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]

No. Someone of moral character would put them in the ground.

Would they have started with the slaveholders that were close to them, such as Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and West Virginia?

Inquiring minds want to know if all the people in these Union slave states should have been killed because the Liberals in the North had suddenly decided that slavery, which had only been going on in the United States for "four score and seven years", was suddenly the worst thing ever!

They declared their purpose and in a decade slavery was gone. The south had the chance to do it the easy way, or the hard way. They chose wrong.

You write this as if Lincoln had not offered permanent protection for slavery. You write this as if Lincoln had not said again and again that he would preserve the Union with slavery intact.

How do you get the sort of cognitive dissonance that allows you to believe that the South (and the five Northern slave states) wouldn't continue having slavery absent secession, or if the war had ended quickly?

It's like you don't even grasp what happened, and just want to parrot a line about how evil slavery is, and how much you are personally against it. (which is a form of virtue signaling. We are all against slavery.)

The slave south was doomed either way, they just didn't know it until their farms were burning down around them.

So how was the slave South (and the slave North I presume) doomed? USA slavery had been going on for "four score and seven years", so what was going to change it legally? How was it going to be "doomed"?

You can defend it all you want, but it mystifies me that anyone would try.

And people always fall back to the "you are defending slavery" crap, when they ought to know that pointing out the war wasn't about slavery is not defending slavery.

It's like they can't grasp any other argument. They are programed automatons who knee jerk regurgitate "War is about slavery and *NOTHING ELSE* and HOW DARE YOU QUESTION HOW EVIL SLAVERY IS!"

Grow up.

[DiogenesLamp]

Oh. Ok. And the the war ended slavery. Brilliant on the north

If you cannot control a massive revenue stream, it is to your advantage to destroy it. For nearly two years of the war, Lincoln was trying to restore the South to the Union with slavery intact.

They would have really liked to resume getting all that slavery produced money, but it became impractical.

[DiogenesLamp]

The South started the shooting.

Lincoln started the shooting. You send warships to attack, you are going to get some shooting.

They intended to win.

They didn't even intend to fight. Union intransigence made it impossible for them to be left alone, or to avoid a fight.

They lost.

When a nation with 4 or 5 times your manpower advantage wants to kill you, it's pretty hard to stop them. Has anyone ever beaten such odds in history?

[DiogenesLamp]

What freedom were they concerned about having?

What freedom did they not already have as members of the Union?

[DiogenesLamp]

The south was dependent on a slave population producing/selling raw materials, like cotton, rather than finished goods that have far more value.

This statement makes as much sense as asking:

Which weighs more? A pound of feathers or a pound of steel?"

In reality, the South's production amounted to 73% of the total export value for the United States. The Europeans didn't need finished American goods. Their own steel products were as good or better than those the US was producing in this era.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I don't think Lincoln was supporting it because he was a big proponent of states rights.
I think he was supporting it because he thought it might be sufficient to get the South to remain in the Union without a fight."

Still nonsense because:

1. Lincoln did not "support" Corwin, he did not push for it, he merely did not strongly oppose it.
   Corwin was just one of many Democrat ideas for preserving the Union, all opposed the majority of Republicans in Congress.

2. By the time Democrats passed Corwin and Democrat President Buchanan signed it, the Deep South had already seceded, while the Upper South & Border States were still in play.
   Corwin had no effect on the Upper South, but did help Unionists in Border States like Kentucky & Maryland.

DiogenesLamp: "It would have done nothing to have corrected the North Eastern control of their trade, the gouging of Shippers and the excessive taxation from Washington DC.
There is simply no way these problems could be addressed so long as the Northern states held the majority of seats in Congress. "

Still complete nonsense because:

1. DiogenesLamp has never presented evidence from the time to support his claims that large numbers of Southerners cared about "correct[ing] the Northeastern control" over Southern trade.

2. Not one of the "Reasons for Secession" documents even mentioned "gouging of Shippers" much less gave it the prominence of, for example, slavery.

3. "Excessive taxation from Washington" was under the control of Southern Democrats almost continuously from the time of President Jefferson in 1801 until secession in 1861.

4. In 1860 US Tariffs were as low as they had ever been:
   

DiogenesLamp: "The fight about "expansion of slavery" was really just a fight for control of Congress.
The laws as they then stood robbed the South, and the North who had the advantages in representation liked things that way."

And yet Southern Democrat Thomas Jefferson supported restrictions on expanding slavery (i.e., Northwest Territories) without fear of its effect on "control of Congress."

