Was the civil war necessary?

[The Vegan Marxist]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war, except for the United States of course. And we all knniw that if we were to properly analyze the civil war, we'd realize how it was never about slavery, nor did Lincoln really care about slavery. At least not when the civil war was first waged. So my question is, was the civil war necessary?

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

The Southern States were so economically reliant on slavery that they wouldn't give it up without a fight... you can't even fathom how much money was made and how easily it was made while making use of slaves. You could even link it back to class struggle... the capitalists are never going to give up their economic advantage lightly.

I think that the distinction is in the fact that about half of American voters belonged to slave states and supported slavery. Many of them relied on slavery for their economic prosperity. It was probably the even divide that provoked war... I'm not sure of another country where the divide was around 50-50. I'm pretty sure that the slavery supporters were vastly outnumbered in other countries where slavery was abolished.

[Spartacus.]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war, except for the United States of course. And we all knniw that if we were to properly analyze the civil war, we'd realize how it was never about slavery, nor did Lincoln really care about slavery. At least not when the civil war was first waged. So my question is, was the civil war necessary?


The South was an oppressive dictatorship that was harboring international terrorists that were threatening american freedom, world peace and our way of life. So in order to bring peace, democracy and freedom it was necessary to wage war on that outpost of evil and spread american values and ideals. How can you question necessity of that or any other war? Don't you have any patriotism boy? :D


To be serious, the war was mainly fought because of economic contradictions beetwen the Northern and Southern rulling elites, so it was hardly avoidable. While the mainly industrial North favored higher import/export tariffs in oder to protect still infant american industry from the competition of the much more sophisticated British merchandise, the Southern plantation owners were in favour of extremely low/no trade tariffs in order to boost their profits from cotton sale and make imported goods from Britain as cheap as possible on domestic markets. As we can see it was mainly a conflict beetwen protectionist and free-trade economic policies which has decided the future of American economic development. If the South has won, it would have meant destruction or in best case weakening of American industry, turning US into economic dependency of Britain, in similar way the Canada and Australia were kept for the larger part of the XX century as semi-developed colonies that were used for production of raw materials that were exchanged for high-quality British industrial products. Which could explain why were governments of Britain and France contemplating of entering in the war on the side of South during that conflict.

So to conclude, the war was necessary in order to enforce protectionist economic policies of the Northern ruling class over South in a country in which free-trade is official state religion. Talk about irony... :rolleyes:

[Sixiang]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war, except for the United States of course. And we all knniw that if we were to properly analyze the civil war, we'd realize how it was never about slavery, nor did Lincoln really care about slavery. At least not when the civil war was first waged. So my question is, was the civil war necessary?

It was necessary in the eyes of Americans at the time. For the north, it was about preserving the union, and eventually it had the underlying idea of being about slavery. I read a rather lengthy and detailed book about Lincoln's presidency, only following what he did from his inauguration to his death. His main goal, before anything else, was preserving the union. For the south, Lincoln's election made them think that their interests were not being represented in the federal government, so they decided to secede with the hopes of establishing a confederation of states. They ran into problems during the war, though, when the confederate government found that it didn't have the power to raise money for the war or to quell riots within the states.

In short, slavery was not going to end peacefully in the United States of America. The only options were civil war, military intervention in the slave states (which did happen), destruction of the union, or riots from within. If the civil war hadn't happened, it seems to me that there would have been lots of civil unrest between abolitionists and pro-slavery folks and probably slave rebellions.

Also, if you're interested, Marx wrote many articles on the American civil war and he followed it pretty closely. Here's a collection of some of his writings on it: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/index.htm

[S.Artesian]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war, except for the United States of course. And we all knniw that if we were to properly analyze the civil war, we'd realize how it was never about slavery, nor did Lincoln really care about slavery. At least not when the civil war was first waged. So my question is, was the civil war necessary?


That is simply not accurate. Slavery was the root and branch, the cause of the civil war. The issue of slavery determined every critical aspect of US history from the structure of the government in the Constitution itself to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the civil war of Bleeding Kansas, where the slaveholders of Missouri sent terrorist bands into Kansas to intimidate the free soil farmers.

