Do you think the Civil War...?

Question

Was fought over slavery?

If yes, why, and what evidence do you have?

If no, why, and why do you think this way?

This isn't my homework, it was just something that came up in lecture, and I was just wondering what your guys's opinion was.

So what do you think.

Do you think the Civil War was fought over slavery, why or why not?

Answer 1

It depends upon the side you were on...Lincoln did not go to war to end slavery...he did it to prevent secession of the southern slave states. He did believe that if the union could be preserved with slavery intact, he'd do it, and it if he could preserve it without slavery, he'd do that. The south went at it because they felt correctly, that slavery was unfairly being kept out of the new states, therefore curbing the prolifaration of slave states and cutting away at their the voting power to practice slavery as they chose.
Lincoln then saw that England was about to join forces with the south. He also knew that England was not in support of slavery and that was when he played the antislavery card in the war. He knew that the English would not join in a fight in favor of slavery. Got straight A's in college History, and that's how i remember it.

Answer 2

I think that slavery was an issue but by far not the only reason.
The Civil War was fought over the idea of the central government having authority in states affairs and one of the issues was slavery. Some of the other issues would be do states have the right to secede from the Union and become a sovereign nation? At the beginning of the Civil War the preservation of the Union was the major key for war and slavery became the issue once the Union won at Antietam and a sheer political move on the part of Lincoln who needed a booster shot to rally the Union forces who were stalemated and possibly losing the war.

Answer 3

justagorilla's answer is correct. For the North the purpose was to preserve the Union. To that end a13th amend was proposed which would have guaranteed the institution in the slave states forever. It was the only constitutional amendment ever sent to the states with a president's signature on it... Lincoln's.

For the South, the issue was not merely slavery, but the expansion of slavery. This was critical to the South because the control of the Senate was at stake. The population of the south could not compete with the populatiion of the North and West, the House of Representatives was firmly in the hands of the non slave states. The Senate was their only hope to maintain their influence and ultimately protect the institution of slavery. Each of the preceeding crisis leading up to the Civil War involved the admission of new states... The Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They needed to balance the addition of a free state with a slave state in order to maintain the balance in the senate.

There is much deflection that the war was over states right. To an extent it was about states rights, but the states rights that the south was interested in first and foremost was the institution of slavery. If you read each of the formal declarations of seccesion of the several confederate states, the overriding issue given for seccesion was slavery. The argument about states rights originally arose after the Civil War began and it was presented by the South to the countries of Europe in order to get their support. Europe was antagonistic to slavery, so the South had to use some propoganda to try to persuade Europe to provide them aide. This propoganda was much later picked up by revisionist historians to assert that the Civil War was about states rights and not about slavery... It was not.

Another excuse oftentimes given was the tariff system and that the South was unfairly taxed. That is also incorrect. In the 1820's and 1830's, such a claim could be properly made, and it led to the nullification crisis under the term of Jackson... But thereafter Tariffs were substantially reduced so that by the time of the Civil War, the South was taxed less than any society in modern history... To assert that it was taxes that caused the Civil War one has to be either sorely misinformed of the facts, or a liar.

Answer 4

Attempts to say that the war was over state's rights or economic disparities are just trying to gloss over the situation. The reason that state's rights were asserted was that the south wanted new territories opened to slavery and the north did not. The south felt that slavery could be introduced in new territories through a popular sovereignity doctrine and local (state) choices over the territorial policy at the time they became states. This led to the Kansas troubles, etc.

Slavery was at the root of every issue raised. So yes, slavery was the reason for the Civil War.

Answer 5

Lincoln wrote this to Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune in August 1862

"If I could save the Union by freeing any slaves, if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves I would do it, I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that"

On the 22nd of September 1862 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

I would say that it was an expedient. He abhorred the institution personally, but he saw himself as President of the United States, with that capital U being very important. At the time he wrote this to Mr. Greeley, he was faced with a situation where there were 11 states in rebellion against the US, the Union army was not particularly successful, except for some actions in the west, the Industrial powers of England and France, with a natural attachment to their sources of raw materials for the textile industry, were seeing the actions of the US government as feeble at best and despotic at worst. Four states were slave holding states, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, all of which chose not to secede (by fairly close margins), if he declared that the war were to be a crusade against slavery, those states might leave the Union as well.

So, the course he had chosen, and announced in September of that year, was to emancipate those people then held in bondage in areas then in rebellion against the United States shall then, thenceforth and forever be free. The only way to free these people was for the Union army to occupy those lands and free the people. In September of 1862, General McClellan seemed to be showing no particular inclination to win those victories, however. Even after holding the ground at Antietam, he failed to follow up the victory by pursuing the Army of Northern Virginia south and destroying them.

But, and this is important, the United Kingdom had been crusading against slavery for 55 years at this point, and such a declaration might just keep them from recognizing the CSA, who didn't dare emancipate their slaves.

Answer 6

I don't think you could say the war itself was fought over slavery. At least not directly. Slavery was one of the major issues that led to the secession. And that led to a war. But really at the point where the south seceded, the north could have let them go. So the war was about preserving the union.

Answer 7

Initially, no. The paremount effort was to keep the Union whole. Of course, the root cause was over which states should accept it. About half way through Lincoln announced that this was also the goal of the Federals. Previous, this stand was simply not politically feasable.

Answer 8

no it wasn't the slave issue was a tactic by Lincoln to hurt the south the south was financed by agriculture so by freeing the slaves he took away the primary industry of the south it was fought over state rights superseding national rights

Answer 9

probably the north hated it i am guessing but the south is the best.