# Was the American Civil War inevitable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709 "2012-05-03T02:07:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![blood63](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@blood63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blood63)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/1 "2012-05-03T02:07:24Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/2 "2012-05-03T02:13:45Z")
Moved from GQ to Great Debates. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/3 "2012-05-03T02:30:39Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/4 "2012-05-03T02:36:37Z")
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. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/5 "2012-05-03T03:40:53Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/6 "2012-05-03T03:52:15Z")
> [@](#): > > 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 ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/7 "2012-05-03T03:52:37Z")
> [@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. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/8 "2012-05-03T04:53:02Z")
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](http://books.google.com/books?id=wDHeXrEp3EcC&pg=PA313&dq=clement+vallandigham+confederate+congress+tariff&output=html_text&cd=1) 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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/9 "2012-05-03T05:01:45Z")
> [@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. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/10 "2012-05-03T05:31:58Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/11 "2012-05-03T05:41:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/12 "2012-05-03T06:09:10Z")
What compromise (phasing-out of slavery, for example, or the South purchasing Federal property) might have made sense in retrospect? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/13 "2012-05-03T06:35:39Z")
> [@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. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/14 "2012-05-03T06:48:37Z")
> [@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.) ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/15 "2012-05-03T11:50:22Z")
> [@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… ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/16 "2012-05-03T12:04:23Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/17 "2012-05-03T13:38:09Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/18 "2012-05-03T13:54:29Z")
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. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/19 "2012-05-03T14:37:06Z")
> [@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. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/20 "2012-05-03T14:45:22Z")
> [@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. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709.md?page=2)