Nikki Haley-What was the cause of the Civil War

[CJD]

(12-28-2023, 11:42 AM)hollodero Wrote: Was it really about that alone though? I get that this is the official teaching and it might seem like the right answer to give, but in the end... if I were asked to give a honest assessment, I'd have to argue there were way more factors in play and slavery was not the one and only cause. Maybe not even the most important one. This whole picture of the morally cleansed, good Union just fighting for the freedom of slaves against the evil South always was a tad too romantic for me to be entirely accurate.

I get it is considered a sacrilege to even contemplate additional reasons, but I am an uneducated foreigner and hence am allowed to be that kind of ignorant.

Btw. here's something that Lincoln said. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. 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." Hm.

Prior to the Civil War, there were unwritten rules with the intention of keeping the number of slave and non-slave states equal. This was done primarily so that one side would not overrun the other side. They even created an unofficial line that divided the country into the slave and non slave halves, the Missouri Compromise. So named because Missouri, despite being north of the line, chose to be a slave state. From that point on, no state north of the 36th parallel was technically allowed to be a slave state.

Problems occurred with the introduction of California, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas and Nebraska and fights over whether they would be slave states or free states. This is where a lot of fighting occurred within these territories and the famous abolitionist John Brown made a name for himself (Bleeding Kansas). There were even physical fights in Congress (Sumner Caning).

The fear by the South was that, eventually, the North would gain more voting power and eliminate slavery entirely. 

John Brown attempted a slave uprising that failed, but it further convinced southerners that the North would inevitably ban slavery.

As time went on, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, California were all instituted as free states, which did give the free states a numbers advantage over the slave states, which only further increased the slave states' fears that slavery would be banned outright.

The Republican party was formed and they nominated Lincoln, who was, by that era's standards, vehemently opposed to slavery, even prior to the war. But he said consistently that he did not want to ban it for the reasons you mentioned. His foremost concern was maintaining the union. 

When Lincoln won the 1860 election, that is when the secessions began. The first was in December 1860, followed by 6 more states in January and February 1861, and then 4 more between in April and May 1861 (after the war had begun).

In his inauguration speech, Lincoln repeated his intention to not ban slavery, but the damage was already done by then.

In the official secession documents, several states (it may have been every state, I don't recall) specifically called out hostility towards slavery as a primary reason for secession.

In other words, they seceded as a means of pre-empting the eventual outlaw of slavery that had no occurred yet and that, as you said, Lincoln had already said he had no intention of doing.

You're correct that it was not a situation where the Do-gooder northerners were fighting for what was right and the evil southerners fought to keep their slaves.

I mean, the latter portion of that statement is correct, but not the do-gooder northerners part. At least not institutionally.

In reality, Lincoln freed the slaves as a tactical maneuver to weaken the South after the war had already begun. It was not out of the kindness of his heart or anything like that.

Now...would he have eventually declared all slaves free anyway? Perhaps. It's hard to say. I think he preferred it just die out naturally. But that's what the South was afraid of and why they began the Civil War initially (via the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, after 7 states had already seceded).

There's no two ways about it. The Civil War was fought because the South wanted to keep slaves and they feared the North would eventually move to free them. It's just not as clear cut as a lot of Northerners claim in regards to the eventual motives for the Emancipation Proclamation.