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| Why did the American Civil War begin? |
| Slavery, everything else stems from that |
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22% |
[ 18 ] |
| States' Rights |
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18% |
[ 15 ] |
| Struggle between two economic systems |
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10% |
[ 8 ] |
| It began over States' Rights, later Emancipation was important |
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22% |
[ 18 ] |
| A struggle of States' Rights and two economic systems |
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21% |
[ 17 ] |
| Something brilliant for which I'm too dim-witted to have anticipated |
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5% |
[ 4 ] |
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| Total Votes : 80 |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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 Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:40 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
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Allow me to reverse/correct the above for you:
"Yes, the South seceded because they feared Lincoln's anti-slavery positions. But the reason Lincoln went to war was to save the Union. Again, it comes back to saving the Union." |
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| But that was not the reason for the war. It was the north that took the war to the south (and yeah I know the first shots were technically fired by the south at Ft. Sumpter, but give me a break). And again, the reason the north took the war to the south was over centralization of government power. If the north had just left the south alone, there'd have been no war. Simple as that. Exactly what part of this don't you get? |
So if the South doesn't secede because of Lincoln's slavery position, does Lincoln still fight the war for Union?
No, the reason the South rebelled was because of Slavery. The reason Lincoln sent soldiers was to put down the Rebellion. |
Yes, the chain of events happened in that order. It was the latter event (not the former) which was the act of aggression that caused the war (succession is not aggression). IOW, the cause was Lincoln sending armies to subjugate the south. And as we both know, he did this to centralize power, not to abolish slavery.
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| My bone is not with abolitionists (obviously). It is with the central government. Last time I checked, abolitionists weren't going around killing, raping and pillaging civilians. |
John Brown |
I guess you got me there. But how many John Brown's were there? He was a one-off. Anyway, I'm actually fairly sympathetic to him (though he made blunders). Lincoln certainly wasn't, however, having called him a delusional fanatic who was justly hanged. Regardless, having people like him engage in violence against pro-slavery southerners was nowhere near as bad as having an army, commanded by power hungry politicians (who cared nothing about slavery) come down from the north to engage in scorched earth...
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| And I maintain that it was just a novel. A good novel, but still just a novel. It didn't influence the government to go to war. |
It influenced the people to vote for abolitionist/Republican candidates, which in turn helped propel Lincoln into office.
Preston Brooks' (Southern congressman) savage beating of Charles Sumner (abolitionist Senator) on the floor of Congress also hardened Northern attitudes to the South. One thing it did was make it morally difficult for the South to say that it was the oppressed party and defender of the democratic process.
There was also John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry and his Execution. It had Americans ask themselves whether or not it was moral to kill in opposition to slavery, with many answering 'yes'. It also stoked Southern fears of 'Yankee agitation' and they began to seriously train their militias.
All of these things were serious events to the average American and shaped attitudes towards the coming conflict. All stemmed from Slavery. |
I don't deny any of this. I'm simply reiterating the fact that none of the above caused the war. Lincoln sending troops to put down the 'rebellion' was the cause.
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| Sure it absolutely would, in that case. But not in the fight against the Union forces. |
So Kentuckians were just in using force to expel Confederate soldiers, and since Kentucky thereafter affirmed its loyalty to the Union, the Union was right in sending an Army to expel the Confederate invader and seek to destroy the army that had invaded. |
No, Kentucky was just in using force to expel invaders. This does not 'therefore' mean that the Union was just in invading the south. Talk about a non-sequitur...
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| Suggesting that two groups of private citizens can fight guerrilla warfare without involving their respective governments is incredibly naive and is once again indicative of the utopianistic strain evident in your arguments. |
I'm not saying it's realistic. Having big governments take their countries to war and killing massive numbers of people is realistic. I'm simply discussing whether it's just or not.
