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Civil War: Fought over Secession or Slavery?

JC Callender

JC Callender

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I have a hard time believing that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die to preserve one side from seceding from another. It's much easier believing that the north would want to fight to the death to free the slaves and the south would fight to the death to keep them. Sure Lincoln made the case to prevent secession, which imo was a slick way of getting as many people as possible on board, but it was ultimately about slavery. Your thoughts?
 
It was 100% about slavery. Do you know why they fought for secession, because of slavery.
 
JC Callender said:
I have a hard time believing that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die to preserve one side from seceding from another. It's much easier believing that the north would want to fight to the death to free the slaves and the south would fight to the death to keep them. Sure Lincoln made the case to prevent secession, which imo was a slick way of getting as many people as possible on board, but it was ultimately about slavery. Your thoughts?
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All about freeing slaves and to hear the PC and BLM thugs comments today , you would think every white male at the age of 16 owned slaves today , after all we are ALL racist to hear them tell it ! :roll:
 
Master PO said:
wrong, slavery was an issue, however some of the issues of the civil war go back as far as thew early 1830's over commerce.
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Except none of those issues would have led to secession. The slavery issue, without the others, would have. So we are back to the civil war being about(roughly) slavery.
 
It's more accurate to say the war was fought over government overreach.

In other news, the problem got worse after the war.
 
Redress said:
Except none of those issues would have led to secession. The slavery issue, without the others, would have. So we are back to the civil war being about(roughly) slavery.
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secession already had came up in the 1830s over commerce, however to quell the problems over commerce at that time, a compromise was made in law but with limitation of about 15 years, and then the same commerce problems arose again.

read the declarations of independence each state wrote and why they left the union, slavery is an issue that its not the only one.
 
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Henrin said:
It's more accurate to say the war was fought over government overreach.

In other news, the problem got worse after the war.
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If by "more accurate", you mean entirely wrong, then sure.
 
Master PO said:
secession already had came up in the 1830s over commerce, however to quell the problems over commerce at that time, a compromise was made in law but with a libation of about 15 years, and then the same commerce problems arose again.
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So what we see is that the other issues where not enough to cause secession, while slavery was. Thank you for agreeing with me.

read the declarations of independence each state wrote and why left the union, slavery is an issue that its not the only one.
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A laundry list of gripes to sell something does not change the fact that what caused the states to secede was the issue of slavery.
 
The Civil War was fought pretty much over slavery. Maybe a bit over State's rights as well, but slavery was definitely the driving factor.
 
JC Callender said:
I have a hard time believing that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die to preserve one side from seceding from another. It's much easier believing that the north would want to fight to the death to free the slaves and the south would fight to the death to keep them. Sure Lincoln made the case to prevent secession, which imo was a slick way of getting as many people as possible on board, but it was ultimately about slavery. Your thoughts?
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Not just wrong... way wrong.


Many Northerners were against abolishing slavery, or ambivalent or indifferent about it. It was hardly some great and glorious cause that all the noble Yankees were willing to die for. Study a little more history and this will become clear.

Preserving the union was the primary stated issue.


Mainly, it was about economics. For many years the Northern industrial and shipping concerns worked to force the South to do business with them instead of trading directly with foreign companies, for the enrichment of Northern business owners. Their stranglehold on the South's ability to engage in overseas trade was a major cause of the Civil War.


Nor would the average Southerner have died in battle for the "honor" of keeping black slaves. The average Southerner was too poor to afford a slave. The moderately prosperous had maybe one or two. The wealthy plantation owners were the slave owning class in the main and they were few in number.

Loyalty in those days was mainly to ones home state, rather than the nation as a whole. Southerners fought "for their State" and "For State's rights" as their causus-belli.


Like many wars, it was mainly to benefit a small number of the very rich, while the poor were told some noble-sounding cause to engage their support.



The causal agents were complex and many. Boiling it down to some single-cause like slavery is far too simplistic.
 
Redress said:
If by "more accurate", you mean entirely wrong, then sure.
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You seem to want to ignore all the cases where the south did complain about the federal government overreaching its authority.
 
JC Callender said:
What commerce issue is worth a civil war?
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the south was an agricultural economy while the north was industrial, the south was buying it goods from Britain, because they were cheaper then northern goods, so congress along with northern states placed a tariff

on goods from Britain, making them to expensive for the south to buy them, so that they would have to buy from the north, since south was not longer buying British goods, the British stop buying southern cotton and hurt the southern economy.
 
Redress said:
So what we see is that the other issues where not enough to cause secession, while slavery was. Thank you for agreeing with me.



