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Moozer325's avatar
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Moozer325
1600
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Topic
#5481

The biggest cause of the Civil War was Slavery

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The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

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2
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After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

Moozer325
Tags
civil war
Slavery
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4
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Lemming's avatar
4
Lemming
1439
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Description

Disclaimer: Please note the use of the word "biggest" in the title. I've learned my lesson, and I will not be using ambiguous terms like "main".

Round 1
Moozer325's avatar
Moozer325
Pro
#1
I Quote from Article 4 section 3 of the confederate constitution,

"No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs,. or to whom such service or labor may be due" 

I Quote from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens, 

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the n*gro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."
 These quotes demonstrate the point that I want to make. There were other issues involved in secession, but the biggest one was undoubtedly slavery. It was a complicated issue, they are all really slavery at their core. 

The states rights issue had come up before, but those incidents had almost nothing to to with the civil war. In this specific event, the state right in question was slavery, and almost nothing else. If other rights were in question, they were minimal at most. You can see this by the fact that all the states broke away all practiced slavery. It’s improbable that it’s just a coincidence that all states of the confederacy had slavery. 

The economic issue is also just slavery, seeing as the south’s economy relied heavily on slave labor on their plantations. 

The election of Abraham Lincoln was also about slavery. The south thought that Lincoln would take their slaves away, and left.

While other issues were at play, slavery was the biggest one. States rights conflicts before were along different geographical lines, and had nothing to do with this specific conflict.




Lemming's avatar
Lemming
Con
#2
Well then,
Well then,
Well then,
I shall make my arguments,

Table Legs,
Biggest cause, 'Biggest cause. . .
History is 'full of secessions,

Tables often stand on several legs, rather than one,
Be slavery so much 'bigger a 'cause of the American Civil War, than the others?

Half the war was fought by the Union,
What I ask was the 'cause of the Union?
Not freeing the slaves,
" If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." - Abraham Lincoln

"Southern leaders of the Civil War period placed the blame for the outbreak of fighting squarely on Lincoln. They accused the President of acting aggressively towards the South and of deliberately provoking war in order to overthrow the Confederacy. For its part, the Confederacy sought a peaceable accommodation of its legitimate claims to independence, and resorted to measures of self-defence only when threatened by Lincoln's coercive policy. Thus, Confederate vice president, Alexander H. Stephens, claimed that the war was "inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln." Stephens readily acknowledged that General Beauregard's troops fired the "first gun." But, he argued, the larger truth is that "in personal or national conflicts, it is not he who strikes the first blow, or fires the first gun that inaugurates or begins the conflict." Rather, the true aggressor is "the first who renders force necessary.""

"The War of Northern Aggression"
Is among the names people of the South gave after,


A main point here.
If we take 'half the 'cause of the war to be the Union's leader seeking to maintain control,
We need only some small sliver, of 'cause to prevent slavery as 'reason.


Let us think now, to the South,
"He posted, one “lie circulating that only 1% of white southerners owned slaves. #FHTE In 1860, 1% of
white southern families owned 200 or more human beings, but in states of the Confederacy, at least
20% owned at least one and in Ms and SC ran as high as fifty percent.”

Even with the inflated numbers, ownership of slaves only rises to 50%,
Am I to believe these people 'cause to fight, to support their States, their 'Countries,
To be slavery?
To quote a Confederate General
"I must side either with or against my section of country.9 I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children. I should like, above all things, that our difficulties might be peaceably arranged,  p476 and still trust that a merci­ful God, whom I know will not unnecessarily afflict us, may yet allay the fury for war. Whatever may be the result of the contest, I foresee that the country will have to pass through a terrible ordeal, a necessary expiation, perhaps, of our national sins. May God direct all for our good, and shield and preserve you and yours."

To quote a common Confederate 'soldier (Not actually a General)
"What we struggled for, and that was states rights."
- Julius Howell audio recording as an old man, speaking of his and others reasons for fighting, when he was sixteen years old long ago.

