i dont like the idea that anyone is ever responsible for events that happened before they were born. apologies aren necessary for events 150ish years ago.
Histories by Bruce Catton, Samuel Eliot Morrison, Paul Johnson, Daniel J. Boorstin and Shelby Foot to name a few. A bunch more than that. I don't know who you are reading, but if they are suggesting anything other than what the best scholarly historical research by some of the top historians of the last century has unveiled, then you may want to expand your reading list.
Well those are the experts, but there is a great disparity in how they write. I think it is futile to argue that the war was fought over slavery. It was simply not a major issue until the later half of the war. Most of these authors would agree that the Morrill tarriff was what led to secession. A couple would argue that secession was a right of the states. If that is the case then the war can not be justified.
It is absolutely ridiculous to believe there would have ever been a Civil War without slavery. Slavery was the fuse that led to the conflict, and all credible historians agree with this. To say slavery was not a major issue until after the war started ignores all the congressional debates and laws (Missouri Compromise), Supreme Court rulings (Dred Scott decision), private correspondence and newspaper accounts that led up to the war not to mention the judgment of history. If you read the newspapers from the 1850's until the start of the war, you will find the primary issue confronting the nation was slavery. Not some dumb tarriff. No other issue other than slavery had the power to divide the nation and pit brother against brother; certainly not any tariff. Of all the issues confronting the nation at that time, slavery was the only one that could not be resolved peacefully, particularly after the Supreme Court invalidated the Missouri Compromise. All of the authors I have mentioned agree with this as does all other credible Civil War historians. As far as the right of a state to secede, the North denied that right. The issue, like the slavery issue, was resolved by the war. If you believe that this country went to war with itself for over four year over a tariff, then you are not very knowledgeable about the Civil War.
I have read most of the authors you mentioned, and none place the emphasis on slavery that you do. They all write on its implications and the part it played, but none view it as the single cause. Secssion was the popular notion throughout southern society. If the secession had been based on the protection of slavery then the poor would not have supported it or fought for it. Slavery was a very devisive issue, but the institution was in no danger of going away at the time of the secession. Lincoln was by no means an abolitionist in 1860. The aboltion movement was restricted to a fringe group of the Republican party. The common citizen just did not care. Also, remember it was the Confederacy that first put limits on slavery by banning the importation of slaves. The Union did not impose a similar restriction in Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, or on W. Virginia. The southern states were afraid of the power weilded by the north in congress. They could not defeat legislation detrimental to their economy. There was a lot of talk in the secession papers about unfiar taxes and tariffs. Many southern leaders felt less like states and more like colonies due to unfair taxation and what they saw as under representation. Again, I did not say we went to war over the Morill tariff. I said the southern states seceeded in large part to it. The war happened because the Yankee north invaded the soverign Confederate nation.
Funny, tariffs and representation were what supposedly led to the Revolutionary war. Just an observation......
I must go with BB here. Yes, the war was ostensibly fought over secession, but slavery was the root cause of secession. Yes, slavery was not the only major issue the confederacy had, but it was the primary one, the intractable one, the one issue that could not be resolved short of civil war.
I disagree. I consider the fact that 4 union states had legal slavery, and the fringe nature of the abolition movement enough to say that slavery was one of many issues and not THE issue that led to war. I think the southern propensity to free trade and the northern propensity to protectionism, states rights, delegation of powers between, and differing views on the perpetuality of the union were all major causes. I do not reject saying that slavery was an issue that led to war. I do reject the notion that the south went to war to protect slavery.
The border states could not really be called union states, since the provided more confederate troops than union troops to the war. They did not seceed with the other slave states primarily because US troops were quickly dispatched from nearby union states to quell the insurrection, especially in Maryland, lest Washington end up entirely within the confederacy. Also there were many jayhawkers in the border states that were against secession. It was a big, long fight in Missouri, Maryland, and Kentucky.
