Facts and Myths - an examination of McPherson's "Causes of the Civil War" essay

myself

[GOPcapitalist]

Some of the pro-north activists around here have been asking for a factual refutation of McPherson. Since I'm too cheap to purchase "Battle Cry" due to the fact that its revenues go into the pocket of an avowed Democrat with marxist political affiliations, I decided to examine his positions in one of those free articles on the web. Here goes...

The following is intended as a refutation and analysis of the main arguments found in James McPherson's article "The Civil War: Causes and Results." I've broken it down by section to address his arguments in detail. His statements are selected in order as they appeared in the original essay and presented in bold below:

I. "To be sure, conflicts of interest occurred between the agricultural South and the industrializing North. But issues like tariffs, banks, and land grants divided parties and interest groups more than they did North and South."

McPherson is using a red herring when he states that tariffs et al divided parties instead of the country's two regions as the inescapable partisan situation throughout the war revolved around an exclusively sectional northern political party. The Republican party of the north was indisputably protectionist and heavily emphasized protectionism in its 1860 platform. The remaining partisan divisions during the war consisted mostly of southern Democrats and northern Democrats. The former played a dominant role in the confederacy. The latter came to encompass the anti-war copperheads, the peace Democrats, the anti-draft Democrats, the McClellanites, and a number of other similar factions generally supportive of the idea that the war should be waged in greater moderation, in a more limited capacity, or not at all.

In short this created a war/political climate consisting of one group for the war as it was being waged (the Republicans) and two disapproving of the way the war was being waged - the confederates who were obviously opposed to the invasion and the northern democrats who sought a more restrained war or an end to it all together. Accordingly it can be accurately said that the sectional proponents of war against the confederacy as it was being waged were almost exclusively from the strongly pro-tariff Republican Party. Comparatively the southern confederates expressed solid opposition to the tariff. As the war itself was conducted between the northern Republicans and the southern Confederates, McPherson's implication that the tariff issue did not break on the same lines as the war is historically inaccurate, deceptively presented, and flat out absurd.

II. "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 another red herring on McPherson's part. On any given issue of practically any nature it is typically possible to find an advocate opinion in the midst of a crowd of opponents. So naturally there were some pro-tariff southerners and anti-tariff northerners. What McPherson fails to concede though is that both were a minority among the two dynamically opposed entities at the center of the war itself - the northern Republicans and the southern Confederates. The Republicans were very pro-tariff and openly indicated so platforms. The Confederates opposed the tariffs being pushed by the north and cited it frequently among their grievances for secession. As for the northern Democrats McPherson mentions, that is well and good except that he conveniently neglects their differing view from the Republicans on how to wage the war.

III. "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants."

While it cannot in any reasonable manner be said that the war was fought exclusively on tariffs or any other issue, to deny this as McPherson does above is simply dishonest. Northern advocacy of the tariff had been an issue since the Spring of 1860 when the House took up the Morrill bill. Southern opposition to it, aside from dating back decades to the nullification crisis, appeared in both Congress and the conduction of secession by the states. Witness just a small sample of the historical record on the issue of protectionism and tariff collection from 1860-61, broken down here between northern and southern sides:
 

NORTH/REPUBLICAN:

"That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imposts, sound policy requires such an adjustment of the imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the working men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence." - Republican Party Platform of 1860

"According to my political education, I am inclined to believe that the people in the various sections of the country should have their own views carried out through their representatives in Congress, and if the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff" - President-Elect Abraham Lincoln, February 15, 1861
 

SOUTH/CONFEDERATE:

"Resolved, That in as much as the movements now made in Congress of the United States of North America, and the incoming administration thereof, threaten to blockade our ports, force revenues, suspend postal arrangements, destroy commerce, ruin trade, depreciate currency, invade sovereign States, burn cities, butcher armies, gibbet patriots, hang veterans, oppress freemen, blot our liberty, beggar homes, widow mothers, orphan children, and desolate the peace and happiness of the nation with fire and sword,-these things to do, and not to disappoint the expectation of those who have given him their votes. Now, against these things we, in the name of right, the Constitution, and a just God, solemnly enter our protest; and further, when that which is manifested shall have come upon the country, we say to Tennessee: Let slip the dogs of war and cry havoc!" - Resolution of Franklin County, Tennessee for secession, adopted unanimously at Winchester, February 25, 1861

