What was the cause of the Secession (before civil war)?

[Prosperity]

idea from another thread

[jrockster21]

Jo mama -- seriously. There have been several threads on this topic (or leading to this topic), and jo mama is always the decided upon cause of the civil war...:2cents:

[SnyderShrugged]

I've also looked into the causes (both popular and secondary).

Although it revolved around slavery, the causes were many and compounding in nature.

here is a link and exerpt from some things that I have found interesting around those "secondary compounding causes.

The Civil War is an important part of America’s History. It was the reasoning behind many new laws and acts that later resulted in a better America. The major cause for the Civil War was thought to be slavery. Slavery was an important aspect of the war but the origin for the war started when the North and the South stopped working together. The two sides believed in different forms of government and could not come to an agreement in any issue. The Tariff of Abominations started in 1828 when America taxed British imports, such as textiles. Another instance where the North and South disagreed was the Maysville Road. There were many issues leading up to the Civil War, no matter how hard the government tried, the war could not be stopped.

The Tariff of Abominations all started when the government taxed the textiles imported by Britain. The cotton shirts were so popular because of its low price due to the easy manufacturing in Britain. The southern farmers took advantage of this inexpensive item, which created tension with the North. The northern were producing textiles as well but since their factories were more expensive to operate, their price of cotton went up. To solve this national conflict, the government set up a tariff on the Britain imports, hoping for the best. Unfortunately, the South wasn’t happy and a Force Bill had to be passed. The new Bill forced silence on South Carolina. Even with these new bills tension was rising.

The Maysville Road controversy started in 1830 when the South wanted to build a new road, in hopes to better the economy and also create a border, which later separated the slave owners with the free. The South asked for federal funding to help pay for the road. When the bill passed through the Congress, they agreed the road was a good idea and passed it. Later, President Jackson vetoed the Bill, saying the government should not pay for state roads and they would have to raise the money themselves. He felt the Maysville Road was not necessary and would only create envy between the North. The road was built purely with state funds but the South was not happy. The South believed the government was treating the South unfair by not supporting their proposal. The controversy was another reason to start the Civil War.

Social Security was another important aspect involved in the Civil War. When America’s economy plummeted, Social Security was a new deal intended to be temporary. This new deal was to help provided the senior citizen and handicapped with money from taxes collected year after year. This temporary deal soon continued out and became a permanent component of America’s economy. This new plan upset many Southerners and Northerners. Many American’s saw Social Security as welfare, even though it was clearly started Social Security is NOT welfare money.

http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/portfolio/smith/civil%20war.htm

click the link for the rest of the essay.

[Prosperity]

Jo mama -- seriously. There have been several threads on this topic (or leading to this topic), and jo mama is always the decided upon cause of the civil war...:2cents:

Duh, but I needed a poll

damn my choices aren't very good

[dreamingwolf]

uh the cause of the civil war was the seceding of states, your poll maybe should be what was the cause of the Secession?

there was no other reason for the civil war than the southern states seceding, and the union going after them to bring them back in.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Here we go again :doh:

[SnyderShrugged]

uh the cause of the civil war was the seceding of states, your poll maybe should be what was the cause of the Secession?

there was no other reason for the civil war than the southern states seceding, and the union going after them to bring them back in.

good point

[england]

well we had one why not you

[Prosperity]

uh the cause of the civil war was the seceding of states, your poll maybe should be what was the cause of the Secession?

there was no other reason for the civil war than the southern states seceding, and the union going after them to bring them back in.

fair enough

[Larry]

I once asked an American History Professor that question. I'd learned that it wasn't The Emancipation Proclimation (that was run through Congress after the South took their marbles and went home), but I didn't know if there was consensus on what was the reason.

He said that like all wars, there wasn't so much one, big, reason so much as a whole bunch of reasons, but that is was mostly agreed that The Big One was the argument about whether new states would be Slave or Free.

[Prosperity]

this poll sucks sorry for posting it

[Cdowwe]

I think it all goes back to states rights

[Zguy28]

The sudden loss of slave labor converting to paid labor would smash the South cotton industry.

Actually their are lots of reasons for the War.

