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Discussion » Questions » History » What Was the Primary Cause of the War Between the States? References Please, keep it civil.

What Was the Primary Cause of the War Between the States? References Please, keep it civil.

Posted - March 31, 2017

Responses


  • 63
    The primary cause of the War Between the States was the impending economic annihilation of the North when the first seven Southern states seceded. The rapidly deteriorating Northern economy created a backdrop of extreme urgency, fear, unrest and anger in the North, and it drove all actions of Lincoln and Northern leaders in the winter and spring of 1861.
    Just talk of secession caused extreme trepidation to many such as the Daily Chicago Times, which wrote on December 10, 1860, a week before South Carolina's secession convention was to convene:
    "In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all its IMMENSE PROFITS. Our manufactories would be in utter ruin."
    "We should be driven from market, and millions of our people would be compelled to go out of employment."
      March 31, 2017 3:15 PM MDT
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  • The Northern economy was growing and stronger than the southern at the time of the Civil War. Much stronger in fact.
      March 31, 2017 3:40 PM MDT
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  • 63
    True but why? What was the North Manufacturing? Cotton was 60% of  US exports. Who was manufacturing it and who shipped it? The North. Over half of the North's strong economy was dependent on the South. That's why they freaked at the thought of secession.
      March 31, 2017 6:38 PM MDT
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  • Where did you hear this and please site some sources.
      March 31, 2017 6:40 PM MDT
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  • 63
    Daily Chicago Times, "The Value of the Union," December 10, 1860, in Howard Cecil Perkins, ed., Northern editorials on Secession (Gloucester,MA: Peter Smith, 1964), (Vol.II, 573-574

    Actually without the North, the South was in great shape with 100% of control of King Cotton. Without the South, the North was dead.

    Isn't always about the money? Really just think about it. It's always the money.


    If the War occurred today, the count would be 8.7 million dead and 10 million wounded. Based on the percentages of the population at that time. To free slaves? When there were more slave states in the North (8) than in the South (7) at the time of the attack at Ft. Sumter. When 5 states in the North were slave states through out the war? It's about the money.
       This post was edited by catch224U at April 1, 2017 8:12 AM MDT
      March 31, 2017 6:50 PM MDT
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  • Wrong.   The value of Southern cotton was in decline for awhile before the War.   The old ways Southern cotton growers assumed it was the loaves and fishes but the reality was it's "king cotton" was losing value on the world market.   Want some proof?   The South was convinced that if it held its "king cotton" hostage that it would force or entice European powers to take their side.  It didn't.  The European powers didn't care because they didn't need it.  the world market was flooded by cotton at the time by numerous other sources of it.  In fact the South double screwed itself because they lost their old trade agreements and the rest of the world just said screw it and realized there was no need for the South's over-priced cotton.   The Northern economy was vastly stronger than the south and the Southern economy was much more dependant on the North at the time.  

    Revisionism be damned.
      March 31, 2017 7:31 PM MDT
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  • 63
    Where did you hear this and please site some sources?  I didn't notice any.

    "The North cut off from Southern cotton, rice, tobacco, and other Southern products would lose three fourths of her commerce, and a very large proportion of her manufactures. And thus those great fountains of finance would sink very low. . . . Would the North in such a condition as that declare war against the South?"
    Henry L. Benning, "Henry L. Benning's Secessionist Speech, Monday Evening, November 19, 1860, delivered in Milledgeville GA.
    Benning was a justice on the Georgia Supreme Court at the beginning of the war. Oh yea, you've heard of Ft. Benning?

    Here's another:

    Editorial from the New York Evening Post, March 12, 1861, one month before the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

    "That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; THE SOURCES WHICH SUPPLY OUR TREASURY WILL BE DRIED UP; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of the public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop. (Emphasis added.)

    I have much more.

    Revisionism be damned. Really? Politically correct self righteous Yankees who wrote history books I'd say.

    Care to explain :
    Why there were 4 slave states that fought for the North for the entire war?(Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky. Then West Virginia made it 5 when it joined the Union as a slave state.

    Why were there more slave states in the North (8) than in the South (7) at the start of the war?

    Revisionism my arse. 

    Have a great day. Catch you later.

      April 1, 2017 7:28 AM MDT
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  • 24
    Excuse me, but are you actually talking about border states? These were not part of what was called 'the North'.
      June 13, 2017 7:11 AM MDT
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  • People just weren't very nice back then.
      March 31, 2017 5:03 PM MDT
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  • 52903
    It was due to the improper use of uppercase letters. Oh, wait . . . never mind. 

    (This isn't your homework, is it?)

    :|
      March 31, 2017 5:49 PM MDT
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  • 63
    Nope, just a few capital letters to catch your eye.
      March 31, 2017 6:40 PM MDT
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  • 52903

    It worked.  It almost always works.

