# No slavery = No Civil War? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 1999, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161 "1999-12-09T07:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 1999, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/21 "1999-12-23T19:08:00Z")
I dunno. I think **Tracer** raises an interesting point. The reponses to the Depression didn’t happen in a vacuum, either. Teddy Roosevelt pushed through a lot of “social” legislation (anti-monopoly, worker protection, etc.) that was probably accepted at the Federal level based partly on the 14th Ammendment and partly on the powers the Feds grabbed during the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson carried on a number of those social reforms. (Even Taft allowed a few social programs through, although he disappointed TR by not being sufficiently aggressive.) All of this activity set the stage for FDR’s programs. Many of the New Deal programs were fought fiercely, as it was. How much harder would it have been to push some of that legislation if there had been no prior examples of what the Fed _could_ do? I think that both the Depression and WWII would have provided incentives for a stronger central government, but **Tracer** ’s question was > [@](#): > > would the Federal government have nearly as much centralized power as it does today? and I suspect the answer could have been “No.” * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/22 "2000-01-05T00:46:00Z")
It’s hard to say how much Federal power there would be if it weren’t for the Civil War. Governing an entire region basically in military occupation for several decades is something that a loose federation of states isn’t really set up to do. I’ve heard that the Civil War was what led to our current use of “United States” as a singular noun (if we’re a bunch of states, why is it said that the US **is** doing this or that instead of that the US **are** doing this or that?) On the other hand, the was quite a bit of change in Federal power in this century. At the beginning, lawmakers considered it necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment before outlawing alchohol; nowadays, Washington can just declare cocaine illegal, and it’s illegal. The Federal income tax, the FBI, the CIA, and the current Federal banking system are all other examples of creations of the twentieth century. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/23 "2000-01-05T01:40:00Z")
I thought the Feds only declared interstate and international commerce in cocaine to be illegal, and that the States outlawed the sale, manufacture, and posession of cocaine within their borders. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/24 "2000-01-05T01:40:00Z")
Oh – and the first Federal income tax was passed in 1866. Partly to pay for Civil War Reconstruction. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/25 "2000-01-05T01:58:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Is there any evidence to show that in fact it was cheaper to use free labor, or is that merely an opinion? OK, this is coming from my unreliable memory, but didn’t some guy win a Nobel Prize in Economics relatively recently for demonstrating that it was cheaper for the South at that time to have a slave-based economy than a free-labor one? * * * If I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I’d be at home with a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/26 "2000-01-05T02:06:00Z")
I love answering my own questions. > [@](#): > > In a second, far more controversial book, “Time on the Cross,” written with Stanley Engerman and published in 1974, [1993 Nobel Laureate in Economics Robert] Fogel argued that the institution of slavery had been more profitable than previously thought. His conclusion gave rise to a decade of controversy, and he was attacked as somehow endorsing slavery. Fogel later published a four-volume study called “Without Consent or Contract,” in which he argued forcefully that slavery ended not because it was economically inefficient, but because it was morally repugnant. Sorry if that’s irrelevant to the OP… * * * If I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I’d be at home with a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzy-wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b38774/32.png) [@fuzzy-wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzy-wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/27 "2000-01-05T02:12:00Z")
Yes there would have been a Civil War… regardless of slavery…slavery was a symtom of the war…not the main cause of it. And of course it’s comments like “if white southerners had been willing to pick their own cotten” is exactly the kind of statements that keep the distance between northerners and southerners today…you find a heck of a lot more northerners coming south than you find southerners going north… * * * “Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/28 "2000-01-05T04:42:00Z")
Nope. Read the entire thread prior to your post, **fuzzy**. Please explain how any of the various factions or issues either provided enough force or _could_ have provided enough force as slavery did to produce a complete rift in the country that was serious enough to go to war over. I am not claiming any higher “morality” for the Northern States. I am looking at evidence: tariff wars never resulted in a civil war; when people in New England considered secession during “Mr. Madison’s War” (1812-1814), the Southern States condemned that talk as treasonous; the Southern States (in both the various declarations of secession/independence and in their own constitution) made specific reference to their rights to maintain slavery (_which was not even under attack in Congress_) as a principal reason for their secession and their formation of a new country; the much ballyhooed “states rights” issue was one which the Southern States used only when it was convenient for them, crying for the support of a strong federal government whenever they felt that that government would support them in maintaining slavery and placing several anti-states-rights articles into their own Confederate Constitution. This is not to say that the war was _only_ about slavery. Conflicting cultures, financial issues (e.g., tariffs), and issues of states’ rights all played a part. Without the issue of slavery, however, there was no issue strong enough to bring about secession. * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![Robbnn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@Robbnn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robbnn)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2000, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161/29 "2000-01-05T21:38:00Z")
I recommend The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove for anyone interested in what might have happened if the south _gasp_ won the Civil War. The fight was over state powers over federal powers. I suspect slavery was the grist that provided critical mass. Another question would be what would the US look like today if slavery never existed? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-slavery-no-civil-war/17161.md?page=1)