The Civil War, and it's causes.

[bigred]

I would beg to disagree.

Lincoln’s message in the years before his election was anti-slavery, and he was elected on an anti-slavery agenda. Yes, it’s true that in the period immediately after his inauguration he spoke of preserving the Union rather than fighting slavery, but this was in the context of minimising the number of slave states which might secede – in the political realities of the time, if he had led the Union to war in 1861 on the grounds of fighting slavery, the border slave states like Kentucky and Delaware would almost certainly have seceded as well, which would have made the Union’s job much harder.

Lincoln benefited in another way from making preservation of the Union the issue – that way he forced the secessionists to fire the first shot, giving the Union the moral high ground. Had abolition been the issue, he would have been morally obliged to invade the secessionist states to free the slaves, and thus would have been cast as the aggressor.



With respect, I think this is taking a pedantically narrow view of the issues at stake. Yes, Lincoln said, “You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve and defend it.” That makes it sound like he was presenting secession as the casus belli. But this is to ignore the wider context of Lincoln’s views, as expressed in the years prior to his election. It also ignores the reason that many people volunteered for the Union armies. Yes, many enlisted to preserve the Union, or because service in the Army paid and fed well, or because they’d get citizenship at the end. But there were many Abolitionists in the Union Army as well, who went to war to end slavery. It was these attitudes which transformed the war from its narrow, technical basis to its broader goal of abolishing slavery.

I’d suggest that a useful comparison would be World War One. The various nations of Europe technically went to war over Austria-Hungary’s aggression against Serbia. Does that mean that Germany, Turkey and Bulgaria supported the right of A-H to invade Serbia, and that Russia, France, Italy, Britain and the USA fought to oppose that right? Of course not. There were all sorts of other issues at stake, but it was A-H’s threat to invade Serbia which started the whole thing off.



I won’t argue that economics played a part. But I think you’re wrong to ignore the issue of the creation of new states from out of unorganised Federal territory in the west. Which of these states would be free, and which would allow slaves, and how would this decision be made? Lincoln opposed the spreading of slavery anywhere outside where it existed at the time, which I understand the slave states considered intolerable, because of the long term consequences for the continuation of slavery. This isn’t an economic issue, but a combined political/moral one.

To summarise: Lincoln was morally opposed to slavery, and the people who elected him and who opposed him were well aware of it. The fact that he used secession as the issue to justify the start of the war, rather than slavery, was a consequence of his shaky political position at the time. It wasn’t until the strategic situation had improved (thus reducing his requirement to rely on moderate pro-slave support) that he could cast the war in more stark moral terms.

You said it far better than I would've.

I'm both grateful and somewhat resentful.

 

[gtc]

Well, I don't think he had to justify the start of the war to the nation seeing as the war started when the South began shooting at them.

Morally, no. However, he did need the nation to back him.

 

[JA Demko]

RE: Texas reserved right to secede

Neither the 1836 nor 1876 Texas consitutions contain any such provision.

 

[mijopaalmc]

RE: Texas reserved right to secede

Neither the 1836 nor 1876 Texas consitutions contain any such provision.

Neither does the US Constitution (or, to the best of my knowledge, any state constitution) contain such an explicit right to secede.

 

[Metullus]

Metellus said:

I would beg to disagree.

Lincoln’s message in the years before his election was anti-slavery, and he was elected on an anti-slavery agenda. Yes, it’s true that in the period immediately after his inauguration he spoke of preserving the Union rather than fighting slavery, but this was in the context of minimising the number of slave states which might secede – in the political realities of the time, if he had led the Union to war in 1861 on the grounds of fighting slavery, the border slave states like Kentucky and Delaware would almost certainly have seceded as well, which would have made the Union’s job much harder.

