Was the Civil War about Slavery?

Acton Institute, Prager University ^ | 8/11/2015 | Joe Carter

[iowamark]

What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s rights or just about anything other than slavery.

But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, it’s natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Hey, I almost forgot. I like to post this picture of some American patriots to every CW origins thread, just to make it clear where I stand.

[central_va]

How many soldiers from Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri serve in the PACS? Hundreds of thousands.

[BroJoeK]

Genoa: "I should add that the North had been punishing the South for decades with tariffs that favored the manufacturers over the growers."

Total rubbish, an absolute lie...
First of all, tariffs were only on imports, and since there were no imports of Southern agricultural products (i.e., cotton, tobacco), there was nothing for Federal government to protect against.

And in fact, those import tariffs in 1860 were as low as ever -- less than half of the "Tariff of Abominations" (35%) passed by Tennessean Andrew Jackson's supporters and South Carolinian Vice President Calhoun in 1828, reduced only slightly by President Jackson in 1832.

Point is: tariffs were standard "politics as usual" in our young republic, they went up, they went down, and in 1860 were the same rate (15%) as in 1792 under Founding President George Washington.

So tariffs were in no-way, shape or form the cause of Deep South declarations of secession.
The real cause was slavery, as secessionists officially explained, for example, here.

[BroJoeK]

lacrew: "Lincoln himself did not claim the war to be a war to free slaves...instead he stated it was a war to ‘preserve the union’."

Of course, Lincoln did not "start the war", Jefferson Davis did, at Fort Sumter, followed soon by a formal declaration of war on the United States.

Lincoln merely responded to Confederate aggressions by calling up the Army to suppress it.
But of course, you already know all that, right?

Protecting slavery against "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans was the reason for Deep South secession, and abolishing slavery became a Union preserving military strategy, which fit perfectly with Radical "Black Republican" abolitionist ideology.

And you knew all that too, didn't you?
You just can't bring your self to spit it out, right?

[BroJoeK]

Jim Noble quoting SC's Reasons for Secession: "They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection." "

Thanks for a great quote.
I have seen no evidence that abolitionism, run-away slaves or slave-rebellion were in any way a problem in South Carolina.
There was simply no way for large numbers of South Carolina slaves to escape up the Underground Railroad to freedom in the North.
So I view such claims as Fire Eater propaganda, intended to incite Deep South whites to support secession, rather than as actual facts on the ground.

[BroJoeK]

quadrant: "Lincoln could not allow the South to leave the Union and for one reason: no US president - esp one from Illinois - could ever allow the port of New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River to be controlled by a foreign power."

In fact, from Day One of his administration, Lincoln told the Confederacy that they could not have a war unless they themselves started it.
So Lincoln had no intention of going to war unless forced to.

But from Day One of his administration, Jefferson Davis announced that he would decide if "the integrity and jurisdiction of our territory be assailed, it will but remain for us with a firm resolve to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence upon a just cause."

In April 1861, the Confederacy's "integrity" was not "assailed", but it needed war to force Upper South and Border States to decide which side they would join -- Union or Confederacy?

So war was forced on Lincoln, at Fort Sumter, not the other way around, FRiend.

[rockrr]

I have seen (not on this particular thread) more than one lost causer who strenuously suggests that John Brown was an agent of “the North” and that slave rebellions were instigated and promoted with government sanctions.

[BroJoeK]

quadrant: ""Does anyone seriously believe that thousands of Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio farm boys (not to mention the Irish in the cities) would have enlisted, marched South, fought, bled, and died to free the slaves?"

central_va: "A lot of idiotic Freepers believe that, DoodleDawg poop being one of them. "

No, only your side is confused on this question.
Everyone else well understands that Civil War began as a response to Confederate aggressions against, and declaration of war on, the United States.
In 1861, abolition of slavery in the South was not on the political table, so to speak.
Everybody North and South understood that was a verboten subject, which could not be politically raised or advocated, no matter how much some Northerners might desire it.

But once Civil war began, freedom for Confederate state slaves was a huge military advantage, which happened to fit perfectly with Radical "Black Republican" abolitionist ideology.
And so, by 1863 abolition did indeed become a Union objective, for which many Northern boys enlisted, fought & died.

And, I'm certain you already know that, just can't quite bring yourself to say it, right?

[BroJoeK]

R. Scott: "Very few Southerners owned slaves, less than 2%.
Why would the common people fight and die to defend slavery?"

Your claim is often asserted by pro-Confederates, but it's untrue in any sense.
We have studies and actual census numbers which tell the real story in 1860:

• 400,000 is the total number of Southern slave holders.
• 8,000,000 is the total number of white Southerners which is 5% overall.
• But the numbers were very different in the Deep South (7%) versus Border States (3%).

• And even those numbers are hugely deceptive because we are really talking here of slave-holding families, not individuals.
• So, if we look at Southern families, we see that 16% of Border State white families owned slaves, 25% of Upper South owned slaves and 37% of Deep South families, including nearly half of families in Mississippi and South Carolina.

Indeed, in many Southern states there were strict dividing lines between Union loyalists and pro-Confederates, based on the number of slave-holding families in their regions.

[BroJoeK]

Eric Pode of Croydon: "Hey, I almost forgot. I like to post this picture of some American patriots to every CW origins thread, just to make it clear where I stand."

Thanks so much!
It's just too bad there was not photography during our Revolutionary War, because one British officer at Yorktown in 1781 noted the American Continental Army there was about one fourth African-Americans.

So there is simply no disputing the contributions of black Americans from Day One of our republic.

