what was the war truly about between the north and south?

Question

dont be fooled , they wanted one ceri ance money people then the slaves, so maney ran north, thats when they said it must end all slavery witch was a good thing for the people

Answer 1

~If you want the typical Yahoo Answers thoughtless, dubious and undoubtedly wrong answer, go with States Rights. Slavery was not an issue. Lincoln said too many times to count that he would endorse slavery if it would end the war and Jeff Davis said he would have no problem with abolition if the Confederacy was allowed to survive as a collection of independent nations.

If you are really interested, you need to do some reading. (One hopes you can do that better than you can write.) Start with some of the things the Southern statesmen were saying to their northern brethren in 1812 when the New England States threatened to secede. Better still, go back to the arguments pro and con of a single strong central government while the states were all independent nations under the Articles of Confederation during the drafting of the Constitution and apply those thoughts to 1850 and beyond.

The Civil War was a criminally stupid, unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians who could not resolve their differences by diplomatic means. On the other hand, the Civil War was an inevitable consequence of the independence won by the colonies in 1783 with the treaty of Versailles.

The Southern colonies, by all rights, should have formed a separate and distinct nation (or nations) then. However, the bonds created by the common cause of the recent insurrection spawned a false unity between the colonies which culminated with the ratification of the constitution in 1787 and its implementation in 1789. The southern states, especially Virginia, could live with detente with the north for the next 4 or 5 decades because most of the positions of power were held by southerners (notably Virginians). As the north expanded westward and northern dollars diminished southern power and position, things got more and more dicey, until South Carolina said enough is enough and pulled out of the union in December, !860. It took a few more months for Lincoln to get inaugurated and for the shooting to start, but once South Carolina attempted to secede, the north was committed to a fight to the death to keep the upstart states in the fold. Likewise, the southern states, having told New England in 1812 that they couldn't secede, were going to fight to the death for their freedom and independence. Bear in mind that by in 1860, the southern states had more history as independent or quasi-independent entities than they had had as a subject unit in a larger whole and couple that with the American spirit of independence an freedom. They had thumbed their noses at the most powerful nation on the planet and gotten away with it, largely by force of southern arms in the hands of southern troops under direction of southern leaders. If King George couldn't beat them, the wannabes in the north were sure as heck not going to tell them what they could and couldn't do. The north, on the other hand, didn't want a potential enemy on its southern border who might ally with France or Britain in an effort by the Europeans to reclaim some of their lost ground in the Mississippi Basin, and the north didn't want competition with its conquest of the West. Several western, northern and border states would have joined in the Confederate cause, but geography and proximity to northern troops convinced them that discretion might better prevail.

The mentality of the war is nicely summed up by the case of Robert E. Lee. His views on slavery were not too dissimilar from Lincoln's and he viewed his slaves as better off on his plantation than they would be in Africa. Lincoln actually carried it a little further and said that as long as there were two races, the weaker, as a basic fact of life, would be subjugated by the stronger. Lee opposed the secession of Virginia from the union but he turned down command of the Union army out of loyalty to Virginia. Therein lies the basic difference between North and South, and the simplified leading cause of the war. Southerners considered themselves citizens of their state while northerners and westerners thought of themselves as Americans first. That would be a product of the mobility of the industrial and mercantile north, versus the multi-generational residence of the southerners on their farms and plantations. The world was passing the South by and the confederate oligarchs wanted to maintain an untenable status quo. The hoi poloi bought into their rhetoric. The North was more concerned with continuing the growth and expansion of a vibrant and virile new nation with aspirations to be an international power. The immovable object was going to be hit sometime by the irresistible force. The only question was when. South Carolina answered the question in December, 1860.

The arguments were old and stale in December 1860. They had been hashed and rehashed in 1767, in 1776, in 1781, in 1783 and in 1787. Aaron Burr tried putting the secessionist arguments into practice in 1805, but the Virginia militia put down his attempt and arrested him. The arguments continued, with increasing rancor, until the guns were drawn at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Eventually, after the war, the US actually became united states as opposed to being independent states linked together by a piece of paper. The pity is that the diplomats actually delayed the start of the war by at least 40 years. Had it been fought in 1820, as it almost was, the loss of life and property would have been far less severe.

The irony is that the southern traitors of 1860 were saying the same things that their grandfathers had said in 1776, while the northern patriots were disavowing those same treasonous ravings of their grandfathers. Both the war of 1776 and that of 1861 were insurrections fought by disloyal subjects against their rightful sovereign over bogus and manufactured grievances. The difference is, the southerners still believed the rationale of 1776 applied in 1860 while the northerners said, whoa - it's okay when we do it but you can't do it to us.

Answer 2

Trade and the expansion of slavery into the territories. Northern industrialist wanted high tariffs to protect their infant industries from competition and producers of agriculture products especially cotton and tobacco wanted free trade so they could sell the products in Europe. Northern wage workers and small farmers did did not want to compete with slave labor and wanted free access to western lands. An additional problem was causes by abolitionists helping run away slaves which undermined the southern economy. As the population and the economy of the north grew faster than in the south the southerners were losing political power and the election of Lincoln meant that Southern interest were no longer going to have an important voice in the federal government so the seceded. If Lincoln had permitted secession it would have destroyed the union and not have solved the problem of run away slaves nor who controlled the western lands, so fighting would have broken out eventually anyway. Both the north and the south claimed higher motives, the north the immorality of slavery, and the south states rights and freedom, but as is the case in all wars the deciding factors were power and money.

