"Was the Civil War Inevitable?" Topic

I admit that I made this a new thread because we had moved on into the realm of constitutional law on the Lee thread and I thought this might promote a broader discussion of the nature of those times. If not, that's okay, but I think there are a lot of interesting points here about then and now.

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Was the war inevitable? Absolutely No doubt. The division had started even before the Revolution. Both sides were at fault for that division.

From the perspective of the slaves, best thing that probably could have happened. Baring both sides agreeing on freedom for the slave and reparations to the slave holders, (like that would have happened. 😉). Otherwise freedom would have been long down the road. From the perspective of all who died and were maimed, the worst. In my humble opinion.

" I thought this might promote a broader discussion of the nature of those times."

I'm sorry, I have to 😆, but let's see. Good luck.

I believe it was, yes. As Lincoln said the nation simply could not survive half slave and half free. You had a Republican Party dedicated to stopping slavery from expanding. You had a South, especially after the Dred Scot decision that now maintain slavery could legally go anywhere within the US, insisting slavery be able to expand into the West. You had Southern leaders, preachers, editors and politicians claiming that the North and South were two different peoples and always had been. You had a North that was future oriented and wanted to move past slavery. As one well respected historian wrote, it was an irrepressible conflict.

35th, I thought it worth a try. If Dred Scott was the point of no return, wasn't slavery really the issue underneath all the constitutional assumptions and arguments we have been reading on the other thread?

And it does raise parallels for today. If we assume that we are past the point of listening to each other, and I think there is a lot of manipulation from elites on both sides going on related to this, then what kind of conflict might occur?

Tort, Slavery in tandem with economy. They were tied together as one. What was the economy of the south? primarily Cotton and other agriculture. You take the slave away, you destroy the livelihood of many of the wealthy and powerful in the South. Add to that the investments they made in those slaves. Were they to be reimbursed? From New England and the rest of those who were demanding the freedom of the slave? I would say at best, very doubtful. Was there talk of reimbursement from tax money? I don't remember that, but would that not be like paying yourself? 😉

Now where would the free slaves go? The North did not want them, we saw that after the war. So they would have remained in the South, as most did after the war. I actually think that might have been worse for them than post Civil War, as there would have been no troops down there. They might have served as a very low paid worker class for their previous owners. But would they have done that and would they have been treated much better than before?

So without the slave and let us say they do not fill that worker void now created, what happens to those plantations and small farms? I am sure that is how it was viewed in the South by those who owned the farms and plantations.

Add to that, those in the South felt they were being forced to accept this. Imagine the rest of the country deciding to destroy the economy and livelihood of New England. How would New Englanders react?

Lastly add the fear of some sort of upraising and reprisal from these freed slaves. You might say, unlikely, but these people remembered Nat Turner and John Brown and the fear was very real to them.

FYI, add John Brown's stupid raid, Kansas/Missouri, to Dred Scott, all contributing factors to the point of no return.

So bottom line, the war became inevitable and there were too many on both sides who wanted it to happen.

So that is my opinion.

Good in the long run for the slave, bad again for all those who died and were maimed. Probably a lot of good minds lost for future technology and science. Also in the end, must of those owning the farms and plantations went broke anyway.

No, it wasn't inevitable.

Nothing is inevitable. Even as the deep South states started seceding it was still possible to avoid war.

I always thought so reading American history

In my opinion, probably. However, what was not inevitable was how long it lasted. If the South had succeeded in 1850, they probably would have been successful given the relative strength of the industrialization in the North and the South (they were roughly equal). If the Civil War had started a decade later, the greater industrial base of the North would have probably resulted in a much shorter war. Also, Lee would have been dead for a couple of years if the war had started in 1871.

It might have been averted. In 1832 the Virginia House of Delegates, frightened by the Nat turner rebellion, debated the possibility of abolishing slavery in Virginia. It never happened, but it was closer than you might have expected. I read that if representation in the House of Delegates did not also adhere to the 3/5 rule, giving slave holding counties more representation, it might have actually passed.

If Virginia abolishes slavery then Maryland and Delaware would surely have followed. After that, who knows? North Carolina and Kentucky? Missouri and Arkansas? By the time the crisis was reached, there wouldn't have been enough slave states left to form a real country.

Nothing in the past was inevitable. A complex event like the American Civil War was the result of many decisions taken over time by many leaders and ordinary people. Having said that, the conflict over slavery was brewing since the formation of the United States. Many compromises were made or tried. All of them failed. So war broke out. And yes, it was essentially a war over slavery despite the attempt to camouflage it as "states rights." Indeed, for most of our history, states rights have been the refuge of reactionaries and bigots. The same occurred during the Jim Crow Era. The same may be happening today.

