The causes of the Civil War are many and took several decades to coalesce into the bitter and bloody four year conflict. At the root of each cause lay slavery, an institution that provided the predominantly agricultural South with a cheap labor force. Although some observers seek to detach individual causes of the Civil War from slavery, they are all related to the “peculiar institution.” It was the perpetuation of this institution that emboldened Southern states to leave the Union, fearing that slavery might ultimately be abolished. No single “cause” is sufficient to stand alone as the primary factor for disunion, but every cause – whether political, economic, or social, is interconnected with slavery.
Liberty and Freedom as a Cause of the Civil War
Confederate songs often hold the clues as to why so many non-slave holding men joined the armies of the South. In “Bonnie Blue Flag” soldiers sang, “We are a band of brothers and native to the soil, fighting for our Liberty, with treasure, blood and toil…” Another version of the song states, “Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil…”
Southern political leaders followed the thinking of John C. Calhoun, one of many who wrote about the relationship between the states and the Constitution. Their view was that the Union was a confederacy of sovereign states and that the Constitution derives its power from the states and not the people. It was an argument begun during the Constitutional Convention and resulted in the formation of political parties that differed as to how the Constitution should be viewed. It gave rise to the concept of “states rights.”
The South crafted its own Constitution and likened itself to the Patriots who had fought for independence from the oppressive British. By December 1860, Southerners had witnessed a turbulent decade that began with the ill-received Compromise of 1850 and ended with the Raid at Harpers Ferry. Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 and the Republican Party’s stance on excluding slavery from the western territories acquired in 1848 represented a threat to the future of slavery, as attested to by Southern newspapers and political speeches.
Tariffs and Moral Considerations as Causes of the Civil War
Tariffs are often cited as significant causes that led to disunion. However, not all of the tariffs passed by Congress in the pre-war years hurt the entire South; some even benefited certain Southern areas. In some cases, tariffs hurt Northern states as well. Yet even tariffs can be linked to slavery. Much of what the South imported came because the agrarian dominance in the South formed its economy and commerce. The few factories that existed could only be found in the larger cities like Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans. Expanding slavery in the ante-bellum years deepened the dependence on agriculture, notably cotton which was the South’s primary cash crop.
As early as the Missouri Compromise, the question over the morality of slavery was being asked in the Northeast and began to be heard in the Congress. The moral question had always been there. Northerners held slaves into the early 19th Century and one of the largest public slave auctions was in New York City. Even George Washington, a slave owner who emancipated his slaves upon death, wrestled with the morality of slavery.
As Northern moral judgment became more pronounced, the South went on the defensive. Books like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin further enflamed moral outrage in the North and anger in the South. Slavery was at the heart of every argument, whether a Congressional gag order on the issue or the formation of the Underground Railroad.
Causes of the Civil War begin with Slavery
Would there have been a Civil War without slavery? Would Southern states have adopted a different view of their relationship to the central or national government if it was not predominantly agriculturally dependent on slave labor? These questions can never fully be answered. But they hint at the importance of the institution. In 1860, the Charleston Mercury predicted that with Lincoln’s election victory, the “underground railroad would become the over-ground railroad” and that the value of every slave would fall drastically. Slavery was written into every cause of the Civil War.
References:
- Gabor S. Boritt, editor, Why the Civil War Came (Oxford University Press, 1996)
- Gabor S. Boritt, editor, Why the Confederacy Lost (Oxford University Press, 1992)
- William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990)
- Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)
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