What actually caused the American Civil War? Some people simply answer that it was a fight against slavery. While slavery did have an important part to play in the lead up to the Civil War, there were other causes that fed the fight between North and South that finally erupted into secession and Civil War with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Here are the top five causes of the Civil War.
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Perhaps those who attribute “fight against slavery” as the cause of the Civil War are not as “simplistic” as indicated. A relationship is indicated in all 5 causes, so obviously they are not separate from slavery. It does seem central. Free labor in the North slave labor in the South. Major reason for nullification: maintain slavery. Conflict over western lands: slavery. Major reason South seceeded: slavery. Reason Lincoln could not maintain union of states: slavery. Production of cotton demanded: slavery. It is more simplistic that so many in the South maintain that it was a fight over state’s rights as indeed it was: a fight by the South to maintain slavery.
I wish people could understand the civil war would have happened with or without the institution of slavery. There were so many reasons. People need to open their eyes to view the world not just skim the surface. When you skim the surface you get the answer of slavery but if you research more you find there was so much more to this war.
I have to agree with Mr. Darrell on this. Many of the things Kelly stated came back to slavery. Slavery would not be “skinning the surface”. Slavery is much more bigger than that. Lets think, North had factories, and the South had plantations. They didn’t want to do the work so they had Slaves do it. So there is much more to the word slavery, in the Civil War.
Alex, you’re skimming the surface right there.
Further research would reveal that a political party had indeed based their campaign on the issue of slavery and wasn’t even able to get 200,000 votes in the election of 1852.
If slavery was THAT big an issue, why was this the case?
I agree with the other comments. The Fugitive Slave Law required the FEDERAL government to enforce it and that mandate flies in the face of the STATES rights claim. Furthermore, Roger Taney threw out all STATE restrictions on slavery with the Dredd Scott decision ending a states right to restrict it.
Laurence Bird – a bit pompous aren’t we? And perhaps I’d be more impressed with Mr. Bockhorn’s thoughts if his grammar wasn’t so atrocious. I think you’re too simplistic in your assertions. You might as well say the causes of the Civil War were money and power, which is the basis for slavey in the first place.
Slavery was not the big issue, when Lincoln himself owned slaves along with Grant, The issue was money and politics. The south sold cotton cheaper to Europe the south sided with England during the Revolutionary War So there was hostility that had been festering for a long time. Also slavery was not in Ill. because blacks were not allowed in the state before the war
I agree with Dow if any of you actually took a real history class you would know that the real cause was over the cotton yes money is a bases of slavery but that money was not delt with slavery it was over cheap cotton being sold to Europe. The real facts are Lincoln, grant, the south, and the NORTH all had slaves to so obviously it wasn’t over that!!! And the north continued to use slaves well after the civil war. You have to dig deeper than just in the surface of history. Being from the south and having relatives that fought in the civil war I find it very ignorant that people believe that it was all over slavery. That was not the reason. I’ll fly my confederate flag high.
The Civil War was about what the states felt was their right, primarily the right to secede from the Union. They felt that their rights were being taken away, as the colonies did resulting in the Revolutionary War. They were being cornered into choosing Northern products, which were more expensive at the time to other products, and they were losing out in political power as the anti-slavery politicians were fighting the introduction of new “slave” states. (Mass. even went as far as to deny that the new states were states, that the government didn’t have the right to introduce states period.)
Southern politicians viewed the Constitution differently than the Northern politicians did, that the Constitution should be honored as it is read. The Northern Politicians viewed it as an evolving and growing entity.
They also feared that their property, due to the zealousness of the abolitionists and their demands for lack of slavery, would be taken away from them. Had the Civil War occurred without slavery? Probably, but did slavery help it along quicker? Yes.
(This is also from a Southerner with ancestors who fought, though they fought on both sides.)
This is from Wikipedia under state’s rights concerning the idea of nullification and where it originated:
Nullification
One major and continuous strain on the union, from roughly 1820 through the Civil War, was the issue of trade and tariffs. Heavily dependent upon trade, the almost entirely agricultural and export-oriented South imported most of its manufactured needs from Europe or obtained them from the North. The North, by contrast, had a growing domestic industrial economy that viewed foreign trade as competition. Trade barriers, especially protective tariffs, were viewed as harmful to the Southern economy, which depended on exports.
In 1828, the Congress passed protective tariffs to benefit trade in the northern states, but that were detrimental to the South. Southerners vocally expressed their tariff opposition in documents such as the South Carolina Exposition and Protest in 1828, written in response to the “Tariff of Abominations”. Exposition and Protest was the work of South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun, formerly an advocate of protective tariffs and internal improvements at federal expense.
South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance declared the tariff of 1828 and 1832 null and void within the state borders of South Carolina. It began the Nullification Crisis. Passed by a state convention on November 24, 1832, it led, on December 10, to President Andrew Jackson’s proclamation against South Carolina, which sent a naval flotilla and a threat of sending government ground troops to enforce the tariffs.
It might surprise a lot of people, that 80% of the people fighting on the side of the Confederacy did not even own slaves. Owning slaves required a LOT of money, that the majority of southerners did not possess. Slavery was an issue, and it did contribute to the war. And many Northerners believed they were fighting to simply stop slavery. Maybe like many Americans believe that invading Iraq was simply to stop terrorism. Southerners fought for the right to decide who they could trade to internationally, and to stop Northern-run elitist government from imposing tariffs on trade that hurt the Southern economy.
Much like the EU today, the US was designed to be an allegience of states. State= country. Like the EU has it’s own currency now that replaces Frances’ francs, and English pounds, and so forth, the federal government was designed to unite and help support the states economically and against threats. I wonder, do the European countries fully understand the dangers of entering into a union such as the EU, when the right to leave the EU might be taken away from a country like France or Italy. The parallel is very similar.
I’m glad slavery was ended. I’m glad that we have made progress socially to be more equal. Our founding fathers wanted an end to slavery from the start of the Revolution against Britain. They, however, also felt that states should be able to leave the union if the people wanted to do so. The Civil War changed that.
I wonder, if we stayed with the idea of state rights’ closer to what we were designed to be, then maybe more gays could marry without fearing a national ban that Bush attempted.
States’ Rights does not equal racism, I’m tired of that notion. Many states and people began to fight for abolition as early as the Declaration of Independence. Had they not been able to do so, the abolitionist movement might have not grown as it did. States’ Rights means that the federal government should not be able to force a diverse group of people into laws or ways that might not be suitable. If a state thinks that gays should marry, gays should be allowed to in that state. If a state believes in abortion, abortion should be allowed as the law of that state.
this is very interesting and it really helped me out but somethingz i did not understand
WOW people get to the basics here the Civil War was started because the south wanted to seceed from the north and the north would not allow that. Get to the basics
The Civil War wasnt just about slavery, money, and power. Its main purpose was to decide if states rights should be over federal rights. The north wanted it to be the federal rights over states right, and the south wanted it to be states rights over federal rights. Slavery was a BIG part of it, but it wasnt the main reason for the civil war, come on people get smart.
Andrew is right, the fight was states vs federal rights.
I personnaly think that we are over slavery and should not instigate it wherever we go, and constantly remind others of the actions that were taken to form the U.S.. Its not fair to the remaining Americans in the twentieth century, the people alive today in America are forming new and improved ways of getting our older and younger Americans to say no to racism and to get past the still strong barrier. What is also an issue is the election going on, not many people can even think of having a president of a different color but same mind, same heart, same functions, and emotions as everyone else. No offense to McCain supporters, I support McCain Strongly..and thats all i have to say about that…
But of course..
Andrew, you’re dead on, it was a fight against “Big Government” that the North was imposing. Yes, slavery was in the mix, but it was more of a political war than perhaps any other war we’ve had. The circumstances aren’t too far removed from what we’ll be facing in the near future with the Czar of Obamanomics.
The north and the south had different economys. the south focused on agriculture and the north was mainly industrial. this created a rift. because they focused on different industries each the north and south had different needs when it came to taxes, laws. ext. they each fought for equal representation in congress. up until western terrirories applied to become states congress was balanced between non slave states and slave states. there was issues and confrentation when they were deciding on weather or not to make these new states free states or slave states. yes these economic issues were based the industries, but what really defined the differences in industries was the use of labor. the north used immigrants, and the south slaves. for the decision for the south to ceceed wasn’t just based on the south wanting to keep there slaves, that was just one of the final straws. one of the last things that helped make the decision was when lincoln was elected president.
I appreciate all the great comments. I’m a freshmen in college and am reqiired to do an essay on the civil war. I must state i believe was the main cause and why. I believe i have made my decision after reading your comments. No offense, however, where did you people go to school? Most of you have the worst grammar and spelling i’ve observed in a while.
Many things led to the Civil war. Events such as The Compromise of 1850, The Wilmot Proviso, The publishing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and John Brown’s Raid all poured fuel on the fire. But perhaps a critical event was when Stephen Douglas lifted the Missouri Compromise in hope of settling the Great Plains and spliting the Whig Party. But he was misjudged, and by doing this he sent the Union on a highway to war.
How ironic (not unusual) that some charge others should learn history while demonstrating much ignorance of it.
Not just the South’s economy based mostly on “king cotton” with indigo, tobacco and a few other limited products but also the political structure differed greatly from the more democratic North. The South was ruled by a slave owner aristocracy contrary to the promise of the Constitution: a government of the people”. It is “We the People of the United States” not We the States. The South was a plutocracy inside a democratic republic. Some still seem to want that? Yomen farmers were half the population, but they supported and were ruled by the quarter of the population that owned slaves. The non slave holder farmers were perhaps motivated by desires to be among the rich slave holders, what today might be called “wannebes”. There were some exceptions, such as the Jackson movement toward greater equality and fewer property qualifications and extended suffrage. But “king cotton” and those who produced 80% of it ruled. And, of course, it is significant it was produced by slaves. Also religious and appeals of white superiority were made by the ruling slave owner aristocracy to non slave owners and non land owners. Perhaps similar to appeals made by today’s affluent who use “moral majority” and other concocted but non-evidential slogans?
More attention was given to property than to equality as a determination, also similar to today’s appeals of supply side economics?
“States rights” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution; it has become popular only by much use. Some seem to think the Articles of Confederation and/or The Declaration of Independence the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution was accepted as the “law of the land”, of the Union; state laws have an application to things not addressed by the law of the land, including laws passed by Congress in keeping with the Constitution. President Jackson prepared to use troops against actions in the South contrary to the Constitution many years prior to our most terrible war. Neither nullification nor secession is a part of the law of the land. By the 1850’s, slavery was the most decisive issue in the U.S. and the Missouri Compromise, Wilmot Proviso and other things such as the conflict in Kansas, John Brown’s action were in direct association to slavery.
To:
4. The political party formed in 1852 elected an anti slavery party in 1861.
7. Lincoln and Grant did not own slaves, and blacks were allowed in Illinois before the Civil War (officially “The War of Rebellion”, the South coined “Civil War”). Many escaped to Illinois. The Dred Scott Deciion conflicted with the Missouri Compromise; you should read up on it? If you have evidence to the contrary, please supply it. There were free blacks in Illinois and other states including some in the South. Also, the South did not side with England during the Revolutionay War. Note the major battles in the South and who fought them.
8. Apparently, the “real history class” you took lacked reality. Thje cheap cotton exported to Europe was produced mostly by slave labor (80%). Dig deeper.
9.Yes, southern states thought they had a right to secede, and not only slavery in the South but a desire to extend it to new areas in the West is apparent. Poor farming practices that depleted the soil made slavery in new areas desirable. The federal government does not “introduce states”. People in territories petition to create additional states and Congress admits them when populations and other qualifications are met, including operation of democratic republican governments. See Article IV of the Constitution.
10. Yes,it might surprise many that 80% who fought for the Confederacy did not own slaves for evidence seems to indicate 25% did own slaves, and owning slaves was not a qualification for supporting slavery. Far more than 20% fought to maintain it? It might surprise many that 179,000 black men (10% of the Union army) and 19,000 blacks of the Union Navy were a part of Union forces; 40,00 died. Other blacks also contributed to defeating slavery.
20. Yes, many things led to the Civil War as alluded to. Which ones were not related to slavery?
Slavery was not the only cause of the war, but it certainly was the major cause?
To whomever said The War of Rebellion would have happened if slavery had not existed, evidence and logic please. Some might want more than mere declaration.
What’s really interesting is the definiton of the phrase “Causes of the Civil War”.
If you look at the incidents leading up the the MILITARISTIC confrontation between the Union and Confederacy, you will see that the cause of the Civil War was that the Confederacy was trying to force the Union off of Union owned (federal) land. The most notorious being Ft. Sumter in Charleston. Even though all of his top political advisors argued to release the forts to the Confederacy in place of risking open and armed conflict, Lincoln decided to uphold his platform promise (of not allowing the Confederacy to hold any federal owned land when the States seceded) by not turning over Ft. Sumter.
After repeated demands for surrender were not met, the leaders of the Confederacy granted permission to “reduce” Ft. Sumter by any means necessary. And you know what happened from there.
So if you define the Civil War’s start by the firing on Ft. Sumter and the subsequent series of battles, then there you go, Lincoln’s refusal to give up federal land in the seceded Conferacy is the singular cause of the Civil War.
Now if you are talking about why the Southern States seceded from the Union in the first place, then I see all the points about Slavery, States Rights, Politics, etc…
But if you are going to make a counterpoint, keep this in mind….
If the federal land in the Confederate states was given to those states, there would never have been a capture of Ft. Sumter for Lincoln to muster his Army against.
I am not saying that the Civil War wouldn’t have happened, that would be assinine. but it sure may have started differently.
