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The True Cause of the Civil War: (Hint- Slavery)

joG said:
One of the things I was thinking of was the discomfort of the South with the continuous expansion of the Union. The Southern States felt they might loose influence as the power was diluted and shifted. This combined with significantly different interests with respect to the requirements of agricultural raw materials production and a growing industrial population in the North.
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Well sure, that was a factor for the South. But that too, was driven by slavery.

The Southern ecomony needed to expand in order for it to survive, because by that time there was a significant population growth in the North, and they lost the majority to the North in the House of Representatives.

So the South looked to the territories to expand their slave economy, in order to break the equilibrium of Northern and Southern states in the Senate, which would enable the South to block measures by the North to impose any more limitations on slavery, limitations of which the South could not afford. That would also expand their population, and possibly could have them overtake the North in the House of Representatives.

The North vehemently opposed this, which in turn created even more division between the North and South, and over time this division eventually lead to the Civil War.
 
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Renae said:
Slavery wasn't the ISSUE, the issue was states rights, that happened to impact SLAVERY. It's a difference but an important one.
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State's rights to own slaves. Gee, that makes it OK. Eh? :roll:
 
Abraham Lincoln repeatedly stated his war was caused by taxes only, and not by slavery, at all.

"My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861). paragraph 5 of Lincoln's First Message to the U.S. Congress, penned July 4, 1861.

"I have no purpose, directly or in-directly, 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," First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln
 
Lincoln did not claim slavery was a reason even in his Emancipation Proclamations on Sept. 22, 1862, and Jan. 1, 1863. Moreover, Lincoln's proclamations exempted a million slaves under his control from being freed (including General U.S. Grant's four slaves) and offered the South three months to return to the Union (pay 40 percent sales tax) and keep their slaves. None did. Lincoln affirmed his only reason for issuing was: "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said (tax) rebellion."

Mrs. Grant wrote in her personal memoirs: "We rented our pretty little home (in St. Louis) and hired out our four servants to persons whom we knew and who promised to be kind to them. Eliza, Dan, Julia and John belonged to me. When I visited the General during the War, I nearly always had Julia with me as nurse."

Lincoln declared war to collect taxes in his two presidential war proclamations against the Confederate States, on April 15 and 19th, 1861: "Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed therein."

On Dec. 25, 1860, South Carolina declared unfair taxes to be a cause of secession: "The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three-fourths (75%) of them are expended at the North (to subsidize Wall Street industries that elected Lincoln)." (Paragraphs 5-8)

It was on April 8, 1861, that Lincoln, alone, started the war by a surprise attack on Charleston Harbor with a fleet of warships, led by the USS Harriet Lane, to occupy Fort Sumter, a Federal tax collection fort in the territorial waters of South Carolina and then invaded Virginia.

On April 29, 1861, President Jefferson Davis described the South's response of self-defense in his Message To the Confederate States Congress: "I directed a proposal to be made to the commander of Fort Sumter that we would abstain from directing our fire on Fort Sumter if he would promise not to open fire on our forces unless first attacked. This proposal was refused." (Paragraphs 8-9)

Abraham Lincoln said war was over taxes, not slavery | AL.com
 
volsrock said:
Abraham Lincoln repeatedly stated his war was caused by taxes only, and not by slavery, at all.

"My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861). paragraph 5 of Lincoln's First Message to the U.S. Congress, penned July 4, 1861.

"I have no purpose, directly or in-directly, 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," First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln
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Lincoln was correct. He did not have constitutional authority to dissolve slavery in the Union states. But, the stupid Southern states left anyway. Because they knew their expansionist dreams out West were over. And, to preserve slavery over the long run, they tried to form their own nation, one which would have legal slavery forever.
 
volsrock said:
Lincoln did not claim slavery was a reason even in his Emancipation Proclamations on Sept. 22, 1862, and Jan. 1, 1863. Moreover, Lincoln's proclamations exempted a million slaves under his control from being freed (including General U.S. Grant's four slaves) and offered the South three months to return to the Union (pay 40 percent sales tax) and keep their slaves. None did. Lincoln affirmed his only reason for issuing was: "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said (tax) rebellion."
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False

That December, Lincoln again used his war powers and issued a "Proclamation for Amnesty and Reconstruction", which offered Southern states a chance to peacefully rejoin the Union if they abolished slavery and collected loyalty oaths from 10% of their voting population.[12] Southern states did not readily accept the deal, and the status of slavery remained uncertain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirt...States_Constitution#Proposal_and_ratification
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BTW, we ratified the 13th within two years of the war ending. Guess what it did? Officially end slavery.
 
Redress said:
It should not be denied as it is fact, but I can promise you some one will be along shortly to do so.



Oh look, right again!

