How did slavery contribute to the US Civil War?

Answer 1

The US Civil War was the largest war for America, then and even to a degree looking forward from 1865 onwards. The answer to the cause of the war is as large as the war itself. The best way to answer this question is with this statement. The US Civil War was the result of Southern slave states believing that their way of life, slavery, and its economics were becoming marginalized. Marginalized to such a degree that independence from the United States was the best chance for the South to thrive.

Answer 2

Slavery was the underlying basis for the civil war because the problem of states rights verses nations rights came to a head. While we were all "united" in a national sense, the rights of one state to have slavery legalized was in opposition to what the union believed to be wrong. The south wanted their right to choose what they wanted per state. We still have problems with issues today involving state and nations rights...look at gay marriage, smoking, etc.

Actually, the issue of slavery has NOTHING to do with the civil war. The south didn't want anything persay. The civil war is often catagorized as being a war over slavery, and this is false. The north was fighting to keep the union in tact. Abraham Lincoln stated that "If (he) could save the Union without freeing any slaves I(he) would do it, and if (he) could save the Union by freeing all slaves, (he) would do it....What (he did) about slavery, and the coloured race, (he did) because (he believed) it helps to save the Union."

The south was fighting the was as a constitutional issue. They felt that the abolition of slavery and the compromises of 1850 and the Missourri Compromise impeded on their 10th amendment right to decide for themselves.

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"In an unusual move, Democratic President James Buchanan signed the Corwin Amendment on March 3, 1861, his last day in office (the Constitution does not require presidential approval for proposed amendments). It was ratified by only two states-Ohio on May 13, 1861, and by Maryland on January 10, 1862-and therefore fell far short of the necessary three-quarters majority of states in order to become part of the U.S. Constitution. Had it achieved ratification, the Corwin Amendment, which protected slavery, would have become the Thirteenth Amendment". (In 1861 there were 34 States so it would have only taken 26 states to secure the amendment, now consider the Northern Slave trade, New York large slave population and how blacks were viewed; it is clear they could have secured the right to have had slaves).

If the war had been over slavery the South could have at any time rejoined the Union passing the amendment securing her slaves, and even though Lincoln repeatedly made that offer (The last time on February 1865 on the 'River Queen' outside Fort Monroe, when both Seward and Lincoln again made the offer return pass the amendment and keep your slaves) they refused.

"The first event was the abortive peace conference at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on Friday, February 3, two months before Lincoln's death. Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward represented the United States at this conference while Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate Senator R.M.T. Hunter and Confederate Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell represented the Confederacy.

The two groups met for four hours on the steamer River Queen, anchored at Hampton Roads near Fortress Monroe.

According to the ground rules, there was to be "no clerk or secretary-no writing or record of anything that is said," but the Confederate representatives either wrote on their cuffs or made notes immediately afterward. We are forced, therefore, to see the event largely through their eyes, although Lincoln later corroborated some of their main points.

The Confederate representatives asked, in effect, if they could make a deal. Seward, flirting with treason, suggested the "if the Confederate States would �.abandon the war, they could of themselves defeat this [Thirteenth] amendment [and keep their slaves], by voting it down as members of the Union" (612).

there is much documenation showing lincoln mage this offer again and again, so if the South could have kept her slaves why did they fight?

Answer 3

Slavery

The primary reason for the Civil War was the issue of slavery, more importantly the economic value it had to the South. The secession act of South Carolina specifically mentions that the North wanted to take away the property (slaves) of the South.

The North's economy was not dependent on slavery and did not see the existence of the "peculiar institution" as the South did. However, it is important to remember that by no means was every Northerner an abolitionist; in fact, the racism and anti-African American sentiment sometimes surpassed that of the South in US history.

The US Supreme Court had ruled in several cases that slavery was legal in the USA. Lincoln had no intention to stop slavery in the South. He said that many times. The problem the South had was that they believed Lincoln would do all he could to prevent slavery from expanding into territories that would eventually become States.

Federalism

Why did the southern states want to secede? Because they felt that they should have powerful states rights and a less powerful central government (one that might remove slavery and otherwise dominate the South's economy). The Crittenden-Johnston Resolution stated that the war was being fought not to interfere with the southern way of life, but to keep the union together. This was Lincoln's justification to militarily end secession.

Another economic point was the issue of tariffs, an issue that goes back the the Jackson era. The South hated the tariffs because it hurt their economy, while Northern merchants loved them because they protected their industries.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln wasn't exactly liked by the South, given that he didn't even show up on the ballot in a couple states in the South. Lincoln claimed that any man who supported secession would be convicted of treason. The South claimed that secession was a Constitutional right when the government failed to support the interests of the people. Although Lincoln said he wasn't going to emancipate the slaves in his inaugural, South Carolina succeeded shortly after Lincoln became president. The South went to war to protect their rights. It had NOTHING to do with slavery.

No Slavery in the West

The fights over the status of slavery in the western territories were a harbinger to the future Civil War. The events like the admission of Missouri resulting in the Missouri Compromise and the admission of Kansas/Nebraska resulting in the Compromise of 1850 were only concessions that prolonged the Civil War. Additionally, these events over the balance of slave/free states would split the political parties. Although they temporarily abated the difference between the insatiability of the South for slavery and the desire for industry in the North, it was only a matter of time before the lines between the slave/free states became the Mason-Dixon line.

