Causes of the U.S. Civil War

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.