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.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Interesting how much societal and family pressure there was !

[Pikachu_Dad]

They did not necessarily need the ‘agreement of the people’.

20% of Kentucky’s population were slaves.

“Kentucky’s citizens were split regarding the issues central to the Civil War. In 1860, slaves composed 19.5% of the Commonwealth’s population, and many Unionist Kentuckians saw nothing wrong with the “peculiar institution”.[6] The Commonwealth was further bound to the South by the Mississippi River and its tributaries, which were the main commercial outlet for her surplus produce, although railroad connections to the North were beginning to diminish the importance of this tie.”

The leadership of Kentucky favored secession. Here are the issues as the Kentucky governor say them.

“Kentucky governor Beriah Magoffin believed that the rights of the Southern states had been violated and favored the right of secession, but sought all possible avenues to avoid it.

On December 9, 1860, he sent a letter to the other slave state governors suggesting that they come to an agreement with the North that would include

- strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act,

- a division of common territories at the 37th parallel,

- a guarantee of free use of the Mississippi River,

- and a Southern veto over slave legislation.

Magoffin proposed a conference of slave states, followed by a conference of all the states to secure these concessions. Due to the escalating pace of events, neither conference was ever held.”

No secession conference was held.
“Magoffin called a special session of the Kentucky General Assembly on December 27, 1860, and asked legislators for a convention of Kentuckians to decide the Commonwealth’s course regarding secession.[13] The majority of the General Assembly had Unionist sympathies, however, and declined the governor’s request,[13] fearing that the state’s voters would favor secession.”

Notice once again Breckenridges efforts in favor of secession!
“Realizing that neutrality was becoming less and less feasible, six prominent Kentuckians met to find some solution for a state caught in the middle of a conflict. Governor Magoffin, John C. Breckinridge, and Richard Hawes represented the secessionists’ position, while Crittenden, Archibald Dixon, and S. S. Nicholas advocated the Northern cause.[18] The sextet agreed only to continue the doctrine of neutrality, however, and called for the formation of a five-member board to coordinate the Commonwealth’s defense”

1861 elections favored the Union
“The tide of public opinion was beginning to turn in Kentucky, however. In a special congressional election held June 20, 1861, Unionist candidates won nine of Kentucky’s ten congressional seats.[14] Confederate sympathizers won only the Jackson Purchase region,[20] which was economically linked to Tennessee by the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers.[21] Seeing imminent defeat at the polls, many Confederate sympathizers boycotted the election; the total number of ballots cast was just over half the number that had been cast in the previous year’s election.[22] Governor Magoffin was dealt a further blow in the August 5 election for state legislators. This election resulted in veto-proof Unionist majorities of 76–24 in the House and 27–11 in the Senate.[23]”

After efforts to secede failed, Kentucky was then violated by a Confederate invasion.

“On September 4, 1861, Confederate Major General Leonidas Polk violated the Commonwealth’s neutrality by ordering Brigadier General Gideon Johnson Pillow to occupy Columbus.[26]”

Remember Pillow who attempted to frame Gen. Scott. And his attorney Breckenridge !

“Columbus was of strategic importance both because it was the terminus of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and because of its position along the Mississippi River.[27] Polk constructed Fort DuRussey in the high bluffs of Columbus, and equipped it with 143 cannons.[28] Polk called the fort “The Gibraltar of the West.”[28] To control traffic along the river, Polk stretched an anchor chain across the river from the bank in Columbus to the opposite bank in Belmont, Missouri.[27] Each link of the chain measured eleven inches long by eight inches wide and weighed twenty pounds.[29] The chain soon broke under its own weight, but Union forces did not learn of this fact until early 1862.[2”

The State then entered the war on the side of the Union... but had overide vetos by their Governor to fo so.

“In response to the Confederate invasion, Union Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant left Cairo, Illinois and entered Paducah, Kentucky on September 6, which gave the Union control of the northern end of the New Orleans and Ohio Railroad[27] and the mouth of the Tennessee River. Governor Magoffin denounced both sides for violating the Commonwealth’s neutrality, calling for both sides to withdraw.[30] However, on September 7, 1861, the General Assembly passed a resolution ordering the withdrawal of only Confederate forces.[30] Magoffin vetoed the resolution, but both houses overrode the veto, and Magoffin issued the proclamation.[31] The General Assembly ordered the flag of the United States to be raised over the state capitol in Frankfort, declaring its allegiance with the Union.”

The Confederates then established a rump government.