Lincoln benefited in another way from making preservation of the Union the issue – that way he forced the secessionists to fire the first shot, giving the Union the moral high ground. Had abolition been the issue, he would have been morally obliged to invade the secessionist states to free the slaves, and thus would have been cast as the aggressor. I do not disagree with what you here. I would suggest, however, that Lincoln what have acted no differently regardless of the motivations of the secessionist states.

With respect, I think this is taking a pedantically narrow view of the issues at stake. Yes, Lincoln said, “You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve and defend it.” That makes it sound like he was presenting secession as the casus belli. But this is to ignore the wider context of Lincoln’s views, as expressed in the years prior to his election. It also ignores the reason that many people volunteered for the Union armies. Yes, many enlisted to preserve the Union, or because service in the Army paid and fed well, or because they’d get citizenship at the end. But there were many Abolitionists in the Union Army as well, who went to war to end slavery. It was these attitudes which transformed the war from its narrow, technical basis to its broader goal of abolishing slavery.

I do not disagree with what you say here. I do not doubt that Lincoln was anti-slavery. I would suggest, however, that Lincoln what have acted no differently regardless of the motivations of the secessionist states. You are not arguing, are you, that had a state or states seceded because of, say, tariffs or unfair taxation or other disagreement with national policy, Lincoln would have stood by and done nothing?

As to the motives of many of the the volunteers on the Union side: certainly abolition was a not insignificant motive, perhaps the most significant - I would not argue otherwise. I would, however, be surprised if the defense of slavery was the most significant driving force in the volunteers that fought for the south. My view on their motivations is akin to the position of Phillip Lee when he declared his support of the Union - if the Union survived he would support it, if the Union failed he was for Kentucky, if Kentucky failed he was for Bullitt County, if Bullitt County fell apart he was for his hometown, if his hometown dissolved he was for his side of the street. (paraphrased from memory, forgive me if I screwed it up.)

I’d suggest that a useful comparison would be World War One. The various nations of Europe technically went to war over Austria-Hungary’s aggression against Serbia. Does that mean that Germany, Turkey and Bulgaria supported the right of A-H to invade Serbia, and that Russia, France, Italy, Britain and the USA fought to oppose that right? Of course not. There were all sorts of other issues at stake, but it was A-H’s threat to invade Serbia which started the whole thing off.

I take your meaning. I think that a more apt analogy would be WWII in Europe. WWII, which became in the end a war against Nazism did not begin as such. Had Hitler not invaded Poland it is entirely possible that the Western European act of the World War would not have happened. Prior to September 1939 what later became the Allied nations sought peaceful co-existence with the Nazi regime. It was only after the war began that the west undertook the war on Nazism.

I won’t argue that economics played a part. But I think you’re wrong to ignore the issue of the creation of new states from out of unorganised Federal territory in the west. Which of these states would be free, and which would allow slaves, and how would this decision be made? Lincoln opposed the spreading of slavery anywhere outside where it existed at the time, which I understand the slave states considered intolerable, because of the long term consequences for the continuation of slavery. This isn’t an economic issue, but a combined political/moral one.

I would change your last sentence to say that it "isn't just an economic issue..." but otherwise I would generally agree with you. I think that it is easy to understate the economic impact that, in the Southern view, the abolition of slavery would have had. I do not think that one can realistically separate the economic questions from the political and moral issues of slavery.

I was not ignoring the issue of the creation of new non-slave states and the impact that it had on the decision of many of the Southern states to secede. It was this that I think to no small degree encouraged the feeling of political impotence that led to secession.

To summarise: Lincoln was morally opposed to slavery, and the people who elected him and who opposed him were well aware of it. The fact that he used secession as the issue to justify the start of the war, rather than slavery, was a consequence of his shaky political position at the time. It wasn’t until the strategic situation had improved (thus reducing his requirement to rely on moderate pro-slave support) that he could cast the war in more stark moral terms.

But even when he had the south on the defensive (post July 1863) he did not move to eradicate slavery in the areas over which he had control.

 

[dudalb]

Calling oneself an independent nation does not actually make one an independent nation.

