You have bought into the New England version of the Civil War invented in the 1960s. The North did not go to war to end slavery. The
south seceded because it became clear that the disproportionate political power it held for 70 years was over, as population growth fueled by immigration in the North meant that the South based Democratic Party was destined to be toothless. Yes, slavery was a major issue in that the southern economy depended upon it. The historical mistake is the belief that Abolitionists dictated northern policy when n fact most people in the North hated them. If Lincoln had addressed his Union Army and said : “Men, we are going down South to free the slaves,” his army would have deserted.
You have to ask why people thought enslaving other people was bad?
You are fantasizing. Slavery was always a bone of contention in the United States prior to the Civil War, and moribund, regardless. It would have ended in a generation or two without the War. Certainly those who opposed slavery most fervently clearly did so on moral or ethical grounds. In fact, most Northerners knew that ending slavery would be a net economic loss to themselves: the price of tobacco, cotton, and other crops would increase. (John Calhoun’s Nephew, one of many anti-slave Southerners, pointed out that the Northern Hay crop was economically more valuable than Southern Cotton, and that cheap slave labor suppressed poor white wages in the South.)
Economic benefits from abolition would flow almost solely to former slaves. The cost of the Civil War was enormous for both sides in terms of blood and treasure. The war is romanticized today, in some quarters, but it was Hell for those who experienced it.
The south seceded after the 1860 election because it realized that it had become a permanent political minority under the constitution. The south would be powerless to prevent the north from dictating all aspects of its way of life. Slavery, tariffs, et. al., were all secondary issues to states rights.
Particularly of note is this excerpt from one of the early reviewers:
"The book does have more than its share of opinion, but the pure facts about the number of people jailed without a hearing, who never got a trial, and never received any kind of due process of law because of the direct orders of Lincoln was astounding. The additional facts about the number of congressmen detained, the election tampering (if one can call being jailed election tampering), and other unconstitutional actions were also new and disturbing to me. Opinions about why Lincoln issued these orders can abound, but the facts alone condemn President Lincoln as a man and as the leader of a "free nation."
Sound familiar?
The civil war was about states rights not slavery as most people would like to believe it was.
Lincoln stated explicitly that the war was about holding the Union together.
The North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
“Why was the North so intent on ending slavery...”
Because Northern industralists assumed that one day the slaves would be put to work in factories and they, being unable to compete with slave wages, would be put out of business.
The same outcome has resulted here in the United States when all the manufacturing was sent to China and other foreign countries with low wages. It has put American manufacturing out of business.
Being put out of business back then it was a concern; today it is the goal.
Short answer, no.
As you examine economic conditions, and bank failures (particularly in the south) from 1800 to 1860....the cotton market (utterly dependent on marginal intelligence manpower in agriculture)...was putting pressure on the national structure.
Add to the problems...new states (non-slave in nature) were being added, with more Senators and more House representation for non-slave states. Even without Lincoln in 1860 (assuming Douglass had won)...the south’s ‘system’ would have fallen apart in the 1860s.
I would add to it...a reading of ‘Field of Blood’ by Joanne Freeman (2018, 480 pages) lays out a great deal of the political trend and why the two parties could not find a solution to avoid the Civil War. Strongly recommend the book but it’s a good bit of history never mentioned in HS or college.
According to one of my ancestors that was born immediately after the war, one reason the North had to stop the South from seceding was because the South had the best ocean ports for trade (at that period in time). If they seceded, most of the North, at the time, was landlocked.
Bkmk
The southern Fireaters could never have succeeded without the approval of wealthy southern unionists. That would change when increasing northern Republican antislavery rhetoric and violence turned southern unionists into secessionists. The fear of violent slave insurrection had become too great to bear. Read about Nat Turner’s raids and murders of white Virginians and Denmark Vessey in Charleston. With 1/4th the population of the north and contributing 72% of federal revenues, the south was pushed against the wall. The train of abuses (financially, culturally and safety) reached a crescendo.
The “North” never wanted to abolish slavery. The Pre-War issue was expanding slavery to any new states. The textile barons supported expansion. Cotton depletes soil so growing cotton year after year wasn’t possible so the cotton industry needed fresh ground. Again, the textile industry was all for it. Political parties weren’t as clear cut as today. IN the 1850s there was a “Free Soil Party”. They wanted “free soil” for new European immigrants not “free” from slavery. IF abolition was popular in the North Congress could have abolished it after the South left. That never happened; funny isn’t it?
Lincoln made it clear he would not end slavery where it already existed. But he would not allow it to be extended into the western territories.
Read the various “articles of secession”. They make it quite clear that the issue was precisely the western territories. The southerners foresaw that over time, as new states were added, they would eventually be outvoted by non-slave states.
The west was the prize.
As for cotton, notice that cotton continued to be grown in the south and is still grown to this day.
FACTS:
Maryland AND Delaware remained slave states throughout the war.
The much-vaunted “Emancipation Proclamation” freed the enemy’s slaves, NOT those of the northern states which still allowed the practice. Delaware was the last to change its laws, black slaves were still held by several indian tribes for year(s) after congress declared the practice illegal in Dec. 1865.
Lincoln couldn’t prosecute a war against slave-holders without slave-holding states to tote bails, haul barges, grow crops while federal soldiers were away from their day jobs for four years.
Now re-ask your question.
The Southerner slaveholders did a political calculus on what the 1860 Election meant & the direction that the country was headed. Slavery was going to be contained and many new States created that were Free States. This in turm would ensure that the Slave States & that institution would come under relentless attack from many angles and eventually be doomed. So they seceded and we got the Civil War.
Well they were always wrong. Slavery was always an abominable stain on the world like so many other anti freedom barbaric practices.
The North could not support themselves without the income from the South - - so they could not let them separate. Everything else is window dressing.
There were a variety of reason for the southern states doing what they did.
Obviously, the institution of slavery was a strong motivator in that it would have changed the cost structure to cotton and sugar.
Also, making the (former) slaves equal to poor southern whites would have upset the power structure such that poor whites would have to compete with blacks for the work that was available. This would have changed the electoral prospects for the wealthy whites in the south as well.
The economics of the northern bankers and textile industries would have made land acquisition more feasible, but there is still the need for much unskilled (stoop) labor, that had not been addressed in the planting and harvest of cotton and sugar cane.
To a degree it was economic, but also political, and social as the society would have been reordered without slavery.
Not those hanging in DC as well a Abraham L.
Cotton the south owned the market slavery was a front for the action to follow.
Not really. Slavery was horribly expensive to maintain and actually on it’s way out after the invention of the cotton gin.