Transcript

The Civil War is not over. There continues to be a very strenuous debate over what were the causes of the Civil War. Some people argue that it was an issue of states’ rights. The vast majority of historians, however, insist that slavery was the fundamental cause of the Civil War.

One way to look at this issue is to examine what the Confederate leaders themselves said was the cause of the Civil War. If you examine the Ordinances of Secession—these were the formal documents that the southern states created at their secession conventions explaining why they were taking the dramatic step of seceding from the Union. When you look at the Secession Ordinances of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia, they make it very plain why they were seceding from the nation, and it was focused on slavery. They very much felt that slavery was directly threatened by the growing outcry in the north by abolitionists and others criticizing the practice of slavery. More immediately, it was threatened by the election of Abraham Lincoln. By looking at those documents you begin to see that slavery was the centerpiece of their arguments for secession.

Then, during the Civil War itself, specifically late in the war in 1865 when the Confederate situation on the battlefield was increasingly desperate, a number of southerners proposed that the Confederate government arm the slaves so as to enable them to fight with the Confederate armies against the Union forces that were now making great inroads into southern territory.

Southern leaders said “No. Why would we want to do the very thing that we fought the war for: to preserve slavery? Why would we want to free the slaves by arming them and promising them their freedom if they were to fight on behalf of the Confederacy?”

Thus, while states’ rights were invoked as a means of explaining why southern states felt threatened by the federal government, slavery was the reason why states’ rights were needed, from their point of view, to defend the principle of secession and to explain the Civil War.

Study Plan

Follow this Study Plan as you work your way through the online materials. Check all that apply:

  1. Additional comments or issues to report:

Email Your Professor:

Your Name: 
Your Email Address: 
Your Professor's Email Address: