Given my personality, I think I would have looked for a peaceful dissolution rather than war. Probably the right time for the North to dig in its heals would have been the debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They could have refused to undo the Missouri compromise.
First, the numbers, in 1860 the US population was 31 million. That includes 4 million slaves. The war resulted in approximately 750,000 military deaths.
Also, as we know now, the North was unwilling or unable to provide actual equal rights to freed slaves and their descendants. Their legal, economic, and social conditions were very poor for a long time after the war.
And, Britain officially ended slavery in its colonies in 1833. Britain was the South’s biggest customer. I think the British reform movement in late 19th century may have pushed against buying cotton produced by slaves.
I don’t know if it would have been possible to work out terms of divorce. I think they should have included a military treaty, free navigation of the Mississippi, super-majority votes for secession. The big issue would have been the land recently taken from Mexico. (and maybe Maryland)
But, talking about the details of the divorce would have postponed war.
I meant, if some of us actuaries owned slaves right now, and the legality of slavery was in question, we’d have the worst thread in all of Political history. So many posts! So many bans! So much trolling!
Probably not as bad as the real life civil war though.
More interesting might be if, say, California or Texas residents today voted in the majority in a state referendum for secession, what steps, if any, would the rest of the US take to prevent that from happening?
Yep, they even passed a public accommodations civil rights act in 1875.
I really think northerners kind of ran out of steam about this time. It was one thing to say nobody should be a slave. But, it’s a different thing to say black people are really equal and we need to integrate them into our communities.
I agree that for the South, it was always about slavery.
It’s less clear to me that is true for the North. I guess there was pressure to contain slavery, and eventually end it, which came from the north. This helped create the situation where the south seceded.
But i have also read, i think, that lincoln was willing at one point to put slavery into the constitution if it would prevent war.
he did eventually make the north’s position about abolishing slavery, of course. this helped prevent foreign powers from aiding the south, which usually is the only way to win a rebellion.
No one was forced to say that blacks were equal. It’s about the governments at all levels treating all citizens equally within the law.
No one was forcing integration. But, setting up regulations to force segregation was not an answer, and this happened nearly everywhere in the USA.
The question wasn’t about why the South seceded but if the War itself was justified.
Initial engagements weren’t about “FREE THE SLAVES!” In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t come about until after several years of fighting and public support was starting to wane . . . and the Proclamation only applied to the rebelling states (not KY and WV where slavery was still legal).
So I still contend that the North’s decision to engage in a “special military operation” weren’t about slavery.
I’m sure that The North wasn’t a monolith. There were certainly committed abolitionists who were intent on limiting and eventually eliminating slavery. All the arguments about admitting free vs. slave states seem like they were about slavery, and a good proportion of northerners we on the side of pushing for the new states to be free. I assume that some of that is people who saw themselves moving to the new states and didn’t want to compete with slave labor, but most people had no interest in moving west.
“Was it worth supporting an abolitionist party knowing it would lead to 700k deaths”
Probably not something most people could predict, but I expect some could.
We might ask a similar question. Which is whether it’s worth it to be on the right side of (any issue) if it means increasing the level of hate between our people.
Being on (i.e., holding) a particular side/view/belief/etc. doesn’t really impact how others feel/react; but expressions of that side/view/belief/etc. are the things that create reactions from others.
So it would go more towards to what extent should an individual go for their view/beliefs; and to what extent should a society/government go to act on the “collective” view/belief.