American Civil War: Main Causes and Outcomes - Essay Example

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was a civil war between the United s of America, called the Union, and the Confederate s of America, formed by eleven Southern states that had declared their secession from the Union. The Union won a decisive victory, followed by a period of Reconstruction. The war produced more than 970,000 casualties (3 percent of population), including approximately 560,000 deaths. The causes of the war, the reasons for the outcome, and even the name of the war itself, are subjects of much controversy, even today. The origins of the American Civil War lay in the complex issues of slavery, politics, disagreements over the scope of States' rights versus federal power, expansionism, sectionalism, economics, modernization, and competing nationalism of the Antebellum period. Although there is little disagreement among historians on the details of the events that led to war, there is disagreement on exactly what caused what and the relative importance. There is no consensus on whether the war could have been avoided, or if it should have been avoided. On the eve of the Civil War, the United States was a nation divided into three distinct regions: New England and the Northeast had a rapidly growing industrial and commercial economy and an increasing density of population, fed by large numbers of European immigrants, especially Irish, British and German. The Midwest ("Northwest") was a rapidly expanding region of free farmers tied to the East by railroads, and to the South by the Mississippi riverboats. South had a settled plantation system based on slavery, with rapid growth taking place in Texas. The economic systems were based on free labor in the North and on slave labor in the South (Beale 34-35). More serious as a cause of the war were divergent moral value systems. Moral arguments against slavery had long existed, but, in the interest of maintaining unity, party loyalties had mostly moderated opposition to slavery, resulting in compromises, such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. Increasingly moralism meant that people would not compromise their principles. It was all or nothing. The "house divided cannot stand," said Lincoln. In 1854 the old two-party system broke down after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Whig Party disappeared, and the new Republican Party arose in its place. It was the nation's first major political party with only sectional appeal; though it had much of the old Whig economic platform, its popularity rested on its commitment to stop the expansion of slavery into new territories. Open warfare in the Kansas Territory, the panic of 1857, and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry further heightened sectional tensions and helped Republicans sweep elections in 1860. In 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln, who met staunch opposition from Southern slave-owning interests, triggered Southern secession from the union. During the secession crisis, many politicians argued for a new sectional accommodation to preserve the Union, focusing in particular on the proposed "Crittenden Compromise." But historians in the 1930s such as James G. Randall argued that the rise of mass democracy, the breakdown of the Second Party System, and increasingly virulent and hostile sectional rhetoric made it highly unlikely, if not impossible, to bring about the compromises of the past (such as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850). Indeed, the Crittenden Compromise was rejected by Republicans. One possible "compromise" was peaceful secession agreed to by the United States, which was seriously discussed in late 1860-and supported by many abolitionists-but was rejected by Buchanan's conservative Democrats as well as the Republican leadership. Most historians agree, following Ulrich B. Phillips, Avery Craven, and Eugene Genovese, that the South had grown apart from the North psychologically and in terms of its value systems. One by one the common elements that bound the nation together were broken. For example the major Protestant denominations split along North-South lines over the issue of slavery. Fewer travelers or students or businessmen went from one region to the other. The last common elements were the Constitution (which was in dispute after the Dred Scott ruling of 1857); the political parties (which split along regional lines in 1860), and Congress, which was in constant turmoil after 1856. Focus on the slavery issue has been cyclical. It was considered the main cause in the 1860-1890 era. From 1900 to 1960, historians considered anti-slavery agitation to be less important than constitutional, economic, and cultural issues. Since the 1960s historians have returned to an emphasis on slavery as a major cause of the war. Specifically, they note that the South insisted on protecting it and the North insisted on weakening it (Binder & Reimers 201). For Southern leaders, the preservation of slavery emerged as a political imperative. As the basis of the Southern labor system and a major store of Southern wealth, it was the core of the region's political interests within the Union. The section's politicians identified as Southern "rights" the equal opportunity to introduce its labor system and property (i.e. slaves) into newly opened territories, and to retrieve escaped slaves from the free states with federal assistance. Northern resistance to slavery fell into the categories of self interest and moral (largely religious) opposition. In the small-producer economy of the North, a free-labor ideology grew up that celebrated the dignity of labor and the opportunities available to working men. Slavery was seen as unfair competition for men attempting to better themselves in life. Slavery was also seen as a threat to democracy; Northerners believed that a corrupt oligarchy of rich planters, the Slave Power, dominated Southern politics, and national politics as well. Northerners also objected on moral grounds to being legally required to enforce fugitive slave laws. By the 1830s, a small but outspoken abolitionist movement arose, led by New Englanders and free