Do you think John Brown was the single most important cause of the Civil War?

Question

If not, then who or what?

Answer 1

No. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was just a stepping stone on the road to what became the Civil War. Upon his execution Brown became a martyr for the Abolitionist cause but that still doesn't even come close to being the most important cause.

The Civil War was not a fight to end slavery at first. Lincoln and his troops were fighting to preserve the Union, whether that Union was to be free or slave no one knew, the only thing that Lincoln did know was that the Union could not exist if it were both free and slave (see his "A House Divided" speech).

In my opinion I believe that one of the most important causes of the Civil War was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, which led to the eventual secession of eleven southern states.

Answer 2

Not close.
If you must have one most important cause, I'd argue it was the rise of the Republican party (a new political party at the time). It's hard to grasp now, with party re-alignments, but the south was until very recently pretty well a solid bloc vote for the conservative, right-of-center party, the Democrats. Today the slavery issue is thought of only in terms of moral/ethical grounds, but at the time, the southern states had already ceded a certain amount of political power in the Massachusetts Compromise, in which they'd agreed to count slaves as 3/5 of a person for purposes of delineating how many Congressmen each state was allowed. Population growth in the north over the decades further eroded southern political power, which meant that the south felt their largely cotton-based agrarian economy was bearing an unfairly large percent of the tax burden, and now along comes a political party that is quite radical.
These Republicans are trying to stack the deck even more politically, restricting slavery in new states, which will mean that the southern cotton-grower can see huge tarriffs on cotton in the near future. There's even some talk of doing away with slavery altogether, which would wreck the south's economy. There's NO talk of paying for the slaves, and the Bill of Rights requires the government to compensate for the taking of private property,offering economic assistance in restructuring the economy, or changing congressional representation. In other words, they're going to trash the constitution and screw the south.
Not too many years before, several New England states had considered secession when the shoe was on the other foot economically, but decided to remain in the Union when political compromises were reached, but such compromises now seemed difficult at best, and, since nobody but these upstart radical Republicans had ever doubted the authority of the states to seceed, they did so with a reasonable expectation of doing so peacefully. Miscalculation. Instead they are invaded militarily and have most of their wealth stripped from them, not to mention political representation, over the next quarter century.

Answer 3

The Civil War was not a war about slavery--therefore, John Brown's radicalism had nothing to do with it.

The Civil War was the result of a series of political failures--politicians sought only to preserve their sectional interests and not the integrity of the union.

Indeed, emancipation was only a military strategy.

Slaves were considered contraband.

The Emancipation Proclamation was an attempt to cripple states in rebellion.

What happened was the slaves DEMANDED that they be freed by flocking to Union army camps and refusing to heed their masters.

Slaves were responsible in many ways for their own freedom.

And therefore, the Civil War had a moral cause.

John Brown had little to do with any of this. He was radical, even among abolitiionists. Not to mention, a murderer...

Answer 4

He led an armed insurrection against the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, WV. He tried to instruction manual a slave insurrection. It did no longer at the instant reason the Civil conflict even though it replace into between the motives maximum suitable as much as the Civil conflict. The North and the South had distinctive reactions to it.

Answer 5

Cotton was king in the south, and the north was worried the south was getting too rich by selling cotton to England and France.

Answer 6

No it was the silly notion of the Rebel States thinking they could govern themselves! Everything else was just an excuse.