Why? Because like nearly all our Founders, Jefferson opposed slavery on moral grounds and looked for ways to restrict & abolish it, gradually.

[Bull Snipe]

“With the Southern export value being 73% of the total, and the Northern export value being 27% of the total, it would be reasonable to assume that the Southerners were somehow paying for 73% of the imports”

You seem to assume that only exports paid for imports.
This is not the case. The South was not the only section of the nation to create wealth.

As an example: from the 1860 census, the value of manufactured goods from the State of New York $378,800,000.
Little of these manufactured items found their way to Europe. These manufactured items were sold all over North America. Maybe the manufacturers in New York had enough money to buy imports in the quantities represented by your Tariff graphic.

[DiogenesLamp]

And here you are lending an air of quiet dignity and wisdom to the thread.

I've always admired your manner of presenting your thinking, though I think I have had occasion to disagree with you in the past.

[Mr Rogers]

” Sending warships to attack was what *CAUSED* the war...

The Confederates had copy of the ships orders and knew they were coming. There had been no intention of attacking the fort until they got word that the ships were arriving. (USS Harriet Lane immediately fired at the “Nashville” upon arriving at the entrance to Charleston Harbor.)

Lincoln could not have made it any more clear that a military attack was about to hit Beauregard’s forces in Charleston.”

Utter howgwash.

The fort needed supplies. The Confederates did not want it re-supplied. Lincoln sent supplies.

Since the Confederates couldn’t starve the fort into submission, they attacked.

There was NO MILITARY ATTACK PLANNED! At some point, sanity and facts must prevail!

---

“The issue hung in the air when Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, stating in his inauguration address: “You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.”

Lincoln did not try to send reinforcements but he did send in food. This way, Lincoln could characterize the operation as a humanitarian mission, bringing, in his words, “food for hungry men.” He sent word to the Confederates in Charleston of his intentions on April 6. The Confederate Congress at Montgomery, Alabama, had decided on February 15 that Sumter and other forts must be acquired “either by negotiation or force.” Negotiation, it seemed, had failed. The Confederates demanded surrender of the fort, but Major Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter, refused.

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the Confederate guns opened fire. For thirty-three hours, the shore batteries lobbed 4,000 shells in the direction of the fort.”

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fort-sumter-fired-upon

“Lincoln initially “believed that if he didn’t allow the South to provoke him, war could be avoided,” says Burton. “He also thought they wouldn’t really fire on Fort Sumter.” Because negotiating directly with Jefferson Davis would have implied recognition of the Confederacy, Lincoln communicated only with South Carolina’s secessionist—but nonetheless duly elected—governor, Francis Pickens. Lincoln made clear that he intended to dispatch vessels carrying supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter: if the rebels fired on them, he warned, he was prepared to land troops to enforce the federal government’s authority....

...For a month after his inauguration, Lincoln weighed the political cost of relieving Fort Sumter. On April 4, he came to a decision. He ordered a small flotilla of vessels, led by Navy Capt. Gustavus Vasa Fox, to sail from New York, carrying supplies and 200 reinforcements to the fort. He refrained from sending a full-scale fleet of warships. Lincoln may have concluded that war was inevitable, and it would serve the federal government’s interest to cause the rebels to fire the first shot.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fort-sumter-the-civil-war-begins-1018791/

“Determined to avoid a bloody clash if possible, Lincoln notified South Carolina governor Francis Pickens (1805-1869) on April 8 of his plan to send ships carrying food and other supplies to Fort Sumter. Two days later, a small fleet of Union ships headed by Captain Gustavus Fox (1821-1883) set out for the fort from New York to deliver the provisions.

Upon learning of the Union plan to resupply Fort Sumter, Confederate president Jefferson Davis called his cabinet together to discuss their options. The letter that Pickens had received from Lincoln made it clear that Seward’s secret assurances of an impending federal departure from the outpost could no longer be believed. Davis and his cabinet were thus left with two choices: permit Fox’s fleet to carry out its mission to Fort Sumter, which would allow Anderson’s troops to man the outpost for several more months; or attack the garrison before the supplies could be delivered and risk triggering an all-out war with the Union.

Some Confederate leaders cautioned against launching any attack on Fort Sumter. “The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen,” warned Confederate secretary of state Robert Toombs (1810-1885). “You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from mountains to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.” But Davis and many other leaders believed that the Confederacy needed to take a strong stand. On April 10, Beauregard was ordered to take the fort by force if he could not convince Anderson to surrender willingly.”

https://www.minecreek.info/abraham-lincoln/lincoln-attempts-to-send-supplies.html

“Welles sent Capt. Mercer, in command of the Powhatan, the following instructions, which the record has dated April 5.

