Was the cause of the Civil War in the U.S. slavery or something else?

I have be taught since I was little that the civil war was fought over slavery. But my husband, who watches tons of the history channel, says that there is more to it. Unfortunately, I usually tune him out when he discusses such things (I am against all war and have no interest in learning about it). I would guess that something as serious as war should have more than one cause, even when the cause is as serious as slavery.

It's rather difficult to say. The war was not specifically fought over slavery, but if slavery had not existed, the war wouldn't have happened. President Grant in his memoirs claims--and makes a pretty good case for his argument--that the annexation of Texas led directly to the civil war.

That discussion is still causing ill feelings today, with some people claiming that displaying th Confederate flag is racism, while others contend it celebrates a way of life and an economy based on slavery.

Ultimately, you can also blame the original U.S. Constitution, which created different classes of citizens. I wonder, for example, how many people realize that the founders of this country only gave white male land owners the right to vote. Women were second-class citizens in that respect.

Slavery itself caused a lot of people in England to deride the colonists' desire for liberty and freedom? How can people who believe in "inalienable rights" still own slaves? Abigail Adams argued the issue with her husband John, to no avail.

For a rather illuminating look at this darker side of American history, I recommend The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America, by Gary B. Nash.

Rev. Kelly, your husband will enjoy it, if he hasn't already.

Thank you for the book recommendation. I will get it for him. I am always looking for gift ideas, he is really hard to buy for. I think he will enjoy this immensely. Thanks again.

My own opinion is that the interests of the South and the North were growing more and more divergent.. The North was becoming more industrialised while the South was more rural and built on agriculture....Cotton and Crops which were more dependent on slave labor..

States Rights issues were also coming to a head.

In the North the factories were dependent more on wage labor....

Slavery was accepted perhaps more in the South but was also accepted in the North as well.

It may well be that the Emancipation Proclamation was a strategem of the North to destabilize the South as it was during the War.

Utimately the Reconstruction was the result of the War and involved some pretty radical changes for the time...

I think it's interesting that Karl Marx wrote articles about the War and the later Reconstruction for newspapers in Britain.

Anyway a fratricidal war was fought where more Americans lost their lives than ever and where the industrial North with superior firepower eventually won the day...

- Art

At one time the largest slave market was in Boston.

As to your second point, that was one of the reasons. Not many people are aware that at least one state that remained in the Union--Maryland--allowed slavery (one more argument against the war being fought over slavery). The Emancipation Proclamation did not affect those slaves, as it specifically referred only to those slaves in the Confederacy.

A third reason was that England was giving every indication of entering the war on the side of the Confederacy. England had recently banned slavery throughout its demesnes, and coming into the war after the Proclamation would put her in the position of supporting a war which most of the world misunderstood as being solely about slavery.

Lincoln was an astute politician.

Yes, and an interesting fact about Maryland that most people don't know is that the legislature was about to secede from the Union. Lincoln could not afford that because then DC would be surrounding by Confederate States. Lincoln marched his troops into Annapolis and arrested the entire Maryland legislature for the duration of the war and Maryland was under Federal martial law for that time period. If you look up Marlyand's state song, it is about Lincoln invading Maryland:

The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!

The issue of slavery was more of a rallying point than a cause per se. Most historians that I have read point out the fact that the northern states had more representation in Washington, and with the cultural and political differences between North and South, with slavery being only one of those differences, the Civil War was an attempt by the South to break away and form an independent country whereas it could retain its own culture and have its own sovereignty. The North had a different idea of what shouyld be done.

Now here's a question for you: should the North have just left the South go its own merry way?

Agreed. Slavery was never an issue in the Civil War if it had been it would never have been fought.

Yes.