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Of course you seek to simplify; simple answers for simple minds are all your viewpoint has ever had to offer.
Any complexification of the issue is only to appease the slavery apologists.
It's a clear cut issue. As clear as any possibly could be.
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It would have taken a bit longer (it did in Brazil, to learn and longer still in the Persian Gulf emirates) but slavery would have succumbed to its own weaknesses in any case; I'm relieved to learn that some people, in their, all-seeing, self-righteousness, have determined that your answer was worth half a million dead, many more casualties, and a century of resentment.
The slave culture dies hard for the master, doesn't it?
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Now please feel free to follow the usual pattern, and label all those who don't subscribe entirely to "progressive" Holy Writ as white nationalists, Klansmen, or Nazis.
The senseless rant in former Post #2 (since deleted) notwithstanding, the self-proclaimed "Social Justice Warriors" of the present day have a lot in common with the sheltered Northern abolitionists who stoked the fires of resentment and refusal to advance at a slower pace, then punished a defeated South -- the majority of whose citizens were not directly linked to a slaveholding aristocracy.
Unless we are incredibly stupid, we won't see another American Civil War, but a "peaceful divorce" between "red" and "blue" America -- in the manner of Czechoslovakia or Nineteenth Century Sweden.
Compromise was attempted on many occasions in the years before Fort Sumter, BTW; below is a link to the best-known; This was referenced in history texts during my formative years, but I doubt that the people preaching resentment in many present-day urban classrooms have much interest in it.
I'm not sure what's more amusing:
The fact that you went right to making this topic about your 'Social Justice Warrior' obsession in the very first sentence, or
That you carp about a 'senseless rant' in that very same sentence in which you immediately drag the 21st century into a a discussion about an event that is more than a century and a half old.
It was not a necessity, if it was that would suggest that things are inevitable, and inevitability is a concept historians use after the fact, not before. If we say the purpose of the war was to terminate slavery, then we would be asking if slavery could have been ended in any manner short of a war, and the answer would be yes. However, the purpose of the war when it started was certainly not to end slavery, at least not in the minds of the majority of northerners who supported the war.
If we say that the purpose of the war was to preserve slavery, then we would have to ask, was there any manner in which slavery could have been preserved by the South outside of secession and war. In the long run, probably not. The entire world was extinguishing slavery, the US could not have gone on long as the only slave owning society.
What ultimately made the war a necessity was the failure to resolve the slavery issue one way or the other when our Constitution was written. Instead what we got represented a compromise. And the next 70 years featured more compromises which sustained slavery, but isolated it in the southern regions. The two party system that evolved, was able to handle these compromises....until it wasn't. That system began to break down with the Wilmot Proviso in 1846. For the first time, rather than voting along disciplined party lines, votes were cast on a regional basis. It continued to break down until a party, the Republicans, came into being which represented only one region and didn't even exist in the South. The agency which had been supplying all the compromises, vanished. When compromise was no longer possible, the war became inevitable.
…. When compromise was no longer possible, the war became inevitable.
Good informational post, but your concluding comment begs my original question--Why was war inevitable? States had seceded a half year before the attack on Ft Sumter-- and that attack was the response to Lincoln's refusal to peacefully abandon the fort when asked by SC....Seems that episode was merely an analogy to the assassination of the Archduke 60 yrs later. ...Why couldn't The North just concede that they did not represent the People of The South, who deserved their own right to self determination?
"He's a Civil War buff? I'd love to be a Civil War buff." --George Costanza
I'm not a Civil War buff either, but this Brexit negotiation got me to thinking-- The Southern States didn't negotiate. They just left. Other than ego & lust for power, why did The North feel such a need to go to war over it? If you invite a bad actor to your birthday party and he wants to leave, do you beat him up to make him stay?
There was a lot of negotiation, the states through their elected representatives voted to leave the US after the negotiations failed, it really does not get more peaceful than that, and there was no law that a state could not leave the US.
The USA went to war as the same reason about every country goes to war, various geopolitical reasons.
Was it needed? Well, if the USA wanted that territory of the CSA, then yes, the war was needed.
