What was the Cause of the American Civil War?

Slavery is erroneously given as the cause of the Civil War. However, without slavery, the Civil War would not likely have happened.

Basic Causes

Federal soldiers were fighting initially for reunification. They regarded secessionists essentially as tratitors.

For them, slavery did not become a direct issue until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in the midst of the war, partly as an effort to block Confederate attempts to get recognition from European nations where slavery was banned.

The South fought for different issues, but chiefly what they described as “state’s rights.” However, from the beginning “states rights” meant the right of the state to make and enforce laws ensuring the continuation of slavery without interference from the federal government.

Driven by Slave Owners

Slavery is more accurately described as the war’s catalyst. There were other sources of division, but none likely to lead to war.

Actually, 70% of Southerners did not own slaves – although the overwhelming majority of the delegates to the constitutional convention that established the Confederate States of America did. If so many Southerners did not own slaves, then why was were they fighting?

One strong argument is that a self-serving aristocracy exerted its power and wealth to assure continuation of a slave-dependent economy. This was bound to ffend Northerners who had a society that prided itself on being classless, unlike the Europe their grandparents had fled.

Not that the aristocrats didn’t get support from other segments of Southern society, this argument goes, but it was the slave-holding aristocracy that drove the conditions that led to secession and war.

The crunch point was the South’s wish to maintain its influence by extending slavery to the new lands being opened up out West. The compromise evolved to the point of opening states to slavery on a more or less one-to-one basis, one free state for every slave state. That worked in theory, but in the 1850’s open civil war broke out in Kansas and Nebraska.

Other Factors

Naturally, there were other factors. Like many things, the war’s cause was more likely due to a blend of motivations rather than a single event with one or two issues given more importance than the others, those specific issues varying in relative importance from person to person.

Robert E. Lee, for example, was more motivated by loyalty to the state of Virginia (“my country”) than anything else. Non-slave owning Southern whites often found their own position in Southern society threatened by a vast change if slavery was banned, more easily expressed as a desire to defend a threatened home and family.

Besides dependence on slavery, there was the diminishing power and wealth in the South as the country spread out and industrialization grew in the North. There was also a shift of the Democrats towards the South leading to a split vote in 1860 which threw the presidency to the Republican Party, a new party made up of ex-Whigs and abolitionists, and a party leader in Lincoln who opposed slavery, although he said he would not act to end the practice if it maintained unity.

Northern Abolition and Southern Power

Slavery was unpopular in the North where its influence had faded, but only the growing abolitionist movement was willing to actually speak out in direct opposition to the practice. However, Yankees were offended by the Southern bloc’s power. The South, after all, represented a minority within the country but wielded greater power than the warranted, dictating the nation’s policy on slavery. Compromises were never made to the benefit of Northern attitudes, but always to retain the allegiance of the South.

The problem had been festering since the establishment of the country. Benjamin Franklin founded the first anti-slavery society, various Virginia aristocrats and intellectuals spoke out against the practice and some even freed their slaves, but the division only continued to grow. A series of weak presidents before to the Civil War failed to do much of anything until Lincoln was elected and South Carolina led the South into secession. Civil War followed.


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