The overriding political issue between the War of 1812 and the Civil War was slavery. When that could not be solved peacefully, war over the issue was inevitable.

Did all slave-holding countries and colonies eliminate it through violence? Can anyone talk about the Caribbean islands' experience, or Brazil?

Well that varies from place to place. In Haiti, it was a slave rebellion. In Brazil it was throwing out Portugal, and than a gradual process of owners freeing slaves and finally in 1888:

"In 1872, the population of Brazil was 10 million, and 15% were slaves. As a result of widespread manumission (easier in Brazil than in North America), by this time approximately three quarters of the blacks and mulattoes in Brazil were free.[46] Slavery was not legally ended nationwide until 1888, when Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, promulgated the Lei Áurea ("Golden Act"). But it was already in decline by this time (since the 1880s the country began to attract European immigrant labor instead). Brazil was the last nation in the Western world to abolish slavery, and by then it had imported an estimated 4,000,000 (other estimates are 5, 6, or as high as 12.5 million) slaves from Africa. This was 40% of all slaves shipped to the Americas.[15]"

Interestingly, Brazil was the largest importer of African slaves. I did not know that until reading this.

So again it varied from country to country, conquest, rebellion, civil war, or gradual freedom.

there were various ways to cut slavery out of all societies;

the british approach to cut the supply from africa by deploying naval forces to intercept the slavers

buy the freedom of slaves so the owners would not be out of pocket again used by the british in the west indies and attempted in the usa but to very little success i believe

banning it by law again the british style but not until 1865 in the usa i believe

by war to the bitter end

the question is did slavery cause racism or did racism cause slavery?
if the former it was an attempt to overcome the all men are created equal so racism was driven by economics. if the latter white owners believed they were better humans than slaves so slavery was justified philosophically and thus all men are created equally was pure hypocracy.

so post 1865 racism should have stopped for economic reasons the reason racism carried on must be for the flawed philosophical reasons and thus the constitution is irrelevant to many/

"the question is did slavery cause racism or did racism cause slavery?
if the former it was an attempt to overcome the all men are created equal so racism was driven by economics. if the latter white owners believed they were better humans than slaves so slavery was justified philosophically and thus all men are created equally was pure hypocracy.

so post 1865 racism should have stopped for economic reasons the reason racism carried on must be for the flawed philosophical reasons and thus the constitution is irrelevant to many/"

Steve, if Tort wants to keep this thread on topic as to if the civil war was inevitable and why, you probably should start your own thread on the racism topic. Just my thoughts. 🙂

35th, the Brazil info was an eye opener, thanks for that. South American history is a weak spot for me.

I have been struck by the parallels between pre Civil War America and now regarding how entrenched people became in their views, and whether there are ways to avoid war when too sides are so caught up in their own worlds.
Destiny? Fate? Or is it up to us? I am not sure.

Tort, nothing in history is ever a perfect parallel. There are many similarities, but so far one side or the other has not threatened the ability of the other to make a living on an any large scale. I personally think It would come when one side or the other believes they have been pushed into a corner with no recourse, I.e. via free and fair elections, to make changes. I keep hoping for the tightening of laws to make identification mandatory to vote. That again, in my opinion, is the closest to any sure way to make the elections seem to be fair.

You did ask for my opinion twice, and that is my short answer. This would be my opinion. 🙂

But I think this digresses from your topic of whether the CW was inevitable, so I would stay off of it, if I were you, but it is your thread. 😉

I much prefer to hear why people believe it could or could not be stopped.
Have a merry Christmas Tort!

Inevitable, or unavoidable, for whom? I don't think any one person could have got us around it, but with (nearly) everyone working together, it probably could have been avoided.

The other question is: Would whatever alternative was adopted have been better in the long run. (Such as leaving millions of people in slavery.)

you could also approach the war from a marxist viewpoint

why did so many southerners fight? did each one own a slave? perhaps they were persuaded to fight by capitalist forces to prevent economic changes and maintain the landed gentry in their power base.

were all northern soldiers rabidly anti-slavery? why the riots in New York where black individuals were attacked =

what about profiteers making money from the war did they not have a motive for war? or at least the extension of war for longer than it may have lasted if negotiations took place = i believe the concept of "shoddy" came out of the civil war. .

again maybe it was northern capitalists wanting to destroy slavery to gain an economic advantage over the south due to the increasing number of european immigrants flooding the northern job market who did not cost the earth to buy as opposed to expensive slaves.

as far as voting rights again was it universal suffrage or was it universal male suffrage? I take it slaves did not have the vote……..
an interesting current issue in the UK the government are introducing the need for photographic ID for voting yet at the last general election only 8 individual cases of voter fraud was discovered out of 44 million voters. the UK government have always resisted the need for common ID cards as are usual in the rest of europe.

or perhaps is for all the reasons which came together in a "perfect storm" and the war could not have been stopped by anybody it was just the timing of events leading to the 1861 kick off it could have been earlier or later but maybe it could not have been prevented in any fair and just way"given the situation existing in the usa.

