Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In many respects the American Civil War was the largest – and most successful – slave rebellion in the United States. Through African Americans' actions, the Civil War proved successful for the Union, leading to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects all citizens from enslavement. The number of fugitive slaves played a pivotal role in the Civil War's success. As early as Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, many slaves thought the fact that the Republican had been elected president meant that slavery had come to an end. To celebrate Lincoln's inauguration, for example, 17 slaves in Petersburg, Virginia declared their freedom and left their owner's plantation. The number of runaway slaves increased dramatically with the onset of the Civil War. Runaway slaves usually fled to the Union army camps. Slave owners wanted their slaves returned to them; one owner from a seceding state ironically invoked the federal Fugitive Slave Law to claim his “property.” And the Union troops did not have the infrastructure or supplies to support the large number of refugees. Still, Union officers recognized returning fugitive slaves would only strengthen the Confederacy because slave labor undergirded the Southern economy and allowed whites to focus on the rebellion. The 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court case had ruled that slaves were property, not people. So ... log in or subscribe to read full text