German Abolitionism Ideals in the 1860s

In Anderson’s book, she points out a significant difference in ideology between the German immigrants and the Irish citizens who were already established in St. Louis. The Germans, on average, were far more “radical” and opposed to slavery, whereas the Irish leaned towards conservatism and the survival of slavery in the United States. This meant that the Irish were more likely to be supportive of succession, something that the Germans definitively were against. During the presidential campaign of 1864, when McClellan was running for the Democratic Party and Lincoln was running for the National Union Party, Germans were heavily supportive of Lincoln in the St. Louis area. In the wards of St. Louis that were mostly inhabited by German immigrants, support of 70 percent for Lincoln was observed. This support dwindled when looking at the wards dominated by the Irish. After the election and establishment of slaves as citizens; however, Anderson notes that German support for civil rights disappeared. She argues that the Emancipation Proclamation was the end of the fight for the Germans. The support of Germans for African American suffrage was capped at 40% even in wards with a German population dominance. As it turned out, the “radicals” that made up the German liberalism and anti-slavery movement disappeared when equality was brought up because the German immigrants believed they had a better claim to citizenship than the African Americans, so if they were granted citizenship, then it would deter any attack on the German’s heritage and citizenship. This helps to point out that the Germans were not selfless and progressive, they were selfish to create a new world of their own, and after they were protected, they abandoned the fight for equality for all Americans.

The article I found is focused on the topic of Abolitionism and firmly sides with the point of view that relates to the Whig ideals. The writer sympathizes with another article that says that the Republican Party must throw away the ideas of Abolitionism to preserve peace and create unity. The author says that the entire country must be anti-slavery to fully remove it from our country without bloodshed. This article does not specifically mention the differences between the St. Louisan German and Irish, but it does say the Republican party did not want to dance around with the idea of an all-out war. This is something that is refuted in the book by Anderson.