Was the civil war worth its cost?

Answer 1

The US Civil War was definitely not worth its cost. Since this question can only be asked and answered after the war, to a degree the leaders on both sides never had the chance to see the full extent of the war's results. And with that said, leaders from President Lincoln to Jefferson Davis cannot be faulted as they found themselves in a bed of quicksand.

Let it be said immediately that well into the 20th century, the South was a one political party section of the United States. Never could such a circumstance be seen from 1861.

Also, even though the human costs of the war became so unsettling, it seemed almost impossible to end it without one side "winning". The war, even by the end of 1862, had cost thousands and thousands of lives.

It is clear that radical Republicans, Democrats, War Democrats, moderate Republicans and even abolitionists, could have never believed that deaths of over 600,000 soldiers, the million casualties and the collateral damage to non combatants was worth such a war. There had to be an agreement in which all sides could reach, some kind of compromise that would have ended slavery, and not have the crippling effect of losing so many lives.

There will be some who disagree with this conclusion, however, that stance overlooks too many affects of the war. Let's understand the individual results of the US Civil War.

1. The Southern economy was for all practical purposes destroyed. Not even by 1900 was it as strong as it was in 1860;

2. The loss of lives was especially hard on the relatively smaller population base than in the North;

Taking points one and two into consideration, there would have never been a Confederacy. This economic loss and the loss of lives in the North most certainly would have caused a compromise. The "reunion" of the States encompassed an economic totality that prevented the growth and prosperity that could have been gained for the United States as a whole.

The sticky issue of slavery must also be considered. The North was an enabler of the Southern slave economy. This was true for over 60 years. The fact that the US Treasury and certain parts of the US Military awarded licenses to trade in cotton with the South while the war was still raging on is almost unbelievable but true.

For a moment, lets pause and think about trading timber and steel to Imperial Japan during WW2, We need not think to long on the absurdity of such an arrangement.

At the end of the US Civil War, the US was in debt for several billion dollars. This amount of money in 1865 was astronomical. The debt was a burden. The monies could have better been spent on ways to accelerate the vast explosion of the North's economy after the war.

There is no doubt that this amount of money could have been used to "buy" the freedom of slaves. It was done in the British Empire, why not in the USA? Well, one could say it would change the customs and way of life in the South. Money changes everything, and combine that with the cost of the war which freed slaves anyway, it would have been the best way to handle the sticky slavery problem.

Taken in its entirety, the vast economic growth of the USA on an overall basis, could have been multiplied almost beyond measure without the burdens of lost lives and the destruction of the Southern farmlands.

Answer 2

Yes, the results of the civil war justify its cost, because lives were lost on both the Confederate and Union side. In all the Civil War ended slavery.