Slavery and the Civil War

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Institution

 

 

Whether slavery contributed to the emergence of the Civil War remains a question that many historians have debated up to date. One peculiar way of looking at the issue is looking at what contemporary historians had to say concerning the matter. In 1861, Alexander Stephens maintained that slavery was morally, politically, and socially wrong (Browne 2010). Historically, the US presidents, especially President Jefferson and Lincoln, had a lot to say about slavery. They all agreed that slavery was a massive problem in the country that was deeply rooted in liberation and the common idea that all men were not created equal (Browne 2010). It was for this reason that various political leaders took action against slavery and condemned it openly. In 1820, Jefferson publicly condemned slavery as evil and went ahead to make the point that it would tear up the country. Later, in 1865, Lincoln proclaimed that slavery contributed to the emergence of the civil war. Based on the words of the two great American presidents, this essay reinforces that slavery played a crucial role in the American Civil War while drawing an inference from Jefferson’s quote.

In politics, President Lincoln often told the truth concerning how much he hated slavery. In one of the books of contemporary writer Robert Browne, he quotes Lincoln saying that ‘the question of slavery always bothered me.  After the annexation of Texas, I gave it up believing that God will settle it and settle it right and he will restrict the spread of so great an evil’ (Browne 2010). On June 10, 1858, President Lincoln again attested that he has always hated slavery but had been quiet until the Nebraska Bill’s introduction (Lincoln 2008). In the works of Harry Jaffa, the whole issue of slavery boiled down to the question of whether a black person was a human being or not. In this case, therefore, if a black person was to be considered human, then the assumption that all men were created equal was to be applied (Jaffa 2004). As a result, it was up to the law of nature to have him/her to be free from oppression. In his Congressional term, Lincoln as a statesman and a massive supporter of campaigns and legislation against slavery, went to great lengths to condemn slavery in the US.

Several principles can be extracted from the life of Lincoln and his works against slavery. One irrefutable fact about Lincoln was that he was a great believer in the opportunities that have a foundation in hard work (Basler n.d.). Therefore, it is no surprise that Lincoln considered slavery to be against the fundamental principles of human rights and economics. Lincoln condemned slavery because he believed that it sentenced a group of people to a lifetime of labor that never gave them any room for improvement or a better tomorrow (Holzer and Gabbard 2007). In an undated note from President Lincoln, he said that ‘even the dumbest slave knows for a fact that he is wronged, and even though many writers have written how good slavery is, none of them have ever taken the good of it by being slaves themselves’ (Jaffa 2004).

Another fundamental principle of Lincoln was that of liberty. In John T Hubbell’s words, President Lincoln shared and advocated the sharing of the American dream (Browne 2010). Undoubtedly, Lincoln’s re-entry into politics came at a time of the 1850’s sectional conflict that was based on the idea that slavery was evil in certain situations and racial bigotry was unworthy of a great nation. His party was firmly on the idea of geographical restriction of slavery, which set President Lincoln apart from many of his predecessors. In short, freedom for all men was at President Lincoln’s heart, and such a fact exists in his many speeches, proclamations, and letters to Congress. As a president and during his second annual inauguration ceremony in 1862, he wrote to Congress saying that, ‘in giving freedom to slavery, we assure freedom to the free’ (Basler n.d.).

Another American president that openly condemned slavery was Jefferson. In fact, in 1820, he predicted slavery would one day lead to civil war through a letter to John Holmes (Martinez 2014). In the quote, two significant facts can be extracted. One, he condemned slavery in what he thought it was- evil in the American society. Two, due to geographical differences and America’s physical expansion, slavery would tear the nation apart, and every new irritation would make the gap deeper and deeper. In this regard, and especially on the second fact, Lincoln had a similar view and tended to echo Jefferson’s words. President Lincoln knew for a fact that slavery was a problem, and for that reason, it should not be allowed to grow or intensify. In the 1850s, Lincoln acknowledged that he did not see any clear resolution to slavery (Graebner and Prentice 1959). By this, he admitted that slavery was not just an issue of injustice but also racial discrimination. For this reason, there was no probable solution to the problem (Graebner and Prentice 1959). He also acknowledged that the massive presence of slave owners in government inhibited any efforts to do away with slavery in the US.

On the first quote by Jefferson concerning a US division based on slavery, he was correct. There was a massive difference between the North and the South when it came to slavery (Genovese 2014). The truth is at the time, the slave owners had held the country hostage. In a book by Leonard Richards, he noted that in the 19^th century, slave masters run the US, and they did so to their advantage (Leonard 2000). He maintains that before the 1850s, ‘slave owners controlled the presidency for 50 years, house speaker for 41 years and chairmanship of House Ways for 42 years’ (Leonard 2000). In that regard, slaves represented a sense of economic power, wherein the South they were a basic form of wealth. For instance, in 1860, slaves were approximately $3 billion, which was more than the value of other economic sources of power such as cotton and land (Genovese 2014). At the time when Lincoln took office in 1861, slavery had become one vast and profitable institution. It is said that the half-million slaves that had existed at the beginning of the nation had grown to four million, which was almost an eighth of America’s total population (Leonard 2000). While the Northerners advocated for an end to slavery, the Southerners advocated for its spread.

Slavery and the Civil War

Today, many historians have accepted that slavery immensely contributed to the Civil War from 1861-1865. However, that is not mistaken for the idea that Confederate soldiers went to war to maintain slavery or that the Northerners joined in the army to bring an end to slavery. Undoubtedly, there are many reasons why soldiers go to war or remain at war. The Northerner’s primary objective was to preserve the union and not emancipation (Genovese 2014). However, the many African Americans who took part in the battle had a common aim of ending emancipation—the issue of slavery dated back to the US’s founding. The European settlers had just settled in the US, and without the availability of cheap labor from the region, they had to source slaves from Africa. In the early 1970s, slavery meant African slavery, especially in British North America. The slaves were seen as a pre-requisite to success in the Southerners’ vast plantations (Martinez 2014).

