Was the Civil War Inevitable?
Posted on April 29, 2008 by Bryan Scrafford
One of the classes I’m taking this semester is one on the history of the Old South and one of the options for our final paper is to discuss whether or not the American Civil War was inevitable. This is a classic question that historians have often discussed and is probably asked in any course that deals with the Civil War. To make the writing process a little interesting, I’m taking the position that it was avoidable.
Since I’m going to be focusing on that paper, posting here will either be light or non-existent for the next couple of days. Feel free to use this as an open-thread to talk about politics or anything else going on.
Filed under: Education
Bryan,
I used to consider the Civil War (War Between the States, War of Northern Aggression, semantics) avoidable until I took a closer look at the figures involved.
Now, having examined the personality and character of most of the leading politicians of the enabling generation (Clay, Calhoun, Webster) and the divisive generation (Lincoln, Douglass, Lee, Buchanan), I believe the war was unavoidable. Those who desired conflict never budged, while those who could have prevented hostilities chose not to do so.
I will look forward to seeing your thesis on why the war was avoidable.
All wars are avoidable. This war had an inevitability to it stretching back to the arguments underlying the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I agree with Adam that the personalities of those involved would not allow it to be headed off, but when you look back over the growing schism in American politics of that time - the glorification of states’ rights over the cohesion of the federal system - it was a metastasis of the original divisions over the role of federalism into something far more lethal. Looking at the writings of those who were there - e.g., the growth of the Southern myth which likened the plantation owners of the South to the aristocrats of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, which questioned the very equality of individuals found in the Constitution and Bill of Rights - it seems to me something had to give. It was a fundamental rift in this country which made a violent conflict more or less inevitable.
I’d be interested in hearing what you think the impact of Dred Scott was on the Civil War. That case kind of turned how people thought of slavery on its head, and some legal scholars think it was a big push towards the Civil War/made the war more inevitable.
Contrarian arguments are more fun- I’m sure you’ll learn more trying to argue that it was avoidable. good luck!
[...] J. Scrafford asks a question many of us have wondered about: Was the Civil War Inevitable? He believes it was avoidable, and promises a paper on the subject for his class on The History of [...]
A massive revision of the country, either by war or law, was made inevitable when the founding fathers did not deal with slavery in order to actually form a country.
Elements of the so called “enabling” generation probably saved the country through the Compromise o 1850. Had civil war broken out in 1850, the South would have been in a much better position to win than it was 10 years later.
I take issue with the term the “divisive” generation, or at least those you chose to represent it. Lincoln did not get elected on the basis of abolishing slavery-he simply was not going to let it spread. Lee did not want secession, and he was hardly on the front lines of the question.
I suggest that by 1856 war was likely inevitable. Consider:
1. The Dred Scott decision in part declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional.
1a. Combine that with Douglas’s Popular Sovereignity and the Southern desire to keep control in the US Senate, and you have a recipe for believing you can keep pushing slavery
2. Buchanan refused to presume powers not given to him, which left him woefully unprepared by personality and in terms of means to stop secession.
3. This was a war that both sides thought they could win quickly. Imagine if you were playing Texas Hold ‘em and you knew that if you went all in on the first hand that everyone else would call and you would win? I don’t think that is a game you would want to postpone…and unfortunately that is what so many folks both North and South thought-this will be a walkover and the other guys will fold.
So I suggest that after 1856 or so a war was inevitable…but prior to that the Missouri Compromise gave a foundation for peace, and I think peace could hvae been found-if everyone could give up something.
I am reminded of dialogue where an attorney says there is a difference between negotiation and compromise-negotiation means everyone starts at zero and meets in the middle and walks away with more than they started with, while compromise by definition means both sides have to give up something,
I think that ultimately the real problem is that neither side was willing to compromise, and neither side saw the value in negotation.