Why The War Was Not About Slavery

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org ^ | March 9, 2016 | Clyde Wilson

[NKP_Vet]

Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861—1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment but a political slogan. What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who come after. To limit so vast an event as that war to one cause is to show contempt for the complexities of history as a quest for the understanding of human action.

Two generations ago, most perceptive historians, much more learned than the current crop, said that the war was “about” economics and was “caused by” economic rivalry. The war has not changed one bit since then. The perspective has changed. It can change again as long as people have the freedom to think about the past. History is not a mathematical calculation or scientific experiment but a vast drama of which there is always more to be learned.

I was much struck by Barbara Marthal’s insistence in her Stone Mountain talk on the importance of stories in understanding history. I entirely concur. History is the experience of human beings. History is a story and a story is somebody’s story. It tells us about who people are. History is not a political ideological slogan like “about slavery.” Ideological slogans are accusations and instruments of conflict and domination. Stories are instruments of understanding and peace.

Let’s consider the war and slavery. Again and again I encounter people who say that the South Carolina secession ordinance mentions the defense of slavery and that one fact proves beyond argument that the war was caused by slavery. The first States to secede did mention a threat to slavery as a motive for secession. They also mentioned decades of economic exploitation.

[DiogenesLamp]

They myths about a war are written by the losing side.

Most of the time they are written by the winning side, and then taught as history, you know, like in the United States where most people think the war was fought over slavery.

Of course you don't think this, because you've said so many times.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes foolish child, Lincoln was willing to make many compromises to preserve the Union and obtain the elimination of slavery by slower routes.

Like preserving it indefinitely.

Yes, that is definitely a slower route to get rid of it.

Gee, I wish I was as smart as you who understands that Lincoln had to preserving slavery to destroy it!

Oh, but wait! Didn't he actually destroy-destroy it rather than preserve-destroy it?

Seems like he did it backwards if the other way was better.

[rbmillerjr]

“When he launched that fleet of warships with orders to attack the Confederates if they resisted efforts to supply the fort, *THAT* started the war.”

It seems that resisting efforts to supplying the fort, initiates the conflict, by your above statement.

[DiogenesLamp]

You misspelled "Independent."

They were already slave owning states for "Four Score and Seven Years."

The Union states continued to be slave holding after the Confederate states no longer were.

You just don't want to deal with truth that breaks your world view.

[stanne]

Money is the reason the south wanted to secede

You will have to elaborate on that.

[morphing libertarian]

Bullshot The south was sweating bullets for 30 years about the addition of more free states than slave in the western territories. They were happy with adding one and one at the same time. But lincoln don’t promise to continue it.

[FLT-bird]

The aggressor is one who invades the home of another - not one who fires to drive an intruder away.

[rockrr]

You probably better pack a sack lunch because DL has reams of propaganda on the “It’s all because of money” angle.

[Mr Rogers]

“Who fired first? Lincoln.” - DiogenesLamp

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK. You can think or feel what you want, but the first shots were NOT fired by Lincoln! Every once in a while, facts matter.

[rbmillerjr]

“The aggressor is one who invades the home of another - not one who fires to drive an intruder away.”

Your problem, in that analysis, is that legally, the US government is not invading another’s home. It is resupplying it’s own legal property.

[FLT-bird]

That’s easy enough. The Southern states if independent could have set a much lower tariff. This would have made manufactured goods their cash crops were exchanged for far less expensive. Also the revenues raised by the tariffs would not be spent for the benefit of others like it overwhelmingly was. Also, without the navigation acts in place in the US, they would have either built up their own shipping industry to handle those exports. Similarly, the support industries such as banking, insurance, logistics, etc would have been located in the South where those exports were furnished rather than in the North - a foreign country.

Also due to the lower tariff, importers would have brought their goods into Southern ports - especially New Orleans, and then shipped them up the Mississippi river and distributed them throughout the Midwest. Northern newspapers and commentators were quite clear that the South would gain economically by independence while the North would lose.

[FLT-bird]

“Your problem, in that analysis, is that legally, the US government is not invading another’s home. It is resupplying it’s own legal property.”

Your problem is that legally, the US government is invading another’s home. States are sovereign and have the right to unilateral secession. That fort sat on South Carolina’s sovereign territory and those ships entered South Carolina’s sovereign territorial waters.

[DiogenesLamp]

The difference is that the colonists who rebelled against the British did so because they wanted freedom from a distant, unrepresentative government, and the right to rule themselves.

Yes, exactly what the Confederate states wanted too.

I don’t believe that slavery was even a minor issue in the rebellion.

No, all the states agreed at the time that it was just business as usual. Britain didn't make a big deal over it either, other than offering freedom to slaves who would help them fight the rebels.

When you look at the reasons the states seceded, they said it was due to slavery.

So where in the Declaration of Independence does it specify this cannot be a reason for wanting independence? Actually, where does it specify *ANY* conditions for the right to independence? I must have missed that.

