The Cause of the Civil War was Slavery
In 2019, as part of an ECW series on primary sources, I compiled a list of primary sources about the relationship between slavery and secession. These sources included each Confederate state’s Articles of Secession, supplementary “Declarations of Causes,” the Confederate Constitution, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens’s “Corner Stone Speech,” and other founding documents of the Confederacy.
I offer a link back to those sources today in case anyone believes that, for instance, the war was about “how government was going to run—the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.” All of those questions, usually touted as “States’ Rights,” centered on the right to own slaves and the expansion (or not) of slavery into the western territories. Don’t take my word for it, though: read what Southerners themselves said about it.
The “States’ Rights” framing arose postwar as a more sanitary, “righteous” justification for Confederate actions. That unfortunate framing has polluted our understanding of the war, its causes, and its consequences to this very day.
It’s worth noting: when discussing “the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” some 4 million enslaved people in the South didn’t have the freedom to choose what they “could and couldn’t do.”
Always be suspect of any politician who doesn’t mention that slavery caused the American Civil war.
The late, great historian James I “Bud” Robertson challenged anyone who thought the Civil War was caused by “States Rights” to name three: he never had any takers. Check out his talks online.
I’d give him three examples-
1) How the 1774 ‘Letter to the Inhabitants of Quebec’ from the First Continental Congress clearly outlined that the Founding Fathers envisioned a country with a system of federalism akin to Switzerland in the late 1700s wherein, the cantons were paramount to the republic which United them.
2) A system of government wherein the states possessed such jurisdictional powers as Massachusetts evidenced during the War of 1812 wherein it openly and publicly not only called for and advocated secession but attempted to action this by a secret vote and arrange its own peace treaty with the British Empire (and never suffered any legal consequences of any kind).
3) A system of government wherein the states, no matter the scribing of the Constitution, could call on that as 13 sovereign states had created the Union and Constitution which bound them, they were not only superior to it but possessed the inherent right to invade and make war upon a foreign country with state militia, construct state fortifications upon it to hold it, conquer and annex territory of that foreign country to itself with ibid state militia/fortifications, invade said foreign place to take prisoners of war military and political figures of said foreign country and convey them back to the custody of the state, and all the whole, profess they didn’t have the obligation to do much as notify, much less necessarily involve, the US federal government, no matter if these actions levied a state of war upon the Union and all other states in it.
That’s exactly what Maine did in the Aroostook War.
4) Here’s a bonus; did Robertson ever put an examination to how the Fathers of Canadian Confederation asserted time and again was what caused the war was states rights/federalism, separate from any connection to slavery? Or how Judah Benjamin asserted the essence of this when he helped argue for provincial rights at the Privy Council in London when called as a barrister to argue matters of ultra views in the BNA Act of 1867?
Can’t find the full name, but I think it was Boras who said “without slavery, there is no war”
What caused the Civil War is not even an interesting question. How it caused the Civil War, why it caused the Civil War, and why in 1860 are the questions that led to a deeper understanding of the civil war.
Thank you for this post, Chris. It astounds me (though it should not) that the last week of 2023 a purportedly serious candidate for the presidency who was formerly a governor of South Carolina and responsible for the removal of the Confederate flag from the cupola of the state house neglects to mention the sordid Southern practice that damaged or destroyed the lives and freedom of millions of Black residents of the South. Apparently she is now trying to climb out of the hole she dug for herself. But, WOW, just WOW.
I was very disappointed by Nikki Hailey’s answer to a basic question. With fighting over history and civic education curriculum being a paramount education policy issue as of late, I thought the question was legitimate for the format of the event she was at. It’s sad to see a career politician from South Carolina bungle such a basic question while running for president.
Someone should ask her these follow-ups:
Whites were a minority and enslaved Black folks were the majority in South Carolina in 1860. Why?
Republicans didn’t get a single vote in South Carolina in 1860. Why?
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor was fired upon after the Republican won anyway. Why?
Acknowledging slavery as the cause does NOT mean you are saying the war started because ‘the North’ wanted to free the slaves from the outright start. I’m seeing that thrown around a lot as well. But it certainly was the root of disunion.
