Yes and No. How is that for an answer? The cause is not
singular in nature but revolves around slavery. Therefore to simply say slavery
was the cause is not proper but to consider it a catullus is
correct. Freedom
to expand slavery, representation in congress, taxation, Fugitive slave act are
all factors.
A friend of mine stated that “whenever I teach about the causes of the Civil
War I make sure to emphasize the three components to any historical phenomenon:
structure, agency and contingency. Structure gets at the underlying social,
economic, political and cultural differences between North and South (and
within each section). That gives background as to why the animosity may have
been there. Slavery was obviously central to those differences as just about
every single political argument of the day centered on the continued role of
slavery in American life. But precisely what people argued about slavery is
just as important and often unclear in the general public today. When people
today think of the phrase - "the Civil War was about slavery" - they
imagine that Yankees were coming down with the intention of freeing the slaves
first and foremost. (While that was true for a very small minority of
abolitionist Yankee soldiers, nearly all were in the fight to preserve the
Union and then saw the destruction of slavery as the best means to preserve the
Union forever).
Not surprisingly, many people (rightly) reject this purely moralistic account.
Which leads to "agency" - or the individual, conscious decisions of
myriad people, famous and not, who reacted to the growing sectional tensions in
their own ways with the limited information that they had. Soldier diaries
offer very conflicted accounts of motives, etc. Moments of moral clarity were
rare in the Civil War, just as in war today. Survival was key. Finally there is
contingency - the seemingly random convergence of events that made the war take
the shape it did. So, the question I often pose is not "what caused the
Civil War"?
The question is: Why did the Civil War unfold when it did, where it did, and
the way it did? At the end of the day, it really comes down to power - not just
governmental power but a basic ideological struggle over who can control which
other people and under what legal terms. As for slavery - it carried metaphoric
weight for both sides too. It was one thing to describe the enslavement of
African Americans, whom few white Northerners (and Southerners) cared much
about. But the political debate was characterized by claims to the enslavement
of white people - not as literal chattel slaves but as submissive underlings to
conspiratorial forces based far away. For Americans living along the slave-free
line - the Ohio River Valley, for example - the political debate was a profile
in arrogance and intemperate extremism on both sides. But for leaders of the
planter and industrial classes, this was a debate over the very nature of the
republic, and over whose social order was "national" and whose was
"local."
When the Republicans figured out that they could take control of the national
government without fielding a single candidate in the South, the planter class
saw the writing on the wall and realized that their world would be pressured
and contained in much the same way communism was contained (however
imperfectly) between 1947 and 1991. Both systems needed to expand or die. With
Lincoln's victory it was clear that only one of the two systems would expand.
And so the planter class jumped ship in a moment of crisis and created a new
Confederate republic that banned non-slave states from joining”.
Northerners felt their
states rights were violated in the 1850s by the Fugitive Slave Act. The Abelman
v. Booth case out of Wisconsin shows how Wisconsin tried to nullify Federal
law, citing the state's Personal Liberty Laws. What changed in 1860 was the
slaveholders were no longer in near-total control of the Federal government as
they had been since 1790. The Dred Scott-era "Slavery National"
doctrine threatened to become Republican "Freedom National" doctrine
under Republican rule. That would mean a "cordon of freedom" around
the slaveholding South, and foreign policy in the hands of anti-slavery men.
States rights were never under threat by the North in 1861. But Southern power
and control over Federal policy WAS under threat.
Ask yourself: If it was about "states' rights" and slavery was just
secondary in importance why on earth did the supposed "states'
rights" fanatics in the south not ask but DEMAND that the federal
government lean on the northern states and make sure they upheld the Fugitive
Slave Act even when the individual northern states passed their own state laws
prohibiting enforcement of it? Wouldn't someone so concerned about
"states' rights" above all else want the northern states to be free
to make their own laws prohibiting a federal law they disagreed with rather
than trying to get the big bad evil federal government to squish this
"states' rights" impulse of these northern states? Kinda' hoists the
whole "states' rights" nonsense on its own petard doesn't it?
