The Civil War was not over the slave but of the secession of the Southern States. Lincoln was said to have grave consternation on freeing the slaves. And it wasn’t until after the Battle of Gettysburg, over 2 years, July 1863, from the start of the war, that Lincoln gave his famous speech the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln was determined to keep the states united and that is what he set out to do. When asked about his decision to free the slaves, he quoted Madison who believed and wrote as much that the United States was destined to bloody conflict when the final colony ratified the Constitution. Lincoln also said (paraphrasing) that we could not be equal as in the Declaration if fellow men were enslaved. That was his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
If the war was over slavery then Lincoln should have freed them at the beginning of the war, he did not.
In the Declaration of Independence, per Madison, the word “slave” was purposefully omitted and we know what was put in its place.
Some other issues the Civil War originations lie in were the Sovereign State Laws in the 1850s. This law said that when a territory entered the Union to form a state, the citizens of that state could decide whether or not that state would be a free state or a slave state. This ultimately turned into a bloody conflict which led to the Harper’s Ferry incident/raid then to the first shot being fired at Ft. Sumter.
Besides Sovereign States Law, the Southern States were counting on the Democrat candidate to win the Presidency. Lincoln won as a member of a new party called the Republican Party. Lincoln is erroneously referred to as the Father of the Republican Party. Before Lincoln was elected, the Southern States took offense to a plethora of laws Congress was passing from the 1830s to the War in 1861. States claimed that the Federal Government was grabbing power from the States that was not present in the Constitution. When Lincoln won and was sworn in in March (April?) 1861 this lit the fuse to the Civil War and there was nothing either side could do.
Claiming the Civil War was over slavery is wrong and people have been taught wrong in the publik ejumukashun system. Lincoln as a candidate never said he would free the slaves and even as President he had no will to free the slaves. This is one of the biggest lies about the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln.
Not really it was after the Battle of Antietam or Battle of Sharpsburg which was fought on September 17, 1862. The announcement was made by President Lincoln on September 22, 1862 five days after the battle. It emancipated was all slaves in states still engaged in rebellion against the Union. Although implementation was strictly beyond Lincoln’s powers, the declaration turned the war into a crusade against slavery. It went into effect on January 1, 1863.
And secession was over what? Slavery. Pure and simple. You can read the stump speeches of the Confederate politicians, the editorials of their newspapers, and most importantly the resolutions of secession of each of the Confederate states - slavery. Go to the original source documents. *They* said it was about slavery.
I agree that the North initially would not fight a war just over slavery. The aim of the North at the start of the war was to preserve the Union of the existing states. The aim of the South in attempting to succede was about preserving slavery. There were probably other minor issues but had a Democrat won the election and presumably been open to the expansion of slavery the War would not have started as it did. So to say it wasn’t about slavery is wrong. Slavery was the dominant issue.
U.S. Grant’s biography is full of comments about the war being fought over slavery. He did not agree with slavery and went so far as to make sure blacks were part of the union troops. Look up Port Hudson and the Siege of Vicksburg. The leader of the entire union army would disagree with you about the reason for he war.
One of Lincoln’s first acts was to free the slaves in Washington DC. He knew that he didn’t have the authority to unilaterally free the slaves nationally. For that an amendment to the constitution was needed. That is the province of congress and the states, not the president.
But in the end, the slaves were freed, something the secessionists had been desperate to avoid.
Uh, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 and it took effect January 1, 1863. Considerably before Gettysburg.
If the war was over slavery then Lincoln should have freed them at the beginning of the war, he did not.
Some other issues the Civil War originations lie in were the Sovereign State Laws in the 1850s.
Could you possibly be referring to the Kansas-Nebraska Act? It's hard to tell.
Before Lincoln was elected, the Southern States took offense to a plethora of laws Congress was passing from the 1830s to the War in 1861
For example?
Claiming the Civil War was over slavery is wrong and people have been taught wrong in the publik ejumukashun system.
I'm not sure where you got your education on the War of Southern Rebellion but I suspect it's the same place you learned how to spell. How?
In the Declaration of Independence, per Madison, the word “slave” was purposefully omitted and we know what was put in its place.
Madison did not write the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson did. And Madison was not one of those who signed it.
Wrong.
You start with the faulty assumption that Republican President Lincoln did not start the war.
The war was started by the dastardly democrats - the ‘fire eaters’ - and more specifically, by extremely sore loser Vice President democrat John C Breckinridge.
First, Breckinridge split the democrats into two parties.
The rump party was led by Douglas, Lincoln’s chief opponent for Senate, he finished badly in electoral votes.
Breckinridge took his seceded democrats into second place in the electoral college. Then he led them ALL out of the Union.
Breckinridge was not quite done. He then was appointed to a Senate seat. Where he fortunately lost the battle to get that state to secede also.
The US Senate eventually evicted him as a traitor about six months later. Because Breckinridge ha shouted the democrats as a General.
Fortunately he was not very good and lost the battery for Baton Rouge.
Eventually he was named Secretary of War.
And then he failed again helping the Cabinet to escape. While he and a small group managed to slip away into exile.
The ultimate sore loser - John Breckinridge.
Again, why are you blaming President Lincoln’ - yes, the father fo the Republican Party is a good name for him - for the actions of the fire-eater democrats - like John Breckinridge. The democrats incited and started the war.
“Lincoln is erroneously referred to as the Father of the Republican Party. …When Lincoln won and was sworn in in March (April?) 1861 this lit the fuse to the Civil War and there was nothing either side could do.”
Wrong, child, completely wrong!
“Before Lincoln was elected, the Southern States took offense to a plethora of laws Congress was passing from the 1830s to the War in 1861. States claimed that the Federal Government was grabbing power from the States that was not present in the Constitution.”
First of all, the democrats had CONTROL of the country. Until the election of 1860. So no, the US was not passing a bunch of laws.
You allude to the ‘Missouri compromise’ with your vague reference to 1830. That was a chief complaint and basis for formation of the democrat party. The guaranteeing that the territories of Kansas and Nebraska would not be slave.
That was why democrat Douglas proposed and passed the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854. That ‘allowed’ the territories to vote to be free or slave.
It triggered ten years of pre-civil war war in Bloody Kansas.
And also triggered the formation of the Republican Party in 1854.
The democrats refused to coexist with the Republican Party, they chose to start a war !
The states that gave public reasons for leaving made it clear slavery WAS a central cause. Texas:
“In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color— a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States....
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.”
Yes it was about Slavery primarily. Go read the CSA Constitution and the ordinances of secession 1860-1861.
>>If the war was over slavery then Lincoln should have freed them at the beginning of the war, he did not.<<
Couple of factoids revisionist historians disregard:
>Lincoln once supported, among others, the recolonization of the negro to the Caribbean and or Africa because they felt they would not be able to assimilate into society.
>Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley in 1862 stating that his primary goal was preservation of the union, not to destroy or preserve slavery.