I live in Georgia, and so I hear the myth that the Civil War was not fought over slavery all the time. I think the reasons behind this are multifaceted and complex enough to be worthy of their own thread, but I nevertheless find it astonishing that more people are not convinced that the War was fought over slavery by way of reading the primary sources. As an historian myself, I was trained to, when presented with question of motive, go back to the source! It is 100% clear that the South seceded because of the fear that Republican control of the Federal Government meant that the peculiar institution was threatened.
This is made clear with South Carolina's secession statement, wherein the state argues that the North had become increasingly anti-slavery, "for twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government....On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. "
These bold words make clear that the slave-owning South was not at all content with where it felt the nation was headed, i.e. an anti-slaveholding direction. I think it is important to understand more fully why this was the case. The Civil War, like all of history, did not exist in a self-contained bubble. What factors led to the Southern belief that the North had become so anti-slavery that for them, the only course seemed to be secession?
I find the answer to this lies at the intersection of two distinctly American ideas - Manifest Destiny, and Free Soilism. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy of American expansionism and exceptionalism that existed in both North and South. In the South, this leads to the creation of King Cotton. As my fellow Georgians are well aware, certain types of agriculture are devastating to the health of the land. The way that cotton was grown in the South certainly falls into this category. In 19th century Georgia cotton plantations utilizing poor agricultural techniques eventually stripped the land of top soil, leaving much of the state covered only in our famous red Georgia clay. In search of good soil, large landowners in the South looked west, and as time went on Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas were settled largely with the creation of new plantations and King Cotton was born.
As any Georgia child on a field trip can tell you, picking cotton is not easy. You can make a lot of money growing it, but without modern machinery, you probably won't make any money at all without a labor force. For Southern planters, slavery was the answer to this dilemma.
Growing cotton commercially isn't a viable option in the Northeastern United States (tobacco too for that matter) and so the institution of slavery was never very important economically up North. But that was okay, because the experience of the American Dream was always about more than just the aspirations of wealthy landowners. As we all know, the United States was a beacon for immigrants seeking the opportunity for a better life. This opportunity was intrinsically tied to two things - land and jobs. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, immigrants continued to pour into the United States seeking this opportunity. If you take a look at the census numbers from the 19th century you will find a much larger percentage of immigrants were going to Northern cities and states than Southern cities and states. The realities of the plantation economy means more rural areas, and fewer cities. The realities of immigrating to the United States meant that you likely needed to go to a city to find a job since the reason you were immigrating was to save up some money to buy some land. Because the South had fewer cities, fewer immigrants were heading there as opposed to Northern metropolises like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. Further, since plantation economies equated into slave labor, in what cities did exist slaves were often already employed in occupations that immigrants sought to fill (blacksmithing, for example). As Northern immigrants worked, saved, and moved west themselves, they created news states as well as Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska were largely populated by immigrants.
Americans North and South believed very strongly in this idea of Manifest Destiny - that it was their destiny and right to populate the frontier. But while the American west was expansive, it was not limitless, and the American North and South had created two opposing systems of expansion both equally bent on gobbling up this land.
The contrasting system of expansion to the plantation economy was best summed up by the existence of the Free Soil Party. By 1848, Northern immigration politics had created a political party to further the goals of these new American constituencies. That is, a political party designed to further spread the North's idea of the American Dream via the Northern type of westward expansion. The Free Soil Party contended that slavery undermined the dignity of labor and inhibited social mobility, and was therefore fundamentally undemocratic. This belief was summed up in what I consider one of the finest slogans in political history, "Free soil, free labor, free men!" Free soilers were not necessarily abolitionists, in fact, some were as racist as anyone else in the nation. But they all shared a belief that their own interests were best served in the absence of slavery. The Free Soil party did not last long, in large part because it's platform, and membership, were absorbed in the 1850's as part of the emerging Republican party.