[DiogenesLamp]

In the decision that you are upset about (Charlie Craig v. Masterpiece Cake Shop), the Colorado Court of Appeals relied upon Colorado's anti-discrimation statute (Section 24-34-601) that prohibits discrimination based upon "sexual orientation." There are some stated (including Colorado) that have passed laws providing special protecting homosexuals.

All "discrimination" laws are a legacy of the Civil war. I personal do not feel the government has a right to tell people whom they must like and whom they must serve. I regard it as a bedrock principle of freedom that people have a right to be @$$holes if they want to be.

Now, how is Lincoln or the Civil War responsible for a state court decision enforcing a state statute passed by a state legislature?

It normalized the belief that people's right to do as they please was subservient to the FedGov's right to tell them who they must serve whether they liked it or not.

I have been assuming that you were a big fan of a state's right to pass and enforce its own laws.

Consistent with natural law. State laws that are contrary to natural law are just as objectionable as the Federal ones. It is still tyranny, even if it is on a smaller scale. You might be surprised to learn that I do louder, more often, and more consistent criticism of immoral state laws than I do of the Federal ones.

In my opinion, laws without moral foundations ought not be obeyed, and in fact, should be deliberately disobeyed whenever it is reasonable certain that you can get away with it.

The Civil War is over; forget about it. Lincoln didn't cause the Colorado legislature to pass this statute.

You may not thinks so, but I would wager it is fair odds that in the absence of Lincoln, such laws would very likely never have been passed. The Civil War created "Anti-Discrimination laws. " They established Government telling people that they had to serve people whom the government deemed as "protected" as a "normal" condition. That this loss of freedom was "normal."

I'm not sure you are able to think in terms of how things would be different had the civil war never happened. I think too much of the after effects of the civil war has been accepted by society as the "normal" default condition, and this renders most people unable to contemplate alternative realities in which such attitudes would not have developed.

You also keep asserting that I am obsessing over the civil war and I keep telling you that I started with modern times, and worked my way back to that historical conjunction because much bad stuff hurting us now has it's roots in that conflict.

[DiogenesLamp]

You give the man too much credit. That War was a long time coming.

Well it wasn't coming under Buchanan. People say he did nothing, and fault him for it, but it seems to me that a man who actually understood the laws of that time would do exactly nothing, because they would recognize that the South had a legitimate right to leave the Union if the government of such no longer suited their Interests.

Admission was voluntary, and leaving ought to have been the same way as suited them.

Buchanan was true to the Principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, while Lincoln set out to immediately undermine them, and deliberately provoked an immoral and illegitimate war.

[DiogenesLamp]

I know you desperately want to believe the propaganda you've been fed all these years, but It is not my job to indulge you. You Need the South to be the "bad guys" because if you can't make them into monsters, it makes your Union into monsters, and that is just unbearable to you.

Your side invaded, killed, burned, murdered and destroyed, all the while you slapped the chains of the FedGov on people who didn't want to be ruled by it.

Then after the fact, you said you did it all in a "good" cause, a cause you certainly didn't care about prior to invading, but one that suddenly became important after two years of fighting.

It was a very expensive fig leaf.

[DiogenesLamp]

That you don’t have anyone except DegenerateLamp to sit there on his haunches and mindless nod like a bobblehead doll says much and tells the story.

I see i'm living in your head "rent free." I assure you, I don't even think about you at all, at least not until I see the next "little kid" type thing you've written.

Then I smile. :)

[rockrr]

When contemplating a response to DegenerateLamp’s latest incomprehensible screed just remember that it was her that wrote: “S.O.P. for this crowd. They generally have little else. Their arguments are mostly just emotion. “

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3323466/posts?page=233#233

Poor DL - your Liberal Projection™ gets you every time!

[quadrant]

No one claims that farm boys from Iowa, etc caused or started the war. To make such a claim is idiotic beyond belief. They responded to a call from the Federal Government; but they responded and marched not to free the slaves but to save the Union.

[quadrant]

No one denies that the leadership of the Southern states acted foolishly and irresponsibly. They more than anything else acted in such a way as to precipitate the war - and for no real reason. Slavery was stronger in 1861 than it had been in decades. The Corwin Amendment had been passed, the Dred Scott Decision was in force, and Lincoln was a minority president presiding over a divided country with an empty treasury.

[HandyDandy]

Well it wasn't coming under Buchanan. People say he did nothing, and fault him for it, but it seems to me that a man who actually understood the laws of that time would do exactly nothing, because they would recognize that the South had a legitimate right to leave the Union if the government of such no longer suited their Interests.

Rather than doing "nothing", it seems me to that he could at least have explained to the people of his country that, "the laws recognize that the South had a legitimate right to leave the Union if the government of such no longer suited their Interests."

YessireeBob, if only Buchanan had simply done that. Welp, he didn't and that set the advent of the internet back by four years.

[x]

Missing the point like that doesn't exactly make you a genius either.

Just why somebody's great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather went to war doesn't say much about why war broke out.

Slaveowners saw slavery as threatened by Republicans' electoral victory, so they tried to take their states outside the union.

The way they did that -- without approval from the Congress and with the formation of a new country and violence -- meant war, unless the federal government was exceptionally spineless.

I guess if nobody went, you wouldn't have had a war, so individual motivations are contributory factors, but there was a war before most people's ancestors had any say or made any decisions.

[rockrr]

So the answer is no - no one except some lost causes (and they don’t really matter) seriously believed that. And the lost causes only advance as a false narrative.