“The elected government of Kentucky being decidedly Union, a group of Southern sympathizers began formulating a plan to create a Confederate shadow government for the Commonwealth. Following a preliminary meeting on October 29, 1861, delegates from 68 of Kentucky’s 110 counties met at the Clark House in Russellville on November 18.[35]

The convention passed an ordinance of secession, adopted a new state seal, and elected Scott County native George W. Johnson as governor.[35]

Bowling Green, now occupied by General Johnston himself, was designated as the state capital, though the delegates provided that the government could meet anywhere deemed appropriate by the provisional legislative council and governor.[36]

Being unable to flesh out a complete constitution and system of laws, the delegates voted that “the Constitution and laws of Kentucky, not inconsistent with the acts of this Convention, and the establishment of this Government, and the laws which may be enacted by the Governor and Council, shall be the laws of this state.”[36]

Though President Davis had some reservation about the circumvention of the elected General Assembly in forming the Confederate government, Kentucky was admitted to the Confederacy on December 10, 1861.[37] Kentucky was represented by the central star on the Confederate battle flag.[38]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_in_the_American_Civil_War

[x]

Further, the contempt in which some Northerners held the South is much like the contempt much of the tech community has for ordinary people who do not build their lives and values around technology.

Not so much. The Cotton states were rich. They had their own elites, who might have felt slighted sometimes by Yankees, but who certainly believed in their own superiority and asserted it when they could.

Very few Northerners "built their lives and values around technology." Most Northerners were farmers or were in businesses that didn't rely on anything that could be called High Tech.

Those who controlled cotton mills usually had little animosity towards Southerners. They needed their cotton. And people like Carnegie and Edison probably didn't give much thought at all to the South, except as another market for their products.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that the way things may be now reflects what was going on a century and a half ago.

[x]

Recently, professor Paul Finkleman argued in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities that the common perception of slavery as a dying institution before the cotton gin’s invention is misguided. “Slaves were a profitable investment before the cotton gin and an even more profitable investment after its invention,” he wrote in 2013.

Virginians were going bankrupt in the early 19th century and getting out of tobacco and into wheat. If they didn't have the new states to the southwest to sell their slaves to, the state might well have gotten rid of slavery. The cotton gin helped make cotton growing in those Deep South states wildly profitable and that gave slavery a rosier future than it would have had in Maryland and Virginia. So while the professor may have a point about the economics, the cotton gin did much to make the South what it was.

[FLT-bird]

Formatting is not your strong suit today. That was my question; what legal mechanism did they use? The answer being, none. They launched a rebellion, won it, and final ownership was settled by treaty. The same method the southern states tried. Except they didn't win, did they?

They can claim ANY property within their borders under eminent domain. Your legal understanding here is flawed.

[FLT-bird]

No, it doesn't. And even if it did it doesn't specify 10%. That figure is a figment of your vivid imagination.

yes it does and yes it does mean a maximum of 10%. You are simply wrong.

Apparently a lot more than one guy since the Confederate tariff passed a few months later had rates as high as 25%.

As I said, the exigencies of war forced them to adopt a higher tariff

And that is defined where?

That was and is the standard definition

Yet you referenced it. In 1861 there was one or two packet lines that serviced only southern ports and one trans-Atlantic line that made the trip from Charleston to England to New York to Charleston. What did the Navigation Act do to impede them?

No I didn't.

Why? Why not just continue to contract their business to existing lines, be they British or U.S.? Starting from scratch would only increase shipping costs, would they not? Especially if the necessary expertise wasn't available in the South.

For the reasons I've already outlined. See previous post.

Maybe they should have. His opposition to Davis's policies on suspending habeas corpus, conscription, taxes, crazy interference in the war, and on and on were the reason for his leaving Richmond, and had more people listened to him then maybe the Confederacy wouldn't have been the police state is approached during the war.

So as I said, Stephens had no influence. You could have just admitted that and saved a lot of typing.

You guys are great at quoting newspaper editorials, which are nothing but opinion, and presenting them as fact. But then again the rest of posts y'all make aren't much different - opinion masquerading as fact.

They were the only media of the time. The opinions expressed in those editorials were very influential,

[FLT-bird]

Impossible? No. Unconstitutional? Yes. Anyone who read the Confederate constitution would know that.

Ah but it wasn't unconstitutional. Treaties have the force of constitutional law.

