Was the American Civil War inevitable?

[blood63]

Of course, trouble had been brewing for years. Was there any talk of letting the South just walk away? In hindsight, it would have saved 100,000's of lives.
Was the separation of the South just seen as the workings of a splinter group?

[Colibri]

Moved from GQ to Great Debates.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[Marley23]

I'd say it was inevitable for at least 20 years or so before it happened, and possibly longer. And when you say it would have saved hundreds of thousand of lives... well, for the soldiers. For the slaves, not so much.

[Trinopus]

Just letting the South walk away wasn't gonna happen. No chance of that. The seizure of Federal property was, itself, inevitable; the South could never accept large chunks of Federal property in its midst, and the North was never going to just let seizure slide.

Once secession was declared, fighting was sure to follow.

How far back in time could a diverging point realistically be found? Could the series of compromises have succeeded? I think that, yes, the war could have been avoided, if enough people had their heads on straight. Slavery could have been phased out gradually; the division of the country into slave and free states would then cease to matter.

(Do we care, today, which states were "Free Silver" states? Will it matter in a hundred years which states oppose the Affordable Care Act?)

I think, once the "Bleeding Kansas" violence erupted, war was doomed to happen... But "alternate history" is deucedly hard to figure.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by blood63

Of course, trouble had been brewing for years. Was there any talk of letting the South just walk away? In hindsight, it would have saved 100,000's of lives.
Was the separation of the South just seen as the workings of a splinter group?

Most wars could have been avoided if one side would have just surrendered before the fighting started.

Why place the onus on the United States? The southern states could have prevented the war by not seceding.

[XT]

Of course, trouble had been brewing for years. Was there any talk of letting the South just walk away? In hindsight, it would have saved 100,000's of lives.

There was talk of it, but it was never all that serious. What had happened in the run up was a series of presidents attempting to compromise and kick the can further down the road so someone else would have to deal with it...or, I suppose more charitably, that somehow, magically, the problem and contention would be fixed somehow and we'd all be friends again. That was never going to happen either, IMHO, but that was the thinking.

Was the separation of the South just seen as the workings of a splinter group?

I'm not sure what you are asking here. A formal separation of the South was never going to be allowed to stand without a fight.

Was the American Civil War inevitable?

Yeah, I think it was inevitable. That was the point of the argument about new states being free or slave (or having a choice), because both sides knew that on it hinged whether they would be able to push through their own agenda or would be bound by the agenda of their rivals. Since neither side could afford to back down from this, it was a powder keg set to explode as new states were obviously going to be joining the union.

-XT

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Trinopus

How far back in time could a diverging point realistically be found? Could the series of compromises have succeeded? I think that, yes, the war could have been avoided, if enough people had their heads on straight. Slavery could have been phased out gradually; the division of the country into slave and free states would then cease to matter.

John Calhoun has a lot to answer for. Most of the early Americans recognized that slavery was a problem and the early debates had been over how to address the problem. There were a lot of disagreements over what should be done but in general everyone agreed on where they wanted to end up.

Calhoun was the main figure who ended that consensus. He started saying that slavery wasn't a problem and there was no need to address it. He said slavery was a good thing and it should be protected and expanded. His view prevailed in the south and polarized the nation over the issue. There could no longer be any compromise when there was no agreement on what the goal was.

[WillFarnaby]

The idea that the war was inevitable because the South could not be allowed to seize federal property is bizarre to me. What exactly is the federal property involved here? Wouldn't it have made more economic sense, considering the expense of the war, to let the states secede?

The war gained support in the North because the South instituted a lower tariff than the North and this was perceived as damaging to the Union economy. Congressman Clement Vallandingham on the subject:

