Issues of the American Civil War
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Historiography examines how the past has been viewed or interpreted. Historiographic issues about the American Civil War include the name of the war, the origins or causes of the war ( slavery or states' rights), and President Abraham Lincoln's views and goals regarding slavery. The question of how important the tariff was in causing the war stems from the Nullification Crisis, which was South Carolina's attempt to nullify a tariff and lasted from 1828 to 1832. The tariff was low after 1846, and the tariff issue faded into the background by 1860 when secession began. States' rights was the justification for nullification and later secession. The most controversial right claimed by Southern states was the alleged right of Southerners to spread slavery into territories owned by the United States. Under Lincoln's leadership, the war was fought to preserve the Union. With slavery so deeply divisive, Union leaders by 1862 reached the decision that slavery had to end in order for the Union to be restored. Union war evolved as the war progressed in response to political and military issues, and historians do not use them to explain the causes of the war. The key new issues were the elimination of slavery and the legal and economic status of the freed slaves.


Economic issues

Slavery was the major cause of the American Civil War, with the South seceding to form a new country to protect slavery, and the North refusing to allow that. Historians generally agree that other economic conflicts were not a major cause of the war. Economic historian Lee A. Craig reports, "In fact, numerous studies by economic historians the past several decades reveal that economic conflict was not an inherent condition of North-South relations during the antebellum era and did not cause the Civil War." When numerous groups tried at the last minute in 1860–61 to find a compromise to avert war, they did not turn to economic policies.


Regional economic differences

The South, Midwest, and Northeast had quite different worldviews. They traded with each other, and each became more prosperous by staying in the Union, a point many businessmen made in 1860–61. However,
Charles A. Beard Charles Austin Beard (1874–1948) was an American historian and professor, who wrote primarily during the first half of the 20th century. A history professor at Columbia University, Beard's influence is primarily due to his publications in the f ...
in the 1920s made a highly influential argument to the effect that these differences caused the war (rather than slavery or constitutional debates). He saw the industrial Northeast forming a coalition with the agrarian Midwest against the Plantation South. Critics pointed out that his image of a unified Northeast was incorrect because the region was highly diverse with many different competing economic interests. In 1860–61, most business interests in the Northeast opposed war. After 1950, only a few mainstream historians accepted the Beard interpretation, though it was accepted by
libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
economists. As historian
Kenneth Stampp Kenneth Milton Stampp (12 July 191210 July 2009), Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley (1946–1983), was a celebrated historian of slavery, the American Civil War, and Reconstr ...
— who abandoned Beardism after 1950 — sums up the scholarly consensus: "Most historians...now see no compelling reason why the divergent economies of the North and South should have led to disunion and civil war; rather, they find stronger practical reasons why the sections, whose economies neatly complemented one another, should have found it advantageous to remain united."


Tariffs

The Southerners in Congress set the federal tariffs on imported goods, especially the low tariff rates in 1857; this led to resentment by Northern industrialists. Controversy over whether slavery was at the root of the tariff issue dates back at least as far as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. During the debate at Alton, Lincoln said that slavery was the root cause of the Nullification crisis over a tariff, while his challenger Stephen Douglas disagreed.
John C. Calhoun John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He ...
, who led South Carolina's attempt to nullify a tariff, supported tariffs and internal improvements at first, but came to oppose them in the 1820s as sectional tensions between North and South grew along with the increasingly sectional nature of slavery. Calhoun was a plantation owner who claimed that slavery was a positive good. Also, Calhoun said that slavery was the cause of the Nullification Crisis. While most leaders of Southern secession in 1860 mentioned slavery as the cause, Robert Rhett was a free trade extremist who opposed the tariff. However, Rhett was also a slavery extremist who wanted the Constitution of the Confederacy to legalize the African Slave Trade. Republicans also saw support for a Homestead Act, a higher tariff and a transcontinental railroad as a flank attack on the slave power. There were enough Southern senators to keep the tariff low after 1846.Allan Nevins, ''Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, 1852–1857'', pp. 267–269 Even when the tariff was higher three decades before the war, only South Carolina revolted, and the issue was nullification, not secession. The tariff was much lower by 1861. When the Confederacy was formed it set a very high 15% tariff on all imports, including imports from the United States.


