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| -Land of the Free |
| The Causes Of The War Between The States |
| 2017-08-27 |
| [CaptainsJournal] For those who say the Civil (sic) War was “all about slavery”, I like to point out that slaves in the South were “identified as free” by the Emancipation Proclamation — issued two years after a war that was “all about slavery” started — but weren’t actually free because there were no blue-clad troops to spring them. Slaves in DC were freed by ordinance in 1864. Slaves elsewhere had to wait until the 13th amendment in December 1865, 8 months after a war that was all about slavery ended. It appears the DC politicians didn’t get the memo about the war being all about slavery, and Lincoln, himself, didn’t realize it for two whole years. The Emancipation Proclamation, America’s first major PR effort, was (much more likely) a ploy to “make the war about slavery” which would operate to bring lots of Northern abolitionists down to the recruiting stations. This, in turn, would beef up the ranks of the Union army which was then getting its clock cleaned. Had Lincoln been keen to erase slavery, he could have done it far cheaper than ruining the South’s economy and threatening the North’s — at a cost of 620,000 dead — had he done it the way the Brits had 30 years prior; he certainly had to know about that. The Brits outlawed slavery, then bought out all the slaveholders for cash. It was a good deal for anyone who could see the onrushing Industrial Revolution, an event which would, in short order, make human chattel slavery an economic dead-end. But Lincoln was not keen to empower the South with such a scheme. Lincoln wanted to OWN the South. The tariffs had done that. If the South rendered itself immune to the tariffs, the Northern economy would crash. This could not be allowed to happen. It is related that one reporter asked Lincoln “Why not just let them depart?” and Lincoln’s answer was “Then who would pay for the government?” That was Lincoln’s (and the North’s) motive. Foreign newspapers of the day, Corriere della Sera, Le Monde, The Times of London, and others, universally saw the conflict as economic and not connected to slavery. As disinterested spectators, their views are telling. Read the whole thing |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #10 How and why did the civil war start? The background is as follows: The large slaveholders, many the descendants of the supporters of King Charles in the English civil war back in the 1600s, were the elite in the south who held political power. Slaves were extremely valuable, with sales prices on the order of a thousand dollars each which corresponds to hundreds of thousand dollars each in today's money. One of the major sources of income on plantations was raising slaves, and selling or renting them out. However, they were so successful at this, by the 1850s they started worrying about there being an oversupply of slaves. This would lower their value. In consequence they made an strong effort to extend slavery to new territories, such as Kansas. They were also concerned that immigrants tended to settle in the north, in part because they did not want to have to compete with slave labor in the South. The southern economic system was like a closed union shop, in which the union members were slaves, and that was not so appealing to immigrants who wanted to succeed by their own efforts in an open society. As a result the northern and western populations grew much more rapidly than the southern population did. The Democratic party was controlled by the southern elite leadership and it controlled the national government until March of 1861. The southern leaders looked to the future and saw doom for their way of life, with too many slaves and too small a population to maintain control of the national government. They instigated Secession, which most of their citizens opposed, but most were won over by later events. By the end of the pro-south Buchanan adminstration most southern states had seceded from the union. The north was divided between democrats who had been allies of the southern democrats, and the new republican party. There was confusion and no consensus in the north about what to do about secession. However, the southern leaders decided to attack the government occupied fort sumpter in Charleston harbor SC. This action enraged most northerners, who flocked to the colors to oppose this aggression. This in turn caused states like Virginia, which had not even voted for the Southern Democrats in 1860 to join the Confederacy. Having controlled the national government until March 1861 the Southerners were much better prepared for war than the northerners were. They won some battles, particularly in the East, but, in the Fall of 1862 were defeated in an attempt to invade the north at the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single days battle of the war. After that battle, General MacClellan, who won it, suggested to Lincoln that the victory gave L the opportunity to make a public statement,about war aims. Lincoln , perhaps in response, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Before then, while some generals had attempted to free slaves, official union policy was to do nothing to interfere with slavery, (in part to discourage secession by Missouri and Kentucky.) Thus the war was indirectly about slavery. But the average supporter of secession in the south was not a slave owner, and many were not even admirers of slavery. Their support came from loyalty to their states. There were also people throughout the south who supported the union, particularly in east tennessee west virginia and among the german immigrants to texas. Thus while the future of slavery was probably the major motivation for secession, the war was about succession and physical attacks on US government facilitiesm and conflicting loyalties to states and to the union. |
| Posted by: Daniel 2017-08-27 13:59 |
| #9 Most wars are about bankers and banking if you dig deep enough. How about Kahama-Kosukela war? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-08-27 11:25 |
| #8 2 cents worth. Most wars are about bankers and banking if you dig deep enough. Slavery had been on its way out when the Civil War began. Abolitionists had been pushing for some time for the abolishment of slavery. Some slave owners actually treated their slaves quite well while others did not. I find it interesting and curious that some free blacks were both slave owners and slave traders. For them slavery must have been, to an extent, about making a buck and less about ideology. Slavery is prevalent in the world today but it seems as if there is far more concern for the slavery some 150 years ago than there is today. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-08-27 11:18 |
| #7 Just pay attention to what the real participants (including the governments of the seceding states) had to say (in writing) about the causes. All of the participants. Tell the whole story and don't cherry-pick to suit your agenda. There are plenty of written records. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2017-08-27 11:09 |
| #6 ..had he done it the way the Brits had 30 years prior; he certainly had to know about that. yeah, about that. If I can Google that, so could the author. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-08-27 08:24 |
| #5 Personally, I believe that the South operated on the belief of having a monopoly on military prowess. The way things were supposed to go is that - after a few humiliating defeats - Lincoln is impeached, and a new Union - one where South remains dominant for ever - is negotiated. Kinda like the situation today with ideological superiority taking the place of military prowess. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-08-27 07:59 |
| #4 On August 25, 2017 at 1:06 pm, Herschel Smith said: It’s easy to onfuse the various manifestations of rejection of centralized control that we may look at as important because of the theatric value of those examples, with what’s really important and what I tried to focus on, i.e., the cultural, theological and philosophical underpinnings of the split. Agree with Smith or not, ever notice how the conflict postmortems are usually written by the victor with lists of 'righteous causes' provided as the origins of the conflict ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-08-27 07:19 |
| #3 The cost of buying the slaves was too high to be brought, there were four million slaves worth close to $3 billion plus there would be a huge compensation bill. |
| Posted by: BernardZ 2017-08-27 06:07 |
| #2 Indeed. As the "industrial revolution" gathered steam (so to speak), it ultimately would have made human labor (slavery, indentured servants, etc.) more expensive, and slavery probably would have died a natural death. Except for a deadly slave revolt in Haiti (if memory serves me right), there were no "wars to free the slaves" in any of the many countries which engaged in slavery. Lincoln was a piece of trash and a war criminal and would have hung in Nuremberg had he been on the losing side (along side Sherman). |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2017-08-27 05:30 |
| #1 Oh come-on, slave based economy can't coexist with industrial economy - therefore the war. As to what England did - they could enforce it. Not the situation in USA. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-08-27 02:19 |