“The United States [Navy] steamers Powhatan, Pawnee, Pocahontas, and Harriet Lane will compose a naval force under your command, to be sent to the vicinity of Charleston Harbor, for the purpose of. . . carrying out the objects of an expedition of which the War Department has charge (Scott is supplying the men and material and transports, Fox is to lead them.).

The primary object. . . is to provision Fort Sumter. . . Should the authorities at Charleston refuse to permit, or attempt to prevent the vessels from entering. . .you will protect the transports or boats, open the way for their ingress, and [remove] all obstructions to entry. . . The expedition has been intrusted to Captain G. V. Fox, with whom you will put yourself in communication. . .

You will leave New York with the Powhatan in time to be off Charleston bar, ten miles distant from and due east of the lighthouse. . . there to await the arrival of the transports (with Fox on board). . . The Pawnee, Pocahontas, and Harriet Lane will be ordered to join you. . . “

https://www.americancivilwar.com/authors/Joseph_Ryan/Articles/Lincoln-Instigated-War/The-Buried-Fact-Record.html

IOW, supplies were sent and force would be used if needed to defend the ships supplying the fort. Standard military procedure. I’ve been part of similar reinforcement plans in Afghanistan.

Saying Lincoln was trying to attack Charleston is silly. Utter fantasy! It would have required, at a minimum, many ships of war plus tens of thousands of troops. It was a RESUPPLY mission, capable only of briefly defending itself. It carried supplies for the fort.

“Lincoln could not have made it any more clear that a military attack was about to hit Beauregard’s forces in Charleston.”

You might as well claim Martians started the war! Or that slavery had nothing to do with the war...

;>(

[DiogenesLamp]

Why not? You would have us believe that Northern newspaper editorials speak for the entire U.S.

In terms of voicing fears, they certainly speak for a lot of their readership, but this is a very different thing than stating what is or is not in fact the actual law.

The opinion of a newspaper on the facts of law is irrelevant. They may accurately represent a cross section of their readership, but they have no authority in matters of law, especially when actual elected officials (in this case the entire legislature of Virginia in the founding era.) disagree with what they claim.

[stanne]

Whoa. I see what you mean

[DiogenesLamp]

And would have stayed at 16. Nothing in the Corwin amendment allowed slavery to expand regardless of how many states were admitted.

And as has been pointed out many times, it wasn't going to expand to any significant degree anywhere else anyways.

Sensible people of that era knew slavery would be functionally confined to the areas where it already existed simply because it was not economically plausible to "expand" it to be anywhere else.

Unlike the Confederate constitution which basically prevented individual states from becoming slave-free and arguable prevented any amendment ending slavery entirely.

Which is arguably the same thing the US Constitution did.

Now what was it again they claimed they were fighting over?

The South? Slavery.

Your side keeps saying this, all the while ignoring that they had slavery while they were in the Union.

You never explain why they would be fighting for something they already had. You just keep repeating the mantra that they were.

How again were they fighting for something they already had while in the Union?

[DiogenesLamp]

NKP_Vet wrote:
The minute these immigrants set foot on land they were in the Army.

DoodleDawg replied:
You make my point for me.

What sort of point are you trying to make when starving immigrants off the boat were forced into the Army against their will? That slavery is good when the Union does it?

Not sure that's a very good point for you to be making. I thought your side spent all it's time telling us how evil slavery was?

[DiogenesLamp]

Like I said, odd-ball theories.

Nothing odd ball about it. Just because the vast majority of people want to believe a comforting fiction doesn't compel people with clear discernment to go along with it.

Though I must admit that you are one of the few people I've met to speak approvingly of the Scott v. Sandford decision.

Stop misconstruing my position. Just because I recognize that most of it is valid legal reasoning doesn't mean I approve of it.

I just don't interpret law based on my own personal preferences, I look at the inherent consistency and whether they conform to original intent, and whether I like or hate a law doesn't enter into it.

[DiogenesLamp]

So then history is written by the losers?

You are extrapolating a conclusion that I did not claim.

I think you do this sort of thing because you really don't know how to argue in a clear and logical fashion. I sort of consider it a charity to bother with you.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "A perfect example of how "Mercantilism" would have worked in Lincoln's government.
It is no coincidence that the biggest Federal giveaway of that era was to the railroads, for whom Lincoln had been a corporate lawyer."