Perhaps we should note that the first shots of the conflict were fired by Citadel Cadets under the command of Major Stevens, head of the South Carolina Military Academy and that President Buchanan’s strengthening of federal forts enabled them to remain in federal hands.Ft Sumter and Ft Pickens were not the only federal properties involved.On January 10,1861 (some accounts indicate 9th), the unarmed Union ship “Star of the West” was heavily fired upon by South Carolinians from Morris Island and retreated unable to supply Ft. Sumter.
Anderson in command of Ft Sumter said for some time he required no reinforcements (after the Star of the West was fired upon)but
changed his mind and said a successful reinforcement required 20,000 men and much supplies. At that time the entire Union army was around 16,000, much of it in the West fighting Indians.
Buchanan’s final act as President was a letter to President Elect Lincoln explaining naval forces had been created in New York to supply Ft. Sumter. Lincoln’s inheritance?
Gen. Winfield Scott and some other army officers advised Lincoln that Sumter could not be held, but various navy officers presented a plan to reinforce Sumter developed by Capt.Gustavus V. Fox. And most of Lincoln’s advisors did not advise against reinforcing Sumter as some contend. Lincoln’s cabinet gave written opinions: Seward favored evacuating Sumter but favored holding Pickens “at every cost”. Chase and Welles favored reinforcing Sumter, and Blair said he’d resign if Lincoln took Gen. Scott’s advice to give up Sumter. A caucus of Republican congressmen warned that Lincoln’s failure to reinforce Sumter would destroy their party.
Lincoln informed Gov. Pickens of South Carolina that a peaceful reinforcement of Ft. Sumter would be done. Confederate President Jefferson Davis demanded Anderson’s evacuation and when he refused Gen. Bearegard fired on the fort. Perhaps that was the second shot that began the war? The Star of the West had been fired upon and hit earlier as previously indicated. “If” is conjecture, so why not conjecture that instead of allowing the South “to go peacefully” that the South should have peacefully allowed reinforcement of federal property? Consider the confiscation of much federal installations earlier by the South—-not too peaceful?
Also an argument that slavery was major: Before and during the Civil War (called different things by North and South), most Southern political leaders said the southern states seceded to protect slavery. The Confederate Vice President declared slavery the cause of the war and that the U.S. was founded on the false belief all men are created equal and that the Confederacy was “founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural moral condition.”
MANY COMPLEXITIES, BUT SLAVERY CERTAINLY DOES SEEM CENTRAL, PARTICULARLY FROM THE SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE?
i disagree wif bofe of you.
Darrel…
Forgot all about the “Star” incident!
And definately Lincoln came in to a situation not quite all his making. But it seems funny that he was concilliatory to those Slave States that did not secede (in fact the Emancipation Proclomation did not apply to those states – and full emancipation didnt immediately come to the Slaves of the “Union” states until wars end), yet he would not give up federal property to help prevent war.
But absolutely I believe slavery was THE issue that led up to the war (just wanted to make a conjecture based on the militaristic causes). It’s funny that people who disagree with Slavery as being the main issue before, and during the war, have probably never read a single address by Lincoln (President of the United States) or by Jefferson Davis (President of the Confedrate States of America). They both agreed on one thing and clearly stated that on many occasions. They both agreed that slavery was the cause of the conflict, nothing else.
It’s fact, those who dont believe should pick up a book. Or better yet, just read the Constitution of the Confederate States. You will be enlightened.
Some say simplistically that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Unfortunately, there is no “simple” reason. The causes of the war were a complex series of events, including slavery that began long before the first shot was fired. Competing nationalisms, political turmoil, the definition of freedom, the preservation of the Union, the fate of slavery and the structure of our society and economy could all be listed as significant contributing factors in America’s bloodiest conflict.
your all wrong… i started the civil war
Donald: Is it likely Lincoln was conciliatory to those states so as not to reduce Union support? There were those in the border states that supported those states remaining in the Union but also supported slavery, particularly if they owned slaves and perhaps hoped their manumission would be by them being paid for them by the Union government, a plan supported by some. As you recognize all things are not not like a football game which, with doing away with ties, is an either/or affair. My contention that slavery was the major issue that caused the war is not a statement that it was the only issue. The other issues do seem associated with slavery to large degrees, and despite the contention of some that a civil war would have existed without slavery seems based on little evidence and logic. West Virginia and Maryland passed state laws after Emancipation Proclamtion legally abolished slavery, but despite that there were pockets in West Virginia that maintained slavery. Anyway the 13th Amendment legally manumitted slaves, but of course Jim Crow laws continued many aspects of slavery for a very long time. Perhaps it has taken two centuries from Lincoln’s birth to the election of Obama to do away with most of the concept that Blacks are inferior. Lincoln seems to have long believed they should be free, but perhaps it is not certain he believed they were equal in all respects. He favored their education to help them be so. I certainly agree with Dani that things were complex; however, I repeat my belief that slavery was central to the conflict. Jefferson opposed slavery; he also thought he could not afford giving up his property. Should we contend that was because his wine bill was so high or that Sally needed new clothes? Either or thinking is the common fallachy of false dilemma, an illogical approach that can result in a real dilemma?
Re: Today’s Jefferson subject: Jefferson did not sign the Constitution for at least two reasons: he was not a delegate and was in France, and he like others demanded a bill of rights to garner his support. Federalists and Anti-Federalists did not disagree on all things, thank whatever powers that be! Let us hope there is enough bipartisan agreement to help us out of our present dilemma.
“African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”
quote from Alexander Stephens Cornerstone Speech.
It was over slavery, cotton prices were directly related to slavery cause slaves worked the plantation. they didn’t want to have to pay the employees.
I take more issue with how slavery ended than with whether it caused the war. I am disturbed when I hear that in Government schools today our children are being taught that President Lincoln freed the slaves when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. That is a blatant falsehood since in the document it clearly states “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”. That means any state in the CSA, where Lincoln had no authority because he was not the president there. It did not free slaves in he northern slave states of Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri or in the southern areas already under Union control like most of West Virginia, New Orleans, and Large portions of Tennessee. If the President was so anti-slavery and willing to send hundreds of thousands of men to there deaths why wouldn’t he end slavery in the north BEFORE going to war to end slavery in the south? Politics is the answer to that question. Slavery was a key issue of secession and Lincoln’s main motivation was to preserve the union and Lincoln used Great Britain’s disdain of slavery to his own end as well. If Britain had recognized the CSA as an independent nation then it would have made Lincoln’s job much harder so he used slavery as a needling point with England. The only thing that ended slavery in this country was the surrender at Appomattox and the passage of the thirteenth admendment to the US Constitution. Lincoln preserved the union but at what cost over 600,000 Americans dead and state sovereignty all but destroyed. I must also take issue with something said by Darrel in an earlier post, yes the Constitution is the law of the land and the legal document of this nation but the Declaration is the FOUNDING document of this REPUBLIC and in tht document it clearly states right there in the opening sentence “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”. When it becomes “necessary” not politically expediant or socially acceptable 200 plus years later but “necessary” as determined by the sovereign entities which make up a VOLUNTARY UNION OF STATES. My apologies for the lenght of this post but I had much to say. Thanks for your time.
My My how times have changed. I am 36 years old and I was taught that there were many causes of the Civil War. Yes one of them was slavery, but as my teacher pointed out, slavery was going to die out on its own without the war. Technological advances that were on the horizon at the time made much more sense than slavery-my history teacher taught us that given another 15-20 years, slavery would have been obsolete in the South. This may have not been true for the North, but it was for the South. My 8 year old son is now being taught that slavery is the ONLY cause of the Civil War and he had points taken off of his test for answering that states’ rights and economics were causes of the Civil War in addition to slavery. This madness must stop-history has not changed since I was in school 20 years ago-only the people who choose to be politically correct. I can not believe that people can be so blind to think that just because they say it it is so. Wake up and think for your selves. I have not seen any news articles showing that some new evidence has come to light in the past 20 years about the cause of the Civil War, so why are today’s children being taught only part of what really happened?
I spend a great deal of my time deprogramming my students:
• that Slavery is the reason for the Civil War
• All Northerners were good and wanted to end slavery
• All Southerners were bad
• Plantations were everywhere in the South
• Southerners were lazy and did not want to work
Slavery is tied to a number of events that will bring about the Civil War – it is not the only one. It might be argued that it is not the main reason for Northern and Southern tensions and only becomes a major reason in 1863.
Northerners were just as capable of being racist as Southerners, you could legally own slaves in Delaware in 1861.
Not all Southerners were bad – logical fallacy
Plantations were not located everywhere throughout the South – about 2/3 of Southerners in 1860 could not afford to own slaves
Southerners were not lazy – do we call businessmen lazy because they manage a number of people? Also, a number of slave owners could afford only one or two slaves and spent their days working alongside their slaves.
There are a number of reasons for why the Civil War was fought.
“States’ Rights”: is a Political direction and desire of a state to put forth its own ideals over the forced supremacy of a federal government. This traces its roots to the Federalist / Anti-Federalist foundations of our nation. Nationalized banking, interstate business, taxation policy, military obligations, right to broker international trade agreements, legal precedents and supremacy of federal court system just to name some examples. “States’ Rights” is not about slavery, it is a bigger issue than just slavery.
Modern vs. Traditional – Will the main political forces in the United State dictate that the nation becomes an Industrialized (Modern) Nation or will it remain an Agrarian (Traditional) society? This is not only an issue of economic foundations but also of societal structure. A reference comparing the Plantation system of the South with Feudal Europe is an easy analogy. Swap names such as Master, slave and plantation with words like Lord, serf, manor and your see the old world European flavor of Southern Culture.
Political Authority: The North was divided between different groups (social, political, ethnic) who held authority within cities and or countryside, while the Southern political system was controlled completely by the minority Aristocratic Planter society.
The Election of 1860: Lincoln was not on the ballot in a number of Southern states – Southerners feel they have no voice in the election process therefore no voice in Washington D.C.
Following the secession of the Southern states, Lincoln asks them to return to the Union during his inaugural address. Lincoln clearly articulates his determination to preserve the Union. Slavery is not the way to preserve the Union in 1861.
Lincoln writes the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 with the hopes of enticing Southern states back into the Union and allowing them to keep their slaves if they rejoin the Union. The Proclamation goes into effect January 1, 1863 – with no real teeth as slaves are still property and Southern Slave owners need not listen to Lincoln until Union troops pass by their plantations
Yes, slavery is a reason attached to a number of events that help bring about the Civil War (Compromise of 1820, Compromise of 1850, Dred Scott, Bleeding Kansas…) but slavery is not a main force in Lincoln’s decision to enter the Civil war. He wanted to preserve the Union. It is during the war that the freeing of the slaves becomes a major factor.
Oh, and one more addition, Lincoln did not own slaves. I cannot say it simpler than this.
During the Civil War, Lincoln clarified his position on the war and slavery. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either to save or to destroy slavery. 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 so that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.”
reasons of the civil war
-slavery (was not as big of an issue that people think)
-sectionalism
-taxation
-states rights
Those who think slavery was an issue in the civil war simply need to read the Emancipation Proclamation. First note, the war started in 1861. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in late 1862. It only freed the slaves in those states that were members of the confederacy, NOT slave states that had joined the union, and it exempted parts of Virginia that were siding with the Union. Tennesse was joining back with the union so it was exempt. New Orleans was exempt. Hardly anyone owned slaves there but it was a major market place for trading slaves. Doesn’t sound that Lincoln was that serious about stopping slavery. Any of the states that left the confederacy and joined the union, were to be allowed to keep their slaves.
There were a couple of reasons for Lincoln issuing it. The war was not that popular up north. Making slavery an issue gave him a “cause” and improved his support. The main reason though was that the south was winning at that point. England was financing them. England had outlawed slavery. Issuing the proclamation put England in a bad political position making them look as though they were supporting slavery, so they cut funding to the confederacy. That was the turn in the war. We would have won otherwise.
you state that thomas jefferson was not present during the signing of the US constitution…where did you get your source?
I am an eight grader, moving on to ninth next year, and even I am completely aware of the causes of the civil war. Slavery was a portion of it, but you can’t avoid to think about the fact that the Southerners felt they were being controlled(they supported states’ rights), and that even though the first shots were by a confederate you have to understand that the fort was in Southern land. Think about it for a second…what were Union soldiers doing on Southern land? The South had taken a defensive position in the war. If shots were fired it was only because Union soldiers were to attack. I’d appreciate it if people would stop making comments knowing they are clearly either misinformed, or just not stating the contrary arguments to persuade people into believing what you’ve written.
this is very helpful…thank you8 4 everything!
David (#32) thank you for that
To back up his info:
*The 1860 census records show that only 25% of southerners owned any slaves at all? 7/10 of 1% owned over 50 slaves, and 1/10 of 1% owned over 200. Beyond that, only 2.5% of the 4 million slaves of the south actually worked on plantations.
in August, 1861 (after the war had started mind you), General John C Fremont officially ordered that slaves in his military district be freed. Lincoln demanded that he rescind this “emancipation proclamation” (if you will). When Fremont refused, Lincoln removed him from office and revoked the proclamation.
On April 25, 1862, Union General David Hunter, commander of the district based at Port Royal, South Carolina (covering S.C. Georgia and Florida), declared slaves in those states “forever free.” Lincoln revoked the orders and wrote that he would only free the slaves if it became “a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government.”
March 4, 1861 – Lincoln’s inaugural address: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so…the power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imports; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.”
Slavery played a part in the war between the states, but not the type of role most hear about.
Im 14 and in 8th grade.
Heres what we learned
North South
Big cities Population Small towns
Industry Economy Agriculture
Liberal Attutude Traditional
Catholic Religion Protestant
Diversity Ethnic Same Ethnic Groups
Slaves Bad Slavery Slaves Good
Strong Gov’t Polities State Capitols
1. North changes
2. Land out west
3. Rise of slavery
The south began to need slaves for farming labor, social system, and cotton gin
Keep the Union thats was Abe’s purpose for the war. Slavery can as a by product to put more pressure on the South for internal fears. Slavery could exist if Abe had to have it, he wanted to keep the Union at all cost. He felt that a inventions grew it would be only a matter of time till machine replaced the slaves in the south. Slavery would drain the economy of the south and they would be ended by the south on it’s own.