By the 1850's, Americans were starting to run out of good farming land to grab. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was overturned by the Kansas- Nebraska act, which authorized new territories to vote on whether they would be free or slave states instead of the Mason Dixon line judging whether or not this was the case. Much of Kansas was unsuitable for plantation agriculture, but the eastern part of the state, separated from Missouri by the Missouri River certainly was. Thus, both Northerners and Southerners poured into the Kansas territory as it was opened to settlement. I believe that the full history of "Bleeding Kansas" is worth its own post, so I won't go fully into the details, but in advance of the vote on whether Kansas was free or slave, a large number of Missouri slave owners crossed the river, committed voter fraud, and skewed the election so that Kansas would be open to slavery. Kansas had about 1,500 voters and in the election over 6,000 ballots were cast. In reality, the majority of Kansans were free soilers and so this election led eventually to open warfare in Kansas. Say what you will about Fort Sumter, but the American Civil War began in the 1850's in Kansas, and it began over the issue of slavery.
I hope thus far that I have sufficiently detailed the history of the connection between slavery and Manifest Destiny to the extent that I have perhaps even persuaded someone to believe that the Civil War was about slavery. With that said, I do not think I have yet given justice to the extent of why the Civil War was about slavery. Thus far, I have been guilty of what I am about to accuse most conversations on this topic of that any discussion about whether and why the Civil War was about slavery is not fully comprehensive without a recognition that enslaved African Americans, despite their legal and social position, still had some amount of agency.
Once again, I will be brief here because I think this topic too is worth it's own post, but the battle for emancipation, I would argue, was in large part won by the slaves themselves since it is clear that the slaves contributed significantly to their own freedom in a variety of ways. By running from masters to become contrabands for the Union, laboring behind the scenes for Northern armies, and risking their lives on the battlefront, the slaves centralized the issue of freedom for many who previously had not considered the issue important as well as having played a key role in the North's victory. As slaveowners in the South grew fearful of losing slaves to the Union armies, they implemented harsher restrictions upon their slaves, often moving the entire plantation further inland to avoid Northern contact. These changes, however, only caused the slaves to flee, and those that did stay demanded more freedom from their masters. In this way, the slaves gained some power in the situation, forcing masters to make offerings in exchange for labor and by these actions made abolition the reason the war was fought.
This is made clear with South Carolina's secession statement, wherein the state argues that the North had become increasingly anti-slavery, "for twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government....On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. "
These bold words make clear that the slave-owning South was not at all content with where it felt the nation was headed, i.e. an anti-slaveholding direction. I think it is important to understand more fully why this was the case. The Civil War, like all of history, did not exist in a self-contained bubble. What factors led to the Southern belief that the North had become so anti-slavery that for them, the only course seemed to be secession?
I find the answer to this lies at the intersection of two distinctly American ideas - Manifest Destiny, and Free Soilism. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy of American expansionism and exceptionalism that existed in both North and South. In the South, this leads to the creation of King Cotton. As my fellow Georgians are well aware, certain types of agriculture are devastating to the health of the land. The way that cotton was grown in the South certainly falls into this category. In 19th century Georgia cotton plantations utilizing poor agricultural techniques eventually stripped the land of top soil, leaving much of the state covered only in our famous red Georgia clay. In search of good soil, large landowners in the South looked west, and as time went on Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas were settled largely with the creation of new plantations and King Cotton was born.
As any Georgia child on a field trip can tell you, picking cotton is not easy. You can make a lot of money growing it, but without modern machinery, you probably won't make any money at all without a labor force. For Southern planters, slavery was the answer to this dilemma.