    ~
      March 31, 2017 11:53 PM MDT
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  • The spread of chattel slavery as it affected the balance of power in the Congress, Two vastly different cultures North and South, the interpretation of states' rights under the division of powers in the Constitution and extremist crusaders for secession, as well as extremism as advocated by abolitionists. That's the prime agitation as far as the War Between the States is concerned. Now if you wanted to discuss the Lost Cause, that's something else entirely.
      March 31, 2017 7:54 PM MDT
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  • 1326
    I find it inexcusable for the North and South to behave in such a deplorable manner especially when both sides claim to worship the same God. Which side was he on?
      June 13, 2017 12:48 AM MDT
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  • This wasn't a religious war. 
      June 13, 2017 2:18 AM MDT
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  • 2657
    Pretty sure that Autumnleaves knows it wasn't a religious war. She sure didn't say that it was. A thinking person would see something wrong when people going to the same Churches all claiming to be following the Prince of Peace slaughtering each other on a battlefield. Could you picture Peter and Paul trying to kill each other over some political agenda, national border, or anything else?
      June 13, 2017 5:05 AM MDT
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  • She brought religion into it. I answered as I saw fit. Worshiping the same God will not prevent a war. 
      June 13, 2017 5:10 AM MDT
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  • 2657
    It does for Christians.
    Matt. 26:52: “Jesus said to him: ‘Return your sword to its place, for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword.’” (Could there have been any higher cause for which to fight than to safeguard the Son of God? Yet, Jesus here indicated that those disciples were not to resort to weapons of physical warfare.)
    Isa. 2:2-4: “It must occur in the final part of the days that the mountain of the house of Jehovah will become firmly established above the top of the mountains . . . And he will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.” (Individuals out of all nations must personally decide what course they will pursue. Those who have heeded Jehovah’s judgment give evidence that he is their God.)
    2 Cor. 10:3, 4: “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage warfare according to what we are in the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things.” (Paul here states that he never resorted to fleshly weapons, such as trickery, high-sounding language, or carnal weapons, to protect the congregation against false teachings.)
    Luke 6:27, 28: “I [Jesus Christ] say to you who are listening, Continue to love your enemies, to do good to those hating you, to bless those cursing you, to pray for those who are insulting you.”


    As to serving in the armed forces, what does secular history disclose about the attitude of early Christians?
    “A careful review of all the information available goes to show that, until the time of Marcus Aurelius [Roman emperor from 161 to 180 C.E.], no Christian became a soldier; and no soldier, after becoming a Christian, remained in military service.”—The Rise of Christianity (London, 1947), E. W. Barnes, p. 333.
    “We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons,—our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage,—and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”—Justin Martyr in “Dialogue With Trypho, a Jew” (2nd century C.E.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Mich.; reprint of 1885 Edinburgh edition), edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, Vol. I, p. 254.
    “They refused to take any active part in the civil administration or the military defence of the empire. . . . it was impossible that the Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes.”—History of Christianity (New York, 1891), Edward Gibbon, pp. 162, 163.
      June 13, 2017 8:06 AM MDT
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  • It still doesn't stop a war between people who worship the same God. Wars are fought for financial reasons, political reasons and about a hundred other reasons. Worshiping the same God does not mean you can't be enemies in other areas.
      June 13, 2017 8:10 AM MDT
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  • 2657
    Did you read the scriptures I posted? Can you really be killing your brothers while serving Jesus?

    (John 13:35) By this all will know that you are my disciples—if you have love among yourselves.”
      June 13, 2017 8:34 AM MDT
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  • 7280
    Sure you can.  Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's

    Both sides pray to the same God because they each believe they are doing God's work.

    Generally speaking, their confusion is quite understandable.

    And, texasescimo, you can quote all the scriptures you want to try and back up your interpretations of reality.  But, obviously, nothing you say can compel belief.  And that even begs the question as to whether your opinions have any basis in fact.
      June 13, 2017 9:46 AM MDT
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  • 2657
    I know your Church has a history of slaughtering each other as well as others. That doesn't make it right. Pretty sure God and Jesus don't like seeing atrocities committed by those claiming to serve them. ISIS has the same reasoning that you do. I feel sorry for all your brothers in Rwanda that were slaughtered at the hands of your other brothers all because you reject clear Bible teachings. 

    (Revelation 18:4, 5) And I heard another voice out of heaven say: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. 5 For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.
      June 13, 2017 1:54 PM MDT
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  • 7280
    When I read your comments, for some reason the energizer bunny comes to mind---moves in circles, beats a drum, gets nowhere---don't know why.
      June 13, 2017 6:39 PM MDT
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  • 2657
    Too many scriptures where as you only accept non-scriptural traditions?

    (Mark 7:13) Thus you make the word of God invalid by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this.”
      June 13, 2017 9:36 PM MDT
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