Are we talking De Jure or De Facto here.
Texas was a De Facto Independent nation from 1836 to when it was annexed to the Union in 1845.
Slavery might not have been the only cause of the Civil War,but it was the major one.
Without Slavery,the differences between North and South could have been peacefully adjusted. With it,there was no way.

 

[Byzantine Magpie]

I said:

To summarise: Lincoln was morally opposed to slavery, and the people who elected him and who opposed him were well aware of it. The fact that he used secession as the issue to justify the start of the war, rather than slavery, was a consequence of his shaky political position at the time. It wasn’t until the strategic situation had improved (thus reducing his requirement to rely on moderate pro-slave support) that he could cast the war in more stark moral terms.

Loss Leader replied:

Well, I don't think he had to justify the start of the war to the nation seeing as the war started when the South began shooting at them.

No, but the point is that the South shot first because he'd maneuvered them into that position. It's possible he could have acted in a different way, in which the North shot first; say, if he'd announced an aggressive war to end slavery in the South. If that had happened, Lincoln wouldn't have got the broad support he did in 1861.

 

[Byzantine Magpie]

You said it far better than I would've.

Thank you.

I'm both grateful and somewhat resentful.

Thank you, I think.

 

[Byzantine Magpie]

But even when he had the south on the defensive (post July 1863) he did not move to eradicate slavery in the areas over which he had control.

From what little I've read on the subject, Lincoln had two main concerns - that such an announcement could unnecessarily antagonise the pro-Union slave states, and that he didn't have the legal right to interfere in a matter each state had to decide on. He therefore presented the Emancipation Declaration in the context of a military matter, which therefore only applied in lands in rebellion against the government.

In that sense, Lincoln's behaviour is similar to that of the Allies in World War Two with regard to the Holocaust - the best way to stop it was to defeat Germany. And so with slavery - the best way to end it in the pro-Union slave states was to conquer the Confederacy and let Kentucky and Maryland etc do the sums for themselves.

Having said all that, I wonder if anything has been written about the operation of slavery in the pro-Union slave states during the Civil War, until the abolition of slavery. How many slave owners freed their slaves voluntarily? Did slaves still run away? What was done to captured slaves?

 

[Metullus]

From what little I've read on the subject, Lincoln had two main concerns - that such an announcement could unnecessarily antagonise the pro-Union slave states, and that he didn't have the legal right to interfere in a matter each state had to decide on. He therefore presented the Emancipation Declaration in the context of a military matter, which therefore only applied in lands in rebellion against the government.

I think that is a fair assessment. If I recall correctly the edict did not apply in Confederate areas under Union control either.

In that sense, Lincoln's behaviour is similar to that of the Allies in World War Two with regard to the Holocaust - the best way to stop it was to defeat Germany. And so with slavery - the best way to end it in the pro-Union slave states was to conquer the Confederacy and let Kentucky and Maryland etc do the sums for themselves.

I quite agree with your analogy - in fact I probably would take it farther than do you. In WWII the destruction of Nazism and the ending of the Holocaust were both secondary, albeit welcome, outcomes of the sought after defeat of Germany; neither, however, was the reason that the Western democracies went to war against Germany. Likewise, I think, to Lincoln and the Republican North, the end of institution of slavery in North America was a welcome and likely outcome of the defeat of the Confederacy, but it was not, in my view, the reason the war was fought.

Having said all that, I wonder if anything has been written about the operation of slavery in the pro-Union slave states during the Civil War, until the abolition of slavery. How many slave owners freed their slaves voluntarily? Did slaves still run away? What was done to captured slaves?

I will look in my library - I am certain that I have some materials on this very subject but since my illness I have had some difficulty in easily recalling references that were previously close to hand. I will post them when I find them.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Have you enjoyed the convoluted non-logic involved in supporting the South's "right to secede" in order to maintain ownership of other human beings?

Immensely. The idea that the South broke away over over whether or not they had the right to break away is hysterical. No other source of tension or mistrust existed at all, oh no.