I do know that one of my ancestors, a governor, stopped Maryland from joining the South.

[Slateman]

The surface reason was slavery, but it was really much more than that.

The South felt like not only its economy, but its entire way of life was being ripped from them. Even the most Southerners believed that slavery had to die out. They were more for a gradual reduction in slavery.

The North, on the other hand, felt like the South was being backwards and didn't understand their way of life our culture.

These things coupled with the fact that the country was expanding rapidly, probably too rapidly. There were multiple factions on each side. In the South there were people who wanted to expand west, people who wanted to not expand, people who wanted to abolish/limit slavery, and a small group who wanted to push it.

The North too had its groups. Some were abolishionists. They believed that slavery was an evil and it needed to be stopped. But true believers were few and far between. The truth is that most people didn't want slavery to end because free slaves would take jobs away from "white" folk. This was especially true in the new territories.

However, the South forced the issue and fired on Ft. Sumter. They thought the Yankees would be weak, especially militarily. The North thought that it could simply overwhelm them with numbers. Both sides thought it would be over in a matter of a few months, 6 at the most.

Both miscalculated. Greatly

[yank]

Here's a pretty good summary:

http://www.swcivilwar.com/cw_causes.html

In short, the long running battle to preserve the southern states right to own slaves came to a head as a direct result of the election of Abraham Lincoln, even though he was a moderate condidate. The south was losing the economic battle to the ever surging industrialization and population of the north and the power in Congress was shfting decidedly northward. Losing the ability to own slaves to work the engine of the agricultural south would have caused an even greater divide between the north and south and the south bolted.

No other "states right" has ever been explained to me with any coherence. One right has been stated as the right to not enforce Federal laws. Even the southern Andrew Jackson as president called South Carolina on the absurdity of this notion. The other is the right to secede. Without the slavery issue this so-called right would never have been imagined. EDIT - it is also a self-defining concept: The southern states seceded because the north wouldn't give them the "states right" to secede. Huh?

[Ghost of]

Slavery WAS (in spite of neo-Confederate and sadly, some libertarian scholarship on the matter) the central cause of the war and of the sectional differences between North and South.

Ironically, a Southern writer described slavery as the highest form of socialism. Meanwhile, except for some basic infrastructural improvements at public expense, the North represented unfettered capitalism.

The two were bound to clash, especially because of the change in the view of slavery from a temporary evil to a necessary one, to a positive good in the South.

It was actually the South that helped impose, through its influence in Congress, anti-liberty measures such as the Fugitive Slave Law which essentially forced people to become slave catchers/informers against their will and their local law and the screening and censorship of abolitionist materials in the post.

There was no claim to gradual elimination of slavery, slateman. In fact, Southern politicians and adventurers had plans (what do you think our war vs. Mexico was about--expanding Slave-holding territory) to expand southwards and to the West to preserve slavery. Since slave labor and society would actually be quite different out West, the South was trying to preserve its system of white supremacy and agrarian aristrocracy. Capitalism, modernism, the spirit of Adam Smith and of WL were arrayed against it. It's not there was nothing of value in Southern society, but what the South was afraid of was freed blacks. By having a black legally and philosophically treated as vastly inferior, even the poorest white felt they possessed something in this world--his intrinsic value as a white man.

this was quite a departure from the days of Thomas Jefferson and Washington who held very different views on the ultimate end of slavery and its essential immoral character.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."

Contrast that with the Confederate Constitution or any of the public remarks made by Stephens, Davis or other Southern leaders.

It also demeaned the value of honest physical labor by associating it with the work that slaves do.

[dreamingwolf]

you all are still saying what caused the war when your describing one of the reasons for secession. Just cause the states seceded doesnt mean the union was forced to automatically attack them.

[yank]

you all are still saying what caused the war when your describing one of the reasons for secession. Just cause the states seceded doesnt mean the union was forced to automatically attack them.