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The Civil War was not fought because of slavery. Slavery only became an issue after the Emancipation Proclamation, although some people in the North were pushing for war to stop slavery. The war was fought because the North did not think that the Southern states were allowed to secede.

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The US Civil War was the largest war for America, then and even to a degree looking forward from 1865 onwards. The answer to the cause of the war is as large as the war itself. The best way to answer this question is with this statement. The US Civil War was the result of Southern slave states believing that their way of life, slavery, and its economics were becoming marginalized. Marginalized to such a degree that independence from the United States was the best chance for the South to thrive. The American Civil War had many causes. Some include economic differences between the North and the South, states rights versus federal rights, and of course whether or not slaves should be legal.
1. abolition of slavery

Answer 4

Slavery was actually not one of the leading causes of the Civil War. It only became an issue after the Emancipation Proclamation. Many soldiers and their officers were angry with President Lincoln for making the war about slavery. The average soldier did not care about freeing slaves: he was fighting to keep his country together. Secession was the main cause of the Civil War.

Answer 5

Slavery and its parallel position of States Rights were the major causes of the Civil War. The industrial North and the agrarian South had divergent cultures as a result of the South's reliance for slavery. Except for northern shipping interests which transported the slaves from Africa, the North relied on paid industrial labor and small family farms. The plantation culture of the South, relying on huge tracts of privately owned land (what we would call industrial agriculture, today) could not survive without slave labor to plant and harvest the cash crops: tobacco, indigo, rice, sugar, and, primarily, cotton. (Today agricultural machinery is able to do the work, and reduce the number of humans needed on industrial-scale farms.) The South felt the North was trying to impose its values on the South and restrict the spread of slavery. Many northern abolitionists felt that slavery was wrong and should be abolished, without suggesting a viable economic alternative to it. Unable to compromise further, the South sought to secede. Even northerners who were sympathetic to the South saw this as treason and went to war to preserve the Union.

Answer 6

No, there were actually several causes of the civil war. They are the Missouri Compromise, the attack on harper's Ferry, Virginia, the Lincoln/Douglas Debate, the Windfield Scott trial, and the fugitive slave acts

Answer 7

Slavery was one of the main causes, but let us consider the economy of North and South. While the North was industrialized, the South was agricultural - and such agriculture depended on slave labor. So, if slaves were to be freed the economy of the South would collapse, and this is what people feared. Also, these issues ran deeper than economics. The social structure of the South was not born in a day or even the 19th century. Since the Jamestown colony in the 17th century, when slaves were introduced to North America, the institution of slavery built itself into Southern life.

The British example, which Lincoln liked, was to gradually end slavery over time and compensate the slave owners. This would be a huge an expensive process. In comparison, however, the civil War was ten times the trouble of abolishing slavery.

Answer 8

Technically, the US Civil War was not about slavery. However the rift between slave and free states over this issue was a divisive one. Looking at the war with the advantage of 20-20 hindsight, it is clear that if there was no slavery in the US, there never would have been a civil war.

Answer 9

It's clear that if slavery had not existed in 1860, there would have been no war between the Southern and Northern states. Slavery had become a divisive issue as it impacted economics, society and the political spheres of the United States.

There were years of complexity involved with slavery. And, for the most part, there were no battle slogans on either side on the conflict that indicated the war was over slavery. No draft laws that said a person was compelled to risk life and limb to end slavery in the US by joining an army.

Leaders on both sides of the issue were short sighted. Their sights were set on the here and now rather than seeing that economics alone would have made the institution of slavery a slowly dissolving one.

If large plantation owners only had a vision of the future. They would have seen that machines would ease the need for "cheap slave labor". Plans like the one established by Great Britain, where slave owners were compensated for their lost "investments" would have begun long before there was even a need for a Republican Party.

The problem was intensified by the almost four million and growing population of slaves, mostly in the South. The idea that plantation owners would have to pay wages to field workers made no sense to them. And, their morality was tainted, and that was a problem for the entire nation. There were many abolitionists and many other Americans, North or South who did not see that Africans could possibly be equals to whites. In 1857, the US Supreme Court solidified that idea by essentially declaring that any Black person was not eligible to be a US citizen.

To protect one's way of life can be stated in may ways. The easiest way ( and hardly the wiser way ) was to risk a devastating war. And, not a war to end slavery, a war to not allow slavery in western US territories.

The full story regarding the changes in economics, politics and morality that slavery involved , were at a point of no return. And yes, the Founding Fathers, and the Framers of the US Constitution failed in providing an ironclad plan to end the institution they knew was morally wrong. Their mistake reached longer than the horrific civil war, it still impacts today's life in the USA.

Answer 10

The first Union volunteers to enlist in the Union army did not do so to free slaves. Their purpose was to keep the Union in one piece and end the rebellion of the seven states that had seceded from the US. After Fort Sumter, another four Southern states joined the Confederate States of America.

If the South had not rebelled, slavery as an institution had the protection of the US Constitution as per the 1857 Dred Scott case.

Nevertheless, Southern leaders saw the South being marginalized as the Northern states expanded westward without slaves.

As the war progressed, however, many Union soldiers believed that slavery should be ended, legally of course. This was done by a Constitutional amendment in December of 1865.

As an aside, slavery continued to be legal in the Union states that did not join the Confederate rebellion.