Was the Civil War about Slavery?

Acton Institute, Prager University ^ | 8/11/2015 | Joe Carter

[iowamark]

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.

[BroJoeK]

I see DiogenesLamp has made some typographical errors in post #293, so let's see if I can fix them:

DiogenesLamp: "I know you I desperately want to believe the propaganda you've I've been fed all these years, but It is not my your job to indulge you me.
You I Need the South North to be the "bad guys" because if you I can't make them into monsters, it makes your Union my Confederates into monsters, and that is just unbearable to you me."

rockrr post #295: "When contemplating a response to DegenerateLamp’s latest incomprehensible screed just remember that it was her that wrote: “S.O.P. for this crowd.
They generally have little else.
Their arguments are mostly just emotion."

Thanks! I'm blaming it on DL's typographical errors, which I hope I got them all fixed above... ;-)

[BroJoeK]

quadrant: "No one denies that the leadership of the Southern states acted foolishly and irresponsibly...."

Thanks, you seem to have a clear-eyed view of the situation in 1861.

The answer to your implied question: why did Jefferson Davis start Civil War at Fort Sumter, why not wait for a better time later?

The only logical reason I've found is that, in April 1861, some act of war was absolutely necessary in order to move Virginia especially, and after Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas to vote to switch sides from Union to Confederacy.
By April 1861, all four Upper South states had already voted against secession and for Union.
So, what could ever force them to change their minds?

Answer: an act of war, any act of war between Union and Confederacy would force the four Upper South states to chose which side to go with, and since they were majority slavery supporters, they would chose the Confederacy.

Lincoln knew this, and to prevent Virginia switching sides he was willing to surrender Fort Sumter, in exchange for Virginia's pledge not to secede later.
But Virginia's secession convention would make no such promise, and after Fort Sumter switched sides to join the Confederacy's now formally declared war on the United States.

So, in one "brilliant" action at Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis effectively doubled the population & military capabilities of the Confederacy, from seven states to eleven, but more importantly, from 2.5 million whites to over 5 million.

The next immediate political battleground in 1861 were the Border States, including western Virginia.
There the ratio of whites to slaves was much higher, and Unionists outnumbers secessionists, overall, about two to one.
Lincoln said of the Border States, especially Kentucky, that if he lost them, the Union could most likely not survive.

Fortunately, they remained majority loyal.

[BroJoeK]

lacrew: "This is the Corwin amendment.
You should read about it and learn."

I know the Corwin amendment, it was only one of several proposals in Congress to find a political solution which could save the Union.
But the Confederacy rejected all such out of hand, indeed refused even to discuss them with Congress.

This should be kept firmly in mind when we hear allegations of how Jefferson Davis sent emissaries to discuss secession with both Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln.
But the US Constitution gives Congress authority to deal with those matters, and no emissaries were ever sent to Congress.

lacrew: "Lincoln later used emancipation as a weapon against the south...but without genuine interest in freeing slaves.
How do I know that?
For starters, the proclamation did not apply to any slave holding union states."

What you're deliberately ignoring is that Lincoln in 1861 or 1862 had no constitutional authority to free slaves, except as "contraband of war" in Confederate areas under Union Army control.
So Lincoln did as much as he was allowed to do, at the time.

And in 1863 Radical Republicans in Congress began submitting bills for a Constitutional Amendment to abolish slavery, even in Union states, one of which was approved in early 1865, ratified by December 1865.

Bottom line: Republican abolitionism was certainly a minority view in 1860 and 1861, but that was beginning to change in 1862 and by 1865 became the 13th Amendment law of the land.

Do you disagree?