But there was another and yet stronger impelling cause, without which this horrid calamity of civil war might have been postponed, and, perhaps, finally averted. One of the last and worst acts of a Congress which, born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion, literally did those things which it ought not to have done, and left undone those things which it ought to have done, was the passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective tariff act, commonly known as " The Mobrili* Tariff/' Just about the same time, too, the Confederate Congress, at Montgomery, adopted our old tariff of 1867, which we had rejected to make way for the Morrill act, fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty per cent, lower than ours. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce —and especially the trade and commerce of the West—began to look to the South. Turned out of their natural course, years ago, by the canals and railroads of Pennsylvania and New York, and diverted eastward at a heavy cost to the West, they threatened now to resume their ancient and accustomed channels—the water-courses—the Ohio and the Mississippi. And political association and union, it was well known, must soon follow the direction of trade and interest. The city of New York, the great commercial emporium of the Union, and the North-west, the chief granary of the Union—began to clamor now, loudly, for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff. Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England—and Pennsylvania, too, the land of Penn, cradled in peace—demanded, now, coercion and civil war, with all its horrors, as the price of preserving either from destruction. Ay, sir, PennsylTantia, the great key-stone of the arch of the Union, was willing to lay the whole weight of hex iron upon that sacred arch, and crush it beneath the load. The subjugation of the South—ay, sir, the subjugation of the South!—I am not talking to children or fools; for there is not a man in this House fit to be a Representative here, who does not know that the South can not be forced to yield obedience to your laws and authority again, until you have conquered and subjugated her—the subjugation of the South, and the closing up of her ports—first, by force, in war, and afterward, by tariff laws, in peace^was deliberately resolved upon by the East. And, sir, when once this policy was begun, these self-same motives of waning commerce, and threatened loss of trade, impelled the great city of New York, and her merchants and her politicians and her press—with here and there an honorable exception —to place herself in the very front rank among the worshipers of Moloch. Much, indeed, of that outburst and uprising in the North, which followed the proclamation of the 15th of April, as well, perhaps, as the proclamation itself, was called forth, not so much by the fall of Sumter—an event long anticipated—as by the notion that the " insurrection," as it was called, might be crushed out in a few weeks, if not by the display, certainly, at least, by the presence of an overwhelming force.
These, sir, were the chief causes which, along with others, led to a change in the policy of the Administration, and, instead of peace, forced us, headlong, into civil war, with all its accumulated horrors.

The end of slavery was inevitable as evidenced by its abolition elsewhere in the world without civil wars.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

The end of slavery was inevitable as evidenced by its abolition elsewhere in the world without civil wars.

1888 in Brazil. That was 28 years after the Civil War. Sure, if we waited long enough, slavery would have ended. But we didn't know that at the time, and you have to remember that the North was not fighting to end slavery even if the South was fighting to preserve it.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by John Mace

1888 in Brazil. That was 28 years after the Civil War. Sure, if we waited long enough, slavery would have ended. But we didn't know that at the time, and you have to remember that the North was not fighting to end slavery even if the South was fighting to preserve it.

I know. The North was fighting to protect its own economic interests.

[The Second Stone]

If the South outlawed slavery, war could have been avoided. But they were not going to outlaw slavery because they liked it and profited from it and it made them feel good about themselves and their special heritage of enslaving people.

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

What compromise (phasing-out of slavery, for example, or the South purchasing Federal property) might have made sense in retrospect?

[Der Trihs]

Originally Posted by The Second Stone

If the South outlawed slavery, war could have been avoided. But they were not going to outlaw slavery because they liked it and profited from it and it made them feel good about themselves and their special heritage of enslaving people.

And the ruling class had a huge investment in it, both financial and psychological. If slavery went away then so did all the money they'd used buying slaves. And they'd spent decades justifying their enslavement of people as good and just and necessary; giving up slavery would have been an admission that they'd been in the wrong the whole time. They were psychologically committed to slavery.

[MEBuckner]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

The war gained support in the North because the South instituted a lower tariff than the North and this was perceived as damaging to the Union economy.

Nonsense. The North supported the war because Southerners were trying to break up the national Union--whatever you may think of the Northern view, Northerners by and large viewed this as rebellion and treason--and not incidentally because the secessionists started the war by opening fire on Fort Sumter, converting a political crisis into a shooting war. (It was likely inevitable that the crisis would turn into a war; nonetheless, the South fired the first shots.)

The end of slavery was inevitable as evidenced by its abolition elsewhere in the world without civil wars.

Perhaps. On the other hand, the Empire of Brazil was not founded as a nation of slave-owners, by slave-owners, and for slave-owners. Given how intimately slavery (and white supremacy over blacks more generally) was bound up with Confederate identity, I suspect a hypothetical independent Confederacy would have been much more stubborn over keeping slavery than a lot of armchair alternate historians seem to think. (And hey, Mauritania just abolished slavery!...Again. Mauritania and slavery is kind of like the old joke about quitting smoking: Of course Mauritania can abolish slavery--why they've already done it dozens of times! The point being, when an institution is deeply ingrained in a society, people can be damned stubborn about hanging on to it, regardless of how much or little economic sense it makes or how disapproving everyone else on the planet is.)

