by Nan C Avery

Created on: June 19, 2009   Last Updated: June 20, 2009

We always hear about the causes of the Civil War from the Union side of the War. Yet, John B. Jordan, Major General, CSA wrote the southern views of the cause of the Civil War. (Reminiscence of the Civil War, Chapter 1). He affirms that the beginning of the Union was based upon political freedom and when the States fought for freedom against England, slavery was all ready in existence in the colonies. All the Colonial states had slavery. As the colonies grew and more states were added, there was an open choice of having slavery. He tells of how wrong the North was to attack the sister states of the South based upon the issue of slavery.

Slavery was an excuse to start the Civil War. The war was really about economics. It was the industrial North against the agricultural South.

Many abolitionists and Quakers were opposed to slavery and saw the Civil War as a way to right an evil wrong. Lincoln was opposed to slavery, but felt that the nation would eventually stop slavery on its own.

The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court that decreed, on March 6, 1857, when Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of the Court, which stated, "black people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts; the opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory."

It was a war to beat the agricultural South down and free the slaves to become factory workers in the industrialized North. The factories needed workers and there weren't enough people to help in the factories. The North hoped that by freeing the slaves, the slaves would migrate north and become factory workers.

Northern whites were accused of stirring up the Southern slaves, which effectuated the Harper's Ferry fiasco. This uprising, of course, made Southerners nervous since there were so many slaves working within the plantation system. Another interesting fact, as told by Richard Jensen, who quoted Journalist Edmund Stedman, revealed a common sentiment in the North:

"For fifty years the character of Southerners has becoming daily more domineering, insolent, irrational, haughty, scornful of justice. They have so long cracked whips over Negroes that they now assume a certain inherent right to crack them over white men.... If the Union is to be shattered at the will of a minority, we might as well give up the idea of nationality at once, disown patriotism, and let all go to pieces." (http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/cw-1.htm)

At the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln reiterated that slavery was wrong, but he based his opinion on the fact that the North had to pay wages to their workers and the South had free labor. Once again, it came down to economics. It was still a battle between the industrialized north and the agricultural south. He originally saw the Civil War as a means to preserve the Union since many southern states began to secede after he was elected President and not as the sole issue of slavery. As time went on Lincoln could see that he needed to abolish slavery since he could see that it wouldn't end on its own. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. He believed slavery was wrong, but didn't recognize blacks as equal. He felt that the blacks were inferior and was opposed to intermarriage. (Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro.)

Many events helped initiate the Civil War, but economics was the major cause.

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