There has been more than a century of Civil War
historiography, and due to the sheer number of versions, one is very reluctant
to isolate one cause, and to place the whole burden of responsibility on it. There
can be no doubt that sectionalism was a contributing factor to the war, but, by
itself, it does not explain the whole conflict. The North and South of America
have been claimed to have been divided in 1860 for a number of reasons; these
were economic, constitutional, and political. It was on the latter that Collins
wrote that "No event in the 1850s did more to intensify sectional
animosities than the formation of the Republican party". Without the
Republicans, it is difficult to envisage a civil war at all.
Before the 1850s, Americans had mostly supported two political parties,
the Whigs and the Democrats. It was a national two-party system: both parties
had support throughout America. Both were a loose system of alliances,
characteristic of the American system which survives to this day, in that they
were designed to appeal to as many people as possible. However, economic forces
increased the division between North and South. There was a boom in the
Northern economy, which was beneficial to the Republicans later. The South was
mainly concerned with preventing internal improvements to the country, as
Parish noted, and were very successful in undermining Northern attempts to
raise tariffs. There was a rise in immigration to the North due to the economic
boom, so the Republicans took advantage of the rising Nativism and
Anti-Catholicism. Although, they cannot be seen to have been completely united
in their aims, for Foner wrote that "Some Republicans felt that defining
the issue in terms of slavery's effect on labor would also be a way of
attracting the support of immigrants". To consolidate their support, they
used the method of attacking
2
an outside group. In a way, this choice was forced upon
them, for the South would react strongly to any criticism of its society, and
one of the most outspoken Republicans was William Seward, who was against
slavery.
It could be said that the reason why the Republican party did not
disappear very quickly was the Civil War. Other American political parties
throughout history (such as the Liberty party) vanished more or less overnight,
despite initial great support, most probably because they were absorbed by one
of the bigger parties. The Republican party was able to gain legitimacy because
Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election. However, he only got forty per cent of
the vote. A crucial element in his victory was the failure of the Democrat
Charleston convention to choose a single candidate. The Democrat party split,
and there was no longer a Southern President like Buchanan. This is where the
constitutional argument enters the conflict. There is some truth in the belief
that the South was steadily becoming a minority in the United States, whilst
the North was frustrated at the South's ability to cling on to power .
"For Southerners, constitutional theory and political reality became one,
as their section became more... doomed to a minority position in the
Union," Parish wrote. Southerners feared being ruled by a hostile
majority. No longer had they the option of compromise with the North. Still,
all this does not really explain why there was disparity and the rise of
sectionalism.
One crucial factor was westward expansion. This was why the South feared
becoming a minority. They expressed this fear in the Nebraska-Kansas act. This,
in turn, alarmed Northerners. It is possible that none of them expected the
South's urgency. The attempt to extend slavery to the new territories mobilised
the Republican party in 1854. It is ironic that the South brought into being by
its actions the very force that would destroy their society. During the
3
1850s, there was a campaign led by northern newspapers to
prove that the South's `peculiar institution' had brought the region to its knees.
For instance, Frederick Law Olmstead wrote for the New York Times; as Foner
noted, "it was Olmsted's conclusion that without slavery, the wealth of
the South would be vastly increased." Olmsted was the most widely read of
these reporters, who also included Southerners like Cassius Clay.
They gave evidence for the main Republican doctrine of Free Labor. The
reason why the South was languishing was that it relied on the labor of
uneducated blacks. Slaves had no reason to work hard, for their position would
never improve (the argument went). The South lacked the Northern work ethic,
the dignity of labor. What men like Seward especially hated about the South was
the fact that its political power was divided amongst a small, unproportionate
part of the society: the large slave owners. Due to the fact that cotton was
America's largest export at the time, these slave owners were very rich. The
Republicans feared that if slavery was allowed to expand into the new
territories, then the whole nation would be affected by the South's problems.
How could a Northerner compete with a Southerner who had no labor costs?, was
the question they asked themselves.
Since the Republicans emancipated the slaves, it is often for those who
have not studied the period to argue that they were early civil rights
fighters, knights in shining armour and so on. The following words come as a
bit of a shock to them: "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been
in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the
white and black races". These words came from the mouth of Abraham Lincoln
in his debate with Stephen A.Douglas in 1858. It cannot be said that North and
South were divided on
4
racial prejudice. Even though the Republicans protested
over the Dred Scott verdict (Roger Taney, the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court was a Southerner), blacks were still prejudiced against in the North.
Indeed, Parish reported that one of the reasons why Republicans supported
abolition was the belief that "even the free Negroes in the north would
return to the southern states, their natural habitat within the United
States". Indeed, in the BBC Timewatch programme, Sold Down the River,
emancipation of the blacks was seen as a cynical move by Lincoln to boost the
strength of the Union army. The programme also noted that many Northerners
considered blacks to be incapable of fighting. The Republicans took up the Free
Labor argument as it had been developed by the Barnburner Democrats and Cassius
Clay. They concentrated on what they saw as the harm slavery had done to the
Southern white. There were endless comparisons of the disparities between
Northerners and Southerners in the new territories. They found that this got
them more support than an abstract description of slavery's damage to the
blacks. North and South were not divided by their mutual racism.
The North was a society looking to the future, so the feudal South
frustrated their ambitions. They wanted to be ambassadors for democracy
internationally, to prove that their great experiment had worked. Opponents
only had to point to slavery to deflate this American posturing. Increasingly,
Northerners looked at ways of reconstructing the South, bringing it up to date.
They thought that a mass migration of Northerners into the South would improve
the economy no end, as they proved that they could produce profits and social
mobility at the same time. The South was proud of its society, however, and did
not welcome the disruption that industrialisation would bring to their power.
Their attitude can be summarised by Hammond's statement:"Your whole class
of manual laborers and operatives, as you call them, are slaves." The
South was
5
ruled by an Anglo-Saxon oligarchy which did not welcome
change, as Seward characterised them. Immigrants were unwilling to enter the
South for fear of exploitation; yet another difference from the North.
As the federal government grew in importance (as the population
increased), then disputes became more fierce. The South therefore decided to
keep self-regulation by secession from the Union, which they were perfectly
entitled to do. However, Nativist Republicans could not allow even one state to
break away, for the reasons that A Brogan mentions. Sectionalism in itself does
not explain the Civil War. Westward expansion was the complicating factor, the
one which threatened the survival of slavery, with the increasing division of
the two economic and political worlds as secondary factors. If the Civil War
could be reduced to
one word, then that word would be Slavery. It was the South's 'peculiar
institution' after all. And as the man most responsible for the war
said:"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be
extended, whilst the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended.
This is the only substantial dispute."
6
Bibliography
'Conflict and Transformation' edited by W.Brock,
featuring Why Fight? by Sir Denis Brogan.
'The Origins of America's Civil War' by B.Collins.
'Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men' by E.Foner.
'The American Civil War' by Peter Parish.
Timewatch: 'Sold Down the River' BBC Autumn 1992.
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