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.

[Mr Rogers]

“The South had made it clear they were not going to allow the fort to be resupplied...Lincoln started the war.”

So...Lincoln started the war by not unilaterally giving in to southern demands?

WHO FIRED FIRST?

None of this, “But Mommy, he MADE me hit him first” nonsense. Lincoln refused to surrender a US fort to the Confederates. The SOUTH CHOSE to make the first strike. And ever since, they get to deal with it! The South chose to start the war.

[DiogenesLamp]

Can you suggest a couple of books to better understand this specific issue about the war?

No I can't. I have read a lot of history books over my life, but I didn't find any of this information in any of them. They simply omitted any mention of the war fleet, and Lincoln's efforts to coerce the South. What I learned about this part of history I found in numerous sources. I found bits and pieces here and there, but never a complete history of what happened.

The bits and pieces I did learn often came from books. Admiral David Dixon Porter did write at least two books on his experiences with the war, and his analysis about what would have happened had the mission to Charleston had proceeded as it was envisioned came from his Memoirs on the war.

The financial information about who was producing the European trade value was from the book "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits" by Thomas Prentice Kettell.

A lot of the information comes from telegraphs, messages and letters from both the Union side and the Confederate side during the war.

It comes from a lot of different sources, but i've never seen anyone piece it all together the way I often attempt to do. Perhaps *I* should write a book on it. :)

[DiogenesLamp]

WHO FIRED FIRST?

Lincoln did. Launching that war fleet was the first act of aggression.

[BroJoeK]

Bull Snipe: "about 2.1 million men served in the Union Army during the War.
Of that number about 4% were drafted and another 9% were paid substitutes.
The balance, enlisted in the Union army. Demographically, about 1 million were white men born in the U.S., 210,000 were black free men or ex slaves and 920,000 were white men from countries outside of the U.S."

Thanks for those numbers, I learn something new every thread!

One of my great grandfathers was in that last category -- farmers fresh off the boat, just a few years after fleeing Europe to dodge the draft there (so our family history says), he volunteered for the Union army, served from 1862 to the war's end, seriously wounded at Fort Blakely, near Mobile.
After the war and his release from a New Orleans hospital he walked home to Illinois (to pocket the price of a steamboat or railroad ride he'd been paid) and eventually married the daughter of a fellow countryman who'd first settled in Texas.
Their son, my grandfather, never forgot his mother's Southern roots.

Confederates also had their foreign born Irish Brigade, Polish Brigade, plus several German and Mexican divisions, and a Louisiana division under command of a French major general -- sacre bleu!

[DoodleDawg]

Derp! He walked right into that one.

Obviously you didn't read my reply.

Notice how you can post a bunch of tax experts and a bunch of newspapers on all sides at the time saying one thing and he just responds with "no they weren't!

You post editorials; opinion and not fact. And if you posted a "bunch of tax experts" then I must have missed that. And you make up stuff as you go along like the Confederate constitution mandated a maximum of 10% tariff. Hard to take you seriously after all that.

[DoodleDawg]

Slavery lasted 8 months longer in the Union than it did in the Confederacy.

Not quite. Slavery ended in Tennessee the same time it ended in the remaining parts of the country where it existed, in December 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified.

[DoodleDawg]

There would have been no need for a draft, nor so many attempts to evade it, if fighting the civil war were as uncontroversial among northerners as you claim it to be.

Why did the Confederacy have to resort to conscription a full year before the North did? Why did they have to forcibly extend the enlistments of all their soldiers for the duration of the war? If the war wasn't controversial among its people?

[combat_boots]

I picked this factoid up quite a while ago. Delaware refused to ratify the 13th Amendment in 1865, and did not ratify it until 1901.

Delaware. Joe Biden’s home state.

[DiogenesLamp]

You believe wrong, as usual.

They actually said "rail road iron." How can I believe wrongly on this when that is what they actually said?

[DiogenesLamp]

Because the U.S. won it's rebellion and gained recognition by other countries.

Having established the principle that Independence was a right, to subsequently seek "Independence", was not "rebellion."

It was taking advantage of a right won from England, and thereafter accepted by the US for "four score and seven years.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "We went to war with Germany because Germany declared war on the U.S., December 11, 1941."

itsahoot: "Well if that was the real reason why have we not went to war with Islam?
Wars like tax increases will always have justifications, the public one and the real one."

