Was the Civil War fought to end slavery, or was it fought to reclaim land?

Question

When I go to the South, I hear that the "War of Northern Aggression" was fought because the North wanted it's land back. When I hear about the Civil War from anyone else, I hear that it was fought over slavery.

Why do you think the Civil War was fought?

I just have a hard time believing that people in the North really cared that much about slavery. The average person might've been against it, but I seriously doubt many people would voluntarily fight and die to free the slaves.

Answer 1

Reclaim land. Lincoln even said that he didn't do it to end slavery. He did it to save the Union. The rich south wanted to split to save their gains from slave trading [and related enterprises]. the North couldn't use slave labour nearly as well as it couldn't grow those kinds of crops.

You witch, Maryn. What'd you give me a thumbs down for?

Answer 2

Partly the war was stirred up by a book called 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' this book was based on any bad things real or imaginary there was about the south.
The question of slavery had been brought up during the Declaration of Independence, the north needed no slaves for their type of industry but the south did. To compromise and get the document completed they didn't add that issue in during the writing of the 1776 document.
The north was sure they could get that taken care of it after the fact, but the south depended on slaves for the cash crops of tobacco and cotton that they were raising because there was no industry there.
During the time when the war was stirring, inventions like the cotton gin and other machines were slowly replacing the human labor need. If the north hadn't pushed the issue I would think the efficent machines would have ended the slave issue completely in a few more years.
Civil war is a terrible situation and though both sides had their points, the south had much bitterness because most of their cities were totally destroyed in the war while the north remained virtually untouched.
That is why they call it the war of aggression. The south felt that each state should decide the issue while the federal government wanted to include rules for the entire the union. Since individual states were organized before the federal government existed this was also a war of who controlled what, which is constantly being questioned to this day.

Answer 3

First of all, for the guy that said slave ships was a northern thing, the importing of slaves was already illegal by the time the war broke out. Any buying and selling of slaves was slaves that were born inside the U.S.

But as far as the war goes, it came about because southern states felt the north was going to try to ban slavery.

For many years before the the war there was the ongoing conflict of a balance of free and slave states when admitting new states into the union. Southern states wanted a new territory to become a state and then it would decide if it was a slave or free state. The idea was slave owners would move to the new state, outnumbering anti-slavery residents, making sure the new state allowed slavery.
Northern states wanted it to be decided before a territory became a state if it was a slave state or not. They did not necessarily care if southern states were slave states, but they wanted to maintain an equal balance between free and slave states. That is how the Missouri Compromise cam about, to make sure every time a slave state was admitted, a free state was also admitted.The southerners had a fear that Lincoln was going to try to finally get rid of slavery so they broke away from the U.S.
So the south fought the war for what they called states rights, which was a state having the right to chose slavery instead of the federal government deciding one state can have slavery but another has to be a free state.
The U.S. fought the war to bring the breakaway states back into the union, but it was not a war to try to force the southern states to get rid of slavery.In fact a couple of slave states did not secede from the north and still had slavery at the end of the war.
Lincolns famous "Emancipation Proclamation" freed the slaves was only for the slaves in southern states that he had no jurisdiction over, he was very careful to not upset the border slave states in fear that they would also side with the confederates.

Answer 4

It was essentially a Constitutional war. The argument was over states' rights vs federal rights.

When the US was first formed, the states had much stronger rights. The federal government did not necessarily have the right to overrule any laws the states made. The slavery issue involved this question: Does the federal government have the right to pass laws that invalidate state laws?

Sooooo... when the South separated from the country, the issue was the interpretation of the Constitution. The North was not interested in "getting the land back." The North was a prosperous industrialized area. They did not "need" the land of the South. The South was a sleepy agricultural area, and did not have the natural resources to become an industrial power. They lacked the kind of rivers that created the electricity and water power that drove the North's industrialization. And there was plenty of cotton available from Egypt, which ruined the South's chances of finding financial support for their fight from overseas.

"Freeing the slaves" was a by-product.

Answer 5

It boils down to land. Northerners wanted the west to remain a source of family farms and as a convenient escape valve for the poor in the eastern cities. Southern cotton farmers wanted the land for cotton farming, which rapidly destroys soil quality and forces periodic movement. The tick for tack game played prior to the Civil War was a way to keep both sides calm, it ensured that neither the industrial/small farming north nor the cotton farming/limited small farming south became more powerful than the other.

