Was the Civil War Actually About Slavery?

Salon.com ^ | 8/29/12 | James Oakes

[PeaRidge]

On 6 November 1860, the six-year-old Republican Party elected its first president. During the tense crisis months that followed – the “secession winter” of 1860–61 – practically all observers believed that Lincoln and the Republicans would begin attacking slavery as soon as they took power.

Democrats in the North blamed the Republican Party for the entire sectional crisis. They accused Republicans of plotting to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against direct federal attacks on slavery. Republicans would instead allegedly try to squeeze slavery to death indirectly, by abolishing it in the territories and in Washington DC, suppressing it in the high seas, and refusing federal enforcement of the Slave Laws. The first to succumb to the Republican program of “ultimate extinction,” Democrats charged, would be the border states where slavery was most vulnerable. For Northern Democrats, this is what caused the crisis; the Republicans were to blame for trying to get around the Constitution.

Southern secessionists said almost exactly the same thing. The Republicans supposedly intended to bypass the Constitution’s protections for slavery by surrounding the South with free states, free territories, and free waters. What Republicans called a “cordon of freedom,” secessionists denounced as an inflammatory circle of fire.

Continued...............

[BroJoeK]

BalckElk, post 273: "All that having been said, there was also the matter of trade policy.
The agrarian Southern slave states depended on agriculture to produce cotton, tobacco and indigo among other major crops and strongly favored free trade and low or no tariffs "

In 1792 under President Washington, a slave owner from Virginia, US tariffs averaged 15%.
In 1815 under President Madison, a slave owner from Virginia, tariffs were reduced to 7%.

In 1830, under President Jackson, a slave owner from South or North Carolina and Tennessee, tariffs rose to 35%.
In 1840, under President Van Buren, a New York Democrat, tariffs were reduced to 13% on average.
In 1850, under President Taylor, a slave owner from Louisiana, tariffs rose to 23%.

In 1860, under President Buchanan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, tariffs were reduced back to 15%, the same as under President Washington.

The original Morrill Tariff proposal, defeated in 1860, would have raised tariffs back to the levels of President Taylor -- about 23% on average.
However, due to Southern opposition, the Morrill Tariff was only passed in 1861 after secessionists left Congress.

By international standards of the time, US tariffs were among the lowest in the world.
In today's world, US tariffs average 1.5%.

So, conclusion: tariffs had nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- to do with the Slave Powers' declarations of secession.
Those declarations were caused by the Slave Power's fears of what newly elected Lincoln Republicans might do at some time in the future to restrict slavery, and reduce the values of their investments.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk, post #275, referring to Lincoln: "...after he had soaked the nation in an ocean of unnecessary bloodshed..."

The Civil War was not "unnecessary" after the Confederacy assaulted and seized Fort Sumter, and then formally declared war, on May 6, 1861.

Before May 6, no Confederate solders had been killed in battle, no Union force had "invaded" the Confederacy.

But after May 6, 1861, war was no more "unnecessary" than after December 7, 1941.

[Delhi Rebels]

Your post is incomprehensible. Would you like to expand on it? Explain, for instance, how the Commonwealth of Virginia, if so inclined, could be imagined to have the power on its own to "expel" Wisconsin or Massachusetts from the Union?

Show me where such a power is specifically denied them and the other states.

Would this be in the category of a claim that since the Tenth Amendment provides as it does that all powers not specifically delegated to the fedgov are reserved to the states and people respectively, that only the states can create square circles or construct boulders so large that even the states cannot roll them up the steepest parts of the Rocky Mountains.

Now who's posts are incomprehensible? But let me ask you point to me where the word 'specific' is found in the 10th Amendment? Or anywhere else in the Constitution?

"Among the enumerated powers, we do not find that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation. But there is no phrase in the instrument which, like the Articles of Confederation, excludes incidental or implied powers and which requires that everything granted shall be expressly and minutely described. Even the 10th Amendment, which was framed for the purpose of quieting the excessive jealousies which had been excited, omits the word "expressly," and declares only that the powers "not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people," thus leaving the question whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one Government, or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole instrument. The men who drew and adopted this amendment had experienced the embarrassments resulting from the insertion of this word in the Articles of Confederation, and probably omitted it to avoid those embarrassments. A Constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. That this idea was entertained by the framers of the American Constitution is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language. Why else were some of the limitations found in the 9th section of the 1st article introduced? It is also in some degree warranted by their having omitted to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation. In considering this question, then, we must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding."