We can easily see that when states' rights and slavery coincided it was fine
but when slavery and states' rights were in contention with one another, such
as with the Fugitive Slave Act, we can see quite clearly which was the more
important, REAL issue motivating the secessionists and which was the
lip-service cover story that sounds good on paper. Somehow magically remove the
slavery issue and you don't have a Civil War, sorry, that's just the truth of
it.
Read THE CONFEDERATE
AND NEO-CONFEDERATE READER, where, in their own words, Confederates say exactly
why they seceded. They don't complain about the power of the federal government
for a moment. On the contrary, South Carolina, for example, complains about New
Hampshire, because it lets blacks vote. Now, who votes in America was a state
matter until the Voting Rights Amendment, passed two eras later during
Reconstruction. Nevertheless, SC, extrapolating from the horrendous DRED SCOTT
decision, decrees that since "blacks have no rights whites need
respect," therefore New Hampshire has no business letting blacks vote. So
much for states' rights! All the secession documents read like this, all
against states' rights, all against the rights of residents of territories to
forbid slavery even if a huge majority would do so, all in favor of federal
power to enforce slavery.
Another error concerns "civil
war." Everyone, N and S, called it "The Civil War" at the time,
or "The War of the Rebellion," hence "rebel." No one called
it "The War Between the States." Dictionaries define "civil
war" as "a war within a country." There is no requirement that
both sides be trying to take over the entirety. This fiction was invented by
neo-Confederate rhetors around 1890, and we include an example in THE
CONFEDERATE AND NEO-CONFEDERATE READER.
The antidote to historical distortion is to read the original documents, when
these exist, and in this instance, they do
Another error concerns "civil
war." Everyone, N and S, called it "The Civil War" at the time,
or "The War of the Rebellion," hence "rebel." No one called
it "The War Between the States." Dictionaries define "civil
war" as "a war within a country." There is no requirement that
both sides be trying to take over the entirety. This fiction was invented by
neo-Confederate rhetors around 1890, and we include an example in THE
CONFEDERATE AND NEO-CONFEDERATE READER.
The antidote to historical distortion is to read the original documents, when
these exist, and in this instance, they do
It has been said that slavery was the
ultimate catalyst, but the immediate cause of war was the Republican Party's
determination to break the hold that the slavery sympathizers had on the US
Federal Government through the Democratic Party by holding fast that no new
territory would be slave-owning which the slave-owners realized was the writing
on the wall. With more and more free labor states admitted to the Union, the
day would ultimately come that the slave-owners power in Washington would be
ineffective to protect their interests. The Radical Republicans (and Lincoln
even though he seemed more "moderate") and secessionists both knew
this. The South seceded when it did after John Brown's Raid and Lincoln's
Election because they knew their way of life was of determinate but unknown
days inside the Union.
My friend also stated “ I'm reading through
Jim Oakes's "Freedom National" and he makes it clearer than ever that
the Republicans were so ideologically committed to the eventual elimination of
slavery that the choice befalling slaveholders was either gradual strangulation
or a quick and violent death. The planters took a chance that a military
victory would prevent both. They would gain independence, expand into Latin
America, and preserve slavery in perpetuity. It wasn't to be, obviously, thanks
in large part to the the slaves themselves who tested the Union army's
commitment to the fugitive slave law in the war's earliest months. But the
planters were hardly mistaken in their understanding of the "Black
Republicans'" ultimate goal”.
Not surprisingly, many people (rightly) reject this purely moralistic account.
Which leads to "agency" - or the individual, conscious decisions of
myriad people, famous and not, who reacted to the growing sectional tensions in
their own ways with the limited information that they had. Soldier diaries
offer very conflicted accounts of motives, etc. Moments of moral clarity were
rare in the Civil War, just as in war today. Survival was key. Finally there is
contingency - the seemingly random convergence of events that made the war take
the shape it did. So, the question I often pose is not "what caused the
Civil War"?