Free labor vs. pro-slavery arguments

Historian Eric Foner has argued that a free-labor ideology dominated thinking in the North, which emphasized economic opportunity. By contrast, Southerners described free labor as "greasy mechanics, filthy operators, small-fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists". They strongly opposed the proposed Homestead Acts that would give out free farms in the West, fearing the small farmers would oppose plantation slavery. Indeed, opposition to homestead laws was far more common in secessionist rhetoric than opposition to tariffs.


Economic status of ex-slaves

The Union government set up the
Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a ...
to supervise and protect the legal and economic status of the freed slaves. It operated across the former slave states 1865-1872. Proposals were made to seize Confederate property and give land (" Forty acres and a mule") to freedmen, but Congress never approved.


States' rights issues

Questions such as whether the Union was older than the states or the other way around fueled the debate over states' rights. Whether the federal government was supposed to have substantial powers or whether it was merely a voluntary federation of sovereign states added to the controversy. According to historian
Kenneth M. Stampp Kenneth Milton Stampp (12 July 191210 July 2009), Alexander F. and May T. Morrison Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley (1946–1983), was a celebrated historian of slavery, the American Civil War, and Reconstr ...
, each section used states' rights arguments when convenient and shifted positions when convenient. Stampp mentioned Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' ''A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States'' as an example of a Southern leader who said that slavery was the " cornerstone of the Confederacy" when the war began, and then said, after the South was defeated, that the war was not about slavery but states' rights. According to Stampp, Stephens became one of the most ardent defenders of the Lost Cause. The historian William C. Davis also mentioned inconsistencies in Southern states' rights arguments. He explained the Confederate Constitution's protection of slavery at the national level as follows:


States' rights and slavery in the territories

The " States' rights" debate cut across the issues. Southerners argued that under the
Tenth Amendment The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. It expresses the principle of federalism, also known as states' rights, by stating that the federal governmen ...
, the federal government's powers were limited to those specified in the Constitution, and since the federal government could not take away any state's rights, it had no power to prevent slaves from being carried into new territories. States' rights advocates also cited the
Fugitive Slave Clause The Fugitive Slave Clause in the United States Constitution, also known as either the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labor Clause, is Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, which requires a "person held to service or labor" (usually a slave, appre ...
to demand federal jurisdiction over slaves who escaped into the North. Anti-slavery forces took opposite stances on these issues. The Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution was the result of compromises between North and South when the Constitution was written. It was implemented by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and later strengthened by the
Fugitive Slave Act A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also kno ...
, which was part of the Compromise of 1850. The Southern politician and states' rights advocate
John C. Calhoun John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He ...
regarded the territories as the "common property" of sovereign states and said that Congress was acting merely as the states' agent.


States' rights and minority rights

Behind the "states' rights" arguments is the fact that the South was losing influence in the country as a whole. The North was more prosperous; its industrial economy produced more, and permitted faster population growth, than did the South's plantation economy. With population growth in the North well above that in the South, it was only a matter of time before the North, not the South, controlled the federal government. Until 1860 most presidents were either Southern or pro-South. The North's growing population would mean the election of pro-North presidents, and the addition of free-soil states would end Southern parity with the North in the Senate. Southerners were acting as a "conscious minority" and hoped that a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution would limit federal power over the states and that a defense of states' rights against federal encroachments or even nullification or secession would save the South. As the historian Allan Nevins described the Southern politician
John C. Calhoun John Caldwell Calhoun (; March 18, 1782March 31, 1850) was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who held many important positions including being the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He ...
's theory of states' rights, "Governments, observed Calhoun, were formed to protect minorities, for majorities could take care of themselves". Jefferson Davis stated that a "disparaging discrimination" and a fight for "liberty" against "the tyranny of an unbridled majority" gave the Confederate states a right to secede. In 1860, Congressman
Laurence M. Keitt Laurence Massillon Keitt (October 4, 1824 – June 2, 1864) was an American planter, lawyer, politician, and soldier from South Carolina. During his tenure in the United States House of Representatives, he was included in several lists of Fire- ...
of South Carolina said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." The South's chosen leader,
Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
, defined equality in terms of the equal rights of states and opposed the declaration that all men are created equal. The Constitution does include states' rights elements in that each state has the same number of senators, and certain rights are reserved to the states or to the people. Southerners such as Davis interpreted these rights as a shield against a numerical majority of Northerners.