Answer 3

It was about the South wanting to control the entire nation simply because it couldn't have been about anything else when you analyze it logically. The North tried everything they could do to prevent what everyone knew was coming for about 20 years. The Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Fugitive Slave law, all this was meant to appease the South and DID NOT THREATEN the Southern institution of slavery AT ALL!!!! By the way, the North was much more egalitarian than the South ever was. In the South, a single slave cost about as much as 38,000 dollars in today's money. So, they cost as much as a BMW, lets say. There arent multiple millions of BMWs on American roads today. So of course Northern economists knew that the South was a bunch of hippocrites. The civil war was about rich Southern Democrat plantation owners (ie slave drivers) who felt their power and their wealth threatened by Lincoln. Of course times dont change, the minute a Republican comes into office the Dems call off with their heads!!!

Answer 4

WHen will people accept the fact that Jeferson Davis and others were 'traitors' who wanted to form their own nation, plotted for years to do so, looted Northern arsenals for nearly a Decade (Davis was Secretary of War at one point and funneled funds & weaons etc South). All this chatter about the 'poor' South and the 'rich' North is bogus. The South chose not to industrialize. The South had rivers for turning water wheels, resources such as coal and iron, they could have kept their cotton within their borders, turned it into cloth in their own mills, with slave labor 'naturally,' and they could have manufactered clothing, etc/ They chose not to. Jefferson Davis company preffered to be 'Lords of the Manor,' with a vast gulf between rich and poor AND an underclass of Slaves. Slaves that were property. When people talked about 'the poor South' keep in mind that Southerners took out loans & were valuated by how many people they owned. Enoher blathering, IT WAS TREASON plain and simple.

Pax-----------------

Answer 5

The war was definitely not about slavery, but about the South splitting from the North to become a separate nation. They wanted to preserve their economic system, which was agricultural and based on slave labor, while the North was industrialized and needed workers and immigrants. That's why Lincoln wanted to keep the country united: "one nation, under God..."

Answer 6

Once again, bcptm proves that she doesn't know what she is talking about, blathering on about states rights and the lie of new england secession during the War of 1812.

The southern states and its politicians were PERFECTLY willing to go along with the American system of government as long as THEY were in charge,. Their goal was the preservation of slavery, because the preservation of slavery preserved their political power, their wealth, and their way of living. Don't believe the idiot who can't form a question correctly either, the SOUTHERN STATES weren't poor, in fact they had a disproportionate amount of the wealth in the country, which is why most of the luxury items that they were importing from abroad was tariffed. The poor whites, and certainly the slaves, were not paying the tariffs, they had little money to afford their daily needs.

If the southern politicians could not retain power by political chicanery(ie., political hiring, govt money to private interests, and destroying poitical enemies, etc), then they would attempt to do it by force of arms.

BCPTM's answer that it was states rights is a complete joke. The southern states were not interested in states rights, they were only interested in THEIR states rights. When northern states enacted Personal Liberty Laws which entitled alleged excaped slaves the RIGHT to present a defense in a court of law to prove that they were not escaped slaves, the southern states claimed that the Fugitive slave act trumped states rights and in fact used those laws in the southern declarations of secession as an example of how the federal government was restricting their states rights. HUH? When the south controlled the Fed govt, they used the power of the federal govt and even used federal troops to enforce the fugitive slave laws, but when they lost power, all of a sudden the federal govt did not have the right to use federal troops to enforce the laws??

Furthermore, Virginia, NC, TN and AR joined the rebellion because, they said, the Fed Govt had no right to enforce the laws of the US inside the states and especially to use federal troops to do so would be tantamount to an invasion of the state. Except for the USC and the United States Supreme Court disagreed with that theory. In 1794, the whiskey rebellion flared in Western PA and the federal govt called out the militia of New Jersey, Maryland and VIRGINIA and led it into Western PA to suppress the rebels. The FED GOVT using fed troops to suppress rebellion inside a state, and the USSC validated the use of troops to do so and the person that led those troops was Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, the father of Robert E Lee, who certainly knew that the Federal Govt had the right and the power to send federal troops into a state to put down insurrection, but decided to rebel against his lawfully elected government anyway.

The southern politicians wanted POWER, because power is its own reward. POWER allows them to dole out govt money and govt jobs helping to secure their re-elections and holding on to power. POWER allows them to control the machinery of state and federal overnment ensuring that their power continues. POWER allows them to protect SLAVERY, which is what enrichens them. POWER is what protects their economic and social status and finally POWER is what allows them to continue to promote and expand the legal but highly immoral practice of Human bondage and which the expansion of to new territories and states, would only continue to heighten and expand their own political POWER.

Power corrupts and all politicians are corrupt, where oh where are the statesmen of our past who did what was best for the country, rather than what they thought people wanted to hear.

whale

Answer 7

It was about more than one thing, but the biggest is that Lincoln was elected in a United Country, and he wanted it to be a United country when he left office. Could you imagine living in Missouri and needing a passport to go to Oklahoma.

Answer 8

Slavery is just an answer to make the war sound more "noble". It was more about the haves and have nots. The south was getting the short end of the industrial revolution and got fed up with missing out on all the money

Answer 9

Use the spell checker before submitting questions. I don't understand what you are asking.