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Civil War Draft Riots Dbq

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On July 13 1863 riots broke out across New York when federal troops tried to enforce the newly passed draft law against an unwilling population. The draft riots were not only concentrated to New York but Boston MA, Portsmouth NH, Cincinnati OH, Chicago IL, and many other cities as well, but the one in New York was the biggest. There was a lot of death and destruction that took place during the riots. The civil war draft riots were a result of many factors that include resistance to conscription laws, clashes between citizens and immigrants, and racism. These riots are important because they showed that not everyone in the north was willing to take up arms for the government. Many citizens were upset because the conscription laws favored the upper class [Schecter .115]. The majority of the rioters were not even Americans but …show more content…

One important item helped to spark the riots were the implication of conscription laws. The law had an obvious bias that favored the upper class. It stated that one could pay a three hundred dollar fee that would get them out of serving in the army. At the time three hundred dollars was about one year’s pay for the average citizen [Schecter. 115]. Immigrants were also affected, they would be forced into the army to fight in a war that was not their own. Walt Wittman did not blame the New York riots on the Irish immigrants as he might have sum years earlier but on the Republican Party instead [Schecter. 7]. Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation helped to stir up the riots, the proclamation would free the slave and allow them to live free. The people did not necessarily want the blacks to be free, the blacks would take their jobs and hand live in their communities and the people did not want that [Schecter. 87]. So it was a combination of factors that caused the rights, the Republican Party’s determination to free the slaves and the implication of the draft laws that caused the

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