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.

[rockrr]

Those who say that Lincoln fought the Civil War to bring an end to slavery find themselves using an argument similar to those who compare Lincoln to Lenin.

Interesting. It is only lost causers who bother with either "argument". Most people know better.

[Tau Food]

Now, not all of those who participated in the rebellion called it a rebellion right away. In May of 1865, Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest was calling it a civil war when he encouraged his troops to return home and become "good citizens" of the United States of America:

"Civil war, such as you have just passed through, naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. It is our duty to divest ourselves of all such feelings, and, so far as we have it in our power to do so, to cultivate feelings towards those with whom we have so long contested and heretofore so widely but honestly differed. Neighborhood feuds, personal animosities, and private differences should be blotted out, and when you return home a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect even of your enemies…. The attempt to establish a separate and independent confederation has failed… You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous."

[rockrr]

Yes he did have problems with them. He tried to hire an overseer but couldn’t find one that he liked so was forced by circumstance to manage them personally. He was so ham-fisted that he encouraged several to run away - a situation that caused him a bit of embarrassment and expense to drag them back and properly punish.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic.
The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs.
It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered.
To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language."

Like Lost-Causers ever since, Davis was utterly delusional on this.
In fact, there was no war when the Deep South first declared secession, and there was no war when it formed a new Confederacy, and not even after dozens of provocations in Confederate seizures of Union forts, ships, arsenal & mints, etc.

Civil War only came after Jefferson Davis ordered it against Union troops in Union Fort Sumter and then formally declared war against the United States, May 6, 1861.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: " The Lincoln plan was to send blacks to Liberia, Haiti and Panama."

That was certainly the long-standing plan of many regarding what to do with freed slaves.

But Lincoln's original idea was to offer freed slaves the opportunity to return "home" to Africa.
During the war, Lincoln talked with black leaders, and learned from them they wished to live here as free men, not move to Africa.
Lincoln understood and adopted their views.

So Lincoln made no efforts to force former slaves to move anywhere.

[BroJoeK]

Ditto: "I do enjoy single malt, but I fault this tiny tablet that does the auto correct as I sit on my back porch. ;~)) It's a real PITA to try to type on. "

Ditto that, Ditto. ;-)

[Tau Food]

Like I said before, PeaRidge understands the facts. He seems to want to argue the cause of the "secessionists" while rejecting their arguments.

Over and over again, the "secessionists" argued that "secession" was for the purpose of preserving slavery. They could not have been more clear in their language. Anyone with any doubt about why the "secessionists" tried to "secede" should just read Mississippi's "declaration of secession." But, PeaRidge apparently wants no part of the argument made by the pro-slavery "secessionists" and so he pretends that the "secessionists" were wrong about their motivations and that "secession" was really all about taxes.

Over and over again, the "secessionists" insisted that they had a right to tell the United States Government to take a hike and that they had the right to create a new government (Confederate States of America) no matter what that might mean for their neighbors. It was the intention of the "secessionists" that people living in the South would lose their status as citizens of the United States and that they would lose all of their rights under the United States Constitution. The "secessionists" intended to replace that status and those rights with a new status (they would be citizens of the new government that they were forming) and that their neighbors would get new "rights" under the new CSA Constitution in exchange for their old rights under the U.S. Constitution. But, PeaRidge doesn't like the way that sounds so he rejects the "secessionists" position and pretends that somehow nobody's rights were going to be altered in the process of changing governments. Of course, that's crazy, but that's what PeaRidge is actually saying.

Maybe PeaRidge should add, "Sure, there would be a new Confederate Constitution, but the people of the South would have the right to keep their old Constitution, too, if they liked it."

Now, where have I heard that before?

[Tau Food]

Well, central_va may not want to refer to what happened as "revolutionary" or "insurrectionary," but Robert E. Lee referred to what happened as a "rebellion."

See, this is always the problem. Modern-day defenders of the rebels want no part of what the participants believed back then.

[CatherineofAragon]

"As for wardeddy, I don't know much about him, but he does have a beautiful family. And, what can be more important than that?"

He's a gentleman and a worthy person to have as a friend.

I echo the person upthread (sorry, forgot the name) who wondered why on earth people continue to dig this stuff up and fight over it.

