Why The War Was Not About Slavery

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org ^ | March 9, 2016 | Clyde Wilson

[NKP_Vet]

Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861—1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment but a political slogan. What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who come after. To limit so vast an event as that war to one cause is to show contempt for the complexities of history as a quest for the understanding of human action.

Two generations ago, most perceptive historians, much more learned than the current crop, said that the war was “about” economics and was “caused by” economic rivalry. The war has not changed one bit since then. The perspective has changed. It can change again as long as people have the freedom to think about the past. History is not a mathematical calculation or scientific experiment but a vast drama of which there is always more to be learned.

I was much struck by Barbara Marthal’s insistence in her Stone Mountain talk on the importance of stories in understanding history. I entirely concur. History is the experience of human beings. History is a story and a story is somebody’s story. It tells us about who people are. History is not a political ideological slogan like “about slavery.” Ideological slogans are accusations and instruments of conflict and domination. Stories are instruments of understanding and peace.

Let’s consider the war and slavery. Again and again I encounter people who say that the South Carolina secession ordinance mentions the defense of slavery and that one fact proves beyond argument that the war was caused by slavery. The first States to secede did mention a threat to slavery as a motive for secession. They also mentioned decades of economic exploitation.

[NKP_Vet]

Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina where he was the editor of the multivolume The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He is the M.E. Bradford Distinguished Chair at the Abbeville Institute. He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews and is co-publisher of www.shotwellpublishing.com, a source for unreconstructed Southern books.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Chattel slavery was one of the spiritual whitewashed tombs (both North and South) that lurked in the scene. America would have done exceeding well to have abolished it from the start... but didn’t.

In this sense, chattel slavery was the 1 ton elephant in the living room. The South needed it in order even to have a hope of going it alone. The North allowed it for expediency. The bible urged masters to “give up threatening” which would have turned chattel slavery into a voluntary domestic servant employment affair, but somehow the “slave preachers” kept missing that part.

On the North side, it would have been possible to wait out the Confederacy to give in. It never had a viable plan, even with the slaves. A brutal war wasn’t necessary.

[gaijin]

The South had cotton the North needed to make into cloth.

If sold to cotton-hungry Europe, they could get a better price; the North didn’t like that.

Slavery was wrong, but the North did to the South what King George did to the American colonies with the Navigation Acts.

Slavery was a factor, sure, but the notion is was ALL about slavery is wrong.

[BenLurkin]

So in other words, even if there was no slavery the North would have invaded anyway.

[robowombat]

Prepare for the usual deluge of Dixiephobia.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Why wasn’t Mexico in the cotton biz too?

[ek_hornbeck]

All Lincoln wanted was to prevent slavery in any territories, future States, which then might become Southern and vote against Northern control of the Treasury and federal legislation. From the anti-slavery perspective this is a highly immoral position. At the time of the Missouri Compromise, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison said that restricting the spread of slavery was a false, politically motivated position. The best thing for the welfare of African Americans and their eventual emancipation was to allow them to spread as thinly as possible.

For largely economic reasons, slave states wanted an expansion of slavery to other states so as to increase the market value of a slave. The slave market in officially recognized slave states was already saturated - many children born into slavery were a "surplus" that couldn't be sold because those southern planters who wanted and could afford slaves already had them. For those surplus slaves to have any financial value, demand had to increase - hence the economic need for expansion of slavery. It had nothing to do with spreading slaves "as thinly as possible."

[HiTech RedNeck]

Dixie is fun fun fun till your daddy takes your T-bird away (mutando mutandis).

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, declaring independence would be, among other things, a bid at a “full employment for slaves” situation.

But dealing in sin is going to earn a curse.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861—1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment but a political slogan.

The civil war was caused by the secession of the southern states. Here's why five southern states said they were seceding. Every single one of them focuses on slavery.

[Digger]

There are a couple pages in “The Creature from Jekyll Island” that also confirms this.

[Sans-Culotte]

Aw, Jeez, not this sh.........

[ClearCase_guy]

For largely economic reasons, slave states wanted an expansion of slavery to other states so as to increase the market value of a slave. The slave market in officially recognized slave states was already saturated - many children born into slavery were a "surplus" that couldn't be sold because those southern planters who wanted and could afford slaves already had them.

Thanks for that.

I consider myself reasonably well educated on US history in that time period, and I know about various "Compromises" and "States Rights" issues as the question of whether or not to expand slavery was debated across many decades. However, I confess I never looked at the precise economics of it. I saw it as a philosophical question only. Your points seem very reasonable and add a dimension I had not considered.

I think History is taught very poorly (on purpose). There are aspects to historical events which are blatantly ignored or glossed over. Things are often not quite as the professors like to present.

[teeman8r]

but the states that didn’t secede could keep their slaves?

the emancipation proclamation only freed the slaves in occupied southern territories, or am i mistaken.

t

[HiTech RedNeck]

It was being looked to, to keep the lead balloon that was the Confederacy going.

They might have had an A+ for spirit, but an F- for wisdom. It is one of the great human tragedies of our time and we are still facing the secular aftermath with embarrassment. When black people complain that their race had been done dirty, they’re right. They are less effusive about attempts to set it right with things like affirmative action, but secular efforts can only do so much. What they need is something that cleans up the spiritual dirt, and Christians know it as the blood of Christ.

There is a constructive way forward, but it is under the Spirit of God that it must be thus.

[MrEdd]

...At The Beginning.

There, now the title can be transformed into a true statement.

[Bull Snipe]

between 20-25% of each years cotton crop went to the textile manufactures in the U.S. mostly in the Northern States. The balance was shipped to Europe.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That’s true — it was a kneecapping move. Here’s where we could fault the North for not banning it sooner. But embroiled in a war, the North would have found that more difficult than waiting till after the war.

[Vermont Lt]

Bump for a good view of the “hilarity ensues” aspect of this thread.

Good luck everyone.

[Wuli]

Here we go again with revisionist history writing slavery out of the background for the Civil War, and yet what do we get at the end of the Civil War - the end of slavery.

The end of slavery had an importance all to itself such that other considerations could be assigned lesser importance, no matter how anyone considered them in their own mind.

The north was industrial and industry provides greater return on capital than aqriculture, which is why the north had more capital. That was not “stolen” from the south, “deprived” from the south, it was a condition relative to the different primary economic drivers in each of them.