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Originally Posted by 2nd trick op
The senseless rant in former Post #2 (since deleted) notwithstanding, the self-proclaimed "Social Justice Warriors" of the present day have a lot in common with the sheltered Northern abolitionists who stoked the fires of resentment and refusal to advance at a slower pace, then punished a defeated South -- the majority of whose citizens were not directly linked to a slaveholding aristocracy.
Unless we are incredibly stupid, we won't see another American Civil War, but a "peaceful divorce" between "red" and "blue" America -- in the manner of Czechoslovakia or Nineteenth Century Sweden.
Compromise was attempted on many occasions in the years before Fort Sumter, BTW; below is a link to the best-known; This was referenced in history texts during my formative years, but I doubt that the people preaching resentment in many present-day urban classrooms have much interest in it.
Those were along ethnic lines though. Any given state has a good mixture of red and blue, and even among those, there is a mixture of various policies each group agree upon.
Arguing that the war was about anything but slavery is the revisionist, if not white nationalist viewpoint.
Not revisionist at all, unless you really believe that a bunch of white people from the USA cared about blacks so much, they went and died for them, lol. Hell, the USA did not even ban slavery until after the war, that is just how much they cared. The USA did not enact the numerous civil rights policies until years, decades, after the war, that is just how much they cared.
What the USA did care about was losing a large, and economical viable area, subject to exposure from European powers.
If the point of contention was no slavery, specifically the expansion of slavery in the new territories, but say tariffs, trade, etc, the actions would still be the same. What sparked the powder keg is not near a factor as what made the keg in the first place. This is like saying Austria's archduke being assassinated started WW1, ignoring every other issue involved, the assassination was merely the spark.
Good informational post, but your concluding comment begs my original question--Why was war inevitable? States had seceded a half year before the attack on Ft Sumter-- and that attack was the response to Lincoln's refusal to peacefully abandon the fort when asked by SC....Seems that episode was merely an analogy to the assassination of the Archduke 60 yrs later. ...Why couldn't The North just concede that they did not represent the People of The South, who deserved their own right to self determination?
I tried to avoid any partisan leanings in my explanation. You show no such aversion so of course you claim the question went unanswered, even though my answer was quite clear. War was required to resolve the question of slavery because the system which had handled the problem with peaceful compromises, broke down in the late 1840's and shattered completely in the 1850's.
Asking "Why couldn't The North just concede that they did not represent the People of The South" is no different than asking "Why couldn't the South have just gone along with the majority of the population and modernized their outlooks?" In short...how come neither side just didn't give in completely to the other?" Do you really need such a question answered?
Imagine the kind of economic upheaval that had to happen in order to end slavery. If today a president was elected to force the United states into vegetarianism, you could imagine the cost to producers and all the ancillary industries that would declare war. It would be the end of a lifestyle that lasted many generations for ranchers.That would be tantamount to ending slavery and I couldn't see it happening without some blood shed or at least a Preston Brooks and Charles Sumner incident.
Did you look for any existing threads here? The Civil War has been re-fought over and over right here in the History forum.
Before Lincoln had even taken office, Southern states began seceding from the United States. In every single case, their secession document said they were doing so to preserve the institution of slavery. The United States government took the position that secession was unconstitutional (although it was not mentioned in the Constitution) and used force to suppress the insurrection, eventually using the Emancipation Proclamation as a tool to further that objective. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that secession was not a valid act under the Constitution, so, no, the Northern states were not just exercising their collective ego and lust for power. They were putting down a rebellion by what were viewed as traitors.
All the nonsense about "States Rights" is just that. Nonsense. All of the seceding states said they were doing so to preserve the institution of slavery. People now say it was a fight over states rights so they don't sound so racist in defending the Confederacy.
It is no nonsense, pointing this out does not make someone support or not support the CSA, no more than pointing out Pearl Harbor happened does not mean a person supports or does not support Japan.
The power of the federal government, at that tie significantly less weak than now, to levy actions on a state, who back then were stronger than now, many still holding loyalty to the state, allowed and should be tolerated or not? Additionally, the fact there was no law stating a state could not leave the USA. Additionally, representatives of the South voted to leave, that is about as peaceful of a way as possible.
Those who think it was over slavery are deluded to think the US gov and a bunch of white people cared about blacks so much, they dumped tons of resources and lost their lives to assist them, lol.
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