"You suppose that numbers constitute the strength of government in this day. I tell you that it is not blood; it is the military chest; it is the almighty dollar. When you have lost your market; when your operatives are turned out; when your capitalists are broken, will you go to direct taxation?" - Louis T. Wigfall, United States Senate, December 1860

IV. "Nor was it a consequence of false issues invented by demagogues."

Contrary to McPherson's assertions, a strong argument may be made regarding the nature of the core issue upon which Lincoln waged his war. As Lincoln famously expressed in his letter to Horace Greeley, his public line was "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union." Lincoln was gifted with significant rhetorical skills and publicly alleged the theme of "The Union" as his basis for action throughout the war. His use of the issue of unionism is peculiar as it bears an uncanny resemblance to a thoroughly reasoned prediction made by Alexis de Tocqueville thirty years earlier regarding the event of secession itself:

"If it be supposed that among the states that are united by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity entirely depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the government would then be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just alluded to, the Federal government would derive its power from the unequal distribution of those benefits among the states.

If one of the federated states acquires a preponderance sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession of the central authority, it will consider the other states as subject provinces and will cause its own supremacy to be respected under the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the Federal government, but in reality that government will have ceased to exist." - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter 18 (emphasis added)

In light of northern behavior as it occurred, Tocqueville's observation was largely proven valid. Economically, the north stood to face a competitive disadvantage in the event of southern secession. Simply speaking, secession posed to expose the northern industrial economy to european economic competition it had sought to escape by way of protectionist policies - if European goods could be purchased by southerners without tariffs their prices were often lower than northern substitutes, hence consumers shift to the cheaper European products. That situation is even further complicated if cheaper European goods brought in with low tariffs in the south make their way up north and compete on the market there with northern products. Accordingly on economic policy the north had a very clear advantage to be had from the continuance of the union as one. That is what Wigfall was referring to when he asked what the north would do when it lost its market.

It is also an evidenced very strongly in Lincoln's war policy. From the moment secession became an issue, Lincoln expressed a near obsessive desire to do one thing - enforce revenue collection in the south and seceded states. As early as December of 1860 he wrote private letters to his military commanders emphasizing the need to maintain or recapture southern forts to ensure revenue collection. When he instituted his blockage Lincoln explicitly legitimized it on the issue of revenue collection. When he spoke before safely pro-tariff northern audiences he pledged his dedication was to revenue collection. This was the sole issue of his letter to Salmon Chase on March 18, 1861 about what to do with secession:

"Sir I shall be obliged if you will inform me whether any goods, wares and merchandize, subject by law to the payment of duties, are now being imported into the United States without such duties being paid, or secured according to law. And if yea, at what place or places? and for what cause do such duties remain unpaid, or [un]secured? I will also thank you for your opinion whether, as a matter of fact, vessels off shore could be effectively used to prevent such importation, or to enforce the payment or securing of the duties." - Lincoln to Chase, March 18, 1861

In one speech to a northern audience from February 1861 Lincoln even admitted that "marching of an army into South California, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them...would be invasion, and it would be coercion too." But he continued to argue that if he did was simply insisting on "the collection of duties upon foreign importations" among other things, it would not be "coercion." All of this differs significantly with the official line that he was acting only to preserve the union, suggesting that just as Tocqueville predicted, the use of the union's sovereignty was a "borrowed name." And if borrowing an attractive name to publicly promote as a whole while simultaneously arguing a less attractive one in private and among allies does not constitute the invention of an issue, I do not know what does. I will concede that even the degree of Lincoln's engagement in this tactic is a matter of wide debate, but for McPherson to deny its presence all together is yet another case of historical inaccuracy on his part.

V. "What lay at the root of this separation? Slavery. It was the sole institution not shared by North and South. The peculiar institution defined the South."

