The Lincoln Myth and the Causes of the American Civil war

Post Reply
stonewalljackson
Reactions:
Posts: 95
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 5:03 am

The Lincoln Myth and the Causes of the American Civil war

Post by stonewalljackson »

The Lincoln Myth and the causes of the American Civil war

To find the causes of the civil war many look to why the south succeeded, and you usually end up with two camps one that says states rights and tariffs, the other says slavery. But no matter what the reasons the south left the union, [future thread] they are irrelevant to what caused the American civil war. The north would not recognize the south as an independent country, and would not allow them to self govern. The south wanted peace. It did not seek to invade the north and with France, tried to settle through diplomacy without conflict. It was the north that invaded the south. So to find the causes of the civil war, we must look to the north.

We are told the war was fought over slavery. The south wanted slavery and separated for that reason. Lincoln invaded the southern states to free the slaves. This is one of the myths about Abraham Lincoln. Historically this is not so, there were multiple reasons why the north would not allow the south to go, not one was because of slavery.

Lincolns Tariff War


“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states... the love of money is the root of this...the quarrel between the north and south is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel”
-Charles Dickens, 1862


"The southern confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing..it is very clear that the south gains by this process and we lose. No .. we must not tlet the south go".
-Union Democrat Manchester, New Hampshire 19 February 1861


In 1860 America tariffs were the main source of income of the federal government. The south largely being agrarian and import/export, payed as much as 80% of federal revenue. The vast majority of this income was used in the north and to help northern industry. The federal government literally could not survive without the south before the income tax.

“They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the people’s pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars [$1.5 to $1.7 billion in 2012 dollars] per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the union.”
-New Orleans Daily Crescent, 1861


"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe . This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually." 
-Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860


Not only that, but the south and the confederate constitution allowed for free trade. So not only would the federal government lose up to 80% of its income, southern ports would dominate trade with Europe [no tax on imports/exports] and the north would be further be pushed into poverty. Across the north northern newspapers started calling for war saying the loos of revenue and the fact the southern ports would dominate, the south could not be allowed to leave. A northern democrat from Ohio plainly stated what the war was over when he said

“The passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protectionist tariff act, commonly known as the ‘Morrill Tariff. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce . . . began to look South . . . . Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England –and Pennsylvania . . . demanded, now coercion and civil war, with all its horrors . . .”
-Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham D-Ohio 1863

The Confederate States of America would have diverted a great deal of commerce away from the north unless the Union, too, reduced its tariff rates. That reduction, however, was unacceptable to Lincoln and the Republicans, who considered the tariff the “centerpiece” of their ambitious program for a greatly expanded central government. So Lincoln could not let them go. In Lincoln inaugural address he said [and other times] he would not go to war over slavery, but would over “properties” [referring to fort Sumner were tariffs were collected.]. He said the only thing that could cause bloodshed was over the tax collection. Lincoln was ok with slavery in the south, but if you did not pay to the federal government, war would come. When the blockade of the south was announced Lincoln gave a speech saying the cause of the blockade was over the tariffs.

In the book Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War by Marc Egnal said “Economics more than high moral concerns produced the civil war”. The heart of the war was economical differences growing between the protectionist, manufacturing northeast and the free trade agrarian south. The republican party had strong anti slavery sentiments, but they did not overshadow republicans wants of the homestead act, internal improvements and economic nationalism.

Preserving the Union

“The war now prosecuted on part of the federal government is a war for the union”
-Secretary of war Simon Cameron August 8 1861

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
-Abraham Lincoln The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln Letter to Horace Greeley August 22, 1862

One reason the north went to war was simply to preserve the union. Lincoln and the north wanted to preserve the nation and wanted to create a all powerful empire/nation controlled by Washington. An America that was split, was less powerful. Lincoln also did not want to be remembered as the president who allowed the nation to separate.

Agrarian vs Industrial

“Clashing interest of a industrial north and an agrarian south were effecting all aspects of American politics”
- Marshall L. Derosa Redeeming American Democracy

“Leisure orientated agrarian society is the antithesis to materialistic northern life”
-Rapheal Semmes CSA navy commander

Another cause and some would say the major cause of prominent interest groups, is northern industrialist vs southern agrarians. I will not spend much time on it here, as this is a future topic in itself I will be doing in more detail. But the Souths primarily agrarian and agricultural lifestyle and the contrasted growing northern industrial, urban, lifestyle, Led to difference of opinion on tariffs, trade policies, internal improvements and other political differences. For example The south opposed high tariffs, but that is how internal improvements were founded and wanted by the industrial north. “The more the north became industrialized, the more the need arose for stronger national government to support its growth and finical interests.”

“The game plan of northern industrialist, who were fighting not for black freedom, but for the freedom to exploit and devolve the American market..The only people who could say “free at last” after the civil war were northern industrialist and their allies”
-Lerone Vennett JR Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White Dream

The freeing of the slaves was “Only an accident in the violent clash of interests between the Industrial north and the Agricultural south”
-African American Ralph Bunche


Did Lincoln go to war to end Slavery?


“The condition of slavery in the several states would remain just the same weather it [the rebellion] succeeds or fails”
-Secretary Seward to US Ambassador to France

“I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all.”
-Abraham Lincoln 1858

“The pretense that the “abolition of slavery” was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud... undertaken for maintains and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery to which they have subjected the great body of people, both white and black”
-Northern Abolitionist Lysander Spooner

Lincoln and the north did not invade the south to end slavery. The north maintained slavery in states such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri, during and after the civil war. Lincoln had no problem with the upper south slave states in the union such as Virginia as he called for volunteers to attack the deep south to repress the rebellion. The 1860 the republican platform plank 4 said slavery was a state issue and they would not interfere. Lincoln said the states had the right to chose on slavery and he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed.