The irony of citing Stephen’s quotation- and it never, ever, isn’t cited- is that he was far more of a Unionist until the end than were many others. And the real snare here is that when one justly condemns the absence of a voice for “the enslaved” down south, one often fails to note the near universal absence of civil liberties for freeman up North. The Civil War was clearly caused by slavery. But it was not in most Northerners eyes, especially initially, being fought for the elimination of the system in 1861.
The South made assumptions about Lincoln’s intentions with slavery and so jumped the gun on Secession. Lincoln repeatedly stressed that he believed the government had no power to interfere with slavery where it existed, and he tried to point his detractors to his well-documented position. They didn’t want to listen. Even after war did break out, he did not initially favor abolition, and he saw the war as preservation of the country. Only with the E.P. did he begin to shift the war’s aims to an explicit emancipationist footing.
Respectfully, Christ, Lincoln didn’t wait until the Emancipation Proclamation to signal a shift in policy. People will make claims that if slavery was such a big deal, why did he wait until a year and a half into the conflict. But the quick answer is: he didn’t. James Oakes’s wonderful book “Freedom National” lays it all out, but Lincoln showed his adaption of emancipationist policies as early as the First Confiscation Act in the summer of 1861. He followed that up with the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1862, the amending of the US Army’s Articles of War to all but nullify the Fugitive Slave Act, and the stronger Second Confiscation Act all before he even introduced the rough draft of the EP to his cabinet in July 1862.
The South made assumptions about Lincoln’s intentions with slavery and so jumped the gun on Secession.” Absolutely. “The Cause of the Civil War Was Slavery”. Also, absolutely. If, in 1861, there had been no slavery in the U.S., or if both the North and South allowed slavery, does anyone think that Lincoln’s election would have triggered the South to secede? Over what? Tariffs?
…but then, too many people conflate the Confederate soldiers who fought the war with the politicians who started it.
If you were a small farmer or average worker in the South in 1861, you had good reason to fear the sudden collapse of slavery. You would fear having to compete economically with thousands of free slaves, who presumably would work for much lower wages or sell their crops for much lower prices than you could. You’d fear a slave insurrection—cough cough Nat Turner cough cough. And you’d fear your community being overwhelmed by people that, in your mind, were second-class citizens…which is the same way many Northerners felt about blacks in the 1860s. Even if you hated slavery, you’d recognize that it was a foundational stone for the society you and your family lived in. No one wants to see their community and economy collapse. If you’re refused to join the Confederate military, you risk being ostracized in your community. And, there was that little conscription law the Confederacy passed in 1862. So, anyone who says that Confederate soldiers fought “for slavery” is giving a simplistic, shallow, even slanderous answer to a very complicated question.
The South was a class-stratified society, as Bell Irvin Wiley points out in “The Life of Johnny Reb.” I’m confident that the primary sources Civil War professionals point to were largely produced by the South’s elites—the planters, the newspapermen, the big businessmen. But, the war itself was fought by those subsistence farmers or average workers—most of whom owned no, or only a few, slaves. It is unfair to lump Robert E. Lee and the Southern rifleman in with Alexander Stephens and Jefferson Davis.
Having said all that—Nikki Haley blew it big time today. What a silly word salad.
I suppose we’ll split hairs with our answers, Ryan. 🙂 I don’t disagree with anything you say, and I think “Freedom National” is, indeed, a wonderful timeline of Lincoln’s philosophical and political evolution on slavery and abolition. I’ll focus in on my broad phrase “war aims” to defend my own answer. I would characterize the examples you site as limited actions along the path of Lincoln’s eventual wholehearted embrace. If he presented the draft to the cabinet in July, then I have to imagine he had to be “there” in his own head by late spring/early summer–all in line with the timeline you mention.
The War Between the States was decidedly not about slavery. To believe that every Confederate soldier was fighting to preserve the evil institution of slavery flies in the face of logic.
It is said that the “Victor writes the history“ and nothing could be more true than the bulk of history of the war between the states. Slavery was not even mentioned as an issue in the war until Abraham Lincoln was compelled by his peers to issue the emancipation proclamation, which, in fact, did little to free any slaves in any territory. As knowledgeable students of history know, the Proclamation was a political maneuver taken by Lincoln because the North was losing the war. Interestingly, it is very difficult to ascertain how many slaves were in the north of the time of the Civil War. Some northern states never abolished slavery until after the emancipation proclamation and the records regarding slaves in the north are somehow sparse.