Without a doubt, slavery spread across all the United States regions before the commencement of the American Revolution in 1775. However, after the American Revolution, many Americans linked the declaration of independence to human equality through ending slavery (Martinez 2014). As a result, Northerners decided to bring to end slavery. However, the end of slavery in the South was highly debated, but some, with their leaders’ support, hoped that someday it would come to an end as well. Upon writing the American Constitution in 1787, the interest of the slave masters could no longer be ignored (Wood 2011). In the South, slaves were not allowed to vote, and they argued that they contributed immensely to their economic well-being (Leonard 2000). Therefore, the Constitution gave the slave masters a slot to represent their people in the Congress and Electoral College. The Constitution also offered a fugitive slave law that saw the end of slave importation from Africa by 1807 (Wood 2011). However, it left many questions unanswered, especially on the issue of slavery that would lead to further conflict between the two states, as was speculated by Jefferson. Later in 1840, the hope of ending slavery in the South was diminished after the explosion of cotton demand in the world (Browne 2010). At this time, cotton earned the US more revenue than any other exports combined.

In the years before 1860, many Northerners championed the rights of farmers and workers. They claimed that slaves should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. The Northerners considered slavery as an ambition of white masters (Leonard 2000). Later after the admission of the state of Missouri as a slave state evoked different emotions concerning slavery. Through numerous discussions, Missouri Compromise was worked out. The terms therein maintained that Maine was to remain a region free from bondage when Missouri was to be treated as a slave state (Forbes 2009). The terms ensured that there was some balance when it came to the issue of slavery. However, the Missouri Compromise only calmed down the people for a short while as the problem would later emerge. The issue surfaced for several reasons, including an increase in Northerners who condemned slavery (abolitionists). The Southerners were of the idea that the abolitionists contributed to slave revolts in the South and the Northerners, on the other hand, were more concerned about their freedom of speech (Forbes 2009).

In 1846-1848, the issue of slavery became a hotter issue. Therefore, a new agreement had to be formed. In the new deal, the Compromise of 1850 was created. Therein, it was decided that California should be considered as a free state, creation of a more powerful fugitive slave law. Assurance that Congress would stay away with interstate traffic in slaves in the South and the slave trade in the District of Columbia would be prohibited (Rhodes 2009). The Compromise opened up the status of slavery in other places won from Mexico. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act brought more strife than Lincoln had feared (Graebner and Prentice 1959). It lit the fires of slavery agitation that contributed to violence in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery supporters. Due to increased tension over slavery, the party Republicans was formed in the 1850s. The main agenda of the new party was to condemn slavery in the territories. However, the party only drew support from one group of people and aroused anger in the South. As Jefferson had predicted and feared, attitudes between the South and the North continued to harden in the 1850s. Ideally, a Supreme Court decision in Dred Scot’s case ruled that African Americans were not American citizens, and this increased conflict (Fehrenbacher 2001).

The 1860 presidential elections in the US were heavily contested based on sectional lines. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln with his party embracing different agendas that would protect American industries and at least do away with slavery in the United States. Lincoln won the elections but failed to secure even a single vote in the Deep South (Martinez 2014). Later, seven states would leave the union. At this time, Lincoln had desperately hoped that he could have maintained the union without acts of violence. However, when he decided to resupply the army at Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor, Confederate forces fired on the fort (Martinez 2014). Lincoln tried to command volunteers to put down the rebellion, but this made Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas join the Confederacy (Martinez 2014). The result was the Civil War.

Undoubtedly, there were many differences in the US in the 19^th century. One significant difference was slavery, and it was clear that the problem could not be solved by peaceful means. There is much evidence that suggests that many secessions that happened then were due to slavery. At that time, Mississippi published a statement stating slavery as one of the reasons she had seceded from the Federal Union. In President Abraham Lincoln’s words, it is without a doubt that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. It was evil, and due to the difference in ideologies between different groups of people, the conflict led to grievous consequences. Slavery tore the nation into two, as had been echoed by Jefferson and Lincoln.

 

 

References

Basler, Roy Prentice. n.d. The collected works of Abraham Lincoln. Eds. Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd A. Dunlap. Vol. 8. New Brunswick. utgers University Press.

Browne, Robert Henry. 2010. Abraham Lincoln and the Men of His Time: His Cause, His Character, and True Place in History, and the Men, Statesmen, Heroes, Patriots, who Formed the Illustrious League about Him. Blakely-Oswald Printing Company.

Fehrenbacher, Don Edward. 2001. The Dred Scott case: Its significance in American law and politics. Oxford University Press.

Forbes, Robert Pierce. 2009. The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America. Univ of North Carolina Press.

Genovese, Eugene. 2014. The political economy of slavery: Studies in the economy and society of the slave South. Wesleyan University Press.

Graebner, Norman Arthur, and Roy Basler Prentice. 1959. The Enduring Lincoln. University of Illinois Press.

Holzer, Harold, and Sara Vaughn Gabbard. 2007. Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment. SIU Press.

Jaffa, Harry V. 2004. A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the coming of the Civil War. Rowman & Littlefield.

Leonard, Richards. 2000. The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination. LSU Press.

Lincoln, Abraham. 2008. The collected works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 6. Wildside Press LLC.