What is the main cause for the American Civil War?

[GoodGame]

I'd have to side with lack of legal precedence for either side to claim those forts then. Suffice to say, Fort Sumter wasn't a major cause of the war, just the first hostility. It is possible to have a war where neither side is in legal agreement about who's the aggressor, no?

 

[Huayna Capac357]

It says the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That means you can't just secede and form your own country because then the Constitution isn't the supreme law. Plus, if we're all just going to secede, why have a Union at all?

 

[GoodGame]

Anyway I like this answer from Wiki Answers:

The South thought it had that right. The North thought they did not. The North won after 4 years of fighting and 800,000 deaths of Americans so I guess the South didn't have that right.

You got that right?

 

[Patroklos]

It says the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That means you can't just secede and form your own country because then the Constitution isn't the supreme law. Plus, if we're all just going to secede, why have a Union at all?

You are speaking gibberish. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, if you are no longer a part of that land then its power is irrelevent. The Constitution as written was a decree that was voluntarily entered and in no part is ever even slightly insinuated that that consent could not be withdrawn.

Feel free to quote where is says the pact was eternally binding. It doesn't exist, but knock yourself out looking. There is a reason the Union had to inflict aggressive warfare on its brothers to get what it wanted, might makes right.

 

[I'm Cleo!]

The right of Southern states to enforce the property rights of their own citizens.

(I.e., slavery.)

The high-minded, principled, Federalist Southern states didn't oppose the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required federal marshals to go into the North to retrieve slaves. So if federalism is good if it supports slavery, and bad if it hinders slavery, maybe "federalism" isn't really the key issue.

(Note, as an interesting historical note, the similarities between the structure of the Fugitive Slave Acts and the Civil Rights Acts that followed the War.)

Cleo

 

[Aegis]

States' Rights, the biggest one being slavery.

 

[Patroklos]

I wouldn't say the biggest one, but definetly the most out and openly debated one at the specific time of schism.

 

[Aegis]

I wouldn't say the biggest one, but definetly the most out and openly debated one at the specific time of schism.

More or less the same thing. Everything tied into slavery. Economics, agriculture, it all revolved around using slavery. If they abolished slavery, they destroyed the foundation of the south.

"The south didn't secede because of slavery, they seceded because of states' rights!"

Yes, but the most important state right was that of slavery.

"They seceded because they were being unfairly taxed/tariffed!"

Why were they being unfairly taxed/levied with tariffs? Because they refused to abolish slavery. The north was using taxes & tariffs as leverage to get the south to change it's ways. It was unfair and unrealistic of the north to expect the south to abolish slavery when their entire society would come crashing down if they did, so war was inevitable, imo.

Mississippi gave the following reasons for secession:

Spoiler :

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Mississippi_causes.htm

Alabama Secession Speech:

Spoiler :

I wish, Mr. President, to express the feelings with which I vote for the secession of Alabama from the Government of the United States; and to state, in a few words, the reasons that impel me to this act.

I feel impelled, Mr. President, to vote for this Ordinance by an overruling necessity. Years ago I was convinced that the Southern States would be compelled either to separate from the North, by dissolving the Federal Government, or they would be compelled to abolish the institution of African Slavery. This, in my judgment, was the only alternative; and I foresaw that the South would be compelled, at some day, to make her selection. The day is now come, and Alabama must make her selection, either to secede from the Union, and assume the position of a sovereign, independent State, or she must submit to a system of policy on the part of the Federal Government that, in a short time, will compel her to abolish African Slavery.

Mr. President, if pecuniary loss alone were involved in the abolition of slavery, I should hesitate long before I would give the vote I now intend to give. If the destruction of slavery entailed on us poverty alone, I could bear it, for I have seen poverty and felt its sting. But poverty, Mr. President, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race? To remove them from amongst us is impossible. History gives us no account of the exodus of such a number of persons. We neither have a place to which to remove them, nor the means of such removal. They therefore must remain with us; and if the relation of master and slave be dissolved, and our slaves turned loose amongst us without restraint, they would either be destroyed by our own hands-- the hands to which they look, and look with confidence, for protection-- or we ourselves would become demoralized and degraded. The former result would take place, and we ourselves would become the executioners of our own slaves. To this extent would the policy of our Northern enemies drive us; and thus would we not only be reduced to poverty, but what is still worse, we should be driven to crime, to the commission of sin; and we must, therefore, this day elect between the Government formed by our fathers (the whole spirit of which has been perverted), and POVERTY AND CRIME! This being the alternative, I cannot hesitate for a moment what my duty is. I must separate from the Government of my fathers, the one under which I have lived, and under which I wished to die. But I must do my duty to my country and my fellow beings; and humanity, in my judgment, demands that Alabama should separate herself from the Government of the United States.