It's not as if the two divergent cultures had utterly incompatible economic and social plans, which were brought into direct conflict by the westard expansion and the steady creation of new states which threatened the balance of power between them and the superiority of Northern businesses in securing control over the fate of the nation's economy stirred up any resentment among both the poor free Southerners with their agrarian economy and their wealthier, landowning, slave owning neighbors alike into a sort of fractional, fratricidal sub-patriotism.

It's not as if the Mason-Dixon line compromise over the slave-or-free issue of new states lead to Bloody Kansas and the beating of Senator Charles Sumner by Senator Prestor Brooks for having the temerity to criticize the open praise Southerners heaped on pro-slavery thugs in Kansas and Senator Brooks being innundated with fresh canes from Southerners while being villified by Northerners.

The expansion of western cattle operations and Nothern slaughterhouses tied together by train in no way depreciated the poor Southern farmer's swine values and hurt them all in their pocketbooks creating widespread resentment, because that sort of economic decline doesn't harm even those people not directly involved in raising, butchering, preserving, and distributing pork.

Nope, like soap opera characters who get a divorce over whether or not they're allowed to have a divorce, slavery wasn't a factor.

I'm not a historian, but I can read, and the issue of slavery colors every domestic issue in the United States for nearly a century.

 

[Praktik]

It's not as if the Mason-Dixon line compromise over the slave-or-free issue of new states lead to Bloody Kansas and the beating of Senator Charles Sumner by Senator Prestor Brooks for having the temerity to criticize the open praise Southerners heaped on pro-slavery thugs in Kansas and Senator Brooks being innundated with fresh canes from Southerners while being villified by Northerners.

I think this touches on something we haven't discussed here yet though I think the major points of contention between the North and South have all been elucidated well. The one thing we haven't discussed is the portrayal of those points of contention by politicians and the general rhetoric of the era.

I got the bug to read more into this after consuming a few books on John Brown's ill-fated rebellion and I just wanted to know - how did we get from there to a Civil War?

So I picked up "And then the War Came..." on the recommendation of an old professor of mine.

While I think the problems between the factions were nearly insoluble what made them that way was the way the factions talked to each other and to themselves about each other.

If you take John Brown's rebellion for example there was a whole flurry of commentary on the event in the south and in the north. In the north he was lionized as a martyr and while there were clucking of tongue's regarding his methods there was much out there sympathetic to his cause and sometimes even to his means. In the south it showed them the intractable nature of the abolotionist threat, the degree to which these people were impossible to negotiate with. Alarmist writings proliferated predicting further events like this if immediate steps weren't taken to increase the readiness of militias and show strength. Writers in the south would comment on commentary up North sympathetic to Brown as evidence of the North's threatening hostility to the south, Northern writers could point to Southern tracts calling for readiness as evidence of their threatening hostility.

So my reading on this has been casual and spread out over the past few years at intervals so i haven't retained enough of it to keep going but I do have the impression from my intermittent research that the Civil War was not just the result of "real issues" and "real differences" but rather that it was that these differences were exploited in a factional atmosphere to partisan advantage.

There was a kind of hysteria that was provoked on both sides and nurtured for many years before it finally all blew up....

 

[Metullus]

Immensely. The idea that the South broke away over over whether or not they had the right to break away is hysterical. No other source of tension or mistrust existed at all, oh no. *snip*

I must have missed that post as well. Can you point me to it?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I must have missed that post as well. Can you point me to it?

Someone else must be using your account, then.

No. I am saying that the war was fought over the question of the right of states to secede from the Union. It was that question, and that question alone, that was settled by the war.

Your question, and the question to which I was responding, was:My response was "to secede." My response is correct.

Emphasis added. You have clearly stated the South seceded over the issue of whether or not they had the right to seceed. It's right there in black and white.

 

[mijopaalmc]

I must have missed that post as well. Can you point me to it?