First off, McPherson's assertion that slavery was a solely unshared by North and South is historically inaccurate. A number of northern states on the borders openly practiced and permitted slavery until after the war and with Lincoln's full consent - Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, federal controlled regions of Kentucky and Missouri, and even New Jersey, where the slavery that had been abolished there about two decades earlier had grandfathered persons in slavery at the time of abolition.

Second, to suggest as McPherson does is to lie about the sentiments of large portions of the northern population, as the northern population was NOT an abolitionist body opposed to slavery in 1861 or anything even remotely of the sort. A majority of northerners were opponents of abolition at the time of the war, Lincoln included among them. The abolitionist crowd represented less than 10% of the northern population by most estimates. Among the remainder, divisions in treatment of slavery as it existed were widespread. Few statistics measure the exact breakdown of the population, though estimates based on candidacies, electoral data, and other sources of public sentiment were made at the time. The general range of northern opinion included a wide spectrum. Included were those who tolerated the institution entirely and those who tolerated it in a limited sense. One major division were those who favored its continuation so long as it was contained entirely to the south. Many since then have tried to claim that the non-extension belief was some sort of a principled long-term plan to kill off slavery where it existed (this interpretation of the non-extension position was popularized by Karl Marx in 1861). But evidence of the time suggests that the motives for the non-extension policy among many if not most of its proponents were much more political and economic based than principle oriented. Economically, a non-extension policy on slavery was believed to be an economic restriction on job competition for white northern laborers. That's right - the north of 1861 was full of bigots and racists who feared black people, slave or free and based solely on their skin color, to the extent that they did not even want them to labor in their company. Alexis de Tocqueville similarly noticed this about the north thirty years earlier. Lincoln had also noticed it in his 1858 senate debates where he consciously advocated racial supremacy before audiences he suspected to be composed of what have been termed "negrophobes," only to turn around and advocate racial equality to crowds perceived as more abolition-friendly. Lincoln also advocated the "white labor" position as a reason to oppose extension of slavery into the territories, including in one of the most famous speeches of his career:

"Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new Territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these Territories. We want them for homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States are places for poor white people to remove from, not to remove to." - Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, IL

A second major reason behind the non-extension policy was purely political - control of the senate broke on sectional lines. By allowing slavery in the territories, southerners hoped to eventually create new states on the shared issue of slavery that would also vote with them on sectional disputes. By opposing slavery in the territories, northerners hoped to do the opposite and create a state that would vote with them on sectional disputes. This is evidenced repeatedly during the pre-1860 compromises pushed by Clay, Douglas, and others - they addressed the senate division by preserving an even split. To do so they simultaneously admitted a slave territory and a free territory as states.

Now, that having been said it is perfect proper to admit and consider slavery as a major and prominent issue during the war. To refuse it would be to deny history and engage in absurdity. But to do as McPherson, Marx, and other persons who advocate an historical view heavily skewered to the yankee side do and purport slavery to be the sole issue is similarly a violation of historical accuracy. Above all else the war was an inescapably complex issue with inescapably complex roots. In order to reduce the war to a single issue, one must reduce it from the complex to the simple. Since the war by its very nature consists of a point of irreducible complexity in its roots, to push beyond that point is to violate the irreducibly complex. That is McPherson's flaw as it is the flaw of the many others who share his position.

VI. "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." The contest over expansion of slavery into the territories thus became a contest over the future of America, for these territories held the balance of power between slavery and freedom."

This entire passage of McPherson commits the same error of assumption made earlier about northern beliefs on slavery and non-expansion. McPherson severely overstates the size of the northern abolitionist population and illegitimately implies a shared affiliation between them and Lincoln. In reality, Lincoln was perfectly willing to permit the continuation of slavery to the point that he used his first inaugural address to endorse a recently passed but unratified constitutional amendment to protect the institution of slavery where it existed. Had it been ratified as Lincoln wanted, slavery's life would have been artificially extended in America beyond its natural decline worldwide. That is why true abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison and Lysander Spooner publicly identified Lincoln as a fraud, even after the 13th amendment.