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere Untitled with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so”
-Abraham Lincoln Inaugural address

Lincoln in his inaugural address said he supported the Corwin amendment. This amendment was first proposed in Dec 1860 and passed both the house and senate. It would have made slavery a constitutional right to states and permanently untouched by congress. Lincoln also said he supported the Fugitive slave act. During the war after the south left the union, the north controlled congress yet they did not end slavery. After the south succeeded the federal government decided it would not end slavery in the house on Feb 1861 and senate march 2 1861. On July 22 1861 congress declared “This war is not waged , nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions [slavery] of those states.” October 8th 1861 the newspaper Washington D.C National Intelligence said “The existing war had no direct relation to slavery.”

“I think as much of a rebel as I do an abolitionist”
-Union General Phil Kerney

In the early parts of the war Union soldiers and generals returned any runaway slaves back to their southern masters. General McClellan ordered runaway slaves back to masters in Virginia. When union general John Fremont emancipated slaves in union occupied Missouri, Lincoln recalled the orders and relived Fremont of his command. When union general David Hunter ordered general order number 11, declaring all slaves in SC/GA/FL to be “forever free” Lincoln revoked the proclamation and also ordered Hunter to disband the 1st South Carolina regiment made up of blacks hunter had enlisted. Late in 62 Lincoln supported in union held territory in VA and LA to continue slavery and allow the slave owners peacefully back into the union. Slavery led many especially in the old Whig party to “cling more tightly to the union.”

“Howard county [MO] is true to the union” “our slaveholders think it is the sure bulwark of our slave property”
-Abeil Lenord a Whig party leader at onset of war

Had the war ended earlier, slavery would have not been touched.


Did the war Become about slavery After the Emancipation Proclamation


“My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am president . It shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the union”
-Abraham Lincoln Aug 15 1864

The emancipation proclamation was a war measure and did not touch on slavery as an institution at all. Any southern state that wished to keep slavery, only had to rejoin the union with slavery intact. It actually did not free a single slave. After the emancipation proclamation northern troop desertion skyrocketed, and recruitment plummeted, indicating the average union solider was not fighting for slavery. For more see here

“Great pains have been taken, by the North, to make it appear to the world, that the war was a sort of moral, and religious crusade against slavery. Such was not the fact. The people of the North were, indeed, opposed to slavery, but merely because they thought it stood in the way of their struggle for empire”
-Raphael Semmes 1868

Another reason for the proclamation was to make sure Europe did not enter the was for the south. If they could make the war look like it was over slavery, than Europe could not enter. In 1864 legislature in Texas said the Yankees were “lying to themselves and pretending to the rest of the world” that they were “fighting for the freedom of 4 millions happy and content slaves” but were really intent on “enslaving 8 million free-men.”

“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their Independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.”
-Woodrow Wilson, “A History of The American People”, page 231

Transformation of the Republic?

There was one more reason Lincoln went to war, or at least used the war to accomplish this goal. The goal was to transform the republic into a centralized nation. This deserves its own thread and will not be discussed here.


What Caused the Union Soldiers to go to war

I respect the solders on both sides, more so then the governments reasons for fighting. I think the civil war was a unusual mix where in some ways both union and confederate soldiers were both fighting for the Constitution, and at the same time moving away from the founders intent in other areas. Both in at least some way, could be said to be defending the views of the founders.

While I believe Lincoln was moving the country away from its foundations. Your average union solider was in no way fighting to violate the southern citizens rights, states rights,or to wage war on the constitution in any way. To the typical union soldier, the war was a movement to uphold the constitution. The south was creating a new nation and constitution. As one Union general told confederate general Stand Watie “Anything that stands in the way of the glorious republic, must die.” They felt the south were traitors to the constitution and violators of the compact founded by the founders. So they fought to preserve the American union. Many in the north disagree with Lincolns policies, yet preserving the union of the founders, was more important.

The abolitionist in the northern armies had another reason. The large majority of early Americans thought that “All men were created equal” was violated by slavery. They knew that the early Americans [even in the south] did not seek to expand slavery into the west, they thought slavery would slowly die out in America, as it did the decades following the revolution. So a confederacy and southerners who allowed slavery into any future territory west, was in violation of the founders. To many union soldiers, that slavery was even still around was at odds with the founders.


Main References

-The Real Lincoln Thomas J Dilorenzo Three Rivers press NY NY 2002
- Lincoln Unmasked what your not suppose to know about Dishonest Abe Thomas J Dilorenzo Three rivers Press Crown Forum 2006
-Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White dream by Lerone Bennett JR Johnson publishing Company Chicago reprint 2000
Last edited by stonewalljackson on Wed Jun 08, 2016 1:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
"How do you like this are coming back into the union"
Confederate solider to Pennsylvanian citizen before Gettysburg

"No way sherman will go to hell, he would outflank the devil and get past havens guard"
southern solider about northern general sherman

"Angels went to receive his body from his grave but he was not there, they left very disappointed but upon return to haven, found he had outflanked them and was already there".
northern newspaper about the death of stonewall jackson
Post Reply