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| Go ahead and take exception. The war was cause by the North taking the war to the south, who just wanted to be left alone. |
Don't secede and stop holding negros in bondage. |
The south had the right to succeed. Where was it written in stone that they had to stay in perpetual union?
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You implied that people fought for propaganda. Why else would all of those people fight for Lincoln's Union restoration?
Considering that nearly all of the soldiers that fought for the Union the first three years were volunteers, I'd submit that the people chose knowing full well what the issues were. |
And how many of these soldiers were abolitionists? Probably next to none. Substitute abolitionism with nationalism and you'd be closer to the mark. They were fighting for the idea of the Union, which was nationalistic. Many were probably doing it only because they were paid to. The propaganda over "freeing the slaves" (which few actually cared about) was simply to rationalize their war of aggression, after the fact.
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| It's not like there was any big secret to what the South's secession was about, nor what Lincoln's stated goals were. It was out there, plain for everyone to see. This didn't come as any shock. Northerner's would have supported the war whether or not the Union fired the first shots at Fort Sumter. Both sides were looking for a brawl. |
No, the south succeeded. Their overall goal was to be left alone, not to subjugate the north. Lincoln's armies were the aggressors. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 8:54 am Post subject: |
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| Koveras wrote: |
| VQ, is it possible that the Civil War was fought to expand the North's industrial market? |
No doubt that was an important factor. Lincoln was himself a big-wig industrialist lawyer (lobbyist for such power house corporations as the Illinois Central Railroad, and lawyer for Alton & Sangamon Railroad). He was deeply connected to big business, namely railroads (which were the major corporations of the day). In fact he was basically the most prominent lobbyist the railway industry had. A corporatist if there ever was one. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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| succession is not aggression |
Secessionists seized federal property, including military materiel, without providing compensation. That's aggression to me.
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| But how many John Brown's were there? He was a one-off. Anyway |
Plenty in Bleeding Kansas and Missouri. He was a one-off only because a year later the war started.
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| having people like him engage in violence against pro-slavery southerners was nowhere near as bad as having an army |
You do realize that when guerrilla bands/civilians fought each other the incidents of murder of non-combatants, and even women and children, increased from next to nil with the armies, to plenty of atrocities with the marauding bands.
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| I don't deny any of this. I'm simply reiterating the fact that none of the above caused the war. Lincoln sending troops to put down the 'rebellion' was the cause. |
I would submit that this was the logical conclusion of such events. If you get a groundswell of public opinion regarding an issue, an abolitionist lawmaker beaten in the chambers of Congress by a pro-slavery lawmaker, and civilians attempting to foment slave rebellion with a large number of Northerners supporting his position, yes you are going to get someone like Lincoln elected and events transpiring the way they did.
I believe that Lincoln was more an expression of the sentiment of the times, than a director of it.
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| No, Kentucky was just in using force to expel invaders. This does not 'therefore' mean that the Union was just in invading the south. Talk about a non-sequitur... |
South invades neutral state. Neutral state sides with the Union. Southern troops continue to operate in that state. Northern armies push them out of Kentucky. Southern troops continue to menace Kentucky and raiders attack into Kentucky. How does this not justify Union action against those armies in Southern territory?
And as for this war, it could all have been avoided by the South staying in the union and accepting the election results.
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| I'm not saying it's realistic. Having big governments take their countries to war and killing massive numbers of people is realistic. I'm simply discussing whether it's just or not. |
It's war. War is a failure of morality, asking it to be just is like asking a pig not to wallow.
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| The south had the right to succeed. Where was it written in stone that they had to stay in perpetual union? |
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Where was it written that they had the right to secede?
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| And how many of these soldiers were abolitionists? Probably next to none. |
USCT soldiers made up 10% of the army. I'm pretty sure they were fighting for emancipation. Some soldiers saw emancipation as the means to an end in fighting for Union. Some didn't care about emancipation at all. Some also fought for abolitionism.
