was the civil war fought over slavery essay

was the civil war fought over slavery essay

The Causes of the Civil War

1. Introduction

A common assumption to explain the cause of the American Civil War was that the states were fighting over the rights to some generic term called “states rights.” This concept of “states rights” was an argument between the Northern and Southern states over the power that the national government can exercise in making the states conform to national laws or policies. The tradition of “states rights” was a long-standing practice in the United States, starting with the Declaration of Independence. In this document, it is stated that the thirteen colonies were free and independent states. Also, the Articles of Confederation, the predecessor of the Constitution that was drafted in this time to create a loose national government, had a strong affirmation of states’ rights. This was, in fact, a prelude to the future conflict. The national government was too weak and was not able to enforce laws, such as widespread failure to pay taxes. The states were too independent, and this led to quarrels among them and to a feeling of complete sovereignty. The series of events following the drafting of the Constitution would directly affect the future of the United States. A conflict that was once thought to have only affected the 19th century is still interpreted quite differently and still has left quite an impact on the racial relations in America today.

This paper will trace the causes of the Civil War through events following the ratification of the Constitution by the Southern states. It will disprove one myth about the war in the sense that the war was fought over the ratification of the Constitution.

The United States Civil War is one of the darkest and most crucial periods in the nation’s history. The war had six primary causes: Compromise of 1850, Lincoln-Douglas Debates, John Brown’s Raid, Election of 1860, Fugitive Slave Law, and the Dred Scott Decision. Each of these was essential in bringing about the war, and each directly impacted the institution of slavery, which was the underlying factor in the war. What is not commonly known is that these events were not viewed as causes of war until just before and during the early part of the war itself. The results of the war and the views of what caused it are generally from the perspective of the victorious (a better word might be surviving) Northern side. Understanding why and how the war broke out would have to involve the views of both Northern and Southern about what the events were leading up to the war, particularly in the South, and how those events influenced the decision to go to war. Only in recent history is war and history itself being viewed from The North and The South. With this new perspective, the causes have been given new names and meanings from those that have already been written in students’ textbooks.

2. Section one: Economic factors

Small economic matters were also an indirect cause, as the South had a massive economic staple on Europe. At that time, the North wanted to declare war on Britain as an attempt to gain the market that the South currently had by force. This would be called “The Trent Affair.” Now, because of the possibility of Russia backfiring and declaring war on the North, France and Britain making an alliance, and friendly relations with Europe, the main goal became the preparation for an invasion. This was seen by the South, and they approved of this potential invasion with the same glee as Dred Scott. The South considered “The Trent Affair” a good propaganda source to recruit Europeans to the Confederate cause.

The next economic issue comes from what is called the “Tariff of Abomination.” A tariff is a tax or a set of taxes used to raise money on importation or exportation. It’s an actual tax on goods, simply using imported/exported goods instead of direct terms. The tariffs proposed at the time were meant to help government funding. Since the tax only affects wealthier people, the South was afraid it would become too much of a help for the industry, turning the entire US into a manufacturing industry. Because of this, the South decided to nullify these tariffs and consider secession if the North favored them too much.

In the early 1800s, the United States was split into uneven sections. Half of it was the well-developed industry of the North, while the other half was the rural South, based on plantations. The South wanted to help pick the country up again by assisting the government with the National Bank, but that would essentially harm the Southerners as it helped the Northerners more than others.

Economic factors are one of the major causes of the Civil War. A Duer, an American financial broker, once said, “To be independent, for the favor of no one, for the love of no one, for the necessity of no one in the long term, is the condition which breaks all the shackles.” This quote perfectly explains what the North wanted because their goal was mainly focused on the economic side.

3. Section two: Political factors

Slavery is a sensitive issue to appraise in the United States’ political makeup. The typical account of all systems is centered around “good” and “bad” issues, be it the New Deal, the Vietnam War, or the establishment of the United States itself. In almost every case, there is plenty of evidence on both sides that can logically be argued. In the case of the causes of the American Civil War, it provided a key issue around which secession was based, according to Alexander H. Stephens in his Cornerstone Speech. It is easier, as Donald defined, “the cause of the war, which was the failure of political accommodation over the issue of slavery. The Civil War might have been averted, or made less bloody, if the issue had been resolved earlier.” Donald is right, there was a strong feeling underlying the events leading to war that its culminating point would be around the issue. Although the majority of modern historians disagree with the ideas put forward by Beard in the 1920s that a sectional, deep-rooted economic conflict was the primary cause of the war, they do agree that the Republican Party, in sowing the seeds of its own downfall, and the Democrats, in being singularly unsuccessful in mediating sectional conflict to their own advantage, provided direct causes of secession around the issue of slavery. The dogmatic northern position of the Republicans around the issue of slavery meant that compromise was virtually out of the question. And when the Democrats split along sectional lines with the election of their own presidential candidate, it confirmed the South’s worst fears that their position in the Union was becoming untenable. Decisive events surrounding the issue were the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave official endorsement to the idea of popular sovereignty, and the Lecompton Constitution, where there was an attempt to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state. These events led to the decline of the two-party system in American politics and left the South with no other method to protect their rights but secession.

4. Section three: Social factors

The rapid expansion of industrialism in the North made them realize that the slaves were hindering their production rate. Realizing this and also the fact that the white population was steadily increasing, the Northern and Southern subordinates who cannot find work and social mobility in their own class would move to the west, either into the neighboring state or into a new territory to seek new opportunities for themselves. This, as a result, caused tension in the west between the North and South. The North did not want to compete with cheap slave labor and lose employment opportunities for their own class and were determined to stamp out slavery in the new territories. The South had to protect its own class of people and were aiming to create more slave states to keep political power equal between the North and South. All this eventually led to the Civil War as the conflicting interests of the North and South were irreconcilable at the time.

The third factor was the social causes of the Civil War. King stated that, “The color line was purely and simply a question of the proletariat.” For him, it was all about the working class; about the subordinates separating to form their own societies. The construction of the whole issue is a long one and it had begun fifty years before the Civil War even started. The different lifestyles of the North and the South were one of the reasons why they clashed. The North had embraced the industrial age and rejected slavery while the South was still holding on to their agrarian society with slavery as their key engine for work.

5. Conclusion

Simple greed and power mongering also played an important part. The South, having adopted Calhoun’s and Madison’s theories, felt that it was no longer safe in the Union and that if they did not secede, they would have no voice. It was the Republican Party platform, however, that instilled fear in their hearts and drove them to secede. The platform strictly opposed the expansion of slavery in the territories, a right which the South felt they were entitled to. They saw this as blatant discrimination against them and believed that if the North had its way, they would be reduced to an inferior position in the Union. This fear was not groundless, as the North had a free-labor vision for the West—an independent, white, homestead society with no blacks—that would deny the yeoman farmer-slaveholding society room for expansion. Finally, the election of Lincoln with no southern electoral votes sealed the South’s decision to secede, for they felt that they no longer had a voice in politics or the right to self-determination.

Additional economic differences enhanced the two regions’ difference in opinion regarding slavery. The South used slaves in the same manner that the North used employees. The rural South’s economic stability was heavily dependent on the world market. The slave-dependent South believed that free labor could not compete with slave labor. This issue was a cause for their secession. The North, however, had long been rallying against the “slavocracy”. A liberal-capitalist ideology had taken root in which they believed that progress and development were contingent on free labor. They viewed “King Cotton” and the southern life of leisure as wasteful and inefficient. The economic differences brought about by the issue of slavery would eventually tear the Union asunder.