Michael T. Griffith
2006
@All Rights Reserved
Many historians seek to justify the federal government's invasion of the South by claiming that the war was fought over slavery, and that Union forces were fighting to free the slaves while the South was fighting to keep them in bondage. A number of critics claim the South only fought in order to ensure the continuation of slavery. A detailed refutation of these assertions would require a separate paper. However, for now, I offer the following points in response to them:
* The war was fought over secession, not over slavery. If the South had not declared its independence, Lincoln would not have launched an invasion, and there would have been no war. The only slave states that were charged with insurrection and then invaded were those that belonged to the Confederacy. Would Lincoln and his fellow Republicans have accepted secession if the Confederacy had announced it was abolishing slavery as the first official act of its existence? Would the Republicans have allowed a peaceful separation if the Confederacy had started an emancipation program right after the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run)? Any serious student of the Civil War will agree that the answer to both of these questions is no. I don't think anyone who has studied the subject believes the Republicans would have allowed the South to go in peace no matter when the Confederacy would have started to abolish slavery.
* In July 1861, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution, by a nearly unanimous vote, that affirmed that the North was not waging the war to overthrow slavery but to preserve the Union (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 66-70). McPherson notes,
. . . in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists." (Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)
* When Lincoln assumed office, he was entirely willing to allow slavery to continue. Lincoln even supported a constitutional amendment that would have given additional legal protection to slavery. When Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation about two years later, he did so largely because he was under intense pressure from abolitionist Republicans in Congress, who were threatening to cut off funds from the army if Lincoln didn't issue some kind of emancipation statement. One only has to read the Emancipation Proclamation itself to see that it was a war measure that only applied to slaves who were in Confederate territory; it did not apply to any slaves who were in Union-controlled territory, not even to slaves who were in the four Union slave states. In addition, Bennett presents evidence that Lincoln himself tried to undermine the proclamation soon after he issued it, and that he issued it unwillingly (Forced Into Glory, pp. 22-29, 411-508). For that matter, Lincoln only began to consider issuing the proclamation after the Union war effort continued to falter (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 134-139; Robert Divine et al, America Past and Present, p. 460.)
* To be sure, some members of the Republican Party did believe the war should be waged for the purpose of abolishing slavery. Those who belonged to this faction of the party were commonly known as "Radical Republicans."
* There were important economic and political differences between the North and the South that were major reasons for the South's desire for independence. Prior to secession, the South had complained for decades about unfair, unconstitutional Northern economic policies, especially tariff policy. One of the seven ordinances of secession and two of the Declarations of Causes of Secession of the Deep South states mention unfair Northern economic policies. Jefferson Davis mentioned the South's complaints about Northern protectionist tariff policies in his first message to the Confederate congress (he cited the North's imposition of "burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests"). In his famous speech on secession to the Georgia legislature, Robert Toombs spent the first half of the speech listing some of the South's economic complaints against the North, and he cited these complaints as reasons the South needed to be independent. Historian Frank Owsley discussed some of the reasons for these complaints:
The industrial North demanded a high tariff so as to monopolize the domestic markets, especially the Southern market. . . . It was an exploitative principle, originated at the expense of the South and for the benefit of the North. . . .
The industrial section demanded a national subsidy for the shipping business and merchant marine, but, as the merchant marine was alien to the Southern agrarian system, the two sections clashed. It was once more an exploitation of one section for the benefit of the other.
The industrial North demanded internal improvements--roads, railroads, canals, at national expense to furnish transportation for its goods to Southern and Western markets which were already hedged around for the benefit of the North by the tariff wall. . . .
Michael T. Griffith
2006
@All Rights Reserved
It is interesting to observe that all the favors thus asked by the North were of doubtful constitutional right. . . . Even in the matter of public lands the South favored turning over these lands to the state within which they lay, rather than have them controlled by the federal government. . . . ("The Irrepressible Conflict," in Edwin C. Rozwenc, editor, The Causes of the American Civil War, Second Edition, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1972, pp. 108-109)
Even after the war, the North's economic exploitation of the South continued for decades. For example, Kenneth C. Davis, although he is critical of the South on many points, concedes that Southern railroad companies were "burdened for decades by unfair rates and restrictive tariffs set by Northerners, who controlled the vast majority of railways and the legislatures that set rates" (Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 425-426).