The question is: Why did the Civil War unfold when it did, where it did, and
the way it did? At the end of the day, it really comes down to power - not just
governmental power but a basic ideological struggle over who can control which
other people and under what legal terms. As for slavery - it carried metaphoric
weight for both sides too. It was one thing to describe the enslavement of
African Americans, whom few white Northerners (and Southerners) cared much
about. But the political debate was characterized by claims to the enslavement
of white people - not as literal chattel slaves but as submissive underlings to
conspiratorial forces based far away. For Americans living along the slave-free
line - the Ohio River Valley, for example - the political debate was a profile
in arrogance and intemperate extremism on both sides. But for leaders of the
planter and industrial classes, this was a debate over the very nature of the
republic, and over whose social order was "national" and whose was
"local."
When the Republicans figured out that they could take control of the national
government without fielding a single candidate in the South, the planter class
saw the writing on the wall and realized that their world would be pressured
and contained in much the same way communism was contained (however
imperfectly) between 1947 and 1991. Both systems needed to expand or die. With
Lincoln's victory it was clear that only one of the two systems would expand.
And so the planter class jumped ship in a moment of crisis and created a new
Confederate republic that banned non-slave states from joining”.
Northerners felt their
states rights were violated in the 1850s by the Fugitive Slave Act. The Abelman
v. Booth case out of Wisconsin shows how Wisconsin tried to nullify Federal
law, citing the state's Personal Liberty Laws. What changed in 1860 was the
slaveholders were no longer in near-total control of the Federal government as
they had been since 1790. The Dred Scott-era "Slavery National"
doctrine threatened to become Republican "Freedom National" doctrine
under Republican rule. That would mean a "cordon of freedom" around
the slaveholding South, and foreign policy in the hands of anti-slavery men.
States rights were never under threat by the North in 1861. But Southern power
and control over Federal policy WAS under threat.
Ask yourself: If it was about "states' rights" and slavery was just
secondary in importance why on earth did the supposed "states'
rights" fanatics in the south not ask but DEMAND that the federal
government lean on the northern states and make sure they upheld the Fugitive
Slave Act even when the individual northern states passed their own state laws
prohibiting enforcement of it? Wouldn't someone so concerned about
"states' rights" above all else want the northern states to be free
to make their own laws prohibiting a federal law they disagreed with rather
than trying to get the big bad evil federal government to squish this
"states' rights" impulse of these northern states? Kinda' hoists the
whole "states' rights" nonsense on its own petard doesn't it?
We can easily see that when states' rights and slavery coincided it was fine
but when slavery and states' rights were in contention with one another, such
as with the Fugitive Slave Act, we can see quite clearly which was the more
important, REAL issue motivating the secessionists and which was the
lip-service cover story that sounds good on paper. Somehow magically remove the
slavery issue and you don't have a Civil War, sorry, that's just the truth of
it.
Read THE CONFEDERATE
AND NEO-CONFEDERATE READER, where, in their own words, Confederates say exactly
why they seceded. They don't complain about the power of the federal government
for a moment. On the contrary, South Carolina, for example, complains about New
Hampshire, because it lets blacks vote. Now, who votes in America was a state
matter until the Voting Rights Amendment, passed two eras later during
Reconstruction. Nevertheless, SC, extrapolating from the horrendous DRED SCOTT
decision, decrees that since "blacks have no rights whites need
respect," therefore New Hampshire has no business letting blacks vote. So
much for states' rights! All the secession documents read like this, all
against states' rights, all against the rights of residents of territories to
forbid slavery even if a huge majority would do so, all in favor of federal
power to enforce slavery.
Another error concerns "civil
war." Everyone, N and S, called it "The Civil War" at the time,
or "The War of the Rebellion," hence "rebel." No one called
it "The War Between the States." Dictionaries define "civil
war" as "a war within a country." There is no requirement that
both sides be trying to take over the entirety. This fiction was invented by
neo-Confederate rhetors around 1890, and we include an example in THE
CONFEDERATE AND NEO-CONFEDERATE READER.