[FLT-bird]

I had never read Rhett’s address before. Thank you for recommending it. BTW, the full title is “The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States”. Not a great start for a document you claim proves that Secession wasn’t due to slavery. It does address the taxation issue, after a couple of paragraphs of intro and background. However, by the time you get to paragraph 9, it rapidly becomes about the issue of slavery. From then on, for the rest of the document (roughly half of the total), the talk is mainly of slavery, with nary a mention of taxes and tariffs. So, I hardly think that this document proves that secession was primarily about money, I think it rather proves that it was mainly about slavery. Interestingly enough, this document was addressed to the other slaveholding (his word, not mine) states. When you look at the document South Carolina addressed to the North, and the rest of the world, they only mentioned slavery and not tariffs or taxes. Kind of tells you what they wanted the world to think their primary cause of secession was, doesn’t it? In fact, when you read all of the Articles of Secession from the states, or those who actually mentioned a cause, 100% of them mentioned slavery. So, I stand by my contention that the primary cause of secession was slavery.

Rhett lays out the economic case. He details how the Southern states as of that time were in exactly the same position vis a vis the Northern states as the 13 colonies were vis a vis Great Britain in 1775. He goes on at length about how the high tariffs are harmful to the South's economy and how the North uses its congressional majority to lavish on itself the vast majority of the money raised by tariffs paid for overwhelmingly by Southerners.

The fact that he addressed it to the other slaveholding states....overwhelmingly the other states with economies primarily based on producing cash crops for export in no way undercuts the economic arguments.

The case would have been exactly the same had those states abolished slavery and produced cash crops for export via a sharecropping system which they adopted after the war.

[FLT-bird]

No more reliable republicans voting states that the former Confederate states. You see Southerners were states rights, God-fearing conservatives in the middle of the 18th Century the same way they are today. YankeeLand was liberal land. Big government, bleeding heart liberals that thought Southerners were not as smart as a Yankee, and in that regard not much has changed in the last 150 years.

We keep pointing out to Yankeefa these basic facts...that the South's values have not really changed since before the ratification of the US Constitution...that the South has always favored limited government, balanced budgets and decentralized power - the bedrock of modern conservatism. We keep pointing out that their main allies are a bunch of radical Leftist college profs and the MSM....yet Yankeefa doggedly sticks to their PC Revisionist dogma WHILE at the same time claiming to be conservatives. They obviously aren't conservatives. They line up with Leftists at every turn.

[FLT-bird]

We are in the middle of a culture war in the US. The socialists have pitted each culture against the other. It’s all they talk about , think about, report on. It fills their heads 24 hours a day. They tear down monuments , they vandalize them, they even desecrate sacred grave sites. They seek Chaos. Up to this point the Confederate things have been the target, but that’s changing. They are coming after our founding fathers now. They use PC and victimhood to get the different traditional American cultures fighting one another. America is a land of many cultures that combine for an American culture. The American wAy is for each to respect the other, and when the crap hits the fan we fight together. They want to prevent that by making us hate each other. The South as in 1861 just asks to be left alone. Respect our culture and our forefathers. Leave our symbols and monuments alone. That’s all we ask. They know that. They know we stand in their way to a Godless, Secular, Socialist Government for the elite. But they are mistaken if they think we will not fight for what we think they can not take from us. Our Rights are given by God not government. For our Individual liberty we will and always fight !

Oh I know. There's not even any point in talking to hardcore Leftists. Its obvious what their endgame is. What simply amazes me is how they get people who otherwise consider themselves to be Conservatives to go along with their PC Revisionist crap so long as the target is Southerners.....the ideological allies of Conservatives (not Neocons but actual Conservatives) in America today.

We have warned them for years and years that the South's intellectual legacy is not limited to the mid 19th century. It goes right to the very heart of the founding of the Republic. For all their self congratulation, it was not New Englanders who provided the overwhelming majority of the intellectual force behind the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution. It was Dixie. The Constitution is absolutely a product of the Southern mind. Had it been written by New Englanders it would have had a much more centralized and expansive federal government and no provisions for individual liberty. We'd be in exactly the same mess western Europe is in today with no right to bear arms and no absolute freedom of speech such that not just big Tech would ban "hate speech" but the government itself would make it a crime. They would of course come to define "hate speech" as any disagreement with the Establishment - just as we increasingly see in Western Europe today.

Far from being unAmerican as New Englanders would have it, Southerners represent the essence of what it is to be an American. It is New England that is alien from the majority of America. It is they who would fit much more comfortably in Western Europe than on this side of the pond - not the South.

[Bull Snipe]

Only if 2/3s of the Confederate Senate approved the treaty.

