causes of the American War Between the States

[slzy]

the war of conquest was fought for the West. jefferson davis and the gadsden purchase in arizona for a Southern rail way to the pacific. the battle of glorietta pass and the confederate flag flying over new mexico were evidence of this. after dred scott slave holders started moving into kansas and nebraska with their slaves, the territory of arizona sent delegates to the confederate congress. i never understood the battle of shiloh being in the movie How the West was Won when i first saw it in cinerama in 1962 or there abouts,only later did i understand the prize. one of lincolns old friends would become senator from oregon,edward baker,who lincoln named his second son after,later general killed at balls bluff,was an example of lincoln men coming to the fore in the west. the pony express was essentially a means for the north to keep communication with the west,disbanded after the telegraph went through. soon after the longest telegraph message in history was transmitted,the nevada state constitution so it could quickly be ratified by congress.

[CAnnoneer]

CAnnoneer, I expected better of you.  What book did you parrot that from?

Surely you are joking. There isn't one book to my knowledge that argues that, because it is so nonPC. "Everybody" knows it was about slavery. Except, slavery was actually just one of the many issues, a trigger perhaps, but certainly not the main real issue. As others have pointed out here, if it were simply slavery, there were a number of ways to handle the situation without warfare. The real issue was the extent of power of the fedgov over the "provinces".

After demographic and economic changes that undermined the South's dominance in congress, the South saw that federal-imposed abolition was inevitable. If federal statism weren't the issue, why would they fear that? They seceded and events proved them right. If statism weren't the problem, why would secession be unacceptable to WashDC and the North? Lincoln & co. purposefully left union garrisons all over the South. Why? To provoke the South to make the first aggressive move. Well, a sovereign state cannot tolerate foreign troops indefinitely. The rest, as they say, is history.

Yes, slavery, admission of new states, tariffs, changes inside political parties, religious outrage over slavery, individual and group idiocies had their impact as well, but none of those would have escalated into warfare if WashDC and the North had just let the South go their separate way.

[slzy]

the admission of new states is tied directly to the slave issue. congress would not let free vs. slave to get out of balance. for instance texas was admitted to the union with the understanding it could divide into as many as five states,so as to increase the number of senators as free states came in. i think the whole reason to have 2 senators from each state was to placate the slave states in 1789.

[slzy]

the original draft of the declaration of independence had a paragraph deleted,which roundly condemned the king of england for perpetuating the slave trade,and points out now that same king was trying to recruit these same slaves into his army. these black tories,[for lack of a better term] were then transported to sierra leone,instead of being returned to servitude,or worse. the rift had started before the united states was even a country.

[Guest]

"He...said that a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets had no charms for him."

For centuries the winners got to write the history books. Now, thankfully, we have the Internet to balance the stories, and outright lies, told by the winners. Self defense is not treason.

John


www.civilwarhome.com/CMHLee.htm

"Writing January 23, 1861, he said that the South had been aggrieved by the acts of the North, and that he felt the aggression and was willing to take every proper step for redress. But he anticipated no greater calamity than a dissolution of the Union and would sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. He termed secession a revolution, but said that a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets had no charms for him."

"If the Union is dissolved and the government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people; and save in defense will draw my sword on none." - R. E. Lee


About one month later in D.C.:

"Above all others he was the choice of General Scott for the command of the United States army; and the aged hero seems to have earnestly urged the supreme command upon him. Francis P. Blair also invited him to a conference and said, "I come to you on the part of President Lincoln to ask whether any inducement that he can offer will prevail on you to take command of the Union army." To this alluring offer Lee at once replied courteously but candidly that though "opposed to secession and deprecating war he would take no part in the invasion of the Southern States." His resignation followed at once"

[Perd Hapley]

In which the nascent historian fistful scolds the amateurs:

CAnnoneer, now that you explain yourself better, I agree with some of what you say.  Such as:  

After demographic and economic changes that undermined the South's dominance in congress, the South saw that federal-imposed abolition was inevitable.

But you're using the wrong words, and to someone with a little bit of college-level instruction in American history, it's apparent that you and most of the posters here have little knowledge of the topic.  

