Arming the Enslaved: Different Paths Taken by the US and Confederate Congresses during the American Civil War

This article traces the history of legislation to arm the enslaved in the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War. By the end of the war, both Congresses had passed legislation arming slaves, but the paths in the North and South were quite different. Differences in political institutions — namely differences in legislative organization, partisan control of committees and procedures, and party majorities — resulted in a quicker journey to arming slaves in the Union led by the legislative branch, and an ineffectually slow journey in the Confederacy stymied by the national legislature. The large Republican majorities in the US Congress — thanks largely to the absence of the Southern states and their Democratic legislators — greased the legislative wheels for action, whereas the slimmer majorities of former Democrats in a nonpartisan Confederate Congress led to sclerosis and a lack of decisive legislative action. In the end, Black federal troops fought in several key battles in the last years of the Civil War and were a positive factor in Union victory, whereas Black Confederate troops were never fully organized and did not see combat.