[Team Cuda]

You are right, as far as you go – about halfway through Rhett’s address. If you read the second half of Rhett’s address, you find it talks almost exclusively about slavery, and not taxes or tariffs (I thought I had made that point in my original response). To summarize, it appears that the second half was spent a lot of time talking about how the South was a collection of slaveholding states, and that they never would have agreed to Union if they thought that the North would try to abolish slavery. I assume you have read the whole (not just the first 8 paragraphs) of the address. I’m sure you have seen the last line, which reads “We ask you to join us, in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States”. It doesn’t say “join us in forming a Confederacy based on low tariffs, or low taxes. It appears that the definition of a Slaveholding Confederacy is the important definition, not taxes or tariffs. I am sure I am misreading the last half of Rhett’s address, and the constant references to slavery are somehow unimportant, and I am sure you will respond to let me know exactly how I am misreading it.

To be clear, it is not my contention that slavery was the only reason the South chose to secede. It is however the primary reason.

[FLT-bird]

You are right, as far as you go – about halfway through Rhett’s address. If you read the second half of Rhett’s address, you find it talks almost exclusively about slavery, and not taxes or tariffs (I thought I had made that point in my original response). To summarize, it appears that the second half was spent a lot of time talking about how the South was a collection of slaveholding states, and that they never would have agreed to Union if they thought that the North would try to abolish slavery. I assume you have read the whole (not just the first 8 paragraphs) of the address. I’m sure you have seen the last line, which reads “We ask you to join us, in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States”. It doesn’t say “join us in forming a Confederacy based on low tariffs, or low taxes. It appears that the definition of a Slaveholding Confederacy is the important definition, not taxes or tariffs. I am sure I am misreading the last half of Rhett’s address, and the constant references to slavery are somehow unimportant, and I am sure you will respond to let me know exactly how I am misreading it. To be clear, it is not my contention that slavery was the only reason the South chose to secede. It is however the primary reason.

I agree it was an issue. I agree it was an important issue. I just do not agree that it was THE issue....at least not for most. Sure, some thought it really important. Some believed it really was a better system than early stage industrialization with its itinerant housing, slums, lack of child labor laws, lack of tort law, lack of OSHA standards, etc etc that they saw up North. Some just got their backs up when Northerners they knew had sold their fathers and grandfathers the slaves in the first place and made a lot of money in the process suddenly started pointing an accusatory finger at them. Most however did not own any slaves. That was a large majority depending on how you calculate it, at least 3/4s of families and almost certainly a higher percentage than that. Of those who did own slaves, half owned 5 or fewer. That was usually domestic servants for townsfolk. The big plantations represented only a small percentage of slave owners though they represented a high proportion of all the slaves because they could easily have hundreds. Even among slaveowners there were plenty who saw which way the wind was blowing. Industrialization had killed slavery throughout the British Empire by 1838 and had slowly killed off slavery in the formerly slave owning Northern states. It was having the same effect elsewhere including Maryland, Virginia, etc as the process of industrialization spread southward. Slavery simply was not the issue that touched most. Tariffs and the feeling (based on good reason) that they were being exploited for the benefit of others via tariffs and unequal federal expenditures really was something that touched every Southerner's pocket. Needless to say, emancipating the slaves is certainly not what the North was fighting for. The whole "it was all about slavery" mantra is something that was cooked up years after the conflict started and after it had become a bloodbath by an embarrassed Lincoln administration in order to try to claim they had some kind of noble purpose for the frightful cost Northerners were paying when really, it was all about money and empire.

[DoodleDawg]

They can claim ANY property within their borders under eminent domain. Your legal understanding here is flawed.

I think it's your legal understanding that is flawed. Eminent domain is the governments power to take private property for public use, with just compensation. Constitutionally the government cannot seize state property any more than states can seize federal property. Only congress or state legislatures can dispose of property belonging to the federal government or a state.

[DoodleDawg]

yes it does and yes it does mean a maximum of 10%. You are simply wrong.

What says it says it means a maximum of 10%? Prove I'm wrong.

As I said, the exigencies of war forced them to adopt a higher tariff

But you claimed that their constitution only allowed for tariffs of a maximum of 10%. What clause of the Confederate constitution gave their congress the power to ignore their constitution?

That was and is the standard definition

Standard definition defined by what or who? Please provide a source to support your claim.

So as I said, Stephens had no influence. You could have just admitted that and saved a lot of typing.

But then I would be admitting something that is just not correct.

[DoodleDawg]

Ah but it wasn't unconstitutional. Treaties have the force of constitutional law.

Ah but it was. The Confederate congress was prohibited by their constitution from passing any law that impaired the right of slave ownership. Treaties may have the force of law but treaties cannot violate the Constitution.

