This choice was tough: yesterday’s post on Nikki Haley’s bone-headed and tone -deaf answer to the soft-ball question about the cause of the American Civil War sparked several COTD-worthy observations, but I chose this one, by Chris Marschner, to represent the field. Haley’s gaffe, along with her typically weaselly attempt to wiggle out of it, is looking like that rare breed these days, a botched public statement that actually has “legs” and does serious harm to a candidate’s prospects, like President Gerald Ford’s assertion in a debate that Poland wasn’t an Iron Curtain country, or Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” statement. Naturally some on the Right rushed to Haley’s defense, as with this WSJ piece, and critics on the Left “pounced,” as with historian Heather Cox Richardson’s substack piece that called Haley’s answer “the death knell of the Republican Party.” ( This is known as “wishcraft.”) To me, this was just one more instance of Haley proving that she is untrustworthy and excessively calculating to ever believe. In some respects she’s the opposite of Trump, who is, mostly correctly, regarded as an authentic character who believes what he says, at least when he says it. Like the vast majority of politicians, Haley appears to believe what she thinks the most people want her to believe, until she discovers that they don’t.
I’ll say here that I think Chris is too easy on Haley. To answer that question without even mentioning slavery is incomprehensible, especially in 2023, when an entire political party has bet all its chips on racial grievances, “a threat to democracy” by racist fascists, and Trump Derangement. Any minimally educated and aware politician should be able to say, succinctly: “There were three primary causes: slavery, states’ rights, and to preserve the union. Next question.”
Here is Chris’s Comment of the Day on the post, “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Nikki Haley’s Answer To ‘What Caused The Civil War?’”…
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South Carolina the first state to secede from the union did so on December 20, 1860. The rationale for secession was the fear that the institution of slavery was being threatened by the federal government. There was no blood spilled until the decision to preserve the union was made a year later.
According to Historytoday.com, “The American Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. There had long been tensions between the rights of the states under the constitution and those of the federal government, so much so that South Carolina and the administration in Washington almost came to blows over the issue of tariffs in the 1830s. It was slavery, however, that brought matters to breaking point.”
The Civil war began in April of 1861 when Abraham Lincoln ordered that Fort Sumter, under the command of U.S. Major Robert Anderson who occupied the still under construction fort during the approximate 15 month standoff between Union forces and the South Carolina militia, be resupplied with fresh troops and “humanitarian aid”. Naturally this was seen as an encroachment by U.S. troops on sovereign ground by the South Carolina Governor. Nonetheless, Lincoln sent the ship called the Star of the West with 200 troops and supplies to resupply the fort. When it arrived in Charleston harbor it was driven back to sea by the militia.
Militia commander P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Major Anderson surrender the fort, but Anderson refused. Beauregard began firing on Fort Sumter in the early morning of April 12, 1861.
While the north claims that the Civil war was fought over slavery, Lincoln’s decisions had little to do with the slavery issue. This is evident when the Emancipation Proclamation did not affect the indenture of slaves in non-secessionist states. Had the war been fought to end slavery, all slaves in both the confederate states and the northern states would have been freed. The reason they were not was to prevent Maryland from seceding which would put the District squarely in Confederate territory.
We teach our children that the sole reason for the Civil war was to end slavery. That is pure BS. The slavery issue was a significant issue that led to a schism between the industrialized northern states who had the luxury of massive numbers of cheap labor immigrants to fuel the economic engine of the industrialized northern states but not the only issue. One might wonder if the war would have been fought had the North not had a steady influx of immigrant labor fleeing starvation in Europe. The Irish made good canon fodder.
You have to ask the question if slavery was the reason over 700,000 Americans died why did it take over 15 months after secession did Lincoln make the decision to reclaim South Carolina?
We should consider this possibility. What will some states do if the EPA mandates that fossil fuels are no longer permitted or if they are allowed they incur a huge punitive tax. If the federal government decides at some point that large parts of America are not “thinkin’ straight” (Cool Hand Luke reference) and that they need to impose punishments or restrictions because of that “bad thinkin” what could we expect to occur. The cause of the Civil war was that a large part of America believed (rightly so) that the federal government was about to eliminate their ability to earn profits and incomes.
If we only learn that the Civil war was to end slavery we will miss the important lessons of what happens when economic livelihoods are threatened by federal legislation that affects only certain states because different states with different comparative economic advantages do not consider the losses other citizens will incur because the legislation has no impact on them. Today we see college kids demanding someone else pay the tab for the debts they voluntarily made; we have millions of people demanding that ever increasing subsidies to be paid by others, and we keep demanding others pay their fair share.
Niky Haley made a blunder answering that question because the American people have been told since 1865 that the civil war was fought to end slavery. She needs to be aware that most Americans can only swim in the shallow end of the pool of knowledge when it comes to History.
Ethics Alarms 
Diego Garcia correctly pointed out that my timeline was incorrect. The difference in time from secession to the firing on Fort Sumpter was a mere 4 months not fifteen. When you consider the sending of the ship Star of the West to resupply the fort with troops the timeline narrows further.
I appreciate the consideration and the corrections or elucidations to my post by DG and Jut Gory.
(Do you want me to make those corrections, Chris, or is this sufficient?)
I believe that the above is sufficient. I have replied to Diego’s initial correction and thanked him for that. Anyone who missed that correction will see that I acknowledged it here.