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

I know. The North was fighting to protect its own economic interests.

I'd still take that over fighting and killing/dying for the rights to own another human being, which is what the CSA was all about. As you should well know, if you were actually willing to listen honestly about the issue. I've seen your name all over Civil War threads, so I just assume I am stating this for our silent readers...

[Lumpy]

If the southern states had seceeded at the start of Buchanan's presidency rather than it's end, they might have gotten away with it. Buchanan insisted that he had no power to "coerce" the breakaway states, and the ultra-conservative Taney court would have backed him up.

[shiftless]

A conflict of some kind was inevitiable. The size and scope of the actual war was way beyond anyone's estimation (much like a lot of wars.) If the hotheads involved could have seen the carnage that was coming, even if they couldn't see the final outcome, they might have looked for a better path. As it was everybody thinks "over by Christmas" when the sabres rattle, and we still think that way today.

[Sailboat]

Note that WillFarnaby has posted some...alternative understandings of Civil War history before. It's probably worth your time to look them up before responding.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by MEBuckner

Nonsense. The North supported the war because Southerners were trying to break up the national Union--whatever you may think of the Northern view, Northerners by and large viewed this as rebellion and treason--and not incidentally because the secessionists started the war by opening fire on Fort Sumter, converting a political crisis into a shooting war. (It was likely inevitable that the crisis would turn into a war; nonetheless, the South fired the first shots.)

Pardon me if I take the opinion of the congressman I quoted in my first post over your uncited claims.

Perhaps. On the other hand, the Empire of Brazil was not founded as a nation of slave-owners, by slave-owners, and for slave-owners. Given how intimately slavery (and white supremacy over blacks more generally) was bound up with Confederate identity, I suspect a hypothetical independent Confederacy would have been much more stubborn over keeping slavery than a lot of armchair alternate historians seem to think. (And hey, Mauritania just abolished slavery!...Again. Mauritania and slavery is kind of like the old joke about quitting smoking: Of course Mauritania can abolish slavery--why they've already done it dozens of times! The point being, when an institution is deeply ingrained in a society, people can be damned stubborn about hanging on to it, regardless of how much or little economic sense it makes or how disapproving everyone else on the planet is.

The argument is that if slavery was outlawed in the the Union, escaping slaves would have made the institution of slavery in the CSA harder to maintain, and ultimately impossible to maintain.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Tristan

I'd still take that over fighting and killing/dying for the rights to own another human being, which is what the CSA was all about. As you should well know, if you were actually willing to listen honestly about the issue. I've seen your name all over Civil War threads, so I just assume I am stating this for our silent readers...

Where have I defended the Confederacy's institution of slavery? The funding for the war no doubt came from ignoble origins on both sides. You will find, however, that a vast majority of soldiers in the South were fighting for their right to self-governance, nothing else.

In the previous CW thread i participated in I was arguing the idea that some people suggested that the North were the do-gooders who risked their lives to end slavery. That was certainly not the case. Nor was it the case that the Civil War was inevitable. Unless by inevitable you mean everything that happens is predetermined, which I am inclined to agree with.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Sailboat

Note that WillFarnaby has posted some...alternative understandings of Civil War history before. It's probably worth your time to look them up before responding.

It most definitely is. Highly cited I might add.

[Oldeb]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Pardon me if I take the opinion of the congressman I quoted in my first post over your uncited claims.

Vallandigham was part of a fringe group called the Copperheads during the Civil War. He's hardly a source for mainstream views. Notably his statements on Lincoln and the Civil War lead to him losing reelection in 1862. The majority of the Union simply did not share his sentiments on the secession.

[Marley23]

As a reminder, the topic here is whether or not the war was inevitable. Discussions of motives and some other issues are not totally irrelevant, but this thread should remain on the primary topic before side issues are explored.

[silenus]

War became inevitable on July 8, 1777. On that date Vermont outlawed slavery, and as was so eloquently put by another, no union can exist half-slave and half-free.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Oldeb

Vallandigham was part of a fringe group called the Copperheads during the Civil War. He's hardly a source for mainstream views. Notably his statements on Lincoln and the Civil War lead to him losing reelection in 1862. The majority of the Union simply did not share his sentiments on the secession.

That may be true, but does that mean that their motives were not economic? I highly doubt it. It's hardly out of the mainstream to suggest that the tariff played a role in gaining support for the war.

