War brings to all humanity an unleashed wave of destruction. Conflict is not necessarily inevitable. It is difficult to define one explanation that has a connection between cause and effect and war. The US Civil War, the federal conflict with separated southern states, resulted in 650,000 deaths or more, the direct economic cost of $10 billion and indirect loss.[1] Multiple reasons together act as the bomb’s lit fuse, leading to an explosion. Three theories have been adduced for the commencement of the war, implying a divergence of ideas, wealth, and leadership. In this case, both the south and the North threaten material interests trigger the beginning of the civil war.
Many argue that two sides turned against each other due to conflicts between the ideas of slavery between the South and the North. Indeed, the conflicts between the North and the South over their slavery attitude are a fundamental cause of war. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law requires the North to provide active support for slaveholders, to recover the slaves in search of freedom. This law imposes heavy sanctions on anyone caught hiding or helping freedom seekers.[2] Before the law was enacted, although the North was not satisfied with slavery, they sometimes opposed it. This unprecedented law favored not only the southern slaveholders but also the South extended its influence to the North. If the Fugitive Slave Law marks the start of public opinion in the North against slavery, the Dred Scott v. Sandford event of 1857 unquestionably increases public discontent into a small climax. This court decision also recognized as a landmark in the history of the decisions rendered by the court, which has further intensified the contradiction between North and South. Dred Scott was a slave from Missouri and was later held in a free state for extended periods. He sued for his freedom at the St. Louis City Court after his master died. John Sanford brought this case to the Supreme Court, insisting that a slave-like Dred Scott was a property instead of a human being who did not have the rights of a lawsuit at first.
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney not only ruled that Dred Scott had lost the case but also claimed that the federal government and the court could not afford any protection to the slaves because the government should not deprive the people of their property.[3] The Supreme Court stated that “For more than a century, they had been regarded as being of an inferior order, totally unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the black man could be justly and lawfully reduced to slavery for his benefit.”[4] The case of Dred Scott was a significant case and an explosive issue during that time. The decision taken by the Supreme Court was of particular concern to the North, although it was welcomed in the South because it had far-reaching political implications. Fedrick Douglass said, “We abolitionists and colored people, from one point of view, should make this decision, uncalled for and monstrous as it appears, in a cheerful spirit. This very attempt to blot out the hope of the enslaved people forever may be an important link in a chain of events in preparation for the downfall, and even the complete overthrow of the slave system.”[5] However, the major conflict was not just about freedom, human rights, or equality for slaves. If the South only tried to preserve slavery and did not try to gain independence, would the North still be engaged in the civil war? The answer is unknown. If the South did not have its salves but tried to gain independence from the Union, would the civil war begin? The answer is undoubtedly yes. The institution of slavery is both a symbolic and realistic cause that led to the civil war. It is a simplistic explanation since the North holds the abolition of the slaves as a fashionable symbol of humanism. It is a formal cause, because slavery causes a severe imbalance in the economic structure between the North and the South, leading to a risk of division.
The last straw was the conflict between the economic system and the motivation for profit. Unlike the industrial economy in the North, the Southern economy was heavily agricultural. Their different commercial interests have led to long-standing conflicts over issues such as tariffs, which have further developed into sectionalism and increasing hostilities from the South to the North. The invention of cotton gin machines is also a game-changer in both the slavery system and the economy of the South. Before the invention of the cotton gin machine, slavery was gradually declining in the South, because slaves could not surpass the combination of free labor and machinery from an economic point of view. A slave who works hard all day long may not be able to prepare a pound of cotton, making it a high-cost production process. Many believed that slavery would eventually fade away because of the low productivity of the slaves and the small profit they generated. This crucial and far-reaching problem, however, was finally resolved easily by Eli Whitney in 1792. Cotton gin makes cotton planting an incredibly profitable business. The cotton gin machine accelerates the process of extracting the seed from the fibers of the cotton. With the help of this machine, two slaves could process 50 pounds of cotton a day, representing a 25-fold increase in productivity per slave.[6] The “Cotton Kingdom” in the far south was rejuvenated with increased profits and led cotton planters to invest hundreds of new acres for cotton plantation. The cotton gin machine increased the efficiency of the separation of seeds and fibers, but it also needs the manual labor of the cotton harvesting process. Cotton was recognized as the most suitable agricultural product for slaves. As a result, the demand for slave labor increased at the same time. “In 1790, there were six slave states; in 1860, there were 15. From 1790 until the Congress prohibited the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808, 80,000 Africans were imported from Southern Africa. By 1860, nearly one in three Southerners was a slave.”[7] The South feared that the abolition of slavery would potentially jeopardize their thriving cotton industry. As a result, the South would rather go to war than voluntarily giving up its “unique system” with its significant economic benefits.
The South ‘s economic model is based on a mutual economic relationship with Europe. South export plantation products, such as cotton, to European imports of industrial products from them. The fact is that the European colonies were also capable of producing these agricultural products, so why should Europeans buy American cotton instead of using their colonies in North Africa or India? Why have they allowed American cotton to enter the European market with extremely low tariffs? The answer is that the United States has very low tariffs when it comes to importing European industrial products. However, this pattern is detrimental to the Northern Economy, which has been pursuing economic independence. The market was made up of cheap European steel, making European industrial products overwhelmingly competitive. The remedy that could protect and boost the northern steel industry was an increase in tariffs. In 1791 Hamilton published his famous Manufacturing Report, which set out a strategy for the use of tariffs and other trade regulation mechanisms to promote the infant industries of America against their European competitors.[8] Although, as soon as the tariffs are raised, Europe will raise the tariffs on imports of cotton, leading to an expected recession in the South. However, if tariffs stayed at such a low point, the steel and industrial factories in the North would never be able to expand. In this way, the inconsistency between the North and the South is irreconcilable. The essence of the Civil War was the decisive battle between the plantation economy as a visualized economy and the European colonialism, and the capitalist economy as independent industrialization.
[1] Christopher Rhodes, Lecture, May 26, 2020, Boston University.
[2]“Fugitive Slave Law of 1850,” accessed June 4, 2020, https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Fugitive_Slave_Law_of_1850.
[3]“Fugitive Slave Law of 1850,” accessed June 4, 2020, https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Fugitive_Slave_Law_of_1850.
[4]United States Supreme Court, Roger Brooke Taney, John H Van Evrie, and Samuel A Cartwright. The Dred Scott decision: opinion of Chief Justice Taney. New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co., 1860, 1860. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/17001543/.
[5]Douglass, Frederick. Two Speeches by Frederick Douglass; West India Emancipation. And the Dred Scott Decision. C. P. Dewey, Rochester, New York, August 4, 1857. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mfd.21039/.
[6] Erik Curren, “The Cotton Gin Paradox,” Transition Voice, April 24, 2013, https://transitionvoice.com/2013/04/the-cotton-gin-paradox/.
[7]Joan Schury, “Eli Whitney’s Patent for the Cotton Gin,” National Archives and Records Administration (National Archives and Records Administration),https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent.
[8] Alexander Hamilton, Report of The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, On The Subject of Manufactures. Presented to The House of Representatives, December 5, 1791, 2nd ed. (Dublin: Reprinted by P. Byrne, 1792), first printed in folio format in Philadelphia in 1791.