* Southern leaders had valid reasons for their belief that monetary considerations played a major role in the North's decision to invade the South. It was no secret that the North did not want Southern ports to be able to trade directly with Europe because they knew European businesses would naturally be attracted by the Confederacy's extremely low tariff, as opposed to the North's high tariff. In addition, the North didn't want to lose the tariff revenue that the federal government collected from the Southern states. I think it’s revealing that in his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the seceded states if they didn’t pay the federal tariff. He didn’t threaten to invade over slavery. But he said there would be an invasion if the seceded states didn’t pay the federal tariff:
The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861)
Lincoln was a master at using clever wording that could blunt the full impact of what he was saying. But his meaning in this statement is readily discernible. He named two "objects" over which he would use force in order to carry them out, and one of those objects was "to collect the duties and imposts," i.e., the federal tariff. Southern leaders resented this threat, especially since the Southern states paid an unfairly large amount of the tariff and since the tariff rates had just been markedly increased. The fact that Lincoln was prepared to invade if the tariff wasn’t paid shows that monetary considerations played a significant role in the North’s decision to use force against the seceded states.
* In order to understand the Civil War, one must take into account the inflammatory anti-Southern propaganda that numerous Northern leaders and newspapers spread for years prior to the war. Northern abolitionist attacks on slavery were often misleading and exaggerated. These attacks frequently included unfair attacks on the South as a whole. Northern agitators unfairly attacked the South on a wide range of issues. In her book, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2000), British scholar Susan-Mary Grant documents the harsh anti-Southern propaganda that Northern leaders, writers, and newspapers spread in the decades leading up to the war, especially from around 1840 onward. During the five years that preceded the war, numerous Republican leaders and pro-Republican newspapers frequently portrayed Southerners as barbaric, ignorant, depraved, and even un-American. In the 1860 presidential election, the Republican Party distributed an abridged version of a book entitled The Impending Crisis of the South, which spoke approvingly of a scenario where slaves would rise up and kill their masters. Not only did the Republican Party distribute this book, but in the version that the party printed, Republican editors added such captions as "The Stupid Masses of the South" and "Revolution--Peacefully if we can, Violently if we must." The "Revolution . . . Violently if we must" statement referred to inciting slave revolts that would potentially cause the deaths of thousands or even tens of thousands of Southern citizens.
* As one reads the speeches and letters of Confederate leaders during the war, it becomes apparent that they certainly didn't believe their main reason for fighting was the preservation of slavery. For example, beginning in late 1862, James Phelan, Joseph Bradford, and Reuben Davis wrote to Jefferson Davis to express concern that some opponents were claiming the war "was for the defense of the institution of slavery" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 479-480, 765). They called those who were making this claim "demagogues." Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted "the Confederates were not battling for slavery" and that "slavery had never been the key issue" (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).
* There is no doubt the issue of slavery was the main, immediate factor that led the original seven states of the Confederacy to secede, but it was certainly not the only factor. It's crucial to understand that secession and the war were two different events. The election of Lincoln and the Radical Republicans in 1860 was the reason the Deep South states seceded. The issue of slavery was the biggest reason they decided to secede when Lincoln was elected, though, as mentioned, it was by no means the only reason.
What about the four other states of the Confederacy? Why did they secede? They only seceded after Lincoln announced he was going to invade the Deep South. In fact, in two of those four states, the people themselves voted on the question of secession and voted against it. In the two other states, democratically elected secession conventions voted against secession. However, when Lincoln announced he was going to invade the seceded states, new votes were held, and in each of them secession won by overwhelming margins.
The causes of secession were not the causes of the war, and secession did not have to lead to war. The Republicans could have allowed the South to go in peace, but they chose not to do so. The direct cause of the war itself was the federal invasion of the South. The battles started when federal armies invaded the Southern states in an effort to destroy the Confederacy and to force the South back into the Union.
* Precious few textbooks mention the fact that by 1864 key Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were prepared to abolish slavery. As early as 1862 some Confederate leaders supported various forms of emancipation. In 1864 Jefferson Davis officially recommended that slaves who performed faithful service in non-combat positions in the Confederate army should be freed. Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate generals favored emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army. In fact, Lee had long favored the abolition of slavery and had called the institution a "moral and political evil" years before the war (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 281; Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003, reprint, pp. 231-232). By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition and thus save the Confederacy. Duncan Kenner, one of the biggest slaveholders in the South and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Confederate House of Representatives, strongly supported this proposal. So did the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Davis informed congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Kenner to Europe to make the proposal. Davis even made Kenner a minister plenipotentiary so as to ensure he could make the proposal to the British and French governments and that it would be taken seriously.