Explain the Federal Government's success in the Civil War Essay

Explain the Federal Government's success in the Civil War - Essay Example A great deal of the South’s population was black and the number of men to call up for military service was far less than what the North possessed which was aided by a draft that was imposed by the federal government or the United States government at the beginning of the war. This did a great deal to ensure the success of the North as well, though there was strong opposition in many places against the act of war upon the southern part of the United States. People in New York knew that if the North won the war that there would be thousands of freed blacks that could possibly move north and take over the jobs of regular layman for fewer wages. â€Å"Such rhetoric inflamed smoldering tensions. Draft dodgers and mobs killed several enrollment officers during the spring and summer. AntiNegro violence erupted in a number of cities. Nowhere was the tinder more flammable than in New York City, with its large Irish population and powerful Democratic machine. Crowded into noisome tenements in a city with the worst disease mortality and highest crime rate in the Western world, working in low-skill jobs for marginal wages, fearful of competition from black workers, hostile toward the Protestant middle and upper classes who often disdained or exploited them, the Irish were ripe for revolt against this war waged by Yankee Protestants for black freedom. (McPherson 609)† This, however, did not stop the North’s cause to bring about black freedom and they enacted some financial matters to insure that their Union soldiers would be paid and have proper supplies as in the following quote. â€Å"Unlike the Confederacy, which relied on loans for less than two-fifths of its war finances, the Union raised two-thirds of its revenues by this means. And while the South ultimately obtained only 5 or 6 percent of its funds by actual taxation, the northern government raised 21 percent in this manner.