If I am wrong in this responsible act, I hope my God may forgive me; for I am not actuated, as I think, from any motive save that of justice and philanthropy!

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Alabama_secession_Speech.htm


Georgia causes of Secession:
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Georgia_Secession_Causes.htm

South Carolina causes of Secession:
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/secession_causes.htm

Anywhoo, I don't understand it when the Southern Apologists refuse to acknowledge the significance of slavery in the decision to secede. It's glaringly obvious that slavery was one of the, if not the, paramount reasons to secede.

I forget which state it was (Missouri, I think) whose letter of secession opened up with (and I'm paraphrasing here):

"Our fate is undeniably intertwined with that of slavery's."

 

[Miles Teg]

False. The Union, in illegal pocession of foriegn property, refused to leave peacefully. That, according to internatinal law, is an act of aggression. Who physically fired first is irrelevant, the first act of aggression was on the part of the Federal government. There is no way around this basic truth.

The Federal forts weren't South Carolinian property. If they felt that this was unacceptable, they should have negotiated. Instead they attacked.

 

[Hygro]

Slavery was obviously a major contributing factor, but is it right to say that it was "about" slavery when only 5% of the southern population owned them?

Ulyaoth said it but I'll reword it because it deserves repeating.

If you divide social classes by race, then the powerful rich whites are in the same class as the poor whites, and vice versa. As a poor white man, you not only don't feel inferiority, but since you are the top of the ladder, you get to feel superior. Take away slavery and racial classes, and you default to wealth as the deciding factor among classes. Suddenly the poor white man is on the same level as those who used to be slaves, and is no longer on the level of the southern aristocracy. I guess it really boils down to white nationalism.

 

[Aegis]

Ulyaoth said it but I'll reword it because it deserves repeating.

If you divide social classes by race, then the powerful rich whites are in the same class as the poor whites, and vice versa. You not only don't feel inferiority, but since you are the top of the ladder, you get to feel superior. Take away slavery and racial classes, and you default to wealth as the deciding factor among classes. Suddenly the poor white man is on the same level as those who used to be slaves, and is no longer on the level of the southern aristocracy. I guess it really boils down to white nationalism.

To further expound on this, the top 5% are the ones who have control. They can whip up any amount of propaganda as reasons for secession & war (ie. they're telling us what to do, they're unfairly taxing us, they marched troops into our state, etc) and the masses will become indignantly enraged and go along with it.

 

[Ulyaoth]

The Federal forts weren't South Carolinian property. If they felt that this was unacceptable, they should have negotiated. Instead they attacked.

Hasn't he been saying over and over again that the south tried and the north refused to negotiate?

 

[Dachs]

Hasn't he been saying over and over again that the south tried and the north refused to negotiate?

Duh, you don't negotiate with terrorists.

 

[Miles Teg]

Hasn't he been saying over and over again that the south tried and the north refused to negotiate?

No, they were told to get out, without compensation for their actions. That's not negotiation, that's extortion.

 

[Hygro]

To further expound on this, the top 5% are the ones who have control. They can whip up any amount of propaganda as reasons for secession & war (ie. they're telling us what to do, they're unfairly taxing us, they marched troops into our state, etc) and the masses will become indignantly enraged and go along with it.

icing on the cake for sure.

 

[Patroklos]

More or less the same thing. Everything tied into slavery. Economics, agriculture, it all revolved around using slavery. If they abolished slavery, they destroyed the foundation of the south.

No, one followed the other. The struggle between the states and the federal goverment started the day the Constitution was signed, and this includes ALL states not just the South. In the North it was over the federal government's right to regulate tarriffs, sometimes it was over monitary policy, there was debate over further state territorial claims in the West, and there was debate over slavery. Never let it be forgotten that succession was not attempted by the South first, but rather New England.

Again, the stuggle over slavery was a sympton of a greater problem within our governmental system. Saying the war was caused by slavery and not states rights makes as much sense as saying someone died of a heart attack instead of heart desease. They are both right, but the true fundemental cause is the latter.

 

[Ethics]

The Civil War was fought over slavery. Its not as simple a matter as that statement would insinuate it is, but all roads (economic, political, social) lead to slavery.

