A friend of
mine recently bemoaned the taking down of statues of historical
personages. The idea being that we
shouldn’t be destroying history. When I
questioned which statues he was referring to, he offered up the Civil War
Confederate statues as an example.
Now those
who know me would know that I’d bring up how they’re displayed without
historical context. I brought up how they
were largely funded by an organization that was trying to glorify the old South. I brought up that when you consider the
period they were built, that they were likely more a reaction to the growing civil
rights movements then an effort to honor the men they depicted. They were built to honor the cause they
fought for not the men.
I stated
that the cause in question was slavery.
He put forward that it was State’s Rights.
10 or 15
years ago I would have agreed with him. 10
or 15 years ago most of my knowledge on the Civil War came from the public
education system, and my own reading on the military campaigns and battles of the
Civil War. Neither of those will prepare
you to talk about the ultimate causes of the Civil War.
I’m going to
say right now that I’ll ignore responses that quote general so and so saying he
fought for his state, etc. I don’t care
what they said. I care what they
did. We all know that people often say
one thing and do another.
While I will
cite a few specific resources, a lot of what I’ve read over the decades is not
from my personal library nor was I keeping detailed research notes for citing
in papers.
My own
journey from partial buy in on the Lost Cause Mythology to a much better
understanding of the causes of the Civil War began with reading one of Bruce
Catton’s books. Unfortunately, none of his
books are in my personal library so I can’t verify which one it was. My understanding of that argument is that for
all the issues causing friction between the northern and southern states there
was only for which there was no answer short of war: slavery.
I’m not a
professional historian, and I do have lots of interests that attract my reading
time. That said, I’ve made an effort to look
for texts on the topic of the politics and economics that lead up to and drove decisions
in the Civil War. One of the best I’ve
read recently is James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. It is an excellent single volume source
covering from roughly 1840 until the end of the Civil War.
I’m not
going to take time to put together a detailed analysis. There are already many in print. I will point out some specific cases that
argue against some commonly presented “causes” of the Civil War.
First, let’s
talk about the idea that the war was about State’s Rights.
On a simple
level, Southern politician were always ready to argue State’s Rights during
discussions about tariffs that might hinder the South but help growing Northern
industries but happily supported any tariffs by the Federal government that helped
the South but hindered the North. For
many State’s Rights were mutable depending on political and economic need.
Southern
leaders were more than happy to use their clout in the legislature (where counting
the non-voting slaves as 3/5’s of a person gave them more clout than if they
weren’t counted) and their majority on the Supreme Court to institute the Fugitive
Slave Act. This act required assistance
in recovering escaped slaves in every state and territory. In states where slavery was illegal
assistance was required in apprehending what was a free person in that state
and sending them back to bondage as property in the South. By any measure this was a huge impingement of
State’s Rights.
As the war
progressed the Confederate government would impose requirements on its’ states that
many of them argued were impingement of their State’s Rights. This includes items like conscription
requirements, requirements to send state forces to fight with the main armies
even when those states argued that the troops were needed closer to home, and
providing resources such as food for the main armies when those states were
having trouble feeding their own civilians.
In short, the Confederate government had no issues with impinging on the
rights of those states that had left the Union and joined the Confederacy
because they felt their rights had been abused.
Would slavery
have died out on its’ own?
It’s true
that in the decades right after the American Revolution many felt that slavery
would die a natural death. Many of the
crops being grown in the South at that time were not particularly labor
intensive so the advantage of using slaves was minimal. The writers of the U.S. Constitution were
largely of this opinion. That was before
cotton cultivation came to the South. Cotton
became a huge driver of the economy for much of the deep South, and Cotton was
very labor intensive. Slavery was very
profitable in those regions. While Lincoln
argued for the containment of slavery to the current states that had it under
the idea that it would eventually die a natural death, that death was nowhere
in the immediate future. And by
immediate I’m talking decades.
Fighting for
their way of life?
If you look
at the way the press reported in the decades leading up to the Civil War, you
might conclude that the modern press is relatively neutral. I have no doubt that many Southerners that
did not own slaves honestly thought they were fighting for their way of life. It’s hard to picture how any of the issues going
on at that time would have impacted the rural farmer subsiding on his own piece
of land, but still some volunteered and later most of the rest were
conscripted.