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk: "As soon as Lincoln was assassinated, the abolitionist jihad began anew."

First, remember that for every Confederate soldier killed in battle, two Union soldiers were killed, and Union families were no less grieved than Southerners.

Second, as I understand it, President Andrew Johnson from Tennessee attempted to carry out Lincoln's post-war plan, and was impeached for it.
So Lincoln's ideas did not entirely die with him.

Thirdly, I don't know of anyone who defends Federal Reconstruction practices, except in the fact they did first allow former slaves to vote and serve in elected offices.
So far as I know, almost everyone agrees that America's first efforts at "nation building" in the South were hardly more successful than its current efforts in, oh, say, Afghanistan.

[BlackElk]

George Washington was a Federalist and very heavily influenced by Hamilton, a relentless advocate of centralizing power in the fedgov for commercial purposes. As such, Washington's Federalists were a lineal ancestor of the Republican Party, including the Republican Party of Lincoln's time.

When the Federalists died out, they were effectively, if not immediately, replaced by the Whig Party (another lineal ancestor of the Republican Party) and Zachary Taylor, though a Louisiana slave owner, was politically committed to the pro-tariff policy of the Northern Industrialists.

The Democratic Party of Jefferson and Madison continued and became the Democratic Party Of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and James Buchanan. The Democrats generally championed low tariffs favored by agrarians such as most Southerners.

Taking your tariff numbers for granted without checking them, the only exception in your list to the normal standards was Andrew Jackson (originally from South Carolina and then of Tennessee) with a 35% tariff. I have no knowledge as to why he would be so out of the norm generally and for Democrats in particular. The Bank Controversy? His policy of effectively paying off the national debt which might explain the substantial cut back under Van Buren?

Today's world is utterly irrelevant as to tariff policy. GATT, WTO, NAFTA and all of these infernal sovereignty sapping "free" trade agreements are responsible for today's 1.5% tariff.

I have previously conceded that, since each and every secession resolution recited the "right" of slaveowners, that slavery was certainly A motive for secession. OTOH, there were other reasons and tariffs were among them. Your recitation of tariff history, when viewed through the prism of party and ideology, amply demonstrates that point (except for Jackson).

Your "zero, zip, nada" rhetoric and "conclusion" are certainly not supported by the facts you allege and cite. You may have some supportable argument but I have not seen it yet.

Additionally, very few Confederate soldiers held slaves. So why did they fight if the only war rationale was defending slavery?

[BlackElk]

Most Union soldiers who died, did so as invaders. Most Confederate soldiers who died, did so resisting that invasion. Some Rebs died on forays into Border Slave States and the occasional thrust into Pennsylvania and Ohio or St. Albans, Vermont (don't think any Rebs died there).

The larger number of Northern casualties was not explainable by any advantage of the South in weaponry or manpower or railroads and transportation or manufactured goods. All those factors favored the North. The South had superb commanders in Lee, the Johnstons, Longstreet, Stuart, Forrest and particularly Stonewall Jackson and had an advantage over the North in that respect but Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and several other Northern commanders were certainly quite capable men as well. It would be neither fair nor accurate to ascribe to either side a claim of superiority over the other as to the fighting men in the ranks. Both sides were well served. And yet, there is the disparity in casualties. Part of the explanation may well be that the Southerners were somewhat more familiar with their own turf but that does not explain a 2-1 disparity. I suspect that those other Northern generals who were bad were really bad.

You are right about Andrew Johnson but Lincoln's death did release the abolitionist jihadist rage against the South and they even tried to pursue it against Johnson of Tennessee who was the only Confederate United States Senator to serve out his term during the war and then became Lincoln's running mate on the Union Party.

[Rebelbase]

I had a revelation at a coin show last year when I saw a display of confederate state's bank notes. The common theme of the illustrations thereon were slaves.

Governments tend to honor certain institutions or principles through symbolic illustrations on currency.

The institution of slavery was the machine of the southern economy. It is honored in the currency illustrations of the time.

The Southern state's governments and by extension the corporate business interests of the South needed slavery to maintain it's wealth. The roots of the war at the corporate/political level was a fight to preserve slavery.

The average confederate soldier was a just a pawn.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk, post #286: "Ask the liberal New England Federalist dinosaur forebears of the radical abolitionist looney tunes who convened the Hartford Convention at Hartford, CT in 1814-1815 DURING the War of 1812 to discuss secession and re-establishing their ties (at least commercially: $, $ and $$$ being their primary concern like the Whigs and today's hereditary GOP-E who are their successors) with old Brittania."

