Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Raj on December 20, 2009 at 4:35pm

I think the Civil War was caused by a combination of slavery and states' rights. Obviously the issue of slavery was the predominant issue, but the broad issue of states' rights in general was also a major underlying cause.

Permalink Reply by Philip Rodney Moon on December 22, 2009 at 4:35pm

Economics played a role both in the slavery issue and the break up as a whole.

The agriculture of the North was more tied to food production, which made slavery less necessary than cash crop production. Industrialization and trade gave more option than land owning as a means of making money, and the need for skilled tradesman as part of the production process meant that a formal underclass of subservient people was harder to maintain. Cheap land in the Ohio River Valley also gave men options of farming if industrial work didn't suit them. In the North that gave a more individualistic view. Slavery doesn't fit well in a society of free men.

The North's free labor led to much more innovation and entrepreneurial. They also had the benefit of immigration. Immigrants stuck to the North because they could be a source of cheap labor, but unlike slaves they could rise economically. This gave a stronger economy of people trading with each other and not relying solely on foreign trade.

The South was stuck in an outdated aristocracy that favored land ownership over work. Land owning was how one obtained status and that favored the old money families who already owned the good land. They relied almost entirely on foreign markets or the North to buy their cotton and tobacco, and often Northern merchants handled much of the trade. They got none of the "value added" from manufacturing. Often they bought or where paid in credit, not cash, which hampered development of capital markets. They also relied on the North for much of it's food and manufactured goods. Those in power were often those who did the least work themselves and made themselves reliant on slaves and the work of manufacturers in the North or foreign imports.

The economics and politics collided during the Nullification Crisis of 1832. South Carolina blames changes in tariffs for its economic problems. The tariffs had been put in place to support Northern manufacturing over British imports and it showed the split in the nation economically. The South economy was largely based in trading cash crops with foreign partners and buying from the outside. A tariff war could wreck their economy. The North has developed strong domestic markets and manufacturing, making themselves rich off the labor of its workforce. They needed trade, but were less dependent than the South.

Permalink Reply by Danny E. Mason on January 22, 2010 at 11:24am

States Rights, Slavery was a peculiar, institution of the north and south...Grant had slaves. The issue in the South was states rights. The issue in the n s to preserve the union. I have been a Civil War Reenactor for 18 years now. Slavery was a touchy point but most people would not have risked their lives for slavery. Slavery would have died of economic causes eventually anyway. The more slaves you had the more ground you needed to buy. The more ground you had to buy the more slaves you needed to tend it. I am in no way proslavery...just stating facts...Chaplain Dan

Permalink Reply by Nathan on February 9, 2010 at 5:06pm

States Rights, by todays standards slavery is wrong but back then it was the way of the world. The founders left it up to the states to decide weather to have slavery or not it was not a national issue. They knew that an America with slaves was better than no America at all. The war happened because because the federal government encrouched on states right. The same way they do today, this is why we hardly have any states rights left.

Permalink Reply by Vytautas on December 16, 2012 at 3:18pm

Those conventions that voted in favor of secession were quite honest about the fact that their intent was to preserve slavery. That is the cause cited by those who actually split the Union, so I don't know why there needs be any more debate. In the words of the seceding states, it was slavery--not economics, not states' rights--that was the most immediate motivation that they could articulate.

Permalink Reply by Chuck Knight on December 16, 2012 at 6:29pm

It's even more fundamental than that.  It's the arrogance of the Northern states, and their complete inability to comprehend that anyone might choose to live differently than them.  Look at the history.  Heck, we're still living it today!

 

You'll find recorded in history that the South fired the first shot, but that doesn't mean that the South initiated the conflict.  And slavery was the excuse that was used to rally public support.

 

Take a few steps back, though, and you'll find that the North and South had "irreconcilable differences," and the South decided to secede.  It doesn't matter if you love the South or not, if you support slavery or not, or anything else...it was a done deal.  The country had split.  The southern states seceded legally, and became a separate country, the Confederacy.

 

Only when the North invaded their sovereign territory did hostilities ensue...and the South fired upon the hostile invaders from another nation.

 

Kind of a different way to look at it.

Permalink Reply by Vytautas on December 16, 2012 at 8:06pm

Except that Fort Sumter was federal property and therefore the sovereign earth of the United States, which the Confederacy attacked...

Look, it's a tired debate, and I doubt I'm going to convince you that I'm correct, but take a look at the proceedings of those conventions and look at the causes of secession through the words of the seceders themselves. Anyone who is arguing for 'states' rights' conveniently overlooks the fact that the 'right' in question is the 'right' to own other human beings--an inhuman act that could never be one of those unalienable rights endowed by the Creator.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Perry on January 23, 2013 at 9:14pm

I agree. I will agree all day long that states rights was to blame for the civil war because the right that they wanted was slavery.

Permalink Reply by Shane on January 23, 2013 at 9:27pm

And the four and a half slave states which stayed in the Union?  And the three and a half states which seceded only after the attack on Sumter?

Permalink Reply by Matthew Perry on January 23, 2013 at 10:14pm

Virginia seceded because they were "invaded" quite a lame excuse since it was troops of their own country marching through.

Permalink Reply by Vytautas on January 23, 2013 at 9:28pm

Cunningly put!