Why did Gettysburg happen...??

[jgallagher109]

Oh Ashley Ashley!
(Sorry I couldn't resist!)
As far as your summary #2: Not to take away from Rick's excellent response - in fact to add to it - it was once written that the Civil War was not CAUSED by slavery alone, but that it would never have come to war WITHOUT slavery's existence.

And now I'm going to go plant my garden!

Jim

it was once written that the Civil War was not CAUSED by slavery alone, but that it would never have come to war WITHOUT slavery's existence. >>Jim

Jim,

I have been looking for a clear, concise response to anybody asking about slavery and the Civil War. Thank you.

Ray

On the Georgia campaign Sherman and his men camped a night at the Judge Harris plantation.Sherman asked one the slaves who was going to go along with Sherman's army"What do you think about the war?"The slave answered that the right thing couldn't be done without it(the war)."Abolishing slavery I mean.I know you say you're fighting for the Union,but I suspect its all about slavery.Setting us free"Sherman told the old slave he'd got it just right."Do all the slaves understand that?"Sherman asked.The old slave said yes.

[minie57]

I feel as for the causes of the War there are many but we did have in this country was two separate cultures a Northern Industrial with Agricultural support and Southern Agricultural with limited industrial support culture. Civil War sadly inevitable from the start of this nation. It was a small miracle a war didn't start earlier.

& some Union officer (I do not know to whom to attribute the quote) said, (and I must paraphrase), "I am fighting to make them free, not to make them equal."

[unionblue]

Perhaps Lincoln might shed some light on what caused the Civil War. The following is from his speech at New Haven, Connecticut, March 6, 1860:

"For, whether we will or not, the question of Slavery IS THE QUESTION, the all absorbing topic of the day. It is true that all of us--and by that I mean, not the Republican party alone, but the whole American people, here and elsewhere--all of us wish this question settled--wish it out of the way. It stands in the way, and prevents the adjustment, and the giving of necessary attention to other questions of national house-keeping. The people of the whole nation agree that this question ought to be settled, and yet it is not settled. And the reason is that they are not yet agreed how it shall be settled."

"...There have been many efforts to settle it. Again and again it has been fondly hoped that it was settled, but every time it breaks out afresh, and more violently than ever. It was settled, our fathers hoped, by the Missouri Compromise, but it did not stay settled. Then the compromises of 1850 were declared to be a full and final settlement of the question. The two great parties, each in National Convention, adopted resolutions declaring that the settlement made by the Compromise of 1850 was a finality-that it would last forever. Yet how long before it was unsettled again! It broke out again in 1854, and blazed higher and raged more furiously that ever before, and the agitation has not rested since."

"...Now these two ideas, the property idea that Slavery is right, and the idea that it is wrong, come into collision, and do actually produce that irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward has been so roundly abused for mentioning. The two ideas conflict, and MUST CONFLICT."

"...Again, in its political aspect, does anything in any way endanger the perpetuity of this Union but that single thing, Slavery?"

"...What ever endangered this Union, save and except Slavery? Did any other thing ever cause a moment's fear? All men must agree that this thing alone has ever endangered the perpetuity of the Union."

It is my humble opinion and because the paper trail from the war is to huge to ignore, Slavery, the protection of, the spread of and the issue of was the cause of the Civil War.