(A) A more modern poll
"In 2011, the 150th anniversary of beginning of the Civil War, a number of polling organizations asked Americans about the roots of the conflict. Question wordings which offered the options of states’ rights or slavery as the main cause found pluralities choosing states’ rights over slavery; for example, Pew found 38% saying that the main cause of the Civil War was slavery and 48% saying states’ rights. Self-identified Southerners were no more likely to say states’ rights than others, and blacks were only a little more likely than whites to say slavery (46%) rather than states’ rights (39%)."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I'll not deny slavery as one of many causes of the American Civil War,
But 'Big 'beyond any other reasons?

I say again,
Were the Union soldiers fighting with slavery as their 'cause first and foremost?

Not even all Abolitionists supported the Civil War,

And they more than any, an interest in the eradication of slavery.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even in modern America, we see divides between peoples,
And this again in 'modern times, where so many have traveled, settled, mixed between states and creeds.
Divides in laws, in ideals, in beliefs.
Secession 'happened in The American Civil War, because a stronger identity of 'State and 'Nation existed.
Secession was 'caused by States being more separate, in both 'Power, and 'Identity.
For the neutering preformed by the central government had not yet occurred.

Small reasons adding up don't matter so much as the cause of Self Rule.
Even with beliefs, small communities are not able to secede,
What matter most, what was the cause, was strong State Identity and infrastructure allowing control/power.
The South was able to attempt secession so well, because states 'were much more their own.

States Rights is not some 'buzzword, some sorry attempt by the South to excuse their actions,
It is a 'very identifiable movement within the history of America,

What mattered most, was the seperation of states as identity.
Look to Quebec in Canada,
Is the 'cause of such a movement some people wanting this or that law?
Or is the cause a group of people 'existing?
Wanting autonomy?
And having power, having a system of infrastructure, a government running already of their own.

If not for taxation, would Americans had stayed with the British?
“No taxation without representation” — the rallying cry of the American Revolution — gives the impression that taxation was the principal irritant between Britain and its American colonies. But, in fact, taxes in the colonies were much lower than taxes in Britain. 

My opponent has an 'enormous burden of proof upon him,
To prove slavery as the 'biggest cause of the American Civil War.

He quotes an article and person of the times,
But I rebut that these are 'pretexts more than causes.

Round 2
Moozer325's avatar
Moozer325
Pro
#3
Your biggest point was about half the war being fought by the union, and the union not fighting for slavery. I think the problem here, is the difference between fighting in a war, and causing a war. Remember, the title of the debate is what is the underlying causation of the war.

The direct cause of the civil war was the south’s secession, so if you were to ask what the cause of the whole war was, you need to look at why the south broke away. And if you do that, you find slavery as the biggest piece of the puzzle. 

Sure, the union wasn’t fighting for slavery, but that is besides the point. The question is “ what caused the war”,  not “why did both sides fight the war”. I know those sound similar, but they are actually very different. 

Directly speaking, the war would not have been fought if not for the south’s secession, thus the south directly caused the war, thus it only matters what the south was fighting for, not the north, because though they may have contributed to it, they did not strictly speaking, “cause it”. Other things caused the south to split, but the fact still remains that the south directly caused the war, and so it’s only the motivations of the south that matter when we talk about the causes of the war.

Your second point goes on to say that the real biggest cause was a strong feeling of identity to one’s state. You backed this up by quoting people who fought in the war, but they were not the ones who made the decision to split.

Sure, it seems okay to quote these people because they fought in the war, but nationalism is used in almost every war to get people to enlist. If you were a delegate at a secession convention, would you vote to leave the union just because you liked your state better? The reason that secession was declared was because of the north’s perceived aggression on the issue of slavery. Loyalty to your state was used as a device to get the non-slave owning public to support the war.

You said that there were low numbers of people who actually owned slaves in the south, but it wasn’t the people who made the decision to war, it was the wealthy, slave owning elite, and they used patriotism to spur involvement. My quote from Alexander Stevens stands because he was of the ruling class.

It is easy to confuse the reason people signed up, and the reason everyone went to war, but there is a difference.




Lemming's avatar
Lemming
Con
#4
Is the fuel any less a cause of fire, than the spark.
Try sparking some water wet tinder,
What I ask you could be lit?