And yes, New England shipping brought slaves from Africa, but the practice stopped as agreed on in the Constitution. Even the CSA's constitution had a provision outlawing the importation of slaves from abroad and even sought to regualte such actions between the CSA and the USA.

Since England relied heavily on southern cotton the CSA tried to force them into recognizing them by withholding cotton shipments. England responded by importing cotton from elsewhere. To make the situation totally untenable for the British , Abe Lincoln created the Emancipation Proclamation which freed slaves in rebellious areas of the south; NOT EVERYWHERE read it. England, by the 1860's, was vehemently opposed to slavery by this point and had even used the royal navy as a policing force for several decades prior in an attempt to end all illegal slave running.

Lincoln supported the war, because he feared such a precedent. He wanted to preserve the Union and only later turned the Civil War into a slave freeing campaign. The CSA fought because the states in it felt it was their rights as states to leave the union; preserving the idea of sovereign states within a firm Union as had existed prior to and during the Consitutional convention. Following the Civil War the fed. has begun to aserpt powers it can't really claim to have; and in the meantime the states are becoming counties, more or less, within the nation of America.

Other reasons for war include tariffs, and the idea of annulment rights. The war was never supported as strongly in the north as it's presented; George B. McClellan running with a promise to negotiate a peace with south gained 45% of the popular vote in the 1864 election. In New York, Irish immigrants rose up in resistance to the draft (draft riots anyone), which included an escape clause for rich cowards and the parents.

So in short take your pick. I'm sure different people had different reasons for the war back then, so picking one as the cause some 140+ years late is a tad foolish. In the end keep in mind that things are a lot more complex than they appear on the surface.

Answer 6

The War was fought to keep the South from seceding. The Union wasn't about to let 40% of the GNP go away without a fight. Plus, northern factories were dependent on Southern raw materials, especially cotton, to keep their industries going.

Slavery, though a key issue to a minority of Northerners, was not what prompted the war in any way. But it sounds more noble if that were the reason for the war and since the winner gets to write the history...

Answer 7

The Civil War like every other war ever fought by man can be directly linked to economics. These competitions for resources are often disguised under more tasteful ideologies such as eliminating unfair social policies, such as enslavement of a particular group or religious persecution. If you look closely at any war it always boils down to economics.
Specifically, the Civil War was a war of the farmer and merchant against the industrialist.

Answer 8

both actually. But slavery was an issue when the declaration of independence was signed. Washington said that slavery was the greatest threat to the union.

After the civil war, lost was done to 'clean up' the reason for the war to allow the south back into the union. States rights, etc became more widespread AFTER the war, not before.

the south took over a federal fort, that was what initiated the war. But, the issue was slavery.

Answer 9

Abolition was the major issue in the North following publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Far more subtly, economics played a major part as well. Southerners resented the fact that the more populous, industrialized North had far more clout in Congress.
A great many Northerners, including several Generals in the Union army, were blatant in their racism. Once the war broke out, most Northerners enlisted in order to "preserve the Union" and most Southerners enlisted in the Confederate army in order to resist what they perceived as unjustifiable invasion of their homes and equally unjustifiable meddling in their business affairs.
You're correct in assuming that most Northerners would not volunteer to fight for the freedom of the slaves. Most Southerners who fought didn't own a single slave. Yet the issue of Abolition remains the primary cause of the war, as evidenced by the many speeches given and letters and journals written by Southern leaders and politicians before, during and after the War of Northern Aggression, as they so colorfully named it.
My wife has five ancestors who fought on the Union side in the American Civil War, while I had at least one ancestor who was a slave owner. The two of us belong to two groups of folks who re-enact the Civil War. We missed going to the 144th Anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg this past July but intend to do everything we can to get to the 145th Anniversary re-enactment next July!

Answer 10

It was due to many reasons; least of which was slavery since the North did own slave (sorry indentured servants), it was mostly to keep the South from suceeding (sorry spelling sux).

Many Northern fighters were very bigoted and could have cared less that a black slave would have been freed and if you read many Southern journals/diaries/letters, many landowners would have freed their slaves, had things be done differently.

Answer 11

Fought to preserve the Union.

Slavery became a good emotional issue to rile up the Northern "intelectuals" who opposed war in all forms.

Why do most people think it was about slavery??

Those who win the wars get to write the history books.

And by the way, slave trading ships were northern.

Name one slave ship that a Confederate flag was flown on. (A real one, not one from a movie)