Lincoln himself was passionately opposed to the extension of slavery into the territories, even if he was not a radical abolitionist, He was for Union but in his presidency, in his prosecution of the US Civil War he realized the struggle for Union could not be separated from the struggle for emancipation.

To answer your question... of course it was necessary as the Confederacy was absolutely determined to secede and militarily prevent the possibility of re-union in order to receive recognition from Britain and France and thereby preserve its slave system.

We've gone through this in some detail in the thread in the History section at:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/leftist-opinions-american-t151158/index.html

Perhaps a moderator can merge this thread into that one.

[ComradeOm]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war...Hmmm? While civil war per se may have been a rarity, almost every industrialising nation in the 19th C went through a fundamentally similar confrontation between older agricultural interests and the newer industrial bourgeoisie. The most obvious contemporary example would be the disputes over the Corn Laws in Britain. That the US devolved into civil war can be attributed to the unique features of US politics and the geographic division between industrial and slave-based economies

[NGNM85]

That is simply not accurate. Slavery was the root and branch, the cause of the civil war. The issue of slavery determined every critical aspect of US history from the structure of the government in the Constitution itself to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the civil war of Bleeding Kansas, where the slaveholders of Missouri sent terrorist bands into Kansas to intimidate the free soil farmers.

Lincoln himself was passionately opposed to the extension of slavery into the territories, even if he was not a radical abolitionist, He was for Union but in his presidency, in his prosecution of the US Civil War he realized the struggle for Union could not be separated from the struggle for emancipation.

To answer your question... of course it was necessary as the Confederacy was absolutely determined to secede and militarily prevent the possibility of re-union in order to receive recognition from Britain and France and thereby preserve its slave system.

We've gone through this in some detail in the thread in the History section at:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/leftist-opinions-american-t151158/index.html

Perhaps a moderator can merge this thread into that one.

I think this is the first time we've ever agreed on anything.

In recent years there have been attempts by revisionist historians, etc., to characterize the Civil War as being about 'State's Rights.' (Which is code for institutionalized racism.) While this is not entirely inaccurate, this conflict hinged on one specific issue; whether or not states could suborn the buying and selling of human beings as property free from federal interference. Any analysis that denies or obfuscates this fact is incomplete, at best.

[Robespierre Richard]

In the US the civil war was more of a second revolution as it was a struggle between the republican North and the "neo-colonial" south which survived economically by supplying cotton, tobacco, and other goods to Britain. The civil war was over the new territories taken from the Indians and the debate was on whether they should have slavery or not, which would decide whether the United States became a slave plantation for Britain or a "free soil" colony for European settlers. Marx and Engels advocated the latter though it became a capitalist state where free soil became very limited, the government started to have a national debt, etc. which allowed for the development of actual capitalism with workers being stuck in the working class forever and not just using work in factories to get supplies to homestead a piece of land out west. Marx wrote about this stuff extensively in his essays on the Civil War and in the last few chapters of Capital. I thought initially that he was too far removed an observer but it was actually pretty good.

[S.Artesian]

I think this is the first time we've ever agreed on anything.

In recent years there have been attempts by revisionist historians, etc., to characterize the Civil War as being about 'State's Rights.' (Which is code for institutionalized racism.) While this is not entirely inaccurate, this conflict hinged on one specific issue; whether or not states could suborn the buying and selling of human beings as property free from federal interference. Any analysis that denies or obfuscates this fact is incomplete, at best.


Who says the age of miracles is over?

Might be the beginning of a trend.

[Dimentio]

It was almost inevitable at the end of the 1850's.

Nothing is ever necessary. People have choices, but they seldom follow choices against their own business interests. That could make certain developments inevitable.

[Os Cangaceiros]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war, except for the United States of course. And we all knniw that if we were to properly analyze the civil war, we'd realize how it was never about slavery, nor did Lincoln really care about slavery. At least not when the civil war was first waged. So my question is, was the civil war necessary?

