Civil War causes and consequences

American History

The book, American Past and Present, which recounts U.S. history up to 1877, begins with nine pages (xxv-xxxiii) of very succinct summary material, taking 50 years at a time and offering, at a glance, American history from post Ice Age to 1995. This is good information to digest prior to reading through the book itself, as it offers a glimpse and taste of what is to come, and important points to look for and focus upon.

As one should expect, the peoples (Native Americans) who lived on the continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans are described in some specific detail. Also of interest to readers of this U.S. history book is the fact that (page 7) "Ethnocentric Europeans tried repeatedly to 'civilize' the Indians" by insisting they dress like the colonists, that they go to colonists' schools and "accept Christianity." In hindsight, the fact that the colonists thought they could "civilize" natives by forcing Christianity on them -- teaching them that they will go to "hell" unless they accept the fact that they have sinned, and repent for their sins -- seems outrageously arrogant in 2005. On page 7 a Huron Indian is quoted as saying, "It would be useless for me to repent having sinned, seeing that I never have sinned."

It would be a mistake though to take these historical incidents out of context and pass judgment on the early American settlers, based on values and morality today; the best way to understand history and why people acted the way they did, is to read widely, carefully, and put it into perspective as what was happening back then and why we believe the way we do today.

National Mentality as Background Leading up to the Civil War

As the book progresses forward in history through the colonial period -- public executions, the Puritans, Indian interactions (both helpful and war-like), witchcraft, disease, the building of an economy -- and the Revolutionary War, even by page 73 the seeds of a main reason why the Civil War was fought (over slavery) are sown. "Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, slave traders carried almost eleven million blacks to the Americas." The majority of those African slaves never got to North America, though, because they were sold in Brazil and in the Caribbean, the authors explain.

The slaves that were brought into North America were brought mainly for economic reasons; they worked the cotton fields in the south, as well as the rice, sugar cane, and tobacco fields, and in other agricultural work. The book reports (73) that the practice of buying and selling humans as slaves was not only justified on the basis of economic needs; "English writers associated blacks in Africa with heathen religion, barbarous behavior, sexual promiscuity -- in fact, with evil itself."

Given that racist attitude, "the enslavement of Africans seemed unobjectionable," the authors write. And on page 99, the "estimated population" in 1760 of black people in New England Colonies was 12,717 (compared with 436,917 white people); black people in the Middle Colonies numbered 29,049 (compared with 398,855 white people); and black people in the Southern Colonies numbered 284,040 -- compared with 432,047 white people.

So it is clear there from the fact that there were far more blacks (slaves) in the south, than in the north, that as time went by a culture of slavery was firmly established, with its strongest roots in the south. The fact that slavery was not only tolerated but fought over in the Civil War should not come as a great surprise to those looking into history, since in many respects the culture of America at that time was, by today's standards, inhumane. For example, in prisons (329), "solitary confinement was viewed as a humanitarian and therapeutic policy because it gave inmates a chance to reflect on their sins, free from the corrupting influence of other convicts."

And in the 1820s and 1830s, to continue the examples of how uncivil the society was at that time, the book notes that "... convicted criminals were whipped, held for limited periods in local jails ... Or executed." In prisons, asylums, and poorhouses inadequately trained staff resulted in (330) "overcrowding and the use of brutality to keep order."

Meanwhile, the reasons for the buildup to the Civil War included the fact (374) that "Southerners would not have reacted so strongly to real or imagined threats to its survival -- if an influential class of whites had not had a vital and growing economic interest ... " in slavery. On page 378, the authors write that "Some Southerners were obviously making money, and a great deal of it, using slave labor to raised cotton."

The modern economic theory presented on page 379 holds that "slavery was in fact still an economically sound institution in 1860 and showed no signs of imminent decline." Indeed, a "reexamination of planters' records using modern accounting methods shows that during the 1850s planters could normally expect an annual return of 8 to 10% on capital invested."

The downside of all that profitability over the slave trade was that yes, it helped make slaveholders wealthy, "but did the benefits trickle down to the rest of the population -- to the majority of whites who owned no slaves and to the slaves themselves?" Large slaveholders were the only segment of the population to reap huge financial rewards from slaves; "small slaveholders and non-slaveholders shared only to a limited extend in the bonanza profits of the cotton economy."

As to slave women, "they could be sexually exploited" (387), and they certainly were exploited. "Masters' control over the bodies of female slaves extended to their wombs."

The Civil War: Main Points

With the slavery issue as a main point of friction between the north and south, a compromise attempt to ward off war having failed -- and the issue of "state's rights" technically the breaking point -- the confederate army fired on Ft. Sumter on April 12, and the war was on. One problem for the south was their economy "was much less adaptable to the needs of a total war" (447). The south "depended on the outside world for most of its manufactured goods," and the Union army blockaded the Confederacy effectively. The south's president, Jefferson Davis, failed in that his "lack of leadership and initiative" hurt the economy and morale, and his "political and popular support eroded" (451).