And yet Lincoln never benefitted personally from Federal support for railroads as much as Jefferson Davis would have benefitted if his Gadsden Purchase plan had resulted in a Southern transcontinental railroad.

Remember: Southern Democrats founded the "DC swamp" and benefitted from it continuously from 1801 until secession in 1861.

DiogenesLamp: "They cannot see the parallels because they don't want to see the parallels.
They have been taught a version of history, and they want to believe it."

You Lost Causers literally cannot see that your beloved Southern Democrats were the original source and primary practitioners of the "DC swamp" culture inherited by Republicans in 1861.

Nor can you grasp that Republicans "benefitted" less from the swamp culture precisely because, then as now, the major media condemned Republicans much more for it than they ever thought to criticize Democrats.

Do you not "get" how it is that a swamp critter as steeped in it as, former VP Biden can claim the Democrat Obama administration had "not one whisper of scandal"??

Come on... 'fess up, you know the real reason.

Biden: "Not one whisper of scandal", go to 4:03

[DiogenesLamp]

But on land deeded to the federal government free and clear by act of the South Carolina legislature.

King George owned all the land of the Colonies. Independence invalidated all of that.

[rockrr]

I know very well what it represents. The man who created it did so to prove the South wasn't paying any tariffs, and therefore the "tariff" argument was just a bunch of bullsh*t.

Ah, I think I see the problem. The author of that graphic should have titled it "northern profits" instead of "Tariffs". LoL

In the real world, what it depicts is the revenue dollars collected at a certain point in time at various ports. It doesn't waste it's time attempting the impossible - trying to differentiate which dollars were for goods headed south vs. goods intended for northern consumption.

The South was producing the vast majority of export value, and imports are payment for exports.

No they aren't.

For those with the wit to understand, it clearly demonstrates New York had somehow managed to acquire control of all wealth generated from Southern exports.

Only in your peculiar world.

No, that went straight to Washington DC, which was the other major player which had a very strong motive to stop the South from taking over that trade themselves.

Thank you for confirming my suspicion. As far as I can tell, you view the world - especially the WBTS - as an "us vs. them" proposition. I don't. For me (and many others) it was an "us vs. us" struggle. I take southerners at their word when they state that they are every bit an American as people from northern states. (full disclosure: Having lived in three southern states and one western state, I do not consider myself a "northerner" - if anything I am a westerner)

So when you attempt to compartmentalize people into simplistic boxes you do everyone a disservice.

The system of revenue policy in the United States was very fluid and evolutionary in the years leading up to the WBTS. There were differences in interests and inclinations north, south, east, west, upland, and downstream. Representatives wrote laws based upon changing circumstances that included international interests and change of presidents. Special interests - all around - advocated for legislation favorable to their constituents.

We all know about the Tariff of Abominations. It was a tariff promoted to benefit one group at the expense of another group. It was so egregious that it sparked the Nullification Crisis. Eventually new legislation with new tariff rates was passed and the crisis passed. That was the nature of tariff law in the early days. the rates were negotiated up and the rates were negotiated down.

You frame your arguments as though you consider that the American people (north and south) saw each other as mortal enemies. I contend that it came to that for many with the advent of the WBTS but that it wasn't always thus. Nor do I believe that we are mortal enemies now. Just people with different perspectives and interests. You may be correct but I don't think so.

[DiogenesLamp]

Could have, but would they?

It was reported that Confederate tariffs were going to be around 10%.

That either revenue from these duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed, the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up. We shall have no money to carry on the government, the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe....allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten percent which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York. The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports." New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article "What Shall be Done for a Revenue?"

Perhaps they reported the facts incorrectly, and you have the correct information?

They could have done that before the rebellion as well. Why didn't they?

You cannot explain something to someone who doesn't wish to understand it. This has been covered many times before. One reason is Washington DC subsidies for the existing packet trade in the United States.

Pretty difficult to break into a market when the other guy is getting a base sum of money that you won't have to carry your operations.

Where they would have the tariff applied the moment they crossed into the U.S.

Only if you have the means to collect it along every waterway or potential border crossing, which would have been effectively impossible, and the impracticality of which was also noted by Northern Newspapers.

a series of customs houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers, will be subject to Southern tolls." The Philadelphia Press 18 March 1861

[DiogenesLamp]

It never ceases to amaze me that people who think there was nothing wrong with the states passing nullification laws on the subject of slavery over 150 years ago get SO upset over the states passing nullification laws on the subject of immigration today. You can't (Constitutionally) have it both ways.

No you can't.