Thank you for your reply and my apology for not getting back to this site sooner. Also, my compliments to all who have posted here and for their well thought out and supported opinions. This is by far the most civil discussion of the Civil War I have ever seen!

I made up the chaotic/Newtonian thing as I was writing my last post. If someone has actually published such a distinction, kick me for not citing you.

No, the assassination of Lincoln was not the result of an historical trend, but did it really make a difference? Lincoln (and I revere him as a great American president) was as likely as any other politician to wet his finger, stick it up in the air and go the way the political winds were blowing. Witness his changes on slavery and the status of blacks during his first campaign and term. I doubt Reconstruction would have gone any differently, given the widespread political desire to punish the South. I still think that a more conciliatory approach might have avoided war. What were the “fire-eaters” going to do if Lincoln had backed off, invade the Union?

As for your constitutional argument, traditional wisdom in democracies is that the law should define what we cannot do, not what we can. The Constitution didn’t bar secession, and afterward the Confederacy was no longer bound by that document. But, I split hairs. We disagree, but you make some valid points that have been well explored by writers of alternative history.

So, what about today? Some Texas politicians have been making secessionist noises (fine with me, the three worst Presidents of my lifetime have come from Texas) and California is always a possibility. What would the government do in such a scenario? Sorry, clearly off-topic, admin feel free to delete the last paragraph.

Perhaps the list of causes shown might be more a list of symptoms arising from this basic conflict. I think it was more than just cultural differences. It was two distinctly different ideas of what a democratic republic should be. The ideas were incompatible culturally, economically and philosophically.

The original land owners’ methods successfully established civilized and productive colonies. Once they achieved their own “American Dream” it then became difficult to convince them their methods were not in the best interest of all the Americans who could now vote.

Different skills were needed to provide the American Dream possibility for the growing masses of recently arrived immgrants. Well-funded business owners had these skills and, eventually, the means. Congressional battles over tariffs, territories and slavery were the ways our republic tried to “peacefully” work out a transition.

The aristocrats could not prevent this takeover by peaceful means and as their frustration rose so did their appetite for a fight. Almost as proof that they were out of touch with the new reality was their belief that the war would be short. They believed they thrived in America because God had supported them and He would aid them in the rebellion.

Also, they had little confidence in the resillience of common men fighting for someone else’s cause. Aristocrats just didn’t realize that whatever “cause” was so important to them, personally and their future, was not the same thing motivating other men to fight. Consequently they couldn’t predict that the determination of men fighting for their own American Dream would not wane until the war was won.

By 1859 Virginia was an exporter of slaves. The economics of slavery was such that it was more practical for the slave states who did not have cotton plantations to sell their slaves to those who did. The price of a slave at auction had risen to a peak before the Civil War, thus the capital cost of a slave had increased to the point where it was not “cheap labor”. The largest business in Virginia was not the Tradegar Iron Works or the largest flour mills in the world at Petersburg but it was the auctioning of slaves!

At this time the South had a monopoly in the cotton crop. Great Britain was already looking elsewhere for other sources of the fiber. The Union blockade provided the golden opportunity for the Brittish to increase the cotton production in Egypt. I believe that the “King Cotton” era in the South was not sustainable in an economic sense. The consumers of cotton (British textile mills) would have developed other sources for cotton in the near future and were only hastened by the Civil War. Thus, if the money engine that drove the slave market dried up, the demand for slavery would have diminished. This would have preceded the invention of the “automobile plow” by decades.

Note that it was the cotton growing states that formed the core of the seccessionist movement
(plus South Carolina).

“Overall, the CSA constitution does not radically alter the federal system that was set up under the United States constitution. It is thus very debatable as to whether the CSA was a significantly more pro-”states’ rights” country (as supporters claim) in any meaningful sense. At least three states rights are explicitly taken away- the freedom of states to grant voting rights to non-citizens, the freedom of states to outlaw slavery within their borders, and the freedom of states to trade freely with each other.

States only gain four minor rights under the Confederate system- the power to enter into treaties with other states to regulate waterways, the power to tax foreign and domestic ships that use their waterways, the power to impeach federally-appointed state officials, and the power to distribute “bills of credit.” When people champion the cause of reclaiming state power from the feds, are matters like these at the tops of their lists of priorities?

As previously noted, the CSA constitution does not modify many of the most controversial (from a states’ rights perspective) clauses of the American constitution, including the “Supremacy” clause (6-1-3), the “Commerce” clause (1-8-3) and the “Necessary and Proper” clause (1-8-18). Nor does the CSA take away the federal government’s right to suspend habeus corpus or “suppress insurrections.”

As far as slave-owning rights go, however, the document is much more effective. Indeed, CSA constitution seems to barely stop short of making owning slaves mandatory. Four different clauses entrench the legality of slavery in a number of different ways, and together they virtually guarantee that any sort of future anti-slave law or policy will be unconstitutional. People can claim the Civil War was “not about slavery” until the cows come home, but the fact remains that anyone who fought for the Confederacy was fighting for a country in which a universal right to own slaves was one of the most entrenched laws of the land. ”

Since centralization only occurred after the war started & on both sides saw their governments become more centralized, it follows that you must blame the war for causing it-that & the fact the two sections of the country that would normally act as a counterbalance to each other in one government were able to support a strong centralized government apart. Add to the fact that the South was nominally in control over the United States government for the most part from its inception to the time they tried to leave in 1861 seems to take away from the argument. Most of the presidents of the U.S. prior to Lincoln were either Southerners or pro-South Northerners (as in the case of both Pierce & Buchanan), the supreme court was not shy about its southern leanings (see Dred Scott), & the South had plenty of representation in the Congress. Thus the argument that the South left of a strong central government for a “weak” central government just doesn’t fly-they left a moderately strong central government for a strong central government & their absence helped make the existing Federal government even stronger. It is safe to say that if the South had not left that U.S. Federal government might not have become as strong centrally as it did or at least it may have taken a lot longer to do so……of course we will never know.

For instance Robert Toombs of Georgia denounced the fact that southern goods were forced by the laws of the United States to be shipped on American flagged vessels only.

The south was told to obey the laws of the land to only watch the North evade and deliberately break laws on the books (Fugitive Slave, etc.).

The south watches as militant abolitionists seek to other throw legitimate governments with the ‘apparent’ approval of the North.

Let’s just remember that for most of the Confederates in the ANV, AOT and the Army in the West they were fighting because “You are down here.”

GREAT points. You and I seem to share pretty closely our views on the causes of the war. I voted for Slavery and Control of Western Territories as my main two causes. Your point about the Mexican War adding to the growing discord is well taken.

To all, this has been an excellent and surprisingly civil discussion given the controversial subject matter. I applaud all who have responded for keeping the discussion free of personal attacks.

Brett