This is all wrong, JDN, including why Lincoln didn't free slaves. Undoubtedly economic sectionalism did influence the war, but it was certainly not the chief and immediate cause of the war. Slavery was. Southern whites wished to protect slavery both because the southern economy was based upon slavery, but also because, as Jeff Davis himself said, slavery afforded even the poorest white southerner a social platform upon which he could stand as an "equal" to other whites. In other words, white society could stand upon the backs of slaves as a way of life whether whites physically owned slaves or not. Southern leader after southern leader whipped up poor southern anger for the war by claiming that southerners had to fight otherwise whites would "be forced to live with niggers."
The head of the census himself said that even the poorest non-slaveowner had a crucial interest in "dying in the trenches" for slavery for this reason. Additionally, he showed the figure commonly used today as propaganda by neo-confederate proponents showing how few white slaveowners existed in the 1860's, is false. Historian James McPherson also proves this (and I can do it too with a link to the 1860 census figures once I get to my office). The head of the census, during the 1860's was James Debow, of the famous journal. He was a virulently pro-slavery confederate from Louisiana. He showed without any doubt at all that the census figures for slaveowners only record the head of house hold as slaveowner. Debow made it clear the figure was incomplete because an entire family actually owned the slaves and ruled their lives. Debow showed the true number of slaveowners swelled to 2.25 million people, almost a third of white southerners.
The war was clearly about slavery, though other issues certainly influenced animosities between North and South. That Lincoln didn't free the slaves does not militate against this point because Lincoln had always made it perfectly clear his belief that the Constitution protected "salvery where it existed." THAT is why he did not end slavery in slave states that remained in the Union. He waited to officially end southern slavery until such a time as he could acquire a union victory so as not to appear desperate. Since the south was an enemy of the Constitution, Lincoln used a law that allowed him to free southern slaves.
When I return, I will perhaps revisit this issue and show that my position has nothing at all to do with "political correctness." The source documents themselves, from Confederates themselves, prove the point.
Gotta go... |