So the South seceded. Why would anyone in the Union care at all? To say they fought the war because the South broke the rules is a bit of a stretch imo. We know the Union didn't fight the war because of slavery (at least not at the start). To say they fought the war because of "federal property" being seized by the South is a dubious claim. The federal property that was seized comes no where near the cost of the war, so that can't be the reason. So what is? I offered the tariff as a possible explanation, but you don't buy it.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by silenus

War became inevitable on July 8, 1777. On that date Vermont outlawed slavery, and as was so eloquently put by another, no union can exist half-slave and half-free.

Ok so have two seperate unions. Problem solved. That doesn't make the war inevitable.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Ok so have two seperate unions. Problem solved. That doesn't make the war inevitable.

And if the problem was not having a single union, how does having two separate unions solve that?

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

And if the problem was not having a single union, how does having two separate unions solve that?

Whats wrong with having two seperate unions?

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

That may be true, but does that mean that their motives were not economic? I highly doubt it. It's hardly out of the mainstream to suggest that the tariff played a role in gaining support for the war.

So the South seceded. Why would anyone in the Union care at all? To say they fought the war because the South broke the rules is a bit of a stretch imo. We know the Union didn't fight the war because of slavery (at least not at the start). To say they fought the war because of "federal property" being seized by the South is a dubious claim. The federal property that was seized comes no where near the cost of the war, so that can't be the reason. So what is? I offered the tariff as a possible explanation, but you don't buy it.

Your explanation makes no sense either. If the southern states seceded from the United States because they were opposed to a tariff, then why did they immediately enact a tariff of their own? And why in their public declarations of their reasons for secession did they place such great emphasis on slavery while saying virtually nothing about tariffs?

And the whole issue is moot anyway. There is no need to explain why the United States declared war on the Confederacy. Because the United States didn't declare war on the Confederacy. It was the Confederacy that declared war on the United States.

[Steve MB]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

John Calhoun has a lot to answer for.

I am reminded of Andrew Jackson's two stated regrets: not shooting Henry Clay and not hanging John Calhoun.

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

The idea that the war was inevitable because the South could not be allowed to seize federal property is bizarre to me. What exactly is the federal property involved here? Wouldn't it have made more economic sense, considering the expense of the war, to let the states secede?

Of course not. Once you have paid the Dane-geld, you will never have enough money to pay all the Danes who show up looking for their cut.

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Pardon me if I take the opinion of the congressman I quoted in my first post over your uncited claims.

Yeah, because the opinions of Congresscritters are inevitably in accord with reality. (Have they identified those eighty-odd Communists yet?)

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Your explanation makes no sense either. If the southern states seceded from the United States because they were opposed to a tariff, then why did they immediately enact a tariff of their own?

A lesser tariff. How do you propose they fund a war?

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

And why in their public declarations of their reasons for secession did they place such great emphasis on slavery while saying virtually nothing about tariffs?

...

As the North American Review (Boston October 1862) put it: "Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation".

An editorial in the Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election stated: "The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism."

And on 21 January 1861, five days before Louisiana seceded, the New Orleans Daily Crescent editorialized: "They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests....These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union."

The Philadelphia Press on 18 March 1861 demanded a blockade of Southern ports, because, if not, "a series of customs houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers, will be subject to Southern tolls."

[silenus]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Ok so have two seperate unions. Problem solved. That doesn't make the war inevitable.

Sure it does. Succession was not acceptable. We settled that point rather eloquently at Appomattox Courthouse.

[Steve MB]

Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation".

Well, then, we've established that most Southerners didn't give a crap about tariffs but did care greatly about preserving slavery, to the point that the war had to be sold on the latter basis. I guess we can close the thread now.

[Lemur866]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

In the previous CW thread i participated in I was arguing the idea that some people suggested that the North were the do-gooders who risked their lives to end slavery. That was certainly not the case.

Agreed. The Northerners weren't do-gooders who started the war to end slavery.

However, it is absolutely true that the South started the war to preserve slavery. That was the purpose of secession. A union cannot be half-slave and half-free, and the Confederate Constitution took away the right of a state to ban slavery. So how was slavery supposed to be abolished in the Confederacy, when the slave power controlled the Confederacy?