McPherson's statement above further neglects the presence of what has been accurately termed as northern "negrophobia" in 1861. Included are the economic motives asserted by Lincoln and others for non-extension that were noted earlier. The less than pure motives for northern opposition to slavery's expansion were well known in their day, including having been noticed by some of the greatest minds - and anti-slavery advocates - of western history. Alexis de Tocqueville readily observed that northerners did not oppose slavery for the benefit of the slaves, but rather for the benefit of themselves. Charles Dickens noticed the same was still the case thirty years later. Both men were prominent opponents of slavery.

VII. "Proslavery advocates countered that the bondage of blacks was the basis of liberty for whites.  Slavery elevated all whites to an equality of status and dignity by confining menial labor and caste subordination to blacks. "If slaves are freed," said Southerners, whites "will become menials. We will lose every right and liberty which belongs to the name of freemen."

His blatant generalizations aside, McPherson's statement above, as has been seen, perhaps better resembles the position taken by the northern "negrophobes" than any other faction in the country. Northern bigots saw the mere presence of persons of other skin colors as a threat to white livelihood and accordingly legislated blacks out of their towns, cities, and states. Many wanted blacks to be kept out of the territories for the reason Lincoln stated at Peoria in 1854 and sought to address the presence of blacks by restricting them out of white society all together through segregation, statute, and coercion - the exact type of bondage mattered little to these bigots, so long as they were "on top" and didn't perceive any economic threat posed by their labor. Lincoln took this very position in one of his debates with Stephen Douglas:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." - Abraham Lincoln, August 17, 1858

VIII. "A Northern antislavery party would dominate the future. Slavery was doomed if the South remained in the Union."

Untrue, and had Lincoln gotten his way and ratified his pro-slavery amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1861, the exact opposite would have been true. During his Inaugural Address, Lincoln made the following statement:

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution?which amendment, however, I have not seen?has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal
Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I
depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." - Abraham Lincoln, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

The amendment he was referring to had passed congress with a 2/3rds majority less than a week earlier, owing its passage to what eyewitness Henry Adams described as the "direct influence" of Abraham Lincoln himself (Lincoln was fibbing when he claimed in his inaugural to have "not yet seen" the amendment). The amendment Lincoln got passed read:

Article Thirteen.
"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic
institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

It would have effectively made slavery untouchable by any future constitutional amendment, thereby preventing at any time in the future what became the actual 13th amendment and prolonging the existence of slavery where it existed beyond a possible future abolition by peaceful means.

IX. "If the new Lincoln administration and the Northern people had been willing to accept secession, the two halves of the former United States might have coexisted in an uneasy peace. But most Northerners were not willing to tolerate the dismemberment of the United States."

McPherson is fibbing here, pure and simple. Most honest historians recognize the presence of a significant anti-war sentiment among the northern population and even a belief in "simply letting them go." This sentiment emerged at times throughout the war, especially in the early days when the north had suffered several glaring defeats by smaller sized confederate forces. Throughout much of his presidency Lincoln consciously worked tirelessly to achieve what McPherson dishonestly purports to have already been there. He did it both by persuasion and, in certain more dubious cases, coercion. The latter occurred when he unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus among other things. Federal forces were similarly used to impede the properly seated legislatures of Maryland and Missouri, forcing many of the former state's into prison without cause and the latter's to flee south and reconvene in a rump session.

X. "Lincoln intended to maintain the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay as a symbol of national sovereignty in the Confederate states, in the hope that a reaction toward Unionism in those states would eventually bring them back."

McPherson is fibbing again. Lincoln's private correspondence to military commanders over the issue of Fort Sumter were near obsessively concerned with the collection of revenue. Surviving from Lincoln's cabinet meetings on the subject of how to address Fort Sumter also include a lengthy list of the "pros and cons" of holding the fort. Clearly identified among them as a "con" is the statement recognizing the federal presence at Charleston as having the effect of exacerbating secessionist sympathies much like a thorn in the side of South Carolina. It states that "(t)he abandonment of the Post would remove a source of irritation of the Southern people and deprive the secession movement of one of its most powerful stimulants."