[quadrant]

As I wrote before: slavery was more secure in 1861 than it had been for a decade. The Corwin Amendment had passed Congress, the Dred Scott Decision was the law of the land, Lincoln was a minority president presiding over a divided country with a bankrupt treasury.
Lincoln would compromise backwards and forwards over slavery, as the issue in itself was not one that stirred the masses of the North; but he could not compromise over two things: repealing the Morrill Tariff and allowing the mouth of the Mississippi River to fall under the control of a foreign power.
That Southerners saw slavery as being threatened by the Republicans is a given. But that in itself was not enough to sever the Union. The Morrill Tariff could, as it would protect northern industry and 3/4 of the revenue collected would come from the South.
The causes of the Civil War are complicated and to reduce them to the simplicity of a single cause (slavery) that was not a major issue in 1861 is foolish beyond belief.

[BroJoeK]

quadrant: "it is impossible to imagine the South as a cultural, political, social, and economic unit without Texas.
With Texas, the South is quite viable; but without that huge land mass, the South has no real substance."

Texas' population in 1860 was nothing like it is today.
In 1860 Texas had just over 400,000 whites, which put it in about the middle of Confederate states: fewer than Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama & Georgia, but more than Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina and Florida.

And Texas contributed about 86,000 troops to the Confederacy which was a little less than Mississippi, a few more than South Carolina.

So, you could say that in terms of support for Confederacy, Texans did their "fair share" compared to other states, but just barely, and certainly not more.

[rockrr]

The causes of the Civil War are complicated and to reduce them to the simplicity of a single cause (slavery) that was not a major issue in 1861 is foolish beyond belief.

For every issue you can name I can show you how that issue redounds to the central issue of slavery. I know of no one who claims that it is the only issue, but it is foolish beyond belief not to recognize that it was the sine qua non for the Civil War.

[quadrant]

Of course, TX’s population in 1860 was quite tiny, but even then people could recognize the gigantic potential of the state.

[quadrant]

Of course, slavery was a serious issue that divided North and South but it wasn't the only issue. As I said, the Morrill Tariff was a far more serious concern. And in 1860, only the Abolitionists (and they were considered extremists) demanded the end to slavery. Most Northerners wanted to ban the extension of slavery but realized the Peculiar Institution itself was woven into the fabric of the country and could not be ended short of a constitutional amendment, which was impossible as the Corwin Amendment had just been passed.

[BroJoeK]

quadrant: Lincoln "could not compromise over two things: repealing the Morrill Tariff and allowing the mouth of the Mississippi River to fall under the control of a foreign power."

Both of these alleged issues are bogus.
First, the Morrill Tariff only passed at all after Confederate state delegations walked out of Congress, and so it had very little opposition.

Second, by the time Morrill passed, Congress was thinking about a potential need to pay for military expenses, should Civil War break out -- so the Morrill rates as passed were significantly higher than they would have been, had Confederate state lawmakers been their to negotiate the deal.

Third, the overall 1860 Tariff rates were still 15%, not only the same as in 1792 under President Washington, but also about the same as the Confederacy set for their own imports.

So, in normal times, with full Deep South participation, the Morrill Tariff, if it passed Congress at all, would have represented a modest increase, consistent with past historical limits.
But after the Deep South walked out of Congress, then threatened war, started war and declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861), then Congress found every way it could to help pay the expenses.

As for the question of who controls the Mississippi, we might note that President Jefferson had his former Vice President, Aaron Burr, arrested and tried for suspicion of treason when it appeared that Burr intended to take over New Orleans and declare it his own independent country.
A few years later, Col. Jackson met the mighty British there, just as the song says...

Point is: there is definite historical sensitivity to the question of who controls New Orleans.
However, there's no evidence that Lincoln had New Orleans more, or less, on his mind than any other Southern location before the war.

[lacrew]

“Bottom line: Republican abolitionism was certainly a minority view in 1860 and 1861, but that was beginning to change in 1862 and by 1865 became the 13th Amendment law of the land.

Do you disagree?”

Yes...and you’ve articulated my position - the civil war did not start over slavery. It may have been a factor, but it wasn’t the driving factor.

