Slavery as the Primary Cause of the Civil War: the Real Lost Cause Argument.

[GwilymT]

That badly misstates how deep the divisions in the country were, and how far back the discontent went. Secession was caused by much more than pique at losing an election.

Not really. They tried to win by force of arms what they thought they lost at the ballot box: a secure future for slavery and the expansion thereof. (No slavery AND no West, no war) It really isn’t much different than a kid “taking their ball and going home.” At it’s most simplistic, they thought they lost and instead of working within the system they decided to try to break the system in order to get their own way. The metaphor works wonderfully whether you think slavery is the main cause, or the TRR, or tariffs, or.... anything but slavery.

 

[Andersonh1]

that institutionalized slavery was the primary cause of the war is indisputable

Not really. Cast a wider net and read beyond the secession documents and the Cornerstone speech, and other issues will present themselves.

 

[GwilymT]

Not really. Cast a wider net and read beyond the secession documents and the Cornerstone speech, and other issues will present themselves.

Cast your net wide, @John Fenton , and when you find these other causes, look a little deeper, and there you will find slavery. Indeed, the cornerstone of any “cause” I’ve yet heard offered.

 

[lurid]

Not really. They tried to win by force of arms what they thought they lost at the ballot box: a secure future for slavery and the expansion thereof. (No slavery AND no West, no war) It really isn’t much different than a kid “taking their ball and going home.” At it’s most simplistic, they thought they lost and instead of working within the system they decided to try to break the system in order to get their own way. The metaphor works wonderfully whether you think slavery is the main cause, or the TRR, or tariffs, or.... anything but slavery.

My question is what else could southerners do for a vocation other than grow cotton produced by slave labor? Through my reading thus far, they knew very little about industry/technology/inventions/innovation. It appears, the south's entire economy depended on cotton exports supported by slave labor, so the threat of ending slavery was a threat to end their economy. I know for a fact that out 143 important inventions from 1776-1860, 93% came out of the free states(Roger Burlingame, March of the Iron Men: A Social History of Union Through Invention (New York, 1938). Therefore, the evidence points in the direction of self-preservation was what prompted secession. The south just could not compete in market capitalist society, and that juggernaut was ominous enough for them to bug out..

 

[Potomac Pride]

It is really convenient how some people consider slavery to be the only cause of the war; although, it was an important contributing factor. However, the Union did not raise an army against the south over the issue of slavery in 1861. Therefore, it is possible there could have been some other reasons for the war.

 

[Confederate Statesman]

Not really. Cast a wider net and read beyond the secession documents and the Cornerstone speech, and other issues will present themselves.

With all due respect, no wider net is needed. The secession documents fully reveal that the intention of the seceding states was to peacefully withdraw from the voluntary union of states known as the United States. The war was fought because the United States refused to recognize that the seceding states were perfectly entitled to establish a government of their own choosing. Just as the Founders had done.

 

[John Fenton]

Not really. Cast a wider net and read beyond the secession documents and the Cornerstone speech, and other issues will present themselves.

i am fully aware of the issues.
of the two questions i asked , neither were answered except by WJC . thank you.

 

[unionblue]

Possibly, though I think the first thing that would have been done in the event of a US loss in the war would have been a constitutional amendment to make secession explicitly unconstitutional. They would have made sure it didn't happen again.

Too bad the battlefield victory rendered that option moot.

 

[unionblue]

Not really. Cast a wider net and read beyond the secession documents and the Cornerstone speech, and other issues will present themselves.

No, other excuses will be presumed in order to deny that obvious fact that slavery brought on the war.

 

[John Fenton]

i said that the primacy of slavery as a cause of the war and secession is indisputable. no need for that discussion. what i asked is why is it so important to some people that the south was the victim and do these people think the cause of the confederacy was noble , as per the tenets of the lost cause ideology ? what is the benefit of honoring an enemy of the USA ? if their cause was noble , is it not still noble ?
the lost cause tenets claim that the south only wanted to be let go and live in peace but they started by ripping the USA in half including territories claimed by the USA. That is not peace but theft, insurrection, and destruction, by force of arms against the USA. i simply do not understand the confederate support encountered here and what gain to honoring the confederacy. the confederacy represents the exact opposite of what we consider our national values today.

 

[AshleyMel]

i am new here but cannot believe what i am reading .

Hang on to your boots! We have wonderful people here!
Welcome to CWT!

 

[Potomac Pride]

i said that the primacy of slavery as a cause of the war and secession is indisputable. no need for that discussion. what i asked is why is it so important to some people that the south was the victim and do these people think the cause of the confederacy was noble , as per the tenets of the lost cause ideology ? what is the benefit of honoring an enemy of the USA ? if their cause was noble , is it not still noble ?
the lost cause tenets claim that the south only wanted to be let go and live in peace but they started by ripping the USA in half including territories claimed by the USA. That is not peace but theft, insurrection, and destruction, by force of arms against the USA. i simply do not understand the confederate support encountered here and what gain to honoring the confederacy. the confederacy represents the exact opposite of what we consider our national values today.

Do you mean national values such as the Treasury of Virtue?

 

[DanSBHawk]

It is really convenient how some people consider slavery to be the only cause of the war; although, it was an important contributing factor. However, the Union did not raise an army against the south over the issue of slavery in 1861. Therefore, it is possible there could have been some other reasons for the war.

I'm not sure how many times it needs to be said:

The cause of the rebellion was determined by the rebels. Not by the government reacting to the rebellion.