Abe’s purpose for the war was to stisfy the wants of the american pulic and to save the US from economic downfall of a split nation, and to save his own butt.
guys,
I am 14 and in 9th grade and i can see how, even after the war this issue still contenues to rip us apart! There were so many issues that caused the civil war that we looked for one common, evil thing to blame the war on. that minor issue was slavery. “slavery” was not even the acctual issue! It was the mistreatment of humans. In middle school i was taught that slavery was the ONLY cause of the war. As I read more and more books i saw that this was not the case. Slavery was the focus but not the main cause. Please if you are going to post somthing check your facts first? please?
~Ivy
Nice Ivy
Haha,
yep..this argument is pretty much over..
the 5 main causes are posted..we dont need to argue about it any longer..it is tha past.
Its not that people are wrong about the causes..its that they see it through their own eyes. We dont all agree with what everyone says, but we need to just suck it up and read between the lines..and find our own meaning.
There were causes of the civil war. We all pretty much know them. So why dont we just get over this..Honestly. It’s stupid, we are all right. just different perspectives
the civil war waz really caused over state rights i believe… everything else (like slavery) waz an issue that revolved around state rights.
after reading much i would say that the civil war was caused by state rights ….. all the other issues REVOLVED around that main reason (slavery for instance) the confederate states wanted the right to allow slavery and union wanted federal government…….
as someone said before u have to go deeper than deep in history
If Darrell and alex are correct then why Did the South Abolish the Slave Trade before the Union? Mar 11th 1861, although they kept slaves they Abolished the import of slaves 4 years before the North 12-18-1865. The Emancipation Proclomation was strategy of War.
I am the author of Rebels of the North, How Land Policy Caused the Civil War. The cause was not slavery, states rights, save the union, etc. but what to do with the western land.
The cause of the Civil war was not slavery, but what to do with the western land. The western land was there for the taking. The population was rapidly expanding. The South was dominated by aristocratic interest that owned slaves, The North had industry, but it also had farms. The South grew cotton. The north grew, corn, hay, oats, and wheat.
In the north the idea of giving land to the people that cleared and worked the land was not new. It started in Colonial New England. In New York the aristocrats owned most of the land and used feudal leases and lived a life of ease. Giving land free to new settlers was not in their interest. This clash of the two northern cultures started because of a border dispute. Colonial New York claimed all the land east to the Connecticut River, while Colonial Massachusetts claimed their land extended to the Hudson River. When Massachusetts started expanding west it was giving 100 acres free to new settlers. By 1750 they were giving title to land that was already under leas on Livingston and Rensselaer Manor. This lead to what became know as the Anti-Rent War. This dispute changed land policy in New York and the small farmers emerged as a political power.
The Southern aristocrats interest was not served buy giving land free to new settlers. . When the Homestead Act was proposed that gave a quarter section of 160 acres to new settlers they opposed it. They looked at homesteaders as no better than squatters. They had no intention of living on the land and doing all the work themselves. They favored selling the western land by the 640 acre section and keeping it open to slavery. .
The matter came to a head under President Buchanan. A Homestead Act passed Congress, but Buchanan, a Democrat, vetoed it hoping to hold the South that had other demands as well. Up until that time the farmer of the North voted Democratic because of Andrew Jackson. In the election of 1860 the Democratic Party split with Steven Douglas ruining in the North against Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln proposed a homestead act and was against opining up the west to slavery. Douglas’s platform was more favorable to the South. Douglas won New Jersey and Lincoln took ever other northern state and won the election with about 40% of the vote. The difference was the farm vote. The farmers were not opposed to slavery as long as they did not have to compete with them on the new western land. Bell and Breckinridge divided the southern vote with a combined total of about 30%, about the same as Douglas. Lincoln easily won in the Electoral Collage 59% of the votes. Lincoln signed the Homestead act in 186
I wrote Rebels of the North, How Land Policy Caused the Civil War.
The cause of the Civil war was not slavery, but what to do with the western land. The western land was there for the taking. The population was rapidly expanding. The South was dominated by aristocratic interest that owned slaves, The North had industry, but it also had farms. The South grew cotton. The north grew, corn, hay, oats, and wheat.
In the north the idea of giving land to the people that cleared and worked the land was not new. It started in Colonial New England. In New York the aristocrats owned most of the land and used feudal leases and lived a life of ease. Giving land free to new settlers was not in their interest. This clash of the two northern cultures started because of a border dispute. Colonial New York claimed all the land east to the Connecticut River, while Colonial Massachusetts claimed their land extended to the Hudson River. When Massachusetts started expanding west it was giving 100 acres free to new settlers. By 1750 they were giving title to land that was already under leas on Livingston and Rensselaer Manor. This lead to what became know as the Anti-Rent War. This dispute changed land policy in New York and the small farmers emerged as a political power.
The Southern aristocrats interest was not served buy giving land free to new settlers. . When the Homestead Act was proposed that gave a quarter section of 160 acres to new settlers they opposed it. They looked at homesteaders as no better than squatters. They had no intention of living on the land and doing all the work themselves. They favored selling the western land by the 640 acre section and keeping it open to slavery. .
The matter came to a head under President Buchanan. A Homestead Act passed Congress, but Buchanan, a Democrat, vetoed it hoping to hold the South that had other demands as well. Up until that time the farmer of the North voted Democratic because of Andrew Jackson. In the election of 1860 the Democratic Party split with Steven Douglas ruining in the North against Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln proposed a homestead act and was against opining up the west to slavery. Douglas’s platform was more favorable to the South. Douglas won New Jersey and Lincoln took ever other northern state and won the election with about 40% of the vote. The difference was the farm vote. The farmers were not opposed to slavery as long as they did not have to compete with them on the new western land. Bell and Breckinridge divided the southern vote with a combined total of about 30%, about the same as Douglas. Lincoln easily won in the Electoral Collage 59% of the votes. Lincoln signed the Homestead act in 186
I still think slavery was a secondary reason at best. One thing I have not seen any comments on. Why has no one commented on the confederate emacipation plan for the slaves? It was proposed by Duncan Kenner [Kenner la. ascension parrish] He was rebuffed in 1861 by Jefferson Davis because there were too many other things going on, but was called into Jefferson Davis office in 1864 to discuss the enaction and planning of the emancipation in return of recognition from France and England for the CSA. [GOOGLE 'DUNCAN KENNER'S SECRET MISSION] i THINK IT MAY STILL BE POSTED SOMEWHERE.SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS I CAN’T SEEM TO GET THE DAMNED THING UNSTUCK!!!!! LOL
One more thing everyone here may find of interest. Check out ”the 2 just wars” a lecture By the nobel prize winning economist Murray Rothbard. If you agree with him or not, I’m sure some of the content will be very enlightening.
Keep the Union thats was Abe’s purpose for the war. Slavery can as a by product to put more pressure on the South for internal fears. Slavery could exist if Abe had to have it, he wanted to keep the Union at all cost. He felt that a inventions grew it would be only a matter of time till machine replaced the slaves in the south. Slavery would drain the economy of the south and they would be ended by the south on it’s own.
Slavery was the excuse to get the War started. How bad would Lincoln look to start a war to inslave the southerners? The real reason for what he did. There had to be a good excuse to achieve what he wanted to do and slavery gave him the excuse. Because most slaves in the south were white anyway. Always in history we have learned to win you first must make the opposing side look like the enemy of mankind.
GET REAL!!!!!! Clinton bombed the heck out of Serbia for their refusal to give up states and Lincoln bombarded the South for their refusal to accept Northern tariffs. Slavery is and was evil but has very little to do with the secession movement. Lincoln was no great progressive as the African Americans have been led to believe but a man hell bent on forcing his will on southern states no matter that the cost was over half million dead and the progressives go crazy over 4000 in Iraq. Lincoln was a pig, pure and simple.
All you have to do is read the words of Lincoln and Davis. That’s all. As the leaders of the opposing factions, they did not mince words. They saw only one reason for the conflict: slavery. If there had been another reason, I am sure such educated men would have been able to state it at least once. The fact is, they did not. Because there was only one reason.
There are some who would like to imagine a caste of gentleman scholars who were fighting a war for their constitutional freedom (states’ rights). It may soothe some peoples’ images of their ancestors. Those people now claim that their ancestors foresaw the federal government as it it today and fought to prevent it. Just like people in the 50s claimed that their ancestors foresaw integration and fought to prevent it.
The fact is that contemporaneous sources (political speeches, newspapers, legislation, personal letters, political cartoons) all agree on the cause of the war. Slavery. If there were other causes, why was there so much silence on those causes as the country marched towards war? Was there mass amnesia?
But every few years, the Lost Cause movement rears its head. Its proponents claim that true history has not been told. That people need to dig deeper and “educate themselves,” usually holding themselves up as shining examples of educated men. Ask them for their sources. What books have they read? Have they read Jefferson Davis’ speeches? Do they have anything resembling an education in history? Are they remotely literate aside from reading the label on a beer can? Do they have chips on their shoulders–a NEED to believe? Yes, that NEED to believe…that’s rare in historians. The Lost Cause…
People go to war when their way of life, their place in the world is threatened. When their economy is about to be turned upside down. When their “property” is about to walk away. When the downtrodden black soul down the road gets the right to vote for his own interests. When they fear what slaves will do with their freedom. Fear of poverty. Fear of revenge. That’s what starts wars.
It’s odd the war started only after the leader of the abolitionist party became President. Not a coincidence. Was the South afraid of Lincoln’s sectionalism? His taxes? His tariffs? His…what? Lincoln campaigned on one issue and one issue only: preventing the spread of slavery. His Southern opponent campaigned on only one issue: the preservation of slavery. Please…why is this so hard?
But there are those who now claim they know more about that time than both Lincoln and Jefferson… That the South was in the right… That the Northerners were the true racists… That the South was fighting for freedom… Some things never change…
Oops…that last paragraph should read “Lincoln and Davis” as in Jefferson Davis B-).
On a side note, does anyone even remotely believe that the South seceded because the North had a manufacturing economy? Out of all of those reasons listed, that has to be the dumbest. It’s like someone needed 5 causes and just threw anything in there, like an essay question for schoolchildren to make them memorize things.
The others “causes” are euphemisms for slavery. The states’ rights argument (not in the Constitution by the way) was the Southern states desire to decide if slavery was legal in their own state. They also wanted new states entering the union to enjoy the same privilege by voting for or against slavery. When it became clear that new states (and the voting power of the new states) would all be non-slave, the secessionist movement became unstoppable.
I had better stop now…except for one thing. Secession is NOT in the Constitution either. Nor was there a legal mechanism or process for secession.
History is a set of facts. Don’t believe what I say. Go to the source: THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED AND BREATHED IN THAT TIME. Their words and actions clearly state the cause (the sole cause) of the war. They wrote and they spoke. Look for their words.
Wow Tom… hook, line and sinker much?
This thread shouldv’e stopped at 10 (Danielle) with a clarification by 32 (David).
To think that the cause of the greatest war in American history was fought over people who weren’t even considered people is just silly. Wars are fought for two reasons and two reasons only Religion and Money. Period. Show me one that wasn’t.
It’s my OPINION that slavery was abolished to cripple the South, they weren’t playing ball with the North…they didn’t have to. They had open trade with Europe and didn’t need the North…The North knew this. Succession was the next logical step (constitutional or otherwise) I believe that by that point the North was doing everything possible to push the South to their logical conclusion.
PROBLEM-REACTION-SOLUTION.
disclaimer: I’m from the south, I don’t hate african americans, inhumane treatment of slaves was immoral, Winners write the history books.
Here you go junkbox:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
Could it be any more clear? There was no conspiracy against the south.
There was one and only one cause of the war.
It seems like someone else was fooled (not me).
Read that document and you’ll understand how woefully deficient your education is.
In the interest of fairness to those unwilling to read too much, I will summarize what I linked to above:
-the southern states have a right to secede granted by England (a concept that the drafter of the Constitution, Madison, said was contrary to his intent)
-escaped slaves were not being returned to the south (true enough)
-southern states would not have entered the Union if slavery were not legal
-Lincoln was elected by Northerners/abolitionists with the intention of freeing slaves (their property/economy…MONEY)
-blacks received citizenship and voting rights in the North
-as a result of those “causes,” they were leaving the Union
So there it is. A very honest, and very evil, document that summarizes why the south thought war justified. Slavery was mentioned in that document 18 times. Those other reasons for secession, and ultimately war, not once. Southerners knew very well at the time that secession meant war. Each of the southern states drew up a list of “causes” as listed above. There is no mystery here. Such documents were drafted with great care.
This is not the difficult thing some would make it into. All you have to do is read the contemporaneous accounts of the reasons for secession. The vice president of the confederacy himself even stated that the reason for the existence of the confederacy was the institution of slavery. Stephens said about the confederacy, the “new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the IMMEDIATE CAUSE of the late rupture and present revolution.” Why would he lie? Or did he misunderstand the war?
The south did NOT secede to trade with Europe. The first thing the south did after starting the war was embargo exports to Europe to attempt to get England and France on its side!
I’m not getting how the south was “pushed.” The North was not jealous of the South. Northern incomes were, on average, about 50% higher. If anything, the south was pushing the North by attempting to violate the Missouri Compromise by trying to establish new slave states in Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico and the rest of the Caribbean by employing private armies. When you add to that the number of “diplomatic” delegations sent to foreign powers PRIOR TO SECESSION to recruit their participation in war against the North, there can be no doubt who was pushing whom.
