# How could the civil war have been avoided? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 29, 2013, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484 "2013-08-29T08:40:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/141 "2013-09-01T18:36:10Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > … > You might want to watch the earlier episodes of The Civil War by Ken Burns to get a better handle on how the rank and file citizens and troops really felt about the war. Excellent series. ---
**Author:** ![ombre12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d26b3c/32.png) [@ombre12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ombre12)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/142 "2013-09-01T18:36:20Z")
Another thing I have always wondered about… Why is there nothing in the Constitution regarding secession. Surely the founders must have considered that possibility and discussed it. Seems like an obvious thing to put in the Constitution that all the states ratified…can you secede and if so how? Was it because nobody could agree on anything and left that concern out? If the various states knew going in that the USA was going to be like the Hotel California==You can check out but you can never leave===Then there would never have been a question of the legality of secession. And no civil war. And after the war the North could put in any amendment it desired…and they still didn’t add one prohibiting secession. Why? Texas still thinks it can secede from the Union\_\_\_\_because there is still nothing that says they can’t. ---
**Author:** ![ombre12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d26b3c/32.png) [@ombre12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ombre12)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/143 "2013-09-01T18:40:02Z")
Battery on iPad getting low. Later… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/144 "2013-09-01T18:47:58Z")
> [@ombre12](#): > > Surely the founders must have considered that possibility and discussed it. Seems like an obvious thing to put in the Constitution that all the states ratified…can you secede and if so how? Obvious in hindsight, perhaps. However, from the perspective of trying to launch a new nation in the context of creating new, formal document to replace existing **Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union** , (written 1777, fully ratified, 1781), it may not have occurred to them, at all. Nations, at that time, existed as regions cobbled together by natural association and conquest and the entire notion of voluntarily creating a nation under the auspices of a document was a bit new to be including the seeds of its own dissolution. > [@ombre12](#): > > And after the war the North could put in any amendment it desired…and they still didn’t add one prohibiting secession. Why? Why bother? At great expense and much bloodshed, the North had just demonstrated that it was not legal to secede. Why go to the trouble of enshrining in law something that was self-evident (based on Union victory)? > [@ombre12](#): > > Texas still thinks it can secede from the Union\_\_\_\_because there is still nothing that says they can’t. Some Texans do not equate to “Texas.” Fringe groups are hardly a good indicator of what a people or a state believes. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/145 "2013-09-01T21:22:26Z")
As the OP, I didn’t want to refight the civil war in the comments thread. I was just wondering if there was some elegant way for the people involved to come to a cheaper agreement. This reminds me of how divorcing couples each hire attorneys to give each other a bigger share of the assets. Yet, if both couples just agreed to a reasonably equitable split of the assets without involving dueling lawyers, the total wealth retained by the family would be much higher. Or the Prisoner’s dilemma. With that said, this thread is fascinating reading. Especially the quotes from the official documents the Southern states submitted when they declared their succession. People denying that the war was about slavery in light of those documents is analogous to a holocaust denier making a speech while standing on the ruins of Auschwitz. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/146 "2013-09-01T21:48:01Z")
The problem with tallying up the cost of fighting the Civil War and tallying up the cost of buying all the slaves back from the slave holders is it ignores reality. Not everything is for sale, despite what Gordan Gekko types might say in movies. There are many examples in history in which greater powers have tried to buy lesser ones off. The Romans did it all the time, giving largesse to local barbarian leaders and such to keep things under control–but sometimes they’d go ahead and revolt anyway. Not everyone can be bargained with. How much money would we need to give all the suicide bombers in training to go back to their regular lives and abandon their endeavors? Not everyone can be bought, so just because you can come up with a calculation demonstrating cheaper alternatives to war doesn’t mean it was ever actually possible. After the Germans took Czechoslovakia under Hitler, how much money would we have had to transfer to Germany to get them to promise to take no more land or attack anyone? I don’t think any amount would actually dissuade them, it would just be folded into their war effort so they were in an even better position when they attack Poland. Many of the leaders of the slave states used rhetoric that they were drawing a line in the sand or protecting the “interests of their children and grandchildren” when they seceded. Most of them did not believe Lincoln would end slavery, in fact they figured they’d keep their slaves for a reasonably long time even if they stayed in the union. But they saw Lincoln’s election as the writing on the wall, that their power and ability to control the Federal government in Washington was waning. They felt if they didn’t secede maybe they’d die old men with their wealth and slaves but some day their children would be denied their property/birthright. The slaveocracy was very dynastic, and very concerned with keeping wealth and money in the family. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/147 "2013-09-01T22:11:55Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > There were dozens of Union forts along the Mississippi and the SE Atlantic seaboard. As Sumter went, so would go the rest. The US had abandoned those forts by April, 1861, after the secession. The only two forts that had US troops in Confederate territory were Sumter in Charleston and Pickens in Florida. (There were obviously manned US forts in Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee, because those states didn’t secede after the attack on Sumter and start of the war.) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/148 "2013-09-01T22:22:49Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The problem with tallying up the cost of fighting the Civil War and tallying up the cost of buying all the slaves back from the slave holders is it ignores reality. Not everything is for sale, despite what Gordan Gekko types might say in movies. Here’s the other problem with it, beyond the reluctance of the slaveholders to sell (which is very real. Lincoln floated to buy up all the slaves in loyal slave states after the war started, and people from Kentucky and Maryland just told him straight out “no”). If the US starts doing that, and buying up all the slaves, the price of slaves goes through the roof. It becomes the ultimate seller’s market. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/149 "2013-09-02T00:40:50Z")
> [@ombre12](#): > > Why is there nothing in the Constitution regarding secession. Surely the founders must have considered that possibility and discussed it. Seems like an obvious thing to put in the Constitution that all the states ratified…can you secede and if so how? Hell, the [_Confederate_ Constitution](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp) doesn’t say anything about secession either. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/150 "2013-09-02T00:50:06Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Hell, the [_Confederate_ Constitution](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp) doesn’t say anything about secession either. It’s a States Rights thing. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/151 "2013-09-02T00:56:22Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > It’s a States Rights thing. How is not having a clear path for states to leave the confederation a States’ Rights thing? ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/152 "2013-09-02T01:12:16Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > How is not having a clear path for states to leave the confederation a States’ Rights thing? It permits secession without encouraging it. Lincoln chose to interpret it differently. No doubt, Davis would have too. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/153 "2013-09-02T04:24:05Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > I assume you’re referring to my post: > How about satire or hyperbole? Anyone who chooses to take this literally does me and themselves a disservice. > > Aloha I must have missed the satire, sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/154 "2013-09-02T04:43:26Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > I must have missed the satire, sorry about that. No worries. You are not alone. Aloha ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/155 "2013-09-02T04:50:01Z")
> [@ombre12](#): > > Another thing I have always wondered about… > > **Why is there nothing in the Constitution regarding secession.** Surely the founders must have considered that possibility and discussed it. Seems like an obvious thing to put in the Constitution that all the states ratified…can you secede and if so how? > > Was it because nobody could agree on anything and left that concern out? If the various states knew going in that the USA was going to be like the Hotel California==You can check out but you can never leave===Then there would never have been a question of the legality of secession. And no civil war. > > And after the war the North could put in any amendment it desired…\*\*and they still didn’t add one prohibiting secession. \*\*Why? > > Texas still thinks it can secede from the Union\_\_\_\_ **because there is still nothing that says they can’t**. That pretty much sums up the situation. If there’s no law against it, it’s legal. It’s illegal to exceed city, state, and federal posted speed limits “because” there are laws that say it’s illegal. It’s not illegal to drive as you can on the salt flats at the Bonneville Speedway. It was the individual colonies/future States who created the brand new central government. The U.S. Constitution has been ammended many times over the years and no law was ever passed that said it was illegal for the residents of any State to chose to secede or to actually secede from the U.S.A… ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/156 "2013-09-02T04:58:28Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > How is not having a clear path for states to leave the confederation a States’ Rights thing? The State’s elected representatives (aka U.S. Senators and U.S. Congressmen) haven’t given the federal government control or jurisdiction over a State’s right to secede. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/157 "2013-09-02T05:31:24Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In 1865, when the South was under occupation and the northern states could do whatever they wanted, did they send all the freed slaves back to Africa? Did they ban them from leaving the south? No, they passed the 13th Amendment declaring black people were free, the 14th Amendment declaring they were citizens, and the 15th Amendment declaring they could vote like everyone else. These don’t seem like the acts of white supremacists. > > There were undoubtedly some white supremacists in the northern states. But obviously the majority did not agree with them. One such white supremacist who held a lot of influence in the North was a guy named Abraham Lincoln. He indeed supported the idea of deportation in addition to his white supremacist views. So it is a concept that is not to be overlooked when discussing the War to Prevent Southern Independence. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The South was paying the tariff? How did that work? Was Alabama exporting goods to Indiana? Was South Carolina exporting goods to Massachusetts? > > A tariff is a tax on goods being brought into a country - it’s the same rate for everyone in the country. And if the Southern cotton was being hit by a tariff, it wasn’t the American tariff - you don’t charge a tariff on goods being exported. Any cotton tariff was being charged by Britain or France or whatever country the cotton was being sold to. Maybe South Carolina should have seceded from Europe. While Northern industrialist economies reaped the benefits of the tariff, allowing them to charge more for their goods, Southern economies were hampered by the tariff in that they paid higher prices for finished goods, and found their exports dropping in price because British industrialists demanded less of their product due to the American tariff hampering British exports. Econ 101. The tariff was doubly insulting to Southerners who saw never saw the infrastructure investments the Northern cronies had brokered in DC. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/158 "2013-09-02T05:48:42Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > My Lord! He said that?! And then future historians edited it out of his Inaugural Address replacing it with conciliatory language like this?! > > [Abraham Lincoln First Inaugural Address - Collection at Bartleby.com](http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html) > > Shocking. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to **collect the duties and imposts;** but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. -Lincoln Most of this turned out to be a lie, but he honest with his priorities from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/159 "2013-09-02T05:51:27Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > One such white supremacist who held a lot of influence in the North was a guy named Abraham Lincoln. He indeed supported the idea of deportation in addition to his white supremacist views. So it is a concept that is not to be overlooked when discussing the War to Prevent Southern Independence. He mentioned it on some occasions. He said a lot of things. Why don’t you judge his real plans by what he actually did? > [@WillFarnaby](#): > > While Northern industrialist economies reaped the benefits of the tariff, allowing them to charge more for their goods, Southern economies were hampered by the tariff in that they paid higher prices for finished goods, and found their exports dropping in price because British industrialists demanded less of their product due to the American tariff hampering British exports. Econ 101. The tariff was doubly insulting to Southerners who saw never saw the infrastructure investments the Northern cronies had brokered in DC. And how was this done against the south? They could have built factories and enjoyed the same profits northern businessmen did. And if they had, they would have done better when the war started. But don’t blame the government because southern businessmen made bad decisions. The government isn’t supposed to protect people from themselves. And the reason British demand for southern cotton declined was because the British found they could buy it cheaper in places like Egypt, India, South America, and Uzbekistan (seriously the Russians conquered Uzbekistan because it was good cotton country). Southern businessmen had become too dependent on a single crop and suffered for it. And it didn’t help any that cotton growing wears out the soil and the owners didn’t put enough effort into preserving their own property, often preferring to overwork fields until they were ruined. But again, that was nobody’s fault but their own. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484/160 "2013-09-02T06:02:34Z")
> [@ombre12](#): > > Another thing I have always wondered about… > > Why is there nothing in the Constitution regarding secession. Surely the founders must have considered that possibility and discussed it. Seems like an obvious thing to put in the Constitution that all the states ratified…can you secede and if so how? > > Was it because nobody could agree on anything and left that concern out? If the various states knew going in that the USA was going to be like the Hotel California==You can check out but you can never leave===Then there would never have been a question of the legality of secession. And no civil war. > > And after the war the North could put in any amendment it desired…and they still didn’t add one prohibiting secession. Why? > > Texas still thinks it can secede from the Union\_\_\_\_because there is still nothing that says they can’t. There’s nothing explicitly mentioning secession in the Constitution because the issue had already been settled before the Constitution was written in 1789. The Articles of Confederation united the states into a single country in 1777 and explicitly said that this was a permanent union. It’s the same reason the Constitution didn’t bother declaring independence from Britain either. But nobody claims we’re part of the Empire because we didn’t say otherwise in the Constitution. And the states didn’t ratify the Constitution - they weren’t asked to. The Constitution was ratified by a series of popular referendums. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-the-civil-war-have-been-avoided/667484.md?page=9)