In addition, The main port, for the delivery of slaves were in the north. Slaves were then transported by land to the south. The north was as guilty as the south for continuing the evil institution of slavery. One must also note that at the time of the beginning of the war, the confederate government had already put into action certain measures to gradually abolish slavery.
Reading the extensive historical works by the Kennedy brothers, and, many other well, respected, and scholarly authors bears this out. The writings of these authors, further illuminate and expand upon causes of the war between the states. Those issues and causes illustrated by “confederate“ authors, address issues, completely ignored by Northern historians
The causes of the war between the states, are much more complex than the simplistic view that the war was about slavery. This is an uninformed and parochial view of the causes of the war between the states. One has only to do the research and homework to discover that there were many other issues that contributed to the beginning of the war between the states. Slavery, was not the sole cause.
By the way, Lincoln wanted to isolate all slaves on a particular island so as to remove them from mainland white society. This is historical fact, not fantasy. Do your research.
Soldier motivation for serving was certainly different than the governments’ reasons for going to war. But it’s also true that every Confederate soldier benefitted in some way from the economic benefits of slavery, even if they didn’t own slaves themselves or even enlist to specifically defend slavery.
“But it’s also true that every Confederate soldier benefitted in some way from the economic benefits of slavery, even if they didn’t own slaves themselves or even enlist to specifically defend slavery.” And, it’s also true that all Americans benefited economically from the exploitation of lands taken from Native American tribes. But American pioneers still deserve to be honored. As do Union and Confederate soldiers.
Who are the Kennedy brothers and what are the “extensive historical articles” they authored? Please advise.
“But it’s also true that every Confederate soldier benefitted in some way from the economic benefits of slavery, even if they didn’t own slaves themselves or even enlist to specifically defend slavery.” … And? You assume the average soldier understood that or was aware of it. Enlisting and staying enlisted is an emotional decision, not one based on reviewing the latest ship’s cargo lists or some politician’s speech.
Tom
DO YOUR RESEARCH. You appear to have several questionable statements. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves – US Congressional Act of 1807 (Wikipedia) abolished the importation of slaves to all states, although thousands of slaves continued to be frequently illegally imported to several southern states – especially Florida, Texas and North and South Carolina until the Civil War.
Every southern state secession declaration stated that slavery was a major reason for leaving the United States, not merely states rights as the revisionist history that southern states peddled after the Civil War..
It was “decidedly about slavery”. “No slavery” = “no secession” based on the clearly articulated belief that Lincoln’s election signaled a coming attack on the “institution”. As for the motivation of soldiers in the Confederate armies, nobody who is rational and has common sense asserts that every southern soldier was driven by concerns about the preservation of slavery. The same applies regarding the contrary and equally fallacious assertion that none were motivated by the defense of slavery. Lost in the claims that southern troops were not motivated by slavery are unvarnished facts such as those presented by Glathaar in his study of the ANV. As he points out, whether a southern soldier “owned” slaves is far from the end of the inquiry. One needs also to look at whether his family owned slaves, given the fact that so many individuals were too young to be owners themselves. In addition, one needs to look at how many had economic interests in the system of slavery even without regard to actual ownership.
Well said, John!
Well, yeas, of course, but even allowing for that – that a family cold own slaves, while the individual son or cousin dd not, you still only arrive at a percentage of about 20% of Confederate soldiers’ families owned slaves.
Tom
One of the best things about “Emerging Civil War” is not rehashing the “slavery was the cause of the civil war.” Of course it was. Move on. Elvis is dead, the world is round.
Not so fast. Saying that slavery was the cause of the Civil War is one thing. Saying that Confederate soldiers and generals fought “for slavery” is quite another. As long as people (not all, to be sure, but some) conflate the Southern politicians who started the war with the soldiers who fought it, you can expect those of us with Confederate ancestors to resist.