And junkbox, if you are going to give your opinion on the Civil War, you may want to learn how to spell “secession.” It is not “succession,” as you so cutely wrote it. Anyone who has read even the briefest pamphlet on the Civil War would have mastered that word.
So, basically, one of us has fallen hook, line and sinker. Are you implying a conspiracy with that, as if there was someone baiting people like me? Who would those people be…hmmm….. I know you probably mean well but someone has hooked you.
By the way, secession (or “succession”) is not mentioned, or even contemplated in the Constitution. It’s a myth that Madison tried to stop but persists to this day. It was, in fact, specifically considered and specifically rejected by the framers.
I wish you future “secess” though B-). Sorry I had to tear down each of your cherished beliefs (the Lost Cause).
The Cornerstone Speech was delivered by Confederate Vice President, Alexander Stephens extemporaneously in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. The speech explained what the differences were between the constitution of the Confederate Republic and that of the United States, laid out the Confederate causes for the American Civil War, and defended slavery.
“Peculiar Institution”
This was the Cornerstone that this speech was named for.
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted.
Stephens went on to say
(Jefferson’s) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. … Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.
Thank You Tom for your insightful remarks (56, 57, 59, 60) and for using historical facts to present the truth in a sea of ignorant comments and borderline hate
All five reasons you just listed were ~directly~ related to slavery. You basically just said that the civil war was caused by slavery in 5 different ways. The cause of the civil war can be stated in one word. Slavery. It doesn’t matter how many different ways you can say it.
Slavery was the excuse that gave moral justification to Lincoln’s North to wage war on the South. The real reason was economic. The South wanted freedom to trade and the North wanted a piece of the action. Of course slavery is inhuman and should never be condoned but it certainly was not the reason for the war. As for stating that the USA of 1861 was the same as the EU of today, this is complete nonsense. If anything, the EU is more like the Confederacy in its political and economic structure.
All five of the reasons given for the Civil War involve slavery.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves in the North. The inention of new machinery would have lead the the southern states to eventually drop slavery. The Southern States opposed a strong central government, exactly the kind they had fought in the Revolutionary War. That is what the issue was. To stop the formation of the represive dictorial government we have today.
What the Souther States didn’t realize was that when they walked out of Congress they left Congress without a Quorum. That forced Lincoln to illegally convene congress under the Corporation known as The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA under which the Constitution is is a privilege and not a right as we can see today. Which made the South a pawn in creating exactly what they were trying to prevent.
I beleive that everyone is missing the point. Slavery was an underlying issue yes but it was not the cause of the civil war. it actually depends on where you were raised. In the Northern states they teach that slavery was the cause. IN the south it is a totally different issue. while slavery was a problem in the deades before the civil war you have to look deeper. The Federal government versus the Confederate government. With more and more immergrants moving into the industrialized North which for many years had been free or anti-slavery they had more numbers than in the rural south. That means more votes and workers. In the south and most everywhere in the states slaves were considered property thats why we had the 2/3rds comprimise for VOTES. Also with the expansion of America west many farmers wanted move their farms. but the federal government said no. This goes back to a maojor spark of the revolutionary war which was less than a century old. England wanted America to pay for some of the costs of a large military force sent to America to protect them form the french and indians after England won the french nad indian war. America who could afford it at the time said “NO” they didn’t want to. Then you have the Quebec Act which gave part of newly acquired land west of the Appalchians to the french which pissed of the Americans which were told no. So back to the government Styles. The federal government believed that each state had the ablility to govern under a large central government. A confederacy which still believes in a central government, also believes that each state is able to make its own laws and come together under a smaller centralized government. Under this form governmnet Americans would have been able to expand west. Remember that indentured servants were pretty much gone having been replaced by slavery. Also remember that people from north and the south crossed lines to fight for their own beliefs. Slavery was a hot topic of the day just as Health care and the war In Iraq were in 2008. The emmancipation proclomation wasn’t read until after the war started. It was used as propoganda for in the North to rally the union together against the slave owners in the south. But remeber merchantilism which was common up intil Adam Smith wrote his “Wealth of Nations”. Merchantilism was in a nut shell is government control of the economy. Nothing to do with trade with England as Tom stated above about the embargo. I must stop to apologize for my grammaitcal and spelling errors i just really just to lazy to correct them. Slavery was also used in the South as propganda. Some slave owners in the south had freed their slaves and gave them the option to stay on as workers. Slave owners in the South wanted to keep there slaves mainly because NOBODY wanted to work on the farms. If given the chance most people would have moved to the industrialized North were pay was better. If southern plantation owners lost their slaves the wouldn’t have many people working under conditions that were condusive to their income. Remember Virgina was started as a buisness venture. I’m not saying that I agree the aforemetioned. I’m just stating what I’ve come arcoss. I’m also not a racist. Now I know I’ve jumoed all over the place but I’ve tried to cover alot of ground.
“(21) darrell says: The South was ruled by a slave owner aristocracy contrary to the promise of the Constitution: a government of the people”. It is “We the People of the United States” not We the States. The South was a plutocracy inside a democratic republic. Some still seem to want that? Yomen farmers were half the population, but they supported and were ruled by the quarter of the population that owned slaves. The non slave holder farmers were perhaps motivated by desires to be among the rich slave holders, what today might be called “wannebes”.”
“evidence and logic please. Some might want more than mere declaration.”
You wasted a whole lot of space with your strawman. Your own words expose your ignorance of the history on which, at length, expounded.
ok, so i’m just going to throw this out there. Regardless of what you beleive the Civil War was fought over, I think we can all agree that too strong of a central government is not a good thing. So where does that put us as far as Obama buying GM and the healthcare overhaul and even all these new czars?… not to mention the whole bailout thing.
slaves were treated as property. slaveowners got pissed off when the government passed the 2/3 compromise. the premise of this compromise was if you’re going to buy and sell them like property they will be taxed like property. i think those claiming that’s not digging deep enough are just trying to dig a pit of rhetoric to whitewashing the past.
i think i would agree with KT hutch the thrid guy i believe.
i think that there is far more it than just slavery. think about it. for hundreds of years the south has grown up dependent of the north growing up completely different. they had bdifferent values, morals,beliefs and traditions. i think that slaver may have been the straw that broke the camels back but i think that the north and south were already seperate countries. just not in name.
personally i think that the civil war was similiar top the revolution. you had a bunch of farmers who wanted to defend their land and who were going to be hurt financially by the british. in the south you had farmers defending their land because it was going to be hurt financially by the north. \
what is the difference? nothing really i dont support slavery but i think that if a state has the right to do what it wants. after all everything in the united states is about the states. it is in our name, the way we ellect and how we are governed. if a state decides they do not want to vote for a person they say okay because that is their right. BUT if a state should decide to leave the union than that is not their right. our country is built upon the beliefe that it is a government for the people. what if the people want to have a communist government, or they want to have a dictator ship? its what the people want.
the people in the states wanted to leave the union… that was their right.
ok, everybody needs to stop arguing and see that yes, slavery was a big part of the war, but it was not the only reason. getting to the basics is the reason why everybody is arguing. If you look into it, no matter where you are from, you will see that you are almost all right. The south and the north both helped cause the war and just because people had slaves and it’s mostly what you think about when you hear “Civil War”, it does not mean that it was a war over just slavery.
Slavery wasnt THE main cause of the war. it was ONE of them bu no THE cause if you actualy study the war and the peaople in it you would realize slavery was actualy the minor thing init. while now it is the most important thing that came out of it, at the time it wasnt
I’ve heard that the South was selling it’s cotton directly to England which we all know is a fact but also that the Northern States were trying to pass legislation banning the South from doing so. The result would be that the Northern States would become middle men and profit enormously off of the production of cotton and of coarse the Southern States would make less money. For people that don’t think that Lincoln was a tyrant it is important to understand that he was deporting dissenters of his policies to Canada. People that were abolitionists. For things that had nothing to do with slavery. That is a fact. A man that would send an army to invade his own country rather than doing what other countries were doing at the time by buying slaves and setting them free. Kind of ridiculous. The other argument I’m sure that was used at the time is that in a “slave” state if a particular individual didn’t want to have slaves he didn’t have to but had the option. The Federal government wanted to prohibit this option. I don’t think slavery is right personally but the arguments at the time were much different than they are today. People that work for a living today are slaves. The only difference is that you work for money to have shelter and food rather than food and shelter being provided to you. Thomas Jefferson in fact sent a lot of his workers that built his house to school with his own money. Today we call them slaves.
Another interesting fact is that most “slaves” that came to the new world came here as indentured servants the same way the majority of whites got here.
I came into this discussion months late and only hope someone is still reading and writing. I wanted to comment on (75) Ryan’s assertion that most slaves came to the new world as endentured servents.
I am no historian but I am fairly certain that is not correct. Two reasons. First, there were literally millions of African slaves in the United States. By the time of the Civil War most had been born here. For those born here all of their ancestors were imported from elsewhere as slaves.
Endentured servents, although common in the 18th and early 19 century, never reached this number.
Second: An endentured servant and a slave (as we understand slave in terms of African slavery) are not the same thing. An endentured servant was essentially a person contracted to work for someone else for a period of time in order to pay a debt of some kind – in the case of the Americas it was usually (not always) to pay for passage to the New World. Still, endenture is a voluntarily entered it to, period of servitude with a previously agreed to set of conditions and a defined end date.
Slavery on the other hand was entered into at the point of a bayonet (or spear as the case may be). Hardly voluntary. To compare endentured servitude to African slavery is to belittle the great evil that was being committed against Africans and their progeny (and unfortunately in some cases continues today – but that is another story). It also belittles the sacrifice of those in Europe who were so desparate to leave and come to the New World that they voluntarily committed themselves to years of labor without payment.
Of course one can argue that endenture was not really voluntary. After all, the choice between starving to death in Europe and toiling away in N. America isn’t much of a choice. But we could say the same of modern times and people who are sometimes called “wage slaves” – those who live paycheck to paycheck their entire lives and never manage to get ahead. Still – not the same as being enslaved.
One last comment.
I have read in this forum the comments that slavery was a doomed institution. Sure to disappera in 30 – 40 years. Certain to be replaced with cheap machinery and modern production methods. Maybe that is true. But if you were the slave, would you want to wait 30 years (or 30 minutes) to be released from your condition?
In the conflict over slavery there is blame all around. Most of it due to greed and blatant racism. Lincoln himself, in the writings he left behind, often commented that blacks had no real place in America and we inferior to whites in all aspects. Many who resisted abolition did so, not because they thought slavery a good thing but because they feared, if the slaves were freed, an influx of blacks to their states. They feared this for at least two reasons – one, simple fear of having the blacks in their midst and two, fear of having to compete with an influx of cheap laborers. Hard for a worker to compete for a job against someone who was accustomed to working for nothing…..
I am sorry – I don’t have my sources listed but the literature is out there.
I must agree that slavery is the main cause of the civil war. True, most southerners did NOT own slaves (they were small farmers), and most northerners had never seen a slave. But remember, it was the wealthy few who owned slaves, the wealthy few who controlled Southern politics and the wealthy few who were afraid of losing control if slavery was abolished.
Yes, there was a Pro Slavery party (Bob #4) but like many so called 3rd parties with narrow focus, they were insignificant. The wealthy knew that it was not wise to make slavery the main issue as more and more people were questioning the morality of slavery…it would negatively affect their agenda, that is why they focused on States Rights, but make no mistake, this was about Slavery.
Don’t forget the power of human nature. Those poor farmers were happy to know that there were others in the “caste system” that were below them. Speaking in general terms, people want to think they are better than others. The poor southerners were “better” than slaves and many were willing to fight under the banner of States Rights in order to preserve the current social order (with supporting propaganda and prodding by those who were in power in the south at the time). I could go on, as there is sooo much to say on this topic, but it is one of those issues that is polarizing and many have opinions made up and cannot be swayed even if common sense hit them in the face.
The Civil War was the product of nearly 40 years of contention amongst the North and the South. Each region went into the war with high hopes and anticipation. A victory for either side would result in considerable social, economic, and political changes in their favor. Northern industrialists wished to expand their control of American industry, and Southern slaveholders and farmers desired freedom to carry out their “way of life.” It would be an oversimplification, however, to claim that the Civil War was caused simply because of slavery. The disparity in opinion of both the North and the South on the issue of slavery certainly did significantly increase tensions; however, many other factors were in play as far as regional conflict.
In The Second American Revolution, Charles and Mary Beard argue that the Civil War took place particularly to promote the dominance and monopoly of the national economy by Northern industry. They maintained their argument by furthermore claiming that the Civil War was one of primarily social aspects, which resulted in the institution of a new government power, which made vast changes in the areas of hierarchy, wealth distribution, and industry. They called the so-called war the “Second American Revolution” (as the title entails), backed by the claim that the war changed the societal standards of the United States so significantly that it can be considered nothing more then a “social war”. In The Counterrevolution of 1861, James M. McPherson communicates a dissimilar perspective. McPherson focused on the Southern perspective, outlining southerners’ reservations, the act of succession, and the reaction to Lincoln’s election. Whereas Charles and Mary Beard claimed that the Civil War was, in fact, a battle of strictly social affairs, McPherson focused on the political aspects, implying that there was more to the war than social discrepancy. The idea that the Civil War was prompted by more deeply rooted conflicts between the North and the South is one that historians have contemplated for years.
