Was the Civil War about Slavery?

What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s rights or just about anything other than slavery.

But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, it’s natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.

"1. In 1776 Founders, especially Ben Franklin, had spent nearly 20 years in England trying to negotiate a better deal for American colonies."

"By stark contrast Jefferson Davis' emissaries spent barely 8 weeks in Washington hoping to negotiate secession."

Lincoln refused to negotiate secession or peace with the CSA at any time as I'm sure that you already know.

"2. In 1776 for several years, Brits had acted aggressively towards Americans "

By 1861 the North had been waging a guerilla war against the South for decades. Thomas Fleming's A Disease in the Public Mind being an excellent book on this forgotten subject.

The 1859 John Brown terror plot financed by seven prominent yankees being only the most famous incident of northern aggression.

They were not only represented they were over-represented due to the Constitution's 3/5 of slaves rule.

The southern Founders wanted slaves counted as full persons for purposes of Congress. Northern Founders didn't want them counted at all. 3/5 Rule was a compromise proposed by Wilson of Pennsylvania and Sherman of Connecticut.

3. In 1776 Founders listed over 30 real reasons for Declaring Independence...By stark contrast Fire Eaters' phony Reasons for Secession mentioned not one of our Founders' reasons, but instead only one actual concern: what might happen long term to their "domestic institution" of slavery.

Well the "phony reasons" involved decades of thinly disguised warfare coming out of the north. The Pottawatomie Massacre, the Harper's Ferry Raid and other such incidents. Again the Fleming book is a good source for the decades long northern hate-mongering campaign against the South, much of which had nothing to do with slavery.

Pelham: "You may want to take a look at this before you buy into the legend of Jones county."

The issue is Southern Unionism, and I get it.
I also understand from my family something about "secession" from the Confederacy in such places as western North Carolina, which there resulted in the Shelton Laurel Massacre.
It appears that Unionists were seldom well organized, sometimes resorted to criminal activities and were subject to severe repression by Confederate authorities.
It was anything but pretty and romantic.

Nevertheless there have been several books on Jones County, Mississippi, and I would suppose the more recent ones would include the most comprehensive research.

I should also mention that we do know something about how many Union troops came from each Confederate state, as a rough measure of pro-Unionism in each state.
But there is a second measure, and that is significant sums paid after the war in reparations, not to Confederates of course, but to Unionists in Confederate states who suffered because of their Unionist activities.
A listing of those reparations, by state, would also help suggest where real-life Unionism was strongest, but I've never seen such a listing...

Note: where slave populations were lowest, there were highest numbers of Southern Unionists.

“I have shown you the facts - the South has shown a larger appetite than the North for government handouts and welfare.”

And those programs came as a result of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, a liberal monstrosity hatched in the academic fever swamps of the northeast. Those are facts you choose to overlook.

“In my lifetime, it was the Southern Democrats who chaired all the large Congressional committees because the South had a tendency to re-elect the same representatives over and over again, giving them seniority.”

It wasn’t Harry Byrd, Strom Thurmond and Russell Long Democrats voting for the Great Society. It was the unholy alliance of Ev Dirksen-Nelson Rockefeller Republicans with liberal northern Democrats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_coalition

” The South is at least as responsible as any other section of our country for the size of our Federal Government. These are facts that you need to accept to understand our history and our present circumstances. If you want to delude yourself, “

You’re very selective in your choice of eras in order to concoct your argument. The post Great Society Southern Democrats are vastly different from the pre-1965 Southern Democrats. There were no black Democrats in that earlier era whereas the current crop are both black and liberal in their politics. I’m hardly deluding myself by pointing out a major difference that you’re ignoring.

” Nothing could be more clear than that right now, the South wants no part of “secession” and is grateful that the South is part of the USA. “

That must explain the need for the current crop of South haters to try to ban the Confederate flag, to change the names of schools, streets, the deface monuments.

Found an awesome book online:

Abner Doubleday

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24972/24972-h/24972-h.htm

Mr. Greeley was at this time the head of the Republican party, and one of the great leaders of Northern opinion. His immense services in rousing the public mind to the evils of slavery can not be overestimated, but some of his views were too hastily formed and promulgated. In this crisis of our history he injured the cause he afterward so eloquently advocated by publishing an opinion, on the 9th of November, that the South had a perfect right to secede whenever a majority thought proper to do so; and, in another communication, he stated that the Union could not be pinned together with bayonets. General Scott was also at one time in favor of letting the "wayward sisters depart in peace;" and I have heard on good authority that at least one member of the Cabinet and one leading general, appalled by the magnitude of the conflict, were willing to consent to a separation, provided the Border States would go with the North.