[ralph124c]

It became inevitable when Lincoln refused to allow slavery to be instituted in the western territories.
Basically, the old "Tidewater" states of the confederacy were almost bankrupt by the 1850's-decades of one crop agriculture had ruined the soil..and the big plantation owners saw their salvation in moving west (with their slave-based economy).
Had the Old South contented itself with staying where it was, the War would not have happened, and slavery-based agriculture would have been abandoned, by 1900 at the latest.

[Pleonast]

The primary cause of the secession was that the slave states realized that the parity of slave states and free states in the Senate was going to end. And once it ended, slave states would eventually no longer be able to block abolitionist legislation. To prevent secession, and thus war, that basic fear had to be addressed.

If the Constitution was amended to deny the Congress the power to regulate or ban slavery, I believe the secession would have been avoided, or at least delayed by another generation or two.

So how likely would such an amendment passing be? I'm not sure. Obviously, the southern political class would be in favor of it, even if they thought it might eventually be repealed. There would be a large abolitionist movement against it. But I think a lot of more pragmatic politicians (like Lincoln) and people with a live-and-let-live attitude would support it.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

...

None of those are public declarations by the Southern States...

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by silenus

Sure it does. Succession was not acceptable. We settled that point rather eloquently at Appomattox Courthouse.

It was not acceptable to the North because of the consequences of southern secession on the northern economy. If the North hadn't tried to rip the South off with the tariff, there would have been no war.

[Pleonast]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

A union cannot be half-slave and half-free,

While I agree with such sentiment as a matter of morality and ethics, I don't see any practical reason why a mixed situation could not continue. The union lasted for several generations with mixed slave and free states. I think it could last longer, if neither side pushed the issues to an extreme (as happened historically).

and the Confederate Constitution took away the right of a state to ban slavery.

Given that that clause was the major difference between the US Constitution and the Confederate one, I think amending the US one on that point would have prevented secession and war at least until free states composed a 3/4-th majority. (I need to figure out when that would be.)

Originally Posted by ralph124c

It became inevitable when Lincoln refused to allow slavery to be instituted in the western territories.

You need to study the timeline again. The secession started before Lincoln was president.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

If the Constitution was amended to deny the Congress the power to regulate or ban slavery, I believe the secession would have been avoided, or at least delayed by another generation or two.

So how likely would such an amendment passing be? I'm not sure. Obviously, the southern political class would be in favor of it, even if they thought it might eventually be repealed. There would be a large abolitionist movement against it. But I think a lot of more pragmatic politicians (like Lincoln) and people with a live-and-let-live attitude would support it.

they tried that.

[Pleonast]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

Given that that clause was the major difference between the US Constitution and the Confederate one, I think amending the US one on that point would have prevented secession and war at least until free states composed a 3/4-th majority. (I need to figure out when that would be.)

In 1858, there were 15 slave states and 17 free states. Assuming all future states join as free states, that means the slave states could block constitutional amendments until there were 15/0.25 = 60 states. Heh.

So if they had passed an amendment denying Congress the power to ban or regulate slavery, the slave states could still block repeal of it.

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

they tried that.

Ah, I didn't know about the Corwin amendment. Apparently it was too late at that point. If they'd tried something like that a decade earlier, I wonder how it would have gone.

[Sailboat]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

That may be true, but does that mean that their motives were not economic? I highly doubt it. It's hardly out of the mainstream to suggest that the tariff played a role in gaining support for the war.

True, as far as it goes. What you're not saying is that it's widely agreed -- almost universally among historians -- that the South's unhappiness about tariffs was driven by their desire to preserve and extend plantation slavery.

The South clung to its slavery system as a social system it preferred over a manufacturing economy. A very strong component of the Southern contempt for manufacturing was the desire to maintain the social hierarchy in which white, landed, old-money families were the social and economic kings of the hill. This is evident all over the literature, pamphlets, newspapers, diaries, letters, and speeches of the day, if you read them.

The tariff did not disadvantage the South -- unless the South refused to industrialize, which it did, largely because of the desire of the class in power to remain in power at the expense of others (quite literally, in the case of the slaves). And that class (and the attendant class structure) was supported by plantation slavery. So all talk of "tariffs" is just coded talk for slavery.

This isn't something I've come up with sitting at my keyboard. Read Catton, Foote, and particularly McPherson.

[Sailboat]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

Ah, I didn't know about the Corwin amendment. Apparently it was too late at that point. If they'd tried something like that a decade earlier, I wonder how it would have gone.

It was definitely too late, an all-too- typical case of Congress putting off the difficult stuff until everyone's attitudes had hardened.

