Why the North Went to War

My name is Paul S. Scott.

I'm the Reynolds professor of history emeritus at Wake Forest University.

And this is, of course,

about myths and realities of the Civil War in the United States.

In this segment, we're going to examine why the North went to war.

For many generations in the United States,

there's been a myth that the North went to war to destroy

slavery and that the South went to war to protect states' rights.

Both of those assertions are wrong.

I urge you as students to always go to the primary sources where you can get the facts.

We're going to see that the North did not go to war to destroy slavery,

but to preserve the union.

And in a later segment, we will see that the South went to war to protect slavery.

It's important to realise

that there was a great deal of racism and white supremacy thought in the north.

The abolitionists had been active for a few decades.

They were making some progress and changing some attitudes.

But it still was true that most northerners

thought of the abolitionists

as extremists,

dangerous radicals who were threatening the union.

The Republican Party was careful to distinguish itself from the abolitionist.

The Republicans wanted people to understand that they were

not an abolitionist group or an anti slavery party,

but an anti slavery extension party.

You see,

the Republican Party got its start in reaction to the Kansas Nebraska Act of 18 54.

That law repealed a key part of the Missouri compromise of 18 20

in that Missouri compromise,

a vast amount of territory west of the Mississippi River and north of

the southern border of Missouri had been put off limits to slavery.

Now, as a result of the Kansas Nebraska Act,

that land was thrown open to possible settlement by slaveholders.

Many northerners were surprised and shocked and even appalled because some of them

thought that they might want to move to that area at some point.

And they didn't want to be competing with slave labour there.

So the Republican Party wanted people to understand that

it was opposed to this extension of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln was one of the founders of the party,

and he was always very strong against any extension of slavery.

One of his talents, however,

was that he was able to find ways to

appeal both to abolitionists and anti slavery forces,

as well as to racist northerners.

For example, in his Peoria address of 18 54

Lincoln said that slavery was a monstrous injustice,

and he pointed out how it violated the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

But he also told Northerners,

We want those lands for the homes for free white people.

And he showed northerners that Southern voters had some

advantage over them in terms of representation in Congress

because they could count 3/5 of the slave population

for representation.

Both Lincoln and the Republican Party made very clear that

they were not intending to attack slavery where it existed

in 18 56 and again in 18 60.

The Republican Party stated in its platform that it was

the right exclusively of each state to determine its domestic relations

and that that was a very important part of the governmental

system of the United States Here in the 21st century.

We might think that that would be reassuring to Southern interests,

but of course it wasn't.

And when Lincoln was being sworn in as president in March of 18 61

seven southern states had already seceded.

In his inaugural address,

Lincoln sets out to be conciliatory and reassuring to the South.

The first thing that he says is that the Republican Party platform is a law to him,

that he had no intention of attacking slavery,

where it existed and that he had no desire to do so.

He did say in the address that Republicans felt slavery was wrong

and Southerners felt that it was right.

He argued that the union was perpetual,

but he was reassuring in a number of other ways

to he indicated that it should be possible to have

a compromise on the fugitive slave law.

He told Southerners that he would not start any war.

He said that he would not be appointing any

obnoxious strangers to federal positions in the South,

and Lincoln also made one statement that is

completely forgotten in the United States these days.

He said that he would support a proposed constitutional amendment that would have

prohibited the federal government from interfering

with slavery where it existed forever.

That is completely forgotten today,

but it helps us see that Lincoln was not setting out to attack slavery.

He wanted to preserve the union

and in his first few weeks in office there were a couple

of individuals who suggested to him that he ought to attack slavery.

And he was surprised,

taken aback by that idea and indicated that was no part of his agenda.

In a later segment, we'll see that events

forced a change in his approach.