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.