Texas War of Secession (from Mexico) was fought over slavery, too. The government of Mexico abolished slavery. People in Texas still wanted slaves. They decided to duke it out.

[NGNM85]

Who says the age of miracles is over?

Might be the beginning of a trend.

I don't want to rain on you're parade, but I really don't think that's a realistic expectation..

[Ocean Seal]

It was necessary in the United States. The slaveowners controlled the Southern economy. If slavery had expanded who knows how much longer it could have lasted, and without the reconstruction government who knows what the state of Civil Rights would be like.

[Hoplite]

From what I understand, every other nation that ended slavery did so without the need of a civil war, except for the United States of course. And we all knniw that if we were to properly analyze the civil war, we'd realize how it was never about slavery, nor did Lincoln really care about slavery. At least not when the civil war was first waged. So my question is, was the civil war necessary?
Absolutely. As you seem to already realize, slavery was a pre-text and not a real motivation for the war.

Southern states, and in fact most states in general, saw themselves as independent of the US government at the time; sort of the attitude we take towards the UN today. It took a civil war to bring everyone together under one flag.

[Raubleaux]

S. Artesian is correct.

[S.Artesian]

Absolutely. As you seem to already realize, slavery was a pre-text and not a real motivation for the war.

Southern states, and in fact most states in general, saw themselves as independent of the US government at the time; sort of the attitude we take towards the UN today. It took a civil war to bring everyone together under one flag.


First off, the above is nonsense. States did not look at themselves as independent-- ergo the Confederacy, acting in military and political unison around a shared economic, property organization-- slavery. States "looked at themselves" as representing specific economic formations.

Secondly, if slavery was just a "pre-text" then why was the abolition of slavery necessary for the North to win the war and defeat the Confederacy. Why did the war inexorably move towards abolition, and why was the North's progress in the war directly linked with its embrace of abolition?

Thirdly, perhaps Hoplite can trace the development of this conflict between "state's rights" and national government in all the critical events in US history leading up to the Civil War-- like in the organization of the Constitution itself; the Missouri Compromise; the Nullification and Secession crisis of 1832; the Mexican-American War; the Kansas-Nebraska Act; the Crittenden amendments; the drive to annex Cuba, etc. etc. etc.

The explicit text to all these issues is slavery. Classes, governments, states don't go into armed conflict over ideological notions of "state's rights." The engage in conflict over economic interests.

[Hoplite]

First off, the above is nonsense. States did not look at themselves as independent-- ergo the Confederacy, acting in military and political unison around a shared economic, property organization-- slavery. States "looked at themselves" as representing specific economic formations. Not exactly true.

States were, for all intents and purposes, their own countries. There is a reason I compared that situation to the modern UN; the federal government had little to no authority and while states DID cooperate, they generally considered themselves as independent of each other, not part of a single country.


Secondly, if slavery was just a "pre-text" then why was the abolition of slavery necessary for the North to win the war and defeat the Confederacy. It wasnt. Notice the Emancipation Proclamation only really covered (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Emancipation_Proclamation.PNG) the South. Northern states that still had slavery were exempt. Lincoln did it to try and undermine the South's economic base by encouraging slave resistance in the South.

The South still would have lost had the Emancipation Proclamation not happened. The North had far superior numbers and far superior industrial advantage that the South did not have.


Why did the war inexorably move towards abolition, and why was the North's progress in the war directly linked with its embrace of abolition? They needed a reason for Northerners to fight. The idea of a "United States" wasnt terribly popular at the time so appealing to people's sense of patriotism wouldnt work and a lot of the North was perfectly happy letting the South do it's own thing. Abolition of slavery gave the North a moral high ground to fight the war from.

Incidentally, that's why the immigrants (mostly Irish) didnt want to fight. They didnt see it as their problem and consequently a lot of the anti-Lincoln sentiment in the North came from immigrants who had been essentially forced or bullied into fighting for a country and a cause that wasn't theirs. Hence the draft riots in places like New York.