War is the continuation of politics by other means. Each side in a war has a political objective for which it fights. A soldier has his or her own personal motivations, but ultimately every soldier fights for the goals of the central entity for which that soldier fights. The confederacy existed in order to preserve slavery. The victory of the individual confederate soldiers and their officers meant the continuation of slavery. Therefore, whether it was their personal motivation or not, every confederate soldier fought for the continuation of slavery, because that was the goal of the confederacy. Robert E. Lee knew this, and that’s why he resigned from the US Army, because he realized if he stayed in the army, even if he managed to get himself assigned somewhere else, he would be fighting against his beloved white South. An individual soldier may have joined the confederate army for their own reasons, but ultimately because they fought for the confederacy, they were fighting for the continuation of slavery.
No. lol …. That’s funny. You cannot reduce the motives of 650,000 soldiers to “fighting for the central entity.” That is silly. The only real attempt to ferret out the motivations is McPherson’s book, “For Cause and Comrades.” Even his book notes that different soldiers were animated by different motives sometimes at the same time, sometimes at different times. What motivates a soldier at the beginning of the war is different from what motivates him after his first battle, or after the first letter from home complaining that no one is available to plow the back forty acres, our 3 year old son drowned in the river, etc. From my own experience in war, I can attest that yes, we were all motivated by a general sense of patriotism, but we all also had very different motivations for serving in *this* war at *this* time. Soldiers are not robots. I knew people who served in Iraq, because they had a bad home situation. Or because they were close to mandatory retirement and just needed 6 more months.
Tom
To say that every Confederate soldier benefited in some way from slavery is quite a generalization. Most dirt-poor subsistence-farming Confederate soldiers saw little difference in their lives before, during, or after the war. As for Nikki Haley’s supposed gaffe, while she didn’t recite the catechism correctly, her answer that the cause of the war was a dispute over what people can and can’t do is quite correct, in the larger sense. They could never from that time onward hold another human being in slavery. We too quickly react to the buzz words, or lack thereof.
The general idea behind that statement is that their local economies were built on the back of slavery, and that even poor whites had more stability (think about the ever-present specter of being sold away from loved ones or sexual assault) and social status than enslaved persons. I also think it’s worth mentioning that many white Southerners that may have been unable to afford the purchase of an enslaved person would pay an enslaver to hire enslaved labor for individual tasks or lengths of time. The commonality of this practice is a reality that is often hidden by the surface-level numbers on slave owners.
I’ll agree with everything you said here. I’ll bet most white Southerners would have agreed with you too, if they were being honest. I’m sure many would have concurred that slavery was a horrible system for the enslaved.
But that doesn’t mean they’d have been willing to see their economy and society thrown into collapse, and their families imperiled or impoverished, in order to end it. Now, if we are being honest with ourselves, if WE had been poor white Southerners in 1861 (instead of enlightened modern-day folks), we’d have probably felt the same way. Would Northerners have been willing, if slavery had been a Northern institution instead of a Southern one? It’s easy to be enlightened if it’s not your ox being gored.
Well, that burning, arson, theft and rape also served as some motivation.
Tom
fortbuckley, you raise the very pragmatic point that Thomas Jefferson himself made. He thought slavery was a terrible institution–but he was personally too far in debt to free his own slaves because he needed their labor. He instead said it would have to be up to the next generation to answer the question–a real “pass the buck” attitude.
It’s worth considering that the northern colonies had slaves, too, but found a way to wean themselves from it. I wonder what that path for Southern states might have looked like had they tried (or had Eli Whitney’s cotton gin not come along).
Thanks for the post Chris.
You’re welcome!
???
Sorry, I left three applause emojis that were interpreted as question marks. Well said.
Ask Nikki how restricting access to abortions is all about ‘freedom.’
I think the point is that the babies would enjoy more ‘freedom’ were they not aborted.
I often wonder why some feel the need to make the definitive case that slavery was the one and only cause of the Civil War. Few things in life, simple or complex, happen for only one reason. Exploring all of the nuances of the past seems more interesting than explaining everything with race essentialism. I understand, though, that there is a social justice doctrine going around history circles today that insist slavery is the only topic allowed to be discussed if you wish to avoid being cancelled. It does not help us get closer to the truth of what happened. Quite the opposite, I fear.