That's a big mouthful for just one sentence.
First, no American has ever seriously proposed rejoining the British Empire.

Second, you grossly misrepresent New England Federalists of the early 1800s, who suffered from, understood and objected to Presidents Jefferson and Madison's new anti-British policies.
Those New Englanders were the early 1800s equivalents of, oh, say, anti-Vietnam war or anti-"Bush War" people today.

Third, the 1814 Hartford Convention did not vote for secession.

And fourth, here's the important point, for all our neo-Confederates: when President Madison (slave owner from Virginia) feared the Hartford Convention might, might vote for secession, he moved Federal troops from their war-time posts on the border with Canada, to Albany, New York, just in case they were needed to suppress a New England rebellion.

So, when the shoe was on the other foot, there is no doubt about Southern slave-holders' response to the idea of secession.

[BroJoeK]

Pea Ridge post #294: "Those visionary few have mistakenly become known as "fire eaters".
They correctly foresaw that political leaders could and would push aside the Constitution that had been explicitly designed to guarantee the rights of the people as a whole, not of a section."

Here is more on Southern "Fire Eaters".

"By radically urging secessionism in the South, the Fire-Eaters demonstrated the high level of sectionalism existing in the U.S. during the 1850s, and they materially contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War...

"Led by such men as Edmund Ruffin, Robert Rhett, Louis T. Wigfall, and William Lowndes Yancey, this group was dubbed "Fire-Eaters" by northerners...

"...They used several recent events for propaganda, among them "Bleeding Kansas" and the Sumner-Brooks Affair to accuse the North of trying to immediately abolish slavery.
Using effective propaganda against 1860 presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, the Fire-Eaters were able to convince many southerners of this false accusation.
They first targeted South Carolina, which passed an article of secession in December 1860.

"Wigfall, for one, actively encouraged an attack on Fort Sumter to prompt Virginia and other upper Southern States to secede as well.

"Thus, the Fire-Eaters helped to unleash a chain reaction that eventually led to the formation of the Confederate States of America and to the American Civil War.

Their influence waned quickly after the start of major fighting."

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk: "In the War of 1812, the USA was invaded by Great Britain which, apparently, had not gotten over its loss of "the colonies" and wanted a re-run of the previous war (and got a re-run of the result), sacked our Capitol, burned the White House, but had to agree to peace..."

Oh, dear me, does this nonsense never end?

The Brits did none of that -- zero, zip, nada -- until after, after the United States formally declared war and sent armies to invade Canada.

In what history class did you not learn that formal declarations of war can lead to very serious consequences?

[BroJoeK]

Black Elk post #300, item 1: "It would make no sense for SC or CSA to tolerate the continued existence of "union" military facilities on its turf or attempts by vessels such as the Star of the West to re-provision the federal garrison at Sumter.
Like wise Florida, the CSA, and Fort Pickens."

The British maintained forts on US Great Lakes territory for 30 years after the end of the Revolutionary War.

Neither those forts, nor British troops in them, nor British efforts to resupply them were ever considered casus belli by Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson or Madison.

In 1861, by contrast, the Confederacy chose to start war because it believed that was its best course.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk post #325: "As such, Washington's Federalists were a lineal ancestor of the Republican Party, including the Republican Party of Lincoln's time.

"When the Federalists died out, they were effectively, if not immediately, replaced by the Whig Party (another lineal ancestor of the Republican Party)"

So you are not 100% ignorant of actual history. Interesting.

BlackElk: "The Democrats generally championed low tariffs favored by agrarians such as most Southerners."

So, already I stand corrected?

Here is a key point you must remember: between the election of John Adams in 1796 and Abraham Lincoln in 1860, only two -- count them, two non Democrats (Whigs Harrison and Taylor) were elected President.
Both were southern born slave-owners.

Point is: nearly all of the changes in tariff rates -- by the way, you can find them listed here, with many links to specific tariffs & controversies for further study -- those ups and downs of tariffs were the works of Democratic administrations, including such stalwarts as Andrew Jackson.

And here's the key point: none of those changes in tariff rates -- 7% under Madison to 35% under Jackson back to 15% under Buchanan, etc. -- none of those historical tariff changes were material causes for secession historically, and so they were not the cause in 1860, they were not even a cause.

Protecting their "peculiar institution" of slavery was the cause of secession, indeed the only real cause.