Are you suggesting that abolitionism was some fringe political idea? It was one of the major planks of the Republican Party. It was THE divisive social issue of the day. Abolitionist newspapers had large circulations. Abolitionist speakers drew large audiences.
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| No, the south succeeded |
No, the South failed.
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| heir overall goal was to be left alone, not to subjugate the north. Lincoln's armies were the aggressors. |
The Southerners were the first to seize Federal property.
Wasn't the South fighting to prevent its "property" from being taken? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:18 am Post subject: |
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Stumbled across this article today and decided to post it for relevance. Most of the material in it has all ready been covered in this thread.
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One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war's various battles -- from Fort Sumter to Appomattox -- let's first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states' rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states' rights -- that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina's secession convention adopted a "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union." It noted "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery" and protested that Northern states had failed to "fulfill their constitutional obligations" by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states' rights, birthed the Civil War.
South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer allowed "slavery transit." In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer -- and South Carolina's delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies. According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. "Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."
The South's opposition to states' rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in power in Washington always oppose states' rights. Doing so preserves their own.
2. Secession was about tariffs and taxes.
During the nadir of post-civil-war race relations - the terrible years after 1890 when town after town across the North became all-white "sundown towns" and state after state across the South prevented African Americans from voting - "anything but slavery" explanations of the Civil War gained traction. To this day Confederate sympathizers successfully float this false claim, along with their preferred name for the conflict: the War Between the States. At the infamous Secession Ball in South Carolina, hosted in December by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, "the main reasons for secession were portrayed as high tariffs and Northern states using Southern tax money to build their own infrastructure," The Washington Post reported.
These explanations are flatly wrong. High tariffs had prompted the Nullification Crisis in 1831-33, when, after South Carolina demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede in protest, President Andrew Jackson threatened force. No state joined the movement, and South Carolina backed down. Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states said nothing about them. Why would they? Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816.
3. Most white Southerners didn't own slaves, so they wouldn't secede for slavery.
Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.
However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.
Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians." Given this belief, most white Southerners -- and many Northerners, too -- could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected. "The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women, their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy." Thus, secession would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy as well.
4. Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery.
Since the Civil War did end slavery, many Americans think abolition was the Union's goal. But the North initially went to war to hold the nation together. Abolition came later.
On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Tribune that included the following passage: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."
However, Lincoln's own anti-slavery sentiment was widely known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free." A month later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
White Northerners' fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862.
Gradually, as Union soldiers found help from black civilians in the South and black recruits impressed white units with their bravery, many soldiers -- and those they wrote home to -- became abolitionists. By 1864, when Maryland voted to end slavery, soldiers' and sailors' votes made the difference.
5. The South couldn't have made it long as a slave society.
Slavery was hardly on its last legs in 1860. That year, the South produced almost 75 percent of all U.S. exports. Slaves were worth more than all the manufacturing companies and railroads in the nation. No elite class in history has ever given up such an immense interest voluntarily. Moreover, Confederates eyed territorial expansion into Mexico and Cuba. Short of war, who would have stopped them - or forced them to abandon slavery?
To claim that slavery would have ended of its own accord by the mid-20th century is impossible to disprove but difficult to accept. In 1860, slavery was growing more entrenched in the South. Unpaid labor makes for big profits, and the Southern elite was growing ever richer. Freeing slaves was becoming more and more difficult for their owners, as was the position of free blacks in the United States, North as well as South. For the foreseeable future, slavery looked secure. Perhaps a civil war was required to end it.
As we commemorate the sesquicentennial of that war, let us take pride this time - as we did not during the centennial - that secession on slavery's behalf failed. |
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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 5:23 am Post subject: |
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| Slavery was hardly on its last legs in 1860 |
Totally disagree.
Largest Empire at the time (England) along with others actively seizing ships and confiscating cargo (slaves). Giant activist movement in most Western countries to end the idea of slavery being morally/religiously acceptable.
