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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos
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U.S. History 1877-Present 1: The Outcome of the Civil War 1387 Views
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Description:
Today we're going to rock your world by teaching you about how Abraham Lincoln was really a ruthless military dictator who passed laws just because he said so. And what sort of laws? Well he...freed all the slaves in the confederate states. Okay okay, we didn't say he was an evil ruthless military dictator, did we?
Transcript
- 00:00
the war itself was brutal and bloody, especially for the south .and
- 00:07
the aftermath in many ways was even worse. once again especially for the
- 00:12
south. well some southerners did benefit a little bit, around four million slaves [man stands in front of destruction]
- 00:16
who were freed as a result of the war . sure life for freed slaves and their
- 00:20
descendants wasn't going to be a walk in the park. unless we're talking about a
Full Transcript
- 00:23
park whose main attractions are violent extreme prejudice and discrimination
- 00:27
both inside and outside of the law. still slaves were finally legally whole people.
- 00:32
sad that it wasn't an accomplishment isn't it. of course freedom didn't come
- 00:37
to slaves all at once. during the war Lincoln wanted everyone to know that he
- 00:41
was a moderate. he was like listen guys we aren't in a war right now because I
- 00:46
love slaves we're at war because the South broke the law by ditching the
- 00:51
Union. in Lincoln's inaugural address he actually specifically said that he
- 00:55
wasn't going to freed the slaves already in the south. it wasn't until the battle [Lincoln stands in front a crowd]
- 00:58
of antietam in September 1862 that Lincoln got real about the issue. on
- 01:02
january 1 1863 Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation which freed
- 01:07
the slaves in the Confederate territory. emphasis on Confederate territory.
- 01:12
this technically meant that the slaves in the union states like Maryland were
- 01:16
still slaves. of course this wasn't necessarily because Lincoln was sneekly
- 01:21
planning to keep slaves for the north, that'd be almost as weird as him secretly
- 01:24
being a vampire hunter. Lincoln used his executive power to free the slaves in
- 01:29
the south. see since the south was in a state of rebellion that meant that
- 01:33
legally it was under martial law or rule by the military. this gives the president
- 01:38
a commander in chief the right to declare a lot of stuff. so legally
- 01:42
Lincoln only had the power to unilaterally free the slaves in states
- 01:46
that had seceded . if you wanted to free slaves in states that hadn't succeeded [confederate states are happy about free slaves]
- 01:51
he needed Congress's help. and even though Congress was only made up of
- 01:54
northerners at this point ,there was tons of opposition took freeing the slaves. the
- 01:59
Lincoln did what he could with the power he had. a lot of people on his side
- 02:02
advised him to not do it, but know what he did it anyway. some say Lincoln acted
- 02:07
like a military dictator which well yeah he kind of did.
- 02:10
but it's hard to argue that he didn't use that power in a good way by freeing
- 02:14
the slaves. a good military dictator. our heads hurt .well it wasn't until after
- 02:20
the war in December 1865 that Congress finally ratified the 13th amendment
- 02:24
which actually freed every slave in America. that Spielberg movie Lincoln [session of congress pictured]
- 02:29
gives us a sort of kind of accurate version of just how hard it was to ram
- 02:33
the amendment through Congress. despite the great big war that had just been
- 02:37
fought people were still scared of what would happen once slaves everywhere were
- 02:41
officially freed. today America's top. fears include clowns, heights, and bugs
- 02:46
maybe we've made progress. [roller coaster, bugs pictured]
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