Was the union anti-slavey or pro-slavery , during the CIVIL WAR??

Question

Did the union fight for slave freedom or to keep slavery??

Answer 1

The Civil War between The Union (composed of 23 states) and around 7 territories under President Abraham Lincoln and the Confederacy (composed of 11 states) under Jefferson Davis was fought for a number of reasons -- and slavery was only one of the reasons.

One reason was the Union's opposition to secession (one main factor that made many pro-slavery supporters fight for the Union) -- of course, one could argue that secession was caused by "the coexistence of a slave-owning South and an increasingly anti-slavery North."

When the Civil War began, neither civil rights nor voting rights for blacks were stated as goals by the North; they became important afterward during Reconstruction. At first, though there was pressure to do so, not even the abolition of slavery was stated as a goal.

Slavery was at the root of economic, moral and political differences that led to control issues, states' rights and secession of seven states. The secession of four more states was a protest against Lincoln's call to invade (from the Southern point of view) the South.

From the North's point of view, Southern secession and formation of the Confederacy greatly increased the risk of war prior to the opening of hostilities, as it was regarded as an act of rebellion, treason, and more importantly, the seizure of national territory. Thus slavery caused secession which in turn made war likely, irrespective of the North's stated war aims, which at first addressed strategic military concerns as opposed to the ultimate political and Constitutional ones. Initially, the North did not attempt to use military force to put down the rebellion, and actual hostilities began as an attempt, from the Northern perspective, to defend the nation after it was attacked at Fort Sumter. Lincoln's war goals evolved as the war progressed. He did not emphasize national unity during the 1860 campaign, but brought it to the front in his March 1861 inaugural address, after seven states had already declared their secession. At first Lincoln stressed the Union as a war goal to unite the War Democrats, border states and Republicans. In 1862 he added emancipation because it permanently removed the divisive issue that caused secession. In his 1863 Gettysburg Address he tied preserving democracy to emancipation and the Union as a war goal.

Other factors include states' rights, modernization, sectionalism, the nullification crisis, and economic differences between the North and South.

Lincoln did not propose federal laws making slavery unlawful where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, envisioned it as being set on "the course of ultimate extinction". Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories. Both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die.

Southern fears of losing control of the federal government to antislavery forces, and northern fears that the slave power already controlled the government, brought the crisis to a head in the late 1850s. Sectional disagreements over the morality of slavery, the scope of democracy and the economic merits of free labor vs. slave plantations caused the Whig and "Know-Nothing" parties to collapse, and new ones to arise (the Free Soil Party in 1848, the Republicans in 1854, the Constitutional Union in 1860). In 1860, the last remaining national political party, the Democratic Party, split along sectional lines.

Since the war's end, it has been arguable whether the South could have really won the war or not. A significant number of scholars believe that the Union held an insurmountable advantage over the Confederacy in terms of industrial strength, population, and the determination to win. Confederate actions, they argue, could only delay defeat. Southern historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly in Ken Burns's television series on the Civil War: "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back.… If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War."[105] The Confederacy sought to win independence by out-lasting Lincoln. However, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, the hope for a political victory for the South ended. At that point, Lincoln had succeeded in getting the support of the border states, War Democrats, emancipated slaves and Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he also defeated the Copperheads and their peace platform. Lincoln had also found military leaders like Grant and Sherman who would press the Union's numerical advantage in battle over the Confederate Armies. Generals who didn't shy from bloodshed won the war, and from the end of 1864 onward there was no hope for the South.

The goals were not symmetric. To win independence, the South had to convince the North it could not win, but the South did not have to invade the North. To restore the Union, the North had to conquer and occupy vast stretches of territory. In the short run (a matter of months), the two sides were evenly matched. But in the long run (a matter of years), the North had advantages that increasingly came into play, while it prevented the South from gaining diplomatic recognition in Europe.

In terms of manpower the South as a defending force needed fewer soldiers. It also had advantages such as internal lines of transport and communication, the moral advantage of defending against an invading force, and (usually) the support of the local population. The North had substantially more soldiers and substantially more material resources, but its biggest disadvantage was the need to occupy all the conquered parts of a large country. Since the Union outnumbered the Confederacy by more than 4 to 1, Union losses were replenishable. Confederate losses were not. Eventually, generals like Grant and Sherman destroyed the Confederacy by forcing their armies to fight on to victory regardless of the volume of the immediate bloodshed.


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Causes of the Civil War


Civil War: In U.S. history, the conflict (1861–65) between the Northern states (the Union) and the Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy. It is generally known in the South as the War between the States and is also called the War of the Rebellion (the official Union designation), the War of Secession, and the War for Southern Independence. The name Civil War, although much criticized as inexact, is most widely accepted.

Causes


The name Civil War is misleading because the war was not a class struggle, but a sectional combat having its roots in political, economic, social, and psychological elements so complex that historians still do not agree on its basic causes. It has been characterized, in the words of William H. Seward, as the “irrepressible conflict.” In another judgment the Civil War was viewed as criminally stupid, an unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians. Both views accept the fact that in 1861 there existed a situation that, rightly or wrongly, had come to be regarded as insoluble by peaceful means.

