The Civil War

Without going to Google, can anyone explain why we had a Civil War? What was the (were the) reasons for it.

 

Slavery. Period.

When people say "No it was States' Rights!" and then you ask them exactly what right it is those states were fighting to protect, the answer is the "right" to own slaves.

 

And the North? what motivated the North to war?Or was the North merely defending itself from the Confederacy?

 

The South attacked a US military base and invaded sovereign US territory.

 

Slavery, race, and southern stupidity.

 

I'll ask again. If the issue was slavery, then what was the reason that the North elected to engage?

 

The South attacked first.

 

And that's it? The South attacked first? That's all it took?

 

That is generally what it takes to start a war.

 

It seems like you already have a postition on the issue, so why don't you tell us the reason you think it was and lets get down to the cusp of the thread.

 

(My bold)

North & South were deeply tied to each other. The North provided financing, shipping, markets for raw cotton & tobacco. The cotton could be spun & woven in the North, or transported to Europe as raw material. The North's shipping also brought in more slaves, rum, molasses, sugar from the Caribbean. The overall cause was that the South was sinking into an economic quagmire - they only produced raw materials, which are @ the low end of profit. The South's political power in Congress & the Federal gov. was also shrinking, proportionate to their sliding into economic decline. That was the South's main cause for succession/war.

The North put up financing, shipping, made most of the profits & so had capital to invest in better infrastructure (demand for better transport, too - thus more railroads, canals, ports, etc. in the North). The trends for industrialization of the North v. marginalization for the South became self-perpetuating: immigrants went to the North for work & land, not to the South - where wages were miserable because of slavery & tenant-farming.

The Plantation Society also deliberately held back infrastructure, learning, mechanic arts, manufacturing, banking & so on. On paper, the war was no contest - the North should have won walking away. The South made much of its military/hunting tradition; their military leadership was good, better than the North's initially.

But the political wrangling in the South doomed them - they fought about a draft, where to commit state forces, who those forces would fight under, how to finance the war effort, supply, transport, whether to arm the slaves. Once Prexy Lincoln burned through the incompetent or unlucky generals, he found Grant & Sherman & a handful of excellent generals. With that & the North's population/logistics/supply/transportation/comms, the war was effectively over.

 

I do, but it's unsubstantiated. I'm really just seeking opinions for now, Once a consensus appears to be gelling, I'll either continue on or forget about it. Right now it would seem that the South started it. But why did the North get baited in?

 

The South went to war to protect slavery, the North went to war to preserve the Union. The war was about slavery since slavery was the cornerstone for going to war.

 

They got attacked by the military of the South. That tends to start wars.

 

Thank you hoosier88. That's what I was looking for. I knew that there had to be more to it that a disagreement about slavery.

 

Well nobody has really stated it yet.

The issue was about whether Northern laws or Southern laws would exist in the new states being formed.

If you would like the timeline of the specific actions that led to the war then here you go:

March 3, 1820: Missouri Compromise
1836 - 1844: Gag Rule
Compromise of 1850
1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act

These actions saw the Congress becoming more aligned with the Northern views of anti-slavery and led the South to believe that the only way to preserve their way of life was through secession. They realized they were going to lose the slavery issue eventually so had to act when they did. Once the North established the new states as anti-slavery it would severely limit the political influence of the South.

 

Lincoln did campaign on an anti-slavery campaign which is what triggered succession of southern States. Lincoln went to war to preserve the Union which ended up ending slavery. Lincoln was not popular, as you can imagine, in the South. Free labor was a big money maker in the South and slavery was becoming more entrenched. Anti-slavery advocates in the North were gaining ground.

 

There we go. Something else other than slavery.

 

Not really since that all revolved around slavery.

 

What are you talking about? Slavery is at the core of what he was talking about.

 

Technically yes but even Lincoln himself said he would have maintained the institution of slavery, where it existed, if it would keep the Union together. The issue wasn't about the South having slaves, it was about them expanding that practice and for the South it was about all the new States being anti-slavery and the North overtaking Congress.

 

States rights, abolition, and what we would call today 'fly over syndrome' in which both sides had an inflated view of their merit and a fantasy view of their opponents. Nullification and the right to leave the Union if abused also come to mind.

 

I posted this thread namely because I couldn't correlate the South, being pro slavery, and the North, anti-slavery would have this as the issue for civil war. Part of the issue yes, but not the entire issue(s). I couldn't fathom 360,000 primarily white folks of the 1860's laying their lives on the line to free slaves. It certainly would have been a gallant gesture, but I didn't think it was the reason. Although it seems that many do. If over 10% of the population of the country had died 'just to free the slaves', I don't think history would have followed the course it did. I don't believe we'd be experiencing the racial tensions we face today. Thanks all

 

Lincoln had to make statements like that to keep Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri from rising up.

 

False. The North took money from the South and used it to build infrastructure in the North leaving the South impoverished. The South attempted to circumvent this inequality by selling their goods directly to European markets but were stopped. At this point, they began to re evealuate why they were part of a Union that did them little good and thus began the idea of succession, anti slavery laws were the straw that broke the camel's back.

Lincoln didn't fight this war for slavery as he stated;

" If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it;"

This was the rational of the President of the US. If Abraham Lincoln was lying then this would be a first.