Now you can't bring in Marx analysist as then the American Revolution does not look good in its light.

Steve, profit is always a motivator. There are always those who will take advantage and line their pockets, while others fight and die. Both in business and in politics.

No. It was not inevitable, for many reasons mentioned already. Many societies aboilished slavery without war; in fact that was the rule in the Anglosphere.

Lincoln was correct that the nation could not go on half slave and half free. But the tensions WERE compromisable for a long time.

There was always going to be tension between the agricultural-exporting south and the industrializing north. And that would have existed even if the southern labor system has been something else. And there was (and still is) tension between national and state authority. So conflicts of some sort would have occurred, as they had throughout tyhe colonies' very turbulent hstory.

But THAT war, the one that happened, was very far from inevitable.

Interesting Doc. We disagree.

As I said, I believe war was destined to happen. I think the seeds were sown in the English Civil War and followed the English settlers from England to here. Even in the 1860's those of NE and the Old South, pretty much dominated the politics of the country. I believe the animosity was always ingrained. You see this even before the Revolution, during the Revolution and after.

Slavery was the irreconcilable Difference that allowed no reconciliation.

Do you believe they would have paid the Southern slave owners if they freed them? Would they have guaranteed their plantations, business and farms would not fail due to lack of labor? Without both of those, I think war was the ultimate outcome. You just cannot take a man's livelihood away and expect him to roll over and take it.

Only if slavery became unprofitable due to industrialization and cheaper and more efficient ways to farm, could war have been avoided. That was a long way off and I doubt the abolitionist would have allowed that to ever happen.

Oddly, I don't believe the animosity has really ever gone completely away. I hear it in the South when I visit down there and I hear it in threads on TMP, from both sides. You see it with the destruction and removal of anything vaguely related to the Confederacy today. They even dug up AP Hill's remains this week after removing his statue. AP Hill's descendant was heckled at the removal.

So I don't believe the animosity has disappeared even after over 150 years.

Obviously my opinion.

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So we disagree, but that makes things interesting. 🙂

And Merry Christmas to you 35th and all here!

Ugh, the Gateway Pundit's article is misleading.

Both the statue's and AP Hill's removal were handled with delicacy. the Statue will be preserved in a museum and AP Hill's indirect descendants get to bury him. He has been moved three times now thus it was not exactly consecrated ground.

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He couldn't stay on public property and the only controversy was not about relocating Hill's remains but to be able to keep the statue either as AP Hill's headstone or place it on an ACW battlefield. The City of Richmond is even paying for his reburial!

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The Secession was inevitable as soon as it was clear to the South that they would no longer get their way with regards to slavery. I suspect that the Southern higher ups were only believers in Union for as long as it went their way and the advantages from the 3/5ths compromise lasted.

I think the South hoped to avoid war but it is interesting that Jeff Davis, who initially opposed secession, kind of lost a game of chicken with Lincoln and started the war by ordering the attack on Ft Sumter. A move I believe many Southern brass were irritated about.

It's possible that a weaker more sympathetic president might've let the South go…someone like a Buchanan.

Proof positive that timing is everything.

I don't believe it is misleading. It states things the other 3 ignored. The other 3 state some things the "pundit" ignored.

Put all articles together you get, there were verbal confrontations between different groups, this was done as part of the larger coordinated ongoing removal of all Confederate statues, the statues were erected during the "lost cause" period, this is the 3rd time Hill's remains have been reburied, (the time before this one, to be placed under this statue), Hill did not own slaves and supposedly was anti slavery, there were people happy about it and people unhappy.

Bottom line of all articles: The statue WAS removed, Hill's remains were DUG UP and moved to an "undisclosed" location.

But others can read the stories, I would suggest it, as you get both perspectives. Pundit is more favorable to those who opposed the removal and the other 3 articles more favorable to the pro removal.

I did not understand this in the later articles. It said city officials made this decision:

"City officials said the removed statue will be stored in an undisclosed location and later given to the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. John Hill indicated that Hill's descendants will continue to fight that plan in court."

