Posted on 10/06/2002 9:15:34 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:00:23 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
You said to look at the fire-eater's speeches and named some of them along side Stephens as if there were no distinction between the two.
One reason for the fire-eaters' success was that they didn't simply parrot one line of argument.
Most rational persons would take this as clear evidence of the complex variety of issues involved - a clear slap in the face to the "it was all slavery and nothing else" line of argument.
We are justified in viewing slavery and the anxieties surrounding its expansion or extinction as the major factors in the coming of war, because other sectional conflicts in American were generally resolved peacefully through the political process
You are retreating back to your earlier circular argument of slavery-by-default. Besides, slavery had been resolved peacefully and through the political process as well, just as the tariff nearly led to secession and military deployment in the 1830's.
but that doesn't mean slavery was the only topic of conversation or that there weren't other questions at issue.
And that's a fair statement. Some, including some here, would deny it though.
Racial politics would grow more pronounced after the war and the abolition of slavery, once the chains of bondage had been broken and new means of segregation were sought.
Yes, and history tends to evidence the emergence of this segregation was severely exacerbated by the actions of northern radicals during reconstruction.
At the time of your quote, Wigfall saluted the new prosperous King Cotton, and spoke of economic obstacles that the North put in the way of Southern economic development.
Again, evidencing the complex and wide array of issues at stake.
In the same period he talked on several occasions about a state's right to leave the union for any reason or no reason.
Yes. He was tasked with making the legal and political argument for secession's validity before the Senate and enjoyed a unique position to do so, seeing as his state's secession was not formalized until almost a month after the other deep south senators had already left.
He also spoke of secret abolitionist societies allegedly stirring up trouble in Texas.
On a side note, that would be an interesting area to study - what groups existed, where they existed, and to what extent. There is obviously well known historical grounding in the fear of abolitionist terrorism that dominated the period, thanks heavily to John Brown.
He refered to the Republicans -- always the "Black Republicans" -- as a party of the "non-slaveholding states," whose principles were offensive and dangerous to the slaveholding states. If he said North and South or agricultural and industrial one might claim that slavery wasn't on his mind
If I recall correctly, he did say that, proclaiming "We are an agricultural people" or something of the sort.
but to frame the dissention as being one between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states, suggests that he wasn't indifferent or unconcerned about slavery.
I don't hold him to be apathetic to the issue, but rather simply note that it was far from the only thing on his mind or a sole driving cause for his secessionist views. As his speeches evidence, economics weighed in heavily on his position.
Latter-day Rockwellite free marketeers want to keep secessionist agitation against the tariff and throw away the even more passionate anger at the violations of the Fugitive Slave Law and the demand for still stricter enforcement of slavery.
By and large, I don't believe this to be so. Yes, there are probably some. But most of us who take the confederate side simply desire the accurate historical reflection of the complex plethora of issues at hand beyond slavery. There is a crowd out there, including among it some very prominent historians, who spread the line that it was all slavery, only slavery, and nothing other than slavery. This permits the demonization of the South, both then and now, while the North is simultaneously elevated to an idealistic moral good that it is not and never was. At its root such a view is fundamentally dishonest and willfully ignorant of history.
But that can't be done cleanly. The same people were passionate about both questions at the same time and regarded the refusal to return runaways as every bit as much a theft as wholly Constitutional protective tariffs.
And that's fair enough. My issue is with those who purport it to have been all about fugitive slaves and nothing about the tariff.
Even if one gives Wigfall the benefit of the benefit of the doubt, that subjectively slavery wasn't important to him personally -- which is unlikely -- there's still the objective question of just why secession and war came at that moment and not any other time.
Why do you think it came at that time then?
Our views of the causes of wars tend to be idealistic and rational: our own side fights for ideals, the other for rational calculations of gain.
That is often the choice presented, though I'll happily concede that strong rational elements drove both sides in the war.
Were Wigfall truly a leader in Congress
I said that he was a leader of the secessionist faction in Congress. That distinction is key.
there would have been much more written about him by now.
Not necessarily. That he was a vocal advocate of the southern position - the side that eventually lost the war - tends to work against him in the history books as it does any figure of a similar affiliation. Few know much of anything about the southern leaders in Congress at the time of the war beyond Davis. Judah Benjamin pops up from time to time, mostly based on his importance in the confederate government. Toombs is in there on rare occasions. By and large the others are neglected, due largely to the side they were on. But back in 1860, they were in the heat of the ideological battle shaping the course their respective sides took from there on out. Wigfall was at the center of this, being one of the first southerners to put forth the secession call as well as the originator of the Dec. 14th petition of the southern delegation, calling for secession. That Texas had a resolution on secession that didn't take effect until March also kept him in Washington for about a month longer than the rest. This allowed him to weigh in on the late-session debates as what was really the only remaining heavy secessionist view.
Most of the existing record suggests that Wigfall was too emotional and erratic to play much of a role in government.
...except in the heat of battle and controversy. Floor debate was his strength - both oratory and tactical. Many on both sides of the aisle considered him one of the most effective advocates of the Southern cause from the floor. His style certainly didn't make him well situated for hammering out every day legislative amendments, but it did make him well situated for a session that was solidly divided into two hostile sides from day one. When the whole session's a floor fight, you typically want your best debators and procedural tacticians out on the front lines, and that is where Wigfall served.
it may be because his role at the time was rather peripheral
I don't believe that to be the case or a supportable position. His participation in that debate alone placed him in the center of things. His petition of the southern delegations shaped to a good deal the way secession played out. And on top of all that, he made his way down to Charleston after the inauguration just in time to sale out to Sumter and negotiate its surrender during the battle.
and his paper trail more limited than that of his associates.
His papers are all there with plenty to be read...only not electronically. The one exception is his daughter's autobiography about the war, which is online in its entirity.