[The Other Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

they tried that.

I wonder if the takings clause was intended as something of a check to that effect on the federal government -- the idea being that you'd need to amend the Constitution to emancipate slaves without paying just compensation.

[Little Nemo]

The tariff was pretty much inevitable. There was no income tax back then and the main source of government revenue was tariffs. And in order to collect revenue, you have to put a tariff on goods that actually get imported into your country. There was no point in having a tariff on cotton or tobacco or other agricultural products - nobody imported agricultural products into the United States. The big imports were manufactured goods so that was where the government put the tariff.

This created an opportunity for American investors. The tariff raised the price of imported manufactured goods which meant there was a strong market for domestic manufactured goods. Smart investors saw this and started building factories.

It's true that a large share of these factories were built in the northeast. But there was no government plan to this. Nothing prevented people in the south from building factories and taking advantage of the same conditions northern investors were using. It's just that southern investors chose otherwise - due to social reasons, they preferred to invest in land rather than manufacturing.

Okay, they made their choice. But they had no cause to complain about the consequences of those choices. No sympathy to their cries of "it's no fair their economy is growing faster than ours just because they made smarter investments than we did."

I'll also point out that the south wasn't alone on the tariff issue. The western states were also based on an agricultural economy and the tariff system hurt them as well. But when the country divided, it didn't split along pro-tariff and anti-tariff lines. The western states stayed with the northeast. The split was along slave and non-slave lines. Even in Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri there were attempts by slave holders to secede. But in those states, the majority was anti-slavery and they outvoted the pro-slavery minority.

[Oldeb]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

That may be true, but does that mean that their motives were not economic? I highly doubt it. It's hardly out of the mainstream to suggest that the tariff played a role in gaining support for the war.

Not a major one. It was a fringe idea in 1861. It's still a fringe idea 150 years later. The guy you're basing this on was so unpopular in his day that not only did they vote him out of office at the first opportunity but they convicted him in a military tribunal of attempting to hinder the war. He was eventually shipped to the Confederacy, which he later fled for Canada. Vallandigham's views were completely rejected by the people at the time. You can't pretend he spoke for them in any meaningful way.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Oldeb

Not a major one. It was a fringe idea in 1861. It's still a fringe idea 150 years later. The guy you're basing this on was so unpopular in his day that not only did they vote him out of office at the first opportunity but they convicted him in a military tribunal of attempting to hinder the war. He was eventually shipped to the Confederacy, which he later fled for Canada. Vallandigham's views were completely rejected by the people at the time. You can't pretend he spoke for them in any meaningful way.

This.

I noted, going through his speech, that he was completely inaccurate in several of his claims. (The North, for example, never did anything to inhibit the South from building railroads or industry. Instead, the Southern plutocracy was simply indifferent to the notion of railroads and never invested in them, meaning they also lacked any infrastructure to ship manufacutured goods on a regular basis. (They also lacked the infrastructure to ship tobacco and cotton away from the rivers, but they rationalized that on the grounds that they could not justify the expense of railroads for seasonal shipments.)

Any argument that places the disgraced and loony Vallandigham against the actual declarations of secession that emanated from the South is going to fail on historical fact.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Any argument that places the disgraced and loony Vallandigham against the actual declarations of secession that emanated from the South is going to fail on historical fact.

What are you talking about? One attempts to explain why the North went to war, the other to explain why the South went to war. How would they form a counter argument? I believe you may be confused.

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Oldeb

Not a major one. It was a fringe idea in 1861. It's still a fringe idea 150 years later. The guy you're basing this on was so unpopular in his day that not only did they vote him out of office at the first opportunity but they convicted him in a military tribunal of attempting to hinder the war. He was eventually shipped to the Confederacy, which he later fled for Canada. Vallandigham's views were completely rejected by the people at the time. You can't pretend he spoke for them in any meaningful way.

Provide evidence that he North had other reasons for going to war. It's a question I've asked up thread and got no response.

[Oldeb]

Originally Posted by WillFarnaby

Provide evidence that he North had other reasons for going to war. It's a question I've asked up thread and got no response.

I... what? There is no possible way this can be an honest question.

It was their country? I assume this is going to be some lame state's rights segue, but are you really incapable of understanding that some people see the USA as a single entity? That the attack on Fort Sumter was an act of domestic terrorism? It's like asking why Timothy McVeigh was condemned by people living outside Oklahoma.