XI. "To forestall this happening, the Confederate army attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861"

McPherson's fibbing continues in the above statement, which immediately follows the statement he made in what I have identified as item X. The historical record shows the above statement to be bizarre, unusual, and largely fabricated out of thin air. The confederate attack was not made randomly on April 12th to stop some unknown resurgence of unionism in South Carolina. It was fired on in direct response to military maneuvers on the fort that had been launched by Lincoln earlier that week. On April 5 Lincoln notified Governor Francis Pickens of South Carolina that he would be attempting to peacefully reprovision Fort Sumter with supplies. Shortly thereafter he instructed his military to send out a fleet of federal warships containing the food as well as heavy reenforcements and weaponry. Explicit orders were to go to Sumter and if the Confederates refused to let them enter the fort, open fire and fight their way in. Confederate intelligence, knowing of Lincoln's earlier message to Pickens, caught wind of the operation by discovering the ships had been sent to sea. Beauregard was notified and opened fire on the fort to preempt the fleet's arrival, which turned out to be only a day away. Lincoln's fleet got there a day late, though just in time for Beauregard to allow the garrison safe passage to them and back up north. Needless to say, Abraham Lincoln did not consider the move in any way a failure as he had provoked the confederates into firing the first shot, even though it did not happen the way he anticipated. He openly admitted this in a personal letter to Captain Gustavus Fox, who he had tasked to lead the expedition:

"I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, should be the source of any annoyance to you. The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test. By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible, and not improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached the ground; while, by an accident, for which you were in no wise responsible, and possibly I, to some extent was, you were deprived of a war vessel with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprize. I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the effort, have greatly heightened you, in my estimation. For a daring and dangerous enterprize, of a similar character, you would, to-day, be the man, of all my acquaintances, whom I would select. You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result." - Abraham Lincoln, letter to Fox, May 1, 1861 (emphasis added)

XII. "The war resolved the two fundamental problems left unresolved by the Revolution of 1776, problems that had preoccupied the country for four score and nine years down to 1865. The first was the question whether this fragile republic would survive in a world of monarchs and emperors and dictators or would follow the example of most republics through history (including many in the nineteenth century) and collapse into tyranny or fragment in a dreary succession of revolutions and civil wars."

Here McPherson is exploiting the "experiment in democracy" myth to attach some legitimacy and purported good to what was an appallingly costly, brutal, and disastrous war. While he is correct to phrase the American nation's role in a world that was at the time dominated by empire and monarchy as well as to note the previous occurrence of republican failures elsewhere, he is incorrect to suggest that the fate of republican government rested on the preservation of the union. As any honest historian must concede, though it is often contrary to the Schlessingerian "experiment in democracy" and the neo-Hegelian "end of history" paradigms, the concept of republican government has been around in various forms throughout recorded history. It has had its successes, sometimes lasting for centuries, and it has also had its failures, but just the same so have empires and monarchies. On the greater spectrum of history itself I believe the evidence is clear that governments are cyclical developments and refinements. This is commonly thought of as a classical understanding of government. Alternative some hold governments to be evolutionary stage developments as McPherson does here and as some otherwise genuinely intelligent and even conservative persons believe America to be. This alternative is the Hegelian view, perhaps most famously adopted by Marx as the heart of communism. I will concede it is tempting for some conservatives to gravitate toward this latter position, but doing so entails what is ultimately an embrace of arrogance and perfectibility over all that preceded us when in reality we are the same inherently human, inherently flawed, yet readily redeemable human beings as those who came before us were. For that reason few will likely find the Hegelian position in the minds of conservatism's greatest thinkers (actually it is normally found among the left, such as McPherson demonstrates here). Therefore what some may falsely interpret to be a classical system that appears dismissive of the wisdom of the Constitution and the sorts may find themselves surprised to find it a position held by some of the Constitution's greatest defenders and conservatism's greatest minds.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Considering that the Crittendon Compromise, the Washington Peace Delegation and the Committee of 13 considered exclusively the issue of slavery, and the failure of the Peace Delegation lead directly to the Civil War, I hardly think that slavery was a minor player in the game.

