory positions that in fact sprung from the same source: each state encompassed deep and enduring internal divisions.
The border region had long been the place where Americans' divergent interests coincided, where slavery and abolitionism, industry and agriculture, Democrats and Republicans all existed side-by-side. It was the crossroads of Americans' travel too, as Northerners moved south to obtain land or to vacation, Southerners went north for education or employment, and Easterners moved west to seek new land.
The different cultures, economies, and politics of the nation coexisted in this region, making it difficult, as sectional conflict threatened the nation, to pull these states neatly toward one side or the other. Residents felt deeply the nation's struggle over the future of slavery. On the one hand the border states held fewer slaves - only 11 percent of the nation's total slave population in -- than states further south. Yet the number of slaveholders was not insignificant either, as Kentucky had more slave owners than Mississippi and ranked third behind Virginia and Georgia by this measure.
Public opinion surrounding slavery shared much of the intensity of the national struggle too, as abolitionists made deep inroads in the border states before the war, by setting up new organizations and newspapers, while proslavery vigilantes tried to stop them with mob violence.
Border State politicians saw among their constituents nothing less than the divided nation on a smaller scale. Holding this internally divided population together was a problem that intensified with the secession crisis and pushed border state leaders into a particular form of compromise: neutrality.
While the four other slaveholding states that had been similarly reluctant to secede - Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina -- eventually did so by the end of April , the remaining border states initially sought to take no side at all the exception was Delaware, where Union loyalties were never in doubt. But this proved difficult to sustain. Residents found it hard to be neutral in their daily lives, especially men of military age who began leaving the states in order to enlist elsewhere.
These states were also located geographically in too central a place to stay apart from the conflict, as both the Union and Confederacy recognized the strategic value of the region. Maryland surrounded Washington, D. Kentucky possessed the Ohio River, a well-traveled route for western troops, as well as railways into the South, while St. Louis was the home to one of the nation's largest arsenals. The Border States possessed human and material resources that could help either side, and with the opening shots of the war, both set out to win them over.
The earliest challenge to the border states' neutrality took place in Maryland on April 19, Select Ship To Address. Changing the selections above may affect product pricing and availability, including items currently in your cart.
Set as default. I want to update or add a Visit our Help Center or Contact Us. Wire and Cable Management Save time, money and work more efficiently with wire and cable management services from Border States. Learn More. Who We Serve. Top Categories. Select Options. Test Your Vocabulary. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge! Need even more definitions? Just between us: it's complicated.
Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'?
0コメント