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.

[PeaRidge]

This works:

http://www.raabcollection.com/abraham-lincoln-autograph/north-and-south-declarations-war

[HandyDandy]

Yes, I do blame the shooter. He should have given Abe the benefit of the doubt for just four more years. We have all been deprived of those four more years in office. But anyway, that’s the way it went down, and here we are.........

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, I do blame the shooter. He should have given Abe the benefit of the doubt for just four more years. We have all been deprived of those four more years in office. But anyway, that’s the way it went down, and here we are.........

I think four more years of Lincoln in office would have destroyed his place in history as a Demi-God. A lot of people were very unhappy with how many of their friends and relatives who died pursuing his obsession.

But you are still nuts to blame Boothe for the increase in size of the Federal Government. That was pretty much all Lincoln and his legacy.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "In both cases there were subordinate states that announced independence from their mother governments.
In both cases those mother governments objected violently to having their subjects and territory reduced and they used military force to put down what the rebels.
In both cases there were emancipation proclamations by the mother governments."

OK, once again, let's review the huge differences between Americans' Revolutionary War against Britain versus the Confederacy's Civil War against the United States:

1. By 1776, Colonial leaders, Benjamin Franklin especially, had spent many years in Britain trying & hoping to negotiate a better deal -- the "rights of Englishmen" for Colonists.
   What they wanted, ultimately, was representation in Parliament, so "taxation without representation" was their big complaint.
   Indeed, some Brits took them seriously and took their side, but in the end our Colonists were treated like colonies everywhere else in the world -- with an iron fist.

2. In 1860, by stark contrast, the Southern Slave Power was not only represented in Congress, it was over-represented due to the Constitution's 3/5 of slaves rule -- over-representation first felt in the Presidential election of 1800 where the 3/5 rule gave Thomas Jefferson enough votes in the House of Representatives to defeat John Adams' reelection bid.
   The Slave Power continued to dominate Federal Government all the way up until the election of 1860, at which point without any other justification, they declared secession.

3. By 1776, in response to our Colonists protests against "taxation without representation" the Brits applied increasing military pressure, in Massachusetts especially.
   In 1774, Parliament passed "Intolerable Acts" including the Massachusetts Government Act, which abrogated the more representative Massachusetts Charter of 1691.
   And in February 1775, Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion, ordering British forces in Boston to disarm rebels and arrest their leaders.

4. In early 1861, by stark contrast, the Federal Government did nothing -- zero -- to provoke Southern rebellion.
   Indeed, in December 1860 the Federal Government was still under absolute control of Southern Democrats, and the Dred-Scott Supreme Court, since the new Republican majority would not fully take over until March 1861.
   But, Lincoln was the first ever anti-Slavery President elected, and that was enough to incite Fire Eaters to declare secession.

5. In 1775, when the Brits first declared Americans in a state of rebellion, and ordered its military forces to seize militia weapons and arrest rebel leaders, Americans were still hopeful and Franklin was still in London trying to peacefully negotiate a better deal.
   In those 15 months between the April 1775 Battle of Lexington and the July 1776 Declaration there were, by my count, a total 19 battles in eight different colonies between Brits and Americans.
   So full scale war, started by Brits, was already on long before Colonists declared their independence.

6. The 1776 result: when our Patriots sat down in July to write up their declaration of independence, they had a long list of actual life-and-death grievances against the King.

7. In December 1860, by stark contrast, Fire Eater secessionists had no actual complaints -- none -- only vague concerns that their "peculiar institution" of slavery was threatened by Abraham Lincoln's "Black Republicans".
   So lacking material reasons, Fire Eaters declared their secession "at pleasure".

8. By further contrast, in 1861 the Federal Government did nothing -- zero -- to stop unilateral, unprovoked declarations of secession, and forming a new Confederacy.
   And Federal Government still did nothing despite dozens of provocations of war from Confederate seizures of Federal forts, ships, arsenals & mints, etc.
   And even after the Confederacy launched war, declared war and sent military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri, the Union made no immediate efforts to battle Confederate forces.

9. In 1861 actual war -- with Federal troops fighting battles against Confederates -- only came months later, in June, with the first Confederate soldier death at Big Bethel on June 10, Pvt. Henry Wyatt from North Carolina.

Bottom line: Beginning in early 1775, Brits first declared, started & conducted war against our Founders 17 months before Americans declared their independence in July 1776.
By stark contrast, in 1860 Fire Eaters began declaring secession, Confederacy and war on the United States a full six months before the Union did anything serious to oppose them.