No Renae, the issue was slavery, couched in terms of states rights. The states right they where concerned with was slavery, not states rights in general. And not their own states rights, but new states and territories, since without those new markets for slaves, the value of the slaves they had would drop.
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No, without new slave states their political power and rights would be diminished.

Slavery and the Civil War: Not What You Think | The Huffington Post

I disagree. Yes, slavery was of course the central point of contention, but as an example of state sovereignty versus federal authority. The war was fought over state’s rights and the limits of federal power in a union of states. The perceived threat to state autonomy became an existential one through the specific dispute over slavery. The issue was not slavery per se, but who decided whether slavery was acceptable, local institutions or a distant central government power. That distinction is not one of semantics: this question of local or federal control to permit or prohibit slavery as the country expanded west became increasingly acute in new states, eventually leading to that fateful artillery volley at Fort Sumter.

Specifically, eleven southern states seceded from the Union in protest against federal legislation that limited the expansion of slavery claiming that such legislation violated the tenth amendment, which they argued trumped the Supremacy Clause. The war was indeed about protecting the institution of slavery, but only as a specific case of a state’s right to declare a federal law null and void. Southern states sought to secede because they believed that the federal government had no authority to tell them how to run their affairs. The most obvious and precipitating example was the North’s views on slavery. So yes, the South clearly fought to defend slavery as a means of protecting their sordid economic system and way of life, but they did so with slavery serving as the most glaring example of federal usurpation of state powers of self-determination. The war would be fought to prevent those states from seceding, not to destroy the institution of slavery. The war would be fought over different interpretations of our founding document.
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It accepts the shallow but unchallenged premise that the Civil War occurred because slavery was practiced in the South, and that righteous resolve to abolish the institution left the U.S. with no option other than a resort to arms. This is a myopic view with which many historical facts simply cannot be reconciled.

The war resulted from causes unrelated to slavery and abolition. It was entirely a consequence of the Southern states' secession, which occurred despite the undeniable fact that the slave states could not have hoped for better protection of slavery than that afforded by the U. S. Constitution — provided they remained in the Union.



Both Lincoln and the slaveholders well knew in 1860 that a constitutional amendment ending slavery would never be mathematically feasible. But Lincoln further understood that the South was gravitating toward secession as the remedy for a different grievance altogether: The egregiously inequitable effects of a U. S. protective tariff that provided 90 percent of federal revenue.

Foreign governments retaliated for it with tariffs of their own, and payment of those overseas levies represented the cost to Americans of their U. S. government. Southerners were generating two-thirds of U. S. exports, and also bearing two-thirds of the retaliatory tariffs abroad.

The result was that that the 18.5 percent of America's citizens who lived in the South were saddled with three times their proportionate share of the federal government's costs.
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Slavery wasn't the main cause of the Civil War - tribunedigital-baltimoresun

 
calamity said:
Lincoln was correct. He did not have constitutional authority to dissolve slavery in the Union states. But, the stupid Southern states left anyway. Because they knew their expansionist dreams out West were over. And, to preserve slavery over the long run, they tried to form their own nation, one which would have legal slavery forever.
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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. A. Lincoln.


What part of that do u not get?

Fact is if war was about slaves he could have saved the Union by just not letting slaves have freedom ...LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD DO IN HIS OWN WORDS


""if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. ""

Free in the North not free in the South.... he said he would have done that! So no reason to go to war over free slaves
 
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joG said:
People are like they were then. Don't necessarily believe, what they write in the protocol.
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So instead of going by the reasons they gave you are going by the reasons you speculate they may have had....

That's a very interesting approach to History.......
 
calamity said:
The fact that the North went to war over it was less about freeing slaves than it was preserving the union and ensuring no rival nation formed just below the Ohio River. But, the reason the morons seceded was to keep them n-words in chains. The South knew slavery's days were numbered in the good old US.
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You are wise to point out that "Why did the South Secede" is a different question from "Why did the North Invade" with different answers.
 
volsrock said:
Abraham Lincoln repeatedly stated his war was caused by taxes only, and not by slavery, at all.

"My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861). paragraph 5 of Lincoln's First Message to the U.S. Congress, penned July 4, 1861.

"I have no purpose, directly or in-directly, 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," First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln
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And he also said that the war was caused by slavery on different occasions. Here is a quote from his Second Inaugural address: "One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war."

Sounds like it was about slavery to me. But really all this tells us is that while Lincoln was an important politician in our history, he was none the less still a politician and would put different spins on things at different times and where his political positions lined up with his personal beliefs is, as with many great people, often difficult to discern.

But regardless, it is folly to let this question rest on the quotes of Lincoln because as important a figure as he was, his reasons for attacking do not define the reasons the south had for seceding.

