Causes of the US civil war (general, economic, state, slavery)
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As in most wars there were many but slavery was the dominant one.
Quote:
Four of the seceding states, the Deep South states of South Carolina,[31] Mississippi,[32] Georgia,[33] and Texas,[34] issued formal declarations of causes, each of which identified the threat to slaveholders’ rights as the cause of, or a major cause of, secession. Georgia also claimed a general Federal policy of favoring Northern over Southern economic interests. In what later became known as the Cornerstone Speech, C.S. Vice President Alexander Stephens declared that the "cornerstone" of the new government "rest[ed] 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".[35]
Historian William J. Cooper Jr., in his biography of the Confederate president Jefferson Davis, wrote, “From at least the time of the American Revolution white southerners defined their liberty, in part, as the right to own slaves and to decide the fate of the institution without any outside interference.”[36] Speaking specifically of Davis, Cooper wrote:
For his entire life he believed in the superiority of the white race. He also owned slaves, defended slavery as moral and as a social good, and fought a great war to maintain it. After 1865 he opposed new rights for blacks. He rejoiced at the collapse of Reconstruction and the reassertion of white superiority with its accompanying black subordination.[37]
In his farewell speech to the United States Congress, Davis made clear his view that the secession crisis had stemmed from the Republican Party's failure "to recognize our domestic institutions [an acknowledged euphemism for slavery] which pre-existed the formation of the Union — our property which was guarded by the Constitution."[38]
Tarrifs were a secondary cause (which is ironic, because the south became a firm supporter of high tarrifs by the late 19th century).
The Northern Industrialists, who controlled the textile and distilling industries, wanted to control cotton production in the South and cane production in the islands.
It was much cheaper to institute the English system of Wage Slavery than to maintain the culturally ingrained system of Chattel Slavery.
By politically involving the churches, they gained support on "ethical" and "religious" grounds and turned the slavery question into an emotional issue which made it much easier to manipulate the masses and get them to kill each other and destroy half of the nation.
Slavery. Don't let the revisionists convince you otherwise.
Oh yes, everything besides slavery that caused that war is just REVISIONISM! Oh lord how did I miss that?
I will lay it down, slavery, states rights, tariffs, regional antimosity, trade, southern fire-eaters, northern industrialists, northern involvement in the slave trade (and how they convieniently forgot about it), and many others. All of them intertwined in some way or another and some more than others.
Oh yes, everything besides slavery that caused that war is just REVISIONISM! Oh lord how did I miss that?
I will lay it down, slavery, states rights, tariffs, regional antimosity, trade, southern fire-eaters, northern industrialists, northern involvement in the slave trade (and how they convieniently forgot about it), and many others. All of them intertwined in some way or another and some more than others.
The Northern Industrialists, who controlled the textile and distilling industries, wanted to control cotton production in the South and cane production in the islands.
It was much cheaper to institute the English system of Wage Slavery than to maintain the culturally ingrained system of Chattel Slavery.
By politically involving the churches, they gained support on "ethical" and "religious" grounds and turned the slavery question into an emotional issue which made it much easier to manipulate the masses and get them to kill each other and destroy half of the nation.
Yeah. Those dumb churches, opposing slavery on ethical and religious grounds! Those damn Yankees would stop at nothing - even involving the Lord in their nefarious plots to get rid of Massa and the old plantation! Shame on them!
Oh yes, everything besides slavery that caused that war is just REVISIONISM! Oh lord how did I miss that?
I will lay it down, slavery, states rights, tariffs, regional antimosity, trade, southern fire-eaters, northern industrialists, northern involvement in the slave trade (and how they convieniently forgot about it), and many others. All of them intertwined in some way or another and some more than others.
None of it matters except slavery. All the rest of it is just window dressing applied by the slavery supporters to help convince themselves that the Civil War was some noble endeavor, instead of being about buying, selling, raping, and killing black people.
Which is why northern agricultural states like Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin didn't secede. One would think that if, as some revisionists claim, it was agriculture vs. industry the states of the Old Northwest would've been ripe for rebellion.
I'd also like to know just how much of this so called "northern involvement in the slave trade" there was in 1860. Seeing as the slave trade had been illegal for about 50 years by 1860.
Last edited by Irishtom29; 01-10-2010 at 12:48 AM..
When the dispute was about tariffs, the Nullification Crisis of 1832, no other State joined with South Carolina in their attempt to assert a State right. When President Jackson threatened to force a military solution, South Carolina backed down.
When after a period of 32 years of pro slavery, or at least slavery friendly Presidents, the nation elected a party which promised not to end slavery, just to end the expansion of slavery, the Southern States attempted to depart from the union.
What was being threatened? The imbalanced political situation which had allowed the Southern States to exercise power in the Senate far beyond their population numbers. As long as there were an equal number of slave and free states, and as long as each State was given two seats in the Senate regardless of population, a unified Slave Bloc could nullify, or at least heavily modify, political agendas favored by the majority.
The end of slavery expansion meant the end of that balance between slave/no slave States. It meant the end of that ability to throw more weight around than was merited by numbers.
And that, apparently, was worth a fight to the South.
No one was going to rip the nation apart and wage war over tariffs, railroads or governmental aid to public works.
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