Secession and Civil War: Not just about money

ForeverFree

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The underlying cause of the Civil War was the fear of losing obscene amounts of wealth without some control over it.

I have seen this said many many many times in this forum, and I disagree with it. I thought I would open a thread to make my point in more detail.

There is a popular buzzword among academics now, which is intersectionality. Intersectionality refers to "the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage." What it boils down to is that there are many different dynamics - class, wealth, gender, religion - which explain why certain people are treated differently than others. Some factors are more important (or may even have no importance) than others in a given situation. The big things is, all the factors, and the way they interact with each other, must be reckoned with.

I submit that the notion of wealth as causing the CW ignores an important component of war causing: the fear of negro equality. I submit that if you don't deal with the fear of negro equality, you can't understand why there was a war; looking at wealth or money just isn't enough. To white southerners, slavery wasn't;t just about the money; it was also about the maintenance of southern civilization; it was also about avoiding a race war; it was also about keeping black men from breeding with white women. The stakes involved in maintaining slavery were such much greater than just the monetary value of enslaved people.

In response to Mississippi's secession, Jefferson Davis made a farewell address to the Senate, in January 1861. He said in part

…if I had not believed there was justifiable cause (for secession); if I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an existing necessity, I should still… because of my allegiance to the State… have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act.

...I conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them then that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted…

It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi to her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.

Note his language. In this text, Davis does not use the word "slavery." His concern is that the idea of racial equality has been proclaimed (probably referring to Abraham Lincoln's words on the subject), and this idea represents an attack on the South's social institutions.

It wasn't just about the money.

- continued -

- Alan
 
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