Greeley's article went farther than this, for it seemed to favor a simple severance of the North and the South. This was not only a virtual abandonment of the rights of Northern men who had invested their capital in the Southern States, but it amounted to giving up all the sea-coast and magnificent harbors south of New Jersey, including Chesapeake Bay. It was expressing a willingness to surrender the mouth of the Mississippi, the commerce of the great North-west, and the Capitol at Washington, to the control of a foreign nation, hostile to us from the very nature of its institutions. In fact, it was a proposition to commit national suicide. The new Northern republic would have been three thousand miles long, and only one hundred miles wide, in the vicinity of Wheeling. A country of such a peculiar shape could not, as every military man knows, have been successfully defended, and must inevitably have soon broken up into small confederacies. We objected, with reason, to the formation of a European monarchy in far-off Mexico, but the proposed separation would have created a powerful slave empire, with its northern border within eighteen miles of Philadelphia. Once firmly established there and along the Ohio, the Southern army could have burned Cincinnati from the opposite shore, and have penetrated to Lake Erie by a single successful battle and march, permanently severing the East from the West.

More from Captain Doubleday. Apparently he was side by side with Anderson throughout the Moultrie/Sumner episode.

"The first indication of actual danger came from Richmond, Virginia, in the shape of urgent inquiries as to the strength of our defenses, and the number of available troops in the harbor. These questions were put by a resident of that city named Edmund Ruffin; an old man, whose later years had been devoted to the formation of disunion lodges, and who became subsequently noted for firing the first gun at Fort Sumter. His love of slavery amounted to fanaticism. When the cause of the Rebellion became hopeless, he refused to survive it, and committed suicide.

The seizure of Castle Pinckney, on the afternoon of the 27th, was the first overt act of the Secessionists against the sovereignty of the United States. As already stated, it was ordered by Governor Pickens, on his own responsibility, without the concurrence of the Legislature. The latter, indeed, positively declined to sanction the measure. At 2 p.m. the Washington Light Infantry and Meagher Guards, both companies of Colonel J.J. Petigru's rifle regiment, embarked, under command of that officer, on board the Niña, and steamed down to the little island upon which the Castle is situated. When they arrived in front of the main gates they found them closed; whereupon they applied scaling-ladders, and with eager, flushed faces made their way to the top of the wall. The excitement was needless, for there was no one there to resist them, the only fighting-men present being Lieutenant R.K. Meade, of the engineers, and Ordnance-sergeant Skillen, who resided there with his family, and who was in charge of the work. Meade, himself a Virginian, had a sharp colloquy with Petigru, and expressed himself in severe terms in relation to this treasonable assault."

miss marmelstein: "...although just as the casualties of the Civil War grow by leaps and bounds (what is it up to now? 700,000?) so do the slave owners grow by leaps and bounds."

There are some numbers from that time which are very solid, others reasonable estimates, and some what we used to call SWAGs:

You can depend on numbers which come from the official 1860 census, and those include the white and black populations of each state, as well as the numbers of slave-holders and slaves.
US census' also give us numbers on the values of various categories of financial & physical assets.
From those we know that throughout the South their number one asset was the land they owned, followed closely by the value of their highly profitable slaves.
Indeed, Southern slaves were worth more, combined, than all the industry and railroads in the North.
So, at huge risk of political incorrectness, you could correctly say that slaves were the South's original "black gold" and, sadly, slaves gave Southerners a bit of gold fever.
Estimates based on the census of household sizes of average slaveholders give us the figure of roughly five whites per slaveholding family and about five slaves per family.
That's where estimates come from showing as high as 50% for South Carolina of white families holding slaves.
But if you tell me "five per family is too many", then I would argue it's way too small, since large families with many children were the rule in those days, and a prosperous household would also include grandparents and single aunts or uncles.
So I don't think these estimates can be understated by any significant factor.
As for numbers of soldiers killed by Civil War, those estimates are highly variable depending on who & how they're counted.
For example, there's a significant difference between "killed in battle" versus "died in service" usually meaning of sickness or injury.
And if a soldier is wounded in battle, but dies two years after the war was over, how is that counted?
The answer is that many scholars have scoured the numbers to arrive at estimates which include everyone according to their criteria -- circa 700,000 total, maybe 1/3 of those killed in battle.
Finally, there is the question of civilian deaths, about which there are no accurate numbers, and estimates which vary all over the board, again depending on just who you count and how.
But bottom line is, actual records of civilian war-caused deaths are very sparce -- a few hundred maybe, and any other numbers are just gross speculation, imho.

