And FWIW, the famous Mason-Dixon line is Maryland’s Northern border. As noted, Maryland isn’t really a “Southern” state; it’s a border state. (The secessionists often spoke of “fifteen” slave-holding states, but slavery in Delaware was pretty marginal and there was never any real chance of Delaware joining the Confederacy.)
Note that the bond isn’t just that of having kept slavery until pretty late, but also the bond of being having been defeated, invaded, and occupied in a war (over slavery)–something other parts of this country have never really experienced. That mostly lets out the border states, which never wholeheartedly threw in with the secessionsts, were never placed under military governors, never had to be “re-admitted to representation in Congress”, and so on.
If it all boils down to slavery and it was THE “but for” factor then aren’t you really quibbling when you say “it was about states rights (regarding slave ownership)” or "it was about economic transitions (that were the result of slavery) or “it was about Lincoln (because he didn’t like slavery)”
Why not just say “it was about slavery” Its not really oversimplifying things to say that is it?
Not that I’m saying anything that hasn’t been said here already, but even before reading the thread, my feeling was that the War was about various issues, but those issues were all hopelessly entangled with slavery.
It was about states’ rights—but the main rights in question were those involved in preserving the peculiar institution of slavery.
It was about the South wanting to protect their way of life—but their way of life was based on slavery.
It was about economics, and the conflicting economic interests of the South and the North—but slavery was a key factor in the Southern economy.
Is it quibbling? Probably. But as I said, it was a complex situation, and there were various aspects even about the slave debate. To me, the situation was about states rights…whether or not states were sovereign entities loosely tied together into a union of equals vs being part of a greater whole and subservient to that greater whole. The fact that slavery was the central hub that this issue revolved around doesn’t detract from the fact that it was an issue.
Well, for one thing, I just like to argue, and anyone saying that any action by humans is 99% anything (save bullshit) is probably going to warrant at least a quibble out of me. For another thing, though, I think it IS an oversimplification to say that it was all about slavery. Slavery was the focus of the debate, no doubt, but in the end it was a fundamental question that hadn’t been resolved…are states sovereign entities, or are they part of a greater whole, and subject to that greater whole? While I don’t think that without slavery there would have been a civil war, it was still a fundamental question that would have needed to be addressed at some point, or it would never have been resolved. In addition, there were a lot of complex aspects of slavery that impacted different states in different ways, and to simply say ‘it was all about slavery’ glosses over those aspects…IMHO.
Besides, I still remember a good friend of mine who was a historian busting my chops when I said ‘Well, wasn’t the Civil War just about slavery?’, and I still wince at the 4+ hour lecture I got on why I was oversimplifying things…
IIRC, the actual line was something about how as a President his duty was to keep the Union together even if he had to allow slavery, but as a human being his duty was to oppose it utterly. I know I’ve heard it used in the past as an example of deliberate misquoting (by quoting only the first half never the second) by slavery apologists and those who want to bash Lincoln.
Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation in order to prevent European support for the south, of which England and France, with large textile consumption and production had a vested interest in keeping the prices low.
I would never claim that the war was “all” about slavery and I have already declined to put a number on the percent of the dispute that was directly related to slavery, but the “states rights” argument does not seriously hold water.
The South was adamant that the Northern states had no “rights” to tamper with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. (And the South was pretty loud in their condemnation of the Hartford Convention when several Northern states considered withdrawing from the Union over the issue of the War of 1812 that the Southern states had forced upon them.) Claiming “states rights” was little more than a fig leaf intended to rationalize their selective behavior and was not a serious argument in the period leading to war.
Here is an interesting side-by-side comparison of the U.S. and Confederate Constitutions, showing where they differ. I agree with the author of that website that, at most, there is some minor tweaking here and there on the question of state vs. central powers (and that in several cases states under the Confederacy would actually lose power). Most interestingly, there is no mention one way or the other of secession in the Confederate Constitution, just as there is not in the U.S. Constitution. (By contrast, Joseph Stalin at least pretended to recognize the explicit right of each of the Soviet Socialist Republics of the USSR to secede from the Soviet Union. That claim appeared in the final Soviet Constitution of 1977 as well.) If the secessionists truly wished to form a new union that would explicitly be a federation of “sovereign entities loosely tied together into a union of equals”, they could have inserted a clause explicitly recognizing the right of states to secede. Instead, secession seems to have been more of a revolutionary act, as opposed to a legalistic one along the lines of a sovereign state withdrawing from a treaty which it has previously agreed to.
Preventing European recognition of the Confederacy was certainly of great importance to the Union government. But Lincoln had made an entire political career as an anti-slavery man, and I don’t think we can say that Lincoln had no personal opposition at all to slavery. Also, Lincoln’s stated rationale for the Emancipation Proclamation was as a war measure, designed to suppress a rebellion against the constitutional authority of the Federal government. I don’t think this rationale can be completely discounted, either. I recall seeing statements from the time in suport of the Proclamation to the effect that as slavery was the cause of the rebellion, it therefore was necessary and proper to move against slavery in order to put down the rebellion and prevent any future recurrence. Finally, before his death Lincoln actively campaigned for the Thirteenth Amendment to permanently end slavery.
