Christina Scanlon's List: Freshmen History PRoject

• The first of these themes involves the desire to "uplift" the black race in the United States and to "improve" the status of African Americans.
• The first of these themes involves the desire to "uplift
• A second theme is encompassed by the struggle for civil rights and equality in the South.

• the necessity for blacks to obey the law is constantly affirmed.   
• The third theme questions the future of freed American slaves -- should they remain in the U.S. as freedmen or emigrate to the colony of Liberia in Africa?

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• with no end in sight to the war with the South, the United States government announced in early 1863 the institution of a draft for the Union Army for all men aged twenty to thirty-five. To avoid being drafted, a selected man could hire a substitute or a pay a commutation fee of $300
• advent of the draft clearly sparked the riots-
• New York City draft riots were also race riots,
• appeared to place the burden of fighting and dying disproportionately on the backs of the white working poor.
• trouble in a number of Northern cities over this policy, but the worst was in New York City. From July 13-16, 1863, there were four days of escalating mob violence that left over 100 people dead
• Early in the riot, targets included the draft equipment, the residences of wealthy New Yorkers, and the abolitionist Republican press.
• individuals  singled out most often by the mob were black New Yorkers.
• In the process, these authors link the public to the private and advocate the rights of blacks as not merely humans but as citizens.
• just months before the riots, racial tensions in the city were running high because of shipping companies' decision to use black men to break a longshoreman's strike

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• Before the riots started, more than 12,000 resided in the city. After the protests in which most violence was directed at African-Americans, the population dipped below 10,000.
• , maki
• the 20th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops were formed

  , maki

  ng that the first black volunteer force ever to emerge from New York City

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• the political, economic and cultural   motivations of the ordinary New Yorkers engaged in the rioting,   as were the deeper structural and social causes of the riots.

• The actions and rebellions of people are often a reflection of the troubles not only they face but the country they inhabit. The conflicts and concerns that surrounded American politics, economics, society, and culture before and during the Civil War were clearly represented during the events that took place between July 13, 1863 and July 17, 1863: "An angry immigrant working-class had protested violently against the conscription efforts of the federal government; an entrenched business elite fought to maintain its control over the city... African-American New Yorkers were harshly reminded that the urban North did not necessarily provide safe haven from racial violence."
• The conflict and rivalry between black and whites, state and federal government, Democrats and Republicans, and the rich and the poor that were displayed during the turmoil known as the New York City Draft Riots were parallel to those that surrounded the Civil War. Many of these rivalries still exist in New York City and America itself.

• beginning on the morning of July 13^th, 1863 reflect the more serious problems dividing the nation during the time of the American Civil War.
• Their grievances were related to military conscription and linked to the larger questions of racial relations and underlying social conditions. 
• New York’s large immigrant population, especially the Irish-Catholics.
• reactions to the riots and their greater meaning to the Civil War as a whole will be appraised, emphasizing that the Union in 1863 was a deeply divided body and far from unified or without grievance during the post-Emancipation Proclamation Civil War.
• Lincoln and his government in Washington were nervous that numbers would fall well below the necessary levels for continuance of the war.
• The situation was becoming so desperate the estimates indicate that there was an “illegal absence of more than one hundred thousand persons” from the Union Army in early 1863.
•   Despite entering the third year of the war, “the army was making uncertain progress on the battlefield” and “horrifying tales of carnage at the front circulated throughout the North,”[2] making the process of enlisting new troops and maintaining morale increasingly difficult.
• Federal Conscription Act.  Conceived early in the year and passed by Congress on March 3^rd 1863, the act was “designed mainly as a device to stimulate volunteering by the threat of a draft”
• Officially known as the Act for Enrolling and Calling Out the National Forces, the Conscription act (as it was colloquially referred to) created a national Provost Marshal Bureau empowered by the federal government to oversee and administer the draft. 
• empowered a federal provost marshal in each congressional district to make summary arrest of draft evaders and resisters, deserters and spies,”
• providing both mechanisms to “sustain the flow of men into the army and keep them there once enlisted.
• Exemptions to enrollment were available for a wide variety of reasons
• Mental or physical disability
• “proof that a drafted man was the sole support of aged or widowed parents or of orphaned children.”[8] However, the most contentious of the exemptions was the so-called “Three Hundred Dollar” clause.  This allowed a drafted person to either present an acceptable substitute to take their place or simply pay a three-hundred dollar exemption fee to get out of service. 
• shift the heavy burden of fighting the war onto the poorest ranks of society.
• , who in these early days of Tammany Hall politics were ove
• New York Irish
• rly susceptible to political manipulation and would play a key role in the riots.
• New York City would be driven by a multiplicity of reasons both local and national in scale. 
• the enrollment process continued relatively smoothly and with little opposition or resistance throughout the state of New York. 
• enrollment process was ending and the date of the draft approached, murmurs of a conspiracy and protest against the draft began to circulate, particularly within New York City itself.
• that “the first actual plans for resistance seem to have been formed on Saturday night and Sunday, as working people gathered in saloons, streets and kitchens to discuss their own remedies for the lotteries to be resumed Monday morning.”[12]
• draft riots was a rational and legal protest
• which after a time attacked the draft office, destroying the draft lottery-wheel and setting the building ablaze.

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