Oooh, I didn't know that. Send down Uncle Billy.
Walt
Academic historians rarely maintain that any event has only one cause or can be explained in a word. We laypeople know what caused the American revolution and who started WWII, yet any professional historian worth his or her salt can write hundreds of pages on these topics and count it as a failure if it doesn't include something new or challenging or unorthodox. Your Great Satan McPherson has written 230 pages on "why men fought in the Civil War," that apparently disproves that any one word answer can be given for the genesis of the war.
But the last two generations of historians have themselves been in reaction against earlier ideas that the war was the unwanted and accidental result of a political breakdown, or of the split between agricultural and industrial America. They are looking for one important answer that won't explain everything or displace other factors, but that will account for the most.
Slavery, and the conflict over its expansion and survival, does seem to go much more than tariffs, or industrial-agricultural conflict, or subsidies to industry. I suspect it has something to do with the context of our own times. If slavery had survived and industrialism died, we would doubtless view things in a different light.
The political breakdown theory does have lot to recommend it. So does a study of the political ideas prevalent in the North and in the South. But one senses that in this case there is something more fundamental behind the developments of political and shaping them. The conflict over slavery does seem to have been the essential catalyst that produced that kind of war at that time and place, though other factors clearly fanned the flames and inclined individuals to support one side or the other.
But it's also clearly the case that the kind of culture that we have shapes our responses towards institutions like slavery, and turns passive acceptance to rejection or defiant affirmation. I don't think one can say, "This caused this or that war." And one does have to take into account the explanations people themselves gave for playing the roles that they came to play. But you can rate various explanations in terms of how much they explain and how much they leave unexplained.
The line about the success of the Fire-eaters being due to the fact that they didn't all represent one set of views comes from Eric Walther's book, "The Fire Eaters" and the reviews of it. It's not a dig at the southern extremists, just a matter-of-fact description accounting for their appeal.
I suppose you're right that Wigfall played an important role in that last session. Apparently he played an important role in killing compromise measures. But at that point Congress seems to have become relatively useless, a place for jousting and sparring, rather than the source of practical wisdom or effective solutions.
Reading Walther's account, I don't see Wigfall as motivated primarily by race-hatred. That wasn't so much of a factor as we might think. Slavery was the topic of the day, not race. But Wigfall definitely does seem to be driven by demons, though. Mary Chestnut recounted the assessment of a friend of Wigfall's about the Senator's conduct in the day's leading up to the war: "Wigfall chafes at the restraints of civilized life. He likes to be where he can be as rude as he pleases and he is indulging himself now to the fullest extent, apparently."
So much of the debate here is about rational positions and it's conducted with a desire to prove one set of positions right and the other wrong. But emotional "irrational" factors, questions of honor, insult, fear, "saving face," and group identity and affirmation played a far larger role than we give them credit for. Whether they truly were "irrational" is another question, but they do a lot to explain the situation our country found itself in during the Civil War era. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, a Southerner, has examined these questions in his books.
I agree entirely. As one who does not maintain that the war is reducable to any one cause, I think it is fair to say that fault for this circle lies elsewhere in those who do.
Academic historians rarely maintain that any event has only one cause or can be explained in a word.
In most cases, yes. But with the war, there are many "credible" academics who push the slavery-only line as their own beliefs. The Jaffa cult subscribes very strongly to this position. James McPherson has also advocated it and written articles asserting that other issues, such as the tariff, were inconsequential and essentially irrelevant. It's also undeniably a the common perception among many non-historian northerners and is accepted as undeniable fact by "mainstream" media types regardless of where they're from.
Your Great Satan McPherson has written 230 pages on "why men fought in the Civil War," that apparently disproves that any one word answer can be given for the genesis of the war.
That particular book is problematic for McPherson and indicates very clearly that he is a man incapable of accepting his own research's findings. While McPherson's book definately does evidence the wide array of issues involve, he personally maintains that slavery was virtually the sole cause and the dismisses others - "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants...What lay at the root of this separation? Slavery."
http://www.historychannel.com/perl/print_book.pl?ID=34903
McPherson's analysis is almost like the scientist who gets a set of numbers from an experiment but refuses to accept them because they contradict his previous hypothesis on something.
If slavery had survived and industrialism died, we would doubtless view things in a different light.
Surely, but again - my issue is with those such as McPherson who dismiss all issues but slavery out of hand and insist that slavery alone defined the conflict - even when their own evidence shows otherwise. If someone thinks slavery was the biggest or one of the biggest issues, fine. That's certainly a possible interpretation. But I ask for the sake of honesty and historical accuracy that the other issues be included and given their due recognition. The alternative is little more than selective propaganda designed to demonize the south and deify the north around the single issue of slavery.
The conflict over slavery does seem to have been the essential catalyst that produced that kind of war at that time and place, though other factors clearly fanned the flames and inclined individuals to support one side or the other.
You have stated this before in similarly general terms. Please elaborate your reasoning with specifics.
The line about the success of the Fire-eaters being due to the fact that they didn't all represent one set of views comes from Eric Walther's book, "The Fire Eaters" and the reviews of it. It's not a dig at the southern extremists, just a matter-of-fact description accounting for their appeal.
I've actually been meaning to obtain a copy of that book if I can find one. The vast majority of my reading of the fire-eaters has come in the form of their own speeches and writings. Unfortunately there are relatively few texts out there giving an account of them for historical purposes.
I suppose you're right that Wigfall played an important role in that last session. Apparently he played an important role in killing compromise measures.