The North and the South had several economic, demographic, and social differences preceding and during the Civil War. The most conspicuous of these is their stance on the issue of slavery. The South relied on the slave trade heavily, and, therefore, wanted it to be preserved, while the North looked castigated it as unconstitutional and ultimately detrimental to the Union. However, it wasn’t just slavery that estranged the regions. The South had a predominantly agrarian and agriculture-based economy, whereas the North focused on industry and manufacturing. Demographically speaking, each region also had very unique populations. By 1870, 1/7 of the United States population was composed of foreign immigrants, a vast majority of whom moved to the North in search of factory jobs. With the economy of the North being generally standardized and consistent (heavily industrial), the social classes were less defined. The South, on the other hand, had a very distinct and unequivocal social hierarchy; there were plantation owners, planters, merchants, and slaves. The demographic divergences between the regions led, naturally, to social discrepancies as well. Northerners desired a central, government-based society, and Southerners campaigned for state rights, and the ability to practice their “way of life” explicitly.
In 1830, Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, signed the Indian Removal Act, which exiled the Cherokee and other eastern Indian tribes westward. This act set a precedent for years of political unrest and tension in the mid-19th century. Nat Turner’s Revolt, the Tariff of 1831, the Texan War for Independence, the Battle of the Alamo, the Trail of Tears, and the Panic of 1837 all took place in the 1830’s alone.
The 1840’s proved to be no less turbulent. From that one decade came the Texas Annexation, the U.S-Mexican War, and the Oregon conflict. Soon after came the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Ostend Manifesto, the Dredd Scott vs. Stanford case, the Panic of 1857, and the Lincoln-Douglass debates, all of which took place during the 1850s. It is clear that over time, the North and the South grew further apart due to political tensions as well.
To say that slavery was the prime and central cause of the Civil War would be fallacious and oversimplified. The North and the South were tremendously different in their economic, demographic, social, cultural, and political backgrounds. Their attitudes and positions in these areas often contrasted and conflicted with one another. Therefore, it was not simply slavery, but further sources of tension in a more deeply rooted conflict between two distinct regions that caused the Civil War.
when you look back at the issue of the Civil War even Lincoln said himself that if he could keep the Union together without freeing a single slave he would the top issue of the Civil War was keeping the Union together.
The Civil War started because Lincoln violated the 10th Amendment. All the other reasons stated by others are valid as well, but those arguments stem from Lincoln’s steadfast desire to violate the 10th Amendment and invade, conquer, and assimilate the Confederate States of America (CSA). Thomas Jefferson would have sided with the CSA.
A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT (from <a href="http://jimostrowski.com/articles/secession.html)
Those still harboring doubts about the constitutionality of secession in 1861 should attempt a sincere answer to the question: would the Constitution, as construed by President Lincoln and his allies in all eras, have been ratified in 1788? To answer this question, we must first make explicit those provisions Lincoln and his successors thought were implicit in the Constitution. For the sake of realism, these provisions will be organized in the form of an imaginary Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution.72 Such an amendment would read as follows:
(Imaginary) Amendment XI
Section 1. Notwithstanding the Guarantee Clause and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, no state may ever secede from the Union for any reason, except by an amendment pursuant to Article V.73
Section 2. If any State attempts to secede without authorization, the Federal Government shall invade such State with sufficient military force to suppress the attempted secession.
Section 3. The Federal Government may require the militias of all states to join in the use of force against the seceding State.
Section 4. After suppressing said secession, the Federal Government shall rule said State by martial law until such time as said State shall accept permanent federal supremacy and alter its constitution to forbid future secessions.
Section 5. After suppressing said secession, the Federal Government shall force said State to ratify a constitutional amendment which gives the Federal Government the right to police the states whenever it believes those states are violating the rights of their citizens.
Section 6. The President may, of his own authority, suspend the operation of the Bill of Rights and the writ of habeas corpus, in a seceding or loyal state, if in his sole judgment, such is necessary to preserve the Union.74
This imaginary amendment contains a fair summary of what Lincoln thought the Constitution ratified in 1788 had to say implicitly about state secession. Would the Constitution have been ratified if it contained such an amendment? Would that amendment have been ratified at any time between 1788 and 1861? The answer to both questions, according to any intellectually honest historian or constitutional lawyer, must be a resounding “No!” If that is the case, however, then the dense fog made up of equal parts of Websterian metaphysics and Lincolnesque legalese disintegrates to reveal the truth of Albert Jay Nock’s thesis: the Constitution of 1788 did indeed expire in 1861.
Summary. In 1861, the Constitution did not authorize the federal government to use military force to prevent a state from seceding from the Union. The Constitution established a federal government of limited powers delegated to it by the people, acting through their respective states. There is no express grant to the federal government of a power to use armed force to prevent a secession and there is no clause which does so by implication. To the contrary, the notion of the use of armed force against the states and the subsequent military occupation and rule of the states by the federal government does violence to the overall structure and purpose of the Constitution by turning the servant of the states into their master. Any doubts about whether the federal government had such a power must be resolved in favor of the states since the Ninth and Tenth Amendments explicitly reserve the vast residue of powers and rights to the states and to the people of those states.
In response to 77. You can look up the history. The fact is most blacks came to America the same way most whites did, as indentured servants. I’m not sure if most of them just never left the plantations they worked for or what but that is the fact. We all know that the history textbooks are written by the victors. Why is it that every American feels as though every war we have won was righteous and justified? What better way to make the Federal Government look justified for invading the States that created it for no other reason than to abolish the evil institution of slavery. Now in response to 76. You are a slave. As long as the Federal Reserve exists you are a slave. The money you hold in your hand is nothing more than debt that you must at some point pay back to the Federal Reserve with interest. If you do not they have the right to take your home, to imprison you, to take away your entire life. Whether you think you really own your possessions or not doesn’t change the fact that since the Civil war the Federal government has enslaved all of us by making us it’s property through the issuance of a birth certificate (Title of ownership), social security number etc. And if you don’t follow their rules they can do whatever they want to you. The “New Deal” put you up as collateral on the debt that the Federal Government owes. However, that was besides the original point. Soon when America turns totally Communist we will all be slaves because we will work for the government and will have everything provided to us by the government. It’s a sad sight. At least if the Confederacy would have won there may have been enough competition between the two countries to keep us from moving towards Communism. In response to again to 77. If the Confederacy would have won we could be almost certain that slavery in North America would have ended shortly thereafter. But remember one of the biggest reasons for the Ku Klux Klan and other bitter feelings towards blacks that raged for the following century wasn’t because blacks had been freed but because the Southern States was forced to free them. If they hadn’t been forced to do it and had latter done it on their own we may have seen a much better 20th century without the fierce rivalry?
All other issues were a derivative of slavery. As Darrell states, when you look at the face of each of the many points outlined throughout this string, you see the most of the points contain slavery in some way. That being said, from there it depends on view. All may agree slavery was part of each issue, but some would call it minor (likely Caucasian or southern) whereas others would call it major (likely northern, westerners or minorities). As history has shown – wars are almost always for religion or money, but the defining wars which transfer power are more often than not for imperialistic or religious reasons. Slaves have been taken since BC, and in each case, slaves or other nations have freed those slaves at the downfall of the enslaving nation. In our case, the enslaving nation (the seceding south) fell to ruin and has, some would argue, never recovered to the extent of the north and western regions of the US. Slavery was the major issue, other issues were derivative issues. It’s uncomfortable for many to admit this.
The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.
Taken from the Georgia Declaration of Independence… Not one of these facts has to do with slavery.
It is good to see someone who realizes that the Civil War was not just about slavery. It had multiple causes.
A lot of different perspectives here. Slavery? I must ask this question then. On what date was the Emancipation Proclamation delivered to the public by Abraham Lincoln?
(sometime in 1863 I think)? That would be taking into consideration that the actual first shots were fired in 1861, and also that the war ended in 1864. I have to agree with Danielle’s assessment, although I do not see Wikipedia as a good source of reliable information. As with all wars since, Money seems to fuel gargantuan industrial growth/profits, of the ones that make war supplies. I’ll have to believe that money was the primary cause. And Yes, this is a declaration of my own opinions.
Buck, the war ended in April of 1865.
Buck,
Good observation. The fact is that the North was getting its ass kicked in the beginning of the war. Lincoln thought that if the slaves saw that he wanted to free them than it would cause an uprising in the south and the blacks would kill a lot of Lincoln’s enemy to help him win the war. This never happened by the way.
Slavery was barely an issue. it was mostly states rights tariffs and taxes economic differences. i am young but among my family and freinds and some people i only meet once i am considered an expert on the civil war
All top five causes mentioned in this article as causes for the U.S. civil war are really just related subtopics of the main and real cause of the war. The one and only reason for the civil war was the issue of Negro slavery.
Slave production of cotton was the driving labor force that fueled the economies of both the North and South. Southern slave holders grew cotton and sold it raw at great profits to Northern textile manufacters who bought it, turned into clothing and other textile products and sold for great profits.
Western and Southern expansion in the U.S. was pushed by Slave Power businessmen and politicians to extend the production of cotton and other slave grown agricultural products into Texas, the conquered Mexican territories and American Indian ancestrial lands in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas.
“Manifest Destiny” was nothing more than a slogan to justify and perpetuate the underlying white European settlors’ attitude of superiority, military power and dominance over the other races of people who also inhabited the land from sea to shining sea.
The issue of States rights was fundamentally about the rights of States to legalize slavery without federal intervention in the exercise of the right. The state’s right issue was also about property rights in human beings. Slaves were by virtue of the federal supreme law of the land mere chattel property. Slave holders in states where slavery existed insisted that their state right to negro property was constitutional, absolute and free from the federal goverment’s interference.
The hundreds of thousands of military and cvilian deaths that occurred durng the civil war were caused becuase the nation had come to point on the issue of slavery that the only way the issue was going to be resolved was by bloodshed. No other national issue has had such an impact of the nation.
In order for the war to have been about slavery, the North as well as Lincoln would have had to be against slavery and they weren’t. Therefore slavery being the cause of the war isn’t even logical.
People in the North owned slaves. In fact, they also owned ships that went to Africa and brought the slaves here. They greatly profited off of the slave trade.
Lincoln was all for deporting all freed slaves.
He said that they southern states could keep their slaves if they would just come back to the union.
In the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln has been credited as freeing the slaves. First of all, under the Constitution no President has the authority to make a unilateral decision. Secondly, if you actually read it, you will find that he only freed the slaves in the states in which he had no authority to do so since they had lawfully seceded from the union.
Neither Stonewall Jackson nor Robert E. Lee owned slaves. Ulysses S. Grant did not free his slaves until forced to do so by the thirteenth amendment.
Has anyone thought to check the price of cotton being sold to Europe and the price that the north was trying to force the south to except?
Also the tariffs being imposed on the shipping of all goods the south was sending to Europe.
The south was selling to the highest bidder, which at that time was Europe. The northern industrialized states refused to pay that amount. This was another aspect that is very seldom discussed when the “CIVIL WAR” comes up.
The race card needs to be put back in the deck. I do not favor slavery in the least and feel that it was one of the most horrifying things that this nation has ever sponsored in any form or fashion, but i feel that if history is to be taught to our children and grandchildren it should be the truth and without bias.
Abraham Lincoln was not anti-slavery in any way shape or form I even have a quote to prove it “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.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 do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do it” – Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was not ANti-slavery he really did not care about slavery his only really motive was to save the union.
Slavery was only one cause of the Civil War. The Republican party formed before the Civil War supported economic changes and higher tariffs. They thought it would benefit American industry, which was in the north.
Democrats feared that the north would overthrow the south’s economy, so then here comes the Civil War.
That’s all of it in a nutshell.
All wars need a righteous reason to start. No governemt wants to start a war for the expressed reason to tax or control or dominate others. The Crusades we for the noble cause of freeing the Holy Land but was actually a land grabbing looting crusade to gain land and wealth. When Hitler went after southern Europe it was because of “saving native Germans from oppression”. We went to war with Iraq the 1st time because of babies being taken out of their warm cribs and put on cold concrete floors (never found to be true), the 2nd time because of weapons of mass destruction (never found), in Vietnam one of our frigates was “attacked” (found out we did everything we could to bait the North Vietnameese into a fight), and on and on. All these and others are examples of righteous causes to cover the real reasons to start a war or invoke ones superiority over another. One more thought on this topic, at the time of the War of Northern Agression, most of the Union troops were fighting the American Indians to take away their lands and those battles all were draped with righteous causes to sell to the American people.
It is also interesting to note, once the North (who was trying to control the trade of Soutern cotton to Europe) effectively blockaded and cut off the flow of cotton to Europe, Egyptian cotton (and other cotton from the Middle East) was now the main source of cotton to the European textile mills and the cost of that cotton went up by a conservative factor of 10! The first Middle East cartel.
I agree with the earlier post slavery was on it’s way out. The plantations were not using their land wisely by using crop rotation. Plant disease, the stripping of soil nutrients, and pests were startiing to reduce the harvest anyway, not to mention mechanization was coming to reduce and finally do away with slaves. As posted many times earlier, not all the cotton was grown with the use of slaves. The slavery issue was meerly a popular ruse to gain support to fight the south to take the cotton trade money from the hands of the wealthy southern plantation owners and put it ithe hand of the wealthy money men of the north.
Most people believe slaves had a lot to do with the civil war and they did. Without the slaves the north and the south would have never fought and we would not have justice now. Also, a lady name Chandra Manning also believe slaves had a huge impact on the war.
Lincoln said if he could bring the South back into the union without freeing a single slave, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it. BTW, someone earlier mentioned that Lincoln owned slaves. That is false, he never owned slaves. His wife’s family owned slaves, but never Lincoln. As far as slavery being the main reason for the war, ask yourself this question: If the South had not seceded and fired on Fort Sumter, would Lincoln (or Congress) have sent U.S. soldiers to free the slaves? No.
Of course slavery was an issue, and it had been a political one since the Declaration. The first anti-slavery societies were formed (in Philadelphia) in 1775, and sentiment against it was very strong (even in parts of the South) but, as a cause for the war, it was secondary. The cause of the war was secession and the initiation of hostilities by the South.