Now, Volsrock, I have to ask you, and please answer this question honestly and in good faith, did you actually go read any of the statements of secession that were linked? Did you? Because if you did you would see the the Southern states, allowed to write their own narrative for the reason they seceded, passed in their legislatures, signed by their governors, distributed among there people in pamphlet form, and sent to the federal government, each and every one give the preservation of Slavery against northern attempts to undermine it as the reason for secession.

So, are you going to sit here and tell me that YOU know the reasons for secession better than the people who actually seceded? That reeks of dense and impenetrable hubris to me.
 
Tariffs, not slavery, precipitated the American Civil War

Both Lincoln and the slaveholders well knew in 1860 that a constitutional amendment ending slavery would never be mathematically feasible. But Lincoln further understood that the South was gravitating toward secession as the remedy for a different grievance altogether: The egregiously inequitable effects of a U. S. protective tariff that provided 90 percent of federal revenue.

Foreign governments retaliated for it with tariffs of their own, and payment of those overseas levies represented the cost to Americans of their U. S. government. Southerners were generating two-thirds of U. S. exports, and also bearing two-thirds of the retaliatory tariffs abroad.

The result was that that the 18.5 percent of America's citizens who lived in the South were saddled with three times their proportionate share of the federal government's costs.

But in 1860, the overriding issue of the day was not slavery in the territories: it was secession. And when addressed in this latter context, Lincoln's same research undeniably proves there had been majority intent among delegates to the 1787 Convention that each state was to retain a permanent right of exit. Ten of Lincoln's foregoing 21 Signers represented slave states. Absent a retained secession option, not one of them would have signed a Constitution that empowered the U. S. to prohibit territorial slavery. Alone, the Northwest Territory represented the potential in 1787 for five new non-slave states, which would promptly have reduced the Old South to just one-third of eighteen total states: and the Constitution they were crafting was to permit any amendment that was opposed by only one-quarter of the states — including one that could abolish slavery if six more non-slave states were thereafter admitted. Lincoln could not have failed to recognize that the Signers had been in agreement upon a right to secede, without which no constitution would have gelled at all. Accordingly, secession remained in 1860 a right both legal and honorable.




In the face of all these considerations, Lincoln could have proposed a Southern slave emancipation reciprocated by sweeping federal fiscal reform that would replace the protective tariff with a nationwide income tax.


Instead, Lincoln's remedy was the catastrophic one that denied Southerners their exit by military force: which represented exercise of a federal authority conspicuously absent from the all-inclusive list of powers granted by the Constitution to the U. S. government.


Slavery wasn't the main cause of the Civil War - tribunedigital-baltimoresun


BINGO
 
volsrock said:
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. A. Lincoln.


What part of that do u not get?

Fact is if war was about slaves he could have saved the Union by just not letting slaves have freedom ...LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD DO IN HIS OWN WORDS


""if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. ""

Free in the North not free in the South.... he said he would have done that! So no reason to go to war over free slaves
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What part of the statements of secession where the south says like a hundred times that it was over slavery do you not get? Do you really expect us to discount slavery as the reason the south seceded because it was not the reason Lincoln attacked? You realize that those are two different and not at all mutually exclusive issues.

War is complicated, there are many overlapping and interwoven causes for all major world events, what I am looking for here is the main issues, the pivitol issue, the issues that had it been different but all else the same the war would not have happened.

And that is unequivocal and clearly the issues of slavery as explicitly stated by the slave states themselves.
 
volsrock said:
Tariffs, not slavery, precipitated the American Civil War

Both Lincoln and the slaveholders well knew in 1860 that a constitutional amendment ending slavery would never be mathematically feasible. But Lincoln further understood that the South was gravitating toward secession as the remedy for a different grievance altogether: The egregiously inequitable effects of a U. S. protective tariff that provided 90 percent of federal revenue.

Foreign governments retaliated for it with tariffs of their own, and payment of those overseas levies represented the cost to Americans of their U. S. government. Southerners were generating two-thirds of U. S. exports, and also bearing two-thirds of the retaliatory tariffs abroad.

The result was that that the 18.5 percent of America's citizens who lived in the South were saddled with three times their proportionate share of the federal government's costs.

But in 1860, the overriding issue of the day was not slavery in the territories: it was secession. And when addressed in this latter context, Lincoln's same research undeniably proves there had been majority intent among delegates to the 1787 Convention that each state was to retain a permanent right of exit. Ten of Lincoln's foregoing 21 Signers represented slave states. Absent a retained secession option, not one of them would have signed a Constitution that empowered the U. S. to prohibit territorial slavery. Alone, the Northwest Territory represented the potential in 1787 for five new non-slave states, which would promptly have reduced the Old South to just one-third of eighteen total states: and the Constitution they were crafting was to permit any amendment that was opposed by only one-quarter of the states — including one that could abolish slavery if six more non-slave states were thereafter admitted. Lincoln could not have failed to recognize that the Signers had been in agreement upon a right to secede, without which no constitution would have gelled at all. Accordingly, secession remained in 1860 a right both legal and honorable.