The timeline error however does not undermine the thrust of my point that treating complex issues superficially will cause use to not learn from past decisions or actions.
One of my pet peeves about the way history is taught stems from being forced to memorize names and dates or singular events without any context of how different events are interrelated.
Additionally, the slowness of the Lincoln Administration’s forcing the issue of slavery is what made European countries reluctant to support the North. Britain, for example, used Southern cotton in its textile mills so it was economically tied to the Confederacy even though it opposed slavery.
Lincoln didn’t want to upset the border states, but he also didn’t want the British providing military aid to the South.
Much of Lincoln’s decisions were predicated on successful prosecution of the war and preserving the Union. Even the Emancipation Proclamation (which so many say freed all the slaves) was a tactic to promote an uprising among the slaves who would then fight for the North.
“Britain, for example, used Southern cotton in its textile mills so it was economically tied to the Confederacy even though it opposed slavery.” Great Point!
The more things change the more things remain the same. How many products do Americans buy that are made using forced Chinese labor? Slavery is always bad until it means you might have to do without or pay substantially more for your consumer products.
AM
I always find the British opposition to slavery a bit disingenuous. I know that slavery was abolished in 1820 but not the Workhouse system which lasted until 1948. One could argue that the abolition of slavery did not extend to involuntary servitude it merely stopped the importation of black Africans.
Here is an excerpt describing the system from 1834-1929. The institution of workhouses goes farther back in history than slavery did in the U.S.
“The 1834 Law therefore formally established the Victorian workhouse system which has become so synonymous with the era. This system contributed to the splitting up of families, with people forced to sell what little belongings they had and hoping they could see themselves through this rigorous system.
Now under the new system of Poor Law Unions, the workhouses were run by “Guardians” who were often local businessmen who, as described by Dickens, were merciless administrators who sought profit and delighted in the destitution of others. Whilst of course parishes varied – there were some in the North of England where the “guardians” were said to have adopted a more charitable approach to their guardianship – the inmates of the workhouses across the country would find themselves at the mercy of the characters of their “guardians”.
The conditions were harsh and treatment was cruel with families divided, forcing children to be separated from their parents. Once an individual had entered the workhouse they would be given a uniform to be worn for the entirety of their stay. The inmates were prohibited from talking to one another and were expected to work long hours doing manual labour such as cleaning, cooking and using machinery.”
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Victorian-Workhouse/
And, these conditions were instituted as a reform from even more horrid practices.
If memory serves, Britain or its textile mills (or both) had stockpiled a decent amount of cotton before the war. That meant that the Union blockade did not hurt British industry near as much as it might have otherwise initially. And, as said, the Emancipation Proclamation made it politically impossible for Britain to intervene thereafter.
I do not know why they did that, but my expectation is that it was happenstance. No one anywhere foresaw a long war as far as I am aware.
The funny thing is that all this about slavery, when it was about economics. Slavery made a great flag to wave. In no way is this a comment on the inherent immorality of the peculiar institution. We had the 3/5th compromise that baked in the issue. Politics and economics are the basis for almost all societal decisions.
The 3/5th compromise was an inherently anti-slavery measure. If slaves were innumerated in the census at 1:1 for the purpose of assigning congressional districts, it would have increased the representation of slave states in Congress.
Vitaeus, would the extra representatives in these states have the best interests of the slaves at heart?
It’s no surprise that the 3/5 compromise is so generally misunderstood, because so many commentators point to it as a racist expression by the Founders rather than what it was, a way to keep the slave states from dominating the government. I bet if there was a poll, those who understand its purpose would be outnumbered by both those who say it proved the Founders thought a black man were worth only 60% of a white one, and by those who say, “What 3/5 compromise?”
Great COTD!
Thanks for expounding on the fact that while the common assumption is that the Civil War was fought over the moral issue of slavery, in fact it was the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the conflict.
A key issue was states’ rights. The Southern states wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish (“nullify”) federal laws they didn’t support, especially laws interfering with the South’s right to keep slaves and take them wherever they wished. Many Southern leaders predicted with eerie accuracy the loss of liberty the expansion of federal power would produce and has, in fact, produced since the war.
Another factor was territorial expansion. The South wished to take slavery into the western territories, while the North, through the newly formed Republican Party, was committed to keeping them “free” which was their euphemism for “open to white labor alone.” Several northern states passed laws prohibiting the settlement of blacks.
The election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860 sealed the deal. His victory, without a single Southern electoral vote, was a clear signal to the Southern states that they had lost all influence within the federal government.
Feeling excluded from the political system, they turned to the only alternative they believed was left to them: secession, a political decision that was likely within their legal rights, but which moved Mr. Lincoln and the country inexorably toward war.
Slavery was evil, slavery (in the US) is gone, but the perpetually offended can’t allow the reconciliation that the generations that lived through the war worked to bring about.
You know, if it were possible to poll the actual soldiers who fought this war, I cannot believe the vast majority of them would have a problem with all the memorials and statues for both sides.
These are the men who, whenever the armies were camped near each other, would immediately engage in trading with each other, both goods and information. I think the privates from the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia could relate more with each other than their leaders back home.
It didn’t affect their jobs — they’d trade tobacco for coffee at night and kill each other the next day.