Slavery and War in the Americas: Race, Citizenship, and State Building in the United States and Brazil, 1861-1870

Conclusion

163 As the preceding chapters have demonstrated, both Brazil and the United States found themselves in unprecedented but similar situations in response to the wars of the 1860s. The critical need for troops and materials forced each nation-state to centralize to enforce military recruitment. The uneasy triumph of centralization over tenacious forms of localism affected both societies despite differences in demography, in the scope of racial prejudice, and in the amount of popular political participation. The move toward a more centralized governing structure was impeded in both countries by lack of bureaucratic expertise and poor military organization . Efforts to consolidate political authority and extract resources from individuals led to internal conflicts, popular criticism, and rebellion that illustrated the central states’ limited capacity to acquire the materials they needed. The autonomy of national recruiting agents proved especially problematic by igniting resentment among local authorities and their constituents . Attempts to increase recruitment undermined social cohesion and national unity in both cases. Whereas the Union possessed more sophisticated political tools to circumvent popular resistance, the empire’s Conclusion Processes, Effects, Distortions I claim not to have controlled events but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years [of] struggle the nation’s condition is not what either party, or any man devised or expected. God alone can claim it. —Abraham Lincoln It is lamentable that partisan politics . . . led to the understanding that National revenge is a monopoly of some political faction. —Marquis of Caxias Slavery and War in the Americas 164 inadequate resources limited the monarchy’s ability to make demands on its periphery.1 The similarities between the years 1863 in the United States and 1867 in Brazil justify careful comparison. In those years, government officials confronted unexpected crises resulting from the expansion of state action. Both governments chose to pursue complete military victory despite severe obstacles and high human costs. Relentless enemy resistance forced both the Union and Imperial governments to push beyond original victory objectives, and simultaneously shaped the path for further internal compromises . Impressments and emancipation were central issues in the debates about mobilization. Armed mobs in the far interior of Brazil, as well as anti-draft riots in America, were perceived as dangerous menaces to progress and social stability. The threats posed by local resistance were more symbolic than real, however, reflecting desperate attitudes in the face of changing conditions, and rarely became a real risk to the social order. Still, they threatened each state’s ability to conduct war, and, as such, affected public policy formation in subsequent decades. In Brazil, they led to new proposals on the organization of the army and the gradual abolition of the National Guard. In the United States, they led to the expansion of federal power in the South, as well as the birth of a national citizenship, with the extension of the franchise to former slaves and freed blacks.2 The social conflicts that emerged in each case help us understand the limits of state action during periods of national emergency, especially when centripetal, nationalistic demands confronted local interests. Most of these conflicts centered on the extension of recruitment and its consequences for social stability. Great debates involving the war effort and its consequences shaped each victorious postwar society. Differences between the United States and Brazil The Civil War and the War of the Triple Alliance arose from very different longstanding contentions. The American Civil War culminated decades of internal political and regional tensions caused by different visions of social organization, political power, and racial hierarchies. It resolved many inconsistencies and inefficiencies in the founding documents of American government (although not racism or inequality), which had been aggravated by territorial expansion during the first half of the nineteenth cen- Conclusion 165 tury. Wartime Congress imposed tariffs, centralized economic decisions, circulated greenbacks, and expanded access to western lands, an agenda favored by the North since the 1820s. Thus, the Civil War began to resolve many of the practical problems that had contributed its outbreak. The War of the Triple Alliance was an international conflict connected to the process of state formation in the Rio de la Plata region. It united the Brazilian Empire, the Argentine Confederation, and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay in opposition to the Paraguayan Republic. Most of the action took place outside Brazil, far from centers of plantation agriculture. With the exception of the Provinces of Mato Grosso and...