If you mean by inciting the southerners to leave and forwarding the conclusion that the situation was beyond repair, then yes. As for the particular compromise measures that came before the House and Senate, not really. By the time they made it to the floor he was virtually alone as the single deep south secessionist remaining in congress and could have done very little to alter them even if he wanted to. The compromise proposals at that point died because of the uncompromising opposition to them from the Sumner faction of northern radicals. This is not an opinion about Sumner, but a matter of fact of that session - his group killed the hopes of compromise on the floor, a fact that was openly admitted and recognized by more level-headed northerners and even some otherwise fiercely partisan northerners who recognized the urgency of the situation. They ranged from Clement Vallandigham to Stephen Douglas to William Seward and Charles Francis Adams, all northerners from a wide array of beliefs who placed the blame on the northern radicals.
And naturally, Wigfall weighed in himself. At the close of the session when moderates were pleading last ditch compromise attempts, Wigfall rose to explain why he saw the split as an inevitability and held out little hope for compromise. His clearly stated reason was that neither he, nor even the moderates could get a fair word in before Congress in debate with the openly hostile Sumner faction.
Reading Walther's account, I don't see Wigfall as motivated primarily by race-hatred.
I would have to concur. Wigfall came from a prominent South Carolina planter family and inherited some slaves from them. Accounts of their relationships with the Wigfall family indicate mutual respect between the two, even under the detestable institution of slavery with all its wrongs. As the war was coming to a close, Wigfall's freed house servants stood watch for him and even helped him escape the yankee troops that were looking for confederate officials to arrest. His view on slavery's existence reflects certain strains of a planter view of the time, but he was hardly some sort of a barbaric hate-filled racist figure often stereotyped into the plantation role by later writers.
But Wigfall definitely does seem to be driven by demons, though. Mary Chestnut recounted the assessment of a friend of Wigfall's about the Senator's conduct in the day's leading up to the war: "Wigfall chafes at the restraints of civilized life. He likes to be where he can be as rude as he pleases and he is indulging himself now to the fullest extent, apparently."
And Chestnut's is a perfectly reasonable account of a very vibrant and somewhat eccentric figure. He was a famed duelist, among other things if that is to give an indication of his personality. In Congress he was a staunch ideological southerner who made the case for his beliefs to the fullest. As I noted earlier, his great skill was the floor fight - he was feared and respected as a skilled debator, and that session provided the perfect opportunity for him to employ his strengths.
I don't see slavery as the sole and only reason for secession and war because of that southern nationalist sentiment, because the Middle South wouldn't have joined the rebellion just for the sake of slavery, and because political compromises had twice prevented the slavery issue from producing war. Had the Southern sense of nationhood been weaker, or political actors more dedicated to peace, war might not have happened.
But there are those who aren't contented with such a view and want to go still deeper to find an underlying "strong" or "deep" explanation that will account for more. There's a difference between the "subjective" feelings of the actors involved and the sought-for "objective" deep explanation. There's also the conflict between what one takes as a fundamental reality and what one regards as a surface phenomenon to be "unveiled." Slavery is certainly a "stronger" explanation than tariffs. It goes further and explains more. And it's also a deeper explanation than industry vs. agriculture. It accounts for the adhesion of most of the rural Midwest to the Union cause.
I don't regard McPherson's article as objectionable. He bases his conclusions on Rhodes's own findings from long ago. I tend to regard those "accidental" or adventitious" factors as more important in history that any one big cause. But McPherson certainly does make a plausible case. In this article for a popular audience, he's looking at the "big picture," rather than the individual and subjective factors that motivated men to fight. Whether his conclusion is "science" or "fundamentalism" it's far more than just his own unsupported private opinion.
Nor is McPherson assessing blame or guilt. I wouldn't put things as starkly as he does. "Slavery defined the South" didn't reflect the consciousness of all who fought for the South. McPherson's view "unveils" things that people of the time thought very real indeed. But slavery certainly did account for much of the difference between the free and the slave states. The conflict over the expansion of slavery accounted for most of the bitterness between North and South. And the defense of slavery accounted for the early secessions that sparked the war. While other issues may have produced additional frictions, which one was more lacerating than slavery?
The language of the "single cause" will offend many people, but what explanation or reason or cause can you give that will explain as much as McPherson's? Can you refute his "deep explanation" or offer a better one? Do you have an explanation that goes deeper or further?
Your relativism is showing again.
I don't see slavery as the sole and only reason for secession and war because of that southern nationalist sentiment, because the Middle South wouldn't have joined the rebellion just for the sake of slavery, and because political compromises had twice prevented the slavery issue from producing war.
Good, and as I said earlier, that places you several steps ahead of many of the McPherson and Jaffa types. You obviously lean to the northern side as I do to the southern, but unlike the cause reductionists who shout "slavery and nothing else" (or "tariff and nothing else"), we can at least come to some sensible ground that these attempts at reduction are foolish at best.
But there are those who aren't contented with such a view and want to go still deeper to find an underlying "strong" or "deep" explanation that will account for more.
Allow me to note there that doing so is heavily prone to fallacy as some things are simply irreducably complex - there's a certain point beyond which the war simply cannot be itemized without serving a detriment to accuracy and fact.
I don't regard McPherson's article as objectionable. He bases his conclusions on Rhodes's own findings from long ago. I tend to regard those "accidental" or adventitious" factors as more important in history that any one big cause. But McPherson certainly does make a plausible case.
I again disagree, as many of McPherson's statements in that article fly in the face of clear cases of fact. They're simply in error and inexcusable from a supposed historian of his credentials. I have detailed the errors previously for that particular article if you don't mind taking the time to find in on FR a while back. In this article for a popular audience, he's looking at the "big picture," rather than the individual and subjective factors that motivated men to fight.
The problem with his "big picture" though is it is erroniously simplistic and errs factually in several cases.
The language of the "single cause" will offend many people, but what explanation or reason or cause can you give that will explain as much as McPherson's?
Depends. If I wanted to be historically accurate, the task of a "single cause" is not possible without severe damage to factual presentation. If I were willing to take the approach McPherson does in that article and simply neglect parts of history that don't support my "single cause," I could theoretically claim that cause to be practically anything.