Does that help?

Pelham: "Well that tends to happen to troops involved in an invasion.
The locals shoot back."

Confederate Pvt. Henry Wyatt from North Carolina was the first Confederate troop killed directly in battle, at Big Bethel on June 10, 1861.

But there was no Union "invasion" -- none -- before the Confederacy first provoked, then started and formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
Indeed, there was still no "invasion" until after Virginia voters ratified secession (May 23) and joined the Confederacy's already declared war on the United States.

But all during those months, in addition to seizing dozens of Federal properties (forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.), Confederates threatened Union troops & ships, fired at & damaged ships, wounded & killed troops -- in Fort Sumter, Fort Pickens, Baltimore, and Virginia (before secession) while around 500 Union troops were captured and held as POWs in Texas.

Point is: the Confederacy prosecuted vigorous war against the United States long before the Union did anything serious in response.

Pelham: "And those programs came as a result of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, a liberal monstrosity hatched in the academic fever swamps of the northeast.
Those are facts you choose to overlook."

You're kidding us, right?
You're joking, just pulling our legs, right?
You think somebody is going to believe that President Lyndon Baines Johnson was an academic from northeastern fever swamps?

What a jokester you are, pal!

Or are you now going to confess that President Lyndon Pedernales Cowpoke Johnson, the biggest socialist up to that point in time, was born and raised deep in heart of the Deep South, Texas.

Really pal, you need to get over this idea that Southerners, especially Deep Southerners are natural born conservatives -- you're not, you're natural born commies, who have to fight the commie devil from morning to night just keep on that straight & narrow conservative road.
And Johnson proves: you don't always win those battles in your souls.

In short, history shows that you're just like anyone else, given the opportunity, except, more than others, you like to hide it and pretend otherwise.

;~)

Had Lincoln let the seven Deep South states secede in peace they would have just been a larger version of the Republic of Texas, and the Republic of Texas had already discovered that it was hard to go it alone. The much smaller CSA would have had to come to an accommodation with the USA.

Which is exactly why Jefferson Davis chose to fire on Fort Sumter. Without war, the Upper South, and especially Virginia, would not have gone for secession and the cotton state slave republic Davis had would have quickly choaked on their slaves and lack of resources asside from cotton.

They needed the Upper South to survive, and they needed war to get the Upper South.

And I’ll thank Pelham too for the link. I had stumbled across “The state of Jones” and, as I haven’t finished it yet, hadn’t looked for other treatises on the subject yet.

The Amazon link shows links to two or three other volumes so the topic is one of at least moderate interest. And what I’ve gleaned so far (even without reading every tome on the subject) is that there is some truth to the “legend” - it’s just a matter of separating hard facts from myths (sound familiar?). Attempting to wish it away is just silly as would trying to make too much of it.

I’ll let you know how the story ends ;’)

You are correct that the South was equally if not more responsible for the growth of the Fedzilla monster as any other region.

I am old enough to remember politics in the 1950's and 60's. In those days, the Democrat party ran Congress, as the had since the 1930's. Most committees were chaired by Southern Democrats. The Speaker of the House was a Texas Democrat, Sam Rayburn from Texas. The majority leader of the Senate was Lyndon Johnson another Democrat from Texas. The Committee chairs were nearly all Southern Democrats names like Stennis frm Mississippi, Russel from Georgia, Fulbright from Arkansas, Gore from Tennessee, and Byrd from Virginia.

They were all FDR New Dealers and they all loved Federal Pork as long as you let them have segregation at home.

