The American Civil War remains the bloodiest war in American history, costing more lives than any other conflict ever fought on North American soil.
When Confederate General Robert E. Lee sat down with Union General Ulysses S. Grant to surrender the legendary Army of Northern Virginia, the American Civil War was in its fourth year — and had claimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans. This did not include the hundreds of thousands wounded (in many cases, in both body and soul) and the unprecedented devastation the war had brought to families, communities, and society overall.
Though the shooting has long since stopped, the controversy in many ways continues on. What caused the American Civil War? Could it have been prevented? What lessons should we as Americans today learn from it?
States’ Rights vs. a Strong Central Government
The most significant dividing point between North and South, which led eventually to war, was the issue of states’ rights. Obviously, the flashpoint of this disagreement centered around slavery, but North and South had sparred over this philosophy on other issues as well, including tariff policy. The South believed that the states were sovereign and were obliged to the U.S. government, only so long as they voluntarily consented to the U.S. Constitution. By contrast, the Unionists held that the states were subordinate to the U.S. Constitution and part of a perpetual Union.
The Civil War was fought over this fundamental difference, more so than the specific disagreement over slavery. Consider that Abraham Lincoln, in his 1861 Inaugural Address, made it abundantly clear he would not interfere with the “peculiar institution” of slavery in the South. No federal troops were sent into the South to liberate slaves – not in 1860 or 1861, when the southern states actually seceded.
It is true that the southern states bitterly protested the northern states for their refusal to return fugitive slaves, and were outraged at the Lincoln administration’s policy of stopping the expansion of slavery. What’s more, these grievances were the very reasons cited to justify secession. But that’s the point. They were cited to justify secession, not war. The Confederacy made no effort to invade the North to force it to comply with their wishes on slavery. Incoming President Abraham Lincoln set the stage for war by refusing to let the seceding states go in peace.
Of course, a very strong argument could be made that Lincoln was perfectly justified to act as he did, since the southern states were violating Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution (not to mention the “supremacy clause” of Article VI) by withdrawing from the Union and forming their own nation. And two of his predecessors (George Washington and Andrew Jackson) had threatened or used military force to restrain or discourage local and/or regional unilateralism.
Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Two Visions for America
North and South each entertained different visions for the United States. The South fully embraced Thomas Jefferson’s class-based, agrarian “utopia,” and strongly resisted Alexander Hamilton’s desire to move the U.S. economy toward banking, commerce, and industry.
Early battles in this contest included the the National Bank, the assumption of state debts by the new federal government, foreign trade, neutrality toward Europe, and of course the admission of new states and territories. So committed, in fact, was the North to European trade, that New England Federalists conspired for their own secession during the War of 1812.
The outcome of these intense political and economic battles was the proliferation of trade and industry in the North, the deepening of slave-based agriculture in the South, and an uneasy slave state — free state balance in the new territories and states. This made violent confrontation inevitable, as the peoples of the North and South grew further apart culturally, socially, and economically.
From an economic perspective, the South felt increasingly threatened by the North. The North had most of the industry, most of the jobs, and most of the people (thanks in large part to immigration). The North would then force through tariff policies that would compel southerners to buy from the North, rather than from overseas. This would take money from the South literally at the expense of the North. The only thing the South had was agriculture, and it seemed (to them) that the North was striking at that as well with its anti-slavery policies.
Slavery
The most divisive issue leading up to civil war was, of course, slavery. Slavery had been a reality in virtually every nation or civilization since ancient times, but North American slavery was based on the European exploitation of African tribal warfare and slave practices. It had been customary for African tribes to wage war and take slaves (as part of war or negotiation) for centuries. The Europeans seized on this by purchasing some of these slaves from victorious African tribes. This horrific and evil abuse of African culture opened the Pandora’s Box – and led to centuries of shame and suffering.
The first slave ships arrived in Jamestown in 1619, and African slaves quickly became the backbone of the New World’s agricultural economy. The early North American economy, especially in the agrarian South, became as dependent on human bondage as we today are on oil.
Shortly after the American Revolution, all the northern states outlawed slavery and many abolitionist societies were founded throughout the nation. Among the early supporters of abolition were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Rush. Even slave-holding Founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason spoke out against slavery — and took some (albeit modest) action against slavery. George Mason, for example, was one of the most vocal opponents of the slave trade.
But…Eli Whitney’s cotton gin changed the course of the South. Once the cotton gin solidified the South as “King Cotton” and made slavery irresistably profitable to the plantation elite, an eventual Civil War became inevitable. Before the cotton gin, very few southern politicians defended slavery on moral grounds. They just preferred to dodge the issue. After the cotton gin, the South began advancing arguments that the African race was destined for slavery by God.
The South Was Wrong
Modern-day defenders of the South go too far in asserting that the South was right. While some of the northern states were technically in violation of the fugitive slave clause, this hardly rose to the standard for revolution set by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence. If anyone’s “unalienable rights” were being violated, it was those of the slave, and not the southern plantation owner.
Nevertheless, detractors of the South are too quick to issue blanket condemnations of the Civil War era southern people. Most people in that day did not step outside of their respective situation to objectively evaluate the issues like 21st century armchair quarterbacks can do. What most southern families were focused on were the Union armies moving through their lands.
It’s time for us to recognize that the South was wrong, but to also recognize that the southern people of that day paid dearly for being wrong. And, as Lincoln pointed out, the North paid a high price too. Why? Because the North was far from innocent in the nation’s culpability with slavery.
Perhaps the best lesson or call to action that Americans today can take from the Civil War is found in the words of the Confederacy’s leading hero. Following the surrender of his army, General Robert E. Lee said: “I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony.”