Economic:
Lets put ourselves in a 19th century Southern planter. You bought and paid for your tools and seeds at the beginning of the season on credit to be paid after you harvested your fields (working those "6s" and "7s") at the end of the growing season. You may have a slave, or if highly successful, many.

There was little government involvement, no real infrastructure to stockpile harvests collectively, and a bad season or a few could devastate you or the community (interesetingly, what do we see in the Populist movement following the Civil War... go watch The Wizard of Oz again). A slave was a much needed commodity for the intensive labor involved in cotton farming at the time. A slave was a commodity in himself. You could certainly sell a few down river to pay the debts if hard time arose (as importation of slaves ended in 1820 I believe). Slavery was so vested into the economy that it would have been economic suicide to remove it from the system.

Political:
Although the politicians routinely ignored it at the time (sarcastically embraced in the memoirs of Samuel Watkins who wrote Company Aytch) there was an "North, South, East, and West" in the West politically. For the longest time the West and South were connected economically through the Mississippi River. As the transportation revolution changed the country, this changed to a North-West connection through canal and railroad systems.

Again, put yourself in the mindset of a Southern planter. Increasingly, you are outnumbered by Northern and Western interests at the Federal level. They are opposed to slavery, and have outlawed the institution in their own territories. You have little loyalty to these areas beyond your cotton going into their factories (and you could just as easily sell to Europe). As an added feeling of being controlled by the Northern behemoth, they refuse to remove the import tariff at the time which strengthens their industrial sector and hampers Southern farming due to not being able to buy cheap European made tools.

It does not help that one of your economic life lines, slavery, is being undermined by a "radical" element in the North. Slaves are aided in escaping, and protected by Northerners. At the federal level, you see fugitive slave laws pop up as a compromise, but the aiding continues. It does not help that several smaller parties, opposed to slavery, begin to appear at the Federal level, potentially to attack your well being and the laws that are protecting you from "Northern agression." It does not help that individuals like John Brown (yes I am aware of his life in Kansas) begin to take up arms to undermine your wellbeing violently. You may begin to ask yourself, between the abolitionists, lack of economic and political ties with the North and West, and continued loss of power at the Federal level, whats the point of staying in this relationship? Only power at the State level will maintain your economic and cultural system from being railroaded over by the North.

Social:
Lets me put it simply... multi-ethnic or racial countries were a radical idea at the time. Similarly, the notion of a two race or more society in America was a hotly debated topic at the time.

The idea of freeing the slaves did come up in the South, although, events such as the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion swiftly ended any discussion on the matter. Again, put yourself in the shoes of a Southern Planter. Slave Rebellions had occurred and many times whites were brutally murdered. How could you free a group of people, believed inferior by education and position, and not pay in blood? Many at the time believed God had put them in a position to "educate" these slaves and bring them up to their white counterparts in the institution of slavery.

It did not help that the solutions presented by abolitionists and other political entities did not address these concerns. Do you ship the slaves back to Africa? How will this be payed for (remember, were still talking small government at the time) and how will the issue of slavery as its own form of currency be addressed? The more extreme elements solution was to come in guns blazing (and we all know how well that sentiment works with the hearts and minds of individuals).

If you leave them in the South, whos to say they would rise up and kill their masters? How can you enforce social norms and intermixing? These are simple answers to us today because we have the benefit of 140 years of answers and truth. They didn't... this was extremely radical for these people.

Fort Sumpter:
You know, all that stated above, still could have prevented arm conflict and blood spilled in this country. For the most part, Northerners who were opposed to slavery were only disinterested to the point of being involved. Fugitive Slave Laws affected the common man, involved him and deputized him into catching and enforcing slavery.

People like John Brown and other abolitionists, were just that, radicals. Lincoln did not have the clout to invade the South because the South removing itself would remove the North from enforcing slave laws and being involved in the system.

So what does the South do to piss off the North? PT Beauregard, upon getting confirmation from the defenders at Fort Sumpter of surrender the next morning, push to fire on the fort. They involve the North by spilling first blood. The Southerners give Lincoln the political excuse he needs to send Sherman through Atlanta and Grant chasing Lee through Virginia. The Southern Planter, reaped what he sowed.

 

[Patroklos]

Anywhoo, I don't understand it when the Southern Apologists refuse to acknowledge the significance of slavery in the decision to secede. It's glaringly obvious that slavery was one of the, if not the, paramount reasons to secede.

They almost never do, this is a strawman revisionists need to build in order to have a stepping stool to pretend they are on par with the majority of historians who have acknowledged a far more fundemental and complex situation for over a century.