Here's a quote from the link I posted earlier that relates to your argument:

The Unionist response was that the Preamble of the Constitution stated that the Union derived its power from the people as a whole, and that they alone could dissolve it. President Andrew Jackson, himself a Southerner, had threatened in 1832 to send troops to force South Carolina to allow the collection of the Federal tariff if that state persisted in its assertion that it could “nullify” any Federal law it did not agree with. Jackson’s message to the people of the offending state read, “Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent the execution of the laws deceived you. The object is disunion. Disunion by armed force is treason.” On that occasion South Carolina had backed down."

Even the southern-born president Jackson knew that no such right to selective participation in the Union and its laws existed. No "states right" to secede existed. The south committed high treason and as such the war was prosecuted for four sorrowful years.

Since the thread topic is the cause of the secession I think the fundamental reason for the secession can easily be established that it was southern-felt threat to their slavery-based culture. The cause for secession cannot be stated as the "states right" to secede - that would be self-defining.

Also to add to Ghost's post, in addition to the Mexican war, there were quite a number of attempts by southerners to fund mercenaries to attempt takeovers of both Nicaragua and Cuba in order to susequently add them to the Union as southern slave states.

[skinfan133]

the romanticized version is it was over slaves. i reality it was the debate over states rights and the cultural diferences of the north and south. slavery was a big part; only after lincoln realized it would keep Britain out of the war if he proclaimed it a war against slavery a getysberg. so saying the north was a rioutcheous player trying to free slaves it was not becuase of human rights; political cards were in their favor and they delt a full house. the getysberg adress did nothing of real value for slaves though; it proclaimed slaves of "states in rebelion to be absolved of...their masters" meanign only slaves in southern states were free, all those in the north were still leagaly in captivity.

lincoln did take a step in the right direction and i truly believe he ws against slavery; i also believe like any politician he was oportunistic.

did you know southern black prisoners of war were executed by the north? did you know that the north tourtured southern soilders by the thousands at camp douglas in chicago?

did you know he south tourtured countless northern POWs in a giant outdoor gerigia camp where they were both reqired to bathe and go to the bathroom in their drinking water?

both sides had other thing on their mind besides slavery at the begining of the war.

[Ghost of]

the romanticized version is it was over slaves. i reality it was the debate over states rights and the cultural diferences of the north and south. slavery was a big part; only after lincoln realized it would keep Britain out of the war if he proclaimed it a war against slavery a getysberg. so saying the north was a rioutcheous player trying to free slaves it was not becuase of human rights;

Neo-confederate bilge.

It's not that Lincoln didn't consider political consequences to his actions but it is immoral to suggest that a man (just like US Grant) who was principally opposed to slavery only asserted anti-slavery out of political expediency. This is false.

Also during the war, the Northern homefront changed. Though the draft was unpopular, the anti-slavery aspect became more important to those involved. And in all reality, it doesn't matter whether some grunt believed he was or was not fighting to free slaves. Neo-confederate revisionism relies on semantical games. The discussion is whether slavery was the central cause of the conflict (this INCLUDES pre-war tensions.) EVERY major sectional tension and conflict sprang from slavery. THe north didn't need slaves and despite rampant white racism did have A moral stance towards the issue. The slaveholding South asserted the POSITIVE nature of slavery and the natural state of the Negro

EVERY major conflict leading UP to the Civil War revolved around slavery. You remember that whole Kansas-Nebraska thing? John Brown? Fugitive SLave Law? Wilmot Proviso? Compromise of 1850?

As for black prisoners killed by the North--I'd have to look into that before taking your word for it, but I DO know that the highest levels of the Confederate government issued (but did not really enforce because of the threat of retaliation) summary death judgments against white officers in command of black soldiers (many of them BORN FREE MEN) for inciting servile insurrection (such a concept belongs in ancient Rome, not these United States which stand for liberty) and 'returning' black troops to a state of slavery (when many of them were freemen from birth.)

Because a conflict is complex doesn't mean that the central issue isn't the central issue. Because Lincoln wasn't a 2006-style advocate for racial equality doesn't mean he was not fervently anti-slavery in his beliefs (Douglass-Lincoln debates, the rage that gripped the South when Lincoln won--hello?!) or that slavery wasn't the foundation of the conflict.