Someone else must be using your account, then.

No. I am saying that the war was fought over the question of the right of states to secede from the Union. It was that question, and that question alone, that was settled by the war.

Your question, and the question to which I was responding, was:My response was "to secede." My response is correct.

Emphasis added. You have clearly stated the South secceded over the issue of whether or not they had the right to secceed. It's right there in black and white.

So are you saying that the idea that the South seceded purely over the right to secede is as patently absurd as the idea that the South seceded purely over the right to own slaves?

 

[Metullus]

Someone else must be using your account, then.





Emphasis added. You have clearly stated the South secceded over the issue of whether or not they had the right to secceed. It's right there in black and white.

Nope. Nice quote mining though.

I said:

No. I am saying that the war was fought over the question of the right of states to secede from the Union. It was that question, and that question alone, that was settled by the war.

Your question, and the question to which I was responding, was:

This argument always falls apart when you ask, "The states' rights to do what?"

My response was "to secede." My response is correct.

I also pointed out that several slave states remained in the Union and remained slave states for most or all of the war. If the war itself was over the issue of slavery it is difficult to reconcile the fact that the presumably anti-slavery Union included in its ranks no fewer that 5 slave states.

You might well argue that the issue of slavery was the reason that the Confederate states seceded, but that is a different question from the one you asked and I answered.

(Emphasis added)

I did not say that the states seceded over their right to secede. Not even close.

I clearly differentiated between what the war was about - secession -and what the reasons for the secession. I do not know how I could have made it any clearer.

Using large fonts and sarcasm does not make your assertion any more true.

 

[Gazpacho]

Lincoln might well have allowed the southern states to secede, if they had negotiated a settlement of their affairs in the federal government first. In particular, they would have to assume a share of the federal debt.

By seceding unilaterally and giving Washington the finger, they sealed their fate. Personally I'm glad they did, since there isn't one southern state that isn't better off as a result.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

So are you saying that the idea that the South seceded purely over the right to secede is as patently absurd as the idea that the South seceded purely over the right to own slaves?

Post #51 contains some of the proximate causes for the war. The ultimate cause was, however, slavery. Slavery shaped the economy and culture of the South into something resembling European Feudalism, while the North underwent the industrial revolution. Those two economies were difficult to interface, and created a strong cultural and political divide between the two sides with very different ways of life and created a chasm within the federal legislature that was only widened as each new State sent Senators and Representatives into the political struggle and could potentially swing the balance of power either way.

Claiming that the war was fought over slavery - as though the North was full of nothing but grim jawed abolitionists all singing "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave. . ." while the South was full of plantation dwelling, slave owning, gentleman soldiers who had traded in their white suits for crisp West Point uniforms and then Confederate grey when their State called - is as false as saying it was fought over the issue of secession. There were a myriad of proximate causes and they were so tender and salient that the issue of slavery wasn't even put to rest until well after the war.

However, claiming that the ultimate cause of the war was anything other than slavery is absurd.

 

[Metullus]

Lincoln might well have allowed the southern states to secede, if they had negotiated a settlement of their affairs in the federal government first. In particular, they would have to assume a share of the federal debt.

By seceding unilaterally and giving Washington the finger, they sealed their fate. Personally I'm glad they did, since there isn't one southern state that isn't better off as a result.

A hundred years ago in grad school we debated this very question. Our consensus at the time was that ultimately it was politically impossible for Lincoln and the Congress to let the south secede unhindered - that no president and no Congress would willingly preside over the dissolution of the Union. Add to the purely political (and, yes, moral) questions the potential economic consequences coupled with the very real likelihood of conflict in the western territories it is probable that war was inevitable.

Grad students take themselves so very seriously so this was, of course, the last word on the issue.

 

[Metullus]

ImaginalDisc:

Do you agree that you were mistaken when you said:

You have clearly stated the South secceded over the issue of whether or not they had the right to secceed. It's right there in black and white.