No. The answers people get are what they arrive at when they stop investigating. Some answers are manifestly false and others manifestly true, but history can't be reduced to provable equations. It has as much of art to it as science. I have indicated some of the reasons why one interpretation must be prefered to another, but it's more productive to regard theories more as working hypotheses than as dogmas. Some interpretations are manifestly absurd -- I'd put some of the neo-confederate interpretations in that category -- but investigation goes on and on. There's always something new to be found and historians pride themselves on coming up with interpretations that are new, original, and yet true to the facts.
You may put down Epperson, but until reputable academic historians deign to dispose of DiLorenzo's mishmash, Epperson does bring together many of DiLorenzo's dubious points. Readers are at liberty to evaluate the criticisms as they see fit, but they do indicate a sloppiness in DiLorenzo's work, which others can examine at greater length.
And understand, too, that the article by McPherson that you link to is a popularization and a simplification of his work, which is more complex and nuanced. There may be better historians out there, but DiLorenzo doesn't hit the mark. The best I can say, is that as a historian, DiLorenzo may be a passable economist.
Not if Epperson's critique itself is of dubious validity.
Readers are at liberty to evaluate the criticisms as they see fit, but they do indicate a sloppiness in DiLorenzo's work,
Not necessarily. The fact that Epperson calls DiLorenzo's work sloppy and even alleges cases of sloppiness does not indicate much of anything about DiLorenzo when Epperson's own critique is thoroughly flawed and historically inaccurate itself.
And understand, too, that the article by McPherson that you link to is a popularization and a simplification of his work
Sure it is, but it is also an article in which McPherson makes several very direct and supposedly "factual" assertions. My contention is that many of those assertions are in error.
Your question is itself unworkable for any one cause as the war it irreducably complex. Combination of causes...well, according to my own beliefs, the following roughly sums up what I think to have brought about the conflict.
1. The majority of your average confederate citizens likely took a side-with-the-homeland approach in secession and a defend-the-homeland approach in war.
2. Any persons involved in the economic activities of industrial manufacturing or agricultural production was inclined to side with one or the other for economic policy reasons. Public choice dictates that they act out of their best interests, inclining industrialists to seek protection for their industries and agriculturalists to seek free trade for their commodities. This is where the issue of the tariff and trade comes into play.
3. Persons with an economic intvestment in slaves sought the liberty to employ that investment in the territories to their benefit, whereas persons uninvested in slaves were economically motivated to oppose it due to the competition in labor slavery provided when along side free workers. Moral arguments bolstered this position, but tended to be in far smaller numbers than is often suggested.
4. An ideological battle existed on the proper role of the national government and its interaction with the states - what right did Congress have to interfere with a state's government or ensure that state's obediance to a federal policy. Constitutional arguments about the system of government and secession as a legal argument fit in here.
5. Political factions were self-interested in preserving/achieving majorities in congress for themselves. Much of the balance depended upon how many new states each region could claim as one of its own during the admittance and expansion of territories. This was a second motivation in the territorial dispute, as it could determine control of the senate.
6. Personal conflicts and emotion entered into the situation among political leaders. Persons of each side found reconciliation or compromise with the other impossible due largely to the hostility between the two, among other things. This exacerbated an already divided situation.
That's probably a fairly accurate, albeit simplified, explanation of my view of the war and its causes - at least covering the big points.
but what real and substantial improvement can you make on McPherson's short sketch?
Noting the factual error of his statements when he dismisses issues such as tariffs and economic disputes as inconsequential or non-regional.
The side with the homeland/defend the homeland approach is a given in any war, but it doesn't explain why a particular war began. Frenchmen will always side with France, Germans with Germany, but that doesn't go far in explaining the wars those countries fought. This argument, which works admirably in expaining subjective and individual factors, doesn't go far in explaining objective and collective developments. It's especially overworked when it's regarded as dangerous or damaging or divisive to seek the deeper reasons for hostilities. Politically, morally, and religiously it's a useful answer, but a historian seeking the real reasons for any war will recognize that this argument doesn't go very far or explain very much about how wars begin.
The agriculturalists of the Midwest largely backed the Union if not always the Republicans, rather than their fellow agriculturalists in the Deep South. This suggests that other factors, slavery or free soil, fear of the "slave power," ancestry and ethnicity, ideology, moral views, were stronger than any tie binding agriculturalists together against industrialists. The mass of support for the Republicans and the Union came from farmers. Moreover, powerful commercial interests had no liking for tariffs and industrial policies, either. They went with Union or Confederacy according to region.
The support for tariffs by the agricultural South under Madison and Monroe and the opposition of commercial New England to them in that period also points to the oversimplification of the argument. And agriculture vs. industry is really too simplistic to explain the kinds of alliances rural and urban people form in some conditions but not in others. Slavery looks like a strong explanation of why some groups allied and others didn't, though it's hardly the only one.
You're certainly right that those with slaves would attempt to use them to make money and those who didn't would seek to avoid competition with unfree labor. But this bolsters the argument that you claim to refute. Arguing that there's little question of morality involved says nothing about whether slavery was the key issue. Questions of blame and guilt, are not those of causation. So your point #3 backs up and agrees with McPherson's argument, though you differ on the moral context. Point #3 also goes a long way to accounting for the other points on your list.
Clearly, there's a conflict over the interpretation of the Constitution. But what fanned the conflict into war? It's possible that in time theories of constitutional interpretation could have led to another war or secession crisis. But the question is "Why this war, at this time, between these two sides?" And why did Southerners who championed American nationalism in 1812 and union in 1815 reject and try to shatter the union in 1861?