Countries have seceded before in history without war, see my round one 'list.
What changed in the case of The American Civil War?
The Norths refusal to allow a state to exert it's right to self sovereignty,
How hypocritical of the sons of the American Revolution from Britain.

What 'causes a fight between two individuals?
Let us use a bully as an example,
Many people, he is able to take their lunch money from,
Eventually someone fights back.
When speaking of said incident, is it only the bullies desire for lunch money that caused the fight?
No, the other participants will existed, their refusal to give in.
By such logic, a bully might even be able to avoid such people with will,
The bully, would see not their action of lunch money taking as the cause of the fight,
But human will.
But, you seem to ignore secession (And the Norths refusal to grant the South freedom from the Union)
You then focus on slavery, is this not regression of cause?
Should one ignore human will or the bullies action, regress further back to hunger or slight meanness as the cause? But then where does regression stop?
Why not step further back from slavery as the main cause of the Civil War, If America had never broken from England, there would have been no American states to 'have a war.
"The Articles of Confederation created a loose union of states. The confederation's central government consisted of a unicameral Congress with legislative and executive function, and was composed of delegates from each state in the union."
From it's very start, the idea of individual states, existed within America, separations between peoples, individual sovereign.

What war can be fought by an unwilling populace?
Look at the the stages before WW2, and people's unwillingness to fight.
The appeasement of Hitler, how could a war be caused without a tinder of people's will to burn in war?
The people are a necessary part in 'cause.

What makes in your mind slavery the 'biggest 'cause?
Round 3
Moozer325's avatar
Moozer325
Pro
#5

Let us use a bully as an example,
Many people, he is able to take their lunch money from,
Eventually someone fights back.
When speaking of said incident, is it only the bullies desire for lunch money that caused the fight?
You're nearly on to something here, but let's think about this from the principal's position. Assuming you correctly knew all the information about stealing lunch money, who would you punish more? Sure both people played roles in the fight, but one person played a much bigger role in starting it, and that was the bully. 

There were many different factors in play during the civil war, I cede that, but I maintain that it can theoretically be measured which one issue had the most effect, and I maintain that slavery was that issue.

You then focus on slavery, is this not regression of cause?
Should one ignore human will or the bullies action, regress further back to hunger or slight meanness as the cause? But then where does regression stop?
Why not step further back from slavery as the main cause of the Civil War, If America had never broken from England, there would have been no American states to 'have a war.

Of course saying that the colonies breaking away from great Britain was the cause of the civil war is regression, but saying that slavery is the underlying reason behind states rights is different. I get that you were using a hyperbole, however what I said is different. 

As I said before, states rights had come up before, but those instances had nothing to do with the civil war specifically. This can be seen by looking at the regional lines on which this conflict fell. Other squabbles about the power of the federal government had been from different states than the ones who seceded. Also, all the states who left the union were slave owning states. There is almost no way this is a random coincidence.  

"States rights" when used in the context of the civil war just means "a states right to practice slavery", so it is different than just regressing the cause until it is convenient for me.

What war can be fought by an unwilling populace?
Look at the the stages before WW2, and people's unwillingness to fight.

I think you've got it all wrong here. Wars before the modern era were fought by people who had no stake in what they were fighting for. Why would lots of Americans fight for independence if Britain's policies mostly only negatively affected merchants? Why would ordinary people fight in the seven years war to gain land for their country if they didn't want to use that land? Post WW2, there were more media sources to cover wars, so ordinary Joe's were dissuaded from the myth of dying a glorious death for your country. Before, war was a way to advance your social status, but now, people are more conscious of what we are fighting for, and are less likely to be moved by patriotism alone.

Conclusion

You ended your last argument by asking "What makes in your mind slavery the 'biggest 'cause?", so I suppose it's only fitting that I end my argument by answering that. For one, the regional lines that the conflict drew pretty clearly illustrate that slavery was at least a very major cause. All states of the confederacy were slave owning, so that makes it unlikely that they went to war for the reason of states rights more than slavery. Regardless of past debates about states rights, the right that was being fought for was the right to own slaves, because of the sectional nature of the conflict, and the rhetoric used by the confederacy themselves (see first argument).