The rebel leaders made their reasons very clear.

 

[Greywolf]

i said that the primacy of slavery as a cause of the war and secession is indisputable. no need for that discussion. what i asked is why is it so important to some people that the south was the victim and do these people think the cause of the confederacy was noble , as per the tenets of the lost cause ideology ? what is the benefit of honoring an enemy of the USA ? if their cause was noble , is it not still noble ?
the lost cause tenets claim that the south only wanted to be let go and live in peace but they started by ripping the USA in half including territories claimed by the USA. That is not peace but theft, insurrection, and destruction, by force of arms against the USA. i simply do not understand the confederate support encountered here and what gain to honoring the confederacy. the confederacy represents the exact opposite of what we consider our national values today.

I do not understand anyone on here who has a hard line 100% view that they are absolutely correct, that no one else could even be partially correct and have valid points. From my experience in life there are two sides to every story, and if you look past personal bias, you can learn a great deal. Just my 2 cents.

 

[uaskme]

because U. S. citizens were fighting to preserve the American Experiment, which they felt was important not only to themselves and their posterity but to the people of the world. To them, it truly was a struggle to assure "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The Confederacy Used the U. S. Constitution as a blueprint of theirs. Keeping in place the protections for States Rights and Limiting the Power of the Federal Government. And People in the Confederacy Voted. Many would argue that the Confederate Constitution was the Protector of our Original Constitution.

Lincoln and the Republicans, did not protect the Constitution during the War. They purposely denied Liberty to citizens, arrested their Political opposition, arrested citizens for their Thoughts, and In-Actions. I don't think any of this, is as the founders wanted it. Nor did the Founders Think you should use Force against Citizens to do something, against their Will, like staying in a Union, they didn’t want to be a part of.

Republicans changed the relation of the Federal Government away from the Founders Design. Founders were for Strong State Governments.

Would Revolutionary principles, include Attacking Native American peoples in their sleep. Excluding a race of people from Immigration? Actually anyone but White. In 1870 Republicans reaffirmed White in our Immigration Laws. Nullifying the Civil Rights Act? Human Trafficking? Opium Trafficking that help to enslave a estimated 15 Million Chinese? And eventually bringing Opium to our shires. Don't think the North had a moral Advantage.

 

[GwilymT]

Do you mean national values such as the Treasury of Virtue?

No. He asked some specific questions which haven’t been answered by any of the confederate supports on the thread.

 

[uaskme]

The actual building of the transcontinental railroad did not begin until 1863 and then was done by three private companies using civilian contractors and workers.

During the Civil War, Northerners build the Unimportant Road. The Road that had no consequence, going thru the West, which the Confederates didn't want, to California that meant Nothing to the Confederacy. That is the Single Cause Fallacy

Build by Who?
President Ulysses S. Grant. In a December address to Congress, Grant sympathized with the antislavery impulses behind exclusion. The great proportion of the Chinese immigrants who come to our shores do not come voluntarily. . but come under contracts with headmen, who own them almost absolutely," Grand reported. He lamented that Chinese women imported into California for "shameful purposes" suffered form an even "worse form" of servitude that their male coolie counterparts. He conceded that some sort of restriction on Chinese immigration was necessary to halt "this evil practice." Had pp220 Freedom's Frontier by Smith

What happened to the Republican, Free Labor Principles?

 

[byron ed]

...you miss the point. This wasn't a move made openly, but one done in the smoke filled back rooms of industrial America. If this theory is to be believed, it must be understood that the TRR wasn't a cause...

Asked and answered. That's the same conclusion several of us came to in the first iteration of this TRR thing way last year. You know we're not required to work so hard, to shake out every scrap of possibility that might make this thing work, in the noble pursuit of complete poster consideration and democracy.

Instead at times the best service we can provide is to be unflinchingly honest in helping a poster to brake on their more tenuous musings, those precepts that in group think we all know will ultimately only lead to dead ends (like Lost Cause).

It is to point out that at times the history we find evidence of will not support our fandom of it. Since each of us has been there let's reconcile it, that we may all move on.

 

[mobile_96]

There can't be anything in his speech about what the South was "fighting for" because at the time there was no war.

Sorry, but I disagree. The word War brings on the vision of guns and cannon and killing and that is true enough. But...there is another kind of war. Such as a War of Words.
And wthen Stephens made his ""cornerstone speech"...it specifically states the 'cause' of the south was fighting for slavery!" there had already been years of a war of words in Congress between the Slave
States and Free States over Personal Liberty Laws, and a war of words about abolitionist and their demand of the end of slavery (a very long running war of words).
From Merriam-Webster
war of words noun phrase
Definition of war of words: an argument in which people or groups criticize and disagree with each other publicly and repeatedly for usually a long time

 

[leftyhunter]

@leftyhunter, you miss the point. This wasn't a move made openly, but one done in the smoke filled back rooms of industrial America. If this theory is to be believed, it must be understood that the TRR wasn't a cause, but a desire pushed through by politically motivated people who used the South's weakness to their advantage.

That theory doesn't make any sense. There was no law preventing a TRR from the South. Congress was even willing to pay for it has shown in earlier posts from the Congressional record. No contemporary Confederate official even stated the war Secession was initiated to build a TRR. If the ACW had nothing to do with slavery why didn't the secessionists just fee the slaves and encourage them to join the Confederate Army?
Leftyhunter