The talk of tariffs or culture is merely a lame attempt to talk around the FOUNDING PRINCIPLE of the Confederacy, which was the legally enshrined concept of white supremacy in practice and belief and anti-capitalist reaction.

Need we mention the treatment of blacks even AFTER slavery in the South? Hello? The first terrorist organizations which grew out of white resentment towards blacks for achieving political power (and not keeping their place) in the Reconstruction period. Need it be retaught how blacks and Republicans were driven from power afte Reconstruction essentially failed due to not only the corruption of some 'carpetbaggers' but due to the terrorism and murder of the White Roses and KKK and massive voter intimidation which destroyed the party in the South.

[skinfan133]

GNMP, i am a huge lincoln fan to clearn things up. i just state what i know, the whoe thig of northern soilders killing captured southern black soldiers was on a documentary i've seen. aparently it was a high ranking or even an exacutive order, can't remember. both sides comited huge atrocites in the war, mostly the south though. for a culture that hinged on "civility" they were very brutish. the only reson i can sometimes sympathise with some of the souths views is the fact my family has a rich military history* spaning back to even that war on both sides, mostly south. but my first loyalty is the USA and freedom for ALL people (which is why i think iraq is important, even people in that part of the world crave some control over their own destiny). i think the south was totaly unjustified in cessesion, it should have been sloved on paper for a few more years imo. it was a very brutal war that changed practically anything other than th abolition of slavery, a good that came out of so much evil, over 600,000 of americas sons died for almost nothing, very sad, fortunately also something good, the freedom of opressed peoples, was brought about, but at what cost?

*as for my familys military history if anyone is interested this is as far back as my family members and myself have been able to reaserch.

wars fought by the Jones' (my dads side, cant find specific names or ranks for most) (family tradition and heritage in marines and navy:)

-revolution, 2 members (john paul jones, adopted son of my very distantly multiple-greatgrandfather, and his brother, great-mulitple grandfather's son)

-quasi french war, (1 member in the navy-marines)

-war of 1812 (1 member navy)

-barbary wars (1 member navy)

-mexican american war ( 2 members, johnathan jones, PFC marines, kevin Jones (brother) navy)

-civil war (3 members, johnathan jones marines, kevin jones navy, son of kevin, chris jones navy)

-spanish american war (1 member navy)

-philipene war (1 member navy)

-WWI (2 members, great-grandfather oliver jones marines, freddie jones marines)

-WWII ( 1 member, my grandady JB jones navy) [last jones in military]

on my moms side, the weirs from ireland imigrated in the first potato famine (mixed military history)

-civil war (1 member chrles "browny" weir, calvary)

-spanish american war (0 members)

-philipene war (0 members)

-WWI (2 members, greg weir navy, harold weir army, these two from family history always bickered over each others service:silly: )

-US intervention in Russian civil war- (1 member, harold weir, army {greg was killed in action})

-WWII- (0 members)

-Korean war (1 member, my grandpa Chuck weir marines)

-Nam- (1 member, grandpa weir)

-US intervention in Hatti (1 member my cousin John weir, on active duty marines) john helped man the third gun nest guarding the embasy during that time.

so thats my familys military history for those who are curious, very colorful military past.

and yes i am a relation to the legendary john paul jones just not by blood, no one in america is, he was a actually a criminal from france, my family adopted him as a son

[dreamingwolf]

The Unionist response was that the Preamble of the Constitution stated that the Union derived its power from the people as a whole, and that they alone could dissolve it. President Andrew Jackson, himself a Southerner, had threatened in 1832 to send troops to force South Carolina to allow the collection of the Federal tariff if that state persisted in its assertion that it could “nullify” any Federal law it did not agree with. Jackson’s message to the people of the offending state read, “Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent the execution of the laws deceived you. The object is disunion. Disunion by armed force is treason.” On that occasion South Carolina had backed down."

his words were all just political jibber jaw. What he did was told the congress give me two bills, one to reduce the tariff and another to give me the power to send troops to enforce them. Basically he said here ya go SC the tariffs are down, take it or I kick your ass. What did SC do? Find every other way to F with the Feds. It went on for years.