RE: the wrong words.  
Abolishing slavery is not "statism," any more than having laws against murder is statism.  The dominance of the central over the state governments was one of the main issues, but that is not statism, either.  Call it centralized power, if you will.  There is a better word, but it escapes me at present.  Nationalism, perhaps.  

The importance of slavery as a cause for the Civil War has been hotly debated since at least 1861, just as we might debate the "justification" for the Iraq war.  History teachers have taught high school and college students a number of reasons for the Civil War; slavery, economics, states' rights.  The sort of issues you're bringing up, CAnnoneer, have certainly not frightened away historians.  There has been volume after volume written on them.  

These issues are also evident from the primary sources of the time, such as the Lincoln-Douglas debates that were mentioned earlier.  Both men discussed slavery and state sovereignty, and the crowd's comments betray an obvious interest in the same.  You can read John C. Calhoun or study the actions of Andrew Jackson.  Anyone who thinks that Northerners weren't deeply interested in the question of slavery has not done their homework in the opinions expressed at the time, by the people or the politicians.  As I mentioned earlier, Northerners were concerned about slavery spreading into the western territories.  If slavery was allowed, many Northerners feared, plantation slavery would take over, pushing out small farmers emigrating from the free North.  This was a very real concern for enterprising Northerners and their children.  And slaves were more than just farm-workers.  Some were highly skilled in black-smithing, cabinet-making, etc.  (Interestingly, some slaves were payed wages for such work, as it was the only way of getting quality work.  Whip a man, and he will do only enough to keep from being whipped again.)
There are a number of other theories about Northern opposition to slavery and support for the war.  

Ask yourself why the 95% of non-slave-owners would suport the Confederate views?  Why would they be willing to enter into a war on behalf of an upper economic class?  That's essentially been an unasked question, seems to me.

Go to the nearest university library and take a look.  There will likely be at least a half-dozen books and a dozen scholarly articles that chew that question up one side and down the other.  Slavery was a cornerstone of the southern economy.  Even those without slaves were afraid of that being disrupted.  Small farmers usually relied on plantation owners to assist them with harvest and shipping of goods.  It was not uncommon for slaves to be borrowed by, or hired out to, small farmers.  Add to this that those with an interest in slavery were the political leaders already, which the non-slave-owners were accustomed to listening to and following.  Imagine how easy it would be to inculcate in poor whites, even in areas with very few slaves, the fear of hordes of angry free Negros soon to be coming their way with a hunger for land, revenge and white girls.

 Lincoln & co. purposefully left union garrisons all over the South.

They were not Union garrisons until the war began.  Until then, they were simply military bases on home territory.  Surely, you don't suggest that it was a belligerent move to keep the military bases where they had already been?

"Trampling of state rights" was the revisionist history created by former CSA generals who wanted to put a politically correct spin on their treason.

Bull-hockey.  You are clearly not conversant on antebellum history.

[slzy]

To some extent the centralization of power in Washington may have been an unexpected occurence. The defining moment for me anyway,is when the indiana state legislature cuts off funding for the war,and that states Gov. Morton goes to Washington for funding. Also the issuance of greenbacks is fundamental to the central governments ascendancy. And since we are talking money,some of Lincolns enemys called him a communist. Indeed karl marx' column ran in one of the new york papers,and marx considered lincolns election to be on the road to the "dictatorship of the proletariat".the paper dropped his column. i am not suggesting lincoln was a marxist,i bring this up to focus on other world events ,as opposed to looking at american history in a vacuum. however,many refugees from europe,escaping prison or execution for their roles in the revolution of 1848 brought their ideas with them.

[Perd Hapley]

slzy, you're very hard to read.  Please use standard punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure and paragraphs.  

Boy, I'm cranky today.

[Mannlicher]

War of Southern Treason was caused by slavery.

or as we call it, the 'war of Northern aggression'.

Slavery was  a small part.  The causes were much more economic.  Don't forget, the hated yankees kept slaves as well as the Southern folks.
The American Civil war had its roots in the English Civil War, the Irish "problems", and even further back in time.  In the South, the settlers were mostly Scots Irish.  In the North, the hated English.  When the American Civil war started, it was easy for a Scots Irish Southern lad to go out and kill Englishmen.  We killed a bunch of them too.  Sadly, not enough.