Great topic, but I just wonder, what would of have happened if the South would of have won?
i have to disagree laurence bird. Kaurence states the top 5 causes of slavery seem to mostly consist of slavery when in actuality he is partially right but not so much. througgout the many papers i have analyzed there are few yet some conclusions one could come to. the top 5 causes of the civil war are 1) slavery- but this includes the fugitive slave law, the trancontinental railroad and the comprramise of 1850 2)
Hello, i need help on this, this is a very hard disigion to make but i need this answer asap… so i know this a stupid question and the answer is probly be here somewheres but i dont have that much time to spair i need to know who started the war and how? email me the answer PLZ at elizabeth.bermudez@yahoo.com thanks very much …xoxo lizzy
I think that nothern people was just plain jealous and hated people in the South
i do not find the #1 (of the 5 listed) reason to be compelling reason based on the information listed. Darrell seems to know his facts. Lincoln did not owned slaves. He campaigned against slavery. The South started the war and fought most effectively for the first several years. It seems to me that slavery was the primary reason for the war.
Omg yall right 2 much i was tring to read them all but there is to much and like if yall know anything eles keep on commenting i will totally check them out but just plzzz i need everyones help b4 next FRI. cause thats when my project on this stuff is due and yeah i luv histroy but this is just BORING cause im north for the war and i have to take adn come up with reasons to make my teacher pick our group so we can go on a histroy flied trip and seriously i really could kinda kare less cause flied trips r not my thing and PLZ AND THANK YEW PEEPS
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I LUVEB ALL YEW PEEPS WHO CAN AND WILL HELP ME <3
number one reason for civil war. have you ever watched the Mayer of chicago’s tv show-jerry springer?ever notice that all guests are southern retards.have you ever heard a new york or new england accent on one of his shows? my 10 year old nieces are taught in their catholic school in michigan, how backwards southern people are. all northerners still believe all southerners are trash, still to this day.i work in new york and deal with sectionalism every day.its still alive and well.i also have not seen any post here mention the issue of a solution to slavery. what do you do with a million freed slaves? turn them loose like dogs in the street? lincoln felt they should be deported to the caribbean islands ,south america[were they would still be slaves],or africa[were they would be enslaved by the africans that enslaved them to begin with]. for the most part,slave owners loved and took care of their slaves and did not wish harm on them.of course the final solution was to turn them loose in a ravaged country.
I’m not a racist. There is inter-racial marriage in my own family and they are wonderful. But, I’m a student of American history and it irritates me no end that giant assumptions are made irroneously about the causes of the civil war. First, it was not the plantation owners who imported slaves in the beginning. It was northern industrialists. The slaves were then bought by the plantations from the northerners. But, slavery never had anything to do with the civil war at all until the war was half over. The primary reason the war started was the northern states levying tarriffs on the southern plantation owners for their sale of textile resources (mostly cotton and flax) to the northern industries. The southern states complained but to no avail. So, the plantation owners began to sell their products to Europe instead of the northern states and dried up the supply of resources to the textile industry. The north was very angry and convinced the federal government to put a stop to it through federal law. This sparked the secession of South Carolina, and then other sourthern states followed. Not until 1863 when the south was winning the way did the north decide to use the morale issue of owning humans as a way to fire up the masses. The beginning of the end for the south was in 1864 with Sherman’s march to the sea where they burned every building, killed every farm animal, every old man, every woman, and every child for a 100 mile swath right through the middle of Georgia. This left nothing for many of the southen soldiers to return home to, and they started to lay down their guns and give up. This was a very immorale method of ending the war. When someone tells about the causes of the war, they should get their facts straight.
This martin kelly looks like a fagget!
Stop fooling yourselves, people. Slavery, hidden by the rhetoric of states rights, was the reason the south seceded.
Southerners argued that the right to own slaves was the right of the state goverment to decide, not the federal government. The southern state goverments were sympathetic to slave holders and wanted their slave societies to survive.
And who could blame them? Not only were slaves making southern whites rich through their labor, but the actual ownership was a source of personal net worth like a rental property or a car. The thought of loosing so much wealth instantly with emancipation (4 million X $1200 each) was potentially devastating to rich white folks and the entire slave based economy (shackle makers, cotton gin makers, etc.)
I agree with an original post that all five of the authors causes tie in with the slavery argument. And I think the author must be either naive or unable to synthesize his own information if he is unable to see that slavery and economics were were the core reasons for secession and the beginning of the civil war.
One more reason for the south’s secssion… DEMOCRACY STOPPED WORKING FOR THEM.
In democracies, majorities rule and since the north had the majority, they ruled. So when laws and eventually a president was voted in when no southern state wanted them in, the south decided they should leave.
Yep. Yankees/apes are still trash. Always have been & always will be.
You are all aware that the civil war is over and has been for quite some time, correct? What reason is there to argue over the cause of something that can not be changed? It is in the past; why prolong the divisions that caused and were caused by this atrocity? Move on and accept that the modern world is more important. Break down the barriers of hate and live with one another as God intended.
As a historian and avid student of the Civil War I want to leave a few facts to help clarify some of the misinformation being spread in these comments. Lets start with the simple: 1. To the best of my knowledge, Neither Lincoln nor Grant ever owned slaves. Lincoln’s family was much too poor when he lived in KY, and when he turned 7 they moved to IN and later IL, neither of which were slave states. Grant was living in Ohio at the time the war broke out and had nothing to do with politics, He was failing as a businessman. 2. The Emancipation Proclamation was a move of political expedience on Lincoln’s part. Had it included the states of MD, MO, KY, slave states he had miraculously kept in the Union, those states would have probably revolted at that point, throwing their lot in with the Confederacy. If you want to know what Lincoln really thought of slavery, you cannot look at his Presidency. By that point he had learned how to be politic. In his earlier campaigns he was very clear that he felt slavery was an evil that needed to come to an end. Not strictly an abolitionist, he was anti-slavery, and the South knew this. 3. The issue of slavery is tantamount to all other causes of the Civil War. In actuality, most of the other differences could have been compromised away, and in many cases had. Slavery, and to a greater extension its expansion and the political power it brought, was the one issue upon which the two sides had reached an impasse. It was THE state’s right in question. It was the basis of deep South economy, and although it may have eventually dissolved over time, there was no guarantee to that, and the issue had boiled over in 1860. The South was no longer willing to wait. If you want proof of the South’s adherence to slavery, read the Confederate Constitution, which makes the protection of slavery one of its major tenets, or read the following excerpt from a speech from A. Stephens, the southern V.P. “The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted.
Stephens went on to say
(Jefferson’s) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. … Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.” If you still do not think it was about slavery, think again. It was only after the fact that the Southern cause of states’ rights and independence come to the forefront, after they realized that most people had come to view slavery as a moral evil. It was a way of deflecting criticism and reclaiming “southern glory.” Problem is, it just ain’t so. 4. Finally, this divide goes back a whole hell of a lot longer than most people realize. The ideological split occurred when the first two English colonies were founded. In 1607, a group of wealthy Englishmen, members of The Church of England, loyaly to King James, founded the settlement of Jamestown in the colony of Virginia. They had come as part of a business venture. They were here to make money. They had ties to the old Cavaliers of England (hence, the U. of Virginia Cavaliers). 13 years later, their opposite, the Puritans/Pilgrims, brought their largely shunned style of religion (it was a little odd) to New England to found Plymouth Plantation. They were industrious, highly moralistic, and owned slaves; but it was a religion based largely on guilt, and that guilt eventually led to the view that slavery was evil, and it was abolished in the North, where by 1776 some 75% of the population had some Puritan ancestry. They had left England largely because they wanted to be free to practice their religion (although they prohibited others) without the persecution of the gov’t, King James, and the Church of England. A few hundred miles away, living totally different lives, for totally different reasons, were the same people they were running from in England. All else stems from this. By the time 1776 rolls around, these two groups are no closer together in mind. The South wants a loose coalition of states with strong state gov’ts. The North wants strong Federal controls. The South wants a bucolic agrarian society. The North is on the path to industrialization. But it is slavery that becomes the hot button issue. Jefferson, a slave owner, but not a believer in slavery (he would share that opinion with R.E. Lee) wrote a clause into the Declaration of Independence condemning tha practice of slavery. The deep South threatened to walk out of the Continental Congress and kill the Declaration if it was not removed. Jefferson relented, and slavery continued another 89 years. By that point, those original “Cavaliers” had spread out to become the aristocracy of the southern planter class, and they held all the power. Most poor whites in the South despised and were envious of the planter class, but were still subservient to them. Still, when war came, there were many in the South who disagreed with the direction the wealthy planters were taking them. Indeed, there were some who disagreed so vehemently, they not only protested, but fought AGAINST their southern neighbors, declaring their own independence (i.e. Jones Cty. MS) In an interesting twist of hypocrisy, many of these people were persecuted and executed for treason by a South founded on the “right to secede.” There you have it. Yes there are many causes to the Civil War, but by far, the overriding one is the issue of slavery; but over the century and a half since the end of the war, we have been asked to forget this, partially to allay blame for the war, partially for healing, partially to cleanse the soul of an entire region. But to the best of my knowledge, none of the southern slaveholders are still alive. The South should no longer feel the guilt of slavery, even though both blacks and whites will have to deal with its consequences for a long time to come. And yes, there is plenty of racism to spread around, north, south, east and west, and that is the real cleansing that needs to occur. Now for a few lesser know facts of the war. 1. A number of blacks fought alongside their masters for the southern “cause.” 2. There were actually a number of free blacks in the south who owned their own slaves. 3. Andrew Johnson, V.P. of the Union, was one of those poor whites from TN who despised yet sought the approval of the planter class, hence the failure of Reconstruction. 4. Contrary to popular belief, neither Billy Yank nor Johnny Reb were all that fired up about marching off to war. The desertion rate on both sides of the war was astronimical.
I honestly believe that there are a few main reasons that caused the civil war. But, slavery was barely one of them. I think that slavery helped to have the war progess quickly and also gave the north another reason to be against them. The main reasons that really made it begin would be states rights and the federal government, also the massive difference in beliefs in the north and south.
Incase people had not realized this, the north is taught correctly that the primary cause of the civil war is, indeed, slavery; While the south is taught that the primary cause of the civil war is states rights. No matter what point of view a scholar takes, there is unmistakable evidence that states rights is a cover up the south invented, simply meaning that they wanted slavery and did not want that taken away. Simply stating this placed them in bad light, however, and thus they used states rights as a cover. The ONLY states right the south was worried about was the freedom to own enslaved people at the states will.
Rather hilarious fact: I see more southern hate than northern hate in the comments here, and while those southerners claim to be just as intelligent as the northerners commenting here, their grammar is incorrect, they generally cannot spell, their sentence structure is poor, and they have little idea what they are talking about. Not to say the north isn’t full of idiots as well, the south is simply pathetically poorly ‘edumacated’ (pronounced edge-oo-mugh-cate-ed)
Wow scholar, you argue that the south is just trying to justify their evil ways, while you take the “correct” teaching of the north as your own, and claim the southern posters are less intelligent and nastier, all the while looking down your oh so superiorly educated nose. Which side are more “hate” posts coming from? Definitely count yours as one. Way to show respect – since you seem to think it’s better to be on the “side against slavery” (which is a joke since the north didn’t free their slaves) – shouldn’t you be more respectful of others, even if they don’t share your opinion (or culture, or skin color, etc.)? I mean, you’ve declared yourself on the higher thinking do-right-by-humanity side of the argument so it only makes sense, right?
To 76- plenty of indentured servants got on the boat because the only other option was death – or jail if they were lucky. I know folks want to think they have more rights to claim worst ancestorial treatment, but I can’t say I’d rather live the life of either. While slaves had a knife at their backs -with another black on the other end of that knife, by the way, and it’s STILL going on over there – many indentured servants had the same choice – go or die, with a white person on the other end of the knife in their backs. But you don’t hear their descendents reminding everyone ad naseum about the horrible treatement their ancestors suffered.
Slavery is wrong – then and today. And so is trying to pretend your way of thinking is superior to every one elses’. Both sides have valid arguments – much of the south’s economics depended on slavery at that time, but then the north wasn’t oppossed to that cheap labor either, so let’s stop pretending that being on one side or the other is more humanitarian or ethically correct. Ending slavery in the south was a tool Lincoln used just like blockades and embargos are still used today. Let’s be thankful we’re beyond slavery in this country at least in so far as enslaving a certain color of skin. Human trafficking still exists…. So can we put all this energy towards ending that, along with our high levels of self-righteousness?
It would appear History repeats itself once more, keep you powder dry, as the Obama sleigh ride has meerly begun
Everybody thinks the reason the civil war was started is because of slavery, and yes thats part of the reason but there are many many more reasons.
Hmm. war over slavery? Yes. duh. Name specific reasons y the war was fought OTHER than slavery. dnt just say “power, money, federal vs states’ rights” Name reasons. n btw this is about the CIVIL WAR, not grammar. so stop being so stuck up n tlking bout the way people write their knowledge/opinions. Plz n Thnx!<3
I 100% agree w/ lexy on the whole grammar thing. As long as you can read it who cares the way it is spelled! people these days are soooo competitive its sickening. ooooppss my bad i forgot to capitalize people! myyy baaaddd!!
After reviewing all the comments about the Civil War, one thing is prevalent. Southerners now want to change history and state that the Civil War was about states rights only. Many books have been written (by Southerners to detail the Civil War) and not once was state rights the main reason for the war. AMAZING!!!
I wish you could be HONEST. The Civil War and your so called reasons for the war are dishonest. The United States never gained anything by being fair and honest. Everything Southerners have were gained through deceit and treachery. I know, I am a Southerner. All this talk about the Civil War is about the Southerners way of stating the fact that they hate that we have a black president. BE HONEST!!!!. There was no succession talk when Bush was president and he screwed this country royally.