[BroJoeK]

Wuli: "No it is not a straight line from Lincoln to FDR.
And no we cannot say that Lincoln even foreshadowed FDR."

Thanks for your history lesson on Progressivism, I agree with almost everything you posted.
My view is that if it can be said that Lincoln somehow foreshadowed FDR, then the same can be said of our Founders, Washington through, say, Madison.

For example, it's sometimes claimed that Lincoln's temporary use of an income tax to fund the Civil War is to blame for the modern era's permanent income tax funding the explosion in Big Government.
Well... no... but even if, for sake of discussion, we entertain such ideas, Lincoln didn't invent the income tax.
It was first proposed by President Madison, Father of our Constitution, to help fund his War of 1812.
At that time an income tax was only not approved because, thankfully, the war ended before it became necessary.

So, are we going to accuse James Madison of being a Progressive New Deal Democrat because he first proposed a temporary war-time income tax?
Why then do we so accuse Lincoln?

We could go on -- Lincoln arrested anti-war Copperhead Democrats, right?
So did Jefferson Davis, arrested Southern Unionists.
But so did Presidents Adams & Jefferson, under the Alien & Sedition acts.
But those others had approvals from Congress, right?
But Congress also authorized Lincoln's actions, after the fact, and the legal issue of Article 1 versus Article 2 powers was never fully adjudicated.

Anyway, as for Progressives Teddy Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson, I agree they represented a major change in Federal power -- especially the 16th & 17th amendments, both ratified under Wilson, not TR.
However, even as late as 1927 under Republican President "Silent Cal" Coolidge, Federal spending consumed no more of the US GDP than it did in 1858 under Democrat President Buchanan.
Indeed, that same number -- 2.5% of GDP -- is what President Washington's administration spent (non-debt) in 1795!

It was not until the 1930s New Deal that Federal peacetime spending first exploded and has never looked back since.

[BroJoeK]

HiTech RedNeck: "To try to undo the situation literally wouldn’t even mean a place like Liberia — it would be to replant populations in the various areas of Africa from which they came.
Is this impractical?
Yes.
So is it possible to move forward to a promised land? "

The old term was "recolonization" and it had a long history going back to President Monroe's administration around 1820 -- when Congress first approved $100,000 to support colonizing freed-blacks to Liberia, Africa and the first ship Elizabeth sailed with 88 African American immigrants.
The American Colonization Society enjoyed support from wealthy Americans and also state governments like Pennsylvania, New Jersey & Maryland.
In the 1850s Virginia voted $150,000 for recolonizing.

In the 1820s a wooden merchant ship might cost $10,000 and so the dollars authorized could have supported significant numbers.
And yet, of the millions of US slaves and hundreds of thousands of freed-blacks, barely on average 350 per year chose to recolonize, and of those most died within a few years of arriving in Africa.

During the Civil War Congress again authorized funds to recolonize freedmen, this time $600,000 but the results were even more disappointing -- zero permanently recolonized, over 90% of the funds authorized never spent.

Point is, recolonization was tried over 40 years and failed, sometimes spectacularly.
And when black leaders met Lincoln in the White House in 1862 they expressed no support for the idea.
What they wanted instead was, in effect, the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.

So, in this life, we are the promised land, if only we keep our promises.

[BroJoeK]

itsahoot: "You can't read people at all if you think I have Marxists views."

Sorry, I was not referring to you specifically, but to our Lost Causers generally, who tell us endlessly that, "it's all about the money, money, money, only money, always money, nothing else but money, except for Confederates it's the Declaration of Independence."
So they do sometimes acknowledge other motives than money, but only for their own Confederate ancestors and those they tie back to our Founders.

I call that Marxist because Marx was the first to identify "dialectical materialism" and class warfare as the root causes for all historical conflicts.

itsahoot: "I have been around long enough to know that the official version of events bares little resemblance to the truth."

Sure, and we all have vivid imaginations we can employ to create historical "theories" not supported by facts.
Indeed, some people (called Democrats) live in their fantasies so much they simply reject any truths which contradict them -- for examples, Russian "collusion" and "obstruction".

Even when $35 million, 19 lawyers, 40 investigators, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants & 500 witnesses all tell you "no!", what do you do if you're a Democrat?
That's right, you announce: "we must impeach the President now, because if we don't, he will get reelected"!!

So some people (Democrats) do live in their fantasies, impervious to reality and I sincerely apologize if it seemed I suggested one of those was you, itsahoot.