Growing cotton commercially isn't a viable option in the Northeastern United States (tobacco too for that matter) and so the institution of slavery was never very important economically up North. But that was okay, because the experience of the American Dream was always about more than just the aspirations of wealthy landowners. As we all know, the United States was a beacon for immigrants seeking the opportunity for a better life. This opportunity was intrinsically tied to two things - land and jobs. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, immigrants continued to pour into the United States seeking this opportunity. If you take a look at the census numbers from the 19th century you will find a much larger percentage of immigrants were going to Northern cities and states than Southern cities and states. The realities of the plantation economy means more rural areas, and fewer cities. The realities of immigrating to the United States meant that you likely needed to go to a city to find a job since the reason you were immigrating was to save up some money to buy some land. Because the South had fewer cities, fewer immigrants were heading there as opposed to Northern metropolises like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. Further, since plantation economies equated into slave labor, in what cities did exist slaves were often already employed in occupations that immigrants sought to fill (blacksmithing, for example). As Northern immigrants worked, saved, and moved west themselves, they created news states as well as Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska were largely populated by immigrants.
Americans North and South believed very strongly in this idea of Manifest Destiny - that it was their destiny and right to populate the frontier. But while the American west was expansive, it was not limitless, and the American North and South had created two opposing systems of expansion both equally bent on gobbling up this land.
The contrasting system of expansion to the plantation economy was best summed up by the existence of the Free Soil Party. By 1848, Northern immigration politics had created a political party to further the goals of these new American constituencies. That is, a political party designed to further spread the North's idea of the American Dream via the Northern type of westward expansion. The Free Soil Party contended that slavery undermined the dignity of labor and inhibited social mobility, and was therefore fundamentally undemocratic. This belief was summed up in what I consider one of the finest slogans in political history, "Free soil, free labor, free men!" Free soilers were not necessarily abolitionists, in fact, some were as racist as anyone else in the nation. But they all shared a belief that their own interests were best served in the absence of slavery. The Free Soil party did not last long, in large part because it's platform, and membership, were absorbed in the 1850's as part of the emerging Republican party.
By the 1850's, Americans were starting to run out of good farming land to grab. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was overturned by the Kansas- Nebraska act, which authorized new territories to vote on whether they would be free or slave states instead of the Mason Dixon line judging whether or not this was the case. Much of Kansas was unsuitable for plantation agriculture, but the eastern part of the state, separated from Missouri by the Missouri River certainly was. Thus, both Northerners and Southerners poured into the Kansas territory as it was opened to settlement. I believe that the full history of "Bleeding Kansas" is worth its own post, so I won't go fully into the details, but in advance of the vote on whether Kansas was free or slave, a large number of Missouri slave owners crossed the river, committed voter fraud, and skewed the election so that Kansas would be open to slavery. Kansas had about 1,500 voters and in the election over 6,000 ballots were cast. In reality, the majority of Kansans were free soilers and so this election led eventually to open warfare in Kansas. Say what you will about Fort Sumter, but the American Civil War began in the 1850's in Kansas, and it began over the issue of slavery.
I hope thus far that I have sufficiently detailed the history of the connection between slavery and Manifest Destiny to the extent that I have perhaps even persuaded someone to believe that the Civil War was about slavery. With that said, I do not think I have yet given justice to the extent of why the Civil War was about slavery. Thus far, I have been guilty of what I am about to accuse most conversations on this topic of that any discussion about whether and why the Civil War was about slavery is not fully comprehensive without a recognition that enslaved African Americans, despite their legal and social position, still had some amount of agency.
Once again, I will be brief here because I think this topic too is worth it's own post, but the battle for emancipation, I would argue, was in large part won by the slaves themselves since it is clear that the slaves contributed significantly to their own freedom in a variety of ways. By running from masters to become contrabands for the Union, laboring behind the scenes for Northern armies, and risking their lives on the battlefront, the slaves centralized the issue of freedom for many who previously had not considered the issue important as well as having played a key role in the North's victory. As slaveowners in the South grew fearful of losing slaves to the Union armies, they implemented harsher restrictions upon their slaves, often moving the entire plantation further inland to avoid Northern contact. These changes, however, only caused the slaves to flee, and those that did stay demanded more freedom from their masters. In this way, the slaves gained some power in the situation, forcing masters to make offerings in exchange for labor and by these actions made abolition the reason the war was fought.