"The Committee chairs were nearly all Southern Democrats names like Stennis frm Mississippi, Russel from Georgia, Fulbright from Arkansas, Gore from Tennessee, and Byrd from Virginia. They were all FDR New Dealers and they all loved Federal Pork as long as you let them have segregation at home."

That must be why the Conservative coalition was famous for thwarting FDR. But why let facts intrude on your story?

While the South had many New Deal supporters it also had many conservatives opposed to the expansion of federal power. Among their leaders were Senators Harry Byrd and Carter Glass of Virginia and Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas. U.S. Senator Josiah Bailey (D-NC) released a "Conservative Manifesto" in December 1937, which included several statements of conservative philosophical tenets, including the line "Give enterprise a chance, and I will give you the guarantees of a happy and prosperous America." The document called for a balanced federal budget, state's rights, and an end to labor union violence and coercion. Over 100,000 copies were distributed and it marked a turning point in terms of congressional support for New Deal legislation.

Southern politicians to this day speak out against big government and the welfare state and to this day their constituents somehow end up with more than their share of Federal spending. I cited some links for you in post 987 that will provide you with all the data that you need to conclude that the South is and has been at the front of the line when it comes to collecting welfare benefits, etc. And, they've always been very up front about their support for spending on national defense. When it comes to Federal spending, what else is there besides welfare entitlements and national defense? That covers just about everything.

In fact, one of the main functions of the Federal government today is to transfer financial resources from blue states to red states. That is the meaning of those statistics. I know that there are a lot of young people who have been told that Southerners are being forced to bear the financial burdens of Northern welfare recipients, but the truth (as shown by the numbers) is just the opposite. And, that's another good reason why you're not going to gain any support these days for any "secession" by people living in the South.

We are all responsible for a Federal government that is larger than it should be. I don't mean to say that the South is any more responsible than other sections of the country for a national government that is out of control, but it is certainly as responsible as any other section. We're all going to have to do better than just keep supporting representatives who "talk" about how they are offended by large government. I don't pay any attention to politicians who label themselves part of a "conservative coalition" or as a "tea-party leader" if in fact they represent states that continue to collect more than they contribute to the Federal Government. By definition, those states are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Labels are baloney. We need to judge people by what they do and not by what they say.

“I don’t pay any attention to politicians who label themselves part of a “conservative coalition” or as a “tea-party “

The conservative coalition was a very real alliance of conservative Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Coalition

“The Conservative Coalition was a coalition in the U.S. Congress that brought together the majority of the Northern Republicans and a conservative, mostly Southern minority of the Democrats. The coalition usually defeated the liberals of the New Deal Coalition; the Coalition largely controlled Congress from 1937 to 1963. It continued as a potent force until the 1990s when most of the conservative southern Democrats were replaced by southern Republicans. The coalition no longer exists.

In its heyday, its most important Republican leader until his death in 1963 was Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio; Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen was the key Republican in the 1960s. The chief Democrats were Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia and Congressmen Howard W. Smith of Virginia and Carl Vinson of Georgia. Dirksen and the Republicans broke with Southern Democrats and provided the bipartisan votes necessary to insure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Between 1939 and 1963, the coalition was able to exercise virtual veto power over domestic legislation, and no major liberal legislation was passed during this entire quarter century. Harry Truman won reelection in 1948 and carried a Democratic Congress, but the only portion of his Fair Deal program that passed was cosponsored by Taft. Under Lyndon Johnson in 1963-65 liberals broke the power of the coalition by passing the Civil Rights Act, which was assisted by a newly-elected liberal Congress in 1964. Congress passed the liberal Great Society programs over the opposition of the coalition. However the coalition regained strength in the 1966 election, in the face of massive rioting in the cities, and the tearing apart of the Democratic New Deal coalition over issues of black power, liberalism, student radicalism and Vietnam.

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan won over enough conservative southern Democrats—called Boll Weevils— to carry his major tax cuts through a House nominally controlled by the Democrats. Led by Congressman Phil Gramm of Texas,[1] they helped Reagan enact many of his domestic policy proposals, to increase defense spending sharply, and to block leftists attacks on Reagan’s anti-Communist policies in Central America. They also helped dismantle some of the remnants of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Reagan did not campaign against them, so they kept their seats a few years longer.

After 1994 the Republicans took control of most of the conservative southern districts, so the Southern Democratic part of the coalition has largely evaporated. “

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