In the face of all these considerations, Lincoln could have proposed a Southern slave emancipation reciprocated by sweeping federal fiscal reform that would replace the protective tariff with a nationwide income tax.


Instead, Lincoln's remedy was the catastrophic one that denied Southerners their exit by military force: which represented exercise of a federal authority conspicuously absent from the all-inclusive list of powers granted by the Constitution to the U. S. government.


Slavery wasn't the main cause of the Civil War - tribunedigital-baltimoresun


BINGO
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So you are just content to ignore the actual explicitly stated reasons given by the southern states themselves.......

Doesn't that seem foolish to you?
 
jimithyashford said:
So instead of going by the reasons they gave you are going by the reasons you speculate they may have had....

That's a very interesting approach to History.......
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So you think you should believe, what someone with powrr tells you? Personally, I think control is better.
 
Slavery was legal in the North far longer than it was legal in the South.

That is the Stars and stripes flew over legalized slavery much longer than the Confederate battle flag did.

As for rehashing this Civil war debate again, I honestly see little reason or relevence unless it being done to legitimize present day partisan Political pandering.

Slaves were brought over to the new world on ships that flew Dutch and Spanish flags, but for some reason the complicity of those Nations is ignored outright. I wonder why ?
 
joG said:
I am no professional on this, but I had always had the feeling there were more and probably more important reasons
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That is likely because your ancestors were not slaves. What could be more important than ending that horror.
 
iguanaman said:
That is likely because your ancestors were not slaves. What could be more important than ending that horror.
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When was the horror of slavery ended in Africa? U know where American blacks ancestors came from...cmon tell us when it ended
 
Fenton said:
Slavery was legal in the North far longer than it was legal in the South.

That is the Stars and stripes flew over legalized slavery much longer than the Confederate battle flag did.

As for rehashing this Civil war debate again, I honestly see little reason or relevence unless it being done to legitimize present day partisan Political pandering.

Slaves were brought over to the new world on ships that flew Dutch and Spanish flags, but for some reason the complicity of those Nations is ignored outright. I wonder why ?
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You are under no obligation to rehash it again. If you are through with the subject and don't see the merit in discussing it further you may, of course, excuse yourself.

As far as the culpability of slave traffickers of various nationalities, there is plenty of material out there condemning and vilifying rapacious imperialist Europeans and the atrocious conditions of the Middle Passage, its not as if that isn't a worthwhile discussion, but that's not this discussion. This discussion is about splitting the US over the issue of slavery, a conversation in which the Spanish and Dutch cannot possibly be anything other than a red herring.
 
volsrock said:
When was the horror of slavery ended in Africa? U know where American blacks ancestors came from...cmon tell us when it ended
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Um.....either this is a complete non-sequitor or I am just not understanding your wording.

Are you implying that because Slavery still existed in other parts of the world at the time that therefore placing great importance on it having ended for your ancestors in their country is somehow invalidated?

That doesn't even make sense.....
 
volsrock said:
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. A. Lincoln.


What part of that do u not get?

Fact is if war was about slaves he could have saved the Union by just not letting slaves have freedom ...LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD DO IN HIS OWN WORDS


""if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. ""

Free in the North not free in the South.... he said he would have done that! So no reason to go to war over free slaves
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All that matters--and this is the part that is important to understand---is that the Confederate States were formed to preserve slavery. The war itself was a different situation altogether. Primarily, however, it was fought because we said, "No, mother****ers. You cannot secede."

Lincoln's quotes are consistent with that premise. Yes, he would have done anything to preserve the Union, and he did.
 
Fenton said:
Slavery was legal in the North far longer than it was legal in the South.

That is the Stars and stripes flew over legalized slavery much longer than the Confederate battle flag did.

As for rehashing this Civil war debate again, I honestly see little reason or relevence unless it being done to legitimize present day partisan Political pandering.

Slaves were brought over to the new world on ships that flew Dutch and Spanish flags, but for some reason the complicity of those Nations is ignored outright. I wonder why ?
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Uh....no, actually. The last slaves were released on December 18, 1865--- very clearly not "far longer then the south"

And yes, the Stars and Stripes flew over slavery for longer then the confederate battle flag, seeing as the Confederacy only existed for five years. So what?
 
jimithyashford said:
So you are saying they fought to defend slavery for political power not so much for agricultural labor.....um.....still over slavery though right?
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It was a visible "thing" affected by the power grab from the North and the loss of Southern state power.
 
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