Also, it was only 3 or 4 states that mention slavery as a reason, but people trying to defend the invasion of the south always trot out those few states in an effort to justify what was done to all 11.

(I love Mississippi’s)

How do you feel about Virginia's secession statement? Or that of North Carolina?

So, the original colonies fighting for self-government.

So were the Confederate states.

The Confederate States fighting for the right to own people.

Okay, wait a minute. I must have misunderstood this whole thing. You mean the confederates were fighting for the right to own people? That's terrible! It's quite right that the United States didn't allow such a thing.

Why did they ever think they could initiate slavery in a Union of free states? It boggles the mind how they ever expected to get away with that. No wonder they wanted to leave, because everyone knows slavery was completely illegal in the United States of America.

Do you see what a f***ing hypocrite you are on this particular point? Do you see?

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.

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They already *HAD* the f***ing right to own people in the United States of America!

You can't take credit for doing something you wouldn't have done if they had remained in the Union. You also can't cast aspersion on them for doing exactly the same thing they would have done had they remained in the Union.

Slavery in the CSA is exactly the same thing as slavery in the USA.

[DiogenesLamp]

But Lincoln WAS in favor of ending slavery.

So he said. Of course he did support the Corwin Amendment, which according to you would have destroyed slavery by preserving slavery.

I'm still not smart enough to understand that, but perhaps one day i'll figure out your thinking on this.

then Lincoln was more than willing to make any number of concessions to avoid the disolution of the Union.

Why? Why would anyone want a bunch of F***ing slave states in their Union? I would think people of moral character would have told the f*ckers to get the f*** out! Wouldn't want to associate with them, but for some reason Lincoln felt it was important to bring them G*dD@mn slaveholders back into the Union, completely with all their slaveholding!

I guess he was still working on that "destroying slavery by preserving slavery in the Union strategy you mentioned that is too above my head to comprehend.

So why did Lincoln want the slave holding states back again? I'm still having trouble with this idea.

[DiogenesLamp]

He is impervious to any facts that run counter to his delusions.

Speak for yourself.

he won’t even look at any evidence contrary to his views so it’s no good to debate him.

Ditto for you. How you swallow the Corwin Amendment I do not understand. That one fact alone should have you questioning everything you have ever been told about the Civil War.

Preserve slavery indefinitely? How does that make *ANY* sense at all?

[Bull Snipe]

Your graphic of 1858 tariffs indicated that the Government collected about $47,800,000 in tariffs. Tariffs varied widely depending on what the imported item is. Just for argument sake, lets say that that dollar figure represents an average of 15% tariff on imported goods. That means that the total value of imports is somewhere around $318,000,000.
Who was buying those imports? Where were those goods going?

[DiogenesLamp]

Whatever evil the North was trying to purvey as you all see it, the south was prospering off of slavery. Period.

As difficult as this is to grasp, New York and Washington DC were profiting more from slavery than was the entire South.

Here's the map again. 73-85% of that money piled on New York came from slave production.

[DiogenesLamp]

It could have been any cargo a that a Charleston merchant wanted. What ever he was willing to pay for.

The stuff they most wanted was tariffed out the wazoo. Was cheaper to buy from the North because of protective tariffs.

Oh wait! I think I see how this works!

[DiogenesLamp]

I use that letter all the time. It says he would preserve the Union complete with slavery.

Makes it hard to argue that the war was over slavery, but people like yourself still manage to believe it in spite of Lincoln telling you differently.

[DiogenesLamp]

Which they could have done under Corwin.

How many decades later? I have previously estimated that the critical mass to abolish slavery would have been reached between 20 and 80 years in the future. With the Corwin amendment, it puts the time off a great deal further.

So in the space of a day, you've argued that there would never be enough states to pass an amendment abolishing slavery, and then you turn around and say there would have been, but the the Corwin Amendment would have stopped them.

I did not say that. You are misrepresenting what I said. I said that as things looked in 1860, it was literally impossible.

I have always held that the social pressure would work continuously to eventually undermine the will to maintain slavery, and that it would have eventually been overturned. But the Corwin amendment drastically increases the resistance that this would ever happen, because then states no longer have to worry about potential legal pressure from other states to over turn their institution.

I'm not sure if you can follow what i'm about to say next, but this stuff is non linear, and subject to sudden preference cascades.

Extrapolations using linear projections are very unlikely to be correct, but they are relatively easy to understand compared to the horrific difficulty of putting together some sort of more accurate model, and so that is why *I* and other people tend to use them, even knowing they are not very accurate.

We can see the trends and the directions, but we cannot predict the non linear nature of how they affect other factors.

But having a core group which cannot be dissolved tends to reinforce other components that may have otherwise transformed from one state to another.

People want others to stand with them, and if they know such exists, it reinforces their decision to stand. The Corwin amendment would have made slavery much harder to eradicate.