[CAnnoneer]

Abolishing slavery is not "statism," any more than having laws against murder is statism.

Abolition is not statism but its imposition on the provinces is.

The dominance of the central over the state governments was one of the main issues, but that is not statism, either.  Call it centralized power, if you will.  There is a better word, but it escapes me at present.  Nationalism, perhaps.

Ayn Rand and others would certainly disagree with your definition. Indeed a silly ambiguity has arisen because "state" now designates both a province and the State. The State is the fedgov, and increasingly so since perhaps Andrew Jackson, but certainly since Dense Abe. However, reading Rand makes perfectly well understood meaning of "statism".

History teachers have taught high school and college students a number of reasons for the Civil War; slavery, economics, states' rights.

Take 100 schoolchildren across the nation and ask them what the War was primarily about. The majority will recite the PC line that it was all about slavery and the South were evil, so they deserved to lose. Their multiculturalist liberal teachers are to receive the "thank you" fruitbasket.

The sort of issues you're bringing up, CAnnoneer, have certainly not frightened away historians.  There has been volume after volume written on them.

I remember some years back an economics paper appeared that crunched some numbers and had conclusions indicating that the Southern economy could have been viable. The furor, hatred, and recriminations it generated nationally were more spectacular than 4th July fireworks.

I am not an economist but ask myself some simple questions. Such as, "If slavery was so non-viable, why is it that northerners were so damn afraid of it? After all, they could have fomented dissolution if not legislated abolition just by driving slave-run enterprises out of business by honest competition, couldn't they?" My suspicion is that in certain fields, slavery was more than competitive if managed well. And that is a hard-reality pill many people would find impossible to swallow...

Anyone who thinks that Northerners weren't deeply interested in the question of slavery has not done their homework in the opinions expressed at the time, by the people or the politicians.

I have not argued otherwise. But, let's make a distinction between what the rank-and-file commoners had as motivations, and what was the motivation of the State and its minions and useful idiots.

They were not Union garrisons until the war began.  Until then, they were simply military bases on home territory.  Surely, you don't suggest that it was a belligerent move to keep the military bases where they had already been?

Let's not kid ourselves. The South did not secede at 10 a.m. and open fire on Fort Sumter at 10:01 the same day. Lincoln had plenty of time and warning to get out of Dodge. The confederates made multiple attempts to get the garrisons out peacefully. They asked for surrender, they blockaded, they waited. Sumter needed provisions and Lincoln ordered the resupply ship to run the blockade to force the issue. IIRC the commandant had asked for instructions and help and had been told to stay put.

I wish I were at Antietam at the Lincoln visit to ask him "Happy now, biiyatch?"

[slzy]

slavery was certainly viable for the slave owner. just as hiring illegal aliens is viable for treasonous contractors is today.

[Perd Hapley]

 the hated yankees kept slaves as well as the Southern folks.

I don't know what you mean by that, but it's misleading to imply that slave-holding was somehow general or even legal across the United States.  There were slave-holding border states that did not secede, but slavery was illegal in most, if not all, Northern states.  If this were not so, Dred Scott would have never had a case.  As it was, the fact that he had lived in states where slavery was not allowed meant that he was free.  It took the Supreme Court to say otherwise.

[Strings]

Ok... pardon my ignorance here for a sec. If the war was all about slavery, and blacks in the south were nothing but slaves, then why was the first unit of freed blacks fielded by the CSA?

 Also... wasn't the founding of the nation of Liberia so that we'd have a place to send the "now freed blacks"?

[Matthew Carberry]

Let's not kid ourselves. The South did not secede at 10 a.m. and open fire on Fort Sumter at 10:01 the same day. Lincoln had plenty of time and warning to get out of Dodge. The confederates made multiple attempts to get the garrisons out peacefully. They asked for surrender, they blockaded, they waited. Sumter needed provisions and Lincoln ordered the resupply ship to run the blockade to force the issue. IIRC the commandant had asked for instructions and help and had been told to stay put.

That's specious.  Fort Sumter wasn't and had not been State property to dispose of.  Federal installations then were as Federal installations now, land owned entirely and outright by the federal government.

