American Civil War?

Question

If the South got rid of slavery before the war, would there be a war? (Debate-(PROs and Cons?)

Answer 1

We know it was not over Slavery Lincoln repeatedly offered to allow anyone back in the Union WITH THEIR SLAVES and a promise they could keep them! No one took him up on the offer.

IT WAS INEVITABLE. The 1810, 1830 and 1850 census showed the South to be made up of roughly 50% Celtic, 30% English and the remaining 20% were German, French or Spanish. The Irish Potatoes famine of 1846-1850 killed a million plus Irishmen, the problem there was food but the British took it for themselves. Another good example of who has suffered under slavery. The real point the majority of English settled up North and continued to this day their opinion of superiority and want of control over our lot. .

There are these who have the need to demonize and discredit anything they don't like with or understand. Was the War over Slavery? Yes and no, it was a part, not as much as many would have you believe but again more than others would have you think. The renowned Shelby Foote, stated after his appearance in Ken Burns “Civil War” that the producer manipulated and edited his statements to make it appear that he the leading authority on the war was saying the war was over slavery, when he and any reasonable scolder knew better.

The war was over money. In the 1770s, the South had every reason to continue the relationship with England, one of its best customers. It was the manufacturing North that was getting the short end of that stick. Southerners joined the Revolutionary War out of patriotism, idealism, and enlightened political philosophy such as motivated Jefferson, not patriotism, philosophy and economic betterment which inspired the North.

In 1860, the shoe was on the other foot. Southern agrarians were at heel to the nation's bankers and industrialists. That just got worse with the election of the Republican Lincoln, bringing back into power the party favoring the wealthy supply side, as it still does.

Then as now central to that, party's interest was keeping down the cost of manufacture. Today labor is the big cost, so today they move the plants offshore and leave US workers to their fate. Back before the US labor movement existed the big cost was raw materials, and the GOP was just as unprincipled toward its Southern suppliers as it is today toward labor. Thanks to modern graveyard science and surviving records, researchers know that in 1760, 100 years before the War Between the States, Charleston, South Carolina, had the largest population of slaves and we say proudly the SECOND LARGEST SLAVE POPULATION WAS IN NEW YORK CITY.
One of the main quarrels was about taxes paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. This tax was called a tariff. Southerners felt these tariffs were unfair and aimed toward them because they imported a wider variety of goods than most Northern people. Taxes were also placed on many Southern goods that were shipped to foreign countries, an expense that was not always applied to Northern goods of equal value. An awkward economic structure allowed states and private transportation companies to do this, which also affected Southern banks that found themselves paying higher interest rates on loans made with banks in the North. As industry in the North expanded, it looked towards southern markets, rich with cash from the lucrative agricultural business, to buy the North's manufactured goods. The situation grew worse after several "panics", including one in 1857 that affected more Northern banks than Southern. Southern financiers found themselves burdened with high payments just to save Northern banks that had suffered financial losses through poor investment. However, it was often cheaper for the South to purchase the goods abroad. In order to "protect" the northern industries Jackson slapped a tariff on many of the imported goods that could be manufactured in the North. When South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, refusing to collect the tariff and threatening to withdraw from the Union, Jackson ordered federal troops to Charleston. A secession crisis was averted when Congress revised the Tariff of Abominations in February 1833. The Panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression began to gnaw like a hungry animal on the flesh of the American system. The disparity between northern and southern economies was exacerbated. Before and after the depression the economy of the South prospered. Southern cotton sold abroad totaled 57% of all American exports before the war. The Panic of 1857 devastated the North and left the South virtually untouched. The clash of a wealthy, agricultural South and a poorer, industrial North was intensified by abolitionists who were not above using class struggle to further their cause.
In the years before the Civil War the political power in the Federal government, centered in Washington, D.C., was changing. Northern and mid-western states were becoming more and more powerful as the populations increased. Southern states lost political power because the population did not increase as rapidly. As one portion of the nation grew larger than another, people began to talk of the nation as sections. This was called sectionalism. Just as the original thirteen colonies fought for their independence almost 100 years earlier, the Southern states felt a growing need for freedom from the central Federal authority in Washington. Southerners believed that state laws carried more weight than Federal laws, and they should abide by the state regulations first. This issue was called State's Rights and became a very warm topic in congress.