I can only speak for myself in answering your question, but I am always so strongly definitive about it because, no matter what other issue a person can raise as a cause, it can always be traced back to slavery. I think it was James McPherson who once said, “There were many causes of the Civil War, and they all were ‘slavery.'” I have found that to be true.
Folks like to mention the Cornerstore speech. It does mention protection of slavery, suggesting that was one goal of the CSA. But, the Cornerstore speech mentions other attributes of the CSA. For example, it mentions a one-term President, suggesting this was a way to reduce cronyism and patronage. I doubt one speech on one day by one man can truly show motivations for 650,000 Confederate soldiers and government workers across four extremely trying and deadly years. But if it does, does not the Cornerstore speech also signify that the CSA existed to reduce patronage and cronyism? Can we focus one on aspect of the speech, while ignoring other aspects? Of course, the Cornerstore speech also discusses other issues, regionalism, etc. Can we also ignore those other aspects of Stephens’ speech?
Tom
I don’t disagree that individual Confederate soldiers may have had different motivations for serving (or no motivation if conscripted). Still, their service went to a cause premised on the institution of slavery. How else does one explain the ANV rounding up hundreds of free Blacks and formerly enslaved in Pennsylvania and Maryland during the Gettysburg campaign and sending them back to Virginia for enslavement? Did only those Confederates who believed in slavery participate in these efforts?
The question was, “what caused the Civil War?” Well, slavery did. The question was not, “what motivated the individual soldiers?” I don’t think the overwhelming majority of Confederate soldiers had a problem with slavery, but its not quite the same question.
I think it sells the Confederate soldiers a little short to think they didn’t understand why secession had taken place.
Boy, did I blunder way I said these kind of comment threads weren’t common!
“I think it sells the Confederate soldiers a little short to think they didn’t understand why secession had taken place.” ….. Not sure what that means. Every soldier since about the time of Alexander the Great has joined an army with an imperfect understanding of the “why” of a war. If, as seems to now be the case, we will expect a *perfect* understanding of the reason for a given war, then many of our veterans will be cursed: My war, the Iraq war was based on a completely faulty – perhaps duplicitous – premise; the Viet Nam war was infamously based on a mis-leading premise; the small operations in Granada and Panama in the 1980’s. Even the Spanish-American war, we now know, was based on propaganda. The “Maine” boiler really did explode accidentally. I guess my next war, I better do my research before raising my hand.
Tom
I didn’t claim to know what motivated each individual soldier. I don’t think I said anything about a “perfect” understanding. But the future of slavery was what was dividing the nation. It wasn’t some big secret. I think the problem is the beloved ancestor who fought in the Civil War, couldn’t have fought to preserve something as awful as slavery. But he didn’t really think like we do. And trying to make Confederate soldiers completely innocent and ignorant, big children off on a grand adventure, sells them short.
As far as the secessionists, well they were slavery, slavery, slavery everyday, and twice on Sunday. They saw no future for slavery in a nation that was majority free, and that was electing an openly anti-slavery president with the goal of putting slavery on the road to extinction. The reason for secession was to save slavery.
The future of slavery was indeed what motivated the slave-holding oligarchs in the South, and so was the cause of the war in that sense. But it wasn’t what motivated the majority of the soldiers from either side–and a considerable number of Northern leaders. The greater motivation for both recruitment and continued enlistment of Northern soldiers was the preservation of the Union. And, as for the Southern soldier, I’ll agree with Shelby Foote, quoting a non-slave-holding Southern prisoner who answered the question from his Northern interrogator as to why he fought simply by saying, “Because you’re here.”
A great reference book on the south’s leadership’s view on the cause for secession is “The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader, The “Great Truth” about the “Lost Cause” editted by James W. Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta. A collection of speeches by the southern secessionist political leaders before and during the war – in their own words – the primary motivator is slavery.
I always considered the cause of the war to be addressed in two ways. Given the statements made in most of the confederate states articles of secession, the firebrand secession speeches of the 1850’s, and the 50 years of attempted compromises, debates, and arguments, that preceded the war, it is easy to see that slavery was at the very center of why the confederacy wanted to breakaway. So, at the upper levels of southern society, slavery was most certainly the cause.