IMO, slavery would have been fatal to the Confederates even without civil war. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| England was making whopping profits off slave grown cotton. Most slaves in the U.s. were born there. Slavery did not end in Brazil until the late 1890's did not really end in China until the 1940's. So it might have lingered a while. The Brits were getting rich off of it so they would have helped to keep it going. . |
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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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The Brits were too busy shipping Opium to deal in slaves in the 1830's- 60's.
Slavery still exists in many forms around the world, even in the USA. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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| travel zen wrote: |
| Slavery still exists in many forms around the world, even in the USA. |
Especially in the USA, depending on your view. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:36 am Post subject: |
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The Brits were not dealing in slaves but they bought the largest part of the Southern cotton crop. the mill owners needed the Southern cotton to make clothing to sell. the Brits built warships for the South and contemplated aiding the South directly. Cheap cotton helped make Britain rich. Of course selling opium to the Chinese and Chinese girls to brothel keepers in London also helped their bottom line.
I just do not think slavery would have died out on it's on. Too much money! The planters were rich and aggressive and looking to spread slavery.
Comparing wage slaves in the U.s. who mostly live very good lives compared to most of the world to what Africans endured in the South is repugnant. |
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methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:16 am Post subject: |
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| LOL @ the 18 people thinking that the Civil War was fought because of slavery. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:16 am Post subject: |
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Fox, that's an excellent summary. Thanks. People can read that and avoid having to go back through the many pages of this thread.
| rollo wrote: |
| I just do not think slavery would have died out on it's on. Too much money! The planters were rich and aggressive and looking to spread slavery. |
Exactly. History could've easily gone the other way. An imperialist Southern venture extending all the way South to the Tierra del Fuego. The incentive systems could've been similar to the Roman Empire: Confederate Legionnaires get their plantation at the edge of the Empire, with Mestizo slaves to work them. |
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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Exactly. History could've easily gone the other way. An imperialist Southern venture extending all the way South to the Tierra del Fuego. The incentive systems could've been similar to the Roman Empire: Confederate Legionnaires get their plantation at the edge of the Empire, with Mestizo slaves to work them. |
Hehe. I had to laugh when I read that. You can't be serious?!!
Even though it was widespread, the idea of slavery even then was sickening to most people. Slavery (forcing humans to do manual labour) was becoming too costly, time consuming and, yes, morally offensive to consumers and industrialists in Europe and the US. Remember that the Brits were a commercial Empire above all else. Money was the absolute bottom line. Slavery was abolished around 1813 or so in British colonies.
Why slavery ended in America was much more complicated. I believe the North didn't need human slavery because it had mechanization and a culture that wasn't dependant on slavery. The South was more 'quaint' and dependant, even socially, on slavery.
Its anybodys guess, but it did end on its own in America thru war. Legislation wouldn't have done it in the South. |
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rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Sickening to most people in 1860? Slavery was in place in much of the world. through out the middle east. and Africa. Korea, china were all slave states. also part of South America. Slavery lasted in some places into the 20th century. How was it more expensive and time consuming? the biggest draw back was the the slave workers could not purchase the goods they made. Lets see the idea of using the promise of giving large land grants to the troops was used by Spain to seize almost all of South America. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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| travel zen wrote: |
| Slavery . . . was becoming too costly, time consuming . . . Money was the absolute bottom line. |
Interesting. |
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travel zen
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Location: Good old Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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The rest of the world had slavery, very true but I'm talking about America and Europe specifically.
They led the way, owned most of the planet and wrote the laws governing, if not policing policy in that century and the next. The Brits, French,etc abolished it in their territories (70% of planet). These countries also led the way in Industrialization. Slavery was obsolete to them by the time they were abolished.
I can't imagine the South with slavery in, say, 1918. All of their competitors mechanized, but they still having to raid Africa and ship people in chains to vast, sprawling plantations in the south ? Not even Harry Turtledove would buy that. |
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