The phrase you Southerners use is ridiculous. “We want our country back” You had 8 years to do so. Bush never tackled the economic issues of this country and now we find ourselves in a quandry, and you want to blame Obama and take back the country.
What a crock of S@%t. But what do you expect from a group of Southerners who still relish in dishonesty and deceit and above all wish to celebrate a war they lost.
AMAZING!!!!
With all the talk recently of Confederates as great American heroes and how slavery really wasn’t that big of a factor in why the Civil War occurred, I would simply point to the Declaration of Independence for South Carolina. First off, in the very first paragraph, it doesn’t refer to the other states equally oppressed by the federal government as oppressed states but rather as “other slaveholding States”. Why that single distinction among an alleged plethora of other reasons? Because it was the most important. Look at their gripes, every single one of them involved slavery. Mostly that slaves would go to northern states and not be sent back to their masters in the south. How is that not about slavery? Come on folks, the Confederate Union should not be celebrated. They advocated for not only slavery but treason as well as to keep slavery.
Why that only one distinction?
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it was states’ rights. and i am right.
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How can you say seceding was treason? Not celbrating the south and the confederacy is the same exact thing as not celebrating the American Revoltuion and Indepedence from Britain, some people really dont get things. Im Pretty sure that 11 southern states would’nt secede for slavery or for some lame reason, it was a pretty great reason and I would have done the same. Oppressive taxes, denial of the states’ rights to govern their states, and an unrepresentative federal government pushed the Southern states to legally withdraw from the Union.
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So… which of these is a reason for it other than slavery?
(112) Scholar: You said “States’ Rights” is a cover up invented by the south to disguise the true reason for the Civil War. You claim that there is unmistakable evidence to prove this. I must be “poorly edumacated,” because I haven’t seen much historical evidence to prove your theory. (Other than one speech by the VP of the Confederacy and the declaration of independence of one state, both repeated over and over by posters here.)
By contrast I could just as easily say that Slavery is just a cover up used by the north to disguise their desire for more federal control. I could also point to the emancipation proclamation as evidence. With support for the war poor among the people of the North, Lincoln needed a rallying cry to prove his cause was just. It also helped stop the British from contributing to the South.
My point is that we both look to justify our own way of thinking, but here is what we can truly say from historical record. The North and South saw things very differently. The South had for decades (rightly or wrongly) felt as if the North was discriminating against them. The North (rightly or wrongly) felt that the south yielded too much economic power in relation to population. The Federal government levied tariffs on goods from the South. Both were concerned about expansion to the western territories for a myriad of reasons and had dissenting opinions on the matter. Slavery (especially in new territories to the west) may have been the eventual powder keg for the South, but was most likely (opinion) the last straw in a list of complaints. By contrast, the slavery issue had been virtually ignored officially in the north( because of dissenting opinions among northerners) until the emancipation proclamation which may have been (opinion) the turning point in the war for the North.
Moral of the story: North won. South lost.
Slavery ended
Federal government became more powerful.
It’s all history and subject to interpretation.
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i agreee with all of these a little bit except for the reetards that cant take this importiant stuff seriously!!! 4 rill im out peace!
yall need to show what realy happend in the war
Abolitionists started the civil war!
is someone actually gonna read this ? im resaerching for a social studies project and … yeaah (:
The primary cause of the
American Civil War was the fight over the existance and expansion of slavery. Martin Kelly shoiuld not be taken seriously.
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The battle of Fort Sumter is said to have initiated the bloodiest war in American history! On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beaureguard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender os the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War. Although there were no casualties during the bombardment, one Union artillerist was killed and three wounded when a cannon exploded prematurely when firing a salute during the evacuation on April 14. And that was the start of the Civil War.
The Civil War was said to have started for the fight against slavery. There is actually 5 main reasons that lead up to the Civil War. The first one is Economic and social difference between the north and south. The second is states vs. federal rights. The fight between slave and non-slave state Proponents. Growth of the Abolition Movement. And the final reason was, The election of Abraham Lincoln.
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im just glad its over! who cares what started it! We just gotta say “hell yeah its over”!!! am i right?
I agree with missie.
i dissagree with missie and Mr. Smith, it does matter because all the south put us through and we even treated them fairly until the betrayed us.
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Nice summary Audrey.
One of the reasons that Fort Sumter could not defend itself properly was that its gun faced away from Charleston. The sides facing the city contained the barracks.
Fanemine, it does matter and war takes two sides. It was the North that invaded the South. The North burned southern cities, homes, businesses, and farms. They devastated the southern economy. The North occupied the South as if in a foriegn nation. After the war, Union soldiers could receive pensions for their injuries. Southern soldiers got nothing. It does matter who started it. And the us, is all Americans.
And I am only 6.
I think the civil war started from the north and the south against slavery and when aberham lincoln was lected in 1860 he was against slavery i bet the south were feurious because lincoln was against slavery i think slavery and the cotton gen was the main reson…. THE NORTH VS THE NORTH
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Anyways, I thought that the three main reasons were
a)slavery
b)states rights
c) economy
That’s what I put on my U.S. History Homework anyway, but what I mean by economy is that the North didn’t like having the South just leave and start their own confederancy and they wanted power, so that’s one reason.
Hopefully, I’m at least PRETTY close…
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I’m just glad it’s over!
i like this website. it gives some really good info. I think lincoln only released the slaves because the north was getting their butt’s kicked.
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Billy at the top mispelled “Secede”
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seriously, the main cuases of the civil war were the economic and social diferences between the northand south, states and federal rights, proponents, the growth and abolition movement, and the election of Abraham Lincoln.
Come n everyone, you are missing the most basic point. The cause of the Civil War was the invasion of the South by the troops from the United States army. Had the South been allowed to legally leave the union, which was and is still every state’s right, there would have never been a civil war.
No war has ever been fought for the good of man. The war was correctly stated as being the War of Northern Aggression. The North coveted the South’s resources.
Slavery had nothing to do with the civil war…
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.”-Abraham Lincoln
Just take a look at the first line…
It just totally messed with my mind for a little while
Actually, slavery was not one of the main causes of the Civil War. It was one of the SURFACE causes. Not a very influencial cause. The causes were actually state politics, not very much having to do with slavery. That quote by Abraham Lincoln should explain it pretty well.
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1)slavery
2)succesion
3)states rights
4)economy
The common denominator then and now is consistent. It’s all about the money folks. Greed.
The situation leading up to the Civil War was known as “The Sectionalist Contraversy “, whereby many issues were brought forth to be resolved at the federal level. The sections were: the north,the south and the west. The south and west were not as heavily populated as the north and as such they had less representation from their regions at the federal level which gave the north the most weight as decisions were voted on in the house and the senate. Thus, a balance could not be achieved amongst the sections that each deemed favorable to its specific regions needs and desires. Mary Todd Lincoln was from a family of southern slave owners and was pretty much outed from her family for marrying a man that did not look favorably on owning slaves. I don’t believe Abe Lincoln owned slaves. That is historically incorrect.
Tom nailed it (56): “People go to war when their way of life, their place in the world is threatened. When their economy is about to be turned upside down…. Fear of poverty. Fear of revenge. That’s what starts wars.”
What gives me chills as I read these arguments back and forth (on both sides) is that I fear we are heading for another civil war right now because we are still missing this truth. People on the right and the left right now are so polarized and I’ve heard many people openly state that “revolution is coming.”
Why? We could cite all kinds of reasons like urban vs. rural, state’s rights (still!), racism, big vs. small government – but the real reason is still that people feel their way of life is being threatened, and politicians and pundits on both sides feed and exploit this fear for their own benefit. Until we learn to listen to each other and stop spouting our beliefs as ultimate truths, I fear we are doomed to repeat history.
Slavery had quite less a factor than our educational system has alluded to. Some of the states in the Union were slave states; Abraham Lincoln also stated that if he could end the war without freeing one slave that he would. The real reason for the war was the South wanting Independence from the North that was trying to implement a new form of governance. This happened with the 3 Reconstruction Acts, the 14th Amendment and the true loss of our Constitutional Republic. For reference see letter by Governor Jonathan Worth July 1st, 1868, review the Unconstitutionality of the 14th Amendment, Jefferson Davis and his plea for a trial he never received; having been released after being unlawfully held for two years and simply released. Allow this to begin your studies into true history; then make your decision. Slavery may have been an object of the war, but it wasn’t the main reason. Ask yourself why now under Title 28 U.S. Code of the, the government is now by law considered a “Federal Corporation.”
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The issue of Federal vs State powers over economic rule were the main cause of the civil war.
In Canada you have a central government that up until very recently pretty much allowed Ontario, the largest province by population, to treat lesser provinces as colonies. Seperation, or succession, is a very real threat from Quebec and the western provinces.
Allthough slavery was never as exstensive in Canada as the US the desire of Ontario to profit from the resourses of the other provinces caused various trade and shipping regulations to be enacted over time that were injurious to other regions.
Many in Canada see the same economic problems the South had with the North occuring here.
Seems southerners hate to include slavery at all in Civil War talks. States Rights! The right to have slavery, and make more money from slavery, and not buy northern crap which was more expensive. Lincoln didn’t own slaves personally but married a girl from a big slave owning family. He had a passive aggressive approach to abolition by not allowing anymore slave states he aimed to eventually dissolve slavery at first. Even though all these people love to say it wasn’t over slavery, nearly everything they mentioned involved slavery…… Interesting
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It’s funny Jasper how northerners never want to admit that slavery may NOT have been the main cause. If Lincoln wanted to end slavery, why not make it illegal in Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland with the Emancipation Proclamation? If the South fought for Slavery alone, why did only 20 percent of the population own them? If there were no other reasons for the war, why was Lincoln elected without a single Southern state’s vote?
And to your statement about Southerner’s wanting to make more money by using slaves. The North invaded the South, not vice versa. Look at the South now. This is exactly what the federal government had in mind when they decided to invade us. Let’s make as much money as possible. All the South wanted was to be left alone.
All I have to do is post this quote:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
Alexander H. Stephens
March 21, 1861
Savannah, Georgia
(Vice President of the Confederacy)
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Good debates, everyone. however, I have opinion that this was too simplificated. It may be good when it had more details. However, it was good to see because there was only ket points.
The war wasn’t fought for freedom but for money!!!! It was the European bankers that needed the war so they could take over the state banks,centralize them and issue money and credit.Just look at history of money and banking and the evil forces behind it.One of the best source of information dealing with the topic of warfare,greed and money is this great book
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**Cornerstone of Confederacy** speech given by the Vice President of the Confederacy –said the Confederacy secession was about Slavery
All the secession letters from the states that seceded stated the seceded because of slavery
The Confederate generals after they lost the war created the first KKK, see Nathan Bedford Forrest
States rights **B.S.** was started after the war by Edward Pollard and Jefferson Davis as part of the Lost Cause mindset that has poisoned the minds of people of the south…. To have them deflect slavery and pretend to have fought for another reason–which isn’t true
Slavery is what their economy was built around, see Reconstruction era
Look at the differences between the US Constitution and the Confederate Constitution. The Confederacy ensures the continuation of slavery and put limits on the length of presidency. Supply Side interests pushed toward session and those 80% of the population that didn’t own slaves got caught up in it. People in Alaska have recently brought up session. Obama, unlike Lincoln, would not approve of maintaining slavery in slave states and feel the only long term answer is to send blacks back to Africa. But he is similar in that he will defend The Union. Tea Party activists are caught up in the Supply Side wanting to maintain status quo. Lets see how this one plays out.
all five reasons given are related to slavery.
I’m not certain why people protest that slavery was a (if not THE) main reason for the Civil War. I think many people would like to think that Americans in the South are not so heartless that the evils of slavery were lost on them. I liken this to the way some Germans must feel about the atrocities of the World War II. None the less, both Notherners and Southerners manipulated slavery for their own benefit. The very existence of 36′ 30′ dictates that the US government was well aware of and had documented and maintained slavery lines in America. The very shape of Texas was modified due to slavery lines. While there are certainly other elements to consider, slavery is always the BIG elephant in the room.
Personally i disagree with the statement that slaves were the cause. The cause was clearly money and the growing economy. The north tried to rid slaves from the U.S because and only because we are extremely power hungry and saw it as if we accomplish this it will force the South to start working in factories. This would lead to America becoming a world power and to be quite honest it did end that way. Does anyone here real think any politician cares about other people’s rights.
Money was the cause of the Civil War and slavery, states’ rights, preservation of the Union were told just to make Americans support it. Both North and South had rich folks in politics who wanted to get richer. They cared nothing about the African until it benefited them. The North wanted to expand industry into the south and take advantage of cheaper labor, while at the same time forcing the south to buy their goods. When the south didn’t hand over its lunch money the bully got mad.
And the South’s 50K or so Planters wanted to continue enslaving over half of it 1.6 million white and 4 million African population in ignorance (please note I do not me lack of intelligence, but education) and poverty. In the end, they did not want to lose their “good thing” of free labor and with no competition. They worked hard to build this wealth and harder to preserve it through race base classism.
The Planters own greed was their downfall. In their haste to keep poor white and yeoman farmers beneath them they failed to create good roads that would aid them the war to “preserve their right not to be slaves.” They also failed to realize that their decision to keep their profits out of the hands of local farmers cut them off from their food supplies during the war and the poor farmers that always saved them were in war.
And who would have thought that once the war started the slaves they punished severely would run off and fight against them and those that did not slowed down production and sabotaged them so much that the rich Planter class felt they were too important for war, leaving the last half to be fought by weary yeomen farmers and malnutrition poor whites.
Money ran this War. Neither the North nor South cared that the African was free, they just cared that one was trying to get over on the other. Politics. The good that did come out of that war was that as a nation we finally honored our Constitution freed the slaves.
The south was negotiating their own foreign trade agreements and felt oppressed by the union. They chose succession rather than oppression from Washington. Slavery as a reason was an easy sell politically.
