Of course there are those who chalk it up to economics, but slaves were the economy of the South so that's not what I would call a clear distinction. This Civil War revisionism has begun to greatly bother me and I needed to write about it.
Let's go back to history books shall we? It seems foolish to ignore what the people involved at the time said and did, regardless of how today's scholars pontificate and wax indignant.
The easiest place to start is party platforms. The GOP platforms almost without fail their state their disdain for slavery, calling it a "crime against humanity" in 1860 - the same year South Carolina was choosing to secede over the issue of slavery. The 1864 Republican party platform unequivocally states the Civil War was the cause and continued to be the reason for the Civil War.
Here you may read for yourself an excerpt South Carolina's secession paper. They don't attempt to hide anything, so brace yourselves.
[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding [i.e., northern] states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations. . . . [T]hey have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. . . . They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes [through the Underground Railroad]. . . . A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States [Abraham Lincoln] whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common government because he has declared that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. . . . The slaveholding states will no longer have the power of self-government or self-protection [over the issue of slavery]...
On January 26, 1861 Louisiana followed suit, stating:
Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern Confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery...
Southern Democrats began leaving Congress a few weeks before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. None of them had any qualms stating why they were leaving: it was over the issue of slavery.
As Senator Robert Toombs (GA-D) stated so eloquently,
What do these Rebels demand? First, that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or an future acquired territories with whatever property they may possess (including slaves). . . . The second proposition is that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the government of the United States, in all of its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers the power upon it to extend to any other property. . . . We demand in the next place . . . that a fugitive slave shall be surrendered under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 without being entitled either to a writ of habeas corpus or trial by jury or other similar obstructions of legislation. . . . Slaves – black “people,” you say – are entitled to trial by jury. . . . You seek to outlaw $4,000,000,000 of property [slaves] of our people in the territories of the United States. Is not that a cause of war? . . . My distinguished friend from Mississippi [Mr. Jefferson Davis], another moderate gentleman like myself, proposed simply to get a recognition that we had the right to our own – that man could have property in man – and it met with the unanimous refusal even of the most moderate, Union-saving, compromising portion of the Republican party. . . . Mr. Lincoln thus accepts every cardinal principle of the Abolitionists; yet he ignorantly puts his authority for abolition upon the Declaration of Independence, which was never made any part of the public law of the United States. . . . Very well; you not only want to break down our constitutional rights – you not only want to upturn our social system – your people not only steal our slaves and make them freemen to vote against us – but you seek to bring an inferior race into a condition of equality, socially and politically, with our own people.
Democrat U. S. Senator Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana, Democrat U. S. House Representative William Yancey, Democrat U. S. Senator John Slidell of Louisiana, Democrat U. S. Senator Clement Clay of Alabama all made equally unequivocal claims - secession was over the "blessing of African slavery".
The Confederate Constitution in two Articles (I & IV) use four separate sections to clarify where they stand on the issue of slavery. Slaves were strictly property and no one would be allowed to question whether slaves were property, among other things, were declared in the Confederate Constitution.
Subsequently, Confederate VP Alexander Stephens delivered a speech called African Slavery: The Corner-Stone of the Southern Confederacy. I don't think there is any question as to what that was about.
In closing, Civil War revisionists claim that the reason for the Civil War was chiefly economic. However, only 5 of the 11 states' Secession Documents mentioned economics - and all five grievances stated were contingent upon the issue of slavery. Opposition to slavery was the primary reason the Republican Party was founded. Saying that Republicans decided to go to war with their own brethren over the economy is embarrassing; and unless everyone on both sides was lying about their intentions, it is also false.
Note: none of the above information was gleaned from Wikipedia.
10 comments:
I think that if you'd have asked the average Confederate soldier why he was fighting, he would have answered, "because the Yankees are down here". Slavery did not define the war to the soldiers from the South since only a tiny percentage held slaves.
At the same time, slavery became the defining element in the war and was the reason that England didn't come into the war on the side of the South. There was considerable concern about that early in the war from the perspective of Lincoln and it was warranted.
Post war, the Union, smug in self-righteousness, told the slaves, "you're free". But there was no reconstruction in the sense of doing anything to help them. The North didn't want the blacks to come north because they were inundated with Irish immigrants who wanted the factory jobs for themselves.
And the problem of slavery was perpetuated. Would Lincoln have handled it differently had he lived? I am persuaded to think he would have. Unfortunately we will never know the answer.
