# 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:** 2
**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, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/21 "2012-05-03T14:46:34Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/22 "2012-05-03T15:13:15Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Pardon me if I take the opinion of the congressman I quoted in my first post over your uncited claims. [Vallandigham](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Vallandigham) was part of a fringe group called the [Copperheads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperheads_(politics)) 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. ---
**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, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/23 "2012-05-03T15:22:50Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/24 "2012-05-03T15:45:45Z")
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. ---
**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, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/25 "2012-05-03T15:55:57Z")
> [@Oldeb](#): > > [Vallandigham](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Vallandigham) was part of a fringe group called the [Copperheads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperheads_(politics)) 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. ---
**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, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/26 "2012-05-03T15:57:17Z")
> [@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. ---
**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, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/27 "2012-05-03T16:06:50Z")
> [@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? ---
**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, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/28 "2012-05-03T16:08:21Z")
> [@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? ---
**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, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/29 "2012-05-03T16:16:12Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/30 "2012-05-03T16:22:59Z")
> [@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. > [@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. > [@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?) ---
**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, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/31 "2012-05-03T16:27:33Z")
> [@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? > [@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? […](http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/pearlston1.html) > [@](#): > > 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.” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/32 "2012-05-03T16:35:56Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/33 "2012-05-03T17:12:53Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/34 "2012-05-03T17:21:17Z")
> [@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? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/35 "2012-05-03T17:33:35Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/36 "2012-05-03T17:33:36Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/37 "2012-05-03T17:37:10Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > […](http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/pearlston1.html) None of those are public declarations by the Southern States… ---
**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, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/38 "2012-05-03T17:39:01Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/39 "2012-05-03T17:42:42Z")
> [@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.) > [@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. ---
**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, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709/40 "2012-05-03T17:45:03Z")
> [@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](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_Amendment#_) that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-american-civil-war-inevitable/620709.md?page=3)