Thirdly, perhaps Hoplite can trace the development of this conflict between "state's rights" and national government in all the critical events in US history leading up to the Civil War-- like in the organization of the Constitution itself; the Missouri Compromise; the Nullification and Secession crisis of 1832; the Mexican-American War; the Kansas-Nebraska Act; the Crittenden amendments; the drive to annex Cuba, etc. etc. etc.
Not entirely sure what you're asking for.


The explicit text to all these issues is slavery. Classes, governments, states don't go into armed conflict over ideological notions of "state's rights." The engage in conflict over economic interests.
Abjectly not true. I think you're underestimating how people felt about their individual states at the time.

We tend to think of the "United States" but that idea wasn't really around until after the Civil War. There had been less than a hundred years between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War so the memory of life under Britain was still fresh in people's minds and people still remembered why they fought the Revolutionary War so the idea that the same thing could be happening in their own backyard would have seriously freaked people out. As far as a lot of people in the South saw, Sumter was basically another Ticonderoga.

[S.Artesian]

Not exactly true.

States were, for all intents and purposes, their own countries. There is a reason I compared that situation to the modern UN; the federal government had little to no authority and while states DID cooperate, they generally considered themselves as independent of each other, not part of a single country.

That-- the above-- is exactly what is not true. Certainly the federalism and the independence of the states were ideological representations of material issues, but if that were the cause, if it was simply a question of abstract states' rights... then why didn't the Northern states feel the same obligation to secede?

Why didn't the Northern states simply agree to dissolve the union? Economic reasons? Exactly. And if the North was guided by its economic organization, then so was the South.

In fact, what elements in the NORTH supported the South? Was it the "states rights" theorists? No, it was the mercantile interest centered in New York, Boston, Rhode Island, which had originally benefited from the triangle trade of slaves rum sugar and then benefited significantly from the cotton trade with Europe.

Economic interests determine how people make their history, how they reproduce society. Not philosophical ones.

The Supreme Court decisions around the issue of slavery, and in particular the fugitive slave laws did NOT uphold those laws on the basis of states' rights, but rather on the rights of PROPERTY. Property is an economic category.


It wasnt. Notice the Emancipation Proclamation only really covered (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Emancipation_Proclamation.PNG) the South. Northern states that still had slavery were exempt. Lincoln did it to try and undermine the South's economic base by encouraging slave resistance in the South.

Except... Northern states had already prohibited slavery and the border states were pretty well marked by an ongoing economic transition out of slavery and into free soil farming and free labor.

Yes, Lincoln did it to undermine the South's economy-- since that economy was the very cause of the war.

Do you honestly think that the slaveholders of Missouri sent armed terrorist bands into Kansas to kill anti-slave free soil farmers in that territory [about to become a state] out of concerns for "states' rights"? That is simply absurd.

You should seriously study "Bleeding Kansas" and the debates around the Kansas-Nebraska Act as that conflict, and that battle is the overture to the Civil War. It was also where Lincoln with his avowed anti-slavery speeches became a national figure.

It was also the reason for the birth of the Republican party-- in Ripon, Wisconsin [of all places] which, in its very first meeting, proclaimed political compromise with slaveholding interests is not possible. This is the same Republican Party that won the election of 1860.



The South still would have lost had the Emancipation Proclamation not happened. The North had far superior numbers and far superior industrial advantage that the South did not have.


No, that's not certain at all. The South would have lost no matter what if it was unable to get the support of Britain and France. One reason it could not get that support was that it was clear to the workers of Britain that this was a slaveholders' rebellion for the maintenance of slavery. The workers of Britain were not about to let their government recognize that rebellion as legitimate.

Moving forward to abolition, after securing the border states, was the move that eliminated any possibility of Britain and France recognizing the Confederacy as a "sovereign" power.

In addition, the move to Emancipation comes after Benjamin Butler, commanding in at Fort Monroe in Virginian, refused to return fugitive slaves who had fled to his fort to their owners, defying the fugitive slave laws of the US. Later Congress ordered all Union officer to not return fugitive slaves to their owners in any Confederate territory under their control

The move toward abolition accompanied the change in Union strategy from the "boa constrictor" baloney of McClellan and others to the "meat grinder" strategy of Grant and the "deep battle" strategy of Sherman.