In the days of the American Revolution and of the adoption of the Constitution, differences between North and South were dwarfed by their common interest in establishing a new nation. But sectionalism steadily grew stronger. During the 19th century the South remained almost completely agricultural, with an economy and a social order largely founded on slavery and the plantation system. These mutually dependent institutions produced the staples, especially cotton, from which the South derived its wealth. The North had its own great agricultural resources, was always more advanced commercially, and was also expanding industrially.

Hostility between the two sections grew perceptibly after 1820, the year of the Missouri Compromise, which was intended as a permanent solution to the issue in which that hostility was most clearly expressed—the question of the extension or prohibition of slavery in the federal territories of the West. Difficulties over the tariff (which led John C. Calhoun and South Carolina to nullification and to an extreme states' rights stand) and troubles over internal improvements were also involved, but the territorial issue nearly always loomed largest. In the North moral indignation increased with the rise of the abolitionists in the 1830s. Since slavery was unadaptable to much of the territorial lands, which eventually would be admitted as free states, the South became more anxious about maintaining its position as an equal in the Union. Southerners thus strongly supported the annexation of Texas (certain to be a slave state) and the Mexican War and even agitated for the annexation of Cuba.

The Compromise of 1850 marked the end of the period that might be called the era of compromise. The deaths in 1852 of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster left no leader of national stature, but only sectional spokesmen, such as W. H. Seward, Charles Sumner, and Salmon P. Chase in the North and Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs in the South. With the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and the consequent struggle over “bleeding” Kansas the factions first resorted to shooting. The South was ever alert to protect its “peculiar institution,” even though many Southerners recognized slavery as an anachronism in a supposedly enlightened age. Passions aroused by arguments over the fugitive slave laws and over slavery in general were further excited by the activities of the Northern abolitionist John Brown and by the vigorous proslavery utterances of William L. Yancey, one of the leading Southern fire-eaters.

The Election of 1860


The “wedges of separation” caused by slavery split large Protestant sects into Northern and Southern branches and dissolved the Whig party. Most Southern Whigs joined the Democratic party, one of the few remaining, if shaky, nationwide institutions. The new Republican party, heir to the Free-Soil party and to the Liberty party, was a strictly Northern phenomenon. The crucial point was reached in the presidential election of 1860, in which the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, defeated three opponents—Stephen A. Douglas (Northern Democrat), John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), and John Bell of the Constitutional Union party. Lincoln's victory was the signal for the secession of South Carolina (Dec. 20, 1860), and that state was followed out of the Union by six other states—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Immediately the question of federal property in these states became important, especially the forts in the harbor of Charleston, S.C. The outgoing President, James Buchanan, a Northern Democrat who was either truckling to the Southern, proslavery wing of his party or sincerely attempting to avert war, pursued a vacillating course. At any rate the question of the forts was still unsettled when Lincoln was inaugurated, and meanwhile there had been several futile efforts to reunite the sections, notably the Crittenden Compromise offered by Sen. J. J. Crittenden. Lincoln resolved to hold Sumter. The new Confederate government under President Jefferson Davis and South Carolina were equally determined to oust the Federals.

Answer 2

The union was pro-union, anti-rebel. Most northerners weren't that interested in slavery. The abolitionists were against slavery and they resided in the north, but they were a strong minority, by no means representative of the average northerner. Slavery did not become a real issue until the last year or so of the civil war.

So the average northern soldier would not have told you he was fighting either for slaves' freedom or to keep it. They were fighting to preserve the union. However, slavery was the real reason for the civil war, because the south wanted to protect and expand it if possible.

Answer 3

Most uninformed people will tell you that the Union fought to end slavery. The facts are that slavery had nothing to do with the start of the war (as Lincoln was pro-slavery) and slavery was not brought up as an issue in the war until Lincoln needed to find a motivator for his troops, who were losing badly the first 2 years of the war.

Those who call Lincoln the so-called 'great emancipator' need only look at some of his quotes prior to the war. In August 1858 during a debate with Douglas, he stated: "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical
difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

And during his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln stated: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them."

The emancipation proclamation issued by Lincoln freed no one. He specifically stated that only those in Confederate held territories were freed......areas that Lincoln had no control or authority.

Slavery did later become an issue during the war, and ultimately did become a motivating factor for the Union troops.

Answer 4

A minority, though a pretty big one, were anti-slavery. Most were indifferent. The Confederacy's economy depended on slavery. Lincoln's stated war aim was reunification, and he is on record for that stance irrespective of the slavery issue. Initially at least, abolition of slavery was not a war aim, and to understand the argument over secession in the context of the early 1860's, you really have to go back to the demise of the Federalists in the time of the War of 1812, when several New England states seriously considered secession.

Answer 5

The Union fought to preserve the Union (country as a whole), and to stop the southern states from their secession.

Slavery was a predominantly southern practice, due to the large cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations. The north was more industrial, and was where the majority of the abolishionists were located. Most of the Union (northern states) were against slavery.

Answer 6

The Union fought for the freedom of slaves. The Confederate states were the states that broke off from the U.S. to fight to keep slavery.

Answer 7

Who Was Against Slavery

Answer 8

The Union was the United States and didn't exactly fight for either but favored the abolition of slavery, the opposing army was the confederation,

Answer 9

they fought to abolish slavery

Answer 10

anti-slavery