Page 384 - American Stories, A History of the United States

The impact of the war on white working people was also unclear. Those in the
industrializing parts of the North had suffered and lost ground economically because 15.1
prices had risen faster than wages during the conflict. But Republican rhetoric stressing
“equal opportunity” and the “dignity of labor” raised hopes that the crusade against
slavery could be broadened into a movement to improve the lot of working people in 15.2
general. Foreign-born workers had additional reason to be optimistic; that so many
immigrants had fought and died for the Union cause had—for the moment—weakened
nativist sentiment and encouraged tolerance. 15.3
What the war definitely decided was that the federal government was supreme over
the states and had broad constitutional authority to act for “the general welfare.” The
southern principle of state sovereignty and strict construction died at Appomattox. 15.4
The United States was becoming a true nation-state with an effective central govern-
ment. States still had primary responsibility for most government functions, and the
Constitution limited what the national government could do; questions would con-
tinue to arise about where federal authority ended and states’ rights began. Still, the war
had determined where ultimate authority rested.
A broadened definition of federal powers had its greatest impact in economic
policy. During the war, the Republican-dominated Congresses passed legislation to
stimulate and direct the nation’s economic development. Taking advantage of the
absence of southern opposition, Republicans rejected the pre–Civil War tradition
of virtual laissez-faire and enacted a Whiggish program of active support for busi-
ness and agriculture. In 1862, Congress passed a high protective tariff, approved a
homestead act to encourage settlement of the West by providing free land to settlers,
granted huge tracts of public land to railroads to support building a transcontinental
railroad, and gave the states land for agricultural colleges. In 1863, Congress set up
a national banking system that required member banks to keep adequate reserves
and invest one-third of their capital in government securities. The notes the national
banks issued became the country’s first standardized and reliable circulating paper
currency.
These wartime achievements decisively shifted the relationship between the
federal government and private enterprise. The Republicans changed a limited
government that sought to do little more than protect the marketplace from the
threat of monopoly into an activist state that promoted and subsidized the ambitious
and industrious.

Conclusion: An Organizational Revolution
The most pervasive effect of the war on northern society was to encourage an “orga-
nizational revolution.” Aided by government policies, venturesome businessmen took
advantage of the new national market military procurement created to build larger
firms that could operate across state lines; some of the huge corporate enterprises of the
postwar era began to take shape. Philanthropists also developed more effective national
associations; the most notable of these were the Sanitary and Christian Commissions
that ministered to the physical and spiritual needs of the troops. Efforts to care for the
wounded influenced the development of the modern hospital and the rise of nursing as
a female profession. Both the men who served in the army and those men and women
who supported them behind the lines became accustomed to working in large, bureau-
cratic organizations that had scarcely existed before the war.
The North won the war mainly because it had shown a greater capacity than the
South to organize, innovate, and “modernize.” Its victory meant the nation as a whole
would now embrace the concept of progress that the North had affirmed in its war
effort—its advances in science and technology and its success in bringing together and
managing large numbers of men and women for economic and social goals. The Civil
War was thus a catalyst for the transformation of American society from an individu-
alistic society of small producers into the more highly organized and “incorporated”
America of the late nineteenth century.
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