Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
OK there is that age old argument that goes on and on in which one side sayd the war was over slavery while the other side says the war was over several issues to include slavery. Who's right. That is not the subject of debate for this question.
Lets take slavery out of it for a while. Go back in history, it's 1859. The Bucannan adminstration has instituted a gradual emancapation. which is over by the summer of 1861. Now mind you slavery is over but there is stillthe argument of sates rights and tariffs.
Do we still have a Civil War aga War Between The States???
__________________ A cat can have kittens in the oven...but dat don't make-um biskets
Without the abolitionists and their tactics, the inflammation that took things over the edge would have been of a much lower key. Since these are political tools, and changes that couldn't necessarily be done with force, the likely hood would have been much less. Heavy duties and tarriffs would most likely have resulted in a higher incidence of piracy and smuggling, with many little skirmishes between the Customs agents and those opposed to the restrictions, but I don't feel it would have resulted in full scale warefare.
State representatives would have continued to argue their points in Congress and over a period of time been successful in forming stronger coalitions to push change legislation through.
__________________ Mark W. Swarthout, Esq.
GGGrandson of Pvt. John W. Swarthout, Company E, 148th NYVI - Wounded at Cold Harbor.
GGGGrandson of Pvt. Henry Stephens, Company D, 137th NYVI - Wounded at Culp's Hill, Gettysburg.
OK there is that age old argument that goes on and on in which one side sayd the war was over slavery while the other side says the war was over several issues to include slavery. Who's right. That is not the subject of debate for this question.
Lets take slavery out of it for a while. Go back in history, it's 1859. The Bucannan adminstration has instituted a gradual emancapation. which is over by the summer of 1861. Now mind you slavery is over but there is stillthe argument of sates rights and tariffs.
Do we still have a Civil War aga War Between The States???
If secession did not bear any economic consequence for the North- potential loss (annualy): $250 million trade, $100+ million shipping and related profits, $40-50 million revenue -would there have been a war?
__________________ 'It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag'
No, without slavery, you take away the most obvious reason for the war.
Battalion,
This argument is old and already debated down to the point that your figures do not bear you out that this was a cause of the war. $1.94 a year for each free white male in the United States was not a good point to base killing your father, son, brother, uncle, cousins, etc. It does not fly, although some wish it could.
It would make things a lot more comfortable.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
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Without slavery, do we have a Civil War??? 
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