There was no "rental agreement" to base an eviction on and no breach of any "contract" to justify repossession or to be dissolved.

By taking the installations, the States were committing theft of property they had no legal right to.  That's why they had to ask, not order.  To take the Fort(s) they knew they would be breaking the law, theft being as illegal in Southern states as in the North.

[Perd Hapley]

For centuries the winners got to write the history books. Now, thankfully, we have the Internet to balance the stories, and outright lies, told by the winners.

It is not true that history is only written by the winners.  Nor does the internet balance anything, except in making it easier for more people to access different points of view.  Southerners have been defending their position ever since slavery became a sectional issue, which predates television, radio and even the internet.

[Perd Hapley]

Ok... pardon my ignorance here for a sec. If the war was all about slavery, and blacks in the south were nothing but slaves, then why was the first unit of freed blacks fielded by the CSA?

 Also... wasn't the founding of the nation of Liberia so that we'd have a place to send the "now freed blacks"?

Can you cite a source on the unit you speak of?  

No one denies that there were free Blacks in the South or that Blacks served in the Confederate military.  I believe some were still slaves at the time.

Liberia was founded long before the Civil War.  Hint:  It's capital is named for James Monroe, who served as president from 1817 to 1825.

[Mannlicher]

 the hated yankees kept slaves as well as the Southern folks.

I don't know what you mean by that, but it's misleading to imply that slave-holding was somehow general or even legal across the United States.  There were slave-holding border states that did not secede, but slavery was illegal in most, if not all, Northern states.  If this were not so, Dred Scott would have never had a case.  As it was, the fact that he had lived in states where slavery was not allowed meant that he was free.  It took the Supreme Court to say otherwise.

I thought you were the historian, Fistful.

http://www.slavenorth.com/index.html

The moral high ground on slavery was pretty much non existant with the North.  The whole issue was economic, and about political power.  Much the same today, if you think about it.

In school these days, and for many years, all kids are exposed to about the Civil War is "The North opposed slavery, and went to war to free the slaves.  They won, and the evil South was defeated".  BS, as anyone with half a brain knows already.

[slzy]

Dred Scott did away with all the compromises with which war had been averted.Now,slavery was legal every where in the US and its territories.Yes,it was economic,not morally driven. But as William Seward said ,there is a "Higher Law" and Dred Scott was over turned by the bayonet. The people who hire illegal aliens have restored some parts of Dred Scott.

[CAnnoneer]

That's specious.  Fort Sumter wasn't and had not been State property to dispose of.  Federal installations then were as Federal installations now, land owned entirely and outright by the federal government.

If the states secede, the union is dissolved. No union, no federal government. Lands then should revert to the host state. In any case, that is a facetious point. Lincoln & co. should have vacated and Lincoln should have held a special election in the north to elect a proper pres of NSA.

Also consider the implications of feds calling the southerners "rebs". Says it all.

[Perd Hapley]

CAnnoneer, please.  You are assuming the Confederate view of the federal relationship was correct, when any historian can tell you that that point was very much open to debate at the time and is probably still debatable today.  "Proving" a point of controversy with an equally controversial point is called "begging the question," and you can look that up under logical fallacies.

[Matthew Carberry]

That's specious.  Fort Sumter wasn't and had not been State property to dispose of.  Federal installations then were as Federal installations now, land owned entirely and outright by the federal government.

If the states secede, the union is dissolved. No union, no federal government. Lands then should revert to the host state. In any case, that is a facetious point. Lincoln & co. should have vacated and Lincoln should have held a special election in the north to elect a proper pres of NSA.

Also consider the implications of feds calling the southerners "rebs". Says it all.

Even if "a" or several states secede the "Union" still exists until it is formally dissolved (that would take a wholesale renunciation of the Constitution by all signatories).  Its possessions remain its own.

If you have deed to a property that is registered in a county and the parcel your lot is on is annexed by a township, you don't lose your right of ownership to the town just because the ownership of the greater parcel has changed hands.  

You not wanting to play on the team anymore doesn't mean the team somehow doesn't exist.

[Perd Hapley]

Another argument for the Unionist position was that the Constitution was ratified by "We the People," rather than the states, and thereby the states were bound to the will of the whole people, southern and northern.  Did Northerners have a say in Southern secession?