Agreed. But I think that you'd get a myriad of responses if you asked the average soldier on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan what they thought of the war, too. The responses I get from my friends who have done tours in Iraq are mostly negative or indifferent. The soldiers' opinions were not the reason history has been retold.
Personally, I believe the real reason for all of this revisionism is that historians are trying to make the Republicans look like they were just itchin' to pick a with someone. Shame, because the GOP was founded on wholesome, ethical principles.
Victoria, I was a serving special warfare officer in the First Gulf War (the "good war") and I was not happy with that war. We knew Saddam planned to invade, he ran it past then Ambassador April Glasby and she in effect, gave that butcher a green light. Then we attacked them -- go figure.
I worked in the government and watched the Bush Administration trump up the Iraq War. The invasion was an act of hubris based on pretext. The green light was given by the Bush administration for the war long before all the pretexts were assembled. I know. I was there.
We invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack because we had to invade somebody and Saudi Arabia (the center of the problem) was home to the hijackers and was also our ally.
The Taliban were dupes of the Wahhabi fundamentalists and so were not necessarily a bad target since Bin Laden was hiding there and we needed to go after him. Today, the Afghan war is a bad idea at a number of levels. It is a total waste of national treasure and manpower.
I'll bet you didn't expect that response from me.
Excellent Post, but, where are you hearing the drivel that the Civil war was not fought over slavery?
All of thise who try and peddle revisionist arguments for the war under the guise of "states rights" and "economics" ignore the fact that the slavery was at the center of either of these more nuanced discussions...
In my humble opinion, anyone putting forth such areguments are either revisionists or apologists; but definately not students of history...
Excellent Blog!
Regards,
Bob Reed
LL,
I always love hearing from people who served in the armed forces and I see what you mean - their experiences and perspectives are worthwhile.
Mr. Reed,
sadly I hear this all the time from people my age. Especially those who have taken any US History courses at the university level. I actually have people gain up on me and try to get me to see things their way. But I feel history is fairly clear. Or at least the historical documents are.
Great post! unfortunately, I am one of those people who say the war was not entirely about slavery and I pointed out that South during that time was economically more wealthy than the North. And the reason for the success was on the backs of slaves...I stand corrected..
Slavery was the reason for the Civil War in the same sense that bad and adulterated food and medicines were the reason for the first food and drug acts a century ago. That is, they were the proximal reason, the immediate reason. But as someone once said, trying to tell history by newspaper headlines is like trying to tell the time by looking at the second hand of the clock.
Slavery was in some sense circumstantial. It happened to serve as the first real test of America, the first serious difference that tested the fault lines inherent in the Constitution. If slavery hadn't been around-- to use a modern example, if it had been about the war on tobacco, a product the economic importance of which both predated and postdated slavery-- the war would have had nothing to do with slavery. The war would have been more obviously about its deeper cause-- the issue of whether some states have a right to take their marbles and go home when the shift in the country's population began disfavoring them politically.
Now, was there any issue as powerfully divisive as slavery in the country back then? No. If it was going to happen WHEN IT DID (sorry for the caps, but I can't do underlining), it was going to be on its face about slavery. And perhaps there would never have been another issue controversial enough; we'll never know. But since judging by contemporary accounts, most northerners would not have fought the war if it had been explicitly to free black people, saying the war was "about" slavery is simplistic, populist and narcissistic. Slavery touched off the powder keg; it did not create it.
Matt - I certainly believe in the nuance of history, especially this situation, and I'm willing to concede that my wording was overly simplistic. However, I am wholly unwilling to chalk the Secession Documents, 1864 Republican Party platform plank & other statements up to mere newspaper headlines. Perhaps I am missing something essential, but saying that the above stated documents are tantamount to paper at the bottom of a birdcage smacks of arrogance.
Would you please enlighten the rest of us as to what the war was truly "about", if I have so misread history?
Thanks for your thoughts,
V
Just because the debate was about slavery, it doesn't mean that the real reason for the war was slavery.
Just as the American revolution was about being feed up to pay taxes to the English Crown, the Civil War had economical roots. Why should the South be able to have such cheap labor as slaves?
Take the Iraq war as an example, was it really about WMD or about oil? If so, why not attack North Korea who surely have WMD?
Yet, this was the official version for the "War on Terror"
The 13th and 14th amendments were ratified at war's end and during the attempt at reconstruction. They dealt with slavery and equal protection. I don't believe there were any other constitutional ramifications. Given that, what else could have the war been about?
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