[marron]

Concerns about slavery was a cause for SECCESSION

his unlawful, unconstitutional, and immoral invasion of the Southern States to "save the union"... was the cause of THE WAR

OK. Slavery was the cause for secession. The war started, not when the South seceded, but when Lincoln sent the military to stop it.

No argument.

So, for the South, the war was about slavery, and the right to spread the practice into the western states.

Although the North was opposed to slavery, and to the spread of the practice into the western states, for them the war was about saving the union. As has been pointed out, when the Union was at stake, abolition went to the back burner, to the consternation of the Radical Republicans.

But slavery is the elephant that came to dinner. Without slavery, there is no war to defend it, no secession, no war to save the union. Whether for economic reasons, or any other.

[Democratic_Machiavelli]

Now, that having been said it is perfect proper to admit and consider slavery as a major and prominent issue during the war. To refuse it would be to deny history and engage in absurdity. But to do as McPherson, Marx, and other persons who advocate an historical view heavily skewered to the yankee side do and purport slavery to be the sole issue is similarly a violation of historical accuracy.

What you have posted is the official view of the South, designed to harness the emotions of whoever read it (propaganda doesn't have to be just for the masses). GOPcapitalist's article was an attempt to show the complexity of the Civil War, which goes beyond the propaganda both sides put out.

As for tariffs, the South denied them, felt their economy threatened by them. Thus, the North felt compelled to collect them by force. That is why Abraham Lincoln felt it was not invasion to collect money that was due to the federal government, as federal law supersedes state law. You're correct that once the South fired the first shot, the North could blockade without impunity.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Concerns about slavery was a cause for SECCESSION, but Linclon's unlawful effort to hold property which was clearly the Southern States share of the federal pie, and his unlawful, unconstitutional, and immoral invasion of the Southern States to "save the union", mostly for economic reasons, was the cause of THE WAR.

Ft. Sumter was a federal fort.  Why did the people of S. Carolina attack it after Lincoln was elected?  According to Article I of the constitution, the feds are required to put down rebellions.  According to the 9th and 10th amendments all rights and powers not delegated to the feds belong to the people and states.  The states had no powers to make treaties, conduct war, etc., so guess who was violating the constitution?  And if you want to talk about corruption and states rights violations, just look at the south from about 1850 - 1860.  They did their level best to tromp on northern states rights.

But simple minds want simple answers so we get "the war was about freeing the slaves" BS.

The north wanted to keep the Union together, the south wanted slavery uninterfered with in their own states, the territories, and in any northern states that they brought their slaves into.  Don't believe me?  Read the Crittendon Compromise.  Sounds like the authors of it, all of Congress and most of the people of the time were these "simple minds" that you talk about.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

As for tariffs, the South denied them, felt their economy threatened by them.

Not so true as you believe.  The north also complained about the tariffs - which were designed as much to protect southern agriculture as northern manufacturing.  In point of fact, it was the south which designed the tariffs to begin with.

[Democratic_Machiavelli]

But the Northern states didn't announce that their ability to govern superceded the federal government.

I didn't know the South designed the tariffs. Source?

[dtel]

Putting aside the slavery question for a bit...has anybody considered if the country had been split into north and south permanently?
Whose government would have become the monolith we have now?
Or would both have grown into what we have now?

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

But the Northern states didn't announce that their ability to govern superceded the federal government.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

Now, I am going on memory about the tariff issue, so forgive me if I mistake, but I believe that it was the "Tariff of Abominations" (late 1820s?) which was proposed by the dems as a measure to embarass the Whigs.

But this entire Tariff thing is much overblown, because from the late 1840s to the late 1850s, the Tariffs actually went down quite significantly.  The tariffs not only covered textiles (and other manufactured goods), they also covered iron, wool, hemp, cotton (a definate advantage for the south), and (I think) sugar (a help for Louisiana).  Given that, it is also true that the south were more opposed to tariffs than the north was, but given the fact that tariffs were trending downwards until 1861 (after the Civil War started), it is doubtful that this was really such a hot-button issue as it had been during the 1820s and 1830s.