I certainly don't say that your point #4 is invalid. It helps explain why the "secession" idea ended up as a plausible option for many. And it also contributes much to explaining why the Upper South joined the rebellion (though group spirit accounts for as much, and the defense of slavery for something). But it doesn't explain why the constitutional conflict became so acute at that particular time and place. In a country with a different constitution such a conflict between free and slave areas would have taken a different shape, but it's likely that such a conflict would have occured at some point or other.
Similarly with point #5. It has some validity. But it's worth noting that the Southern states were ready to ban slavery from territories in 1787 and 1820, and this became a burning issue in the 1850s, an issue that obviously had much to do with slavery. You can argue that slavery in the territories would have been merely pro forma or de jure, but the purpose of spreading it there was to shore up the slaveholding or planter interest in the Senate. I don't think we disagree on this point. The question is the degree to which the territorial question can be divided from the question of slavery. I don't think it can.
If agriculturalism inclined one to take the side of the South on tariff and other economic questions and if this was the key issue, then there was no reason to promote the expansion of slavery into territories that would remain predominantly agricultural for generations. You can remove all moral contentious aspects from the territorial question and it still remains the question of the expansion of slavery, either on the surface (as a moral and symbolic victory or defeat for the slaveholding interest or the abolitionists) or in the depths (as deciding the real question of the fate of slavery in the nation).
With point #6 we have come full circle back to point #1. Ambitious politicians are the bane of representative government. As with siding with the homeland, political demagogues and opportunists are a constant. Why they were able to do so much damage of this particular sort at this specific time leading to this particular war is another question. Some additional factor or catalyst is necessary to join the rivalries of politicians and the conflicting interests of regions into rage and war. Point #6 accounts for the specific trend of events, but is in no way a very "deep" explanation.
Indeed, if you follow the economic analysis you do elsewhere, politicians turn out to be a minor feature. They strive to succeed by appealing to the interests and passions of others. They may heat up existing passions. They may benefit existing interests and hurt others. But they are working with forces and interests that are already present when they enter the scene. Though politicians can do great harm, they aren't part of a "deep explanation," but of more superficial and adventitious causation. They do matter, and a bad law can do untold harm, but if you're looking for a "deep explanation" you won't stop at the level of floor fights and committee meetings.
The question of whether any political compromise could have prevented the war is an important one, but the true source of the conflict was elsewhere. One could give some credence to your view depending on how one defines "cause" -- that's not relativism, either, but an important question of methodology that gets left out of debates like these -- but it's clear that if one uses cause as McPherson does, point #6 isn't much of an argument.
DiLorenzo has characterized his view as a "public choice" analysis, but it really doesn't look like much of an improvement over Charles Beard's economic interpretation of history. We all know that people tend to act in their own best interest economically. That's the beginning of analysis. The end product has to be more subtle than that. Moreover, such an analysis is only a tool, not a hard and fast method that provides one unique answer for every specific problem.
DiLorenzo's view is a very partisan and partial analysis of the economic phenomena leading up to the war. And DiLorenzo's analyis doesn't avoid the kind of moral outrage that he criticizes in Unionists. It simply transfers the object of hostility from slavery to tariffs. DiLorenzo throws out one set of moral arguments as red herrings or distractions or cover for economic interests, but he doesn't perform the same operation on other moral arguments. This is a result of the libertarian "metaphysics" which discounts non-libertarian arguments. Unfortunately it's also a skewed perversion of libertarian philosophy, which downplays some eminently libertarian principles.
Finally, I probably erred in characterizing the view in McPherson's article as a "single cause" theory. "Root cause" would be a more accurate formulation: slavery as the taproot of the conflict, with other roots feeding into it to produce the war. "Single cause" -- or even "root cause" theories turn many people off, because they look simplistic, and also because they can be used to put all the blame or guilt or responsibility on one side. There is a rawness or barbarism about such interpretations that demands qualification and refinement, but they can contain much truth and explanatory force.
I suppose McPherson's article fails as sophisticated history and nuanced history, but it's not meant to be that. As a sketch arguing a thesis with much truth in it, it's hard to refute. You can build on it, polish it and fill it out, reject some parts and bring in other factors, but it's worth reading and thinking about for it does capture an essential truth about the war's origins. Not the essential truth, though. But no historian can do that or would claim to.
You have mentioned factual errors in it. Have you found any?
...yet it explains perhaps the most important reason why the people of the invaded side fought. Without them you would have had no war.
The agriculturalists of the Midwest largely backed the Union if not always the Republicans, rather than their fellow agriculturalists in the Deep South.
First, it is fallacy to lump all agriculture into a generic bag and anticipate that they behave the same, especially when regional divisions are at stake. Second, your characterization of the midwest during the war is flawed. Though they tilted Republican, the midwest had its fair share of opposition. Parts of it were hotbeds of copperhead Democrat activity while others tended to represent the more moderate factions in comparison to the radical Sumnerites of New England.
The support for tariffs by the agricultural South under Madison and Monroe and the opposition of commercial New England to them in that period also points to the oversimplification of the argument.
Only on your part. The tariff politics of the 1810's are difficult to compare to the tariff politics of 1860. A better study would consider the way the tariff debate was framed between the 1830's, when the southern anti-tariff strain became a major and consistent cause, and 1860.
You're certainly right that those with slaves would attempt to use them to make money and those who didn't would seek to avoid competition with unfree labor. But this bolsters the argument that you claim to refute.
To the contrary. I've never held the absence of slavery as an issue, therefore making it not inconsistent to cite it where applicable. You seem to have severely mistaken my position throughout your post, x. Your response is one of individual rejection for those points you disagree with on the grounds that they are, when standing alone, too simplistic, whereas those you agree with are valid while standing alone or something close to it. The only problem is they were never purported to be stand alone arguments.
But the question is "Why this war, at this time, between these two sides?"