Another by the way: my reason for reporting today's 1.5% tariff rate was to demonstrate how words like "high tariff" and "low tariff" are totally relative to people's expectations at the time.

BlackElk: "Additionally, very few Confederate soldiers held slaves.
So why did they fight if the only war rationale was defending slavery?"

When I first began posting to Civil War threads, I was surprised to learn that the allegedly "poor South" was actually in some ways far wealthier than most northerners.
It's evident from, for example, the 1860 census data that some Southerners were very wealthy indeed, and their wealth acted the same way that, say, a large factory in a small town increases everyone's well being, even though most don't work for the factory.

Yes, it's true that most Confederate soldiers did not themselves own slaves, but most came from large families and communities which did own and benefit from slavery.
Indeed, it's impossible to overstate the beneficial economic effect of slavery on southerners: after over 50 years of steady increases, slaves themselves represented over half the asset values of Confederate states.

So, if growth of slavery were in any way restricted, and slaves lost market value, Southern wealth would fall proportionately.
Every Southerner understood that, and was willing to fight to prevent it.

But more to the larger point: some posters like Central_Va correctly report their ancestors fought to defend Virginia against Union invasions.
True enough, but those invasions did not happen until after the Fire Eating secessionists had started and formally declared war on the United States.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk post #326: "The larger number of Northern casualties was not explainable by any advantage of the South in weaponry or manpower..."

Many threads here have devoted themselves to this question, with experts arguing in great details.

In my mind, I simplify the question this way: when RE Lee was on offense in Pennsylvania, his losses were percentage as high as US Grant's on offense in Virginia.

It made a big difference to a weaker force if they could dig in prepared defenses shooting down from a hillside.

[donmeaker]

They were not secessions. They were of no legal effect, but after the insurrection started, legal niceties were less important until the insurrection had been suppressed. After the war, Texas v. White ruled that they pretended secession was of no legal effect.

[donmeaker]

The authority to expel a state is given to the Supreme Court, in its position as the court of original jurisdiction for controversies between states, or between states and the federal government. See Article 3 of the consitution. Of course the constitution could be amended by congress, with concurrence of three quarters of the states.

[rockrr]

I remember buying notes similar to the middle photo at the Army Surplus store in Huntsville as a kid. I don’t recall what we paid but it was pennies. I understand that those same notes are now worth a lot!

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "I understand that those same notes are now worth a lot!"

So, are you telling us that old Confederate money is now worth more than today's Obama/Bernanke US dollar?

Oh, dear, now I'm confused... who did you say won that war?

;-)

[Sherman Logan]

So why did they fight if the only war rationale was defending slavery?

I do not know a single person who would claim that defense of slavery was the only reason for the war. In the history of the world there has never been a single war that had only one reason leading up to it. Like everything else in human history, wars are complicated.

Nevertheless, there is usually a single issue that is the primary or root cause behind the war, though often it is not put forward as such.

For instance, most historians agree that the root cause behind WWI was the German drive toward economic, military and political dominance in Europe and the world.

All the little issues in the Balkans and elsewhere could have been compromised, but Germany was not going to abandon her drive for world power, and the Allies were not going to allow her to attain it without a fight.

Same basic cause for WWII. Nobody in the West really cared that much about Poland, but the leaders knew somebody had to resist Germany sometime. And Hitler wouldn't stop until he was stopped. War came.

In our Civil War, slavery and its expansion was that uncompromisable issue. Tariffs and dozens of other issues were factors, but only slavery could not be compromised away.

[Sherman Logan]

So why did they fight if the only war rationale was defending slavery?

I do not know a single person who would claim that defense of slavery was the only reason for the war. In the history of the world there has never been a single war that had only one reason leading up to it. Like everything else in human history, wars are complicated.

Nevertheless, there is usually a single issue that is the primary or root cause behind the war, though often it is not put forward as such.

For instance, most historians agree that the root cause behind WWI was the German drive toward economic, military and political dominance in Europe and the world.

All the little issues in the Balkans and elsewhere could have been compromised, but Germany was not going to abandon her drive for world power, and the Allies were not going to allow her to attain it without a fight.

Same basic cause for WWII. Nobody in the West really cared that much about Poland, but the leaders knew somebody had to resist Germany sometime. And Hitler wouldn't stop until he was stopped. War came.

In our Civil War, slavery and its expansion was that uncompromisable issue. Tariffs and dozens of other issues were factors, but only slavery could not be compromised away.

[BlackElk]

I have not denied your main point but simply stated some of the other causes as well.