Seems like an odd decision to me.

Also Division STILL exists after 150 years.

seems a little ghoulish to dig someone up for apparently political reasons but in England we did it to Cromwell after the restoration but that was 500 years ago more or less.

moving statues may be appropriate after all did not the russian people move Lenins and Stalins and did not Saddams get pulled down and is there not that famous film of the swastika being blown up in Berlin in 1945.

donating the statue to a museum? well depends if they want it and what they will do with it, we are facing similar questions in the UK with looted items from history – the Elgin Marbles and the Benin Bronzes plus Maori human remains,

Steve refresh my memory. Didn't they dig him up
And behead him?

I have no problem with people who remove statues rulers put up to themselves. Removing statues put up by others years after the fact whitewashes history and panders to snowflakes.

My only point with the story of statue removals and the digging up of Hill's remains, was to point out that the division that led to the inevitability of the Civil War, still exists today.

Whitewashing history is what gets some statutes erected in the first place and this was certainly a hallmark of the Lost Cause narrative. But taking them down without giving them context somehow via the whole story is just divisive and difficult. The emotional vestiges of the war will not go away.

Was war the only way to align the reality of America with its founding principles? There were decades of shaky compromise ideas leading up to it. Even with Lincoln waiting in the wings, we did not have the leadership to come up with another solution.

Nothing short of ending slavery would have worked for any deal. And any deal needed to preserve the economic integrity of the South. There would still be a huge labor force, presumably free and being compensated. The aristocratic trappings of the plantation system would have been taken down a peg. But the North needed cotton. There was no deal to be had in this admittedly simple minded assessment?

Was there no leader or group of leaders from both sides with enough clout and vision to sit down and work something concrete and pragmatic out? The United States hung by a thread and we nearly lost it but for Lincoln's strength of purpose.

We have always been a bunch of hotheads in pursuit of freedom and democracy. We are not always right, do not always taking the same route. Very messy.

Tort

"Nothing short of ending slavery would have worked for any deal. And any deal needed to preserve the economic integrity of the South."

That was my point. That was the sticking point. One side wanted an end to slavery, no compromise. The other wanted to continue their livelihood without financial loss.

For compromise to happen, both sides would have to be appeased. I don't believe that would have ever happened. How do you appropriately compensate the slave owner for the cost of the slave, guarantee an affordable alternative worker and guarantee his previous profit? You would have had to pay him the cost of the slave, pay him something like farm subsidies that allowed him to break even and or make a profit and have forced a cheap government enforced base wage. At least those are my thoughts.

It was easy to sit in Boston, Albany or Cleveland and demand that all slaves be freed. You had no skin in the game. You did not rely on the slave for your livelihood. Especially easy if you were over a certain age and or could not fight.

We know slavery needed to end, but there were two sides to the problem. You have to understand both to compromise. Too many then did not care to understand both and too many now refuse to acknowledge that. That is one of the main reasons war was inevitable.

'Understanding both' was part of the problem. None of the political compromises worked. Slavery had to go, which the Founders completely understood, at least those that were not from the three southern states.

Unfortunately, war became inevitable and cost over 630,000 dead.

Brechtel, yes the compromises tried , were in the end, worthless and temporary. They did not solve the ultimate problem equally for both sides. Ending slavery for one side, with reparations and the ability to still make a living for the other. I cannot even convince myself that even that would have worked.

Since I mentioned Hill above, this is from the History Net. It was attitudes like this on both sides that make me think that even my compromise may not have worked.

"If George Thomas was the best Union general you've probably never heard of, A. P. Hill was the best Confederate general you've probably never heard of. Gallant "Little Powell" was very different from his fellow Virginian in build, temperament, and politics. Though they both opposed slavery (AP Hill never owned any slaves), AP Hill always knew that his first loyalty was to his native state, and was contemptuous of any bully­ing Yankees who thought they could justify killing Southerners to enforce Northern views."

There is alway the "great man" versus the "vast inexorable forces" debate. Some merit in both. But I will argue that if one looks at even a handful of key individuals -- Roger B. Taney, Stephen Douglass, John Brown, and some others, any of whom may easily be imagined playing a different role (or none at all) one must concede that SPECIFIC EVENTS brought on by particular individuals had a huge causal influencd -- and were scarcely inevitable unless one argues thta individual humans lack all agency.

Eric Flint's RIVERS OF WAR alternate histories (1812 and 1824) are well grounded in the history of the early republic and present quite plausible scenarios. There certainly were big issues thta needed to be and would be resoilved ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. But THAT war, or even a military resolution of any sort, were far from inevitable.