As you pose it, yes. I have offered my position that the answer to that question is only answerable to a certain point, beyond which anything else is far too simplistic. In stating that point, I identified a brief list of major issues which together provide about as brief of an answer as one can get to that question. Yet you insist upon simplifying them further, be it by attempting each issue as a stand alone matter or by simply reducing it to the McPherson explanation. You attempt to reduce the irreducable and that is your argument's fundamental flaw.
But it's worth noting that the Southern states were ready to ban slavery from territories in 1787 and 1820, and this became a burning issue in the 1850s, an issue that obviously had much to do with slavery.
If I recall correctly, they compromised on the matter allowing slavery in southern territories but not in the northern territories. What territories and where was still an issue in 1850, 1854, 1858, and 1860 when Lincoln took a hard line position against it anywhere beyond New Mexico.
If agriculturalism inclined one to take the side of the South on tariff and other economic questions and if this was the key issue
Before we continue something must again be noted. You are still failing to grasp the problem at hand by insisting upon finding a "key issue" to which the war may be reduced. It's irreducable complexity makes this task unworkable.
Moreover, such an analysis is only a tool, not a hard and fast method that provides one unique answer for every specific problem.
Yet that seems to be your position in this debate, is it not? As in finding what you term the "key issue"...
Finally, I probably erred in characterizing the view in McPherson's article as a "single cause" theory. "Root cause" would be a more accurate formulation: slavery as the taproot of the conflict, with other roots feeding into it to produce the war.
That's nice and all, but McPherson does not even allow that much. He simply dismisses the other causes or "roots" and obsesses around the slavery issue.
I suppose McPherson's article fails as sophisticated history and nuanced history, but it's not meant to be that. As a sketch arguing a thesis with much truth in it, it's hard to refute. You can build on it, polish it and fill it out, reject some parts and bring in other factors, but it's worth reading and thinking about for it does capture an essential truth about the war's origins.
I don't believe that to be the case at all. McPherson's article is irredeemably flawed in its factual presentation from the get go by being so simplistic. It is nothing more than the amatuer textbook "Lincoln Myth" perpetuated - an abolitionist/anti-slavery North acting on moral ground to stop the South and save the "unique" American "experiment" in self government. Within the short text of that article McPherson arbitrarily dismisses the issues involved in the war other than slavery, purports an interchangability of Lincoln, abolitionism, and the Northern side, an concludes it all with a value assumption of "saving the union" with little solid reason given to merit Lincoln's actions beyond the abolition myth and that vague concept.
You have mentioned factual errors in it. Have you found any?
His statement "The South in the 1840s and 1850s had its advocates of industrialization and protective tariffs, just as the North had its millions of farmers and its low-tariff, antibank Democratic majority in many states." This is wholly deceptive as it neglects the distinction between majority and minority factions within a region. For example, there were without doubt a couple of very prominent unionists in the deep south (i.e. Sam Houston). Did that make Houston's position a majority one or even comparable to a large minority in Texas? Absolutely not, and when Texas voted on the issue, Houston's side lost in a landslide.
McPherson also gives the blanket dissmisal: "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants." Regardless of what degree you or anybody else believes these issues influenced the war, to deny their existence completely is to deny the historical record itself where they were cited as issues of the war.
McPherson also says: "What explained the growing Northern hostility to slavery? Since 1831 the militant phase of the abolitionist movement had crusaded against bondage as unchristian, immoral, and a violation of the republican principle of equality on which the nation had been founded. The fact that this land of liberty had become the world's largest slaveholding nation seemed a shameful anomaly to an increasing number of Northerners. "The monstrous injustice of slavery," said Lincoln in 1854, "deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world - enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites." Slavery degraded not only the slaves, argued Northerners opposed to its expansion, by demeaning the dignity of labor and dragging down the wages of all workers; it also degraded free people who owned no slaves. If slavery goes into the territories, declared abolitionists, "the free labor of all the states will not.... If the free labor of the states goes there, the slave labor of the southern states will not, and in a few years the country will teem with an active and energetic population.""
In this passage he effectively has equated Abraham Lincoln with the North as a whole with the abolitionist movement. They are presented as one in the same along side each other, yet this presentation is wholly unsupportable and historically false.
McPherson states "Slavery was doomed if the South remained in the Union." This is not true, as slavery was about to enjoy more constitutional protection than had been the case in decades, so long as the Corwin amendment became ratified. The effect would have been to perpetuate slavery's existence beyond its natural life, and Lincoln was ready to do exactly that. Those are just a few of the more blatant errors.
You attempt to reduce the irreducable and that is your argument's fundamental flaw.
I'd say this relates more to McPherson than to myself. I've alreay made clear that I have some qualms about his approach, but the question is whether these things really are 'irreducible.' To use another analogy from science, there will always be some 'remainder' something left over. You will be able to find non-slavery-related reasons why slave states wanted more territory or wanted power within the union. Pride, honor, group loyalty, self-assertion and self-respect are all reasons for not backing down. There was also the concern about issues like the tariff. The question is whether this remainder justifies making these things causes equal with slavery, or whether one sees them as by and large subordinate to the conflict over slavery.
Given that alliances with other groups in the North and West would have gotten Southerners much of what they wanted, I have to ask why they didn't make those alliances, and the expansion and defense of slavery go a long way to explaining why they didn't. I would see the emotional factors like honor and shame as more important than tariffs or land-grants, but less important than slavery.
New Mexico was below the line established in 1820 to separate the free states from the slave states. Kansas and Nebraska were above it. One could suggest that the political ineptitude shown in opening the opportunity to admit Kansas as a slave state was a major factor in making war possible. But I suspect that even without this, the slave states would feel constrained by the growth of the free states, and likely to consider secession. One could imagine that the Democrats succeeded in acquiring Cuba or other Carribean territories as potential slave states. Whether this would have prevented secession and war or not is another question. My suspicion is that it wouldn't.