CAnnoneer,

With all due respect to Ayn Rand, your definition of statism is unworkable for at least two reasons.  First, because no one else uses the term in that way.  Secondly, because "The State," in America, consists of all levels of government from the national to the local.  If national abolition is statism, then so would be local or state-level abolition.  I would agree, however, that too much control of the states by the national government contributes to statism.  You may notice that I refer to the national rather than the federal government.  This is because "federal government" precisely refers to the relationship between the state governments and national, or central, government. 

Take 100 schoolchildren across the nation and ask them what the War was primarily about. The majority will recite the PC line that it was all about slavery and the South were evil, so they deserved to lose. Their multiculturalist liberal teachers are to receive the "thank you" fruitbasket.

I won't deny that is the popular view.  Slavery is the most obvious difference between North and South, and has always been the most easily identifiable cause for the Civil War.  Ask a bunch of 8-year olds, and they'll say slavery.  Ask a random sample of Americans, and they will give any number of answers, but slavery will still be prominent among them.  This is so not because of PC, but in spite of it.  There's nothing PC about saying that the White, Christian, capitalist, patriarchal North engaged in a noble, self-sacrificing struggle to free slaves from oppression.  The PC way to teach the Civil War is to emphasize the economic argument to make both sides look self-serving, and also to emphasize the racism of Northerners from Know-Nothing Party members to Abraham Lincoln.  The states' rights/national sovereignty angle also comes in, partly as a way to make the North look bad.  That there were other angles to the Civil War is common knowledge. 

I remember some years back an economics paper appeared that crunched some numbers and had conclusions indicating that the Southern economy could have been viable. The furor, hatred, and recriminations it generated nationally were more spectacular than 4th July fireworks.  "If slavery was so non-viable, why is it that northerners were so damn afraid of it? After all, they could have fomented dissolution if not legislated abolition just by driving slave-run enterprises out of business by honest competition, couldn't they?" My suspicion is that in certain fields, slavery was more than competitive if managed well. And that is a hard-reality pill many people would find impossible to swallow...

What are you talking about?  Your memory must be fuzzy.  No one is going to be offended by the idea that the Southern economy was "viable."  Don't you know that leftists prefer to equate profit with evil and oppresion?  To repeat myself, Northerners feared that slavery, being viable largely because of its economy (cheap labor that could be worked as many hours as necessary at little additional cost), would spread into the west, ruining the land of opportunity for small farmers from north and south. 

Anyone who thinks that Northerners weren't deeply interested in the question of slavery has not done their homework in the opinions expressed at the time, by the people or the politicians.

I have not argued otherwise. But, let's make a distinction between what the rank-and-file commoners had as motivations, and what was the motivation of the State and its minions and useful idiots.

I said the people or the politicians.  Let's not pretend that the interests of either group were mutually exclusive.  The politicians couldn't completely ignore the desires of their constituents.  While there was a fear of or moral disproval of slavery among many Northeners, there was also an abolitionist element among Lincoln's cabinet.  Seward and Chase, as examples off the top of my head.  That is to say that some of the Republican leadership was more radically, morally anti-slavery than the base. 

Lincoln had plenty of time and warning to get out of Dodge. The confederates made multiple attempts to get the garrisons out peacefully. They asked for surrender, they blockaded, they waited. Sumter needed provisions and Lincoln ordered the resupply ship to run the blockade to force the issue. IIRC the commandant had asked for instructions and help and had been told to stay put.

How do you have all these details, yet lack a general knowledge of the situation?  That's why I asked who gave you all these opinions.  Again, you're assuming the Southern position, rather than arguing from truths on which we can both agree.  Worse, you're expecting that Lincoln would act according to one point of view, when he obviously did not hold that point of view.  You think Lincoln just accidently failed to recall his garrisons?  From Lincoln's point of view, and that of many observers, he was dealing with a munity. 
 

I wish I were at Antietam at the Lincoln visit to ask him "Happy now, biiyatch?"

Why are you talking like a twelve-year-old?

[Perd Hapley]

 the hated yankees kept slaves as well as the Southern folks.