But after reading perhaps 100’s of personal accounts, memoirs, letters, and diaries, from regular civil war soldiers over the years, I can’t recall a CS regular private soldier who identified the over arching issue of slavery as their primary motivation for fighting. Most sighted reasons like the defense of their homes, protection of their property (family), defending against a northern invasion, peer pressure, pride, resistance to foreign control, independence, or not wanting to appear a coward to their community, to list a few. As pointed out by previous commenters, not many foot soldiers could ever afford a slave. So, IMHO, the average confederate foot soldier did not give the issue of slavery much weight when choosing to fight. To them, I don’t think that slavery would be near the top of their list of causes.
In the 1860’s, could it be that the identified cause might vary depending on the relative social position of the person who was asked?
I was a soldier once, not the best, but I know what militarism is. A soldier isn’t “an army of one”. You go where they say, do what they tell you, in the face of certain death if that’s how it goes.
Luckily, for me I didn’t have those choices.
Still what I think doesn’t matter. A soldier takes a side, regardless of what he thinks.
A soldier gives himself to the side he fights for. The reasons for a war do not come from soldiers. They start from demagogues, economic conditions, and of course those with the biggest mouth, and outsized influence and money.
The big picture..
Trump, bannon, Steve Miller, Josh Holley, Jim Jordan, MTG, and all the manipulated MAGA supporters will be what starts the next one. For them facts do not matter much. As long as you are conditioned for hate by watching Fox News.
Thanks for your service, Sean. That’s as good an explanation of “duty” as I’ve heard.
Sean, there was a war before there were soldiers. The armies were created after the shooting started. It wasn’t the case of an existing army being ordered to do something. It was a case of armies being created to accomplish something: either win southern independence, or preserve the Union. If “Just following orders” was the case, then none of the officers would have resigned to fight for the Confederacy.
And then there were the 500,000 free blacks as of 1860 who chose to live in the South rather than move to the North – where the Black Codes – soon to be renamed Jim Crow when they were employed in the South…prevented free blacks from doing what they chose to do. So, it’s puzzling – if the Federal Government was making war on slavery, why did it not bother outlawing slavery until December 1865? Why did it allow states that remained in the Union to retain their slaves? Why did it admit West Virginia to the Union as a slave state in 1863? Oops! Facts sure disrupt fantasy!
Lincoln quite clearly said, before he was even elected, he did not think the Federal government had the authority to do anything to slavery where it already existed. South Carolina decided to try and take its ball and go home anyway. Once elected, he stuck to his word and left slavery alone where it already existed. That’s why, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it only covered areas in rebellion. That proclamation was based on his war powers as commander in chief, and he wasn’t confident the proclamation would stick once the war ended, so that’s why he decided to try and amend the Constitution once he saw the war winding down. He could get the 2/3 votes he needed for ratifying the 13th Amendment from the states still loyal to the Union as well as from any Reconstructed Confederate state by making the amendment’s adoption a condition for restoration of rights. Quite deft political maneuvering, really.
When you talk about facts disrupting fantasy, you seem to have overlooked all of these ones.
I will come back to this post when I have time to adequately put my arguments down.
We know for a fact the ‘states rights’/federalism’ was NOT (1) an entirely post-war factor of the war cited by the Lost Cause camp or fabricated by it or anyone or anything else; (2) completely hinged upon a state’s right to slavery.
The evidence of such as Alexander Hamilton’s essays in the 1787 ‘Federalist Papers’; the statements of such Confederates as Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, George Pickett, James Longstreet when war broke out; the statements of Santiago Vidaurri, the Mexican Governor of Nuevo Leone and Coaqhilla; the Fathers of Canadian Confederation; Maine and the Aroostook War, etc, etc, etc.
Imo, slavery was indeed the primary factor that brought in the war. The war would have come even w/o it. We mustn’t allow that fact to blind us to that when war finally occurred in 1860-61, slavery was indeed the prime factor then. But by that point, there was no moral high ground between either side in this matter.
It can be argued successfully that both sides began hostilities at war’s start by fighting for slavery; both sides likewise turned to emancipation. That’s not arguing both sides were indistinguishable.
I could go on but this is a short summary of my views.