A laundry list of gripes to sell something does not change the fact that what caused the states to secede was the issue of slavery.
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sorry it does not work that way, when you don't like my post, you try too claim i agree with you.

i responded to a poster where to the poster claimed the civil war was 100% over slavery and it was not.
 
Master Po has it right as well as the fact that it was fought over States Rights. States Rights overlaps with the slavery issue as that was supposed to be a right left up to the states with the Constitution only limiting the potential importation of slaves in 1808. The fact that only 10% of Southerners owned slaves means the other 90% was fighting only for rich people to own slaves? I would say as value property wise that a slave would be the equivalent to owning a single engined plane nowadays... most of us cannot afford that and the other things we want. So, I do not think most Souterners were actually fighting so the rich could have slaves, it was more the principle, IMO.

The states were much closer in time to the Revolutionary War which, upon its cessasation was settled with 13 peaces between the former 13 colonies, now nation-States on their own only being in a confederation [Articles of Confederation] and Great Britain. The Constitution was sold and ratified with those 13 nations [states] giving up a limited portion of their sovereignty to become a Union slightly stronger than the Confederation, but with enumerated and very limited powers by the national government.

When I was young, a Yankee having been born in Detroit, and living way down in Richmond, Va, I always wondered why the great Robert E Lee did not side with his country but rather decided to stick with his state of Virginia when she moved to secede. After studying history I found that many, perhaps most people, in those times, had a greater allegiance to their state. And the people of the South definitely felt that the national government was going way beyond its reach, that the North was gaining too much power in Congress as the North had the much greater population. And they felt that there was a breach in the contract for limited powers that was promised when ratified.
 
Henrin said:
You seem to want to ignore all the cases where the south did complain about the federal government overreaching its authority.
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true.

northern states were violating constitutional law.

the federal government was not following the constitution,

the federal government was excluding southerns in laws being made concerning the opening of the west.

southern property was being stolen by northern states,
 
Goshin said:
Not just wrong... way wrong.


Many Northerners were against abolishing slavery, or ambivalent or indifferent about it. It was hardly some great and glorious cause that all the noble Yankees were willing to die for. Study a little more history and this will become clear.

Preserving the union was the primary stated issue.


Mainly, it was about economics. For many years the Northern industrial and shipping concerns worked to force the South to do business with them instead of trading directly with foreign companies, for the enrichment of Northern business owners. Their stranglehold on the South's ability to engage in overseas trade was a major cause of the Civil War.


Nor would the average Southerner have died in battle for the "honor" of keeping black slaves. The average Southerner was too poor to afford a slave. The moderately prosperous had maybe one or two. The wealthy plantation owners were the slave owning class in the main and they were few in number.

Loyalty in those days was mainly to ones home state, rather than the nation as a whole. Southerners fought "for their State" and "For State's rights" as their causus-belli.


Like many wars, it was mainly to benefit a small number of the very rich, while the poor were told some noble-sounding cause to engage their support.



The causal agents were complex and many. Boiling it down to some single-cause like slavery is far too simplistic.
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I don't' believe the south was fighting for "honor" at all, I think they were scared to death of not only losing their economy but also of what the slaves would do to them once freed. I think most Americans looked at our Declaration of Independence and other founding documents and thought, "why the hell are we still enslaving a race" The vast majority being from the north because they didn't have the same worries the south had of freeing the slaves.
 
JC Callender said:
I have a hard time believing that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die to preserve one side from seceding from another. It's much easier believing that the north would want to fight to the death to free the slaves and the south would fight to the death to keep them. Sure Lincoln made the case to prevent secession, which imo was a slick way of getting as many people as possible on board, but it was ultimately about slavery. Your thoughts?
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Both. For a large part of the population, slavery was distasteful, but the South's attempt to break away is what really kicked the war off
 
JC Callender said:
I have a hard time believing that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die to preserve one side from seceding from another. It's much easier believing that the north would want to fight to the death to free the slaves and the south would fight to the death to keep them. Sure Lincoln made the case to prevent secession, which imo was a slick way of getting as many people as possible on board, but it was ultimately about slavery. Your thoughts?
Click to expand...

The southern states initially seceded for two reasons:

1. Because the Federal government failed to enforce the fugitive slave act- many pro slave states felt betrayed since many runaway slaves remained in the northern states and was even protected by many northerners once they got past the southern borders.

2. Lincoln's election as POTUS- this was the final straw since many people in the south thought Lincoln held abolitionist views and his election would tip the balance in favor of the free states.
 
Master PO said:
read history, and you will find more, or don't read, and be partly right.
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I've already read enough history to see that. State's rights and Slavery both played a part in the Civil War, but I still think that the issue of slavery was definitely a driving factor in causing the Southern States to secede from the Union. Lincoln's election was also a causing factor for the South's decision to secede.
 
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