For the
plantation owners and the cities that supported them the idea that they were
fighting for there way of life may be more accurate. A way of life is informed by and constrained
by the economy that supports it. If you
live in Michigan you won’t have a way of life built around the cycle of growing
and harvesting oranges. No annual Orange
Celebration for you.
But in the
deep South where cotton was king, a way of life (and the economy) became focused
around the big cotton plantations.
And now we
turn to slavery.
The Southern
way of life was dependent on the Cotton plantations which were dependent on
slave labor.
How
important?
To maintain
a balance of influence between the South and the North the framers of the
Constitution allowed slaves to be effectively classified as property but still
count as 3/5’s of a person for setting the number of representatives from a
state.
To be blunt,
what other property gets representation in Congress?
Later
legislation would create a line. Above
the line no slavery. Below the line
slavery. The line was set more with
balancing power in mind than the actual economic viability of slavery in mind. Some of the states just below the border had
few slaves. In some cases, if the state
had voted on it, slavery would likely have been made illegal. But the way politics works, while there were
some slaves and slave holders in the states, you could expect some support on
issues that might impact slavery. Most
of those states were also not really participating the industrialization that
was sweeping the North so they could be expect to frequently side with the South
on other issues.
The expansion
of U.S. west of the Mississippi River threw everything out of balance.
There weren’t
many slaves in Texas, but it was admitted as a slave state largely to maintain
the balance.
The South
wanted the line extended west to the Pacific Ocean to preserve Southern power
in the Federal government. They opposed
legislation that would allow each territory to choose for itself even though
that would seem more democratic and in keeping with State’s Rights.
California
was admitted as a free state. From the
Southern point of view that was the end to their ability to control the Federal
government. The fight over the territory
of Kansas began. It would be referred to
a Bloody Kansas. Wealthy Southerners
would fund and arm forces to disrupt the territory government. They encouraged slave holders to move into the
state merely to change the vote. So much
for the rights of that territory to decide what kind of state it would become.
Southern influence
and control over the Federal government rapidly waned in the decades just
before the Civil War. The North had a greater
population and birth rate. Immigrants
largely avoided the South. The norther
industrialized cities offered greater opportunities for employment. Much of the good land available for settling
by immigrant farmers was in free states and territories that were going to become
free states.
Once that imbalance
got high enough it was possible that those pushing for abolition could not only
push for legislation that would curtail slavery but eventually pass an
amendment that would eliminate it outright.
They decided to leave before that happened.
From the
framing of the Constitution until the Civil War the South was fighting an
erosion of power. They needed that power
to protect their peculiar institution.
The institution that underpinned their way of life.
How
important was that institution?
In the decades
before the war there were two main parties in the U.S.: the Whigs and the Democrats. While there were real differences on various
issues between these two parties both had Northern and Southern branches. The main difference between those branches
was support of slavery. Because of the strain
between those branches each party would frequently act as two different
parties. The strain would eventually
shatter the Whig Party. The Republican Party
would arise out of that breakdown. The Democratic
Party would continue to struggle with strain between northern and southern
branches until the Civil Rights era.
Manpower was
a huge problem for southern armies. Part
of the answer to that problem was conscription.
Exceptions were made for plantation owners and their overseers much to
the disgruntlement of many serving soldiers.
It was one of the drivers behind the line “Rich man’s war. Poor man’s fight.” Why was this exception needed? Wealth might explain the plantation owner,
but there are other concerns that required exception for the overseers.
During the
fighting south of Chattanooga a Confederate general in a council of war suggested
that if they didn’t start arming blacks they would never win because of lack of
manpower. He was told to be quiet and
never bring that up again.
The idea was
considered by Jefferson Davis, but never enacted until far too late. It was the last gasp, because their way of
life required slavery. The idea of an
armed black man terrified them. In fact,
the inducement offered to slaves to serve in the army was freedom. No one expected they’d be able to go back to
being a slave on the plantation. They
simply couldn’t risk that the slaves might get the idea that they could be
free. That would destroy their way of
life.
In summary, the
pattern of support for various issues in the decades before the Civil War shows
that support by Southern leaders for State’s Rights issue was dependent on
whether it was beneficial to their way of life. State’s Rights were not the reason for secession. State’s Rights was just another way of saying
protecting their way of life. Their way
of life revolved around slave labor.
That’s why they seceded. Without
slavery there is no secession. Without
secession there is no Civil War.