The MAIN reason was states’ rights. The south believed they could secede whenever they wanted, but the north believed that by signing and agreeing to follow the Constitution, they had subjugated themselves to a higher power. This was what the war is about.
TO Tom and all who site Lincoln and other’s speeches from the time.
Politicians LIE to motivate their base! It is that way now and it was that way then. If you base history on Politician’s words, then you are living in ignorance. History has been written by the victors. Christopher Columbus (for example) was a monster by his own diary that was kept out of history class by more educated men (Politicians of the day).
Bob – Because slaves couldn’t vote.
Since unemployment is at 9.8% and we need stuff done, we should definitely bring back slavery. Lets start with the lazy people who haved sucked on the government’s teat for unemployment checks for 2 years, welfare and foodstamps. IF they don’t want to get out there and get real jobs, then they can keep that money, but they are getting shackled and sent out to cleans streets, dig ditches, pick crops and every other dirty job there is out there until they realize they need to get a real job.
I believe more than anything and the biggest issue that held the grounds for why some southern states succeded was above all the preservation of their way of life. Not only did the south feel threatened but so did the north, which causes a sort of hostility against each other that resulted in sometimes violent actions such as the case of Bleeding Kansas. Each felt threatened that if the other had the bigger control of government they would aim to destroy their very way of life, in the south, their right to own “property” or slaves was a huge part of them, so I do not agree when he says that slavery was not an important issue because it was.
The larger question, which was the driving force behind southern slavery was always economic, especially as an economy relates to labor. The issue is much the same even today. Slavery was just an easy solution for an economy which required cheap (the most perfect expression of which is free) labor in order to produce maximum profits. Today we see the same push for unheard of profit which has brought about off-shoring of entire industries, resulting in the stagnation of wages for all except the very elite (Attorneys, pundits, politicians and CEO’s). This is the driving force behind our current jobless recovery, which is quickly producing new forms of economic slavery.
Slavery caused the civil war. The northern states were going through an industrial revolution and desperately needed more people to work in its factories. Industrialists in the North believed that, if freed, the slaves would leave the South and provide the labor they needed. The North also wanted tariffs on imported foreign goods to protect their new industries. The South was still mainly agricultural and purchased a lot of goods from abroad and was therefore against import tariffs.
While the rights of states may have been the “war” that drove the south; their tragedy was that they chose to make battle over slavery.
Slavery was the issue that caused a line to be drawn in the sand and could only be resolved by blood. There were hundreds of states rights issues but none created the fervor of the slavery issue.
The choice of both sides of the issue to draw the line and to insist on stepping across the line brought sorrow to millions of Americans and forever changed the nation and our government.
War’s are fought for Money. Money begats Power. Take any war ever fought and it comes down to economics. Money starts wars and money wins wars.
“slavery was not a cause of the war”
-Common excuse for southerners to make little of their dark past
I started the Civil War, you fools!
As a biologist, I think the reality is less about politics than it is about resources becoming scarce and the quality of life becoming cheap, which doesn’t have too much to do with material possessions, but when you get hungry enough…
Anyway, the US is morally and intellectually bankrupt now and there’s no way to avoid hitting the bottom. Cynical?
“Fear not he who can kill the body, but fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Hell.” Jesus
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one cometh to the Father but by me.” Jesus
The Civil War was inevitable. The Tariff Issues in the 1830s testify to this. The Southerners were at a disadvantage with the passage of tariffs to protect the market revolution going on in New England.
At the same time Pres. Andrew Jackson vowed to enforce federal law.
Yes, the Civil War was inevitable. Lincoln and his radical Republicans made slavery the issue, however, it all goes back to the Tariffs to protect Northern industry.
I wish everyone would remember one thing while you are condemning the south. Not one slave ship ever sailed under a confederate flag. The whole time the north was looking down on the south, they were providing the slaves. Not all people who owned slaves were the evil masters all have been made out to be. I’m not saying slavery was right, but people need to dig deep and research instead of throwing around comments off the top of their heads! The north was more than happy to take that raw cotton and turn it into goods. The sad thing is, a lot of northerners still look down on southerners. I might be a redneck and a hillbilly, but I’m not a phony!!
i agree with you souther girl. the tv and movies are the ones that make it seem like the slaves were mistreated. even after the slaves were free, some of the free even wanted to stay with the ones that had them before. lincoln even said he didnt like the idea of blacks being equal to whites. and robert e lee even said hes glad that slavery is abolished. its just the north trying to keep us down even today. after they took everything from us, the north is still not happy.
Ok so uumm i would nhave to say that i am 14 n in the 8th grade too. I will say that slavery was a issue yes. And also it was state rights and taxation. Im not that all a big history fan but i do pay attention so that i can do what i have to do. So i will say that there are more than 5 reasons why the civil war started in the first place. Like I will have to agree with the teacher teaching his students and i will have to say that i agrree with Savannah n lil kids getting on here being immature are gay n fagets n stupid so thank yhu
uuuuuummmm i hte history ,n i dnt kno shyt yhu r all bitches n hoes n like yhu kno n gay n lesbians yhu kno wat im sayin so stick all det iiissshhh up yall aazzzzz yea n dnt thnk yhu all bad n if yhu jdo then email mii at coreywortham@ymail.com bitches yea
Angel, you are right on the mark – entirely correct. Danielle, did you know that Wikipedia is not allowed in universities because of their incorrect information? Never, ever believe what Wikipedia says. The war started because of taxes, then the south suceded, then everything added on and added on. The U.S. was not the first country to have black slaves – black slaves were kept thousands of years ago, it was nothing new. And…who do you think had those slaves on the docks ready to be bid upon by the arriving boat captains? Africans sold their OWN PEOPLE to America, England, Spain, Sweden, Germany, etc., etc., etc.
Because of nullification.
Of course the main cause of the Civil War revolved around the institution of slavery. One only has to read the declarations on the causes of secession to see that this is true.
Regarding the argument that the true cause of the civil war was the fear that the federal government was trying to take away the rights of the states, this is true to the extent that the “right” that the seceding states was worried about was the right to own slaves.
Probably the most compelling fact that slavery was the main issue that caused the civil war was the “cornerstone speech” given by Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, which says, among other things relating to slavery as the cause of the civil war: “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [to equality of the races]; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
You can ignore or deny history, but you cannot change it.
One thing that never gets talked about enough in these discussions is a piece of legislation called the Corwin Amendment. Basically, it was a proposal to forbid the Federal Government from abolishing or interfering with domestic institutions of the states, including holding persons to labor.
It was passed in both the House and the Senate in late February of 1861. Lincoln expressed his support of the Corwin Amendment in his first inaugural address. The Amendment was in the process of ratification by the individual states when war broke out which apparently paralyzed the government and stopped the ratification process dead in its tracks.
Knowing that a proposal to restrict the Federal Government from any attempt at abolishing slavery in slave states was in the process of becoming a constitutional amendment, why would the Southern States proceed with secession? Could it be that slavery – although certainly a divisive issue between North and South – was not the deciding factor that led states to choose to secede?
It may be difficult for some people to accept this, but the American Civil War, like most wars, was caused in large part by economics and was probably fueled by cultural differences.
Also, the effect that John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry had on the country deserves to be mentioned as a catalyst to violence.
So here is a question…why did the South choose to fight a conventional war rather than a guerrilla type of war??
The Civil War was about what the states felt was their right, primarily the right to secede from the Union. They felt that their rights were being taken away, as the colonies did resulting in the Revolutionary War. They were being cornered into choosing Northern products, which were more expensive at the time to other products, and they were losing out in political power as the anti-slavery politicians were fighting the introduction of new “slave” states. (Mass. even went as far as to deny that the new states were states, that the government didn’t have the right to introduce states period.)
I’m sorry but for people to say that the main reason for the civil war was slavery or money do not think deeply into what could have been with the really issues. The main reason for the civil war was the States rights over Central rights, but it was much deeper than what people think. Yes is was partly about slavery, but that was a very small part of it. Think of it this way. The states didn’t want the federal government to become to powerful, like the king did in England, like wise the federal government didn’t want the states to become too powerful because they knew that would only destroy them as the states would never agree on anything. The states having too much power would also be corrupt and if they had succeeded there would be no separations of powers or checks and balances. You see the war was about the fear of one part of government becoming too powerful, which would not only decide slavery’s issue, but many more issues in the future. Luckily today we have a Federal government, which allows the state and central governments to communicate equally, and not a confederate government, which allows the state government to tell the central government what to do. This allowed for the fear of one part of government becoming too powerful to fade. So the next person that says the civil war was about slavery or money is an idiot and needs to open their mind to see beyond the surface.
lincoln is and was responsible for the deaths of 600,000 + people..lincoln stated he was in his office and god spoke to him to go to war…did lincoln ever go to the confederate hdqts. and discuss the problems facing the nation…lincoln wanted to send all the slaves back to africa…let’s see slavery-roman empire-arabic nations-african chief’s…a lot of the enslaved people didn’t want to leave the plantations, why, because where would they go???? lincoln wasn’t a hero…there didn’t have to be a civil war….sort of like today’s administration…puppets…
“…its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
The court decision for Loving V. Virginia took place over 100 years after the end of the Civil War! Anyone who does not understand the simple fact that the government of the confederacy was in part based on the inequality of the races and used this belief to power the economic machine (i.e. cotton production via slave labor) is blind, absolutely blind. It took over 100 years for the supreme court to rule on the issue of inter-racial marriage. State legislatures reduced voting by blacks by passing more restrictive electoral and voter registration rules, amending constitutions to the same ends from 1890–1910, and passing Jim Crow laws to establish racial segregation and restrict labor rights, movement and organizing by blacks. One can say it was “States Rights” the entire time but if you ignore and disregard the facts surrounding the oppression of non-white races in the south before, during and after the Civil War then truly the Civil War has not ended.
ok first off lincoln was the worst president ever … before he was president he was a laywer for the railroads .. during the cilvil war the government was trying to build railroads everywhere well when they didnt want to have to go through the states to ask if they could build railroads lincoln disided to make the … UNITED states .. so that instead of going through the states they only had to go through one man … lincoln the PRESIDENT .. lincoln took all of our states rights away .. and honestly if i could go back in time to when he got shot i would kick him in the balls right befor john shot him in the head
I’m a northerner transplanted at an early age to the south. It is amazing to see the amount of ignorance that resides here in the south. It starts in the classroom where children are indoctrinated that somehow slavery was only a “small” issue in regards to the starting and continuance of the treachery that was the civil war. In the eyes of a southerner, Robert E Lee was a great man to be revered despite the fact he was the worst form of yellow traiter to his country and personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of men. In order to make themselves feel better and accept the fact that the south was utterly defeated reoroganized and as a society improved a great deal, The southern teachers and southern society at large have glossed over the bloody conflict as an issue of “states rights”. The fact is I have observed southern people for about 25 years now and I can tell you that as a people they are a morally deficit lot. These southern rednecks will turn on each other at the drop of a hat and loyalty is something that is only present as long as it is to thier benifit. What is one of the most distressing things to be observed about these people is thier work habits. The primary means of advancement is not by good hard work or education but rather by social networking or by favoratism or nepotism. The sad fact is that the only way the southern states improve is by a continual influx of northern workers and society. I guess the best thing to do when confronted with the southern civil war revisionist is to remind them that the south lost and no revisionism can change that. Due to the south losing the war there is no more slavery and there is no confederacy. The best side won and we are all better for it. Thank god!
Lincoln NEVER owned slaves, by the way.
well your wrong chris bush was and 2 the reason i would say lincoln was a bad president is because he was for slavery not aginst it.he never owened a slave so why are you going for slavery.
The issue was 100% slavery. The Southern States were the Slave Power and the Slave Power wanted to extend slavery throughout all of North and South America.
Look I’ve seen many good reasons here as too why the civil war still would have happened without slavery. However, it seems that many of you have forgotten that it takes two sides to fight a war. Thus, must not only evaluate if the South would still have succeeded, but also whether the North would have fought to keep them as part of the union. Lets not forget that one of the only reasons Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation in the first place was to garnish support from the growing abolitionist movement. Remember there was no draft during the war so would northerners really have been willing to go out and shoot their southern brothers if they did not believe that they were fighting for a greater moral and noble purpose.
Interesting comments. It was about “State Rights” to determine slavery. It was about an economic advantage created by slavery. It was about the moral question of perpetual servitude or slavery. Depending on your perspective it was about many things but slavery was part of the equation.
Everyone please! You are all fighting like children! And by the looks of some of these comments, I’d say most of you are! However, the majority of the comments are, in a sence, correct. Slavory WAS the main affliction in the war, as was the election of president Lincoln. Another, as several of you have said, was the southerers want to secede (secede means withdraw) from the union. The north attempted to stop them but failed. The south DID secede. (ooh that was a pun!) The north proclaimed war to foil them. You all SHOULD know who won, but unfortunetly to this day many southerners like to think the war is not over. Worse still they are correct while rascism still exists.
It was about slavery. You cannot boil it down to anything else. If you say it was about cotton/money – well, who was pickin’ all that cotton and turning it into money? SLAVES WORKING FOR NOTHING.
If you say it was about ‘States’ Rights” – what “rights” are we talking about? The “right” TO HOLD AN AMERICAN-BORN HUMAN BEING AGAINST HIS OR HER OWN WILL and condemn them to a life of complete servitude? Sounds like slavery…
Not to mention states like South Carolina lamented the fact that states in the North (Free States) had disallowed slavery – isn’t it UP TO THE STATE to decide? I mean, if it’s ABOUT STATES’ RIGHTS?
Don’t believe what you learned in school. It’s revisionist garbage…THE CIVIL WAR (yes it was a civil war) was mainly brought about because THE SOUTH refused to budge on the issue of SLAVERY.