[ml/nj]

I hardly think that slavery was a minor player in the game.

I didn't say that slavery wasn't a factor. I think it was a factor, just not the factor.

ML/NJ

[GOPcapitalist]

"Direct taxation" at least Wigfall saw it coming. The party of protectionist tariffs is now the party of protectionist free trade, now that the manufacturing and banking class depend on it. And direct taxation has removed all restraints on growth/power of the fedgov.

Exactly. Before 1860 taxation debates were over what level should be implemented indirectly as the tariff. The free traders wanted a low range tariff to simply fund the government's basics. The protectionists wanted a high range tariff to boost their industries in competition and to fund government-backed incentives to those same industries.

After that the debate shifted to being between indirect and direct taxation. Direct taxation was chosen and is now the sole issue.

[GOPcapitalist]

Kudos to you sir! I want to know when you're going to publish a book?

LOL! I'd consider doing it but I'd have to find a publisher willing to take my extreme right wing "non-PC" political views. I'm not sure what subject it would be on, but I have toyed around with the idea of something on the secession winter. I've got an old undergrad thesis on this subject I could probably turn into something but it'd take some work.

[GOPcapitalist]

Those secession articles are interesting and all, but also highly misleading. Only four states published separate documents declaring "causes" other than their official acts of secession, the secession ordinances.

Secession ordinances on the other hand were adopted by 11 states, 1 state legislature meeting in exile, 1 state meeting in convention, the tribes of Indian Territory, and the territorial government of New Mexico-Arizona. Though many of them list causes, slavery is barely even mentioned in any of them - often as nothing more than a geographical reference. That goes with full acknowledgement that slavery was indeed an issue, just not the sole issue.

On those four declaration of causes, here is what I can say from researching my own state's declaration. Texas' declaration of causes was nothing more than a non-binding legislative resolution with virtually no effect beyond the chamber in which it was passed. It was adopted separately of the Texas Ordinance of Secession, the actual statute that went before the voters of the state for adoption. The ordinance did not list slavery among any of its causes and had legal, binding status as the official position taken by the state. The declaration of causes lacked any of this, had no legal binding, and was never approved by anyone outside the body that adopted it after the ordinance had already passed. Therefore while each document provides some insight to various positions of those who adopted it, to portray it as an equivalent of a "declaration of independence" style document is wholly inaccurate and misleading.

[GOPcapitalist]

What is your source that McPherson is a Marxist?

I researched this extensively a few weeks ago and have posted my findings in a couple of places on FR. Basically what I found about McPherson's political affiliation boils down to the following:

1. He's actively participated and supported the modern Democrat party.

2. He actively campaigned against Bill Clinton's impeachment.

3. He has willingly appeared on an openly marxist talk show from Pacifica Radio with avowed Marxist hosts that is normally reserved for guests such as Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis.

4. He publishes "historical" works online at the World Socialist Web Site, the official publication of the international trotskyite marxist political party.

If you are interested in more, I recently drafted up an overview thoroughly documenting McPherson's radical left activism with links, quotes, sources, and practically everything you need to verify it all. You may find it on FR at the following link - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/727203/posts?page=160#160

[GOPcapitalist]

the problem with all these so-called "secession articles" is the following: 1. they were written by a handfull of un-elected planters, 2.NOBODY but the authors either read the articles OR cared what they said, 3.the authors were NOT the representives of ANY elected government AND they were NOT READ by the general public. in other words they MEAN/MEANT ZIP!

Thank you! That is essentially what I found when I was looking up the history of the Texas articles - they were adopted after secession was passed as nothing more than a non-binding resolution stating a position of the people who signed them and no more.

The actual secession ordinance that went before and was approved by the voters listed several causes for secession basically ammounting to "the yankees have violated the foundation of this government and abused its authority, therefore we reassert our right to self government and withdraw from the union we voluntarily joined." Slavery was not mentioned in this official statutory declaration that was adopted in a landslide by the voters.

[GOPcapitalist]

So serious scholars are only those who agree with you. My my it doesn't even matter to you that these documents were the southern equivalent (in their day) of the federalist papers and the declaration of independence.