Sherman's army could move far in advance of its supply line by breaking up the Southern property configuration, and destroying the plantations. Of course the great weakness of the Northern bourgeoisie was not knowing how, or caring to integrate the former slaves into the war struggle, something repeated in the limitation to and abandonment of Radical Reconstruction after the war.

But breaking the Southern economy was the key to victory. To do that, slavery had to be destroyed. Slavery was the Southern economy, and slavery was the only reason "states' rights" arguments were deployed; just as Jim Crow was the only reason "states' rights" was raised by the Southern states in the civil rights struggle.



They needed a reason for Northerners to fight. The idea of a "United States" wasnt terribly popular at the time so appealing to people's sense of patriotism wouldnt work and a lot of the North was perfectly happy letting the South do it's own thing. Abolition of slavery gave the North a moral high ground to fight the war from.


Sorry to speak harshly, but you really don't know what you are talking about. The troops in the Union Army undertook their obligations, initially, because of the secession of the South; because of their, the troops, loyalty to the Union. Their patriotism was formed on the basis of the economic organization of the North, and that economic organization was the establishment of free soil, free labor domestic markets. The "idea" of the United States was incredibly popular with the farmers, villagers, laborers, craftsmen of the North, Northwest, and West. It was also very popular among white small farmers in northern Alabama, Arkansas, and even plantation owners in Louisiana.

In fact it was so popular, that some of these farmers created guerrilla groups against the Confederacy and others created intelligence networks to report Confederate troop movements to the Union.


Incidentally, that's why the immigrants (mostly Irish) didnt want to fight. They didnt see it as their problem and consequently a lot of the anti-Lincoln sentiment in the North came from immigrants who had been essentially forced or bullied into fighting for a country and a cause that wasn't theirs. Hence the draft riots in places like New York.


And that proves what? That in NYC where merchant interest predominated, and Democrats had control of local governments, and where the same rich merchants could avoid serving, the Irish immigrants were allowed, and encouraged to demonstrate their objection by attacking and slaughtering black Americans.

What does that have to do with the cause for the conflict between the North and South?


Not entirely sure what you're asking for.

I'm asking you to explain the conflicts that accompanied all those items on the basis of "states' rights" rather than as a conflict around competing economic systems-- that of the free soil/free labor North vs. the slave South.



Abjectly not true. I think you're underestimating how people felt about their individual states at the time.



And you haven't provided a shred of evidence of "how people felt." You might want to look at the collections of letters to loved ones from Union soldiers before stating that the US was not terribly popular among Northerners at the time. When you do that, and if you do it in historical sequence, you will see that the notion of "union" is first and foremost and constant, but as the war progresses more and more soldiers understand the necessity of destroying slavery-- that there can be no union if slavery is allowed to survive.

But be that as it may, if the idea of the US wasn't that popular, if people felt much more allegiance to their individual states than to the Union of the states, and if slavery wasn't the issue, then exactly what compelled the farmers, villages, craftsmen of the North and Northwest and Midwest to actually march off to war?



We tend to think of the "United States" but that idea wasn't really around until after the Civil War. There had been less than a hundred years between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War so the memory of life under Britain was still fresh in people's minds and people still remembered why they fought the Revolutionary War so the idea that the same thing could be happening in their own backyard would have seriously freaked people out. As far as a lot of people in the South saw, Sumter was basically another Ticonderoga.

That is just baloney. Since the average life expectancy was under 60 years, it's doubtful that their were very many with a "fresh" memory of life under British rule.

The idea of the United States, and one stretching from ocean to ocean had been around since Thomas Jefferson's presidency. Little things like Lewis and Clark, the Louisiana Purchase, "54' 40 or fight" make that clear.

If you look at the Southern newspapers, and the records of the speeches of the Southern leaders in and out of the Congress, the cause of the Civil War is transparently clear-- slavery.