Slavery was not the Primary Cause of the Civil War

The sun beats down upon the graves of the 620,000 Americans who fought and died in the Civil War. Men have fought and died for what they believed in, willing to tear down family ties and commit themselves to fighting for their country. For what purpose? For what purpose did brother fight brother? There must be a reason! How do we justify this tragedy? This massacre? With slavery. We justify it with the ending of slavery. History books in our public schools have always told us that slavery was the cause of the war, that the war was fought primarily over slavery, that the South seceded because of their lust for slaves, that it was our moral duty to stop them. Was it? Or was it not? Was the Civil War fought over slavery? Or is the ending of slavery justification for a war fought over different reasons? I will be debating the latter. Opening Arguments-- Allow me to begin with Slavery. Slavery was a huge issue back then. The slave trade was dominant in the Southern states, where 5% of the white population owned slaves, and a small percentage of those owned plantations, where they would have large amounts of slaves work for free, giving them larger profit in the market. Slavery was relied on by big business industry, but less as much by the profitable family farm businesses that dominated the South. Slavery didn’t affect the farmers directly. If 5% of the South was fighting for slavery, what was the other 95% fighting for? We will examine this next. Sources: ~. http://suite101.com... -- Seeking to protect Northern Industrialist interests, Representatives from the Mid-Atlantic and Northern States pushed forward a Tariff that would become the high point in the history of U. S. Tariffs. What we now call the “Tariff of Abominations”, was passed in 1928 by a close vote, and signed by President John Quincy Adams. The result of this was devastation in the South. The goal of this tariff was to tax imported goods into the States, which would allow factories in the North to raise prices significantly on everything. This crushed the Southern economy. The South, hoping that with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 would stop the insanity, but it wasn’t until 1832, after the Southern economy was absolutely desperate, that Andrew Jackson signed in a new tariff to replace the Tariff of Abominations. However, since 1828, Tariffs became a major national issue for the next few decades. Sources: ~. http://en.wikipedia.org... ~. http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://www.youtube.com... -- Before we continue with the tariffs, let’s zoom to 1860. The year is 1860. There is a fierce divide between the Northern and Southern states over a range of issues. After a fierce divide inside the Whig party, the party split up, and abolitionists seek to run a candidate for the newly formed Republican Party. However, to win the election, they need the support from the Northern voters who’s main focus was on protecting the interests of the industries. They needed support from the industrialists. The industrialists want to pass another high tariff like the Tariff of Abominations, and before they will agree to join the Republican Party, they want the ‘Morrill Tariff’ put on the Republican platform in the 1860 election. This Tariff was a 48% Tariff on Southern imports and exports, which again would put ruin upon the Southern Economy. The Congress already had a Northern majority, and the South felt, and rightfully so, that they were being unrepresented. Abraham Lincoln was an industrialist Moderate supported by big industry in the Northern and Mid-Atlantic states. It is well known that Lincoln supported it, and he made it a primary focus. Multiple times during his election, he stated that he would not abolish slavery, and that he would make no move to do so during his presidency. During his inaugural address, Lincoln stated emphatically that he had ". .. no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. " If the reason for secession was Slavery, then there would be no reason to secede, because Lincoln wasn’t planning to abolish slavery anyways. The reason for secession was for Three primary reasons. • The South was being underrepresented in Congress. Robert Barnwell Rhett said: “And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue— to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures. ” • The South believed that the Federal Government was encroaching upon States’ Rights Jefferson Davis said at his Inaugural Address “…that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish a government whenever it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established. ” The South Carolina Declaration of the Causes for Secession notes: "the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States," was the reason for secession. Only four of the Seceded States’ Ordinances of Secession even mentioned Slavery, while all of them had some reference to the encroachment upon the reserved rights of the States. • The Tariffs. Henry Morley, published in Charles Dicken’s magazine ‘All the Year Round’, stated in 1861: “If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance. With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived … The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union … So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. .. [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel. ” With that brilliant quote above, I conclude my argument that secession, and the Civil War, was focused not primarily upon Slavery. Sources: ~. http://en.wikipedia.org... ~. http://en.wikipedia.org... ~. http://www.southernheritage411.com... ~. http://valley.lib.virginia.edu... ~. https://en.wikipedia.org... ~. https://en.wikipedia.org... ~. http://www.civilwarhome.com... ~. http://www.civilwarhome.com... ~. http://www.civil-war.net... Thank you, —The Yummy Cod