Have Historians over Emphasised the Slavery Issue as a Cause of the Civil War?

The American Civil War has caused many debates amongst a wide range of historians resulting in many different views being formed on all aspects of the War. The argument whether slavery has been overemphasised is one of great debate. Some historians like Michael F. Holt concur that the slavery issue was nearly the only reason and cause of the American civil war. Others disagree, Joel H. Silbey agrees that this is a reason but not the only one other ideas to need to be looked at to the cause of the outbreak of war in America. I will look at this issue and others which caused the beginning of the civil war.

The civil war dominates American history from the Jackson age and up to the end of the civil war in 1861. Many scholars have tried to identify the different issues and trends that would affect the causes and outcomes of the civil war. Historians would have gathered a wide range of information from various sections of the area of study. Diaries, memoirs, political writings, newspapers and official documents would have been looked at to gather their information and to formulate their opinion. New historians have applied the techniques of modern day in analysis of voting patterns and election returns.

We should treat this complex question in relation not only to the political events, important though these are, but also other factors like social and cultural forces must also be contributors to the situation which occurred. Thus close attention must be paid to all immediate origins of the conflict.

The slavery issue is one of mass debate throughout historians and many differing views have been created. It came to the forefront in 1819 after when some Northern congressmen proposed that slavery be banned from the states being carved out of the Louisiana Purchase. The debate continued, a compromise arose and in 1821 a line was drawn that preserved the balance between free and slave states. That prohibited slavery north of the 36 degree latitude. This curbed the slavery debate for some years. It did however re-occur when there was the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the acquisition of several states including Utah and California.

There were factors to why slavery continued throughout America. Territorial expansion was one key factor to why it expanded. The new land meant that there was a need for labour thus they used slaves to enforce the existing work force. Alexander H. Stephens insists that this issue was not so important because he expected slavery to expand westward, because it involved the important principle of constitutional right and equality. Another reason why slavery continued was the market economy, this affected the continuation of slavery. As the economy grew the demand for further workers increased.

The question of whether or not to annex Texas to the union, after she gained her independence from Mexico in 1836, scared politicians from all sections because they were afraid of upsetting the political balance between free and slave states. Attempts of trying to make an agreement between both parties were unsuccessful and only accelerated the situation. Acts which repealed the Missouri Compromise, allowed the citizens of those territories to decide whether or not they wanted slavery. Kansas, for the next three years, became a battleground between pro-slavery forces and Ð''free-soldiers' who voted to keep slavery out of the territory. The Kansas-Nebraska act which repealed the Missouri Compromise had severe political implications. This was the "most significant political manoeuvre of the decade " according to some distinguished historians. The year 1854 was a major tuning point that most southerners were eager to turn. This backs up Michael Holt's view that the slavery issue was a key cause to the start of the American civil war.

Although the slavery issue was pointed at by many as a major cause of the civil war other issues can be pointed at. In July 1862 William E. Forster talking in the House of Commons believed that the cause of the war was the tariff which was dividing the country in two. The south implemented free trade where as the North devised a protective tariff, this was "a natural retort " though proceeding from a misconception, as a reference to the most acute tariff crisis in American history. This must therefore be a massive factor in the American civil war. Being described as a crisis in American history, this must have been a large factor or contribution in the start or continuation of the American civil war. Looking at this factor then historians have over emphasised the issue of slavery to the cause of the civil war as other factors like the implementation of tariff were an explanation to why the civil war started.

Slavery, though, must not be overlooked as a cause of the civil war. Lincoln himself tried by "striking at slavery " aimed to root out the fundamental cause of the war. So writers of the time and the new revisionists emphasised the importance of the slavery issue. The slavery issue on the face of it only bought about specific problems, but the problems run deeper than first thought. The institution of slavery was central to the sense of cultural divergence between the north and the south. The sense of cultural separateness was accentuated by large scale immigration from the North after 1840. Hence the attempt to coordinate action among southern states. Policies of the government were consistently pro-southern and therefore alienated large sections of the North Americans. This actively brought the sections of society together; they were bound by the pro-slavery ideology which was printed which argued that the south's peculiar institution was a positive good. By the 1850's these ideas were generally accepted and widely popularised. This ideology bounded these slave states together. It sought the modernisation of slavery, so it could compete more effectively with free labour. The binding together of the southern states lead to some sort of an inevitability factor to the start of the civil war and a sense of confrontation was sharpened by the rise of the Republican Party after 1854 although its origins did not have strong links with the slavery issue. This sectional friction was permitted to develop into a needless war by the inexcusable failure of political leadership in the fifties. This is shown by the fact that they were able to compromise to gain a national coalition of senators over expansion issues. The same congress also dealt with matters of rail road land grants easily. Silbey comments "In a way that eschewed sectional biases " Holt though rejects the more traditional view that the civil war resulted from the "intensifying sectional disagreements over slavery" He points to more revisionist theories

The inevitability factor, to the violence that pursued the beginning of the American