The southern states wanted their representation based on the entire population, free and slave. The north objected because that gave the south a huge over representation in Congress.
So they compromised and said the slaves would only be partially counted toward their representation in congress.
The Civil war had complex causes, and extremists of both sides of the slavery issue pushed the country to war. A compromise by gradual freedom and compensation to owners, which was Lincoln's solution, therefore failed.
Ironically, the plantation system would have been economically non viable in the near future due to other sources of cheap cotton, but the rich Southerners didn't want to admit this.
The small southern farmer fought to defend his land, the small northern farmer to prevent the disintegration of the union. So yes, the civil war was not bout slavery. But there were enough Christians who became aware of the evils of slavery that they were pressuring the government to eliminate this horrid system.
But what tipped the scales was not just northern industry, but immigrants and ex slaves fighting for the north. England's elite supported the south, but the industrial workers and anti slavery groups in England were strong enough to stop them, and after Gettysburg they decided the South would lose so decided not to help them.
And now the elites in the US is again letting extremists push the country to a civil war.
So please stop provoking each other on FR.
All excellent points. I was at the New Orleans Archives museum a few years ago and the docent who was showing us documents in the collection said that to the Southern slave owners, it was as if the federal government were suddenly taking away their farm equipment. Some of them were into African inferiority, some of them not, but all of them relied upon this - as you say, cost-inefficient, outdated - labor. However, they probably would have been amenable to solutions.
I’ve always blamed Charleston for the Civil War, not only because they fired on Fort Sumter, but because they had a whole strange theory of slavery and southern life worked out. But keep in mind that it was South Carolinians who destroyed the Spanish Franciscan Indian missions In Florida and either killed or enslaved the Indians, and also particularly wished to get rid of the Spanish presence because slaves who made it to Florida were free.
South Carolina was very committed to slavery ideologically even after England ended it. It was also the scene of the Stono Rebellion because their treatment of the slaves was so bad. When they put down the rebellion, they punished some of the leaders by burning them to death before an audience in downtown Charleston.
And of course the first Democratic Convention of 1860 was held in Charleston, where they effectively managed to get rid of somebody who would have been more compromise-oriented on the slavery question. South Carolinians, much more than any other single group in the South, regarded slavery as the be-all and end-all of Southern existence, and they dragged the rest of the South along with them.
“south a huge over representation in Congress.”
That is exactly the point. It tipped the enumeration towards the south.
“So please stop provoking each other on FR.”
Who is provoking who here?
Remarkable that there are bastards on this site who will stand up for the most sordid history of this nation caused by the southern states and still claim to be conservatives.
How is that for a “talking point?”
Re: “And now the elites in the US are again letting extremists push the country to a civil war.”
I disagree.
I think it is impossible to govern 330 million hugely diverse people as one nation.
I can calmly live next door to, or work with, about 90% of Americans.
But I do not want to be governed by at least HALF of them!