My comment on a method yielding one answer relates to "public choice theory." You have taken it out of context or maybe I wasn't clear enough. Public choice theory is DiLorenzo's explanation and defense of his analysis. But the answers he gets depends on how he construes and represents the situation. This means that he can't hide behind "public choice theory." I have already expressed my doubts about McPherson's search for one root cause or single answer.
The South had its Whigs and advocates of industrialization. It's true that the North had more Democrats and low tariff men. But this fact precisely undercuts the argument that the tariff was a major cause. For if it were, what would be easier than for Southerners to cooperate with Northern Democrats to keep tariffs low forever. The fact that there were fewer protectionists in the South than free traders in the North supports McPherson, not you, since it presented Southerners with a golden opportunity that they did not make use of. Slavery prevented low tariff men from working together. The tariff did not prevent pro-slavery or anti-slavery groups from cooperating and coalescing. This suggests that slavery was more of a primary cause than the tariff.
McPherson also gives the blanket dissmisal: "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants." Regardless of what degree you or anybody else believes these issues influenced the war, to deny their existence completely is to deny the historical record itself where they were cited as issues of the war.
You are working with different vocabularies and ambiguous words. To argue that the "war was not fought" over certain issues doesn't necessarily "deny the existence" of such factors "completely." It might mean that. It could also mean that those issues alone wouldn't have caused a war. It may also mean that men did not go to war over those issues. McPherson denies that these were a cause or the cause of the war, but that doesn't mean that they may not have been factors. The language is ambiguous and can be read in different ways. History teachers always had to explain that America didn't declare war in 1917 "because of" the sinking of the Lusitania, but that certainly doesn't mean it wasn't a factor.
You do have a good point about the view McPherson takes of Northern free-soil sentiment. The current approach, shown in the recent PBS series on slavery is to demean free-soil sentiment as meaning 'keeping people of color out' and reserving the territories for 'white men.' I don't think McPherson's comments are wholly wrong on their face or that the current politically correct view is unimpeachable, but McPherson does oversimplify things and leave out an important aspect of Northern sentiments. It certainly would have been better had he noted the important differences between the free-soil and anti-slavery movements.
McPherson's article is only a popular sketch. It's a bit akin to an explanation of difficult science for a popular audience. I'd say it certainly isn't the best history. I made clear in my comments that he was seeking the big explanation, the primal cause, that would explain everything, and this isn't generally the way historians procede. As a rough hypothesis to explain the era it does have its uses, but I'm more inclined to give more credit the reasons people gave themselves for acting as they did. Whether or not one can reduce "the Southern way of life" and other slogans of 1860 to slavery with little remainder is a very live question though. Probably it will never be resolved.
It's certainly apt to be disputed by Southern partisans, but McPherson's not saying that the antebellum South and it's culture are to be reduced to slavery, just that slavery substantially accounts for the differences between North and South that made the war. That doesn't mean that there may not have been things of great worth in the Southern way of life, though some may read his argument that way.
I don't agree with your explanation and think there's much truth in McPherson's article, but there are certainly grounds to criticize the McPherson of this article as a historian. There are real problems with reductive "debunking." Either it's applied selectively to one side and not the other, or else it never ends or else it always yields the same results because one doesn't stop until one achieves a certain answer that pleases. Another problem with the debunking or denuding approach that tries to find 'the real' reason for this or that and ignores other factors is that it depends much more on us than on the past. As I've said, if slavery had lasted and industrialism had failed, we'd read Northern and Southern motivations very differently.
It would be curious to submit McPherson's essay to history professors and see how they would grade it as history. But between two broad schools -- one that emphasises slavery and one that downplays it -- the first seems to have more of the truth.
Stuart, Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Johnston, Hood, Davis...losers, all, and nothing but losers.The cause of the Confederacy was primarily a naive attempt to freeze history in place seasoned with the reprehensible desire to keep people as property. It's ironic that to last as long as they did, they had to become what they despised: an industrial society that was arming black men and considering granting them a limited amount of freedom.
That said, the reason they even lasted long enough to transform into this was the quality of their officer corps. Put the likes of Lee, Forrest, Jackson, and Stuart in charge of the Union's military machine and the rebels would have been crushed within a year.
It's a fact of history that bad causes often attract the loyalties of highly competent men. The aforementioned are classic examples, along with Romell, Guderian, Skorzeny, Yamamoto, and Gorshkov. To defeat such an enemy, one must respect their abilities.
-Eric
If you say so, I can agree to that. It is my main point of contention with McPherson's article.
But this fact precisely undercuts the argument that the tariff was a major cause. For if it were, what would be easier than for Southerners to cooperate with Northern Democrats to keep tariffs low forever.
Pro-Tariff numerical strengths in Congress and a pro-tariff president. The House had already passed the Morrill bill in May of 1860. When Lincoln was elected, everyone knew the new president would sign it AND push heavily for it...that is if it didn't pass the Senate before his inauguration, where Buchanan would sign it just the same. The latter is what happened. When it did pass the Senate, Lincoln had already publicly pledged to make the tariff bill his top legislative priority in the next session if it were not law already.
Had the South stayed in the union, their only block on tariffs would have been a shaky sectionally divided majority in the senate under constant pressure from the white house and their representative counterparts to enact a new tax. Add projected budget shortfalls into the mix and a natural, albeit economically fallacious, call to raise taxes begins to resonate with the public - especially those who gain some benefit from it (the north) over those who actually incur its wrath (the south).
You are working with different vocabularies and ambiguous words.
No, not really. McPherson could not have been more direct in his statement. Only by torturing his wording could one conclude that, by saying "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants," McPherson intended anything other than to exclude arguments for their presence among the reasons why the war was fought. His statement was one of exclusion and a blanket dismissal, not one of prioritization or hidden meanings to suggest that he didn't really exclude what his statement directly excludes.