The antidote to historical distortion is to read the original documents, when
these exist, and in this instance, they do
Another error concerns "civil
war." Everyone, N and S, called it "The Civil War" at the time,
or "The War of the Rebellion," hence "rebel." No one called
it "The War Between the States." Dictionaries define "civil
war" as "a war within a country." There is no requirement that
both sides be trying to take over the entirety. This fiction was invented by
neo-Confederate rhetors around 1890, and we include an example in THE
CONFEDERATE AND NEO-CONFEDERATE READER.
The antidote to historical distortion is to read the original documents, when
these exist, and in this instance, they do
It has been said that slavery was the
ultimate catalyst, but the immediate cause of war was the Republican Party's
determination to break the hold that the slavery sympathizers had on the US
Federal Government through the Democratic Party by holding fast that no new
territory would be slave-owning which the slave-owners realized was the writing
on the wall. With more and more free labor states admitted to the Union, the
day would ultimately come that the slave-owners power in Washington would be
ineffective to protect their interests. The Radical Republicans (and Lincoln
even though he seemed more "moderate") and secessionists both knew
this. The South seceded when it did after John Brown's Raid and Lincoln's
Election because they knew their way of life was of determinate but unknown
days inside the Union.
My friend also stated “ I'm reading through
Jim Oakes's "Freedom National" and he makes it clearer than ever that
the Republicans were so ideologically committed to the eventual elimination of
slavery that the choice befalling slaveholders was either gradual strangulation
or a quick and violent death. The planters took a chance that a military
victory would prevent both. They would gain independence, expand into Latin
America, and preserve slavery in perpetuity. It wasn't to be, obviously, thanks
in large part to the the slaves themselves who tested the Union army's
commitment to the fugitive slave law in the war's earliest months. But the
planters were hardly mistaken in their understanding of the "Black
Republicans'" ultimate goal”.
The question is: Why did the Civil War unfold when it did, where it did, and
the way it did? At the end of the day, it really comes down to power - not just
governmental power but a basic ideological struggle over who can control which
other people and under what legal terms. As for slavery - it carried metaphoric
weight for both sides too. It was one thing to describe the enslavement of
African Americans, whom few white Northerners (and Southerners) cared much
about. But the political debate was characterized by claims to the enslavement
of white people - not as literal chattel slaves but as submissive underlings to
conspiratorial forces based far away. For Americans living along the slave-free
line - the Ohio River Valley, for example - the political debate was a profile
in arrogance and intemperate extremism on both sides. But for leaders of the
planter and industrial classes, this was a debate over the very nature of the
republic, and over whose social order was "national" and whose was
"local."
When the Republicans figured out that they could take control of the national
government without fielding a single candidate in the South, the planter class
saw the writing on the wall and realized that their world would be pressured
and contained in much the same way communism was contained (however
imperfectly) between 1947 and 1991. Both systems needed to expand or die. With
Lincoln's victory it was clear that only one of the two systems would expand.
And so the planter class jumped ship in a moment of crisis and created a new
Confederate republic that banned non-slave states from joining”.
Northerners felt their
states rights were violated in the 1850s by the Fugitive Slave Act. The Abelman
v. Booth case out of Wisconsin shows how Wisconsin tried to nullify Federal
law, citing the state's Personal Liberty Laws. What changed in 1860 was the
slaveholders were no longer in near-total control of the Federal government as
they had been since 1790. The Dred Scott-era "Slavery National"
doctrine threatened to become Republican "Freedom National" doctrine
under Republican rule. That would mean a "cordon of freedom" around
the slaveholding South, and foreign policy in the hands of anti-slavery men.
States rights were never under threat by the North in 1861. But Southern power
and control over Federal policy WAS under threat.