While you might take that incident as a precedent, it was nothing more than political posturing. SC was well within their legal limits. Infact upto the civil war, the fed had little to no legal ground to force any state to do anything. Even today any time the fed tries the force the states to do things they are met with legal resistance. No child left behind is a good example. If we are to accept the historical revisionists accounts of legality of the war, then the states should shut up and take it with any fed commandment. well they do eventually, but they still try to fight it.

I like the fact that the feds won, cause we would not have near the power in our military if we had maintained the status quo prior to the civil war. We just wouldnt be able to bring in the money to fund it, but I dont understand why its so important to try to convince people the secession was over slavery and that the civil war wasnt caused by the secession but for a need to end slavery.

[chomerics]

Slavery WAS (in spite of neo-Confederate and sadly, some libertarian scholarship on the matter) the central cause of the war and of the sectional differences between North and South.

Ironically, a Southern writer described slavery as the highest form of socialism. Meanwhile, except for some basic infrastructural improvements at public expense, the North represented unfettered capitalism.

The two were bound to clash, especially because of the change in the view of slavery from a temporary evil to a necessary one, to a positive good in the South.

It was actually the South that helped impose, through its influence in Congress, anti-liberty measures such as the Fugitive Slave Law which essentially forced people to become slave catchers/informers against their will and their local law and the screening and censorship of abolitionist materials in the post.

There was no claim to gradual elimination of slavery, slateman. In fact, Southern politicians and adventurers had plans (what do you think our war vs. Mexico was about--expanding Slave-holding territory) to expand southwards and to the West to preserve slavery. Since slave labor and society would actually be quite different out West, the South was trying to preserve its system of white supremacy and agrarian aristrocracy. Capitalism, modernism, the spirit of Adam Smith and of WL were arrayed against it. It's not there was nothing of value in Southern society, but what the South was afraid of was freed blacks. By having a black legally and philosophically treated as vastly inferior, even the poorest white felt they possessed something in this world--his intrinsic value as a white man.

this was quite a departure from the days of Thomas Jefferson and Washington who held very different views on the ultimate end of slavery and its essential immoral character.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."

Contrast that with the Confederate Constitution or any of the public remarks made by Stephens, Davis or other Southern leaders.

It also demeaned the value of honest physical labor by associating it with the work that slaves do.

Great post Ghost, my thoughts on the matter exactly. The capitolist/socialist POV, and the clash of the two differing ideologies is the correct way to look at the problem. Slavery was the single issue that caused the civil war, but that was the surface aspect of it, when the real issues are examined, it was an ideological difference in thinking between the North and the South. The difference still exists today, as there are still many southerners who want to downplay the role of slavery in the sucession, as well as perpetuate the myth that slavery was not the reasoning behind it. . . they are wrong, and only trying to save face in justifying the sucession by saying Southerners wanted to eliminate slavery too. The fact is they didn't, and the war was started because of the ideological differences in the treatment of man, which in turn was the basis of the economic differences in both the North and the South.

[chomerics]

I dont understand why its so important to try to convince people the secession was over slavery and that the civil war wasnt caused by the secession but for a need to end slavery.

The answer is simple wolf, if the presiding future of US was one of continuing slavery, would the South have suceeded?

You can argue semantics all you want, and it is just obfuscating the true issues, slavery was the reason for the succession. There are many other "factors" which led to the secession, but each and every "factor" has slavery at the basis of its conflict. Ghost brought up a number of other factors which all had slavery at its roots. THe Compromise of 1850 was one of the other "factors" he brought up. The comprimise exacerbated the entire conflict and hastened the secession all BECAUSE of slavery. The states seceeded because of slavery, or a need to continue slavery, if all new states were allowed to be slave states, and there wasn't the abolishonist movement, would the South have seceeded? I think not.

[Prosperity]

If we use a relative morals then it is obvious that at that point in America slavery was not nearly as horrible as we see it today. Even Abe was a racist, people almost universally agreed that blacks were not equals.

Now, the slave states may have seceeded because of slavery that does not make it their fault that the civil war happened. The reason the Union forces invaded the South was to keep the country together. It was for imperialistic reasons, not for humanitarian reasons.