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Why was the civil war fought?
I was always told that it was slavery
but now I find a lot of Southerns saying that it was because of the Federal government and economy.
The reason I ask is because I was reading some about the Civil War and found a speech given by the Vice-President of the Confederacy when the new government was formed.
The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was delivered extemporaneously by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. The speech explained what the differences were between the constitution of the Confederate Republic and that of the United States, laid out the Confederate causes for the American Civil War, and defended slavery. The speech was given weeks after the secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and then Texas and less than three weeks after the inauguration of U.S. President Lincoln. Hostilities between the two sides had not yet begun.
"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the n**** is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [Applause.] This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It is so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North who still cling to these errors with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind; from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity"
A letter from Lincoln to Horace Greely (in part)....
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Never forget that the emancipation proclamation ONLY purported to free slaves in the Confederacy, which was outside of the reach of Lincoln's legal arm at the time. Slaves in the Northern states were NOT emancipated.
The power of the Federal government being greater than the original agreed-to confederacy of colonies was the core dispute upon which many other disputes hinged - including but not limited to slavery.
Never forget that the emancipation proclamation ONLY purported to free slaves in the Confederacy, which was outside of the reach of Lincoln's legal arm at the time. Slaves in the Northern states were NOT emancipated.
The power of the Federal government being greater than the original agreed-to confederacy of colonies was the core dispute upon which many other disputes hinged - including but not limited to slavery.
Also, the slaves in border states were not covered, Abe didn't want them to secede either. The whole concept was purely political, and kinda funny actually. It would be like me telling my neighbor's kids that they didn't have to listen to their parents, just because I said so.
Also, the slaves in border states were not covered, Abe didn't want them to secede either. The whole concept was purely political, and kinda funny actually.
It was not purely political, the Emancipation Proclamation was promoted as, and was, a military necessity. In that the South insisted that the slaves were property, and that property used to further a nation's military goals is considered legal contraband and subject to seizure by the enemy, freeing the slaves was indeed the depriving of the enemy of vital war material.
The Confederates used their slaves to build fortifications, repair railways, haul supplies, do the cooking and laundry for camps and care for horses.
President Lincoln, before signing the Emancipation Proclamation, got Congress to pass a bill offering compensation for all slaves emancipated in the loyal slave states. This was rejected firmly by the officials of those states. So, Lincoln at least attempted to free those slaves as well. Of course they were freed in 1865 by the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Since the production of Ken Burns' The Civil War TV series, now 25 years ago, it is popular and semi-oficially approved that the Civil War was fought over slavery ... and slavery alone; the point that the nation's economic future - whether America would be an industrial vs. an agrarian society, is generally soft-pedaled.
Dumb 'em down and turn the militant abolitionists who fed the flames into heroes ... so that the same mantle can be passed to today's "progressive" busybodies.
Nor will they mention the various declarations of secession wherein Southern states took pains to enunciate the specific reason behind their secessions - and that reason is, simply, slavery. Because that's what the seceding states openly admitted it to be.
You'll note that there is not a peep in those declarations about taxes or tariffs - such alleged motiviations being a popular excuse for Southern revisionists. Also, the silly nonsense about 'states rights' is just that - the Confederate Constitution explicitly forbid any of the individual states of the Confederacy from banning slavery. So much for caring one whit about allowing states the right to govern themselves. Nonetheless, some will serve up either or both of these excuses, alternately ignoring the declarations and logically contorting themselves in desperate attempts to rationalize ignoring them.
This is not to say that every Southerner fought for that reason. Of course, myriad motivations compel soldiers in any conflict. But the driving reason behind the political forces who enacted secession was to preserve the institution of slavery.
Nor is it to say that the overriding reason for the prosecution of the war by the Union was to eradicate slavery. Rather, the motivation of the Union was to preserve, or restore, the entirety of the Union itself. As with the South, the reasons individuals in the North supported the war varied.
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