No academic will deny that slavery was the particular issue that became the flashing point for the war, all they do is include that as a facet of a broader discussion taking place for over half a centrury as to the position of the states relative to the federal government.

The Federal forts weren't South Carolinian property. If they felt that this was unacceptable, they should have negotiated. Instead they attacked.

False.

Take away slavery and racial classes, and you default to wealth as the deciding factor among classes. Suddenly the poor white man is on the same level as those who used to be slaves, and is no longer on the level of the southern aristocracy. I guess it really boils down to white nationalism.

Are you seriously maintaining that a destitute white sharecropper subsistance living in a bare dirt floor shack in the middle of the bayou who may have never even seen a black man before let alone been able to lord anything over them considered themselves part of the aristocracy? Serious?

To further expound on this, the top 5% are the ones who have control. They can whip up any amount of propaganda as reasons for secession & war (ie. they're telling us what to do, they're unfairly taxing us, they marched troops into our state, etc) and the masses will become indignantly enraged and go along with it.

Unfortunetly for your propoganda theory the North was telling them what to do, was unfairly taxing them and were illegally marching into/occupying southern property. In your haste to prove your point you hav undone yourself, because all three of those are legitimate reasons to support succession independant of slavery.

You realize you are crafting a conspiracy theory, right? All of a sudden the motivations of millions have to be relegated to the mere musings of automatons so that you don't have to face the reality that the motivation of slavery is irrelevant to the vast majority of people involved in the war, both North and South.

No, they were told to get out, without compensation for their actions. That's not negotiation, that's extortion.

1.) There is no requirement for a soverign nation to compensate a foriegn power when they are merely exercising their legal right to territorial control. Not only that, but South Carolina was not asking them to surrender, they wanted them to retire of their own accord with colors and arms.

2.) Do you imagine we are going to make Germany buy back their bases after we agree to leaving BECAUSE THEY SIMPLY ASKED US TOO?

They involve the North by spilling first blood. The Southerners give Lincoln the political excuse he needs to send Sherman through Atlanta and Grant chasing Lee through Virginia. The Southern Planter, reaped what he sowed.

You skipped a few years there. I am trying to remember when the South practiced scorched earth warfare when they invaded the North. Anyone remember that...?

 

[Aegis]

No, one followed the other. The struggle between the states and the federal goverment started the day the Constitution was signed, and this includes ALL states not just the South. In the North it was over the federal government's right to regulate tarriffs, sometimes it was over monitary policy, there was debate over further state territorial claims in the West, and there was debate over slavery. Never let it be forgotten that succession was not attempted by the South first, but rather New England.

Again, the stuggle over slavery was a sympton of a greater problem within our governmental system. Saying the war was caused by slavery and not states rights makes as much sense as saying someone died of a heart attack instead of heart desease. They are both right, but the true fundemental cause is the latter.

I refer back to my original statement where I said the reason was:

States' Rights, the biggest one being slavery.

=o)

 

[Patroklos]

Over the next few months, repeated calls for the United States evacuation of Fort Sumter[6] from the government of South Carolina and later Confederate Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard were ignored. United States attempts to resupply and reinforce the garrison were repulsed on January 9, 1861 when the first shots of the war prevented the steamer Star of the West, a ship hired by the Union to transport troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, from completing the task.

On April 11, Beauregard sent three aides, Colonel James Chesnut, Jr., Captain Stephen D. Lee, and Lieutenant A. R. Chisolm to demand the surrender of the fort. Anderson declined, and the aides returned to report to Beauregard. After Beauregard had consulted the Secretary of War, Leroy Walker, he sent the aides back to the fort and authorized Chesnut to decide whether the fort should be taken by force. The aides waited for hours while Anderson considered his alternatives and played for time. At about three a.m., when Anderson finally announced his conditions, Colonel Chesnut, after conferring with the other aides, decided that they were "manifestly futile [..] and not within the scope of the instructions verbally given to us". The aides then left the fort and proceeded to the nearby Fort Johnson. There Chesnut ordered the fort to open fire on Fort Sumter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter

So as you can see, South Carolina gave the Federal troops months to retire and they refused, and they even attempted to further reinforce the garrison. There can be no claim that South Carolina was not more than amicable in the time they gave for negotiation.

Also, as stated above Major Anderson was not going to surrender, South Carolina attacked when it did because a large Federal fleet carrying reinforcements arrived in yet a further act of aggression. South Carolina could hardly have been more justified at that point. Anderson then dispicably gave false terms in order to delay until the rest of the Federal fleet could arrive.