Historiographic issues about the American Civil War

However, as the war evolved in response to political and military issues, Lincoln decided in 1862 that slavery had to end in order for the Union to be restored.

"[1] When numerous groups tried at the last minute in 1860–61 to find a compromise to avert war, they did not turn to economic policies.

Beard in the 1920s made a highly influential argument to the effect that these differences caused the war (rather than slavery or constitutional debates).

Critics pointed out that his image of a unified Northeast was incorrect because the region was highly diverse with many different competing economic interests.

[3] As historian Kenneth Stampp— who abandoned Beardism after 1950 — sums up the scholarly consensus:[4] "Most historians...now see no compelling reason why the divergent economies of the North and South should have led to disunion and civil war; rather, they find stronger practical reasons why the sections, whose economies neatly complemented one another, should have found it advantageous to remain united.

[6] During the debate at Alton, Lincoln said that slavery was the root cause of the Nullification crisis over a tariff, while his challenger Stephen Douglas disagreed.

[8] While most leaders of Southern secession in 1860 mentioned slavery as the cause, Robert Rhett was a free trade extremist who opposed the tariff.

[9] Republicans also saw support for a Homestead Act, a higher tariff and a transcontinental railroad as a flank attack on the slave power.

Historian Eric Foner has argued that a free-labor ideology dominated thinking in the North, which emphasized economic opportunity.

By contrast, Southerners described free labor as "greasy mechanics, filthy operators, small-fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists".

[13] The Union government set up the Freedmen's Bureau to supervise and protect the legal and economic status of the freed slaves.

[21] In 1860, Congressman Laurence M. Keitt of South Carolina said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy.

While the existence of slavery in slave states could be tolerated, it was the issue of its expansion into the new Western territories that made the conflict irrepressible.

[25] Slavery was at the root of economic, moral, and political differences[26] that led to states' rights claims and secession.

Hostilities began as an attempt, from the Northern perspective, to defend the nation after it was attacked at Fort Sumter.

Lincoln mentioned the need for national unity in his March 1861 inaugural address after seven states had already declared their secession.

Helper, a native of North Carolina, argued in his book that slavery was bad for the economic prospects of poor white Southerners.

[29] Southern courts refused to convict the owners of illegal slave ships such as the Echo and the Wanderer, even though hundreds of kidnapped Africans could die on a single voyage.

[30] A significant number of Southern politicians attempted to relegalize the Atlantic slave trade[31][32] and pass laws that would require every free black in the South to choose a master or mistress.

The germ theory was rejected by the medical establishment until after the war, and a large number of soldier deaths were caused by this.

The North had its share of problems with desertion, bounty jumpers, and the New York City draft riots.

He shot fellow Union soldier William "Bull" Nelson during an argument and later pulled up a bridge to keep emancipated slaves from following Sherman's army.

Trapped ex-slaves were then killed by Confederate General Joseph Wheeler's army, and others drowned trying to flee into Ebenezer Creek.