Nonsense. Having researched the Texas one, I can speak to it directly. It was nothing more than a non-binding legislative resolution passed after the fact.

The Texas equivalent of the DoI was the legally binding ordinance of secession that stated several causes for secession and enacted it by law upon popular approval of the state's voters. Slavery was not mentioned among any of its causes.

Similarly, the Texas equivalent of the federalist papers would probably be found in the campaign preceding that referendum.

[GOPcapitalist]

I posted long portions of the Articles because I, at least, found them interesting. After reading at length that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, it is interesting to read what the southerners themselves said.

To suggest that the war had _nothing_ to do with slavery is absurd, but so is to suggest it had everything to do with slavery and slavery alone. McPherson does the latter and that is my point of contention - he is engaging in historical inaccuracy. If you are interested in what the southerners themselves said I encourage you to look into a greater sample on the subject. As I noted earlier, only four states adopted non-binding declarations separate from their official acts of secession. The rest either did not formally state causes or included them in their statutory acts of secession, and about the only ones that discuss slavery as a cause in any substantial detail are those four non-binding resolutions.

I encourage you to check out the ordinances of secession. They were passed by South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Missouri's legislature passed one in exile after federal troops were dispatched to prevent them from doing so. Kentucky met in a convention and did the same. The territorial government of Arizona also passed one. So did the tribes of Indian Territory, with the most notable being the Cherokee declaration.

If you wish to gain a full picture of the situation you owe it to yourself to examine them all. The issues are very complex and scattered. Arizona, for example, complains of their mail services being neglected and their protection from frontier attacks having been denied by the northern government. The Cherokee declaration focuses on the violation of rights and liberties by the northern government. The Texas ordinance complains of the north's abuse of government power and violation of the social contract. Most of them are online and may be found with a simple search.

The blockade of the South was not about collecting tariffs.

Lincoln explicitly stated revenue collection was his justification for the blockade in his military orders instigating it. That was on April 19th.

[GOPcapitalist]

So we see from these two examples that slavery is specifically mentioned.

But in single geographic references. Referring to the geographical entity of the slave states is a far cry from identifying slavery as some sort of sole cause for action. Try again.

[GOPcapitalist]

Whose government would have become the monolith we have now? Or would both have grown into what we have now?

IMHO there are two possible scenarios. The one I tend to think would have happened is that both countries would have emerged in the "big government" direction of what we have now, but at a significantly slower pace. I say this as it is a natural tendency for any government to grow in size over time, often to the point that it parents its own destruction.

The second scenario, to which I believe an argument could be made, is that the south would have grown more slowly just as in the first whereas the north would have quickly turned into a centralized industrial state of big government. But I suppose we'll really never know.

[dtel]

We will never know.
This was a dynamic time in American history and so many scenarios could have played out.
If divided into north and south, I think the nations might have been more productive as a whole.
I also think the north would have taken over Canada and the south would have taken Mexico and probably tried to take the whole of South America.
I feel very strongly the south would have remained more conservative over the years and the north would have experimented socially, much as they have done.
To get back on topic, they arguement to me isn't over slavery but way of life.
Slavery would have died on its own, given time and mechanization. IMHO

[GOPcapitalist]

Have any of you seen what appears to be the latest tactic of the yankee crowd around here? Look at the keywords at the top of the thread:

"CAUSES OF THE WAR; CIVIL WAR; CONFEDERACY; DIXIE; EGO POST; MCPHERSON; NOTHING NEW HERE; REBEL RANTINGS; SOUTHRON PROPAGANDA;"

I originally included the first four terms. The rest were added using the "add keyword" feature by a yankee.

If I am not mistaken, I do believe such behavior reasonably qualifies as an abuse of FR. I have little doubt that the "add keyword" function is not intended to be used as an a place to voice political opinion about a thread or to flame the thread's author. The proper place for the former is in the thread, whereas the latter is not proper on FR despite the fact that it does occur.

Needless to say it is typical yankee arrogance rearing its ugly head - unable to debate an issue on its facts and merits, they resort to calling it names.