Lemming's avatar
Lemming
Con
#6
Well in the case of the Civil War,
The States of the South was attempting to exercise their self determination,
The North stepped in to exercise it's control over them.
The South, we want to be left alone, to run our states by our will, not yours,
The North, nope, we tell you what to do, and you Obey.
. . Schools often seem to hold, that it takes two to make a fight,
The South pushed at the start perhaps, to get the North out of it's business, but the North came in force, backing up it's claim, that the South 'had no right to self determination.

Certainly slavery was much discussed,
But in the end, it came down to the North refusing to allow the South control over their own lives.

Slavery was certainly enmeshed within the conflict,
But to quote a reddit person,
"If my wife wanted to get her nose pierced, and I wouldn’t let her, and she said I couldn’t control her, and I said I damn well could, and she ended up divorcing me, what would you say was the cause? Nose piercing caused our divorce?"

"The tariff of 1828 raised taxes on imported manufactures so as to reduce foreign competition with American manufacturing. Southerners, arguing that the tariff enhanced the interests of the Northern manufacturing industry at their expense, referred to it as the Tariff of Abominations."
"They subscribed to the legal theory that if a state believed a federal law unconstitutional, it could declare the law null and void in the state."

Though I do not deny slavery 'a cause in the Civil War,
States Rights is 'not some nothing issue that only came about after the war to salve Southern wounds.

But a theme from the start of the American Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.

"The Virginia Ratification (Federal) Convention made a final vote on George Wythe's motion to ratify, passing it 89 to 79. Virginians reserved the right to withdraw from the new government. The remedy for federal “injury or oppression” included amending the Constitution.[11] Unlike the Pennsylvania Convention where the Federalists railroaded the Anti-federalists in an all or nothing choice, in the Virginia Convention the Federalists had made efforts to reconcile with the Anti-federalists by recommending amendments like that of Virginia's Bill of Rights preamble to its 1776 Constitution."

"In response to the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts—advanced by the Federalist Party—John Taylor of the Virginia House of Delegates spoke out, urging Virginia to secede from the United States. He argued—as one of many vociferous responses by the Jeffersonian Republicans—the sense of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, adopted in 1798 and 1799, which reserved to those States the rights of secession and interposition (nullification).[36]"

One  can see the South's concern,

"Overall, the Northern population was growing much more quickly than the Southern population, which made it increasingly difficult for the South to dominate the national government. By the time the 1860 election occurred, the heavily agricultural Southern states as a group had fewer Electoral College votes than the rapidly industrializing Northern states. Abraham Lincoln was able to win the 1860 presidential election without even being on the ballot in ten Southern states."

Though slavery may have accentuated the issue,
The issue in many Southerners minds, was their lives being dictated by others.
One might argue slavery a cause, but such logic would lead one to blaming the American Revolution on the French and Indian Wars. Oh sure the colonists 'said they were unhappy about taxes and a lack of representation, but the 'cause of that unhappiness was money caused by wars.
It's regression.

Early on in the start of the American Civil War.
The cause on the Southerners lips was their right to self determination, of states rights.
The cause on the Northerners lips, was 'obey.

Yes, formal statements of 'why they were leaving mentioned slavery,
But how is one to explain how one's rights are being violated without stating those violations?
. . .

As to people's motivations in War,
Though over two decades ago, it's recent enough to speak of modern media?
I remember people's patriotism and outrage over the event.
Patriotism leading many to faraway lands.
. . But it's not the faraway lands, in which soldiers are most spirited I would argue.
But in their own backyards.
And the 'right to do and say as they see 'fit, in their backyards.
Not to be dictated to by some far off outsiders.
. . .

Regional lines, yes, groups can be identified by something or other,
But those identifying marks,
Do not make the groups reasons for war the raison singulière.



Round 4
Moozer325's avatar
Moozer325
Pro
#7
Well, we’ve both been getting a little repetitive by now, so I guess I’m glad this is the last round. 