blacks, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Lucretia Mott. Many people North and South considered slavery an undesirable institution, but by the 1840s the militant abolitionists went much further and declared that owning a slave was a terrible sin, and that the institution should be immediately abolished. Southerners bitterly resented this moralistic attack, and also the stereotypical presentation of slave owners as heartless Simon Legrees in the overwhelmingly popular (in the North) book and play by Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852). Historians continue to debate whether slave owners actually felt either guilt or shame (Berringer 359). But there is no doubt the southerners were angered by the abolitionist attacks. Starting in the 1830s there was a widespread and growing ideological defense of the "peculiar institution" everywhere in the South. By the 1850s Northern teachers suspected of any tinge of abolitionism were expelled from the region, and abolitionist literature was banned there as well. The secessionists rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists, and pointed to John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions (Beale 40). The free-labor and slavery-based labor systems of North and South both reflected and heightened an economic differentiation between the sections. The states of the Middle Atlantic and New England regions developed a commercial market economy in the first half of the nineteenth century, and gave birth to the nation's first factories. The Old Northwest, the free states west of the Appalachians, had an agricultural economy that exported its surplus production to the other U.S. regions and to Europe. The South depended upon large-scale production of export crops, primarily cotton and (to a lesser extent) tobacco, raised by slaves. (Slaves were a key component in Southern wealth, comprising the second most valuable form of property in the region, after real estate.) Some of its cotton was sold to New England textile mills, though much more of it was shipped to Britain. The dominance of this crop led to the expression "King Cotton." But shipping, brokerage, insurance, and other financial mediation for the trade was centered in the North, particularly in New York City. These contrasting economic interests led to sectional agendas that, at times, competed in Congress. Pennsylvania politicians, for example, pushed for a protective tariff to foster the early iron industry. Southerners, tied to an export economy, sought free-trade policies. There was some demand in the West for federally funded improvements in roads and waterways, but less support in the agricultural South. However, there was no unanimity of support for such programs even within each region. Northern farmers also depended upon exports; early railroad managers desired reduced tariffs on imported iron; many Northern Democrats opposed any federal role in the nation's infrastructure, while Southern Whigs favored it. As a result, the significance of economic conflict has been exaggerated: North and South did not compete but were complimentary. Each depended on the other for prosperity. King Cotton's greatest importance may have been in fostering the secessionist belief that it would prove a sufficient support for an independent Southern nation. Many believed that British prosperity depended on cotton, and that surely Britain (and possibly France) would help protect cotton supplies by helping the Confederacy gain independence. This analysis proved a delusion during the war, but it seems to have been influential in 1860-61 during the debates. The economic and social differentiation of North and South found expression in ideologies that were highly refined by 1860. Historian Eric Foner has argued that a free-labor ideology dominated thinking in the North. The economy of the free states consisted largely of small producers, ranging from farms to workshops to retail and mercantile establishments. Corporations were few; wage labor was seen as a temporary condition. Northern society celebrated the dignity of free labor, and emphasized the capacity of a working man to lift himself up by his own efforts (Faragher et al. 97). In the South, Quaker and other religious voices for the abolition of slavery, heard soon after the American Revolution, were increasingly replaced by defenders of the "peculiar institution." As the early nineteenth century proceeded, white Southern writers attacked the sharp-dealing, commercially-minded society of the North. Only in a slave-owning society, some argued, could a white man truly be free, to pursue education, cultural refinement, or political participation. They depicted slavery as a positive good for the slaves themselves, especially the Christianizing that had rescued them from the "paganism" of Africa. These emerging ideologies polarized the nation. Republicans argued that a clique of wealthy planters, the Slave Power, dominated the South, and the nation as a whole. (Indeed Southerners played a predominant role in the federal government, supplying most of the nation's Presidents, Speakers, and Chief Justices of the Supreme Court.) Though historians have recently emphasized that the South was much more democratic than Northerners believed, the Slave Power image gripped the Northern imagination. White Southerners, by contrast, seeing a threat to their society by fanatical and conspiratorial abolitionists, the underground railroad, and, most ominously, the violent activities of John Brown, felt a sense that they were under siege. Both North and South believed strongly in republican values of democracy and civic virtue. But their conceptualizations were diverging. Each side thought the other was aggressive toward it, and was violating both the Constitution and the core values of American republicanism. The States' rights debate cut across the issues. Southern politicians argued that the federal government had no power to prevent slaves from being carried into new territories, but they also demanded federal jurisdiction over slaves who escaped into the North; Northern politicians took reversed, though equally contradictory, stances on these issues. The specific political crisis that culminated in secession and civil war stemmed from a dispute over the expansion of slavery into new territories. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Congress had agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state, but bar slavery in the territory west and north of Missouri. The acquisition of vast new lands during the Mexican War (1846-1848), however, reopened the debate. Free-state politicians such as David Wilmot, who personally had no sympathy for abolitionism, feared that slaves would provide too much competition for free labor, and thus effectively keep free-state migrants out of newly opened territories. Slaveholders felt that any ban on slaves in the territories was a discrimination against their peculiar form of property, and would undercut the financial value of slaves, the institution itself, and their national political dominance. In Congress, the end of the Mexican War was overshadowed by a fight over the Wilmot Proviso, a provision that Wilmot tried (and failed) to enact to bar slavery from all lands acquired in the conflict. The dispute led to open warfare in the Kansas Territory after it was organized in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This act repealed the prohibition on slavery there under the Missouri Compromise, and put the fate of slavery in the hands of the territory's settlers, a process known as "popular sovereignty." Proslavery Missourians expected that Kansas, due west of their state, would naturally become a slave state, and were alarmed by an organized migration of antislavery New Englanders. Soon heavily armed "border ruffians" from Missouri battled antislavery forces under John Brown, among other leaders. Hundreds were killed or wounded. Southern congressmen, perceiving a Northern conspiracy to keep slavery out of Kansas, insisted that it be admitted as a slave state. Northerners, pointing to the large and growing majority of antislavery voters there, denounced this effort. By 1860, sectional divisions had grown deep and bitter (Holt 244-246). 16th President (1861-1865)Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln because regional leaders feared that he would make good on his promise to stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. If not Lincoln, then sooner or later another Yankee would do so, many Southerners said; it was time to quit the Union. The slave states had lost the balance of power in the Electoral College and the Senate, and were facing a future as a perpetual minority. In a broader sense, the North was rapidly modernizing in a manner deeply threatening to the South. Before Lincoln took office, seven states seceded from the Union, and established an independent Southern government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They took control of federal forts and property within their boundaries, with little resistance from President Buchanan. By seceding, the rebel states gave up any claim to the Western territories that were in dispute, canceled any obligation for the North to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, and assured easy passage in Congress of many bills and amendments they had long opposed. The Civil War began when, under orders from Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. There were no casualties from enemy fire in this battle (Eicher 115). Northern leaders agreed that the war would be over when Confederate nationalism was dead, and slavery was dead. They disagreed sharply on how to identify these goals. They also disagreed on the degree of federal control that should be imposed on the South. The fighting ended with the surrender of all the Confederate forces. There was no significant guerrilla warfare. Many senior Confederate leaders escaped to Europe, but Davis was captured and imprisoned, but never brought to trial. The question became how much the Union could trust the ex-Confederates to be truly loyal to the United States. The second main question in Reconstruction dealt with the destruction of slavery. The XIII Amendment (1865) officially abolished it legally, but the issue was whether black codes indicated a sort of semi-slavery, and whether Freedmen should have the vote to protect those rights. In 1867, Radicals in Congress pushed aside President Johnson and imposed new rules. Freedmen gained the right to vote and formed Republican political coalitions that took control of each state for varying periods. One by one the white conservatives or "Redeemers" gained back control of their states, often through lethal force. The final three were redeemed by the Compromise of 1877. After that, the hatreds between North and South rapidly diminished until, by 1900, the nation was no longer divided by the war, though it did remain divided by race. Ghosts of the conflict still persist in America. For decades after the war, Northern Republicans "waved the bloody shirt," bringing up memories of the Civil War as an electoral tactic, while the "Solid South" voted as a Democratic block in national politics. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s had its neoabolitionist roots in the failure of Reconstruction. A few debates surrounding the legacy of the war continue, especially regarding memorials and celebrations of Confederate heroes and battle flags. The question is a deep and troubling one: Americans with Confederate ancestors cherish the memory of their bravery and determination, yet their cause remains one ultimately tied to the shameful history of African American slavery. References: Beale, Howard K., "What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War," Social Science Research Bulletin 54, 1946. Beringer, Richard E. Why the South Lost the Civil War, Boston, 1986. Binder, Frederick and Reimers, David. The Way We Lived, Essays and Documents in American Social History, Vol. I 1492-1877. 5 th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Eicher, David J., The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 2001. Faragher, J.M., et al. Out of the Many, A History of the American People, Vol. I to 1877. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2006. Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s. New York, 1978. Read More