Clarification of causes

When the Civil War began, the Union did not state that its goals were civil and voting rights for African Americans, though the more radical of the abolitionists felt they had to come. They emerged as political goals during the war: the 13th Amendment was proposed in 1863. They became major issues during the
Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...
. At the outset of the war, though there was pressure to do so, not even the abolition of slavery was stated as a goal. While the existence of slavery in slave states could be tolerated, it was the issue of its expansion into the new Western territories that made the conflict irrepressible. Slavery was at the root of economic, moral, and political differences that led to states' rights claims and secession. Slavery greatly increased the likelihood of secession, which in turn made war probable, irrespective of the North's stated war aims, which at first addressed strategic military concerns as opposed to ultimate political and constitutional ones. 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. Lincoln mentioned the need for national unity 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, finding it a military necessity. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln said that slavery "was, somehow, the cause of the war".Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 In his 1863 Gettysburg Address he added preserving democracy to emancipation and the Union as a war goal.


Related issues

Hinton Rowan Helper Hinton Rowan Helper (December 27, 1829 – March 9, 1909) was an American Southern critic of slavery during the 1850s. In 1857, he published a book that he dedicated to the "nonslaveholding whites" of the South. '' The Impending Crisis of the S ...
's 1857 book '' The Impending Crisis of the South'' was banned in the South and publicized by Northern Republicans. Helper, a native of North Carolina, argued in his book that slavery was bad for the economic prospects of poor white Southerners. Southern Courts refused to convict the owners of illegal slave ships such as the ''Echo'' and the '' Wanderer'', even though hundreds of kidnapped Africans could die on a single voyage. A significant number of Southern politicians attempted to relegalize the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776–1854, page 22 and pass laws that would require every free black in the South to choose a master or mistress. Pro-slavery literature dominated the Southern media to the extent that famous Southern writers and poets didn't emerge until after the war. Many people on both sides of the war (with exceptions including
Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, towards the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of Nort ...
and William T. Sherman) thought that the war would be short at first. Nineteenth-century Americans didn't believe in peacetime armies, and the process of building armies was time-consuming. War profiteers sold badly made equipment and rancid food at high prices when the war began. Confederate guerrillas or bushwhackers such as William Quantrill (see
Quantrill Raiders Quantrill's Raiders were the best-known of the pro-Confederate partisan guerrillas (also known as " bushwhackers") who fought in the American Civil War. Their leader was William Quantrill and they included Jesse James and his brother Frank. ...
), Bloody Bill Anderson, the Younger Brothers, and Jesse and Frank James killed pro-Union civilians in Missouri and
Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...
. There were also attacks on Southern civilians by pro-Union
Jayhawkers Jayhawkers and red legs are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War. These gangs we ...
. The
germ theory The germ theory of disease is the currently accepted scientific theory for many diseases. It states that microorganisms known as pathogens or "germs" can lead to disease. These small organisms, too small to be seen without magnification, invade ...
was rejected by the medical establishment until after the war, and a large number of soldier deaths were caused by this. Army surgeons used the same saw to amputate limbs of different soldiers without cleaning or sterilizing, and, although some anesthesia existed, it was rarely used, and many injured soldiers had to drink liquor or bite leather or a bullet during amputations. The North had its share of problems with desertion, bounty jumpers, and the
New York Draft Riot The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white working-cl ...
. The South had even greater problems with desertion, especially during the last two years of the war. The vagaries of 19th-century law allowed some (including Union soldiers