McPherson's article is only a popular sketch.
That is true, but it is also not an excuse for the mistakes and historically dishonest assertions made throughout that article - especially by someone of McPherson's alleged stature.
It's a bit akin to an explanation of difficult science for a popular audience.
If the article was properly written with correct consideration of history it potentially could be. McPherson's article is not that though. It's closer to the popularized grade school story of Columbus as the explorer who stood up to the scientists of his day and declared that the world was round. McPherson's article is little more than a "flat earth" account of the civil war.
I'd say it certainly isn't the best history.
And that is part of the problem - according to many, McPherson represents the "best of the best" in the field of civil war history.
It's certainly apt to be disputed by Southern partisans, but McPherson's not saying that the antebellum South and it's culture are to be reduced to slavery
His article seems to suggest otherwise. He says point blank that slavery defined the entirity of the south and nothing more. I don't believe one could assert in more direct terms that which you claim he did not assert.
It would be curious to submit McPherson's essay to history professors and see how they would grade it as history.
That would be an interesting experiment. I predict much of it would depend upon whether or not his name were attached to it. In cases that the essay was signed "James McPherson" I have little doubt he would recieve an A almost every time except among those who know McPherson as a rabidly pro-north historian. Submitted anonymously, the grades would probably vary more. I firmly believe there is a group of otherwise accredited historians out there who have convinced themselves that Lincoln can do little if any wrong. This seems to be the case within the Claremonster cult, who without doubt would give the thing an A. Elsewhere grades would be mixed. Those who would have failed McPherson knowing his name would probably do the same without. Those historians with less of an interest in the war or any side in it would also be inclined to give McPherson lower marks, absent his name, strictly on issues of factual content. But those are just my predictions.
I'm certainly no expert on this question, and I defer to those who have more authoritative knowledge, but the evidence I've seen is that tariffs were not the major factor in leading to secession and war. Indeed, according to one source, there was no effort to get Buchanan to commit himself to vetoing the tariff, and Robert Toombs voted for the tariff, either because it wasn't regarded as harmful, or because it could be used as a pretext for secession and a provocation to Britain to condemn the unionists. Had all Southern Senators remained in Washington, the measure probably could have been tabled, since the Senate rules of the day required a 2/3 vote to cut off debate and bring a bill to a vote. The free trade press made much of the tariff as a provocation to both the Southern states and Britain, but sorting out truth from opinion, predictions and partisan analyses from realities, is a difficult business.
McPherson finds slavery the primary difference between Northern and Southern civilization. But much of what was valuable about North and South had little to do with slavery. To the degree that North and South participated in American or Western culture, there will be much of value in each region that can't be related to slavery or free labor.
McPherson's "slavery defined the South" does look quite reductive. It's not the language that other historians would use. But if you disagree with his view, what does account for the differences between the two regions? There is a little to be said for Puritan/Cavalier analyses, but if you think of two twin Huguenots or Ulstermen, one heading for New York or Pennsylvania and the other heading for South Carolina or Georgia, you'll find them and their descendants growing quite different, without any of them encountering Cavaliers or Puritans. Anglicans in Virginia and New York, Congregationalists in Connecticut and Georgia came to diverge radically in their ways of life. Climate may also help explain things but it's not enough either. McPherson may be unfair to the upper South and the border states, but when you consider societies like South Carolina or Mississippi where over half the population was enslaved, and half the white families owned slaves, the difference to other social orders is so striking that it's not easy to reject his argument.
There's nothing more that I can do about your quarrel with McPherson. I recommend you right him nicely and politely with some of your criticisms of his article. If he responds you could have an interesting discussion on your hands. Or if you know any professional historians or graduate students you could take it up with them. I do not recommend calling McPherson a communist or a Marxist or a "rabidly pro-North historian" though.
And so it may have been, but by the time the Morrill bill was turned into law, it was one of the largest tariffs in decades. It had moved well beyond a simple revenue tariff to a protection tariff - an economic distinction that was certainly known to them in the mid 19th century.
Had Southern leaders kept their heads about them, there was no reason to expect massive tariff increases.
There was the Morrill bill. It was well on the way to passage before any southern state seceded, and Lincoln gave every indication he would forward its passage as a protectionist measure well beyond revenue collection.
Indeed, according to one source, there was no effort to get Buchanan to commit himself to vetoing the tariff
The tariff passed the Senate on March 2, 1861. Secession was already a done deal in the majority of the souther states by that time. They saw their affiliation with the US as having been ended and had no reason to continue to lobby its president.
and Robert Toombs voted for the tariff, either because it wasn't regarded as harmful, or because it could be used as a pretext for secession and a provocation to Britain to condemn the unionists.
Toombs' left the Senate sometime in January. The vote on the tariff was on March 2nd.
Courtesy would dictate the use of a more polite phrasing toward him, but in this discussion and for accuracy's sake, my earlier descriptions are perfectly reasonable and factual.
Similarly, a President who announced in advance his intention to veto legislation were in injurious to the Republic can have a major effect on the kind of legislation that Congress produces. Had an effort been made in advance to lobby Buchanan, it would clearly have had some effect.
Beyond that, in those days, 2/3 of Senators had to vote to cut off debate and bring a measure to a vote. A Southern filibuster would have defeated the Morrill tariff, or any other legislation that was found to be injurious to the South. You chose not to respond to this point, but it is an important one. The tariff would not have become law had Southern states remained in the union. Secession was the cause of the tariff not vice versa.
Similarly, a 2/3 vote of the convention was required in those days to nominate a Democratic Presidential candidate. There was no reason to split the party as a compromise candidate could have been found, had Southern delegates not left.
Procedural safeguards were in effect to protect minority (i.e. Southern) interests. As of 1860, the system worked. It was the Deep South that chose not to work within the system.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.