[rockrr]

Tariffs

Good. Let’s talk about tariffs. First of all the Morill Tariff was largely a matter of concern after the fact because the southerners in congress had largely already emotionally checked out. They weren’t participating in the give~and~take of congressional politics. Although it passed the house it didn’t pass the senate until they had abandoned Congress and begun their secessions.

But the larger issue of tariffs was due to the way the south insisted on doing business. And that way of doing business revolved around the use of slave labor.

In the 18th and into the mid-19th century the nation raised revenues two ways - through sales of public lands and through tariffs. The Tariff of 1857 had cut the tariff rate to (I believe) 17% which was too low to generate the amount of revenue necessary to pay our bills. The Morrill Tariff was supposed to remedy that. Unfortunately it went too far in the other direction.

It’s affect was greater on the south than it was on the north because southerners imported more goods than northerners. Southerners imported more goods because they built their economy around the cash crops of cotton, rice, and tobacco instead of building a more supporting infrastructure. It was their choice - and with it came the consequences.

Ironically, all the things that southerners complained about the north imposing upon them when they were part of the union they imposed upon themselves immediately after cutting and running. See: http://www.docsouth.unc.edu/imls/tariff/tariff.html

[BroJoeK]

Tau Food: "From what I've been reading here today, I suspect that Lincoln would have preferred an amendment compelling homosexual marriage. But..."

I see that everybody is having lots of fun at poor DiogenesLamp's expense, but from what I've been reading here, am not so sure DL even "gets" the joke.
Maybe he/she thinks you've all switched and joined DL's Dark Side?

[PeaRidge]

You brought up Mississippi.

On the 4th of February, the Confederate Congress, composed of delegates from the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, met at Montgomery, Alabama.

The men duly authorized to represent Mississippi were:

MISSISSIPPI-—Riley P. Harris, W. S. Wilson, A. M. Clayton, Walker Brooke, W. S. Barry,.T. T. Harrison, J. A. P. Campbell.

After some discussion the convention adopted provisionally the Constitution of the United States, with some important changes,

The preamble read as follows:

“We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, invoking the favor of Almighty God, do hereby, in behalf of these States, ordain and establish this constitution of the provisional government of the same, to continue one year from the inauguration of the President, or until a permanent constitution or confederation between the said States shall be put in operation, whichsoever shall first occur.”

The provisional constitution possessed notable articles.

Sixth article, of the second clause, said:

“The government hereby instituted shall take immediate steps for the settlement of
all matters between the States forming it, and their late confederates of the United
States, in relation to the public property and public debt at the time of their withdrawal
from them; these States hereby declaring it to be their wish and earnest desire to adjust every thing pertaining to the common property, common liabilities, and common
obligations of that union, upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith.”

[BroJoeK]

lacrew: "Yes...and you’ve articulated my position - the civil war did not start over slavery.
It may have been a factor, but it wasn’t the driving factor."

So let me repeat some facts we see so often obfuscated:

1. Civil War did not start over slavery.
   
2. Civil War did not start over tariffs.
   
3. Civil War did not start over New Orleans.
   
4. Civil War did not start over declarations of secession.
   
5. Civil War did not start over forming a new Confederacy.
   
6. Civil War did not start over dozens of provocations of war by Confederate seizures of major Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.
   
7. Civil War did not start over any of the other excuses we see listed...

8. Civil War did start at Fort Sumter, when Confederate military forces threatened, then assaulted and forced surrender of Federal troops garrisoned in that Federal fort.

The choice to start Civil War was made by Jefferson Davis, who could just as easily have chosen differently.
When Davis decided to start war, he was not thinking of slavery, or tariffs, or anything else except his need to defend, in his words, "...the integrity and jurisdiction of our territory...", and in so doing, convince at least four Upper South states to join his Deep South only Confederacy.
Those four states soon did join, doubled the Confederacy's white population, giving them at least a fighting chance to win the coming war...

After starting war at Fort Sumter, the Confederacy soon after formally declared war on the United States, at which point, all discussion of causes & effects becomes mute.

