Which side was most to blame for the American Civil War?

Answer 1

I suppose the answer depends upon your perspective. If you identify most closely with the Union you'd say the south was most At Fault, for trying to leave the union, and for firing on Fort Sumter. If your sympathies are southern you might say that the north could have always just let the southern states depart in peace. There had been talk of secession practically since the very first days of the Republic, which four or five times got serious, before the south decided to leave in 1860. Its not written anywhere that once a state is in, it can never get out. It had taken a voluntary act of the states to join in the new government under the Constitution of 1788, so wouldn't a voluntary act be sufficient to get a state out of it? You might go on to say that South Carolina, as far as South Carolinians were concerned, had been out of the Union almost five months when Fort Sumter was fired upon, and it was fired upon because military forces of the US refused to evacuate a post they were holding in the new country of the Confederacy. There was some blame on both sides. It would have been asking a lot of Lincoln, or any politician, freshly elected, to see one-third of the country leave basically because he had been elected, and do nothing about it. Its not the sort of historic legacy the ambitious types who want to be president desire to leave in the record.