Of course, we did go to war after 9/11/2001, and normally "real reasons" are not that complicated.
Fair to say: every US war -- declared or undeclared -- was triggered by some attack and/or serious threat.
Today we may mock some of those -- "Remember the Maine", "Gulf of Tonkin", etc. -- but all at the time seemed real and sufficient for Americans to support war.

Were there other reasons?
Of course, there always are reasons, but seldom are such reasons sufficient by themselves to trigger war, something else is required, namely a serious attack or threat against Americans.

For example: President Franklin Roosevelt made no secret of his desires to help out his British allies and his personal friend, Winston Churchill, but as late as November 1941 something like 80% of Americans opposed getting sucked into yet another senseless war in Europe.
So FDR could do nothing major until Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war.
Then FDR acted as he had previously wished he could act.

Were there other "real reasons" -- for example, did Roosevelt want, as the Nazis claimed, to conquer in the name of "International Jewry"?
Well... if that was his goal, then how did 1/3 of world Jews perish by war's end, with barely a peep from FDR?
My point is: a search for such hidden "real reasons" invariably takes us down a maze of historical rabbit holes & nonsense which seldom add up to anything coherent.

[FLT-bird]

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.

Nope! Its yours that is flawed. Eminent domain is not limited to private property. ANY property within their sovereign territory may be seized for public use.

[DoodleDawg]

They actually said "rail road iron." How can I believe wrongly on this when that is what they actually said?

What they said was "iron in bars, bolts, rods, slabs, and railroad rails, spikes, fishing plates and chairs used in constructing railroads". And the tariff was 15%.

[DoodleDawg]

Having established the principle that Independence was a right, to subsequently seek "Independence", was not "rebellion."

The Founding Fathers sure believed it was.

[FLT-bird]

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

Nope! Read Charles Adams among others. Revenue Tariff = Max 10%

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?

Governments can do things under their war powers that they cannot do in peacetime. Every government does.

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

Common parlance. I already referred you to a source. Have fun researching it.

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

Nope! You'd be admitting the truth. We all know how allergic you are to that.

[DoodleDawg]

Eminent domain is not limited to private property. ANY property within their sovereign territory may be seized for public use.

You're just making this crap up as you go along. Please point me to a single source that defines eminent domain the way that you do.

[donaldo]

Jefferson likened slavery to grabbing a wolf by the ears.

“We have the wolf by the ears and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose.”

(Jefferson to Mrs. Sigourney, Monticello, July 18, 1824.)

And this:

“But this momentous question (Missouri and slavery). Like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.”

(Jefferson discussing the Missouri question to John Holmes April 22, 1820.

[donaldo]

Jefferson likened slavery to grabbing a wolf by the ears.

“We have the wolf by the ears and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose.”

(Jefferson to Mrs. Sigourney, Monticello, July 18, 1824.)

And this:

“But this momentous question (Missouri and slavery). Like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.”

(Jefferson discussing the Missouri question to John Holmes April 22, 1820.

[FLT-bird]

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.

Ah but it wasn't. Treaties carry the force of constitutional law. No, not merely the force of law - constitutional law.

[DiogenesLamp]

Cuba was a state? How did I miss that?

"State" in the sense it had it's own governor. Of course it was a vassal of Spain, but you only put out your nitpick because you want to nitpick, and not for any reason of advancing the discussion.

Yes, Cuba was a "State" in which Slavery was already established. It was therefore a slave "State."

But if did allow states to prohibit slavery within their borders.

No it didn't. States trying to exclude slavery from inside their borders were clearly violating the privileges and immunities clause. Sure, a state had a right to abolish any laws within their state that created slaves, but it had absolutely no right to do anything about slaves created by other state's laws. It also had no right to exclude people with slaves from another state.

Of course, liberal "penumbra" seekers interpreted the constitutional law in a manner that suited what they wished to believe, and then simply declared it to be so.

It was not so, and Justice Tanney straightened them out on that point. The liberals howled about how this horrible strict constructionist judge made them adhere to the original intent of the constitution instead of what they wanted it to believe.

They are still bitching about it today.

Cuba and points south.

As I have pointed out, it was already in Cuba. It was also already in "points south." Slavery wouldn't have been "expanded", it would have just continued.

So again, the claim that there would be an "expansion of slavery" was just a lie.