When the only actual cause (as opposed to catalyst) you list is slavery, and you follow that by pointing out the fact that slavery didn’t necessitate the war, your whole argument seems to argue much more for the idea that the whole thing was about slavery. In point of fact, I don’t see it arguing any other position, regardless that that doesn’t seem to have been your intent.
My take on this old chestnut is a hybrid. On the one hand, slavery was plainly the flashpoint of the Civil War. On the other hand, states rights was plainly the reason the South felt it had the right to secede from the Union. In the modern era, we sometimes forget that the Constitution was a compact among the states, not a compact among the people. That’s how it was negotiated and how it was ratified. Hence, for example, equal representation for each state in the Senate, with, at the time of Civil War, said senators being selected by state legislatures.
Meanwhile, between adoption of the Constitution and the Civil War, two things changed. One was that the North and West became more stridently anti-slavery. Another was that, after invention of the cotton gin, the South had become more dependent on slave labor. So, what had always been an uneasy compromise became a major point of contention.
In retrospect, the South would have been better off playing with the cards it had been dealt. Even Lincoln acknowledged, in his famous 1858 address to the Springfield Republican convention, that the Constitution had secured slavery in the existing states. Had the South run with this, history would have been different.
i think my last post got lost on the internets, so i’ll try to repeat the content.
as to the maryland-delaware thing:
mason and dixon drew the line seperating maryland from pennsylvania and delaware. so maryland was considered below the mason-dixon line. some marylanders have always considered the state to be part of the south regionally. if not for the presence of the union army, maryland may have attempted secession along with the other slave states (although this may be a perception, not reality).
as to the main question:
every time this topic is argued, the same thing happens. someone will claim that the civil war was fought over ‘states rights’. but the only right that mattered was the right to own slaves. a difference that is not a difference. you argue that roe v. wade was just about constitutional review, and not totally about abortion. sounds silly doesn’t it.
the statement ‘the civil war was all about slavery’ may be imprecise, but i don’t think its misleading.
adding now - the emancipation proclamation and european trade:
the proclamation was issued after the war started. its difficult to attribute that as a cause.
I don’t think it was even a secondary goal, in the beginning, even if many Northerners wanted that. Seems implausible that the North would fight a war to free slaves in the South and still allow slavery to exist in the Union. The EP came after the war started (a couple years), not before or concurrently.
Concerning Maryland and Delaware, while Maryland can be considered southern, Delaware (despite being right next to Maryland) has always been more culturally associated with Philadelphia (a very culturally-northern city, even though it is right next to the Mason-Dixon line).
Not to mention that the EP only freed slaves in states that were still in rebellion after a certain date (January 1, 1863). It did not free slaves in the border states that did not secede, nor would have freed any slaves at all if the Confederacy had immediately surrendered after the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September of 1862. In reality the EP did absolutely nothing for any slave since it only applied to slaves in territory that did not recognize its authority.
As others have mentioned the South seceded before Lincoln took office, but it is also important to note that reason had nothing to do with Lincoln himself. The issue was that Lincoln was the first President elected without a single delegate from the South. It was the writing on the wall that told the South they had lost the dominate position they had enjoyed in the early day of the U.S.A.
Here is a challenge for those supporting other causes of the war. Name a cause of succession that the participants actually embraced that was not directly related to the slavery issue.
Why would they free slaves period if Lincoln’s desire wasn’t to do away with slavery? If the ultimate goal was to return the runaway states to the Union, Lincoln could made that happen without touching slavery.
I’m not asserting that the North’s initial reason for fighting was to end slavery. But slavery eventually became the most important motivation to the people who were funding the war–the public. It became so important that even if the Southern states had been willing to come back on their own accord on the condition that they were allowed to continue slavery, I don’t think Northerners would have accepted that. After all of that fighting? All that bloodshed? Can’t see it happening.
I think the decision to ban slavery in the Confederacy while leaving its status unaddressed in the existing states was ultimately a matter of Lincoln going after the troublemakers first. It wasn’t a way of saying “slavery is okay as long as it’s not done in the South”. It was a matter of political expediency.
i know plenty of not-anti-abortion people who consider roe v. wade to be all about abortion. and the medical privacy issue at stake in the decsion was abortion. the two cases may not be direct analogues, so can anyone help reframe my point less controversially?
and are you saying that the civil war had other causes than slavery? your comment doesn’t reveal that.
the majority of the population in maryland, in the northeast corridor around baltimore, may have been more culturally associated with philadelphia as well. i noted earlier the concept that maryland may have attempted succession if not for the union army. this is what i was told in the 5th grade in a maryland public school, and i’m sure i’ve heard it since, but i don’t think i’ve seen any evidence to support that (other than my supposition that state governments were as corrupt then as they are now. not exactly direct evidence).