You keep maintaining that the real cause was states rights, and I keep pointing out that the biggest state right fought for, and possibly the only one, was slavery.

It’s my last argument, so all there is left to do is summarize and say some closing statements.

States rights had come up before, but in this specific conflict, the right being fought over was the right to slavery.

Certainly slavery was much discussed,
But in the end, it came down to the North refusing to allow the South control over their own lives.

The control that the north was supposedly enforcing on the south was slavery. The north didn’t want to take any slaves, but the south saw it as that, and seceded because of slavery.

to quote a reddit person,
"If my wife wanted to get her nose pierced, and I wouldn’t let her, and she said I couldn’t control her, and I said I damn well could, and she ended up divorcing me, what would you say was the cause? Nose piercing caused our divorce?" 
At first glance this analogy seems pretty sound, but it has one fatal mistake. It assumes that something as trivial as a nose piercing couldn’t have caused a divorce so the cause was the husbands overbearing tendencies. But while nose piercings are pretty small in the grand scheme of things, slavery was not and thus it remains as at least a possible biggest cause of the war, and as I have shown you, the biggest cause.

Though I do not deny slavery 'a cause in the Civil War,
States Rights is 'not some nothing issue that only came about after the war to salve Southern wounds.
Not to get defensive or anything, but you’re twisting my words here. I’m not saying that states rights had nothing to do with the war, I’m just saying that almost the only right involved in the civil war was the right of slavery. Saying that the civil war was about states rights is just as equivalent to saying it was about slavery.

…but such logic would lead one to blaming the American Revolution on the French and Indian Wars. Oh sure the colonists 'said they were unhappy about taxes and a lack of representation, but the 'cause of that unhappiness was money caused by wars.
It's regression.
But it’s not though. “States Rights” is such an ambiguous term, so you are inclined to look at it a little clearer, and when you do, you find that when talking about the civil war, it just means slavery. The issue had come up numerous times before, but that was along different sectional and regional lines than this specific time.

To summarize as much as I can, the issue of rights of the state versus federal government had come up a lot before in American political history. However, this was a long different regional and demographic lines. "States rights" in the civil war was almost exclusively about Slavery, and other instances of conflicts with this idea are unrelated, and have nothing to do with the south's secession.

Well anyways, it’s been fun debating this with someone who clearly knows their stuff when it comes to history. I hope we cross paths more times on this site.

I’ve just realized that I haven’t cited as many primary sources as I have wanted to in this debate, so I’ll stick the ones that I forgot about down here.


Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union (1860):
"A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery."

Mississippi Declaration of Secession (1861):
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."

Georgia Declaration of Secession (1861):
"The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party...is admitted to be an anti-slavery party... They have demanded the abolition of negro slavery in the District of Columbia, the prohibition of the slave-trade between the States, and the passage of laws prohibiting slavery in the Territories."


Lemming's avatar
Lemming
Con
#8
A bit repetitive yeah, but still the arguments in bit different ways with bits of new information.
What I've said in previous rounds stands pretty well, so as with Pro, I'll just sharpen and clear some of the arguments.
Not that earlier rounds don't still stand, they do, and I stand by them.

The state's right to leave the Union, was fought for by the Confederacy (By their Secession), and 'specifically 'against by the Union (By their Northern Aggression)
Recall in round two,
"Virginians reserved the right to withdraw from the new government."
The State of Virginia reserved the Right.

Recall also the causes I mentioned in round two,
Of unfair Tariffs and lack of Electoral equality,
Even without slavery, there are states that have different ways of life,
See modern urban and rural areas,
And when the ideas of States as Countries more existed, how much 'more people would demand that 'their tribe not be dictated to in their own land?

Aggravation and Tribalism are 'not minor causes, throughout decades, one can see how even 'supposedly small differences such as clothing or hairstyles effect people.
Consider the Hippies vs the Clean Cut,
Consider just twangs of voice such as for Okies in the Dust Bowl,
Even 'minor Aesthetic differences are 'huge in demonizing the Other, that blow 'not unequal cause in stoking conflicts.