
Abe Lincoln Looks West: How the Civil War Changed the Frontier - samclemens
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/abe-lincoln-looks-west
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OldHand2018
Even before the war, Lincoln played a role in the settlement of the west.
Southern interests wanted access to the west to be through the south,
guaranteeing that slave-owners would be more numerous.

Northern railroad interests decided to build a railroad bridge across the
Mississippi River from Illinois to Iowa at Rock Island. Jefferson Davis, as
Secretary of War, tried to stop it by claiming that Rock Island was an Army
installation. He issued an order saying that the bridge could not be built,
but it was ignored. He sent US Marshals to stop construction, but they didn't.
He sued, but lost.

Two weeks after the bridge opened, a riverboat crashed into it and burned it
down. The riverboat owners (which supposedly included Davis) sued to prevent a
replacement bridge; the railroad hired Lincoln to defend them, which he
successfully did all the way to the Supreme Court. Newspaper coverage of
Lincoln in court made him well-known to northern Republicans.

Southern riverboats going up and down the river couldn't keep up with the
northern trains bringing settlers.

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mattrp
It’s important to understand the importance the homesteading act played in the
civil war. It was signed into law on the same day as the emancipation
proclamation and together represented Lincoln’s resolve to preserve the west
as a place of freedom and opportunity. Signing the act essentially removed any
hope of southern control of the west because it recognized the property rights
of squatters in the west and gave them title belonging to the Union rather
than the confederacy. It also galvanized numerous factions in the North to
support the idea of total victory when they might have otherwise agreed to a
compromise. The economist Hernando de Soto points to the homestead act in his
book the mystery of capital as one of the defining ways in which the west,
formalized capital and built massive wealth by recognizing the property rights
of participants in the informal economy.

~~~
wrakrap
> represented Lincoln’s resolve to preserve the west as a place of freedom and
> opportunity

I don't see how stealing native land and exterminating native americans can be
equated with "freedom and opportunity". But I guess the victors write the
history.

> Signing the act essentially removed any hope of southern control of the west

South never had any hope of controlling the west. It was a demographic
impossibility. There were nearly 20 million white northerners and 5 million
southern whites. It was why they ultimately seceded.

> It also galvanized numerous factions in the North to support the idea of
> total victory when they might have otherwise agreed to a compromise.

The civil war ultimately ended in a compromise. The north did everything they
could to make the south feel welcomed back to the union. And those who fought
against the north were welcomed back to the military and together, the north
and the south, waged extermination wars against the natives in the west.
Nothing like a common enemy to bring a divided nation back together.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> South never had any hope of controlling the west. It was a demographic
> impossibility. There were nearly 20 million white northerners and 5 million
> southern whites.

That's not really how controlling territory works. The Manchus established
control of around 100,000,000 Chinese when there were less than 300,000 of
them. By that ratio, the south would have had no trouble controlling the north
with a population of just 50,000 -- 5 million is absurd overkill.

(Is there more to it than a ratio of rulers to ruled? Yes, of course, that's
the point.)

~~~
mattrp
Exactly- southern plantation owners envisioned massive tracts of land sold to
plantation owners who would extend slavery to the west.