Daniel Sickles Daniel Edgar Sickles (October 20, 1819May 3, 1914) was an American politician, soldier, and diplomat. Born to a wealthy family in New York City, Sickles was involved in a number of scandals, most notably the 1859 homicide of his wife's lover, U. ...
and
Jefferson C. Davis Jefferson Columbus Davis (March 2, 1828 – November 30, 1879) was a regular officer of the United States Army during the American Civil War, known for the similarity of his name to that of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and for his kil ...
and Southern secessionist
William Yancey William Lowndes Yancey (August 10, 1814July 27, 1863) was an American journalist, politician, orator, diplomat and an American leader of the Southern secession movement. A member of the group known as the Fire-Eaters, Yancey was one of the mo ...
) to get away with murder, and required the execution of soldiers who fell asleep at their posts or for desertion. Lincoln pardoned many of the latter group of soldiers. Jefferson C. Davis (not to be confused with Confederate President
Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
) was especially notorious. He shot fellow Union soldier
William "Bull" Nelson William "Bull" Nelson (September 27, 1824 – September 29, 1862) was a United States naval officer who became a Union general during the American Civil War. As a Kentuckian, Nelson could have sympathized with the Confederates but, like his st ...
during an argument, and later pulled up a bridge to keep emancipated slaves from following Sherman's army. Trapped ex-slaves were then killed by Confederate Wheeler's army, and others drowned trying to flee into
Ebenezer Creek Ebenezer Creek is a tributary of the Savannah River in Effingham County, Georgia, about 20 miles north of the city of Savannah. During the American Civil War, an incident at the creek resulted in the drowning of many freed slaves. Background Throu ...
. Women who raised money for a
Sanitary Fair Sanitary fairs were fund-raising events held in various cities on behalf of the United States Sanitary Commission to raise funds and supplies for the Union Army during the American Civil War. Established in 1863, the last major event was held in 1 ...
needed the written permission of their husbands to send the money to Union hospitals. Any money a married woman had legally belonged to her husband. There were many flag controversies. The original Confederate flag was the Stars and Bars, which looked similar to the Union Stars and Stripes and caused confusion on battle fields. The Stars and Bars was replaced with the Stainless Banner, which was mostly white, and was sometimes mistaken for a white flag of surrender when the wind was down. Near the end of the war, a red vertical bar was added to the right edge of the flag to show that the South would never surrender, although this flag was quickly followed by Appomattox and Confederate defeat. The Confederacy had other flags as well, including the Bonnie Blue Flag. The Confederate Battle Flag was originally the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, and was square. Modern Confederate flag controversies include the Confederate Battle Flag design that was added to the Georgia state flag as a protest against civil rights for blacks. Decades later, Georgia flaggers claimed that the Confederate Battle Flag design was a symbol of Southern heritage, although others saw it as a symbol of the Klan and slavery. The flag was redesigned by governor Barnes and redesigned again with the Stars and Bars replacing the Confederate Battle Flag on the Georgia state flag. South Carolina had a Confederate Battle Flag first above and then next to the
state capitol This is a list of state and territorial capitols in the United States, the building or complex of buildings from which the government of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia and the organized territories of the United States, exercise its ...
, which stirred controversy that local newspapers referred to as the "flag flap"; it was removed after extensive local debate and a 2/3 vote of both houses of the
South Carolina Legislature The South Carolina General Assembly, also called the South Carolina Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The legislature is bicameral and consists of the lower South Carolina House of Representatives and t ...
. Mississippi residents voted in 2020 to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the Mississippi state flag.


See also

* American Civil War * Origins of the American Civil War * Slavery in the United States * Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War


Notes


Further reading

* Foner, Eric et al. "Talking Civil War History: A Conversation with Eric Foner and James McPherson," ''Australasian Journal of American Studies'' (2011) 30#2 pp. 1–3
in JSTOR
{{American Civil War Historiography of the American Civil War Politics of the American Civil War