Interesting points Doc, but on this we will disagree.

Have not read the book mentioned.

I would like to have seen it avoided. Too many potentially useful minds lost to posterity. I am not sure how much benefit was garnered by either side by the war. Slaves obviously benefited. The Union was preserved, but at a horrendous cost in lives, money, lives ruined and permanent animosity's.

Have a merry Christmas. 🙂

Yes 35th, I got your point and it got me to thinking. In simplest terms, the slaves were valued at perhaps 3 billion and the war cost maybe 7 billion, rough estimates.
A gradual implementation of emancipation and compensation seems like a solution at some point during the run up to the war. But I cannot place myself in the era to understand what people knew and thought enough to suggest this could possibly have been considered. And no one could have imagined what the war would cost in blood and treasure.

Keeping hindsight and modern standards out of the question of inevitability is not easy. But it is intriguing to wonder about some sort of phase out deal in the first half of the 19th century.

yes 35th Cromwell's corpse was beheaded and the head put on a pike for a number of years and all those who signed Charles the First's execution document were hunted down and disposed of in some way or another.

not sure what happened to Charles's head

The Missouri Compromise DID work, for more than 20 years, and slavery was NOT a major issue until the Mexican War (and Dred Scott and Popular Sovereignty) threw the issue open again.

From our post- perspective it looks inevitable, and one can certainly agree with Lincoln that the war was God's judgement on the whole nation. But while I am comfortable with the theology of that, I suspect others are not. Or, Greek tragedies explain a lot. Whether one sees slavery as America's original sin, or her fatal heroic flaw, it has moved beyond HISTORY.

Which is why Benet's JOHN BROWN'S BODY remains the best single book on the subject.

They all worked for a while. But they never solved the problem and the issue smoldered and smoldered, with no real solution, until it broke out into a full inferno. But again, my belief.

Obviously the Civil conflict has not ended. First there was Jim Crow. Now there is backlash against civil rights in the name of " states rights,"

35th, yes, that is what happened, but that is not what HAD to happen.

I don't think it was inevitable. Mainly because I don't think anything involving mankind is inevitable. However, it was very, very, VERY likely.

Years ago I read the McCullough biography of John Adams and one of the things that struck me was that the Civil War almost started during his precedency, 197-1801. There were numerous times after that when it almost happened. South Carolina looked seriously at secession during the Jackson administration, and New England talked about it during the War of 1812.

I happen to believe the differences between the two sections from before the Revolution made the civil war likely. Once George Washington was gone it became harder to hold the Union together and the fraying started almost immediately. Thinking about it now it kind of reminds me Yugoslavia. Once Tito was dead and the country was no longer facing down the Soviet Union and the West, it fell apart and old animosities erupted into new war.

There was a definite change in racial attitudes in the South between 1800 and 1860. During Jackson's New Orleans campaign in 1814 there was a battalion of free black militia that fought for the Americans. When the Civil war broke out and free black militias tried to join the Confederate army, they were turned away.

I attribute the change in attitude to the constant attacks by abolitionists. Constantly being told that they were not only wrong, but evil, caused the southern people to become very defensive.

Just my thoughts.

Dn J, yes, to all of that. The New Orleans blacks actually served for Louisiana early on, but black troops were against Confederate policy.

Slavery was always going to be an issue. It just did not go with the founding principles. There were perhaps a half million free blacks and 4 million enslaved.

It may be that guilt also made some in the South defensive. It did not need compromise, it needed resolution. This is why I wondered about a gradual plan to end it and deal with the economy instead of ending up in a war.

"Slavery was always going to be an issue. It just did not go with the founding principles. "

I agree, but only to a certain extent. The war that almost broke out during the Adams administration was not caused by slavery, nor when New England was talking of secession. The two regions were very different and the friction caused by those difference caused constant conflict that needed to e resolved, but wasn't until 1865.

If the founders could have agreed on gradual emancipation the way they agreed to gradually end the slave trade a great deal of blood could have been saved. But they couldn't come to an agreement and they valued a union over ending slavery.

It was the expansion of the nation into the west, with new states that would be either slave or free, that kept bringing the issue up again and making previous compromises ineffective. And Dn J is right; there were NUMEROUS secession plots and debates and nullifications, as many or more from the north as from the south. Tariffs were immensely controversial, as was the War of 1812, both with sectional elements. There was widespread condemnation of slavery in the south prior to 1830 or so. Certainly something more might have come of this, had God willed it. What happened is far from what HAD to happen.