The contrast is so stark and huge, there is just no point in even trying to compare our 1776 Patriot Founders with the 1860 Fire Eating Slave Power.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy: "This is a quiet place of refuge. A sanctuary. A never-ending, time-honored pillow fight. A man-cave..."

Amen. :-)

[HandyDandy]

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Enter the shooter, stage left ...........

Neither you nor I will ever know what might have been.

"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world's roaring rim.” ― William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

BANG!!!!

[DiogenesLamp]

The contrast is so stark and huge, there is just no point in even trying to compare our 1776 Patriot Founders with the 1860 Fire Eating Slave Power.

You are correct. The US Was a country founded on the principle that states had a right to Independence, and The British Colonies weren't.

It should have been far easier for the Southern States. Our foundation document supported their right to leave.

[BroJoeK]

Mollypitcher1: "A lot of what we do today is Lincoln’s fault."

Nothing we do today is "Lincoln's fault".
Lincoln deserves some credit for all the good he did, he deserves no blame for any of the crazy stuff people have since.

[DoodleDawg]

Last I checked, the Declaration was fairly well written. It is the first Official document of the United States, and it constitutes the guiding principle of the nation.

But it's not a law.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "You’re welcome to call “Godwin’s law” on the shiiteheel ;’)"

I give up, what's "Godwin's law"?

[DiogenesLamp]

But it's not a law.

No, it's higher than that. It is what gives "law" the authority it has.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "After the war, the Supreme Court issued an opinion fixing the exact dates on which the war began and ended."

The Supreme Court's ruling was in a different context, something to do with pensions.
In fact, regardless of the Supreme Court, which you would quickly reject if you disagreed with it, an act of war is still an act of war, and the first such major act (there were dozens of previous provocations) was the Confederate military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.

By contrast, Lincoln's announcement of a blockade killed nobody immediately, nor even caused serious discomfort in the Confederacy, since Lincoln still had very few ships to enforce it.
So it was a political announcement, not a military attack, though it certainly did excite Confederates into a frenzy of hatred and formal declaration of war on the United States.

Yes, you might say that Lincoln helped motivate Confederates to do the thing they most wanted to do -- make war on the United States.
But he did not start Civil War.

[DoodleDawg]

No, it's higher than that. It is what gives "law" the authority it has.

Ah yes, the ever popular unwritten, natural, means-what-I-want-it-to-mean, higher than high law. How can you beat that?

[rockrr]

Yea, I liked it too. It sorta reminded me of one of Swattie’s more lucid comments: “(Civil War) threads are just continued combat by other means” (I won’t even attempt to stylize his typing skilz ;’)

[rockrr]

Godwin’s Law (also known as “playing the hitler card” an an adage that says that whatever the topic, if it goes on long enough some dumb fool will eventually mention hitler or nazis. Calling Godwin’s Law” is roughly the equivalent of declaring that the debate is over (essentially because your opponent has demonstrated that he doesn’t have anything better to say), however it rarely shuts the dumb fool up ;’)

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/godwins-law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[Mollypitcher1]

Lincoln destroyed States Rights. He was just another politician and nothing superior.

[Mollypitcher1]

DiogenesLamp: “Lincoln sent an armed force to Ft. Sumter.
He said he wasn’t going to do that, but he lied.
He did not send them to play patty cake, he sent them there to fight. “

All of Lincoln’s troops were under orders not to fight unless attacked.
And that is exactly what Lincoln telegraphed to South Carolina’s governor.

Lincoln’s mission to resupply Fort Sumter was just that — resupply — unless attacked, at which point it was to become to reinforce Sumter.
As such, it was no more an “act of war” than, for examples: any resupply/reinforce mission to British forts on US territory after 1781, or today’s resupply & reinforcement missions to disputed Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
......................................................
It was definitely an act of war because SEWARD had promised that Ft. Sumpter would be closed. This promise was not made once, but several times. When Lincoln sent the troops under the guise of “resupply” it was CLEARLY a RUSE DE GUERRE. That is an act of war. Literally a “Trick” of war.

[Mollypitcher1]

Ultimately I agree with you - no rational reason existed for the South to secede.
.......................................................
Virginia seceded AFTER Washington informed them of the number of troops demanded to be supplied to the Union by the State of Virginia. At that time, Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army and fought for his native Virginia.

The taxation of the south was reason enough to secede and forcing the south to supply the money for the union to operate was Lincolns reason for the war. He moaned and groaned how was he going to run the government without the southern taxes.

[rockrr]

He moaned and groaned how was he going to run the government without the southern taxes.

No he didn't.

[Mollypitcher1]

My claim is well documented. Your “No he didn’t” is simply your uneducated opinion.