Slavery and the War of 1861-1865

[nate895]

I find the most difficult question to answer in regards to slavery not being the primary cause of the Civil War is the Declarations of Causes (http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html) of four of the states of the Confederacy. The preponderance of evidence outside of these four Declarations of Causes would not support the idea that slavery is the primary cause of the war, but rather that it is an ancillary issue that merely caused more division between the two sections. What is the best comeback to these? Should I simply rely on the mountains of opposing evidence?

After all, it makes no logical sense for the South to secede over slavery and commit approximately one million men to an institution that, if they desired to protect forever, they could still maintain within the Union because they had 15 slave states (not to mention that Texas can divide into five separate states, Oklahoma could have been admitted, as well as Arizona and New Mexico were possible slave states), and it requires 38 states to pass an amendment, two short, and two of our states could not have been predicted to be admitted at the time of secession. Are the Declarations of Causes proof that Southerner fought, irrationally, for an institution they could have preserved unto the present day within the Union? If not, how can I defeat any arguments concerning them?

[axiomata]

Maybe slavery was a major cause. No side should be able to claim any sort of high ground in this matter.

You ask why it makes no logical sense for the South to secede over slavery with 15 slave states. The answer is that it appeared that the policy would be to outlaw slavery in any new states. Over time, there would be enough states to pass an amendment banning slavery.

[nate895]

Maybe slavery was a major cause. No side should be able to claim any sort of high ground in this matter.

You ask why it makes no logical sense for the South to secede over slavery with 15 slave states. The answer is that it appeared that the policy would be to outlaw slavery in any new states. Over time, there would be enough states to pass an amendment banning slavery.

I refuted that. At the time, it could have been projected that no more than 33 free states would be in the Union. If the North wanted to defeat slavery, they would have had to propose an amendment to the Constitution. That amendment could still be defeated today with fifty states in the Union. Not to mention that Texas can divide itself into five states, Oklahoma would have almost certainly been admitted as a slave state, and New Mexico and Arizona could possibly have been admitted as slave states, it would take having 66 free states before they would have able to get such an amendment, an effort Southerners could have stopped with a filibuster in the Senate before they lost that power.

Edit: I do not dispute that slavery was a factor, but it seems that the war would have ultimately been fought anyway; probably delayed to some later date. The issue caused even more division, but slavery was on its way out according to most Southern thinkers and observers believed.

[axiomata]

You missed my point. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates Lincoln made it clear that it was his intention to outlaw slavery in the territories and subsequently any new state that sprang from them. Therefore, Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had overturned the no slavery in the territories-Missouri Compromise, allowed for popular sovereignty on the matter. Lincoln intended to overturn the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Thus, with the election of Lincoln, the South couldn't count on the state-counting scenario you outlined.

Therefore you cannot assume that OK, NM, and AZ would have been allowed to become slave states. Also MD and DE, were slave states but did not secede. I can't project how they would vote on an amendment but the trend was definitely against slavery.

I think it is more realistic to assume that only the 11 states that eventually made up the Confederacy would vote against an amendment if it came up in 20 to 30 years. Perhaps even less because some of the Confederate states didn't rely on slavery as much as others.

Therefore to get 3/4s state ratification there would have to be 33 free states. WY was the 44th state in 1890. There is no way that the South would have known exactly how things would progress, but I think that they had the idea that their time was running out. Additionally, it seems likely that Lincoln and the North would have found other ways to pressure the states less attached to slavery to become free which may have sped up the process.

[demolama]

I said this somewhere else but it'll apply here as well

The southern states knew Lincoln was for the Corwin Amendment that would have easily been ratified to keep the federal government out of the slavery issue for good. His first inaugural address even admitted this.

Why then did the southern states still fully commit to independence knowing full well that the amendment was agreed upon by the federal government and was already being ratified in northern states?

Because the issue was greater than the slaves.

The southern states started to secede after the Morrill tariff was passed the House. The south knew the Senate was becoming more and more favorable towards the north so it was just a matter of time before it passed. Lincoln let it be known that this tariff was his priority in offices and he would stop at nothing to see it collected.