Now that war was on, the Confederacy must be defeated unconditionally, and slavery abolished, in Lincoln's considered opinion.

[Tau Food]

Yes, my post (number 277) was in response to your post 268 in which you stated: "Secession did not affect anyone's rights."

I hope you didn't spend too much time researching that claim. Obviously, the whole purpose of secession was to affect and altar everyone's rights. There wouldn't be any point to taking steps that were more or less certain to result in a war unless those steps were going to involve some important changes.

But, the slaveholders in Mississippi convinced themselves that any course other than secession would amount to a "submission to the mandates of abolition" (i.e. the loss of their slaves). At least that's what they claimed in their declaration of "secession."

And, while the loss of slavery might seem to us a minor thing, we need to remember that slavery had existed for hundreds of years, creating a culture of dependency. The slaveholders had become completely dependent upon slaves. These people had been cared for from cradle to grave by slaves and they could not conceive of a future without slaves to take of them. As they said in their declaration, secession was "not a matter of choice, but of necessity." They had become so dependent that they were no longer able to perform ordinary agricultural duties - they protested that "none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun." And, they had become dependent upon their government to protect them in their "right" to own slaves. They were terrified by the prospect that the government might withdraw that protection, that slavery might be abolished and that the slaveholders have to make it in this world on their own.

Yes, even the language that the slaveholders chose is the language of dependency, the language of the addict. Their appeal to history was based upon their claim that they had become so dependent on slaves that they could no longer take care of themselves. They believed that they had no choice. Can you imagine that?

Of course, when they did lose their slaves, many of the slaveholders did rehabilitate themselves were able to regain their self-respect. They discovered that they could become self-sufficient again. Sadly, though, some could not adjust - they remained unreconstructed and weak. Some became so desperate that they moved to Brazil.

The good news is that now most people in the South are grateful that slavery is gone for good and that Lincoln preserved the Union. Some of the most patriotic people in this country now live in the South.

We must learn from their experience. Nowadays, we have other groups who have become dependent on others for their support. Several generations of dependency will take a toll on the soul of the dependent.

The message is that all of us need to try to take care of ourselves. Dependency is weakness.

As usual, the USA did what needed to be done. Yes, the Union provided some tough love, but the payoff has been huge. Lincoln freed not just the slave, but also the slaveholders from the culture of dependency in which they had become trapped.

We're so lucky to live in the United States of America - one nation, indivisible.

[PeaRidge]

You made the following assertion:” But from Day One of his administration, Jefferson Davis announced that he would decide if ‘the integrity and jurisdiction of our territory be assailed, it will but remain for us with a firm resolve to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence upon a just cause.’ “.

You left out Mr. Davis appeal for peace.

“ If a just perception of mutual interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been fulfilled. But if this be denied us, and the integrity and jurisdiction of our territory be assailed, it will but remain for us with a firm resolve to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence upon a just cause.”

Shame on your censorship.

[PeaRidge]

Glad to provide you with the research, or truth.

The rest of your post is simply oratory and your opinion, which is obviously a point of self satisfaction.

[Tau Food]

I knew you'd be satisfied.

The slaveholders themselves are all gone now. Most of their ancestors work for a living and are self-sufficient. It's not right that they be asked to carry the stain of indolence that belongs only to their ancestors.

[NKP_Vet]

Now a few words from Lincoln’s buddy Karl Marx. How many communists from Europe, the “Forty-Niners” you think fought for Lincoln? Thousands and thousands of communists and marxists fought in the Union Army and many were top generals.

“.....the war of the United States is nothing but a war for the forcible maintenance of the Union. The Yankees cannot make up their minds to strike fifteen stars from their standard. They want to cut a colossal figure on the world stage. Yes, it would be different if the war was waged for the abolition of slavery! The question of slavery, however, as The Saturday Review categorically declares among other things, has absolutely nothing to do with this war.” ~ Karl Marx, October 25, 1861

[rockrr]

“Lincoln’s buddy”? Are you daft?