[wardaddy]

Tks

[HandyDandy]

I have always held those Great Men on both sides in the highest regard. It is a tragic and epic story. I remember reading that Lee never saw the Lee Mansion again, except for a brief moment while passing it aboard a train. Of course all too many of the Union soldiers who died at the hands of Lee’s Army were then buried in his front yard. (His horse was “Traveler”?) I would have loved to have fought for almost any of them, North or South (except for maybe McClellan). Fifty years ago, my father told me that Stonewall Jackson liked to suck on lemons. Shame on us if we can’t get to 1,000 posts.

[miss marmelstein]

If someone like Nathan B. Forrest can pronounce such words of wisdom, why do we come here on FR and fight viciously with each other about who did what to each other going on 200 years ago? It is beyond my understanding. Perhaps people like Mark Levin and Michael Medved and this author, are descendants of people who arrived here much later than the Civil War and so want to make sure everyone knows they are proper Americans on the right side of the issues involved; I can't think of any other reason to continually bring up the subject and bash the south over and over again until I've stopped listening to Medved and switch off when Mark starts up.

I think we all enjoy discussing history and the Civil War is one of the most fascinating - and romantic - wars to many people (particularly the British). But that is not the same as viciously attacking the opinions of people here who had great grandfathers die in this war and wish to honor their memory by flying flags and laying wreaths at Confederate War memorials. I only wish I had ancestors who fought in the war rather than be part of the New York draft riots. Now there's something to be ashamed of!

[Tau Food]

In the last speech of his life, Jefferson Davis asked that we reunite the country:

"The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes, and its aspirations. Before you lies the future - a future full of golden promise, a future full of recompense for honorable endeavor, a future of expanding national glory, before which all the world shall stand amazed. Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to take your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished—a reunited country." - Jefferson Davis

In his second inaugural address, Lincoln also asked for unity:

"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." - Abraham Lincoln

There's nothing left to fight about. Slavery is gone, gone for good!

[miss marmelstein]

I love all of them, including McClellan, who did build the Army of the Potomac. One of my favorites is George Armstrong Custer who has been brutally assaulted by politically-correct historians and their running dogs for so many years now it makes my head spin. They can’t even see the devastating personal charisma captured in photos.

Yes, Lee’s horse was Traveller. I’ve visited his grave 3 times now and always give a little wave to this intrepid animal. The original War Horse! He actually lived in Lee’s house at the end of their lives together.

Last November I stood on the spot where Jackson received his fatal wound. He was an eccentric!

There’s no one today who can hold a candle to any of them - in my opinion.

[Tau Food]

Well, that’s my point. See post 933

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "On March 2, the Morrill Tariff was signed into law by outgoing President Buchanan.
This tariff raised the taxation rate to 37.5% with a greatly expanded list of covered items.
This effectively tripled the taxation rate on imported goods.
The law allowed a second additional rate averaging 47% for iron."

You are cherry picking numbers to distort the overall picture.
In fact, as originally proposed, while Deep South representatives were still in Congress, Morrill would have raised average rates (ad velorum) from about 15% to 22%, which was about average for the years since the infamous 50%+ "Tariff of Abominations" in 1830.
In early 1861, with Confederate state representatives gone, Morrill rates were passed at 26%, somewhat higher than past averages, but still far from a record.

Yes, during the Civil War Morrill rates were raised to near record levels, but that was long after any consideration of competing Confederate rates played a role.

[HandyDandy]

Yeah, Custer made a name for himself at Gettysburg. He was the real deal. I once visited the room that Stonewall died in (the bed, the furniture, etc....). The placard at that site stated that he actually died from the pneumonia that he contracted after the wound.

[miss marmelstein]

Yes, old Stonewall was run down and had the beginnings of a cold, I think. He should have survived that wound. I've been to one of the houses he lived in in Virginia, I think it was. He did not die at the house still standing at Chancellorville. He was moved from there - perhaps a mistake.

[BroJoeK]

Tau Food: "I'm old enough now to know that it doesn't much matter what any of us think. We're just lucky to be here. "

Thanks, I really like your attitude.
Keep it up, please.

:~)

[HandyDandy]

Of course, the generation that fully learned and appreciated an historical version of those times that was not "politically-corrected" by modern historians will be dying off. So there won't be a whole lot of opportunities to hash it out with people that don't need to be spoon-fed the story from the beginning.

When veterans (yankee and rebel) of Gettysburg would meet at reunions many years later, the old coots would start going at each other with their canes. Now, you tell me, in such an instance were they fighting over slavery?