And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue— to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures Robert Rhett SC convention 1860

The Republican party was put into power with the platform to stop the expansion of slavery into the west and to increase the tariff rates to protect the manufacturing industry in the north from foreign competition. Tariff rates that were already unfavorable to the south because of the increased price of superior foreign goods for farming who had to settle for crappy American goods were about to be doubled with this Morrill tariff.

Now granted because slaves counted as 3/5th of a person for southern population this helped to boost their power in federal congress because they were guaranteed to stick to the south. Once freed and lacking citizenship they wouldn't count and there were no guaranty if they became citizens they would stick to the south. Limiting slavery to just the south and not allowing it to move west surely would have made the southern minority even smaller and that is exactly what the southern states saw; their power slipping. How else would Lincoln get elected if no southern states had him on the ballot? because the power in congress was shifting to the north. Lincoln refused to compromise about the expansion of slavery to the west. This threaten Southern philosophy more than all out abolition; which no one except a few radicals in the Republican party wanted. With lack of political power in the federal congress surely the North would propose and pass more legislation that favors their section of society. Just look at what they accomplished when the southern states were not in Congress from 61-77; the country hasn't been the same since.

That is why they felt independence was more important than trying to preserve slavery by staying in the union. It was only a matter of time before they lost any nullifying power in Congress and by 1860 they were already close to that point. Political power through slavery via the 3/5th clause and economics tariffs that favored one section of the union over the other are the key to the civil war. The slaves were just the mode to keep power in the federal congress. The war was not to keep its existence for profit for the 1% of the population because if that was the case they surely would have stayed in the union and passed the Corwin amendment

[nate895]

You missed my point. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates Lincoln made it clear that it was his intention to outlaw slavery in the territories and subsequently any new state that sprang from them. Therefore, Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had overturned the no slavery in the territories-Missouri Compromise, allowed for popular sovereignty on the matter. Lincoln intended to overturn the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Thus, with the election of Lincoln, the South couldn't count on the state-counting scenario you outlined.

Therefore you cannot assume that OK, NM, and AZ would have been allowed to become slave states. Also MD and DE, were slave states but did not secede. I can't project how they would vote on an amendment but the trend was definitely against slavery.

I think it is more realistic to assume that only the 11 states that eventually made up the Confederacy would vote against an amendment if it came up in 20 to 30 years. Perhaps even less because some of the Confederate states didn't rely on slavery as much as others.

Therefore to get 3/4s state ratification there would have to be 33 free states. WY was the 44th state in 1890. There is no way that the South would have known exactly how things would progress, but I think that they had the idea that their time was running out. Additionally, it seems likely that Lincoln and the North would have found other ways to pressure the states less attached to slavery to become free which may have sped up the process.

Texas was guaranteed the right to divide into five states; in fact, it still can today. Arizona and New Mexico left the Union with the South, so according to the slavery as the cause of the war theory, they would have been slave states. Oklahoma had slaves of Indians, and they left with the Confederacy. Maryland didn't secede because its legislature was prevented from doing so because Lincoln arrested them. Kentucky and Missouri had Pro-South governors, and Kentucky did not ratify the thirteenth amendment until after it was a part of the Constitution. Missouri and Maryland were virtually forced to do so. Besides, it could not have been predicted in 1860 or early 1861 that any of those states would support an amendment to ban slavery; only Delaware had significant support for Lincoln. The Slave states could therefore count on 18 states if they so desired Texas to split. It would have made rational sense that slavery would be the cause if the states that seceded did so when it appeared likely that an amendment would pass.

[demolama]

Lincoln was very much against the expansion of slavery into the west... he didn't however care about the states where it already existed.

[gaazn]

The Democratic Party that controlled the South knew they would never be able to win in the Republican dominated North ever again. They would lose control of the executive and legislative branches, and over time all three branches of government would be controlled by the Republicans. If today's GOP doesn't make a comeback in 2010, it will be in danger of being irrelevant forever.