I don't know what you mean by that, but it's misleading to imply that slave-holding was somehow general or even legal across the United States.  There were slave-holding border states that did not secede, but slavery was illegal in most, if not all, Northern states.  If this were not so, Dred Scott would have never had a case.  As it was, the fact that he had lived in states where slavery was not allowed meant that he was free.  It took the Supreme Court to say otherwise.

I thought you were the historian, Fistful.

http://www.slavenorth.com/index.html

Mannlicher,

I quote all of my comments so that you can read my post and refute it with facts.  The webpage you cite fails to do that, and I'm sure the author would agree with what I said, which is neither controversial, nor unusual.  

The North under discussion is not the northern colonies of 1754, but the northern states in the two or three decades prior to the war.  I didn't say there were no slaves there.  In fact, I acknowledged that Dred Scott had been held as a slave while in the North.  What I'm saying is that slavery had been, for all intents and purposes, abolished in the North.  The acts of emancipation were usually gradual, so that those above a certain age remained slaves.  There were a few of these left by 1850, but that fits perfectly well with what I said.  "It's misleading to imply that slave-holding was somehow general or even legal across the United States."  In fact, the page you linked doesn't even deal with states like Illinois or Ohio, where slavery was banned by Congress in 1787 and again in 1789 under the new Constitution.  This is a famous bit of legislation, called the Northwest Ordinance, drafted by none other than Thomas Jefferson.  Again, there was some slavery going on in these Northwest Territories, but it was neither general nor legal.  Dred Scott was not the first to sue for freedom on the basis of having set foot on "free soil."  In fact, he was the last.  Others had sued and won, because slaves were considered free once their owners brought them across the Ohio River - (I'm sorry, it's a little more complicated than that, but I'm trying to keep things concise.).

My books are all packed up in the basement now, but here is some info from the Wikipedia entry on American Slavery.  It's in agreement with the page you linked.  

The Northern states passed emancipation acts between 1780 and 1804; most of these arranged for gradual emancipation and a special status for freedmen, so there were still a dozen "permanent apprentices" in New Jersey in 1860.

In school these days, and for many years, all kids are exposed to about the Civil War is "The North opposed slavery, and went to war to free the slaves.  They won, and the evil South was defeated".  BS, as anyone with half a brain knows already.

That's just not true, although that may be all the kids remember.  I already dealt with this, so I will just quote my last post.

I won't deny that is the popular view.  Slavery is the most obvious difference between North and South, and has always been the most easily identifiable cause for the Civil War.  Ask a bunch of 8-year olds, and they'll say slavery.  Ask a random sample of Americans, and they will give any number of answers, but slavery will still be prominent among them.  This is so not because of PC, but in spite of it.  There's nothing PC about saying that the White, Christian, capitalist, patriarchal North engaged in a noble, self-sacrificing struggle to free slaves from oppression.  The PC way to teach the Civil War is to emphasize the economic argument to make both sides look self-serving, and also to emphasize the racism of Northerners from Know-Nothing Party members to Abraham Lincoln.  The states' rights/national sovereignty angle also comes in, partly as a way to make the North look bad.  That there were other angles to the Civil War is common knowledge.

[Perd Hapley]

Some of you seem to think you've got some hidden knowledge about how the Civil War wasn't really the result of Northerners sacrificing themselves so that Black children could learn to read and invent peanut butter.  Well, congratulations.  You're better informed than the majority of fourth-graders.  Any kid who's paying attention in high school social studies will learn that there are other facets to the issue.  

And when you graduate to that high plain of enlightment that reveals the sordid greed and lust for power of "Dense Abe," some of you want to say, "It wadn't about slav'ry.  It was all economics.  It was all about crushing the Souf, so's we could have us a war on drugs and the Patriot Act!"  Well, these are valid lines of argument, if you refine them a bit.  But you'll always find that slavery was beyond all question AN issue, even if it wasn't THE issue.  It is tied up with every factor in North-South relations.  If it was an economic issue, it was one to which slavery was key.  If it was a struggle for sovereignty, then the struggle began over a slave-owning culture.

Sorry, I'll try to calm down a little.

[Iain]

fistful - what would recommend as reading material, something readable yet respected that covers the build-up and events of your civil war? Bear in mind that I've studied a bit of history, but no American history.