These are facts not emotions or unsupported claims, now what was the War over?


God Bless You and The Southern People.

Answer 2

The Civil War was not fought over slavery. The war started because the South rebelled against the Union, and seceded which they did not have the right to do. If slavery had ceased to exist for some reason, say lack of profitability, than yes maybe the war would not have happened. But, the war was not the North attempting to force the South to abandon slavery.

Answer 3

There's no point in asking this question in the first place, because the whole of the South's agricultural economy rested on the backs of the black slaves. NO WAY could the South free the slaves. If they did, where else would they get cheap labor from? Three-quarters of the world's cotton were produced in the antebellum South. Rich plantation owners profiting comfortably from the labors of their slaves weren't about to stop doing so anytime soon. They couldn't. England's textile factories and looms depended on American cotton to keep on running.

The only reasons England didn't come to the South's rescue (and King Cotton's) rescue were (1) Uncle Tom's Cabin and (2) a cotton supply surplus in the immediate pre-war years. Stowe's novel stirred anti-slavery sentiments abroad, and governments feared that intervening on the part of the South would bring civil unrest. A bountiful cotton harvest right before the war's outbreak meant that British warehouses were full fit to burst with American cotton, so that there was a slack period between the stopping of Southern cotton exports and a "cotton famine" abroad in ol' England (which the South had originally counted on to provide their trump card, namely, foreign intervention on the part of the greatest navy in the world).

Moreover, slavery was more than a "peculiar institution" - it was a way of life, as quintessentially Southern as the cotton plantation. And THAT was what Southerners were truly fighting for. Their livelihoods and rights as members of the United States. For, contrary to popular belief, secession was completely constitutional. And remember - the North was the aggressor and instigator of the American Civil War, not the other way around.

Answer 4

The war had more to do with economical differences, not civil liberties. The south was mainly agricultural, while the north industrial. When the north started to have economic problems due to cheaper goods being imported, the north wanted to place a tariff on the goods. The problem with doing so was that most likely the other countries would then place tariffs on American goods, thus hurting the south.

There are many, many causes for the civil war. And frankly, Lincoln would have agreed to a southern surrender without freeing the slaves if it was a last resort.

Answer 5

NO, slavery was not much of a issue in the civil war that is was most people think but it is NOT. it was not only the south that had slaves, it just had more of them because of the hot climate to grow fruits, cotton, etc..

Answer 6

Slavery was the overriding issue. States' rights was smoke and mirrors, an excuse, not a reason to rebel. The South wanted to avoid making slavery their stated cause. It was seen as bad P.R. They knew that they would need help from Europe, probably Britain. Many European countries would have preferred that the U.S. be fractured. States had ceded their authority, when they ratified the Constitution. The Constitution was designed to place the federal authority over the states, because the original plan. of a weaker federal government had failed, under the Articles of Confederation. Newspaper articles, from the time of the ratification votes, urged ratification on the grounds that it would prevent states from secession.

Answer 7

The Civil War was not over slavery to begin with, it was about secession.

Answer 8

There would not have been a war. One theory about the war is that is was about states asserting the right to leave the Union, not about slavery. But there was no issue remotely as divisive as slavery. No slavery, no war.

Answer 9

Probably. Although slavery was perhaps the most prominent, there were scores of underlying issues that contributed to the separation of the states.

Answer 10

the funny thing about the war is that even though it ended slavery the blacks on the whole didnt have any rights to speak of.

Answer 11

Almost certainly not, since the only other issue of any consequence, states' rights, emanated from the slavery question.