<strong>charlesobscure wrote:</strong>
I think that misses the point. You are correct in stating that slavery was not presented as a driving force in the war until after its first two years. But that ignores the fact that the reason why the state v. federal argument came to the point of violence in 1860 was slavery. Slavery was what drove the South to invoke states' rights, to invoke a freedom from interference with their "property" and their ability to move their "property" around the country. On its face, the war was initially a constitutional argument, especially in the South where the rhetoric was largely reminiscent of the American Revolution. However, behind that facade lay the issue of slavery. It was slavery that drove the constitutional and economic issues to the forefront and what ultimately incited the war.
The Civil War was not a "constitutional argument" but a political/economic one. During the initial decades of the Union's existence, politics and economics of the Union were dominated by the South. With the advent of the industrial revolution and "Manifest Destiny" driving national policy, two things happened. First, the North began to dominate in economic matters in the Union and second, the South began to lose the political dominance it had exerted over national politics since the inception of the Union.
From a Southern standpoint, the political problem was more dire, which resulted in multiple compromises to ensure that it held AT LEAST a comparable balance with the North in the Senate. Consequently as additional states were incorporated into the Union, it was essential to Southern politicians that a balance between slave and free states be maintained. By maintaining a 1-to-1 ratio in the Senate, the South could impact national politics without having a majority in the House. In those years when a pro-South president was in power, the VPs vote would ensure southern control of at least 1 half the legislative branch in addition to the executive branch. Of course control in the Senate also provided the South the ability to control the Judiciary and the Supreme Court. The majority of both Presidents and SC Justices leading up to the CW were from the South.
Fast forward to the election of 1860 - the demographic shifts of population to the Northern states really put the writing on the wall for the South with the increasingly likelyhood that they could not get another pro-slavery Southern candidate elected in the future. Without the control of the presidency and the balance in the Senate under increasing pressure, the South was at the moment of decision. No compromise was going to change the facts that the era of Southern dominance in national politics had come to an end. Instead of transitioning to a loyal minority, the South decided to proverbially "pick-up their ball and go home" through the act of secession.
This nonsense about states rights is just legal mumble jumble to obfuscate the facts in an attempt to justify the act of secession - secession not for independence - but secession in an ill-conceived attempt to preserve Southern political and economic dominance which had long since expired in reality except in the mind of the Southern Elite. Of course the whole need for Southern dominance in national politics was not and end in of itself - Southern dominance in national politics was necessary to PRESERVE THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. Ironically, that institution was the very one that benefited the Southern Elite and certainly didn't help the average Southern farmer who did not own slaves.
If the CW wasn't about slavery - and states rights as Southern revisionists now claim - there would have been no need to secede. The only Federal government instrusion the South was concerned about was that into the institution of slavery. Of course the Southern Elite couldn't sell that to the overwhelming majority of Southern soldiers, as the common Southern soldier did not own slaves. Consequently, the Southern Elite manipulated existing regional sentiments in order to preserve an economic institution that ONLY BENEFITED THEM. It is very ironic that the brave Southern soldiers, who paid the ultimate price on the battlefield, had the least to gain from preserving the institution of slavery and the war only served to devastate economic development and pushback the transition from an agrarian to industrial economy in the South.
